Managing my flashbacks better

[Deleted member 53709]

I just had another flashback. But i'm managing it better. It's a lot less intense and I'm able to write here. Even with lights on, screen and everything. Step by step. I can be proud of me. This is all me.

 

[arfie]

i'm proud of you, too, velvetdream. that is, indeed, most excellent progress.

i've learned some pretty amazing things about memory since started to focus on managing my flashbacks instead of trying to cause further memory damage with wishful repression. here's to hoping you do, too.

congratulations on your accomplishment. may the trend continue.

 

[Deleted member 53709]

thank you arfie

I used to try to bulldoze into them lol, didn't work too well -_-

 

[arfie]

me, too. just will my way on through. . . it worked about as well as surviving a mosquito swarm with a canon.

 

[Freddyt]

I just had another flashback. But i'm managing it better. It's a lot less intense and I'm able to write here. Even with lights on, screen and everything. Step by step. I can be proud of me. This is all me.

Yeah!!! When you start knocking down some of those things on your own it's very liberating. Gaining control over them, even to some degree is wonderful......

 

[Missycat]

@VelvetDream well done and good for you. It took me a lot of therapy and work to be able to deal with them and them not completely floor me. I have so many tools in my tool box now that they have no where the same power or impact. Sometimes i sit there and tell ‘them’ to do their worst and i then ride it out.
I hope the trend in you being able to handle them continues. All the best.

 

[Deleted member 53709]

Well i got smacked to the ground hard in the end, a 'friend' that is no longer my friend since, has triggered and hurt me deeply
Wzsnt the first time, i went through a hellish serie of retraumatization and violent flashbacking this summer thzt has left me scarred as of today.
MMh so yeah its over

 

[Friday]

has triggered and hurt me deeply

If they triggered you? By DEFINITION you are massively overreacting / totally in the wrong; as you’re not responding to them, or what they did, but to your past.

Doesn’t mean they’re not an asshole, that you’re well rid of. But being triggered? Is you. Not them.

Well i got smacked to the ground hard in the end,

That’s how this shit works. It’s not master once and done, but leapfrogging. Improve, fall back, improve, fall back.

Give it a few hundred/ few thousand triggers… and then? You’ll be solid. Unless? You’re surprised, or it’s been a few years. Then? Welcome back to square 1. But? On a MUCH shorter timeframe. A few dozen, instead of a few hundred, or few thousand, to relearn what you already know.

 

[Deleted member 53709]

Don't care. Can't heal with someone that consistently disrespect my boundaries, forget about my triggers, is emotionally unsupportive and overall just add a tonf*ck of pain and despair to my life. Not to mention jeopardize my whole therapeutic proceds. Being triggered doesnt mean your needs are invalid and that you should tolerate any and all behaviours.

Also the consequences were simply unnacceptable. Im not goi.g to be beaten into a bloody pulp on loop because 'its my trauma so i should take it lol' nope. His attitude put me at tisk, glr further injuries, retraumatization, which ultimately can lead me to psychotic break. I care enough for myself to not accept this misery anymore, and move the f*ck on

 

[Friday]

Being triggered doesnt mean your needs are invalid and that you should tolerate any and all behaviours.

Agreed. 100%.

It just means you/I/we are completely in the wrong, about whatever we’re triggered over.

So don’t weigh being triggered, into our decision making. As being triggered? Happens. Full stop.

Being triggered? Says zip/zero/nada/zilch about the people/situations we’re in, whilst triggered. Amazing, terrible, middling. Shrug. We’ll be triggered with both the best people, and the worst, and every mediocre motherf*cker out there.

Make decisions? Based on the rest of it. Not the midst of it.

 

[Sideways]

Make decisions? Based on the rest of it. Not the midst of it

Jeez - I needed to hear that. I love it a lot.

 

[Deleted member 53709]

Agreed. 100%.

It just means you/I/we are completely in the wrong, about whatever we’re triggered over.

So don’t weigh being triggered, into our decision making. As being triggered? Happens. Full stop.

Being triggered? Says zip/zero/nada/zilch about the people/situations we’re in, whilst triggered. Amazing, terrible, middling. Shrug. We’ll be triggered with both the best people, and the worst, and every mediocre motherf*cker out there.

Make decisions? Based on the rest of it. Not the midst of it.

Yeah I think I know what you mean, i wouldnt use the word wrongbut i get the overall idea

You're right about being making decisions in the midst of it; the problem in my case is that ive been so knocked to the ground on loop for the last 2 months that i couldn't even think or feel straight or feel like myself for more than a day. So I had to get away, to recover from it all, to get back in touch with the things/hobbys i managed to enjoy, one by one, slowly, because even that now is contaminated with the terrible symptoms of being triggered. Not to mention i've finally have a therapist that is GOOD, and i cannot be open and vulnerable while someone else is retraumatizing me every other day. I also am alone with nobody to help me with practical stuff so at some point it(s just being triggered, its being paralyzed, disabled, not being able to care for my basic needs. Having to munch on xanax to survive and make it through. That's just not possible, it is too much, and it is not healing, it is destructive. So for now this is where I'm at, i prptect myself, try to find some kind of balance again, and i'll get to that special case with the therapist when I have time. Right now I have too many things thats get triggered everyday and that i cannot avoid that need therapy immediately. Careless boy can wait