"no One Can Make You Feel Anything"

[IAmMosaic]

I have CPTSD. It also makes me have pretty bad social anxiety. The most of my disorder is from verbal and emotional abuse. Please tell me that the reactions to triggers can go away? I did EMDR and it did not do so good. I have tried hypnotherapy which helps. Now having to try to make myself mentally strong... not only for me because I deserve it, but my children/husband need me at 100%.

After reading some articles out there about mentally strong people... or people that feel sorry for themselves... and also the fact I have dealt with friends whom I thought were friends just push me away without closure.. It just brings me back to this question... with CPTSD, I do not know if it is totally possible to be "mentally strong", or is the pity (which I listen to all suggestions when I DO have small moments of bravery by talking about my struggles) continued self-abuse by ignoring my feelings at all?

My main abuser, I finally had cut out of my life in the fall of 16. After 32 years. It has been a struggle because I also miss the good things about this person... who happens to be a parent. This person refuses to acknowledge my ptsd or that they have any responsibility for it.

Please tell me it gets better. How do you guys cope? What do you tell these people that say that you are "mentally weak" or "no one can MAKE you feel anything?" Because I get it... how you react to things emotionally is your own responsibility but I have a really really hard time controlling the emotions and feelings that follow them.

 

[Mim28]

I've spent a lot of time thinking about this over the years. How to control my thoughts. How to make them stop. How to change my way of thinking.
A therapist told me "they are just thoughts" they are not you. I couldn't wrap my brain around that. How could they not be me? She said that my minds job is to keep me safe. My mind is doing it's job. My job is to acknowledge the thoughts and not let them run my life.
It's not a sign of a weak person. Believing that doesn't do anything to help us recover. It just makes us feel ashamed. Acknowledging where we are and acknowledging what the brain is trying to do helps.
thanking my mind for trying to protect me has helped from time to time. I've been given various coping tools that have worked for a long time. I'm back to reorganizing my tools and trying to find new ones to help.
I hope you find yours. But you are not weak. keep trying.

 

[joeylittle]

@IAmMosaic - are you certain you have the right diagnosis? I'm asking for two reasons - extreme difficulty controlling emotion, especially related to how your relationships with others affect you, is a hallmark symptom of borderline personality disorder. Now, there are a bunch of other criteria as well, I'm not pretending to diagnose you - but you had persistent traumatic experiences in childhood, and that is also often linked to that disorder.

I'm also not familiar with PTSD being diagnosed based on verbal/emotional abuse. Those things are horrible for anyone, especially a child - so please don't think I'm negating your experience. But the ineffectiveness of EMDR and the effectiveness of hypnotherapy also leads me to wonder if you are treating the right condition.

The good news is, in many ways it doesn't matter. CBT and DBT are cognitive therapies that really help. They each teach skills that make it very possible to manage unwanted reactions. I personally found CBT to be useful as a base, but DBT to be more practical in terms of managing my emotional response to things. Some people don't get any benefit from them, but I always recommend trying if you've not really dug into it before.

 

[IAmMosaic]

@IAmMosaic - are you certain you have the right diagnosis? I'm asking for two r...

Hi there and thank you both for taking the time to answer me.

Joey, this is a page that can help you. if you look up on google c-ptsd from childhood abuse....you will get the results you need.

I am a veteran as well... in 2013 when I finally went to a therapist (for the first time because the abuser was always against therapists. Would corner me when we did go...) I went and showed the psychologist all of my conversations with the abuser, emails, recorded convos because I was programmed to self blame... so I came with one question to her... What did i do wrong and how can I CHANGE to better the relationship. She tried to diagnose me at that time of PTSD but just like many, I fought that and said "But I did not see combat... I could not have ptsd" I ignored it. It wasn't until this year that I accepted it. I was so into self blame and lack of self worth that I was so into fixing me instead of realizing that I didn't deserve it. I was tired of the tears, the nightmares, the flashbacks, and the pain... but still going through the cycles of fighting this person because I wanted my parent to be the parent that I needed. An emotionally safe and nurturing parent. (Which I never had) So it is a lot of events from very young that occurred and a lot of emotions that were repressed. Events where I was made to feel a lack of self worth... after all, if your own parent treats you that way and can not unconditionally love you... how on earth can a child love themselves unconditionally.

EMDR does not work for everyone. In fact, it can cause adverse reactions. When I went through it, I would start to have flashbacks of other repressed events that I have subconsciously not faced. Didn't know how. Was never taught how. I was told at 5 "I hate you... get out of my life" over something that was a misunderstanding. Imagine a child of that age experiencing that and having to process it. Parent would scream at me growing up for small things, misunderstandings, things that parent took personally. It was to the point that when I was in the army, and a sgt yelled at me... I would cry automatically. It is my subconscious mind of the childhood mindset that I was often in. The defenseless childhood mindset. The made to feel shame. The made to feel like I was responsible for parent's happiness. Emotional incest.

When I face the abuser or if someone from abuser's side of the family calls me up to manipulate or bully me into a relationship back with this person.. I form migraines, then vomit. Followed by flashbacks and nightmares. This makes things complicated because trauma happened to me over and over and over again. I did not have an emotionally safe place to go to. Was not allowed to express anything. So 32 years of it... I am finally now telling my subconscious mind that it is ok... that I am listening. Trying to take every nightmare and flashback that comes through as a byproduct of the trauma.

 

[IAmMosaic]

I have noticed that some things get better since I have cut the parent out of my life and have tried cbt. I am in that right now... however it doesn't help the fight or flight mindset that comes along with the triggers. I accept it will take time. A couple of my doctors already said that the fact that i removed the person from my life (who was overly toxic and had personality disorders) it is going to help my road to recovery. BUT just like how some soldiers duck and shake when they hear a certain gun go off... or sirens that remind them of being attacked... or a hurricane coming and you had trauma ... some of that reaction... is inevitable. It is a mental disorder for a reason. I am just trying to discover new ways to cope.

 

[Freedomfighter]

I have CPTSD. It also makes me have pretty bad social anxiety. The most of my disorder is from verbal...

Well people who tell you that just do not know or don't want to know how an abuser works. Such abusers are very adept for the victim to buy into their lies.
I have met so many of such predators, including my dad. They can make you feel how they want to by simply trespassing into your mind, by simply denying you the truth, by continuing to act as if the victim was wrong and the abuser is right. They simply overpower your mind with all kinds of mixed messages, part threats, part submission, part begging you to be with them, part seeing themselves as the great charismatic person that will one day take care of you. I think many predators have multiple personalities, because I have seen them.
The predators are the same, their eyes are begging you to fulfill their innermost needs, I have seen many such pairs of eyes look at me and I instantly know what story such eyes tell me. They want to delve deeply into the victim's mind (and body), they beg to be heard, want the victim's attention, know that there is a very special person they want to be with.
But lo and behold, if you do not act as if they predict, then all hell breaks loose.

I have had that happen with so many males, many times knowing, then other times wondering what the heck it is they want, but always recognizing in the end that they went off the deep end because they wanted to be with me and I did not.

That is the exact reason why I am being stalked. Females are of no help to me, because they know that males will follow me like puppies, which they hate, which they try to disprove by sleeping with those males.

I am just surrounded by people that are weak mentally.

 

[Friday]

On the "No one can MAKE you feel anything" ... Try thinking of something where that's true. If you take on every negative message, but reject positive messages? Use those. (Like no matter how many times someone tells you you're gorgeous, you don't believe them.). Hey, they might as well get some use ;) Or try to think of a time someone tried to make you feel something, and it just didn't work. If you're not racist? Do you conjure up hatred for white/black/brown/blue people, whilst listening to a racists speech? If not, ask yourself why. Why don't you get angry & hateful, when someone is deliberately trying to provoke you? If road rage amuses you? Someone flipping you off makes you laugh, instead of angry? If a toddler throwing a fit about how they hate you because they're tired/cranky, just makes you smile? Someone mouths off and you don't punch them in the nose? Really. Just find anything where someone is trying to evoke a response from you... and fails.

It's a learned skill. And it's about boundaries. Maintaining personal integrity. So in order for anyone to affect you in any way? You have to choose to allow it. The whole Eleanor Roosevelt Quote "No one can make you feel inferior, without your consent." Is exactly about that. In order for someone else to make you feel inferior? You'd have to agree with them, that you are inferior. You don't actually HAVE to agree with anything anyone tells you, though. No. Nope! Nyet. Nah. Nein. No. Don't have to agree.

Because it's a learned skill... That means that first off one has to learn it, secondly learning anything takes time & many many many fails, and lastly doesn't work all the time. You'll be tired, stressed out, sick, surprised, etc. and either not be able to reach for that skill like you usually do, or not even think to, even if you're so practiced at it, that it's knee-jerk.

Strength -of any kind- is largely about practice, IMO. I can THINK happy thoughts about doing 10 pull-ups, and it's not going to actually mean I can do even 1 pull-up. Physical, mental, emotional? All need practice. And ground work. Unless I've got arms like Pop-eye, I'm not gonna be able to do a pull-up if I weigh 400 pounds. I'm going to need to lose weight first. So I can't just want to do a pull-up. I can't just keep gripping the bar 10,000 times, and trying. And once I CAN do 10 pull-ups? If I get sick? Probably won't be able to manage even 1. Mental & emotional strength is much the same. In order to maintain personal integrity? First I need to lay the groundwork for boundaries. Then I need to practice in situations where I have the advantage. (As opposed to, say, with a gifted manipulator). The more practiced I am at only being affected by people I choose to let affect me? The easier it becomes.

 

[J'qel]

"Noone can make you feel anything" is a part of therapy that's usually prefaced with other work along the way. You're not supposed to jump in at the deep end.

You first start with trying to pause to identify how you feel. Then you work on figuring out why you feel that way. In the process you start gaining control of your emotional responses, but it takes time.

Keep in mind that mental illnesses are based on actual biology. Neurochemistry and the actual structure of your brain play a large part in what's going on. It *is* an actual manifestation of a real physical ailment.

It isn't just what you think or how you choose to think, it's also that some of your "normal" reactions are altered by your brain chemistry and structure which make you get "miswired" messages. If you're flooded with certain chemicals, you *physically* may be unable to react certain ways at certain times.

Don't start dumping on yourself because you're having problems, understand that mental illness does have a physical cause and like any injury or illness, you need time to heal and rehabilitate.

You wouldn't expect someone with a broken leg to suddenly be running around, so don't expect to be off to the races, mentally and psychologically speaking when you're grappling with a mental illness. It's just as real as a broken limb. Like a broken limb, if you push too hard, too fast, without the proper prep and acclimation you can end up causing more damage than good.

 

[J'qel]

( I understand that "as a real physical ailment" is diminishing of mental illness, but I hope that it's taken in the phrasing that it refers to-that of a particular mindset, not of the actuality-mental illness is *real*)