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Sufferer Paralyzed in Shock-Fear for 52 Years, EMDR 5 yrs ago, + 37 of therapy = At Peace! SAFE!

OwlEyes

Learning
Hello. Like many here with childhood stuff, I suffered immeasurably for decades. After weekly therapy for 37 years, some 20 hosptial stays, and EMDR therapy, somehow, I learned how to use the tools I learned in EMDR to access my sub-conscious to explore the conflicts that existed there. It took 5 years of my internal processing to get to the conflict within me. What I did was in talk therapy, I learned to identify a process of conflict resolution that worked for me. Every minute of every day for 37 years I worked at resolving the conflicts within me. I wrote a lot of poetry, some of which I would like to post here, but I don't understand the copyright explanation the forum provided for posting copyrighted work here. But beyond that, I understand what I did. I ended the anxiety I felt by resolving the conflict in my memory/subconscious, and now I am able to relax 100%. I can stop thinking when I wish, and start when I wish. I can work on understanding my new environment, living in my body, rather than my mind, and I can stop and rest when I want. Decemeber 27th was my Indpendence Day, I gained my Freedom. I have been processing full time since then. Now about 3-1/2 months later, I was fully triggered yesterday, and instead of feeling anxiety, I felt the conflict, I knew it was a doozy. I did not react, I went home to process as I am used to. After resting, I was able to identify what it was, I knew how to solve it because I have already dealt with it, and it wasn't very difficult to do! I returned to my peaceful state solidifying my trust in what has happened to me.

I am writing this because I want to help those who are now where I was then to get to where I am now. I know how I did it, but I also know it is not the same path for everyone. However, there are concepts, understandings, and we can share the directions we have learned on our journey, I just don't know what the parameters are when reaching out for help or to help. Along my journey, I learned that anything in the world can be a trigger. On another site I used to visit, we would say something to the effect of like (Potential Trigger) or something to the effect that something could possibly trigger people, so as to let them know ahead of time if we wrote something that we understood could trigger someone, but as in here, always trying to use neutral language too.

Are there any tips or helpful guidelines to keep in mind when sharing or trying to be helpful? I also know that asking questions is not a good idea. I have learned that taking a person for their word is better route. I try to help others the way my therapists helped me. I can explain some concepts, parameters of how things worked for me, or how I understand they work. But I understand that new people may not be familiar with the variation of perspectives each person has. I first try to explain what I perceive or understand about what they said, and are saying to me, then state what I understand about what they said to me, and why it seems logical to me if it is helpful. Then I can explain what I did, why I was a logical thing for me to try and my experience.

I woke up on Dec 27th, 2022 like any other day over the previous 52 years, fully in my subconscious mind. Totally terrified, but so used to it, I had assumed it was a normal state to me. At the age of 17 I was so dysfunctional that the drs declared me completely, totally, and irreparably unable to take care of myself - ever! 40 years later, walking and pondering/processing as I have done so many times, I could not tell you, but since I was 5, I would leave everyone, find a place where I could think without feeling, and would stay there until I felt better - numb. But what happened to me on Dec 27th absolutely came as not only a shock, but instantly. (Potential Trigger) I saw my dad's eyes in my subconscious mind. I knew INSTANTLY, that is what terrified me as a child, INSTANTLY after that it was apparent to me that the threat has past, and INSTANTLY after that... I "RELAXED". Now I know why people "WANT" to live. I never wanted to live before, and now I can see why. Not only can I see why I didn't want to live, "I WANT TO LIVE"!!!! - this way, not the way I did. I want to live because I was aiming for the goal of an absence of the pain and anxiety I felt constantly for 52 years. Not only did the pain go away, the anxiety is gone, the conflict is gone, the fear it gone, the anger is gone, the impatience is gone, and, not only are these things gone... I feel as good as... I sometimes even better than the amount of bad I felt bad! In other words, my anxiety turned into relaxation, I felt a level 10 out of scale of 0-10 anxiety, and a level 0 out of a scale of 0-10 relaxed. Now I feel the opposite. I feel 0 anxiety and 10 relaxation! Every ounce of pain is now peace. And believe it or not, I feel safe trusting my conscious and subconsious minds. The intigration of body, mind and subconscious is occurring. I would have been happy if only the pain left. I was blessed with consciousness that I never new existed!

My blood pressure went down and stayed down 30 points, my pulse dropped 15 bpm. I lost 30 lbs, eat less, sleep better, have more physical stamina, patience to spare, I drive slower, react quicker, I am actually feeling emotions in my body, and my body instantaneously generates emotions. I am calm, no anxiety, no fear, no spiritual, emotional, personal pain, like what comes from feeling defective, or any kind of that kind of pain. My mind has expanded thousands of times already. I have new sensory input that never existed before. I am in touch with my intuition, I know who I am, what I want, what I like, what I went through, how I got out of it, and why. I do not know what everyone else is going through, who they are, what they want, what they like or how they can get out of it, but I did. My neck used to be in knots, for decades, now it is soft, the muscles are relaxed! I feel hunger when it is gentle, I used to only feel hunger when I was starving. I sleep, no problem - deep sleep, feel rested when I wake up and have energy to spare throughout the day. I now understand most of the things I could never figure out before, no matter how important is was to solve, and understand them. Now, most conflicts I am confronted with are not a problem to understand, and I can solve! What I don't understand I can identify and ask the right person, usually a professional if it is deep, and recieve the answers I need! This is absolutely amazing. And all of this happened instantly! In the same shock - fear I was in for 52 years, I was processing, the original conflict appeared, I understood immediately it was no longer a threat, and just as fast as you can process, "Oh, well that is not a threat" I relaxed. I have to ask... Has anyone had anything even remotely like this happen to them, and if you have any suggestions or understanding you have to share... I am all ears.

I went to wash my coffee cup the other day, warm water touched my finger and I felt relaxation all over my body, head to toe! I was so amazed. Water had always caused me to feel anxiety, tension, I hated water. Now I know why people love it. And I do too! This is nothing short of an absolute switch from living and existing in my subconscious mind, terrified, in shock, unable to identify what the conflict was, not knowing what the danger was, but boy did I experience the urgency to solve it. I couldn't even talk very clearly, what I wanted to say was always forced and I would say things I didn't mean to say. I am talking fluently now! Now I am in my conscious mind. I believe now that when there is a trauma where danger is involved and no resolution is provided the conscious mind becomes incapable of accessing the subconscious mind. We have a safety mechanism, or something that separates, isolates the conflict and suppresses it so we can survive, or endure trauma. But the split will not mend until the subconsious gets the "all clear - safe now" message. EMDR taught me that I can put myself in a safe place mentally with my imagination. I learned to train myself to feel safe while exploring the sub. I talked all along the way what I understood through processing on my own with ever T I had. They pointed the way, I went that way, and apparently I made it.

I was in my subconscious, now in my conscious, but I have full access to my subconscious. The pain I felt was because my subconscious and consciousness were divided. It was more like a gap than a wall. I could not cross. The divide was painful. Now, combined, I have no words to convey how good this feels. But its like I learned to build a bridge by talking to therapists which got me to connect my conscious with my subconscious. And now not only can I cross it, I know that I can cross anytime I wish. The very curse of my existence has now become the blessing. The need to integrate caused me pain, because I am integrated, I have none of that sort of pain anymore, but it is not just that it is gone, it has been replaced by as much comfort as there used to be pain! I don't know any other way to describe it. But that is how it feels to me.

I would like to maximize being helpful and minimize triggering anyone at all. How can I be helpful here? Is there some way, any way you be helpful to me by providing more insight to what happened to me. I do not understand how to interpret the new input of experience from my conscious mind and body. I understand what happened, I know where I was and where I am. I just don't know how to use my new mental, emotional, social, logical and intuitive resources yet. This is a compelete new existence for me, from top to bottom. Complete.

One more analogy. It is like the Ultimate Umpire of Life yelled "SAFE!" as I slid into home plate beating the fear, solving my conflict, ending my pain, opening up a new world and LIFE to me, and buddy --- I "FEEL" safe, head to toe! I didn't even know this "Could" be possible!

Thank you,
Bob
 
I would like to maximize being helpful and minimize triggering anyone at all. How can I be helpful here?
The Community Constitution is probably a must-read. It sets out why the forum exists, and what people can expect from the forum.

On another site I used to visit, we would say something to the effect of like (Potential Trigger) or something to the effect that something could possibly trigger people,
Yep - also covered in the Community Constitution is why we don’t use Trigger Warnings here.
 
Portal2.

What do you do when life gives you lemons? Demand to see life’s manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give me lemons! Do you know who I am?!? I’m the man who is going to burn your house down…. with… the lemons! I’m going to get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!
🍋 🔥 = 😎

It’s my favorite game for pure defiant snark.
 
I was in my subconscious, now in my conscious, but I have full access to my subconscious. The pain I felt was because my subconscious and consciousness were divided.

This is very interesting. I would love to learn more about this. I am brand new into my PTSD counseling and I haven’t seen this yet on a forum or if I have, I have missed it.
 
This is very interesting. I would love to learn more about this. I am brand new into my PTSD counseling and I haven’t seen this yet on a forum or if I have, I have missed it.
Thank you for your inquiry. I am fairly sure you have not seen it because this may not have happened to anyone before. I am not sure why it happened to me precisely, like step by step this is what I did to integrate. But I have been at this 37 years, every ounce of knowledge I have accumulated in that time would indicate I am integrating. I do believe in miracles, and I have asked for them many times. I have experienced a few as well. I know there most often times no proof it was a miracle, but that is the nature of miracles, if you know what I mean.

I googled "Is PTSD curable" and it said no. It did not explain exactly why, and it could be that maybe because I eventually learned the therapeutic process, how therapists work with us, and learned to use the therapeutic process within myself and I learned how to function mentally using it that enabled me to intergrate. I am not sure why exaclty, there could be many reasons, like the circumstances surrounding what caused mine were different in some way that enabled me to eventually see the resolution to my internal conflict. Then, because that conflict stopped jamming up the processing, I am able to resolve conflicts now. But however, whatever, why and for exactly what reason, I don't know just yet. I don't know if anyone else can resolve their trauma conflict understanding what I do now. But I have resolved every personal conflict in me since the change, which was 3-1/2 months ago. I am at peace. I don't have the painful void in me that I did before. Utterly awesome. There is no conflict between my sub-consicious and conscious minds. At this time, it has not been long enough to tell what will happen to under gobs of stress, which used to take me under. Maybe the symptoms will come back, I don't know, but I don't think so.

I am giving this time to process within me.

I don't know how long it takes for everyone. I'm sure everyone is different. Feeling safe, identifying what feeling safe is for us, and experiencing it. Becoming familiar with when we feel anxiety instead of peace/safe, is the very first step. Identifying the areas of conflict by learning to pinpoint the sources of anxiety (the reason why we feel anxious) then resolving each conflict as it occurs, while feeling and understanding we are safe... That is how I did it. EMDR enabled me to learn first that I could feel safe exploring my sub-conscious for conflicts, then because I had previously learned and knew how to experience and stay safe during small conflicts before the EMDR I was able to scale up my understanding to find the reasoning for the anxiety in my sub-conscious. When I discovered it, it was resolved instantly, but that is also because my dad had passed away 5 years earlier, and the threat "WAS" in the past. If it is in the present, a present resolution is needed.

That, and the therapeutic process is designed to allow us to make our own decisions with which to learn to be responsible for. That taught me that my self judgement, my own judgement is valid. Each step will be different for everyone. The goal is learning to resolve our inner conflicts, however we can, with someone or alone. Communicating, learning, sharing, and processing. Nothing new, just seems like I am beginning to understand similarities between what I was taught and the new understanding and new concepts I have now. I don't think this is too far fetched. I just need more time to process for better understanding.

Thank you for your interest and the work you have done. If you don't mind echoing what you hear me saying, and sketch me an understanding of what you understand, I would appreciate it.

Bob
 
Thank you for your interest and the work you have done. If you don't mind echoing what you hear me saying, and sketch me an understanding of what you understand, I would appreciate it.

of course, I’ll have something to you in the next few days if not sooner.

Thank you for taking the time to write all of this out and explaining. 🙂
 
What I’m hearing you say @OwlEyes , is what my T is trying to help me with. Really knowing and becoming fully aware of sensations in my body and the accompanying feelings, and processing. Becoming more whole by the integration of those split trauma parts. And being at peace and free from those bodily and emotional transports back to ‘then’. Being present. Not living in the past or the future. Realising our individual power and autonomy.

glad you have achieved it @OwlEyes . I feel I am on the journey there. I do feel more whole as opposed to empty. But the zen like peace, I am not there yet.
 
of course, I’ll have something to you in the next few days if not sooner.

Thank you for taking the time to write all of this out and explaining. 🙂


I completely understand these concepts are very deep, it takes time for me to process as well.

I have written, and written, and written. I process by writing, among thinking, feeling, and other things. : ) It helps me understand me.

I am open to all suggestions and questions.
What I’m hearing you say @OwlEyes , is what my T is trying to help me with. Really knowing and becoming fully aware of sensations in my body and the accompanying feelings, and processing. Becoming more whole by the integration of those split trauma parts. And being at peace and free from those bodily and emotional transports back to ‘then’. Being present. Not living in the past or the future. Realising our individual power and autonomy.

glad you have achieved it @OwlEyes . I feel I am on the journey there. I do feel more whole as opposed to empty. But the zen like peace, I am not there yet.
I want you to know, I have been busy processing. I have been at my peak capacity for comprehension for almost 4 months now. I just finished up writing 14 pages of concepts and understandings that came to me in the past two days. I need to have it checked for accuracy before I share it with others because I am not educated in the field of which this occurred. I did come to a milestone, a stopping point. A point in which my understanding has plateaued. So I wanted to reply...

I have struggled for decades to figure out to resolve the core inner-conflict I had. Understand why it was there, what I could do, how to solve it. I didn't know it at the time, and I sure didn't feel or see where I am now, inside, before. Talking to my therapists, I began to pick up on the therapeutic process. In my EMDR sessions, I learned I could feel safe exploring my memory/subconscious/ or connect my present awareness with my past conflict so I could solve it. I accomplished that in EMDR sessions, but it was because I had already spent the previous 15 years exploring, trying to reason how and why I could believe I was safe, if only in my imagination. For that is what I was taught. I was taught many concepts, for me the most important concept, the counter to my inner conflict was feeling safe. I was so mentally abused, it took a long time for me to sort out and identify who I am, what I am, who and what I am not who and what I want, to gain the understanding of myself that I now have. I am now using this understanding to I determine what my boundaries are, or which ones I want to have. Now I understand myself. Why I reacted the way I did. That although it was appropriate, accurate and the right way to survive back then, those circumstances no longer exist and it is safe for me to let my guard down "now". My instincts are protecting me and are automatically protecting me and keeping me in the knowledge I am safe. I am experiencing automatic conflict resolutions. They come in the form of understandings which I have to say, I did not figure out, I don't always know why I understand something now, it just comes as an understanding. If I try to figure out why I understand it, I cannot. But the good part is, I Don't Need to Understand why I am, who I am, or why I know what I know in order to know - that this is what I know, I just know somehow. And, understanding is no longer required in order to for me to feel peace, relax, not worry, and be okay! Wow!

If that is not worth fighting for... I don't know what is...
 
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