Re: Old Self Absorbed Posting

[pclaessen]

Old Self Absorbed Posting

I have been doing some reading from other people's posts and I came across a posting about [DLMURL="http://www.ptsdforum.org/thread110.html"]whether or not people with ptsd are self-absorbed[/DLMURL]. I completely understand both sides of this one. I know I am self absorbed and I know I can't help it. My husband will want to talk to me about his stressful day at work and I can't listen. I already feel so stressed out that I feel that I cannot take one more stressor. I know what I can tolerate and what will probably get me locked up. I sure feel guilty though...... I am withdrawn. I get overwhelmed so easily, if I am stressed at all my brain shuts down completely - not so great when I am at work, etc., etc.

It would be impossible I think for someone without ptsd to understand. I wish sometimes they could, but I sure wouldn't want anyone else to go through what I am feeling. It feels like I live to just get through each day. Each day is a battle. I don't do it for me. I do it for my kids. I do the best I can. I get through work and get through housework, homework and all the other daily tasks, but ask me to do something fun and I'm burnt - just getting my mind through what I have to do, without crashing. Every day is a small victory. I made it, but I can hardly stand to think about what I have to do the next day ..... just thinking about it stresses me out.

Honestly, I don't know how my husband puts up with me most days. Thank God for the good days! Just my thoughts....

Patty

 

[lrs]

So many times, when people post here, their story seems to be my story. I can relate with everything that you wrote. I don't know how comforting that is to you, but you are not alone.

 

[kimG]

I'll second that.

Heck, most days I am overwhelmed with the things I have to do for ME that I can't do for anyone else. Something always doesn't get done and it's usually the housework. When I look around at what needs to be done, it's all so overwhelming that my mind just shuts down. It's definitely something I need to work on and something I'm hoping I'll improve on as I get better.

One of the many things I've learned on this board is that we aren't alone. I've said it before: this place is like Cheers, where everybody know your name and they're always glad you came!:hello:

 

[purdyamos]

I thought I was doing so well over the last few months, I was positive and focused outwards so much of the time, I had lots of energy for making connections and spreading positive vibes into the world. Then in the last few weeks my world's fallen apart and I've collapsed back into sleeping half the day and not having anything to say to other people. I feel so anti-social and all my energy is soaked up in the everyday stuff. I then have plenty of self loathing lying about from my inability to live a functioning life. Lack of job, lack of family (I have no close people at all), it's all a vortex of self pity that I can hardly drag myself out of. Then I feel even more ashamed and a failure! I hate it. I try so hard and end up exhausted. The only compensation I can allow myself is that in the past I used other people to try and make it better. Now I know it's my problem alone, but it's awful lonely, and I can't see it getting better. This is one of the only places I know I'm not going to be judged for being that way. Elsewhere it just looks like navel-gazing to people who don't realise how far I've come and how much I've actually improved!

 

[wildfirewildone]

Working on this same difficulty

:loopy: I know what you mean.....the housework is always a difficulty with me....I am trying to keep focused on one area at a time.....my mind just jumps around so much of the time....sometimes I don't eat because I can't face having another dish or pan to wash since I'm already behind....Then I get the putdowns....well, you don't have a job....why can't you get your housework done?? It seems that people don't understand that surviving the daily night terrors..dissasociations..crazy body feelings..flashbacks..all the GREAT things I get to deal with my PTSD....and the constant dread of knowing that the next day is going to be alot of the same HELL....or dare I say it...or worse!!....Today I put myself to sleep this afternoon so I wouldn't hear the manager knocking at the door as she was coming up for an apt. inspection...a nuisance one I believe....sent me a letter saying that I had to pass this inspection in order to transfer [to another complex] and she was going to bring a camera to document my housekeeping skills...I so HATE being Threatened!!!! It seems okay for my neighbor to threaten my life....but my being able to keep my house in order...now that's more important...BS!!! I really have to push myself because I won't be able to put off this inspection for more than another week....more STRESS...MORE symptoms!!...when does this cycle ever stop???:eek: :hit-boss: ...PEACE wildfirewildone....PEACE

 

[kimG]

I also sometimes don't eat, usually dinner, and I'm not sure why. Is it that I'm too tired to do anything about it? Do I not want to clean the dishes? Or is my mind so confuddled by everything around me that I forget? I don't know...

As far as the inspection goes, geez...some people are really out on power trips, aren't they? Who is she to judge you and/or your housekeeping skills? What difference does it make? Does she also judge everyone else's hk skills as well or is she just targeting you? If whether or not you get to move to a new place depends on her judgement of your skills, then it should be the requirement for all the people. Sounds like discrimination to me. After all, wouldn't it be really easy for her to knit-pick and find something that she doesn't like?

Good luck with it, if it hasn't happened already. If we lived closer together I'd come over and help you!

Let us know how it goes...

 

[anthony]

Purdy, I want you to think about this, before you beat yourself up too much more about relapsing. There are four stages to PTSD recovery, which are:

1. pre-contemplative
2. contemplative
3. action
4. relapse

Your just sitting in the relapse stage at present, which when you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and tell yourself this isn't going to continue, you will then move back into the contemplative or action stage. It is the known cycle of recovery, you will relapse, but its more about what has been stated, in that you know you have to fix you at the end of the day. When you make that decision again, you will move out of relapse on back onto the more positive road to recovery, but where you are now, is still within the recovery and healing process. You haven't actually moved out of it because of your relapse. What your going through is all part of the healing process.

I hope that gives you some food for thought about your current situation, and the strength to know you haven't stopped recovering. Your just not in a nice part of the recovery process at present, thats all.

 

[wildfirewildone]

I found this info helpful...

:thumbs-up This process of recovery sure gets crazy!!! It helps me to know those four steps...I really haven't able to progress in facing my Trauma since that day this past May when my life was threatened....my therapy sessions seem to center on what I can do to get rid of these problems here...working on getting myself moved to a better place that is quieter...letters have been sent [2-from my psychodoc & 1 from my therapist] ....still no news from the housing authority about their response to these letters!!!! also about all the PTSD symptoms that are running amok!!!! :angry-fla I want to DEAL WITH THE ORIGIONAL TRAUMAS...I am really pissed that I'm not having the opportunity to do this work!!!!! I am well aware of the pain that dealing with it will cause....still my calming my symptoms depends on doing that work!!! :wall: Any suggestions??? .....wildfirewildone
.........PEACE

p.s. I am going to get away this weekend to go camping with my son for my 52 birthday weekend!!!
You can sure bet that I'll be hugging a few trees!!! Then on Sunday we will go horseback riding--my FAVORITE thing to do on this planet!!! I will be driving 4 hours to get down there [..on the road again....]!!!! I do take extra time to stop and stretch my legs when I start to feel a litle weary...boy...GIVE ME THAT COUNTRYSIDE!!!!

I still know that all this crap will be waiting for me when I get home....won't be thinking about that while I'm gone...I am concerned how long the euphoria from that time away will get me through this crap!!!! once I have to start dealing with it once again???? I certainly hope that I don't end up in the hospital shortly after I return....but if there's no action on any of this I feel I just may CRASH!!! [sickening thought=this would be more proof of the stress I'm under and it could be further leverage to getting a new SAFER place...] BUT I DON'T WANT TO BE LOCKED UP!!!

 

[anthony]

Wildfire, your therapist is correct, and this is why. If your within a place of insecurity, you have no safe place to return and calm yourself. Without this safe place to return, what happens, is when you are dealing with your trauma, you are moving into extreme territory in your symptoms, because dealing with your fears invokes all your symptoms again, and if you have other areas that are also provoking unneccessary symptom spikes, then you can easily tip yourself over and land within hospital, which then gives you a further complex that you can't face your fears because it landed you in hospital.

Surroundings are a big part of recovery when you begin trauma therapy. It is like trying to have an alcoholic do trauma therapy... it doesn't work, becuase they are merely suppressing with alcohol instead of fully dealing with trauma, and at the same time, depressing themselves as alcohol is a depressant, thus with a huge symptom spike from trauma therapy, the person could end up dead from alcohol poisoning, increased suicide rate, hospitalized, and back to the same issue above, in now being fearful about dealing with trauma again.

A person must not be self medicating and must have a safe environment when doing trauma therapy.

 

[wildfirewildone]

Please check on the two paragraphs that I added to the post of mine that you just read....No...I believe that I still WANT BADLY to get on with this Trauma work!!!! and will still feel this way if I get hospitalized---no I believe that dealing with the stressers here and seeing nothing happening is more difficult than facing my fears of facing my past traumas....

 

[purdyamos]

Thanks Anthony. I know my dips and peaks are the gradual working through the process. I can see just in the past year I've come such a long way it's amazing. But it's so frustrating to keep collapsing into self pity. I don't like myself at all then. It's not like having a painful leg or toothache.

Part of the reason is that my mood swings are triggered by such mundane things I sometimes despair I'll ever be able to face them, then I feel so drenched in shame for being so weak (yes I know it's not weak, but it feels it.) I suppose I need to get over the sense of shame and alienation for simply having these reactions in the first place, which is happening over time. Good reminder about the drinking, too. I've been doing that a lot too.

Perhaps it's when we feel most 'shameful' and self pitying that we most need to be aware and alive to what is emerging in our psyches. That's the worst thing about this whole syndrome - you have to FACE UP TO and GO THROUGH the trauma, you can't dodge it or take short cuts or put it behind you. You've got to stare at it and it's going to hurt so bad. It's difficult getting over the self-conscious me-ness of it all!