Sense of invasion - Dealing with invasive thoughts, trauma, & imagination.

[ziter]

I was at a Zoom meeting this evening, after the meeting a woman talks to me directly, just saying, it's nice to see me.
All good, but I then I start to see her for my mind's eye, in an inflated version, like she has infact moved into my system.
This is not new to me, I've struggled with it before, sometimes causing anxiety.

I wonder if it's trauma related (it probably is) and since there seem to be no emotion attached to it right now, should I just learn to tolerate it?
After all, it's just imagination.

I have cPTSD with some early trauma in the mix.

 

[Friday]

I think it’s fairly normal to recall interesting or troubling people to mind, after contact with them… but the added oomph! of breathing life into the imagining of them? What is usually reserved for the blush of new lovers and heat of dangerous enemies? What are they/ would they/ will they be thinking/doing/feeling?

Sounds like something about her has either triggered one of the normal reactions to love/lust/infatuation/hate, or your hypervigilance is acting up.

 

[ziter]

ove/lust/infatuation/hate

Hm interesting. I was infact feeling fed up with being there (AA meeting). Angry.
So anger -> talked to/approached. There's something there.

I don't know if she "came alive", just an image in my head. Much bigger than the image of her on screen tho.

This sort of explains why it only happens sometimes.
When I'm feeling in a certain way?

--

Oh now I see. I re-read your post a few times.
Maybe it's a normal reaction to feeling welcomed by this woman? It's just so strange to me.
I think I will go with "normal", just a bit confusing to me.

 

[ziter]

That's it. I'm changing the narrative on this.
Last time I mentioned it to a pdoc, he labelled it psychosis and gave me antipsychotics. Which didn't help.

 

[ziter]

I understand it now. It's intimacy.
That was a much needed reframe @Friday, thank you.

 

[Friday]

Maybe it's a normal reaction to feeling welcomed by this woman? It's just so strange to me.
I think I will go with "normal", just a bit confusing to me.

Normal in the sense that PTSD flags the innocuous as life threatening, and then diverts the same kind of energy/focus we would give to actual life threatening people/events.

Similar to being triggered by… a bouquet of flowers. Our reaction to the bouquet? Is out of line, but it’s not psychotic. It’s a very normal human response to a threat (or desire), there just doesn’t happen to be a threat this time.

I understand it now. It's intimacy.

BEST most clear & concise description, possible, I think.

 

[ziter]

Normal in the sense that PTSD flags the innocuous as life threatening

Exactly! And since intimacy is/was triggering ... well, it explains it all!

It was however not triggering this time?
I just needed to understand the imagination part.

 

[Freddyt]

Or is it that Zoom is part of it? I did sales for a few years and I realized early on in the Covid thing that I hated Zoom.

It didn't give me the physical cues talking face to face did and I use all those cues to read how a person feels. Really creeped me out in a way so I stayed away from Zoom as much as possible since then.

Could that be part of it?

 

[ziter]

Or is it that Zoom is part of it?

Hmm possibly, didn't think of that

 

[Freddyt]

Hmm possibly, didn't think of that

Took me a while to figure out why and my T confirmed my thoughts. With my prefrontal cortex function inhibited by PTSD, I had to build other skills like reading body language to judge other peoples feelings.