Staying calm when something major happens

[SophiaWisdom]

**Raises hand*** Another one here. Super sensitive in every way shape and form, but can mag...

I'm smiling to myself because one of the worst exes I ever had, I should have known he'd be bad for me because he was one of those people. I tend to chalk that up to having an overly good life (like people who utterly adore horror movies and can't get enough of watching really sick things) and needing something bad, when that bad ness is my CPTSD childhood and internal life.

I love this thread so much. Again another way this forum makes me feel not out of control, and more normal.

 

[SophiaWisdom]

BUT. Put me in a grocery store where I have to navigate through and worry about who's around the next corner? Put me at the door of my house? etc... I can't deal.

A bomb can go off and I'll hardly blink, but if a mouse farts in a field across the street you'll have to scrape me off the ceiling with a spatula.

Oh dear gawd YES. Sheesh lol I feel so much better reading this. I sat shaking in that cafe for hours because I was in public, but run across two lanes of traffic cuz my Uber driver was on the wrong side of the road but said it was clear to get into his car idled at a stop sign and then have coffee with this driver today on campus just cuz (he ran from my lecture out of boredom)? Totally me. Ride into Harlem at 3 a.m. when I was 15? Handled it. Turn on my car (car= trigger) to make sure it still runs? Force my ex to do it cuz I can't get into a driver's side yet.

 

[Kintsugi]

but is that ptsd (or maybe a type of dissociation, because it's kind of like an auto pilot state for me) or just a survival response

I don't think these states are particularly dissonant.

 

[Suzetig]

I can overreact at the drop of a hat and find it very difficult to ground myself - and when I'm like that i can do really stupid things in my relationships with other people, with myself etc. Otherwise I'm the very model of calmness, sure of myself and measured - I work in role where I'm managing crisis all the time and do so easily but can end up in a complete state for no apparent reason and be a complete nightmare.

So, I spend more time than I'd like having to apologise for me in my triggered state. It's getting better but there are still people I can hardly look at because my behaviour has been so bad.

 

[eloc]

I think it was how I stayed in work for so long post a major trauma- probably considered high performing as our work was often in crisis and rewarded daily hypervigilence.

 

[anonymous]

I do this as well. I can be agitated and freaked out about nothing, but am the person people want around when a crisis occurs. At work, I am the go-to person when there are injuries (and we have had some major ones). Blood and medical emergencies don't bother me, nor does somebody else's emotional crisis. I am always the one who is sent to the ER with the injured. There is a path to my office door that was made by co workers and employees looking for a sounding board or sympathetic ear. I am actually uncomfortable with a lack of chaos. I work best under pressure. In a crisis or emergency situation, I am cool as a cucumber.