Tangling Of Horror Thoughts

[Abrasky]

I'm wondering if anyone else has had a trouble with getting tangled into their horror thoughts from a young age. My psych said my core of my PTSD is a lot to do with my getting tangled about what my mothers emotional blackmail was about in the year after my trauma when I was 19. The other half of the core of my PTSD is disassociation from the trauma of my dad attacking me when I was 19.

In the year after my trauma. I didn't understand my mother's blackmail which was horrific, so I kept trying to link it to all the horrors in my past when I was 19. I 'stewed' very badly for a year. I wondered if she was almost the devil. I kept wondering if she was just like my dad. Some of these tangling thoughts became so etched in my memory, they became not only dissociation but dissociated to the level of personality moods. I really spaced out then.

I think my PTSD is like a slow cooker. I have this ability to stew and stew from the age of 9 and then in the end I end up with this lovely PTSD at the end. It's been cooking a while.

I remember being young and getting really tangled when ever something happened that would upset me. If there was a bully I would 'stew' over them for ages, or if my dad was abusive I would 'stew' over that for ages.

I started getting 'tangled' as a result of abuse, possible sexual abuse of my brother by my stepdad when I was 9. My stepdad would take him in the car when he was 5, and I wouldn't know why, I would just be so traumatised inside getting tangled with horror thoughts and hoped he would be safe and then they would come home. So I think the abuse that I experienced seemed to have set me up to 'get tangled in my thoughts' from a young age.

Does tangling have a role in developing dissociation in PTSD? Any thoughts on ' tangling' appreciated.

 

[Grim]

Hi Maze,

I seem to create tangled links or associations between different events, which don't exist outside my mind. For example, somehow today I managed to link being abused as child with wanting the music turned down in the swimming pool, but I was not confident enough to ask, simply I felt threatened. (Daft I know)

I know its normal for me to expand linked events to the most negative or extreme outcome possible. This tends to lead to increased worry and then to panic.

However, since my recent realisation of this negative, spiralling process came to light, most times, when it happens I've been able to tell myself that I've reached an extreme thought.

I then tell my inner-self that I've reached an extreme, and that its almost impossible that this extreme outcome to happen. I now understand that these extreme thoughts are just my mind (hippocampus) preparing me for 'fight or flight', because my brian has incorrectly linked events together.

Now I'd not previously thought about tangled connections causing dissociation - however, after reading your post, I can see how some of my major dissociations have developed from a jigsaw of unrelated events that my mind has pieced together into extreme outcomes.

Abusive events I experienced as a child of 5, clearly shape and to a greater extent control my world today. I have too many unjustified fears for a man now aged 45. I have done all sorts of daft and stupid things to either dissociate from, or overcome these fears - which in turn have created more worries and some real problems. I just can't believe the mess I've got myself in, trying to overcome the confusion, fear and somehow guilt of being abused.

Anyhow, my former therapist helped me with CBT 'rewind therapy' also known as 'rewind technique' for some of my jumbled connections.

 

[Abrasky]

It does feel a bit like a spiral. Some people just don't think about negative things, they might have not learned from an early age to have situations to 'tangle' them into a wave after wave of panic

It is interesting you mentioned about your extreme thoughts preparing you for flight or fight. Good idea.

 

[Sethe]

This is a very interesting topic. I never really thought about 'tangled thoughts', but the concept makes so much sense.

I think I may have had a few tangled thoughts today. Conflicting thoughts. They tend to paralyze me.

I guess I can't figure out which one to follow.