So in the open chat, some-one proficient in CBT helped me A LOT.
Basically I have PTSD anxiety attack that make me lash out in conversations, when there are conflicts, while I have strategies that prevent me from lashing out physically, although they did not help the repeating of trauma.
The person told me that my body was registering an event as happening right now, although it was only a memory of an event. So the next time the memory was triggered and my body went into fight (or flight) mode I reminded my-self that it was not happening now and that there was no danger and long behold it worked.
The mantra is : it is a memory, it is not happening now, no one is going to hurt you, its ok.
And I can now drive through an intersection every day, where some angry man attacked my car three years ago, without anxiety and the associated sensation of getting ready to fight for my life.Who ever you are THANK YOU!
This however is not the worst of my troubles.
The worst part is that I constantly find my-self in social conflicts and so again I went in here on the forums and asked for help.
Next step for me would be to stop getting attracted to social conflicts out of fear. Again a person in here said that I might be drawn to these conflicts because disagreements in my childhood home carried the threat of violent beating and psychological harassment by several members of my family, which did not stop until I physically stopped them from beating and harassing me at 13 years of age, however my brother never stopped harassing me, my wife and my children, which is why I do not have contact with him today.
The situation here is more tricky, a conflict or potential conflict with a person triggers a fight or flight pattern and I seek them out and open up conflicts because they are conceived to carry the threat of physical or psychological harm and therefore I am hypersensitive at the mere hint of a disagreement.
I need a sentence like the one I have for the car accident. The sad thing is that the sentence/ mantra that works is:
You are no longer in that house, they are not one those people you grew up with, they don´t want to hurt you, it is ok.
The emotions now calmed and the fight or flight response gone my conflict mediation education as a law-student kicks in, and today, in a group I play board-games with, a conflict that has been brewing was solved without incident. SO I DID IT. I did not have to leave, I did not lash out, I calmed down, settled the issue, told them how I felt and long behold they did not attack me physically or psychologically, we talked it out.
For the first time in maybe 6-7 years I am able to handle a social conflict without adverse effects and I now have friends again.
The new step might be how to handle really poisonous, abusive or threatening people, calmly. My mantra from when I was a kid is: "Dont worry I will never let anyone hurt you ever again, I will die fighting before I ever let anyone harm you again". I have put quite a lot of effort into martial arts and rhetoric´s in order to be able to defend my self psychologically and physically, however last year I simply left a work-group with a poisonous person and changed into another group and then saw the group, I had left, run into a death-spiral of negative infighting and conflicts with everyone around them, and frankly that very much broadened my perspective on winning which is also something I got from this forum.
So unless I cannot leave the social situation without dire consequences, abusive and threatening people can go funk themselves :) here the mantra is simply pick your battles, life is too short, and this person is an idiot.
And in case of emergency... well thats where I started and I can handle that just fine.
This work with CBT has really made me realize something rather sad but also wonderful.
Since I left the hell I called my childhood home, I have only had to defend myself once in some 20 odd years. That means that out of the 6 people that I have fought and 5 of them were my family and the one other stranger grabbed my throat and then let me go. The same goes for psychologically, only one other person was truly evil and trying to hurt me, and again this person exploited knowledge about my psychological problems in order to get a table at a party.
In contrast my brother to this day, calls my handicapped child disgusting, my wife a retard and calls me psychologically deviant when i disagree with him ;(
So what I learned and what I had to face was that the people who were most dear to me are the only ones who have ever really hurt me. Which means that as a norm there is no threat from other people and I am an ok person :)
Thank you guys for your support and advice.
Basically I have PTSD anxiety attack that make me lash out in conversations, when there are conflicts, while I have strategies that prevent me from lashing out physically, although they did not help the repeating of trauma.
The person told me that my body was registering an event as happening right now, although it was only a memory of an event. So the next time the memory was triggered and my body went into fight (or flight) mode I reminded my-self that it was not happening now and that there was no danger and long behold it worked.
The mantra is : it is a memory, it is not happening now, no one is going to hurt you, its ok.
And I can now drive through an intersection every day, where some angry man attacked my car three years ago, without anxiety and the associated sensation of getting ready to fight for my life.Who ever you are THANK YOU!
This however is not the worst of my troubles.
The worst part is that I constantly find my-self in social conflicts and so again I went in here on the forums and asked for help.
Next step for me would be to stop getting attracted to social conflicts out of fear. Again a person in here said that I might be drawn to these conflicts because disagreements in my childhood home carried the threat of violent beating and psychological harassment by several members of my family, which did not stop until I physically stopped them from beating and harassing me at 13 years of age, however my brother never stopped harassing me, my wife and my children, which is why I do not have contact with him today.
The situation here is more tricky, a conflict or potential conflict with a person triggers a fight or flight pattern and I seek them out and open up conflicts because they are conceived to carry the threat of physical or psychological harm and therefore I am hypersensitive at the mere hint of a disagreement.
I need a sentence like the one I have for the car accident. The sad thing is that the sentence/ mantra that works is:
You are no longer in that house, they are not one those people you grew up with, they don´t want to hurt you, it is ok.
The emotions now calmed and the fight or flight response gone my conflict mediation education as a law-student kicks in, and today, in a group I play board-games with, a conflict that has been brewing was solved without incident. SO I DID IT. I did not have to leave, I did not lash out, I calmed down, settled the issue, told them how I felt and long behold they did not attack me physically or psychologically, we talked it out.
For the first time in maybe 6-7 years I am able to handle a social conflict without adverse effects and I now have friends again.
The new step might be how to handle really poisonous, abusive or threatening people, calmly. My mantra from when I was a kid is: "Dont worry I will never let anyone hurt you ever again, I will die fighting before I ever let anyone harm you again". I have put quite a lot of effort into martial arts and rhetoric´s in order to be able to defend my self psychologically and physically, however last year I simply left a work-group with a poisonous person and changed into another group and then saw the group, I had left, run into a death-spiral of negative infighting and conflicts with everyone around them, and frankly that very much broadened my perspective on winning which is also something I got from this forum.
So unless I cannot leave the social situation without dire consequences, abusive and threatening people can go funk themselves :) here the mantra is simply pick your battles, life is too short, and this person is an idiot.
And in case of emergency... well thats where I started and I can handle that just fine.
This work with CBT has really made me realize something rather sad but also wonderful.
Since I left the hell I called my childhood home, I have only had to defend myself once in some 20 odd years. That means that out of the 6 people that I have fought and 5 of them were my family and the one other stranger grabbed my throat and then let me go. The same goes for psychologically, only one other person was truly evil and trying to hurt me, and again this person exploited knowledge about my psychological problems in order to get a table at a party.
In contrast my brother to this day, calls my handicapped child disgusting, my wife a retard and calls me psychologically deviant when i disagree with him ;(
So what I learned and what I had to face was that the people who were most dear to me are the only ones who have ever really hurt me. Which means that as a norm there is no threat from other people and I am an ok person :)
Thank you guys for your support and advice.
