The Monster Within

[Lauren]

HI All,

I don't know what is going on.....I am feeling more and more anxious. My best friend of 30 years has left a couple of messages for me over the last two weeks. I finally called her back this am. She was busy so we couldn't talk long but the whole thing has left me feeling anxious. Maybe because I feel the need to explain why I haven't been returning her calls? And I don't even know the answer. Only that I really don't want to talk to anyone. I just want to be alone. But being alone is making me anxious too. Maybe it's the conflict with our neighbors...the yelling match between my husband and him last Monday. But that doesn't explain the prior 2 weeks.

I had a really good weekend last weekend. And 2 weeks before that I had arranged for a 50th birthday get away to the coast. 5 of us girls took her to the coast for a girls weekend. It was a blast! But ever since then I don't want to be with anyone. God what is wrong with me. This is ridiculous!

My T has suggested that we need to do more of the "who hurt me and how" stuff. It TERRIFIES me! I woke up the day after therapy and had a panic attack. It felt like I have this caged monster inside of me that if I let it out will destroy every thing and everyone. I even said to myself that Dale (My Therapist) doesn't know what he is getting himself into and is not going to be able to handle it. This Monster in me feels alive. Seriously....I am afraid that I either have a split personality or am possessed. Nothing has happened to indicate that but that is what it feels like. God.....I just want out of this!

 

[Artista]

Understanding you totally. I am feeling at the precipice of finding out more and have had new info this week but don't even wanna say it out loud. It's too horrible. I want to just hide sometimes and avoid the truth. It is literally too ugly to want to face, but I know I must to put it to rest or at least to have a handle on it's power. I do not have a split personality but understand how some people going through this could!!!! I have been denying the 14 year old me specifically. Kind of made her dead to me for a long time and now she wants to be alive and not forgotten any longer. I am starting to have sympathy for her. (key i think) I practically hated her until recently. Then, I started to feel horrible that she went through all of this terror AND I let her down.... buried her. So I see how you can separate the trauma person and who we are now. Makes it manageable. It makes it easier for me to self-talk too and hold her hand or understand it as if she was any person I would help. Does this make sense? I have no problem knowing I am always me in the now... and I can talk to "her" when i need to. I still find it hard to but at least I am thinking more about it and trying so I can accept the injured, hurt, me.

And i too sometimes do not call people back right away or want to be around lots of others when I am "caving". I find it very difficult. Hard to have this all swirling around inside and be active in a day-to-day life!!!!! Too surreal and certainly not truthful. I just can't pretend some days and some days i can to get by for my kids. I think that is normal for us going through this! We all need to be a bit kinder to ourselves. I also often feel selfish, but as my therapist said... this is like a life work... am important thesis!!! I must do this to go further and have the life i want for me and my family. It is as much for them as it is for me.

 

[Jade-]

I actually have times where I can't even really look at people. Those are the hardest days to deal with,especially at work.

 

[kers]

It might help you understand what's going on if yor are able to delve into the emotions a bit more. For example, when you don't want to see your friends, what is going through your head, what thoughts do you have? What physical sensations go with it? Sometimes breaking it down to the basic physical reactions help me understand my feelings better.

While there's nothing per se wrong with wanting to be alone at times, if you are isolating it can actually worsen your other symptoms, even though it feels like the safest thing to do. Or that's been my experience. Is there a way to get a little contact with others, so that you can have that contact, but be able to get way so you don't feel overwhelmed?

 

[Lauren]

Thanks for your response you guys. I do have contact with people believe it or not. Both thru work and socially. On the social end I have to pretty much force myself to do it...other than horseback riding with friends. I know how relaxing that is for me so it's an easy one to go do. I just am having a hard time dealing with feeling so anxious all the time. It takes less energy for me to just hole up alone but of course that is the worst thing I can do. I like the idea of separating the tauma person but it's kind of scary too. I am trying to integrate everything. I need to take a break from all the emotional processing. Therapy seems to have made this a 24/7 process and it's just too much. It was easier when I was ignoring, repressing and denying things. But of course that wasn't working either. AGgghhhh! Just wish I was a normal happy and healthy person ;o)

 

[Artista]

I agree.. "easier" to ignore. For me it seems to be forcing itself and needs me to understand and get a handle on this. Not to be ignored. Guess that only worked for us for as long as it was supposed to and now it's time to kick its a** back to its proper place in the past!!!!!!!!! The horse riding sounds wonderful. The group I was attending for PTSD has a woman writing a grant for horse therapy and I am very interested! The whole trust thing with such a large magnificent being must be amazing.

 

[Lauren]

Wow...therapy riding! That is a great idea! Yes having trust between me and my horse is incredible. It really is a partnership where both have to trust eachother. Horses are prey animals so they react with fight or flight. It's only fight when they have no choice or happen to be an unusually belligerant horse. I ask Pine to do things that he is unsure of all the time. He only does it because he trusts that I won't put him in any real danger or ask something of him that he can't do.

It's kind of like that for me with my therapist. I keep forging ahead because I trust his guidance. Like Pine, I resist, prancing around or backing up when I am afraid to move forward and thru whatever it is that I find scary. Sometimes I can jump ride in, but more often than not it takes a lot of prodding, patience and trying different techniques to motivate me to move forward. Standing there quivering before I jump into it, shaking while in it, sometimes jumping out way too fast. Then, like I do with Pine, my therapist takes me back thru it again. Sometimes repeatedly until I can do it calmly.

Yes, therapy riding is a good idea!

 

[Artista]

That explains it further for me why it would be amazing to do therapy with a horse!! I grew up with a good friend who had an Appaloosa and helped her care for him some weekends. I also was there when he bucked at a new jump and she was a rag doll off the fence!! She was pushing him too far! It didn't make me frightened of horses... i understood it was poor communication.