The Never Ending Cycle

[dougyhowzer]

Hi . I was wondering if any of you view PTSD as a never ending cycle of events that triggers you to attempt to change your life by trying to change your daily schedule .

For the last 2 years , I been going through a cycle of cancelling my internet , filling my daily schedule to avoid being at home . And ridding my life of everything that plays a factor in preventing me from moving forward .


Sadly though, the steps I have made only work for maybe a month at most , and the method that I tried has failed due to still getting flashbacks.

As a result , I end up up resetting up my internet, playing video games and end up staying home most of the time, thus the cycle keeps going .

I call this my PTSD cycle , because it has been ongoing for the last 2 years .

 

[digger]

Are you in therapy alongside trying to make these changes yourself? I ask because I've been through similar cycles in my life, but really I was just clutching at straws and the changes I was making weren't really the ones I needed to make and so didn't have the desired effect. In a lot of ways they were superficial and it was internal stuff I needed to be working on.

I'm wondering about your thought process in the changes you are making and how you think making them will help your PTSD symptoms? How do you feel giving up video games for example will ease your flashbacks - are your flashbacks related to the content of the games?

 

[dougyhowzer]

I get rid of the video games . Not because they bring flashbacks but mainly because I was forced to play them; it was a family culture .

I've also spoken to my counsellor in our therapy sessions about trying to find healthy outlets that can help me deal with the trauma from my past .

He believed that perhaps changing my living environment ; activities that reflected my childhood environment could possibly help as well as changing my daily routine .

My flashbacks are often consist of staying at home , being abused physically in my bedroom . Being told to obey or suffer the consequences .

 

[digger]

I think lifestyle changes can help to an extent, but only alongside other work and changes too. Expecting too much from those sorts of changes just leaves you disillusioned as it seems like you've found.

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

I tried to avoid/get rid of things that triggered me, but in the end the avoidance only made it worse. Eventually, I had to force myself to face my triggers and overcome the fear, rather than shielding myself from it.

Obviously it depends on the degree of the trigger. I eliminated the news from my life (now, I check on my news online), and also avoid movies that are sadistic/humiliating or especially violent. But other triggers, like the keyboard, the shower, an enormous list of stuff that used to trigger me, I sort of "rehabilitated" myself to them.

Expecting too much from those sorts of changes just leaves you disillusioned as it seems like you've found.

Uhu. Big agree.

 

[lmizutani]

Schedule setting in of itself is not a bad thing. It allows me for example to know how I am doing on my present job search or researching new second career options. Also this helps me anyway in keeping my mind in more productive mode of developing and keeping said options open.

Dougyhowzer and I had talked about these things off and on for the last little while but I am wondering, Radise, how do you "rehabilitate" yourself to certain triggers that cannot be avoided (like the bedroom)?

 

[Go Hungry]

I used to do this a lot too, but then realized that I was always going through the same patterns. Purge, regret, restock. So I just came to accept that there are times when I am keenly interested in a subject, and then times when I want to do something else, but that I'll usually come back to it sometime in the future. Gradually those things stopped bothering me. And though I've gone through a recent purge of books, I have the library to fall back on, so I now have an endless supply of books to flit between. It's kinda perfect.

As to the internet and games. Cutting off the internet would -seriously- hinder my progress in life. And games.. well, I'm just learning to stick with the free ones. :p

 

[Deleted member 1860]

It sounds like you're using distraction as your only coping mechanism. You alter your schedule, it seems to distract yourself from PTSD, and anything new is often a good distraction, but then you end up back at square one once it fails. Are you working on developing other coping mechanisms? I think its important to attack our PTSD on numerous fronts, as no one coping skill will always work.