Tolerance Low For Other People???

[Holly1984]

So my question I suppose isn't directly related to PTSD but I do feel the PTSD has lowered my tolerance levels. The last few years have been tough, but recently I have stopped cutting myself off from others and I have been trying to open up a bit more to certain people. Practically nobody really knows about what's been going on with me except my T. I have started trying to date again and that has raised issues on it's on. I have tried to confide some of my worries in my best friend of many years without going into details of the "why".

I've told her I have real issues with having sex and can’t go there with anyone right now. Although I have been upfront with the new guy that I can’t make any promises in this regard, at times I still feel guilty and/or under pressure. Then there’s the questions as to why, I don’t feel any more able to answer those then I feel able to have sex. I just can't go there at the moment. TBH I never thought things with the new guy would go beyond a few dates, but I thought I could manage it, once I was honest about what the guy could expect from the start. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be dating anybody at all. It's not fair on them and it’s just added stress on me. I do really like him though. It’s a bit up and down.

So I’ve been confiding a lot of this in my friend. Over the years she has been there for me in a lot of ways but sometimes I feel like her advice is conflicting. One minute she tells me I should give the new guy a chance and I’m making the stuff about sex into an issue myself by going on about it (to be fair she doesn’t know why). But then sometimes when I mention he’s talking about it again, she’s saying I should tell him to get lost (sometimes I get annoyed with him, but I also realise I can’t expect him to understand if I won’t explain). Then other times she’s telling me that by carrying on seeing him, I’m actually leading him on and I need to make my mind up (despite the fact I told him from the start I couldn’t make any promises re sex).

I’m going through all of these emotions myself, but her advice is constantly changing. She has admitted in the past to being jealous when I was going out with my ex. Tbh I had noticed this myself anyway and since I started seeing the new guy some of it has surfaced again ( i.e. "oh I assumed you'd be off with him", etc) There really is no reason. I've never dumped friends for a guy and I've never been joined at the hip to anybody I have dated. She does have a lot going on herself at the moment, so I’ve stopped venting to her. She’s been coming to me with her guy stuff too, and a lot of the time she’s walking into bad decisions whilst acknowlging she’s probably doing the wrong thing. It feels like she’s in self-destruct mode atm. The cynical part of me is even wondering if she’s part doing it for attention. I want to be there for her and help her if she’s in a bad place but atm my tolerance is pretty low because it feels like she’s not helping herself, and she has been dismissive of some of my problems when I genuinely don’t know what to do. I want to be there for her but I’m not sure I’m able for her right now. From an entirely selfish point of view, I don't have very much support at the moment so I don't want to cut her out. That was way too long an explanation – sorry. Thanks if you’ve even read it to the end :-)

 

[Friday]

I once helped a woman bury her child, who ended up comforting me over a missing hair tie (or some such nonsense). I was deep in PTSD stuff at the time, and even then I knew it was simply the straw that broke the camels back; me being unprepared and people were dead, and I simply lost it. All the death, all the f*cked up stuff from the past several months and years just came out in a fit over not being able to find a stupid thing in my pack.

This is one of those memories I can either look back fondly at, or look back and hate myself for being a shallow, selfish, twat. I beat myself up for enough other things. It's one of my most treasured memories. It was this moment of warmth & kindness surrounded by dead children & pestilence & tears.

When I'm doing well, I try to emulate her; All pain is the same. The only difference is how long it lasts for. Moments, or hours, days, months, years, or a lifetime. Whether it fades after briefly touching it, or burns as hot and strong forever. Our own understanding of pain. Whether we've had worse, yet. Or not. So it is a thing to be grateful for, not a thing to look down upon, when someone can be helped through a short lived pain.

When I'm doing badly? It just pisses me off. People piss me off. I have no tolerance for petty bullshit whatsoever. Especially when what they're ravaged over doesn't even blip my own scale. When people are upset over something I love to be have, or can sort in 10 seconds flat.

 

[darrenS]

i think one of the defining characteristics of ptsd for many is isolation and in some respects cutting off. I dont talk to most of my siblings and its not that i have a problem with them , at present i dont feel like explaining or BSing, i just dont feel like talking . I know its important to preserve the friendships you have, as it does become harder to make new ones that have known you for so long,

sometimes i also understand we let some go as our new reality cant accomodate them. But one thing i am very mindful of is not entirely cutting off people, i know i will get better and my tolerance will get better and i don't intend to let this illness dictate my life forever and to the point there is nothing left.

I regularly push myself to be amongst people , todays i was with moms at a 4th grade valentines day party :) and i will continue to see what is truly me and what is truly the illness and do my best to keep them separated if that makes sense