• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Trauma fueled grief that is causing panic

Status
Not open for further replies.

Justmehere

Sponsor
I am dealing with grief of losses related to trauma and my edged up family.

It's different than usual PTSD I'm-afraid-trauma-will-happen-again panic. Reassuring mayelf I'm safe in this moment isn't even relevant.

I'm freaked out about the depth of loss, and the specially that which can't be changed. A massive reminder of those losses came up. I think the hardest is loss of family. But it's more than that.

I have done some general anxiety coping tools, but can't do others - like going to spend time with friends because of the pandemic. I don't really have anyone to call and talk to about it.

While isolation is a way to cope at times right now the isolation of the pandemic and PTSD feels really terrible.

I'm not sure what to do. Any one else struggle with this?
 
I am dealing with grief of losses related to trauma and my edged up family.

It's different than usual PTSD I'm-afraid-trauma-will-happen-again panic. Reassuring mayelf I'm safe in this moment isn't even relevant.

I'm freaked out about the depth of loss, and the specially that which can't be changed. A massive reminder of those losses came up. I think the hardest is loss of family. But it's more than that.

I have done some general anxiety coping tools, but can't do others - like going to spend time with friends because of the pandemic. I don't really have anyone to call and talk to about it.

While isolation is a way to cope at times right now the isolation of the pandemic and PTSD feels really terrible.

I'm not sure what to do. Any one else struggle with this?
yes I can really relate to that and it's exactly what I'm struggling with at the moment. I have a massive sense of loss and grief. It's a horrible feeling. Certain people really f*cked my shit up in particular situations and I had nothing else and no one else to walk away too. Then they made out I was psychotic and even contacted my docters. I find it very difficult to trust people now. I'm sorry your feeling this way. Not having people to talk to is the worst. I'm always interested in what you have to say. 😊

Do you mind if I ask? What in particular is causing you to panic so much?
 
Yes. And for me, after losing my son to suicide last year, it is more social anxiety. I am ok while at home. But I feel so vulnerable and broken. And like I have to put this armor on just to leave the house. I don't want to talk to anyone. I just want to do my errands and go back home. I understand.
 
I was going to try to explain a similar feeling on a thread. So thank you for opening this one.

I am grieving from ‘Covid Fatigue’ as well as some other factors. I have seen that loosely coined word tossed among a few articles plus some other groups (such as Ménière’s, ect) that I attend. My T and I used it today to explain the weight that I (plus some others) are dragging around while attempting to find expression.

During such loss of people, places, incomes, choices plus culture, I choke on grief for myself, a way of life and for so many that are suffering. There isn’t a form of normal -even among the colored tiers of strategic Covid Prevention Planning within my residing State. My gratitude for living, my family, my health in this moment is not the same as inner peace: it is awareness of the reality.

I am frozen. And I fight daily after night terrors to find movement, to find oneness, to soak in the nature rejoicing at the opportunity of seeing a sunrise. I make the most of each breath...when I thaw a little from defiance of dying in fear. But still, the world is sighing as we struggle in silence, to find a rhythm to be whole once again.

I am listening...if you want to share more.
 
Covid on top of what was already there- is something else. Many people are mourning, but many of us were grappling with that and loss and grief already. I have marveled sometimes that one can still exist post such broken-heartedness, but well here we are.

🤗 's to you @Justmehere , and all. 💗
 
If I’m understanding correctly... not only yes, but this is one of the core things that brought me back to being balls to walls symptomatic in 2012/2014. I couldn’t protect someone that I loved. Again. And it destroyed me.

***

A cat’s cradle is about to follow... so bear with me. Because it’s taken me about 6 years to parse what happened back when. And it’s still sorta tacked together with chewing gum

I talked in the long term effects of stalking thread how I often think of PTSD as a delayed emotional response... and there’s clearly a lot more to it, than that, but the past inserting itself into the present in various way is a large piece of it for me...but with stalking? It’s the reverse. Emotions are all front-loaded, as I have to think 6 steps ahead to accomplish even the most basic of tasks. Very much like the corrosive nature of hope (feeling good or bad about something that hasn’t actually happened). Front-loaded emotions aren’t a new thing for me, as it’s a common facet of ADHD, that the “correct” emotions tack themselves onto various imaginary things (like plans, running multiple scenarios, etc.)... but purely in the mind? They’re fast. As fast as I can think. And often durn useful, because they let me plan better knowing that XYZ is going to be coloring this option, so I’d need to also add that option to balance XYZ with ABC, or DEF, or AHA!! GHI & ABC. That’s the best solution. And I can fall back on the others if I need to. But with stalking? It’s not purely in the mind (that would be paranoia ;), but actually happening, so the emotions have legs. Seeeeerious legs. Which is exhausting. Every step I have to plan gets more and more emotions front-loaded that don’t go away, until I’ve completed that step, and nothing to balance them out. Keee-razy exhausting to be eyeballs deep in layer after layer after layer of emotional clusterf*ck. Simply unsustainable (for me, anyway) long term. Which means I really only have 4 options.

1. Do it FAST // don’t make plans until the very last moment
2. Cancel my plans (no plans? No emotions attached to those plans flooding me).
3. Put someone else in charge of planning (you lead, I follow. Voila. No plans? No flooded by emotions).
4. Divorce myself from my emotions. <<< This is (mostly) a trauma-trick, a kind of disassociation, by far my BEST option (unless I have someone I trust to boss me), and depending on how well I do it? Ranges from cold&hard to emotion-free-zone

<<< Attempting to divorce my emotions from trauma fueled things that haven’t happened... yet? SEEMS to start a PTSD+ADHD Hell-Spiral.

Because it’s the same sort of front-loaded emotions that I deal with, with stalking... but it’s FUELED by the past. As the more I try and divorce myself from my emotions? The more violent the association with the past becomes.

I’ve talked before about how it seems like my brain thinks I’m particularly dumb, and the more IT sees patterns repeating, the more it throws those patterns at me.

So when I couldn’t protect my son? And worse, when I made the decision to let things play out in a certain way? I started being hit with a particularly nasty combo of intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, and panic attacks. As every OTHER time I couldn’t protect someone, or made the wrong decision, started flooding me. There’s a whole helluva lotta nightmare fuel, there. Bad decision after bad decision after bad decision... death after death after death... screaming and blood, pain and grief, heartbreak and despair.

I could barely breathe, much less think. For years. Because of the way my mind works.

Because all of the ADHD future-stuff was marrying to the PTSD past-stuff, and I was being ripped apart in the middle... just trying to stay here & now, with no kind of anchor. And no way to manage. Because the things that help me manage the future stuff? Activated my past-stuff. But the things that helped me manage my past-stuff? Activated my future-stuff.

like I said... hell-spiral.

***

And I haven’t got any kind of work-around for it... because it’s taken me years to even begin to wrap my mind around WTF happened.

I know a lot of what NOT to do ...

I went around cutting myself off from my coping mechanisms and stress outlets like it was going out of style... in large part because my finances had just gotten f*cked, and I thought it was the “responsible” thing to do... and I’d get back to those things once I was back on my feet... except I never got back on my feet. In no small part? Because I quit doing all the things I used to do that kept me stable. Which is another self perpetuating hell-spiral of its own. Brick wall bang head 💥 Quit doing the things that make you stable? Get less stable. Be less able to get back to doing the things that keep you stable. Get even less stable.

...but I don’t know what TO do, because nothing I tried to do worked.

I can only speculate, based on 20/20 hindsight & supposition... that rather than cut myself off from coping mechanisms (both healthy AND unhealthy), up them to the Nth degree to bleed off stress, and rather than attempting to divorce myself from my emotions to get done what I needed to get done? Delegate like a motherf*cker... that option 3, of letting someone else be in charge of the planning I was incapable of doing without f*cking myself over.

Because when future things, that haven’t happened yet, marry to past things that (clearly) have? My present gets GUTTED. I can’t tell up from down. And trying to ignore either half to focus on the other? Just spirals the whole thing out of control. And grounding in the present? Doesn’t work for shit. Because that’s not where my problems are. Instead, I THINK what I needed to do was focus on both, past & future, and hit them hard simultaneously.
 
Last edited:
Because when future things, that haven’t happened yet, marry to past things that (clearly) have? My present gets GUTTED. I can’t tell up from down. And trying to ignore either half to focus on the other? Just spirals the whole thing out of control. And grounding in the present? Doesn’t work for shit. Because that’s not where my problems are. Instead, I THINK what I needed to do was focus on both, past & future, and hit them hard simultaneously.

Very true, very wise.
 
I know how hard it is to feel safe and how it feels irrelevant during covid. Its very lonely......without calls...invites.....etc.
Its a time without human contact and on top, some of have phones that never ring. Im so sorry...it is so difficult.

Friday-without an anchor...I just dont even know how this is done. Whats to come and what's behind us leaves us so damn uncertain. I feel fragile right now (not as much as I have been in the past), none the less. I am just sitting with it. I would say that Im accepting it....but if I were I wouldn't need a bottle of wine every couple of days. I eat when Im not hungry ( quit smoking) So I am not coping in a healthy way..I know that. I guess how I feel right now it this....some have financial problems...many working from lines....many food service or grocery or other service for low pay. Then there are those financially stable, dont have to go out to work, and mostly those are above 60 yrs old. They have paid the mortgage off, kids raised. Health problems maybe and higher risk Nobody is immune right now.

Where am I going with this. Damn, you are a pillar of strength. I always admire your response and still do. Our situations are hard for the strongest and weakest of us right now. We are all just getting by however we can.
 
Just before covid hit, I had a couple big losses right in a row. And then covid came along and my PTSD swung into overtime mixed with a whole lot of depression. I have finally started to pull out of that. Part of it for me was recognizing what was happening and acknowledging what was going on. I ended up needing to add in meds I wasn't previously on. I had to go back to very, very basic skills. It was a slog. I'm sorry you are struggling so much
 
I’m sorry this is a massive struggle to you. Since Covid, my life is taken in a stupid loop of emotions and evolve in a place where time doesn’t exist, while it does. It echoes my own idling capacity for doing exactly nothing, a bizarre form of depression of just remaining there and hoping things will happen around me. Being alone alone is something that I did practice a lot when I was a teenager because the outside world was impossible. I support better the solitude but the lack of new things happening around is blocking my brain in circulating in the past an introspection and make complete incapable to work. I feel that I’m quite heavy to deal because in search of emotional comfort while everyone is f*cking on edge. I can’t lean over my friends so much but the more the goals become fuzzy or doable, it oscillates, the more I get scared and want to recede. Covid hasn’t helped. Going out was for me a big thing in terms of emotional regulation. Now I’m like a beast turning in small spaces.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top