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Unable to watch a music video tonight

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Maybe I should have gone to Introductions first as this is my first post. However I felt that General was the more appropriate category for this to go into. If I am waffling, forgive me as that is part of one of my medical conditions. The 'problem', or issue, is this: I was finally given PTSD just over nine years ago after things that had been happening to, or around, me that had gone on over about ten years. It was clear to me, only once I had been given it and very soon after I had been given it, that I had (and still have) PTSD. I did not receive any immediate treatment for this, but continued counselling I had been having (that had already gone on for way longer than normal) whilst I got referred through psychological services of my health service. I also have an autism spectrum condition (hence my waffling on into detail) that I was diagnosed with during this period but which was not a surprise to me - it had always been there in the background, without me really knowing it, and I've since learned of various things about autism that very likely increased the likelihood of the experiences I had happening to me. My autism is not a problem: it is actually a major benefit to me.

As for the PTSD: I have not had extended periods of days on end of uncontrolled heart racing of late, that were happening up to around two years ago - it may get better over time but it is probably now lifelong. It is clearly still there up to today. I have never been formally diagnosed with it (the health service just won't seem to give me one) but it is clear to me, from the symptoms, I have it. When my diagnosis of autism came around, about five years after I had already had PTSD, the PTSD was not treated although I had by then stopped going to the places that triggered me and thus things lessened because of that. The reason the PTSD was not treated was because it wasn't bad enough and, it seems unfortunately, they were correct about that and therefore, as they were correct, I agreed with them. As usual, it would have been better if I had told lies and refused to accept their correct decision. So the PTSD not treated and basically left me with to resolve it myself. However I kept occasionally being triggered by the same matters in other public places. After going through several cycles lasting over a small number of years, I felt at a loss as to what to do as all avenues had, I felt, already been tried. I contacted the health service nonetheless, feeling that they could do absolutely nothing for me at this stage. To my surprise, I did get referred for some cognitive behaviour therapy, or rather to a person who also did CBT but I basically got some taling therapy for several weeks during which I got better, got worse, stayed the same, got better again but then went back to much how I was before - basically it fluctuated and not really left in any better or worse position than I was before I started the sessions. The number of sessions was reached and I was basically sent on my own way (but could come back but for treatment). In hindsight, the sessions were belatedly years too late and have been rather ineffective as I still have the PTSD to any extent (maybe I am setting the 'wrong' benchmark for a success).

The 'issue' (I have decided that it is not really a problem as things are only ever problems if they are seen that way) is that I have been listening to music and that, tonight, I have had to stop watching the video of one of the songs I like for home listening because the song - the so-called explicit version of Signs by Snoop Dogg/Justin Timberlake etc. - had reminded me of seeing the video of the so-called clean version that made me seriously uncomfortable and give me the serious problems in the gymnasium because of the language that the so-called clean version still contains albeit in the different form to that in the so-called explicit version (the trigger material being the points at which, for want of better expression, the censor edits occur in the soundtrack - the trigger material is the censor edits in the song - I have no problem with the actual word sounds themselves in soundtracks as those have never been played out in public places in which they have made me uncomfortable). I have thought earlier about how much of a problem gnireaws is for me (sorry I know that is ineffective) from my childhood as I still cannot, to this day, nearly forty years later, bring myself to say any of these words around friends even in situations in which all of them are saying them freely in pub conversation for example (that is not shouted across the room) and of no problem to me. I think part of this relates to the 'formal prosody' or odd language use of Asperger's syndrome people, and is an explanation as (I think) all words are processed in the academic part of my brain whilst this is not true of non-autistic people, whose emotional brain apparently enables them to use words that have been given this type in society and even be unaware they are doing so (I would never be unaware of anything if this was me - I think the words but never say them so that no-one could ever tell I was ever thinking of them - the most I say there is "this is rubbish" or "I can't be bothered" when other people would use different words).

Anyway - my issue is that I've had to stop watching this 'explicit' version because it reminds me of the offence I was caused, on several different airings, in the gym (by this and numerous other songs - well over 120 of them over every week, months and years on end) by the so-called clean version because of the explicit nature of the so-called clean version that fails to clean anything up but merely changes it from the sound of a word meaning to material, or lack of material, that means the same as the word and meaning - thus changing one thing from being something into being itself and thus no real change at all - instead of changing a word to the word "mess", they change to word to... the same word in a different form, namely the sound of static, or whatever it is, that uses the word through a method otherwise than the use of its full vocal sound and therefore uses the word in any format at all. (In fact I'm thinking all this later - at the time of the airings, ages ago, it simply came across much the same way as the word and communicated the same thing - if anything just had me thinking repetitively about it, especially because it is all in my thought and not actually used in full sound (but 'heard' in full sound in my head), and got me even more upset by having me go into the word even more so, ruminating in my mind as well as problematically for me making clear to other people in my presence in the gym (to my peception) that the song at those points is offensive, inappropriate and wrong and adding more to what I now understand to be my anxiety over the meaning of the censor edit or total lack of sound or whatever is there that communicates and puts in my mind directly at the same point the full words that each of them does. In addition, actually this song at other points is literal use of words - by which I mean means words in their literal meaning so is describing at one point a sex act and I now consider, as a man, in the light of "Me Too" campaign, which apparently goes retrospectively without any limitation to time whatsoever, that communicating that sexually explicit message to me, involving the use of offensive description in that context of gym hearing in a public place which is not a cinema or rock concert, but a wider public place like a supermarket, which made me uncomfortable was therefore sexual harassment of myself, as was every one of a minority of occasions of songs that were played. Namely the few that had sexually explicit meaning to the lyrics, literal use describing sex acts.

It is identical to someone in actual life entering the gym and shouting a sexual phrase across the whole room, as the amplified music transmits in the same way. As that would be sexual harassment, and that may be defined as anything related to sexual discussion (such as including that done by the use of the so-called clean versions that contain those messages in any form of communication whatsoever, that amounts to the use of "language" even if not the use of the audio sound of words) that makes anyone uncomfortable, this instances amounted to sexual harassment - and even one of them would be harassment, not necessary to have a course of conduct for the purposes of harrassment in the workplace (namely someone else's workplace, that of the gym staff of the gym) - I now only more recently realise that I have been the victim of sexual harassment, and suffered the same effects as some victims of sexual harassment, including stress, clinical depression at one stage and eventually PTSD. Me too, me too, me too!

Anyway, my issue is that I have had to stop watching the so-called explicit version (in a place in which it does not harass me because the song has not previously been uncomfortable to me in my home, where I am in a private place and not around strangers in an environment in which the words, as problematically indicated by the television there, are unacceptable according to society) - I've had to stop watching it because it's reminded me of seeing the so-called clean version (the visuals are the same, I don't know if they cover his mouth up and make it even more problematic by that being more visible to people around me and myself from a wider distance away - the very act of seeing someone's mouth blurred will, in an environment around strangers, tell everyone around me I fear that they are ginreaws and cause embarrassment to me by doing so). I've had to stop watching the 'explicit version' video. It would have been better, I feel, if I had stayed watching the documentary on television about poaching that some people would have found distressing. I felt like I didn't want to watch that (as I often see too many documentaries and it can get too much) so went and watched the first few moments of the music video before, bizarrely in hindsight now, I had to switch it off. This is the issue - that songs that I like in the home environment, I am not even able to watch them here nowadays for this reason.

So, the issue is I've had to stop watching and hearing the music video (because it reminds me of the gym and the continued and numerous repeated bad experiences there). And I guess I am just at a loss - though I don't feel as bad as last time I was at that stage - as not knowing what to do and no options available to me. There is nothing I can do - except have PTSD and have things like this happen for the rest of my life. It just can't continue to happen like this. I have reached an impasse, but there is nothing I can do (and that's the issue). There is nowhere I can go to get treated as no treatment, at this stage, will work (and none is available anyway as I am now left on my own with no CBT available and I don't feel going back for the more limited service now available at this stage will do anything). Maybe I just fling my hands up in despair - maybe that's what I'm meant to do.

I've also noticed, the process of signing up for this website - and therefore my reading of T&Cs that no-one else ever reads - that the site doesn't offer warnings because "Mind reading what could be a trigger for another is a negative thinking style, a problem all PTSD sufferers need to correct at some level."
It therefore seems, at some level, I need to correct the triggers but I don't see how I can do this. This website is correct to some extent though - because the Snoop Dogg 'explicit' song now needs a warning if it is not to trigger anyone in the world at all, as does every so-called clean version that are usually all of the materials that trigger me and that I try to avoid watching (although they are sometimes unmarked as they are assumed to be fine and the problem is severe triggerring on being exposed these days, yet again, always unacceptably to the trigger material (or trigger lack of material) in public places such as the car repair centre I took my car to when it needed repairing, supermarkets and all other places that are reasonable to visit to attempt to carry out normal life and in which I do not have access to an off switch to avoid hearing or being exposed to these offensive and triggering clean versions of the songs, where they do not reword the songs to use 'innocent' words that are always acceptable but instead contains edits, any suggestion at all, any pausing, blanking, reversed sound, bleeping, repetition of words in contexts in which they do not make a natural phrase etc. and therefore come across fully as the words that they mean and are problematically (to me) perceived by me as being known to all and increase my discomfort in their attempts to hide the words that are unsuccessful on every occasion or which come across as something even more uncomfortable than the original word or make things uncomfortable that would not have been uncomfortable in their uncensored form - for example, by removing the words "bullet" or "weed" and failing to make clear that that is all that they mean and instead coming across as something really uncomfortable or, else, if not a clear and specific word coming across from it, which is what usually happens, instead having me pondering through two, three, four different words and going round every one of them in my mind, wondering and wondering which word it means, and getting upset more at every thought of the 'upsetting' words, far beyond merely the original one only that would have been in the uncensored version.
 
Apologies - first my tab crashed, several times, at risk of losing my post (possibly better if I did) and then I was able to post only part of it. I went to edit it to add the rest but got timed out and now unable to edit the original post. So here is the continuation:

I get bothered nowadays when people communicate these words without actually using them - I feel better when they are out in the open and therefore clear the air and I can just ignore them, or sometimes even like them (obviously not if shouted out in real aggression and anger in real life but apart from that), but when people do not use them but refer to them in another way - such as a recent broadcast in which someone used an 'innocent' phrase when quoting someone not fully accurately as it then turned out as they added that it was a "cleaner" version of what they said - as soon as they said that, it put the real word in my mind and just had me concentrating on it and thinking about it even more. I can see why they didn't use the original; however so-called euphemism versions of words now bother me, having all become associated and contaminated and now more bothersome than the real words that I can ignore. I can't ignore a former euphemism that is now longer a euphemism since it is now offensive because it now bothers me, and I don't really think what the broadcaster said was more clean because it was contaminated more by the supposed 'dirty' word behind it, if they are now suggesting through their phrase that that is dirty, than the 'alleged' dirty word itself. If they had just used their so-called clean version and not made clear the original person actually said something supposedly more, and then been misleading me without me ever knowing it, it then would have been clean but adding something along the lines of "but I've used a cleaner version there" like they did immediately makes me think the so-called dirty version and thus contaminates what has been said. Once I was thinking of the 'real' word, distracted and diverted away from the rest of what was then said, whatever it was as I got diverted, it does threaten to annoy and then offend me, as this own post of mine, where I have not used any of the words, would itself probably now cause me offence if I were to go and read it back to myself because any reference to them, especially when they are not clear, would cause me to think of them again.
 
Now tried to add a final edit but out of time again.

So add to post number 2:
EDIT: If anyone gets this far and, even better, can understand me, well done! I would appreciate any suggestions etc. as to how to stop any music video at home from triggering me. (I suspect I am going over things already gone over in last counselling to which there is no solution. However, this is the whole conundrum - because it leaves me at a loss as to what to do to stop it. I suspect I then give my own thought of an answer: stop negative thinking, but then dispute that it is "negative" and take issue with detailed words again like I usually do: it is positive rather than negative, because stopping something that is negative, such as triggering, is a positive thing to do. So it isn't negative thinking. Yes it is! you say No it's not! I reply. Where do we go from here?)

The end!!
 
Do you have a “TLDR”...?

Reading comprehension goes out the window for many of us with ptsd, so long threads can be quite difficult to read. (Not criticizing, just sharing a common struggle.)

Thanks!
 
I suspect I then give my own thought of an answer: stop negative thinking, but then dispute that it is "negative" and take issue with detailed words again like I usually do: it is positive rather than negative, because stopping something that is negative, such as triggering, is a positive thing to do. So it isn't negative thinking. Yes it is! you say No it's not! I reply. Where do we go from here
“Negative Thinking Styles” isn’t thinking negatively as opposed to thinking positively. It’s another way of saying Primary Cognitive Distortions.

Primary cognitive distortions (negative thinking styles)

&

Solving the problem: reframing negative thoughts

Negative thinking styles part ii: reframing negative thoughts

It therefore seems, at some level, I need to correct the triggers but I don't see how I can do this.
Actually there are several different ways/methods to deal with triggers... personally I’m a big fan of exposure therapy (and no, that’s not simply exposing yourself to your triggers full stop, it’s a very gradual process, and it often takes many different forms). For a really brilliant overview, focusing mainly on one form, but discussing several, check this out >>>

Dead Link Removed
 
If music or music videos are a trigger for you then it probably best to avoid them until you feel safe again or until you are able to talk through your problems with someone qualified.
I haven't been able to listen to music for the last 10 months because it is a major trigger for me.
Welcome to the forum by the way.
 
So, the issue is I've had to stop watching and hearing the music video (because it reminds me of the gym and the continued and numerous repeated bad experiences there). And I guess I am just at a loss - though I don't feel as bad as last time I was at that stage - as not knowing what to do and no options available to me. There is nothing I can do - except have PTSD and have things like this happen for the rest of my life.
In some ways this is true of PTSD. You have it, you learn to live with it, and that can include managing your environment. If amplified sound in general causes distress (not uncommon for some people with autism), you can investigate earplugs and headphones as sound muffling devices, as a way to diminish the trigger so you can recognize it, and - through therapy - learn to take away it's power.
EDIT: If anyone gets this far and, even better, can understand me, well done! I would appreciate any suggestions etc. as to how to stop any music video at home from triggering me. (I suspect I am going over things already gone over in last counselling to which there is no solution. However, this is the whole conundrum - because it leaves me at a loss as to what to do to stop it. I suspect I then give my own thought of an answer: stop negative thinking, but then dispute that it is "negative" and take issue with detailed words again like I usually do: it is positive rather than negative, because stopping something that is negative, such as triggering, is a positive thing to do. So it isn't negative thinking. Yes it is! you say No it's not! I reply. Where do we go from here?)
I bolded the important part of this paragraph.

Right now, how to stop it is just, don't watch them. Others have suggested this. It really is that simple.

Long-term, the solution is getting therapy specifically designed to address trauma.
I've also noticed, the process of signing up for this website - and therefore my reading of T&Cs that no-one else ever reads - that the site doesn't offer warnings because "Mind reading what could be a trigger for another is a negative thinking style, a problem all PTSD sufferers need to correct at some level."
It therefore seems, at some level, I need to correct the triggers but I don't see how I can do this.
Thanks for reading the T&Cs, we do appreciate it. The answer to, "how do I correct the triggers" really is, therapy.
I now only more recently realise that I have been the victim of sexual harassment, and suffered the same effects as some victims of sexual harassment, including stress, clinical depression at one stage and eventually PTSD. Me too, me too, me too!
Verbal sexual harassment does not lead to PTSD. It can be traumatizing, and sounds like it was for you. My advice would be to seek out specific therapy targeted at processing traumatic events, because that will help. but I'm surprised you were told you have PTSD, if your trauma was verbal sexual harassment. That doesn't meet the necessary criteria for a PTSD diagnosis.
 
Thank you for all the replies. Apologies for my posting the posts and just leaving and not coming back until a week later, when I received an email from this website with a link back to this forum. I just didn't feel like coming back and looking at the replies so soon. I don't know - maybe because discussion of the issue, intended to help me, might instead trigger me? Or maybe I just needed some time before I came back. Anyway, no slight intended against anyone and hope it hasn't been interpreted that way. I will now get to replying to many of you.
 
I find triggers can extrapolate, that is, the words you left out your mind fills in, could be an example.

Triggers can lose a lot of power even realizing they are triggers, and going from there.

I believe it's been mentioned the site is designed to be triggering- which hurts but helps, in the long run. But a person has to determine their own limits, and pull back. It helps to recognize when you're being triggered (to practice that recognition and to name the feelings ), and sometimes eventually why (which can be helpful).

Welcome to you @Graphite . :)

Ps, triggers can be silly/ ~normal things, but if they're embedded in your trauma they'll be a trigger until you can work through them.
 
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