Volatile Avoidance // Fight&flight

[rosey]

Thanks, @rosey. It is a daily practice, isn't it, trying to keep the nervou...

Really feel for you @Lola Nocheprieta sometimes i guess we just have to accept what has happen has happen, not beat self up over it and keep trying. Something else that is easier said than done and easy to forget when you most need it.

Hat off to you for your honesty that is a great strength.

 

[Friday]

Can you explain more about why it is making life so hard now? Do you actually need to be helped by a uniformed service? Or is it something that has built and built so it is taking over your mind, just in case you need to do it?

Because I'm actually trying to get help in regards to military stuff. Which is making me edgy as f*ck. And while I'd actually like to see Medina Suk in Casablanca, I don't really wanna wake up in Morocco next week, or 2 years from now, with only the vaguest of recollections as to how I got there, or how long it's been. Which has happened, before. Many, many times. And almost happened again, yesterday. (Which pissed me off enough to post the Q). Broke only slows me down. If not the next flight, furthest away? It's the next boat I can crew, or next ride I can hitch, or next national wilderness I can walk my happy ass off into. I hit f*ck it, and I'm just gone. Or jail. Jail would also suck. And unlike coming outta one of my run motherf*cker run jags I don't really have any say in how long I'm there. When I do go off the rails i tend to do so really hard. My personal version of f*ck this noise tends to be massively self destructive, several thousand miles away.

Need? No. I think need is overstating, for sure. But I think I've come to the end of the line with every other available option. It's been almost 20 years. I'll still keep working on my own. Always have, always will. I'll still -I hope- come here. Here is hugely helpful. But I'm sick and damn tired of running. And at a certain point it just makes sense that if I want help in regards to military stuff, that there will be people from the military, there.

Less that it's built up in my mind, more that I've done every rational thing I can think of to avoid it (working on my own, working on anything conceivable that's not that, working with civilians with no military background, not working on anything at all, etc.), so now I've hit the irrational avoidance.

 

[Ronin]

Friday what de-spins everything?

What sits Friday on her ass with a happy smile?

 

[Ronin]

A different thought that may be too much - what is the cost you believe anyone will pay? Given you are willing to risk everything pretty hard, assuming a part of you believes that action makes it worth, so I would start there - identifying what the f*ck precisely I am triaging for, and just how current it is now, and what makes it current?

Working on making it less current until it registers as a painful past, but a past.

 

[Ronin]

Of, or in the vicinity of... anyone who wears or has ever worn a uniform.

... Can you turn that into a random jerk person?

Someone where that don't convey similarity, much less authority, much less anything with power, but is a pft bzzt flies, eat me, just a trash piece of clothing? (I know it likely won't be ever. Because respect. Because honor. Because lives. Because friends. Because loyalty. Because a billion of things. But we're not talking that land; we're talking Friday Needs To Cope land, and they just overlap, for a bit.)

 

[Friday]

Alright... So took a couple days to process this. And seriously thanks to all // Sorry for the late reply, might hit more later but wanted to get this bit up.

Been treating it like a trigger/stressor (guess it is a stressor? Maybe? IDK) for the past few years, but not enough, apparently if I'm still rocketing o-1oo and getting zero f*cking headway on it. Maybe been focused too much on the avoid, and the result I want, instead of the result I have and how to alter that.

So I broke it down into smaller pieces. What helps? Physical. What's part of the stress? People. Cha. Cashew, dead on too much ethos/everything mixed up in vets & everything piles on even before showing my crazy much less admitting it's anything other than good times.

So... For now... Signed up to do crew/rowing 2 days a week. It's physical. It's people. It's orders & acting together but on a very f*cking limited scale. Start getting used to doing around people again. Then maybe work on being around people. IDK. Can't really think that far ahead at the moment. IDK if I'll even get my ass there, been a few years. But it's a piece of this whole thing, and it makes my heart vice but doesn't send me over the edge, and the physical should help soothe the tightness...so. Pieces. Smaller pieces. With redundancies built in.

 

[scout86]

I'm not going to say I get what you're talking about, because I'm not sure I do. There IS a whiff of familiarity about it though. And, the last couple weeks here have been a bit messy, so I don't quite trust my ability to either understand OR explain. But here goes........

I think I have/had a few things that set me off like what you're talking about. One of them was my mother. (Complicated situation.) She was difficult but she also pushed bad buttons. Sometimes maybe on purpose, sometimes probably not. The thing is, she could say something, and I'd take off on a big, dramatic fight/flight kind of a deal, even though she was a little old lady who weighed less than 100# and couldn't have hurt me if she wanted to. My T kept saying things like "You MIGHT want to find a better way to think about that." I eventually realized (with his help) that what I was reacting to wasn't real. It may have been based on stuff that WAS real, back before I could walk, but it wasn't real NOW. I learned to make a big point of distinguishing between the situation as it actually exists now and other stuff. That helped. I do hypervigilant real well, so paying attention to what's really there was doable.

One other thing....... Now that I know my T (this wouldn't have worked until I knew I could trust him) if I had a issue with, say guys that show up to therapy wearing shorts and Hawaiian shirts (he does). I'd have said before hand, "You know M, I have trouble asking for help from guys wearing shorts and Hawaiian shirts. What can we do to deal with that?" And then I'd listen to what he said. He's really good at this stuff.

I get that asking for help is crazy hard. For me too. And, I get that fessing up to some of this kind of wacko stuff that doesn't even make sense to US much less to 'normal people' is also hard. But, you might consider prefacing your request for help with the admission that it's really hard and specifically because of the military/uniform thing. That won't make it go away, but it almost always seems like it makes it easier (to me) and at least it might help them understand why you ran out of the room.

Good luck! I'm pulling for you!!:tup:

 

[Ronin]

Yep, got it, and hope this works.

Different thought - while you are at people, would not thinking them concretely, but helpful patterns of them and building interaction on THAT, things not really about the people but safety-comfort-bits making sense-what have you help any, or assist you in keeping the connection so it ain't Get up, Crawl the f*ck back under the rock, back to walking in circles kind of development?

No rush. Just co-thinking on where the hell I am stuck right now. September makes flight-just-go issues worse for me rather regularly and if anything of what I am on might be even possibley useful, sharing that. :)

 

[Ka-9]

I'm glad you posted this, big help as I was searching around for information on this. I'm caught unable to want to do anything, or be round' groups anymore, and have these random, violent or way over the top explosions/reactions that are getting more frequent.

We have chickens for eggs....so this little hen was laying in a puddle last night, obviously dying, so I wrapped it up and held it until it died. My wife mentioned simply that it was silly, so I exploded way out on her "f*cking shut you're f*cking....you ...etc etc". Thank god she understands... but I couldn't even feel it coming? Just a brain/body zap. I f*cking hate that, It's shameful to me. Other weird inane things, like being a passenger in a vehicle and a coyote, or falcon is on the road waaay ahead....total body explosion like you said, electric/shock whatever..fear? I'm not sure because your's seems more vague or random.... but I guess as you suspect, there is something way subtle lurking there.

I'm uber loner now...I hate being around anyone, I hate seeing cop or military uniforms, definite shame/hte for me for what it's worth.

I chose the Farrier path for that exact reason (Scout I think you are too..), be alone with a horse. When I feel too much like a ghost...I just wander around a Wal-mart or something stupid, just to see people for a short time, like a redneck zoo.

 

[scout86]

I chose the Farrier path for that exact reason

You know, (and this is kind of off topic, so 'sorry!') I had an email exchange a couple years ago with the author of my favorite PTSD book. He asked what I did for a living. When I told him, he said he found that interesting and that, when he thought about it, he knew quite a few combat vets (his specialty) who were working in some sort of craft. Making furniture, doing stained glass, an assortment of not real common, solo, working with your hands but still requiring thought, type stuff. He said there seems to be something about that kind of thing that works for some people. Not having to depend on others much, maybe. Having others depending on you, maybe? Being in control (mostly) of the quality of your work? And quality being important?

And, not only can't I see anything stupid about holding that hen while she died, I can't see how anyone else could think that either. I think it was a sweet and wonderful thing to do. In the end, maybe we all die alone, but it's cool to think it might not have to be totally alone.