What Are You Good At? Good Qualities Of Ptsd Sufferers

[Justpassintime]

Wait a minute, ya'll can plan? Really? I don't mean to but I can only live in the now. I have no point of reference for making plans for ME in the future, not even like a little. Wow, I will teach multitasking or whatever to learn planning. So jealous..... :D

 

[Kas_Can_Fly]

I am able to handle what other people see as traumatic far more easily than most such as a death in the family or a loved one needing to be taken to the hospital with suspected kidney stones.

 

[katiekat]

I cannot plan either! I do have ADD though. My fiance calls me a "very instinctual creature" because I just react to things intuitively without thinking/planning. I tried to plan a "Pinterest Party" with my friends and everyone was to bring a dish they have never made that they found on Pinterest. Needless to say, I was only able to start making mine after the first few guests arrived. I am now discovering though through therapy that it takes me a while to process information and understand how I feel about things...which can hinder me in the moment, but after a few hours of mulling things over, I can create a wonderful written response to things.

 

[rightkindofme]

I'm a planner. I am highly empathetic. I am intense and I think it is a good thing. I can detect patterns in other peoples behavior really well.

I am adaptable. I can walk into any social situation and pretend to fit in and make quick friends. I had to learn how to be pleasing to people. I can't maintain it forever but I do well with first impressions.

I feel like having experienced a lot more pain than usual makes me a nicer person. I am extremely loving and forgiving even as I have learned how to have more boundaries to protect myself.

 

[quic]

A bit off topic. But I think good, evil, love and hate are all part of a spectrum of one thing, Love. Evil is the extreme opposite, lack or absence of love. It is all relative and depends largely on perspective. Even Hitler did not think of himself as evil. What is evil to me may not be evil to another.

 

[jbrowning]

I am adaptable. I can walk into any social situation and pretend to fit in and make quick friends. I had to learn how to be pleasing to people. I can't maintain it forever but I do well with first impressions.
.

I can also fake this well enough that my wife thought that I really enjoyed these situations. I can usually only do this for a short time before I need to go 'recover'. How do you manage this? Do you have anything you can share on how you make more long term or deeper connections? I struggle with this.

This is such a great thread. It's uplifting to read additional stories that show that I'm not unusual or broken like I had previously felt (before learning about and accepting PTSD challenges).

 

[fly away home]

Art! Not sure if I'm good at it as that's kind of subjective and up to the individual who views it and to be honest I'm not too interested if others 'like' it but it sure is good for me, and completely necessary! I would not have survived this far without it.

I'm glad I have it.

 

[radicalgratitude]

Good question! I'm a good writer, singer, and dancer (although I only took two years of dance as a child and it was polka:p). I am good with children. I am a good public speaker and a good cook/baker. I am funny. I am patient.

 

[katiekat]

See... we aren't so broken, are we? Glad so many of us have such awesome traits!

 

[DMerish]

I'm resourceful . . . I'm good at solving problems, and planning and organizing when other people are involved (I'm lousy at planning and organizing my own life). I can connect with almost anyone regardless of culture, background or age. I'm a good cook, and good at making people feel at comfortable/getting a party going. I have broad interests in several areas and I'm a decent conversationalist. I'm good in a crisis, growing plants and vegetables, and being around kids. I have no natural artistic talent, but I can copy what other people produce fairly well ;)

 

[The Albatross]

Crap I only thought of one thing. Now I feel like an under achiever. I'm blaming it on my ear ache. :O_o:

 

[rightkindofme]

I can also fake this well enough that my wife thought that I really enjoyed these situations. I can usually only do this for a short time before I need to go 'recover'. How do you manage this? Do you have anything you can share on how you make more long term or deeper connections? I struggle with this.

Well, I try to spend two to four hours out of 24 alone. It helps me not freak out and start screaming. If I am with other people and their emotional energy ALL the time I can't transition from the fake appeasement into something real.

The way I make real friends is I pull one person out of a social group and I groom them to be my friend. I look for likely targets. I deal best with other hyper sexual people (even if I'm not looking for a sexual partner) so I listen to gossip about who gets around too much. I can be friends with anyone who plays the game of hunting for sex a lot. We will have a lot in common we can't talk about in mixed company.

I also look for trauma survivors. I can pick people out of a crowd and say, "I bet you were molested by a relative" or "I get the impression you were raped and it was traumatic but you were an adult and it was outside your family and you has support but you still struggle." These differences are clear to me from many feet away. I freak people out regularly by guessing details of their lives. I moved a lot. I've met an extraordinary number of people. I see patterns.

A lot of what I do is meet people and immediately start telling the positive things I see. I am very life affirming. I want people to feel wanted and important so I tell them that they are. Over and over.

I have been warning people about my mental health issues for about eight years now and it has improved my life. "At some point I may kind of disappear. Please don't take it as a rejection. A long time ago bad things happened and my brain has forgotten how to be not afraid so sometimes I run away in fear. It isn't your fault. I just do that. If I sometimes seem very angry, please don't take it personally. I am sorry I am still so mad at people who are gone from my life but I am. I am so sorry." I get a lot more slack if I coach people into knowing how to give me slack.

For me the most intense lifetime connections are with other weird people who don't have a big support network. We care about one another partially because no one else will, which is hard sometimes. In a useful fashion I live in an area with a high density of weirdos and many have no family so I have as much company and affection as I can stand.

I forgot to mention art on my last post though. My house is full of murals. I live in Wonderland. My house and yard are more beautiful and fun by the year. :)