What are your hopes and dreams for future? It feels like my PTSD stopped me from having them

[alchemy11]

These past couple of years I've been working so much on creating my business. I have done so much inner work. Done so much healing. Most days I do super well. But here is something disturbing that I've noticed: I never dream about the kind of future that I want to experience. I have no real dreams for my future. It's like, most of my life was spent trying to heal my past, my mind is having a hard time learning to think forwards, not backwards or just get side-tracked.

Have you experienced this? Do YOU have hopes and dreams? What do you wish you could do (again) if you healed the worst of the trauma???

I think I'm starting to have small glimpses. Like I wish to own my own home one day, go travel with my kids. Run a thriving business where I help as many people as possible. But I still struggle with having concrete dreams .... but I know many people who have them, and they all don't seem to have severe trauma in their past. Anyways. Thanks for taking the time to read and respond.

 

[mamachick]

I feel the same. My trauma that activated all this was 15 yrs ago. Best I could describe it was "foreshortened sense of future". I did a lot of work and in some ways it has helped, but to be honest, a part of me still felt stuck and I just couldn't get past it. Finally, I made a conscious decision to accept the way I am and live with it. I still have to check myself and correct thinking and behaviors. However, I dont put myself in situations that make me really uncomfortable. I have never been able to get my dreams/goals back. I am retired and have grandchildren.So I have no goals such as work or buying a home, but I do desire time with my kids and grandkids. Matter of fact, just got back from a weeks beach vacation. My physical pain prevents me from dreams like traveling more (I use to have). I can really only think about the next month or so, or the coming season. I did have a goal of putting a new kitchen in, and could see myself becoming a better cook. Well, I got my dream kitchen a couple yrs ago, but eat out more than I cook.....lol

However, I am very grateful for the people in my life, and for the security that I feel at my age. I wish I had dreams and goals, and that I was working on them. The truth is I am floating thru my golden years because deep down I still have that sense of foreshortened future. I dont think I show it to others as much as I had. Im ok with the way I am. After all, a lot happened in the past 15 years and my health is not the best.So I kind of live for today.
Im sorry, dont think my response is real helpful

 

[arfie]

hello alchemy. welcome to the forum. your username has me fighting the urge to go running for my nerd cape. alchemy is a history (herstory, too) which intrigues me.

anyhoo. . . getting back on topic. . .

But I still struggle with having concrete dreams .... but I know many people who have them, and they all don't seem to have severe trauma in their past.

a common theme within my own peer support circle is, "running to the future." our coping mechanism is to deny our traumatic pasts by losing ourselves in hopes and dreams for the future. "forgive and forget" was my own family mantra. "i'm over that." and "just move on" are other common mantras. the most vicious lies in the world are the ones we tell ourselves. it took me a goodly while to admit that DeNial is not just a river in egypt. a goodly part of my own therapy work has been dedicated leaving my dream world for long enough to deal with reality. i still get lost in my dreams entirely too often, but? ? ? works in progress.

but that is not to say that the other extreme is any healthier.
steadying support while you find your own balance
welcome aboard. you are not alone

 

[Friday]

I think I'm starting to have small glimpses. Like I wish to own my own home one day, go travel with my kids. Run a thriving business where I help as many people as possible.

I call that ‘moving from bright point to bright point’.

The best trick I know of? Continuing to ‘act as if’ and follow the plans I make during bright points, even/especially when everything is dark & makes no sense / I don’t understand the point. Then? During the next bright point, I evaluate/reevaluate & make more plans. Follow those. Rinse, lather, repeat. Until? I’m totally clear, all the time, or most of it. With dark points in the light, instead of the reverse.

It takes awhile, instead of being able to act & react in real time. More like sailing, than driving. Stay the course, check, stay the course, check, stay the course.

 

[emily1890]

I don't have any

they were to go to university and to become a theme park engineer, but I am unable to work and I don't have the qualifications to even get passed 5th grade

so I don't know. it honestly just feels like I'm sitting here waiting for someone to tell me, this is what you need to do next in your life (why can't lives have guidebooks?)

I always found it weird that we don't really know how to live our lives and work out the future, but things like walking and talking (which when you think about it are extremely hard), just come naturally

we can walk and talk, but can't live our lives.. hmm. just some random observation

 

[alchemy11]

I feel the same. My trauma that activated all this was 15 yrs ago. Best I could describe it was "foreshortened sense of future". I did a lot of work and in some ways it has helped, but to be honest, a part of me still felt stuck and I just couldn't get past it. Finally, I made a conscious decision to accept the way I am and live with it. I still have to check myself and correct thinking and behaviors. However, I dont put myself in situations that make me really uncomfortable. I have never been able to get my dreams/goals back. I am retired and have grandchildren.So I have no goals such as work or buying a home, but I do desire time with my kids and grandkids. Matter of fact, just got back from a weeks beach vacation. My physical pain prevents me from dreams like traveling more (I use to have). I can really only think about the next month or so, or the coming season. I did have a goal of putting a new kitchen in, and could see myself becoming a better cook. Well, I got my dream kitchen a couple yrs ago, but eat out more than I cook.....lol

However, I am very grateful for the people in my life, and for the security that I feel at my age. I wish I had dreams and goals, and that I was working on them. The truth is I am floating thru my golden years because deep down I still have that sense of foreshortened future. I dont think I show it to others as much as I had. Im ok with the way I am. After all, a lot happened in the past 15 years and my health is not the best.So I kind of live for today.
Im sorry, dont think my response is real helpful

Thanks so much for sharing! Of course your response is helpful. I am grateful you took the time to share. Sorry to hear about your physical pain and how that's impacting the quality of your life but really glad to hear that you have wonderful people in your life. That just makes all the difference, doesn't it?

I don't have any

they were to go to university and to become a theme park engineer, but I am unable to work and I don't have the qualifications to even get passed 5th grade

so I don't know. it honestly just feels like I'm sitting here waiting for someone to tell me, this is what you need to do next in your life (why can't lives have guidebooks?)

I always found it weird that we don't really know how to live our lives and work out the future, but things like walking and talking (which when you think about it are extremely hard), just come naturally

we can walk and talk, but can't live our lives.. hmm. just some random observation

RIGHT?! I thought so many times, 'if only I had some kind of guidebook to show me the next step'... I so get it. I am so sorry to hear about your broken dreams love the thoughts on walking and talking and how complex that really is, yet we practice it and it becomes second nature, but figuring out our own lives... a whole other ball game! Thanks so much for your reply!!

I call that ‘moving from bright point to bright point’.

The best trick I know of? Continuing to ‘act as if’ and follow the plans I make during bright points, even/especially when everything is dark & makes no sense / I don’t understand the point. Then? During the next bright point, I evaluate/reevaluate & make more plans. Follow those. Rinse, lather, repeat. Until? I’m totally clear, all the time, or most of it. With dark points in the light, instead of the reverse.

It takes awhile, instead of being able to act & react in real time. More like sailing, than driving. Stay the course, check, stay the course, check, stay the course.

Love that visual, moving from bright point to bright point! Yes!! I guess the trick is not to get stuck in the darkness in between. What a brilliant idea to make the plans during the bright points. I do notice that I tend to do that, but then get overwhelmed by the darkness and thrown off track sometimes. I guess like you said, it's a matter of generally staying the course. Thanks so much for your reply

 

[enough]

I think all of the energy that was spent being hyper-vigilant so i would survive to have a future was supposed to go towards planning how to spend it when it happened, probably because I couldnt have been convinced it would happen.
Like the OP i was busy with the business if life too, so busy that a decades long career kind of feels like one day times five days in a week times fifty two weeks in a year times decade after decade. And now, maybe because I am so surprised by it, the future feels like a gift and even though i have the fruits of all of that labor to survive in it, I am feeling totally unprepared.
the whole “sense of having a foreshortened future” thing is very real to me.

 

[Freddyt]

The reality of PTSD is - you cant separate the past and present. Your head is still living in those moments of trauma and in a state of Fight or Flight.

There is no future when in that state. There is now. Because your need to survive trauma is still now. Other conditions like ADHD and Executive Dysfunction can also affect how the passage of time is perceived (IE: This morning took forever to pass, and then it was suddenly past dinner time.) which adds to this because last week seems months ago and that appointment you had next week is suddenly an hour from now.

Which makes the future an abstract time that is not now......and hard to plan or put expectations on. Bright point to bright point is a great way of describing how to plan because when we are symptomatic - perspective on time is really really messed up and its hard to have much more than appointments in my calendar......

That's what therapy is about - peeling the past and present apart until trauma is in the past not the present. As that happens we begin to gain more sense of perspective of the past present and future.....

 

[Ecdysis]

I don't know if it's been mentioned in this thread yet but there's a specific psychological term called "foreshortened future" that covers many of these aspects. If you google it you'll find many good links/ articles explaining it which might be helpful.

 

[Lionheart]

There are some song lyrics that go something like this...."Whether I'm 12 or whether I'm 64, gonna spend my time like there ain't gonna be no more..."

I have a small bucket list of things I'd like to do, (see my grandsons grow up, go to Sedona, Az., visit a reservation in Cherokee, NC, etc., etc.) but I don't kid myself about these things. I am going on 63 years old. Maybe they will happen, maybe they won't...Still, I try to put all of my energy into living just one day at a time.

Making the best of whatever is happening right now, makes 'now' the most important thing in my life.

And so basically, I am a happy camper. My life certainly did not turn out like I would have wanted, but I managed to find inner peace regardless and that is worth untold riches.

What are my hopes and dreams? Just to draw breath another day and make the most of the time still allotted to me to show my daughter and grandsons that I love them. That to me, is the most important thing... to spend my time like there ain't gonna be no more.

 

[Sinkhole89]

I think I spent so much of my time dreaming of the future as a means of escape I almost feel betrayed for it not looking like or feeling like what I wanted. and find it hard to now think of a future because I am meant to be living in it.
Now thinking of the future just feels full of anxiety or disappointment because things have gone so fast and I am not where I am meant to be.

 

[Erma]

The reality of PTSD is - you cant separate the past and present. Your head is still living in those moments of trauma and in a state of Fight or Flight.

There is no future when in that state. There is now. Because your need to survive trauma is still now. Other conditions like ADHD and Executive Dysfunction can also affect how the passage of time is perceived (IE: This morning took forever to pass, and then it was suddenly past dinner time.) which adds to this because last week seems months ago and that appointment you had next week is suddenly an hour from now.

Which makes the future an abstract time that is not now......and hard to plan or put expectations on. Bright point to bright point is a great way of describing how to plan because when we are symptomatic - perspective on time is really really messed up and its hard to have much more than appointments in my calendar......

That's what therapy is about - peeling the past and present apart until trauma is in the past not the present. As that happens we begin to gain more sense of perspective of the past present and future.....

Thank you. This is a help to me.