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

[1wanderer]

I wrote a post about our inability to plan for the future.

Remember time is distorted when PTSD is active. Our trauma does not have a normal sequence, no beginning, followed by amiddle and then ending

Our trauma is stored when we are in a dangerous situation, our fight -o-flight mechanism fires violently. The implicit memory is distorted and incomplete.

I think we may daydream about planning ahead, but long-term specific planning is rare.

May I inject that my PTSD lay dormant til my mid 50’s, so my experience of active PTSD is later in life.

Since my PTSD exploded, I have had good improvements but avoidance and dissociation have always been issues. we invest so much trying to survive each day that looking ahead has little energy.

Before PTSD exploded I was an overachiever. I think we work hard not to fail, we may overachieve at our job but never get around to the big picture of our potential

I would ask. How much do you risk?

How much danger are you willing to face?

 

[whiteraven]

Yeah...I've pretty much lost all interest in or hope for my future.

 

[EveHarrington]

I hit an age when it’s not possible to have dreams and goals anymore. My options are very limited. Therapy is nothing but gaslighting to the point where I’m supposed to be happy just being alive even though existence sucks.

 

[Lumos]

PTSD has definitely stopped me having the sort of life I could have had/wanted. The therapist I saw last year asked me about goals etc. I spent a long time thinking about it and several sessions later I came back to her and said I only want to be loved, like the way my mother should have loved me. I don't have any other goals, really. I don't dream of a career or anything 'normal'.

Even now, I still can't picture myself having a good future. And I'm already quite old. It really steals your life away.

 

[Teasel]

I hope I make some art. And some clothes. I dearly hope I'll have a friend or two. Friends that value me as much as I them. I hope I'll find some healing, and build a life I like.

 

[Aprilshowers]

A lifetime ago, in a house hundreds of miles away, as a pathetic, abused teenager talking on the phone to a friend I have not seen in decades, I remember describing to her my perfect future life....the unattainable, reach-for-the-stars, hopes and dreams of a broken girl who had learned as a very young child that happily-ever-afters existed in fairytales and for kids who lived in storybooks and who came from families with loving parents and in homes where peace and sanity reigned. My dreams could exist in my heart and my head but, for someone like me, they would never be on my radar and certainly never blossom into reality.

But that shattered girl on the phone was wrong.

My life has definitely been a Halloween scream house adventure guaranteed to traumatize and terrorize, but along the way I eventually found that bright red EXIT sign. In spite of living with the leftover baggage of emotional and physical disorders, chronic pain, and "PTSD on top of PTSD", that messed-up girl got everything she wanted plus a whole lot more. If someone would rewrite Cinderella, making her a bit crazy, suffering from PTSD, and with an odd sense of humor, that would be my story. It just took me a while to get here. 🪻🪻🪻🪻🪻🪻🪻🪻

 

[Bamma]

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.

I'm not sure if this is trauma related or a normal part of lifespan development, but at about the age of 45 I stopped thinking of my future, other than my eventual death, and started worrying about what I'm going to leave behind. Specifically, my only goal for myself has become a sort of "breaking even", where I can hopefully die feeling like I've contributed as much to the world as I've taken from it.

 

[Bamma]

I'm not sure if this is trauma related or a normal part of lifespan development, but at about the age of 45 I stopped thinking of my future, other than my eventual death, and started worrying about what I'm going to leave behind. Specifically, my only goal for myself has become a sort of "breaking even", where I can hopefully die feeling like I've contributed as much to the world as I've taken from it.

(I'm not sure why the original poster was quoted four times above. I feel like I've done something naughty, but it wasn't intentional.)

 

[Sideways]

Mod Note:

(I'm not sure why the original poster was quoted four times above. I feel like I've done something naughty, but it wasn't intentional.)

The quote functions were a bit of a learning curve for me (and plenty of other folks) too! So we have a Testing Forum dedicated to practicing using the forum functions:)

 

[Friday]

Yeah...I've pretty much lost all interest in or hope for my future.

Been there. Done that.

Recovered the flat spin? Every OTHER time, to date.

So it’s still worth attempting. IME.