What Do You Call That Feeling?

[sun seeker]

What I have found though is that it can be more complicated than it appears: for example an emotional flashback interfacing with depression or helplessness in the present

That's a good point. An emotional flashback interfacing with depression or helplessness in the present. I'm going to make a note of that. Part of the feeling is what I would call "devastated", and what I mean by that is completely helpless to do anything to make my situation better, like groping around in the dark for something to hold onto but knowing there is nothing, you are helpless and all you can do is wait and hope it gets better. And my present situation does has felt like that for quite some time.

 

[Tinyflame]

Totally understand that @sun seeker .

I think establishing new thoughts & boundaries with your mom will contribute to helping that a lot. I think not everything is ptsd-related, but the ptsd can thrive on or get a stronger foothold when we aren't aware of other dichotomies occurring. Some times the way we believe we need to view things starts to become the only way we can see things. :(

And ptsd is easier to manage when other areas of our life can be improved upon. It's very difficult to initially not expect the ptsd is the cause of all of it, but I find after many years it colors it (through self-blame etc) indirectly. But 'it' is separate from other things.

Big hugs for you. :hug:

 

[Fadeaway]

OH wow, this sounds exactly like what I have tried to put a name to for a while. It is a physical agony, that I have have to scream and bite down on something to bear it. Yet it isn't physical at all!. Pain relievers won't touch it. Anti-anxiety meds don't touch it.

It is sort of like that feeling you get during a free fall and your stomach ends up in your chest. It creates a vacuum that lets every pain I have ever felt in at once and I can feel it all. It feels like death of all hope.

It hasn't gone away for weeks now and I have reached out every way I could.

 

[Friday]

@Fadeaway ... This may sound odd... But try a decongestant. & possibly an antibiotic. Free fall feelings are caused by the fluid in your inner ear moving in all directions at once. Inner ear infections, or pressure from mucus via a sinus or a normal ear infection, also create a similar feeling. Along with excruciating pain. That narcotics don't touch. Pain isn't relieved until the pressure is relieved. Also, while the pain is usually localized to head/face... Pain can "refer" (show up elsewhere, especially in under enervated areas like the abdomen and head) in very, very weird places. It's one reason why docs ask seemingly bizarre questions. (My shoulder hurts, why are you palpating my abdomen??? = referred pain from a tumor in the abdomen)

On a slight tangent, many agoraphobes are "cured" these days because they were never agoraphobic... They had chronic inner ear infections (or malformations, or injuries sustained during head trauma) that gave them vertigo the more they moved. So, over time, they ceased moving as much as possible. They could reference their location in space,visually, only as long as they knew the area well. If they didn't? Vertigo. And panic.

<grin> Realize the freefall may have merely been a metaphor. But when there's an easy button, I hate to miss it.

 

[sun seeker]

Fadeaway, thanks for sharing, it sounds like a similar thing for sure... but you've been there for weeks at a time? Wow. I don't know how I would stand that.

I perked up at your use of the word "vacuum" though you are using it a bit differently. I've tried to explain that the pain is so huge that to express it (literally, to get it out) I'd have to turn inside out, like you would if a very powerful vacuum cleaner were pulling at your insides.

Did you know when JK Rowling invented the Dementors, she was personifying the feeling of depression? They suck all the happiness out of you, and if they get a chance they suck your soul out through your mouth. It's a graphic and apt description.

FridayJones, interesting information... but for me at least, I'm 99.9999% sure this is not a physically originating problem. Of course I can't speak Fadeaway.

 

[Fadeaway]

@FridayJones I have inner ear problems and this is not caused by inner ear. I used the free falling description but maybe "a kick in the gut" is more apt.

@sun seeker seeker Yes, I have had it several weeks in a row now with no end in sight, and I don't know if I can go on much longer.

 

[sun seeker]

Yes, I have had it several weeks in a row now with no end in sight, and I don't know if I can go on much longer.

That's awful. Do you have a friend or anyone you trust who could spend some time with you and just listen, or at least be with you while you make your way through hell? I know it's hard to trust, but wow... no one should have to go through something like that alone.

 

[Fadeaway]

I have zero friends, I am new to the area I currently live in and have a hard time meeting people after coming out of a 7 year total isolation period.

 

[sun seeker]

That's really hard Fadeaway, I'm sorry it is so bad for you. I don't know what to suggest but keep in touch, okay? We care about you here.

 

[IrisL]

I gone threw with that, but hmmmm maybe sounds strong, but I dealt with it differently ... I felt is coming and no control of it, trying to control it down and is just gets worse...my solution was went to the bathroom - no lights - darkness mostly closed the door and flipping let it out. Kills your body that's for sure and your brain too... After I was way slower by movement... Don't try to stick for that a word you have to describe your feeling instead of try to give one word- you would like to open to your therapist and make his/her job easier to he/she can help you more proper adequate mode. So don't do short cuts.is not a nice feel, but what I learnt is better to flip let out the hell totally- you have to know it consciously will not kill you - but will be a hell of a pain. And somehow not after immediately but day by day somehow makes more clue with the things. For example can make it worse if somebody hug you or touch you?
And if you let it out when you do, make sure the place is good for that... Once I cried all day...started with 2hours cry ... Stopped deep depression - again cry longer and so on ... And can be tiring. But if your feeling not double with self harm, it would be safe to let it go.
What you need to learn is let it out, how ever is coming out...see as a massive splinters in the body and how you pull it out will be painful, but is have to come out. I know is scary, but after (at me worked) somehow the flashbacks and the rest is easier to deal with... The point I think take the thing for itself.
And usually make myself calmer "if I can feel that huge hell pain that means I'm able to feel the same opposite good" - if you can't feel pain you can't feel good neither. See it as a proof of you are alive and you are taking back what's yours, but we all have a massive job to do a deep spring clean in our emotions and trauma.
Is it useful? I know is a bit hard bottom...

 

[Kas_Can_Fly]

I also have this, or at least my impression of what you've said. Unbearable, intense dread, terror and fear is one way of describing it succinctly, but really it's this feeling that any and everything is painfully overwhelming and all too much, it's crippling and devastating and it makes me literally curl up in a ball and hide. Yet this is so much more to it than that as it's seemingly all encompassing infecting every muscle, every nerve and every last corner of my brain. And it's crazy enough to experience it for even a few moments, but for some reason I've decided to set up home in it and now I can't claw my way out. I don't know what to call it though and I'm certain I've probably explained it wrong here - it seems unpinnable, unnamable and some how liquid in definition - always over the next hill or moving to another definition in an instant.