What Exactly Is This?

[Deleted member 30956]

I've never been able to verbalize this before. Help me figure this out. Even better, if someone can tell me that I'm not a freak of nature and that this is kind of normal for PTSD, I won't be hating myself.

Prime example:
Late afternoon: went to apply for food stamps and public assistance.

Evening: went to a grocery store to buy some essentials. This is a nicer grocery place in my neighborhood, with some yuppies and affluent people shopping. Walking the aisles I'm processing my situation and feeling disjointed and utterly alone. No sense of stability, compared to most people in that store. I start to feel weird. There is a man who seems to be avoiding looking at me or sharing the same aisle space, and leaves as soon as I come by (the aisles are extremely narrow). He is probably picking up on my energy and is scared of me. I feel terrified. I pass by some woman who's studying a food item, and she turns and looks at my face with a prolonged stare. Is my yucky energy showing? I buy the food and walk home in terror, trying to catch my breath and longing for the safety of my room.

Morning: I want nothing but to stay indoors all day, using the computer aimlessly or playing video games to soothe myself. Tempted to cancel two very important appointments. I feel worn out. If I could stay inside two days straight, I'd do it. For me there is nothing more soothing than staying in home all day in pj's, munching on yummies, browsing the web or watching movies... (bad coping, however).

Was that a panic attack? Is my desire to stay indoors called agoraphobia? What the f**k is going on???? If I could understand this process, I could now have an explanation for all those call-outs at previous places of employment...

 

[DogwoodTree]

He is probably picking up on my energy and is scared of me. <snip> Is my yucky energy showing?

I don't know what it's called, or if it's PTSD, or HSP, or crazy superstition, or what, but I have similar experiences. I feel like my "yucky" energy gets all over people, so I work really hard at keeping it all contained within myself and not contaminating anyone. My T has asked what I think is so toxic about myself, and I really don't know. I just feel like I'm poisoning the atmosphere, or leaking on people, without meaning to. There are times I won't even let myself think about people because I don't want to leak my energy onto them or drain energy from them, from a distance.

Thanks for helping to put some of this into words...

 

[Friday]

When I get overwhelmed, I isolate. That can be in the short term in response to something small (like a social gathering, or being all hypervigilant in public), taking an hour or a day to recover; or it can be in the long term (weeks months etc.) in response to something big or a series of small things filling up the stress cup.

The short term ones I plan on... Just taking some time to destress.

 

[Deleted member 30956]

I don't know what it's called, or if it's PTSD, or HSP, or crazy superstition, or what, but I have s...

Thank you Dogwood. I'm sorry. I relate a lot. This aspect is not as bad as it used to be, not after I had some therapeutic inner cleansing with sacred medicine. I know it's all irrational, but feeling seems to be second nature, doesn't it.

My main concern though is why I so often have days of not wanting to go anywhere. Another example is I don't go to the college campus except for courses. My predicament is that among people I often feel I'm dying of thirst standing knee-deep in water. I feel lonely and alone 90% of the time, but the catch is that I've some sort of guard and people don't reach out to me and don't start talking. So I walk around locked up in the terror of my isolation, feeling like a leper until I start to feel unbearably uncomfortable and want nothing but to run home. It's very exhausting.... :'(
I think the reason for my wanting to stay home is to avoid this intense and terrifying loneliness. At home I don't feel as alone as I do in a crowd of people.

 

[Deleted member 30956]

When I get overwhelmed, I isolate. That can be in the short term in response to something small (lik...

This helps to make better sense of this. Thank you for sharing, too...

In the job world, it's probably impossible to succeed with these things popping up? :(

 

[Stickler]

Stickler says they'll be days like this, they'll be days like this, Stickie said
( Stickie said, Stickie said)
:whistling:

Yeah, that " I'm dripping contamination," feeling. Been there, done that.

It's not just you. You survived CSA, right? That produces free-floating feelings of grossness.
But you're not gross. The person or persons who did this to you? THEY are gross.
Work on mentally handing their gross back. That nasty shamey feeling? Not yours and not deserved. It does not belong to you. Might help to make a ritual, or write a letter that you won't send, or get people to confirm that you are not the way you feel.

...A real life support group would really help, I think, if you don't have one already.

I have been a guard, and been able to go to work amid all manner of brain derails. Guarding is super boring.

 

[Friday]

@Salad... If you're having difficulty projecting what you want to project, you might try acting classes.

Because, yes, people do notice... Some people more than others... When the people around them are are angry, scared, miserable, happy, distracted, dazed, ashamed, confident, etc. That's what people are picking up on. What you're projecting by way of body language, facial expression, eye contact (or lack thereof)

The subtle things? Like being hypervig? Most people notice on more of a subconscious level than a conscious one. Something sets off their Alert!, and then if you're all hypervig & catch that, then you Alert! harder, which makes them alert harder, etc. Whole cascading process, unless someone knows exactly what is happening, is extremely uncomfortable. When I'm doing well, I sometimes amuse myself by playing with it. When I'm doing badly? Pfft. Whole thing is extremely frustrating, since I can't lock shit down, much less play around with it. For me, the best work around until I have better control again, are dark glasses & dancing. Dancing to regain control over my posture & body movements, dark glasses so people don't trip out over my eyes. But I already know how to act. For me'self its a matter of regaining control over what I'm projecting (or ditching my DGAF), not learning what & how to project.

A useful trick? Especially if you can't afford good acting classes? (Although if you're in school, check out the drama department)... B-Movies. The really, really bad ones. The difference between good acting and bad acting underscores better than most things how the nuances work.

 

[Stickler]

I think the reason for my wanting to stay home is to avoid this intense and terrifying loneliness. At home I don't feel as alone as I do in a crowd of people.

.
I get that. Learning how to socialize is a work in progress. People do like me...shocking to me, genuinely. I am ok in my weird f*cked up plurality to others. Talking to people is scary, but I/ we seem to be accepted.

...Very stressful...it's not uncommon for me to have panic attacks. It's all really hard. I'm not a natural introvert though, I'm just terrified of people.

 

[tryingtofly]

I've never been able to verbalize this before. Help me figure this out. Even better, if someone can tell m...

This happens to me also, at least I perceive it to be happening. People moving away from me like I have some contagious disease. I am a very paranoid person, so I'm not sure if it is my mind playing tricks on me. Some times it dose not bother me though, what others think. Other times, like you, I just stay home and hide . I do like the ideal that Fridayjones suggested, wearing dark sun glasses, maybe throw in a cape for good measure. Have some fun with it.

 

[Justmehere]

Walking the aisles I'm processing my situation and feeling disjointed and utterly alone. No sense of stability, compared to most people in that store. I start to feel weird. There is a man who seems to be avoiding looking at me or sharing the same aisle space, and leaves as soon as I come by (the aisles are extremely narrow). He is probably picking up on my energy and is scared of me. I feel terrified. I pass by some woman who's studying a food item, and she turns and looks at my face with a prolonged stare. Is my yucky energy showing? I buy the food and walk home in terror, trying to catch my breath and longing for the safety of my room.

I do this too. I wonder about my my energy putting people off. However, my friend (who is a psychologist) would tell me this is a lot of "mind reading".... and I would roll my eyes and eventually have to admit she is a little right.

Statements like "He is probably picking up on my energy and scared of me" are putting a lot of interpretation into a situation that doesn't seem to be helpful, and may not be accurate.

Maybe he is leaving the isles because he does notice you, but you look like his sweet wife who passed away and he wants to avoid the memory of her, or maybe he doesn't notice you at all and he is in a hurry and left each isle because he had to get off to his kid's soccer game.We have no way of knowing for sure.

You could be projecting onto the other people in the store what you are feeling inside yourself. You feel scared of xyz, so he must be avoiding you because he feels scared too - but in reality, it could be that he didn't even notice your energy at all and/or wasn't scared of you but had other reasons to be in a hurry.

There is an idea in mindfulness, DBT, and CBT therapy, that is all about training ourselves to objectively notice without interpreting. It's a skill that can reduce unwarranted emotional suffering. It may sound simple, and it can be very hard to do - but it can really help. I used to get annoyed with my trauma focused CBT therapist who would remind me to "observe mindfully without interpretations" more often. I used to think that the interpretations I was making were helping me be safer. But the more I do it, the less draining certain interactions become, and the more I am able to bring in more information about my surroundings, the more accurate that information is, and the more I can actually be safer.

I think that if you work on observing the environment more mindfully, without as many interpretations that may or may not be true, you may become a lot less drained by going to the grocery store. People do respond to our energy, and that energy can actually shift when we are more when we interpet less and observe more. If I went to the store and I absolutely knew that people were hurrying out of isles because I was giving off bad energy, I would feel really drained and not want to leave the next day too. I would be giving off worse energy the next time I went to the store. It would be come a self fulfilling prophecy in a way... (and I have so done this myself.)

But if I went to the grocery store and noticed that people were moving out of isles quickly, and I absolutely knew it was because they are busy to rush off to their kids soccer game, then I would not be so drained, and I would actually probably give off better energy.

In the end, unless someone tells us what is going on for them, we don't know why they do what they do. We can make guesses, very educated guesses, and yet sometimes those guesses might be wrong, or they might be unhelpful and setting ourselves up for the negative future we fear will happen. My therapist had me start trying to think of alternative possible interpretations for someone's behavior around me or response to me. She challenged me to think of 1 interpretation that was neutral about myself and one positive one, if I could. She had me do this even when a dear friend yelled at me. (It was just once for 1 second.) I interpreted it to mean "I am a horrible person that she hates." (My friend said nothing about my being horrible or hating me.) My therapist said a neutral interpretation was that we were having a disagreement and it got heated for a moment. That was a more helpful interpretation to moving forward than "I am a horrible person that she hates." The "positive" interpretation was that my friend cared enough about the subject and felt safe enough with me to express disagreement. (This is not to say the anger was positive, it's just to counter balance my negative self talk.)

I think that if you go to the grocery store next time and you see a guy moving out of an isle, even multiple isles that you walk into it, and you challenge yourself to think of a possible positive reason he could be doing it, even if you don't believe that possible positive reason, but just hold it out as a possibility, that you may feel better and less drained by going to the grocery store, and other people will probably notice that you feel more comfortable in the store, and that you will actually be giving off better energy too. Then if someone is scared of you, because they are interpreting/ "mind reading" too (we all do this), they may more quickly see that their interpretation is wrong, and there is no reason to be scared of you at all.

I may be off track on all of this, and if so, please just disregard. :) I also may not be making any sense at all - if so, I'm sorry. This is hard to explain well and perhaps someone can explain it better than me.

p.s. edited to fix autocorrect typos.

 

[Ronin]

I learned with whatever type of social anxiety? You're usually the one fretting out & caring more than other people are; they're busy with theirs, unless you're setting their alert & alarms off for some reason they can't point, but then even basic placing it helps.

And short communication with open / honest body language helps. Most people have enough of their business to mind to care for exact details.

 

[Friday]

In the end, unless someone tells us what is going on for them, we don't know why they do what they do.

^^^^
This.

I think that if you go to the grocery store next time and you see a guy moving out of an isle, even multiple isles that you walk into it, and you challenge yourself to think of a possible positive reason he could be doing it, even if you don't believe that possible positive reach but just hold it out as a possibility, that you may feel better and less drained by going to the grocery store, and other people will probably notice that you feel more comfortable in the store, and that you will actually be giving off better energy too.

Strong second, to this, as well.

<laughing> At one point at kids we were sitting around at an ice cream parlor guessing what people did for a living who were walking by. Everything from oo7 to housewife. This one lady paused, cracked a smile, and walked in the noisy shop.

"Actually, I'm a lip reader & interpreter for the deaf at the DoD." :D

This lady completely & totally changed my life. She'll never know it, but even though I knew in my mind that we were just goofing, and that if we got any "right" it would be more luck than skill... That there are not only other options available, but some that I would never even have thought of has shaped the ways and how's of everything I look at. Straight up, that there need to be at least 2 options available to every situation. So when my mind presents 1? Yep. That might be it. But it may also be #2-256. I love this woman. She added the word "or" to the way I see the world.

Black & White thinking hates the word "or". So maybe they don't like me. Or maybe they're in a rush, or just lost their puppy, or have myasthenia gravis, or are so suddenly and completely overwhelmed with love at first sight for me ;) that to keep from throwing themselves down on the ground and begging for my hand in marriage they've ducked around the corner, or maybe they're about to poop their pants and desperately hoping no one notices a little sharting, or are wearing the same clothes and are convinced everyone else knows (how would we?), or have cramps, or, or, or, or. So many possibilities. Most of which don't involve me at all.