When Do They End? The Flashbacks And Triggers?

[OrganicRobot]

My father... he's been gone now for 10 years. He's in state prison. And it has been two years since I left the house my Mom is in and I have very limited contact with her (she doesn't even know where I live). I'm going to therapy, have a great job, socializing well and have my own safe place. There is some baggage but more so financial debt (to my Mom) and that's about it. The other thing I'm working on is writing it all out... and I got up through the physical abuse (which ended early teenage years).

I also just got through a rough transitional patch of learning to live on my own, but I've adapted. (And learned that savings and buffer emergency funds are very, very important when single and living alone!). Also since I've been single for over a year I've been concentrating on building more solid friendships and a support network instead of just focusing on intimate eros relations.

So I'm doing pretty well despite the odds (takes effort, hard work, lots of reflections and facing fear but so worth it). But there are bad mental days and probably worse then normal because I haven't been eating as healthy or exercising like I should.

I just hate feeling like I'm sliding backwards when I'm making so much progress. But I know twenty-four years are not going heal in two years... I just want to focus on living a better life instead of sliding back into the past. The mucky, mucky past.

I seem to be dealing with belief system flashbacks a lot more of late compared to just physical or emotional. I have to remember as I age dealing with adults and their emotions... you can't really take things too personally. Because most other adults their reactions are them stuck in their own childhood bubbles. So I'm just a straw on a camel's back to them, and they are the same to me. Or they just don't know how to deal with a more disassociative, and aloof person and end up projecting their own experiences on to me.

I dunno. I just want it to end, and for my state of mind to be fluid, spontaneous and thoughtfully in the moment compared to stuck in the past. Ho hum.

 

[EveHarrington]

:hug:

When I know, I'll let you know. Quite a few years of healing and I still deal with both.

 

[BlueOrange]

You'll never stop having painful memories, or things that stress you out when you feel like they shouldn't have - that's "well within normal experience" as they say.

I just want ... for my state of mind to be fluid, spontaneous and thoughtfully in the moment compared to stuck in the past.

The more time you spend in that state, the easier it will be to find it. The state you describe is known in Hindi as 'nirvana' - if you can get into that state and remain there, this is known to Buddhists as 'ultimate enlightenment'. They both measure the time it takes to achieve this state by counting reincarnations.

I've experienced a state that matches your description; I really liked it, then it went away. Then it came back. I wanted it to stay, but the harder I tried to make it stay, the quicker it would disappear. I can see why they count reincarnations when talking about how long it takes to get it to stay - the more patient I am able to be, the easier I find it to get back into that state.

 

[Dissociated1]

The flashbacks and nightmares, my shortcomings and inability to let go; in the flurry of day to day life I wonder if I have made any progress at all. But in those precious moments that I pause to look back I can see how far I have come.