When grounding leaves you flooded with being raped feelings

[Freida]

@The Albatross love that book! It's my bible these days

 

[ms spock]

Yeah I have a copy of The Body Keeps the Score. I probably could do with rereading it though. MY body is totally f*cked. I can't breathe most of the time. I am shallow breathing. I can't breath, if I breath I am totally overwhelmed by my physical bodily sensations. I am really struggling and I am really having a totally bad time of it. It is really hard. Moving into my own place has been really hard. I can barely manage to be in my body at this stage.

The PTW situation combined with talking to his ex and finding out all the verbal abusing, and domestic violence behaviours. It was most distressing. I said to B his long term lying really enabled a space for PTW to do his thing and lie so much to everyone.

I was terribly triggered by the friends of my new housemate coming to stay, as I entered the house found doors open to the outside and that goddamn women didn't even say hello. I found two outside doors open, and was about to ring the police and then realised that the "friends" had arrived. Their staying has pushed me beyond what I can manage. The woman is a bit of a selfish bitch, but she is in pain and scared as well. And she is so goddamned nosey, and really intrusive. OMG! So avoidance is the best way to go.

L's suicide has felled us all. I knew she was wound up and not in a good place but I was dissociated and didn't make contact. I was going to work with her next year. The memorial was this morning. The CEO was appalling in her comments, and full of total bullshit. She told me the EPA had totally supported the staff. H.R had told me what the EPA had done and I said that is negligence and legal action could be taken and she said she was absolutely livid. I told the young women don't go and see those psychologists, and they told me that they had already decided to go and see someone that was neutral.

B took on another project, and it is too much. I can't be in my body. If I start to feel my body I start eating. My sleeping is very poor. I am backed into a physical corner, and I am barely making it through the day.

I spent two hours with Papa Bear today. B arranged for a meeting with D, and he went to work, which he is was not well enough to go too. B keeps leaving too much to me. I keep taking it on. I keep doing too much for other people. I am blocking people by talking so much and being fawning and flopping. I am fleeing all the time.

I can't stop comfort eating.

I feel so terribly alone.

I am terribly dissociated, and feeling lost.

 

[Scarlet13]

I don't think grounding has to be the only option then. At least for now. It sounds like distraction and extreme self care (including boundary setting) would be good directions to go.
Sometimes I cannot ground myself. I have a combo of ADHD and CPTSD and doing grounding techniques are great, but I cannot always do them without feeling something like excruciating mental boredom and agitation. It is hard to explain.
So, I often go to extreme self care when I need it.
You could have a self care day or take a day away from your house.
Eating can be self care. Over eating is the issue, but if you see it as self care and accept that it is a good thing to use food to feel better and then savour what you eat, this could help it not be an over eating, reactive thing.
You could make a pot of comforting soup or bake some banana bread in "care" for yourself.
I tend to eat as well for comfort and accepting it and savouring it helps it to turn into a good thing that is a caring and nourishing act for myself and not a reactive act.
I like adding other self care and indulgent items to the care routine like epsom salt baths, favorite music, favorite movies, lavender oil. A good one now is to use mulling spices and make hot apple cider. I also like to sniff pine tree oil or put a little on my wrist.
I also like doing a "nesting technique" with a warm blanket, heating pad, hot cup of tea, book.
I often cannot think, "I should ground myself."
This can often yield feelings of guilt and shame, that I am not good at it or it puts me too much in my body.
But if I use self care and comforting responses I don't have the intention of grounding myself and I can then feel better without the shame or being too in my body.

 

[ms spock]

Again, grounding is a tool to bring you to the present moment, so, theoretically, doing some more grounding should make those flashbacks go away, but in my experience? No such luck. Usually I'm too overwhelmed by all that sh*t. I just have to try to minimize the damage.

That is where I am at this time. I am really having a rough time of it. I go to my body and all this stuff belches out of the volcano.

 

[ms spock]

I guess you know it kind of explains why I find all this stuff so hard.

 

[bento]

@DiscoDancingQueen. that sounds really tough. Like grounding is somehow putting you
more in contact with those memories stored in your body. I know when I get triggered
I often reach for comfort food and that will end up making me feel worse and worse later
on. So frustrating!!

I have found that sometimes watching cheesy happy ending movies, with only hallmarky
level dramas, can help. Just to get my mind off and not retraumatize myself with my
usual fare of GOT type stuff. I wish I had more to offer you, I'm in kind of a triggered,
crappy eating/low self care/more triggers slump space myself right now. Coffee and anxiety
definitely do not play well together.

Sending you best wishes :)

 

[ms spock]

Thanks @bento.

What does GOT mean ?

 

[ms spock]

So whenever I get near to feeling my body, I go into all these crazy like distraction, comfort eating, obsessing, maladaptive daydreaming, writing, binge eating, obsessive talking, obsessive day dreaming, obsessive thinking, ruminations, with a wide variety of avoidance behaviours. I have been so depersonalised and derealised that I have worked out all the quotes on some paper this morning so that was good, but then I found almost the same working out of the quotes under my keyboard. I had done this previously and I have no memory of having done it beforehand. It was right in front of me.

 

[bento]

@Disco Dancing Queen
Game of Thrones series. Epic, amazing production values and utterly violent. I'm a big
fan of adventure, thriller, war type genres but when I'm feeling vulnerable and triggered
I totally lay off. Go for the sweet goofy happy ending stuff. Or watch stand up comedy.
Oh yeah and TED talks. Those can be really good too. Makes me feel like at least I'm
somewhat keeping my brain sharp while I'm having a really off day. Or days

 

[Sideways]

You’ve got so many really significant stressors going on right now that I’m not surprised this is happening. This is a lot more than regular daily stress, there’s some really big emotional stuff going on and it makes sense that you’re finding that overwhelming.

I think that a large part of moving through that is going to be letting the emotions out in bits when you can, and as much self care and self soothing as you can. When life becomes traumatic, things like grounding aren’t going to cut it because they’re really only designed to help us manage regular amounts of stress. When things become overwhelming, it’s perfectly normal that your everyday coping mechanisms aren’t going to be enough.

Perhaps try and notice in retrospect when you’ve had moments of some relief during the day. When we’re things easiest (not to be confused with ‘easy’), and what we’re you doing? How can you replicate that? What has helped you get through huge stressors in the past, and is there anything healthy you can do again for yourself this time?

There’s a period where you’re just going to be surviving the grief and the stress. Surviving and not much more. And that’s okay. It will get better, and it’s a case of doing what you need to get yourself through the worst of it.

 

[ms spock]

Yeah so when I touch myself sometimes, or wipe myself sometimes I get triggered. This is really bad at the moment. I so don't want to feel it.

 

[ms spock]

So this is not easy, so I am managing my comfort eating so that I don't eat too much. I went walking yesterday morning. Rang a inpatient traum place. Have to get health care. Told my partner that I am really in a very bad way, that I might not come back from this, that this is serious. And I stayed at my new home and took up my loungeroom space, much too my perceived annoyance of cranky E. I took up space. I also didn't go and help B. I have stopped working on his, current new project. I am having text only contact with most people.

My guts feel like they are being ripped out of my body. Not pleasant but improved from last night. Lay on a yoga bolster this morning.