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why do i do this?

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samanthavad

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so i am just curious if anyone is or has experienced this after their trauma...

since my trauma I feel like I cant articulate the same as I did before. I can never find the right words to say what i want to say, not just when talking about my trauma but in every conversation. I end up rambling, over explaining, making no sense or just using examples to get my point across. I want nothing more than to heal from this and ive tried so many different counselors and therapies. My issue is that when i am there, and asked direct questions or asked to explain whats going on with me, my mind just goes blank. like I cant think of anything.. not how I've been feeling, not about my trauma, not about what I had for lunch. it just literally shuts off. now if I was with a friend and just casually got on the topic of my abuser or my trauma, I cant say everything in my head fast enough. I can get carried away for hours. my brain just shuts off while having normal everyday conversations also. I can be in the middle of a sentence and my thoughts are just gone. have zero idea what I wanted to say or why I was saying it. I can go back and try to refresh my mind but more often than not it doesn't work..
 
so i am just curious if anyone is or has experienced this after their trauma...

since my trauma I feel like I cant articulate the same as I did before. I can never find the right words to say what i want to say, not just when talking about my trauma but in every conversation. I end up rambling, over explaining, making no sense or just using examples to get my point across. I want nothing more than to heal from this and ive tried so many different counselors and therapies. My issue is that when i am there, and asked direct questions or asked to explain whats going on with me, my mind just goes blank. like I cant think of anything.. not how I've been feeling, not about my trauma, not about what I had for lunch. it just literally shuts off. now if I was with a friend and just casually got on the topic of my abuser or my trauma, I cant say everything in my head fast enough. I can get carried away for hours. my brain just shuts off while having normal everyday conversations also. I can be in the middle of a sentence and my thoughts are just gone. have zero idea what I wanted to say or why I was saying it. I can go back and try to refresh my mind but more often than not it doesn't work..
I call it "glitching" and in my case, the more I was consciously or unconsciously caught up in trauma, dealing with trauma stressors, or had lots going on that was stressful and impacted daily life like sleep, I found glitching to be an issue. I have the same issue when I decide to take something significant out of one of my mental "trauma boxes" in therapy, the issues I've packed away to make it through life-so to speak. In my case, when I start glitching, typically I'm forgetting where I was in the conversation, and getting frustrated. But I have also found glitching in attention (I'm there/I'm not), memory, speech, and hearing and it can impede me level of processing and language.....instead of using the word trememdous...that won't be readily available....and I'll have to resort to small words like..."big." It will get better as you work on things.
 
I call it "glitching" and in my case, the more I was consciously or unconsciously caught up in trauma, dealing with trauma stressors, or had lots going on that was stressful and impacted daily life like sleep, I found glitching to be an issue. I have the same issue when I decide to take something significant out of one of my mental "trauma boxes" in therapy, the issues I've packed away to make it through life-so to speak. In my case, when I start glitching, typically I'm forgetting where I was in the conversation, and getting frustrated. But I have also found glitching in attention (I'm there/I'm not), memory, speech, and hearing and it can impede me level of processing and language.....instead of using the word trememdous...that won't be readily available....and I'll have to resort to small words like..."big." It will get better as you work on things.
how do i Google this lol i tried just glitching but didn't come up with anything relevant
 
how do i Google this lol i tried just glitching but didn't come up with anything relevant
Glitching is what I named it. The verb to glitch is a word that means a minor malfunction; unexpected defect, or a minor problem that causes temporary setbacks. It is the only real word I know that defines it....I've heard of "mental hiccuping".....that's kind of accurate....but I like the term glitching better.
 
I can never find the right words to say what i want to say, not just when talking about my trauma but in every conversation.
It hasn’t been talked about on here recently... but there’s a fairly well known byproduct of trauma that affects language/word processing. It can show up in one or more of several ways. One of the most common you’ll see referenced on HERE -in the land of written words ;)- is the inability to read big blobs of text. (And also why mods will add paragraphs and punctuation). Or be able to process large amounts of text, no matter how well formatted.

We used to have some members who really well understood this aspect of trauma-brain... sadly, I am not one of those members.

The reading-thing I can understand, as it’s difficult for me to read anything when people are shooting at me, too. Ditto if someone won’t STFU and get to the point in a sentence or less, using speech. To me? It makes perfect sense that if those systems “shut down” as extra &/or not useful trait for survival in an emergency situation? That my kicking into fight/flight & other emergency reactions in normal life is causing some of the same side effects. Because the system itself is turning on, even if life is very ho-hum normal.

The speaking thing is much more difficult for me to wrap my mind around & is also something I struggle with a lot. (I’m sure those 2 things aren’t related at all <whistling> ).
 
So, I am just coming out of this. I didn't really understand it until I did some group with with my therapist a couple of years ago. She had a woman in her group who was being actively psychologically abused and for her own reasons couldn't leave the guy. The woman literally could not put a full sentence together.

I was like that too for just over a decade. I would get lost in over explanations. I would lose my thoughts as I was speaking. I would just go blank. Scariest thing ever is losing one's intellect when one relies on it. Arrrghhh.

Anyway, as I have come out of 'survival mode' I have noticed that I can think again; speak again; and there are very few blank spots anymore. I am no expert on this stuff, but I am marveling about how easily it is coming back as my life is calming down. I thought I had lost it for good but apparently not, thank god. I think it is because I am no longer processing survival stuff. Survival stuff is processed in the reptilian brain (triune brain), which does not process front lobe (adult) stuff like time and so on.

If you were wanting to research I would suggest
Our Three Brains - The Reptilian Brain
 
I've had 3 head injuries and suffered multiple traumas and I find it difficult to speak. I also have a low tolerance for people not getting to the point of their conversation quickly. I don't want to hear them waffling on for hours about shit. It's just like 'get to the f*cking point ' !!! My mum does that alot. I also get put off by large volumes of text especially if there are no spaces.
 
I saw this the other day in a thread the OP was talking about trying to tell the therapist things and having it not come out or “come out sideways”. I refer to it often enough here that I’ve had someone mention it, to help me try and explain what I was trying to say.

I experience this as being two people. Sometimes one is talking and sometimes the other, but most often there is a war going on about what to say or not, and panic about being “seen”.

Being able to say all that has helped a lot but it’s still going on. Things come out sideways . I often go to my wife with some intimacy and I say, I want to tell you something, and I start talking and I end up all confused and she can’t understand what I was trying to get at. Same thing goes on with the therapist.
 
In my experience, this sounds like dissociation. I am wondering though if this is happening when you are with a person or alone. Can you think in your head in full sentence and make sense but when faced with others, you lose the concentration or the ability for language? Do you feel what you are saying fully but just unable to articulate to another? Or are you fully confused both inside and outside? Can you do something to break through the barrier like music, or dance or long walk in nature?
 
In my experience, this sounds like dissociation. I am wondering though if this is happening when you are with a person or alone. Can you think in your head in full sentence and make sense but when faced with others, you lose the concentration or the ability for language? Do you feel what you are saying fully but just unable to articulate to another? Or are you fully confused both inside and outside? Can you do something to break through the barrier like music, or dance or long walk in nature?


I would say it happens both inside and outside, but mostly outside. ill feel like u know what I want to say, but feel like it doesn't make sense when I say it out loud. or majority of the time i feel like i have 57 tabs open in my head, like on a computer. But they are all buffering and I can only focus on half of it. or like I cant make it make sense myself, how am I going to explain it to someone else? my mind is also going, thinking about so many things but hardly ever finishing one. I have so many things I wanna do, write, look into, or say but not enough time.


or when i am asked a question, and not expecting it, my mind just goes blank and I cant think about anything
 
In my experience, this sounds like dissociation. I am wondering though if this is happening when you are with a person or alone. Can you think in your head in full sentence and make sense but when faced with others, you lose the concentration or the ability for language? Do you feel what you are saying fully but just unable to articulate to another? Or are you fully confused both inside and outside? Can you do something to break through the barrier like music, or dance or long walk in nature?
Yep....my level of speech....when compromised by emotions goes from a scholared individual and tanks when dissociation sets in. Then I'm using words I learned as a kid to describe things....makes me feel stupid.
I would say it happens both inside and outside, but mostly outside. ill feel like u know what I want to say, but feel like it doesn't make sense when I say it out loud. or majority of the time i feel like i have 57 tabs open in my head, like on a computer. But they are all buffering and I can only focus on half of it. or like I cant make it make sense myself, how am I going to explain it to someone else? my mind is also going, thinking about so many things but hardly ever finishing one. I have so many things I wanna do, write, look into, or say but not enough time.


or when i am asked a question, and not expecting it, my mind just goes blank and I cant think about anything
Could you in the same emotional state, type down what you want to say? When verbal language processing stops working for me....and I'm beginning to move towards dissociation land, I can almost always sometime in the same day, move to the computer to "get out" what I was trying to say by typing....Typing for me is less emotional most of the time...........then I can take that back to therapy to read......and that sometimes helps. It's the recall for speech piece when emotional, that shuts down. I'm able to recall the more advanced language/words and type just about anything, and usually retain all connection to my thoughts in that modality. It is only when emotions interfere, that I sound like an idiot when I'm speaking.....forced to use primary level words to describe things.....unable to use my intellect to manage a conversation that is upsetting or triggering....gripes me....and makes me feel dumb in the moment. I really know how you feel.

In therapy, when I say "time to go".....that's all I can communicate that therapy needs to stop.......I'm dissociating.....that's like my simple cue to convey a need to end with grounding exercises.
 
Yep....my level of speech....when compromised by emotions goes from a scholared individual and tanks when dissociation sets in. Then I'm using words I learned as a kid to describe things....makes me feel stupid.

Could you in the same emotional state, type down what you want to say? When verbal language processing stops working for me....and I'm beginning to move towards dissociation land, I can almost always sometime in the same day, move to the computer to "get out" what I was trying to say by typing....Typing for me is less emotional most of the time...........then I can take that back to therapy to read......and that sometimes helps. It's the recall for speech piece when emotional, that shuts down. I'm able to recall the more advanced language/words and type just about anything, and usually retain all connection to my thoughts in that modality. It is only when emotions interfere, that I sound like an idiot when I'm speaking.....forced to use primary level words to describe things.....unable to use my intellect to manage a conversation that is upsetting or triggering....gripes me....and makes me feel dumb in the moment. I really know how you feel.

In therapy, when I say "time to go".....that's all I can communicate that therapy needs to stop.......I'm dissociating.....that's like my simple cue to convey a need to end with grounding exercises.
I use examples alot when I am cant say what i want to say. I also ask ALOT of questions, I feel like i have a hard time understanding things the same way other people do.. so i ask questions so I know for sure rather than be confused or make an assumption. My boyfriend said it makes him feel like he's being interrogated.. like im second guessing him or questioning him...
 
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