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Question May 25, 2019 at 07:13 AM
  #1
I've been shredding very old diaries from the time way back when I collapsed from PTSD and had some limited form of therapy. It has shocked me to realise subjectively how bad things were for me, but also objectively how terrible my struggle was then. That time was before internet forums. I literally collapsed in the middle of crossing a major road after a counsellor refused to help me. Blacked out. Came back to consciousness in a hospital ward hours after being mis-treated while unconscious for a variety of broken bones.

I wrote a lot in my diaries about therapists, and longings for healing and connection. At the same time I kept fighting to achieve my life goals.

Looking back it all seems so impossible - both for me and for the two individuals who tried within limits to help. There are some horrible life situations. At that time I couldn't be treated by the health service because I wasn't mentally ill. PTSD was only just beginning to be recognised as a problem by people dealing with Vietnam war veterans.

I didn't know whether to post this in Psychotherapy - because it reminds me that therapy is limited by social context, or in PTSD - but my life is no longer about the PTSD triggers, or in General Chat. I decided for myself on relationships because reading these old diaries has been about realising how terrible my situation was then - and how I can take the knowledge of this into building better relationships for the rest of my life. My relationships are terribly bruised. I need to learn better how to engage with people who are reflective and trustworthy enough to take in life experiences very different from their own, and to offer their own life experience in return!!!

Big sigh. I've been so busy all my life surviving. It has been a shock to see how badly I was struggling despite holding down a job so that I could have a roof and food to eat.

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Default May 25, 2019 at 07:48 AM
  #2
Honestly I’m not sure I can help you with the human thing. I definitely don’t want to be around people. If you think you can trust humans again go for it. Honestly my opinion is get a therapy animal of some sort.

No Judgment, no anger, no arguments. Just a listening ear, a happy companion and good friend that won’t betray you
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Default May 25, 2019 at 08:23 AM
  #3
Be proud of yourself for how far you've come, saidso! It is not easy to fight with our demons, but it seems to me that you're doing EXACTLY THAT and that you're constantly working on YOURSELF to GET BETTER! Be proud of yourself for that! Keep working on yourself! I'm sure you'll be able to build MANY meaningful relationships if you just KEEP TRYING YOUR BEST like you're already doing! Take GREAT care of yourself, ok? We'll be here for you if you need ANY KIND of help and support! I PROMISE YOU ALL OF THAT BECAUSE IT IS TRUE! PLEASE REMEMBER ALL OF THAT AS MUCH AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN BECAUSE IT IS TRUE! Just keep working on yourself, ok? WE ALL CARE ABOUT YOU! THAT'S A PROMISE! WISH YOU GOOD LUCK! Let us know how things are going for you! Sending many hugs to you, saidso!
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Default May 25, 2019 at 09:30 AM
  #4
Quote:
I wrote a lot in my diaries about therapists, and longings for healing and connection. At the same time I kept fighting to achieve my life goals.
This is what individuals who struggle with ptsd experience. The desire when it comes to reaching out to therapists is to sit and talk about whatever was experienced and experience a presence that can listen, be a witness, assist in grieving what was lost and regaining some balance and trust in self to move forward. Also, if the trauma involves someone else that caused you harm, there is also a strong desire for justice.

You did the right thing by writing down the things you felt, how you struggled, what you felt you needed and defining how you were hurt. The biggest question when it comes to ptsd though is "why can't I just like I used to". And what I myself really hated to hear was, "just ignore, just get over it, just don't allow this or that to bother you, just move forward, just forget it, that was in the past focus on the now". And I am sure you can come up with even more.

For myself, one of the things I began avoiding was people I had known before the ptsd. I could not avoid that completely, but I did want to distance. The reason for that was because people I knew would expect me to be the "old me" and I could not be that old me. It's extremely hard to explain to people what that really feels like too.

For myself, my world was my farm and making it into something I saw it could be and all my ponies and horses represented a lot of time and training to have them all be a part of this world I created. When that was invaded, disrespected and so much was destroyed that respesented so many years of hard work. I collapsed with a post traumatic stress breakdown. I did not have broken bones in my body, but pretty much everything I had was broken and hurting. All the kings horses and all the kings men could not put humpty dumpty back together again.

When I broke down, I was exhausted because of how it was pretty much like running a hospital here on my farm, and too many sad endings. I ended up in a psych ward totally physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted begging for rest and grief counseling. Everything I said was all clear red flags for "trauma patient". Yet as you have mentioned, the professionals, psychiatrist, therapists, staff did not know how to recognize these red flags. Actually, without my even realizing it, the psychiatrist misdiagnosed me because in his opinion, what I lost should not have been that important or valueable to me. Truth is, I was locked up and pretty much abandoned and treated like I was such a bad person for breaking down the way I did. I was just a terrible imposition. "You better put your big girl panties on and SNAP OUT OF IT".

In all honesty, the one thing I did learn from this experience is how little others in my life realized the things that were important to me. My grief and deep loss was nothing more than and inconvenience for everyone I knew. And that did not change either, even therapists did not GET IT. Even therapists decided that it was not something they considered valueable or important then it was wrong of me to have valued all that I had lost. And what really gets me is that none of these people had any experience with doing and engaging what I had lost either. And the truth is, that is exactly how our war veterans feel when they come home all shattered physically and mentally from war and combat.

When I came home from the psych ward, and my husband picked me up, he was angry and it was very clear to me that he was extremely inconvenienced. On that drive home the negativity he filled that small pick up truck with told me how very alone I really was and that I had to find a way to shove all these deep challenges down inside of me and go right back to that farm of mine and JUST DEAL with all the brokenness.

The therapists I reached out to continued to write down that what I cared about should not have been considered to have the value I had placed in it. And trying to pick up the pieces of my broken world continues to challenge me in ways where I could not feel safe, not feel myself and I continued to suffer from these attacks where I was reliving the trauma over and over again. So, instead of recovering from the post traumatic stress breakdown, I progressed into developing the full pst DISORDER. I began suffering from suicidal "impulses" and this is not just about thinking, instead it's about wanting to end in strong impulses and there is a difference. Luckily for me, I ended up interacting with a Vet who explained to me how these strong impulses comes in waves and then subsides. I began to pay attention and realized he was right and then my days were about remember how these waves came about, had a peak and then subsided and every day I battled through them BY MYSELF. It's a terrible thing to KNOW first hand why we lose so many vets to suicide. It was not anything I ever imagined experiencing either. So when I say, I could not be me like everyone insisted and wanted of me, I am telling the truth. I am so incredibly sorry for anyone can identify with this because it's the lonliest thing EVER. You know, you have family and people around you and experience this incredible lonliness. The one thing that seemed to help was my desire to reach out and help others by helping not feel so alone. A part of me wanted to find a way through this so I could maybe help others do the same. However, that has always been a part of who I was as a person anyway, and that was actually a big part of the world I had created with my horses and ponies that no one understood. Truth is, I used this world to help others get what I did not get and needed as a child. It's interesting in that NOW this kind of world I created is being recognized as very helpful and therapudic. This thing I created that no one felt was valueable, had FINALLY been recognized in main stream humanity for actually having VALUE. They even have found it helpful in helping with the healing of veterans with ptsd. Ironically, one of the horses that suffered damage where he could not longer be ridden and appreciated as a show horse is now in a place that he is used for THERAPY and he even is used to HELP VETERANS who struggle with PTSD. So all the training and love that went into making this horse so affectionate and kind and good and wonderful with people, this horses love for people is at least being APPRECIATED AND VALUED.

In this world of humanity, it's true that people can be dismissive and cold even. It's unfortunate how other people can decide that what you value, what you feel to the depths of you has value has no value because it doesn't have value to them. And this can happen with individuals who even have a lot of letters after their name that is supposed to mean they SHOULD KNOW. I think that you are at a point where you are beginning to at least come to terms with trying to be a bit more understanding about this UNKNOWING that happens when it comes to other people you experience in your life. You are looking at the different ways people survive and thrive in different kinds of societies and with that always comes this "unknowing" part.
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Default May 26, 2019 at 03:50 AM
  #5
Thank you for your long heartfelt reply OpenEyes. Without being rude, my brain isn't fully operational at the moment and I don't know you much, so slowly I am reading it one, two, three times... and it might take a couple of days to reach my neurons inside my skull. Please don't take that as negative. It's just, you know, when brain is processing trauma everything slows and gets itemised and scrutinised perhaps because brain is re-formulating the traumatised physical connections.

I wanted to thank you very much for posting. Often when I post from the heart, as opposed to from somewhere more superficial, I don't get replies on PC. I guess that there is a personal level when only ongoing friendships can twig the meanings, but also ongoing friendships are two-way with stuff happening on both sides.

So far, how your post helped is that I realise something is bugging me about re-reading these diaries. Something about myself that I've been too busy for and hence ignored - my blinker system doesn't always work in my own favour.

Partly it was realising once again how "therapy" although systematically purporting to be a cure-all, actually it can be a cure-nothing. There is no cure-all. Huge horrible things happen and therapists are often actually very limited people contending with their own emotional and cognitive overloads. The people best at mapping outside the box, are the people who find themselves outside the box.

I remember proposing that therapy needed to change from individual interviews to emotional education for the masses, and one therapist saying to me "how do you believe that you are strong enough to change yourself, let alone change therapy". Both a realistic and undermining comment. I was working but all my money eaten up by daily living. Change requires leisure and surplus income.

Then there is a pattern required for intervention which wasn't any part of my cultural upbringing. No one where I grew up had recourse to state interventions. We had a pattern of looking after ourselves, and at breaking point we gave up and died. That pattern is alien to the "nice helping professions".

Despair. There are real life situations which induce despair and overwhelm.

Sorry Openeyes. This started as a genuine thank you for posting and I seem to have gone out on a limb. I am going to stretch my legs and come back and read again. Note to self "do it"!!

Saidso

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Default May 26, 2019 at 06:34 AM
  #6
Quote:
Originally Posted by saidso View Post
Change requires leisure and surplus income.

Despair. There are real life situations which induce despair and overwhelm.

These are great quotes Saidso.

I am sorry about what you went through during the Vietnam War. There are movies and books that try to express it but only those who have been there really know. From books I have read, many veterans come home and find that their experience makes them feel different from others, including their loved ones for the rest of their lives. Do you have a place you can go and be with other Vietnam War veterans or have you kept in touch with anyone you served with?

Today is Memorial Day. Unfortunately, there will always be wars going on somewhere in this world. War is an indescribable sacrifice. I am a veteran who never had to serve in combat. I am lucky. Those who have paid a great price. I pray that our country and others can stay out of war. This is our President and other leaders greatest duty and challenge.

Saidso and Open Eyes,

So glad you are survivors. Thank you both for sharing.

Open Eyes--You ARE a healer who has so much insight. Thanks for all your contributions to Psych Central.

I have have deleted many accounts at PC because I want to run away from my past. I shared too much. With some horrors it is best to keep the experiences between you and those close to you. For me, that is just my small family and me. I find that sometimes it is less burdensome for people not to know. I am trying to live in the present but my past despair nearly destroyed my family and me. We are trying to heal. Therapists can't do it for you. Healing my family and I is what makes my life have meaning. It may never happen in the way I hope but our tragedy does bind us together. Some in my family are better listeners than others but I love them all and can't leave anyone behind. I had to come to terms with a some of the ways I was hurt. When we are hurt, we build so many barriers; our mind plays tricks on us. There are days I move backwards but am moving forwards more than back. Sometimes life is not a bed of roses. Hugs to all at PC who are hurting.
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Default May 26, 2019 at 08:35 PM
  #7
((saidso)), I have read a few of your threads and have found a lot of familiarity in and can identify with things you have shared.

It's not all you that is having a hard time with what I wrote. I was long winded and should have not made those long paragraphs. Also, I can see I left out words which contribute to making it harder to read. I also did not have time to review what I wrote as I got interupted a few times while writing it and then was rushed to submit it without getting to recheck what I wrote.

Quote:
I decided for myself on relationships because reading these old diaries has been about realising how terrible my situation was then - and how I can take the knowledge of this into building better relationships for the rest of my life. My relationships are terribly bruised. I need to learn better how to engage with people who are reflective and trustworthy enough to take in life experiences very different from their own, and to offer their own life experience in return!!!
Well, I guess I gave you that in my post.

But what really got me to share what I did was this:

Quote:
I wrote a lot in my diaries about therapists, and longings for healing and connection. At the same time I kept fighting to achieve my life goals.
I have felt this SO MUCH and I just could not seem to find it. Yes, and all the while fighting to achieve my life goals. I don't live in your country or culture, but I know this feeling very well. I think this is very "human". I also know what it feels like to be so overwhelmed you just drop too. That is what I did that landed me in a psych ward that only traumatized me even more and no one really "got" what I was so upset about. I worked damn hard for what I had and when it was destroyed, it ended up breaking me.

When I finally found a therapist that understood trauma and had the ability to listen, after he listened to my history he looked at me in amazement and said, "Wow, you were SO resiliant, how did you do all that?".

Quote:
Despair. There are real life situations which induce despair and overwhelm.
YES! And I desperately needed a presence that I could connect with that could "get the depth of my personal despair". It's very hard to get another person to understand and RESPECT what is significant to you when it's not something that is significant to them. I know what it's like to walk away after sitting across from a therapist and not feeling helped at all and sometimes feeling worse than I did before I even sat down with them.
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Default May 27, 2019 at 03:36 AM
  #8
Hi OpenEyes,
Thank you for writing some more about this. I was for a long time on a survivor website and befriended two women who had the most shocking life experiences that I ever heard of, yet who found a way forward. So when I say that on reflection my situation was horrible, it's all relative and on a continuum.

What I was writing wasn't (I don't think it was) about being heard so much as about realising that there are human experiences way too big for the majority of psychotherapy practitioners. Especially low-cost psychotherapy practitioners, who are not always themselves sitting comfortably in their armchair reading horror stories from a distance in the papers. Unfortunately we are sucked in by our own desires and the myth of "professional expertise"... the pseudo scientific jargon...

There is a defensive stance where the psychotherapy profession (in UK and in France) say "that's too big so it's outside our remit and let's pretend that it isn't happening". Unfortunately some of us are born into situations where we can't pretend it isn't happening - wrong country, wrong social class, & etc... basically we get born the wrong side of the historical situation. Our child might be physically sick in a country with no medical care, for example. How is therapy supposed to deal with that!

There is a whole spectrum of strengths required to deal with historical disadvantages that are not part of the therapy curriculum. Those strengths can be double edged.

I look back at medieval church sculptures representing the horrible sufferings of normal people, and the luxuries of the elite - so I guess that this split has always been part of social experiences. And even the elite were victim to violence and plague.

And, yes like you say getting on with their goals as best they could despite the emotional impact of it all. That's human, and that's what I see, and that is a fat lot more than what I see represented in the microscopic emotional investigations of therapy.

I get confused when I read my diaries, or when I otherwise come up against all that. It's a sort of "nudge" that I get occasionally from someone who knows the same thing. Yup. I get that very occasionally. I got it from reading my diaries. At other times - I had someone who works as a child therapist visit me socially recently and she was talking all the labels "self harm", "abuse", blah blah blah - and it was clear that she herself was only standing at the edge of all that.

I'm not trying to knock anyone. I'm just saying this causes me confusion in my sense of identity and in my thinking. I grew up in a situation way out on the edge of what therapists label as their healthy normality - yet I met people there who showed such strengths beyond that comfortable normality. So perhaps my range is different, and peculiar?

But then, still pondering, I read the last paragraph of what you wrote and I think that to each of us our own experience of despair is most important and unique? It might be either too big or too small to resonate with the listening person???

And situational despair requires that we act in some small way to change our situation, however impossible that seems relative to our meagre personal resources.

All of this is just my ego struggling to catch up with what I feel in my bones. Because it's worrying to be reminded that I had life experiences as an adult, as well as in childhood, that have been forgotten. When I first moved here, I had a neighbour who had lived as a teenager through the siege of Warsaw and who much later saw one of her two sons die in a freak accident. She didn't talk intensely about either experience, but... the experiences were there. I'm not sure that any modern rituals, including therapy go that far. Perhaps religion does for some people.

Sorry that I am still only in a state of halfway connecting - a work in progress here. Some things that I "think" are just steps along the way to finding a better way to include all of my self.

Thanks again!!!

Saidso

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Default May 27, 2019 at 03:43 AM
  #9
@eskielover Do any of the words that come out of my brain above resonate with your experience please? I believe that you came from the other side of the tracks. You don't have to say, it's just a small question floating into your open window on the breeze,. you can close the window and it will buzz off to someone else's flower bed (smile). Saidso

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Default May 27, 2019 at 07:22 AM
  #10
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Originally Posted by saidso View Post
I've been shredding very old diaries from the time way back when I collapsed from PTSD and had some limited form of therapy. It has shocked me to realise subjectively how bad things were for me, but also objectively how terrible my struggle was then. That time was before internet forums. I literally collapsed in the middle of crossing a major road after a counsellor refused to help me. Blacked out. Came back to consciousness in a hospital ward hours after being mis-treated while unconscious for a variety of broken bones.

I wrote a lot in my diaries about therapists, and longings for healing and connection. At the same time I kept fighting to achieve my life goals.

Looking back it all seems so impossible - both for me and for the two individuals who tried within limits to help. There are some horrible life situations. At that time I couldn't be treated by the health service because I wasn't mentally ill. PTSD was only just beginning to be recognised as a problem by people dealing with Vietnam war veterans.

I didn't know whether to post this in Psychotherapy - because it reminds me that therapy is limited by social context, or in PTSD - but my life is no longer about the PTSD triggers, or in General Chat. I decided for myself on relationships because reading these old diaries has been about realising how terrible my situation was then - and how I can take the knowledge of this into building better relationships for the rest of my life. My relationships are terribly bruised. I need to learn better how to engage with people who are reflective and trustworthy enough to take in life experiences very different from their own, and to offer their own life experience in return!!!

Big sigh. I've been so busy all my life surviving. It has been a shock to see how badly I was struggling despite holding down a job so that I could have a roof and food to eat.
Saidso, may I ask a few questions, if it is alright with you? Have you served in the forces? I ask because I'm a serviceman too. I may be able to help there.

Secondly, what is exactly bothering you? The fact that you survived or the fact that you weren't treated well? If it is the former then, brother, you should know that's what all of us are to do. You did it and, I for one, am glad because I've been through a lot too. If it is the latter, then you must realize that in a lot of things, perhaps, you were not in control or had any choice. Hence, in my view, it was perhaps an environmental thing.

Thirdly, going forward, I must tell you that the need to feel connected is something I struggle too. I believe, it's an ailment of the era. So I don't know how exactly I can help you there but from what I've experienced then nothing beats the real thing. Everyone wants to be connected and the only thing that stops them are perhaps their own insecurities about being hurt but what if that's part of the game? There's pain and elation in it? Just my two cents.

Regards and respect.
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Default May 27, 2019 at 08:15 AM
  #11
Quote:
I look back at medieval church sculptures representing the horrible sufferings of normal people, and the luxuries of the elite - so I guess that this split has always been part of social experiences. And even the elite were victim to violence and plague.
This is something that exists in most primates, which we are ourselves, human primates. There is always that group of entitled but they are not immune to sickness nor disputes amongst themselves. Both male and female need to be intelligent and resourceful in their own ways to survive. Even primates fight over territory and can be very violent. Though we may dream of peace and no wars, that won't happen in that sadly, it's in the nature of our beast. Though we can be wicked, we can also be quite wonderful too.

People can do well if they produce something that becomes desirable to the many. A pregnant woman in the UK, suffering from depression sat and used her imagination that was sparked by an idea and that turned into a story she wrote that became popular and desirable to the many and so much so that this woman became very wealthy. A group of very young guys got together and played music and came up with their own style of music, even though they could not even actually write music and what they came up with became so desirable to the many they became a sensation in different countries, "The Beatles".

If only there was leisure time to heal? Well, often it may not really be so much about healing but instead finding a way to use your life challenges to create something positive. I think a lot of individuals that study psychology do so because they needed to heal from whatever and they want to be a presence that they had needed themselves. A therapist told me that some therapists heal and learn and grow as people by offering therapy to their patients, and yet some therapists actually break down and need therapy themselves too.

It's not a bad thing to sit and write things out either. Man has surely been doing that for a very long time.
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Default May 27, 2019 at 11:06 AM
  #12
@Saidso thank you for flagging me....I had missed reading your post here.

I wish I had diaries to go back to (though I doubt they would have the information I would like to know).

My past was not horribly traumatic or abusive. I just grew up with parents who were so dysfunctional. I didn't learn how to connect to others because I never experienced it. Everything was at surface level. No one wanted to connect to my patents & my mom had every excuse in the book for why that was except for the REAL reason. I sensed the real reason which was probably the same reason I was embarrassed fir anyone to know they were my parents. This is the part I would love to go back I find out how this thinking in me started at such a young age when I led such a sheltered life away from many more normal people.

Life didn't catch up with me until I was 42. Had a breakdown which ended my computer engineering career (along with the economy). That was when insurance FORCED me to go to therapy. I remember my mom saying something like "why?....we never abused you....we were good parents" Basically that was true & what I didn't get until a few years ago (in my 60's) that they REALLY were dysfunctional & that it did have an effect on me.

Until my mom died in 2005 & I finally left my bad marriage after 33 years I didn't realize just how much EVERYTHING in my life had been a battle (sometimes even a war) to make sure I was able to do what I wanted with my own life. I think that feeling the need to fight everything really held me back from connecting with others also (even ones I didn't need to fight against). I actually never realized how much I had been fighting against everything until I no longer had to (that in itself is an interesting realization that hit me in my late 50's)

The therapy I had from 1994-2010 was a waste though the first T I had where I moved to in 2007 did point out how he thought that my life had been filled with small traumatic events along the way not just the final straw with the homecare person I caught abusing my mom when she was dying which also involved me in the trauma.

Talk therapy was pointless because it just focused on what a mess I was without providing knowledge or skills to do anything about it. (I lost track of the number of times I was in psych hospitals....mostly for suicide attempts). I knew there needed to be help available I just didn't know what or where.

While in search of a good T in my new home state I talked to people I knew & got some ideas. One I went to said at the first meeting..what you are dealing with is way beyond my knowledge or capability when I brought up the depersonalization & trauma issues. I am so GLAD she was honest. I actually brought up the need for theraoy at the church I was going to at the time. This lady said there was this wonderful T at the local community care center. I called their main phone number & was assigned to a psycholigist. That was my first step toward healing though I had no clue that it was at the time. She got me started in an awesome DBT group with the psychologist I admire & respect while she worked on the things DBT brought up in private sessions. Our last session before she retired she said when I first came to her she thought my walls would NEVER be able to be broken down. They not only were broken down but shattered while I learned new skills & reinforced ones I already had.

Therapy is NOT a "curall". Good therapy is a teaching environment that helps us understand ourselves better, teaches us skills we have to learn & develop on our own (continual reinforcement helps even after we learn & practice them really helps when problem situations hit). The best thing with my therapy was that in learning skills it opened my thinking as to why did I end up reacting the way I used to. My current T said that once skills are learned that integration of the past & the "whys" are the last step. That was something we processed as thoughts came up. I know so many people with so many different issues that go to her & she is able to help. There may be some that don't seem to be helped by her but I wonder what might be behind that. She is actually originally from Italy & still has her Italian accent. She has an amazing mind & an amazing ability to narrow in on what help is needed...she has had her share or trauma in her own life to deal with.

Quote:
And situational despair requires that we act in some small way to change our situation, however impossible that seems relative to our meagre personal resources.
This is SO TRUE & sometimes it takes making some really tough decisions we don't want to make to make the change happen. Also EXPECTING that everyone has to understand our despair is an unreasonable expectation.....but we need to be strong enough for that NOT to invalidate what we know to be true. No one got the trauma I was actually going through with the home care person with my mom. Everyone told me stuff like that doesn't happen to people like your mom. I knew & it didn't matter what anyone said....I knew what was happening even if I didn't know what the "why" might have been behind it.

Ok.....all this in one post = OVERLOAD I'm sure. Need to go get ready to go to my friend's house for a BBQ in a couple of hours.

Ah just an aside. I specifically remember the time at my new farm when I was laying on my bed next to my dog Leo & Tawny & Leo was snuggling with me. I remember this amazing feeling come over me & realized for the FIRST time in my life that was what LOVE & CONNECTION felt like. As I met more people in my new community & really got to know them....I realized that same feeling would come over me. Then I would feel fear & put that feeling away. Now I feel safe with these people I have learned that the feeling is not only OK.....but it is what we can feel when we REALLY are able to connect with others. For me I can always connect at a surface level but I guard my deeper connections with those I have really come to know & trust. That level of friendship connection is reserved....but now I understand the difference & it is OK & actually normal.

The 2nd half (or there abouts) makes up for the first half of my life & it has been about making a new life for myself with the help of others for sure. I took the first leap alone but having supportive people around & being supportive is key in the long run

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Default May 28, 2019 at 03:09 AM
  #13
No, I am not a Vietnam vet. That was a misunderstanding because I wrote that when I fell sick from PTSD the only information available at that time was research being done in the States regarding returned military personnel. I do have one person in my life who served in Vietnam however, and totally respect the mind-destroying experience that some young soldiers went through over there. He is of Chinese origin and was conscripted, ouf! I also helped out on a trauma website where one member was having a breakdown as a result of his work in the military: eventually he found himself a 24 hr specialist facility thank goodness, because the depth of what he had been through outstripped our ability to realistically support him.

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Default May 28, 2019 at 03:34 AM
  #14
Thank you Eskielover. I found your post strangely comforting. This morning for the first time in months I woke up full of energy, so am trying to let all that stuff wash over and through me instead of being hooked in emotionally. There will be barbecues in my future life too .

Apart from collapsing in the middle of a highway, I didn't access the health services here. I was suffering from concussion at the same time as having mind-blowing auditory and visual flashbacks, so I asked for help but was refused. I didn't tick the right boxes for them. And I was scared to attempt suicide and end up with a disability. That had happened to a childhood friend of mine whose mind was then completely wiped by old-style ECT. I asked for help and got the weirdest replies such as "if you were an alcoholic, if you had been raped, if you were a person of colour etc then you would fall into our user category. I spent a lifetime asking for help and have a thick file of refusal letters to prove it. I am better off now not asking . It's like I've gone beyond all that into my own knowledge gained from real life experience.

Yet I am hearing what you write about your parents' ignorance. That is what bugged me for a huge long time. That people are left in ignorance by our health system over here. There is no attempt to teach emotional life skills to the hard-working "masses" who are most in need of them. Something could be done, but it doesn't fall within the tidy boundaries of "professionalism". Me on a rant. I always thought that I would take action there, but so far it has been too difficult to pick my way past the various self-interested parties. There was a period of reaching out historically in the 50's and 70's when there was some limited funding for such projects. Rant over!

Scars on my mind, and possibly on my neural pathways there.

Yesterday I shredded a bunch of financial and employment history and stayed out of the emotional stuff. It has been hugely helpful to read your responses here @openeyes. Very supportive just to be able to have a conversation of some sort about this!! Thank you. It's a surprisingly big deal. it has been important to process just a little during this time of transition because I was completely eaten up by logistics and ignoring the emotional side of me.

It is really kind of you to read my often obscure mind-searching, mind waffling, long-winded ramblings!!! Much love your way! Saidso

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Default May 28, 2019 at 11:46 AM
  #15
Quote:
It is really kind of you to read my often obscure mind-searching, mind waffling, long-winded ramblings!!!
Actually, it's not as obscure and mind waffling as you think it is. And sometimes, it's important that a person struggling be able to take TIME to sit and write things out and that can end up with posts that are long. I find that when that happens where a person is trying to share as much as possible what they are challenged with, they tend to appologize. I always think that is sad and it tells me that this individual did not experience a presence in their life that they could talk to and experience some guidance from. Often this means that when they did experience a problem they did not know what to do about and tried to talk about it, they probably ended up being told "hurry up, have not got time to listen, just do this and be quiet, you gotta pay attention, I am too busy to deal with YOUR little problems". Oh that list can most definitely be added onto.

saidso, human beings are all designed to "navigate", and so are most living things. When you are writing things out, and at the same time trying to overcome and understand the ptsd symptoms that are challenging you, what you are doing is reviewing all the things you have had to figure out how to navigate through in your past. No matter what a person's environment happens to be, the one thing everyone has in common is they have to learn HOW to navigate whatever is in that environment and develop certain skills to survive and thrive in whatever that environment happens to be.

Quote:
"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Micheangelo painted, or Beetoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, "Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well"... Martin Luther King.
So, if someone happens to be a street sweeper and built a life around that, and something bad happened that completely disrupted what this man did and built his life around? This man CAN end up struggling with ptsd. And this man will have his own history and way that he learned to navigate HIS life and how he became this street sweeper and learned how to not only do it well, but also use what he earned to sustain himself, and possibly even his family too. If this man suffers from something that really disrupts his way of life, he can have a very hard time figuring out how to regain his sense of balance and safety in his life. He would present with a whole story of his life and how he ended up finding this way to thrive and how much it meant to him in so many ways. If he is told his story and what he values is NOT important is that going to actually be fair to him? If he sits across from someone who cannot see the value in what he did and does, is he supposed to be encouraged to feel shame for needing help so he can find a way to recover his way of life? If he sits across from someone who NEVER had to survive and actually sweep the streets and learn how to navigate all the things that present challenges in doing that street sweeping, how is that person going to be able to RESPECT this man's challenge? This man will surely want that kind of presence, he will feel so lonely and broken and LONG FOR and WISH for a presence that CAN understand his brokeness and help him recover and feel safe again. Does he not deserve that? Does this man deserve a presence that decides what he values should not be important and that because he values it so much that he is GRANDIOSE and has DELUSIONS OF GRANDURE? Does this man not deserve to have pride in what he does and how he manages to thrive as a street sweeper?

If a street sweeper loses something important, he will experience emotional challenges. We are, after all, for the most part, emotional beings. I have not lived your life or had to learn how to navigate the same world you had to navigate. Yet, I can understand the battle you are descibing being challenged with. I have these long winded and obscure mind searching and mind waffling battles myself. I have myself collapsed from having my world completely fall apart and being overwhelmed by it. I have had others react to me in some very dismissive unhelpful ways as well. I have experienced therapists that decided that what I lost should not be important simply because it was not important to them personally. YET, the bottom line isn't about THEIR opinion about what is or isn't important to them, but instead recognizing the significance of the challenge itself and how someone needs help to slowly pick up the shattered pieces of their life where they can regain a sense of being able to navigate their life again despite having so much lost in whatever was lost to that person in whatever world/environment that person had to learn how to navigate in. This is what Martin Luther King was saying in that quote. He was talking about developing a respect for others no matter what their color or class standing in life. To develop the ability to respect that other individual as another human being who is trying to navigate his/her life around whatever environment he is trying to navigate and thrive in. I am not living in your world, and yet the challenges you have been sharing that often cause you to feel confused and mentally disorganized, I can relate to that challenge and understand what you mean when you write out your thoughts thinking you are not making sense. I know that so well myself and often things you say DO make sense to me and resonate with me.

Last edited by Open Eyes; May 28, 2019 at 12:03 PM..
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Default May 28, 2019 at 02:16 PM
  #16
saidso, when I talk about navigational being one very important thing with both humans and animals, so necessary for our survival? Here is something that I dealt with that a lot of people would never think about as being a big problem for me when my entire way of life suddenly was invaded and damaged badly.

I find and train ponies and horses and I have my own small farm. I really work hard at this and each animal I train takes a lot of time for me to train too. I also make sure my ponies and horses each have their own paddock so they are safe, don't get picked on by any other horse or pony and so they don't form strong attachments so when I work with them they are not all worried about some other pony or horse they are attached to as they are herd animals. So, put a lot of effort into making sure each pony or horse is in a safe paddock of their own. Each of these animals learn to navigate that paddock and learn how to feel safe in it too.

When my neighbor's containment system they kept their dog in failed, they got lazy and failed to fix it. They already knew I did not want their dog on my property and I had thought they would continue to respect that. I was so very wrong. What they ended up doing is they would let their dog out when they saw me leave my farm or late at night when I could not see it on my property. That dog decided to target my horses and ponies and chase around them WANTING them to get all upset and run around. The more upset they all got the faster this dog ran around them. It turned out this particular kind of dog likes to do this and actually gets a high off of engaging this way and they don't even bark.

As I mentioned, this resulted in my ponies and horses being so frightened that they ran around so panicked that they ended up with all kinds of injuries. For example one pony fell down while he was running around in a panic and that resulted in his pelvis being fractured, his hip joint being damaged and torn ligaments all down his leg. And so many had so many bad injuries of all kinds including choking, colicing, and tworn suspensories, ligaments and sprains. However, the other problem I faced with this is how all my ponies and horses developed a fear of being safe in their paddocks too. And because this dog was let out at night, none of my ponies and horses felt safe to be out at night either. And even seeing my neighbor's dog would make them panick and get extremely upset. None of my ponies and horses were ever afraid of dogs before, that changed too. I had to move them all around HOPING that if I moved them they might feel safer and be calm when outside. I had to put them all in just before dark too, because they would get upset if they were out when it was dark, no longer feeling safe to be out in the dark. Then I had to figure out a way to put up something so they could not see my neighbor's dog. One horse, in just seeing my neighbor's dog got so frightened he panicked and tried to jump out of his paddock and he did not make it and instead landed on top of a tube gate I had that had plywood attached to it. He bent it in half and was stuck on this bent gate and I was all alone cleaning stalls and heard the noise only to rush out and see this big beautiful very expensive show horse literally stuck on this bent gate. I was lucky he had his blanket on, otherwise he would have suffered severe lacerations on his body. All that just because this horse saw my neighbor's dog and this horse was NEVER afraid of dogs, did not care about dogs at all before experiencing this dog chasing him the way it did. Also this same horse suffered torn suspensories and was not supposed to run around as it was important in our effort to see if he could even heal. I also had to hand walk him every day in increasing amount of time. I did that in my riding ring and the entire time I literally PRAYED he would not see this neighbor's dog because if he did he would rear up and try to take off and he was way too big for me to hold him back if he reared up and panicked like that. He did do this a few times and I ended up suffering from plantars fasciitis in both my feet. That got so bad I could hardly walk and had to have injections in my feet and special orthotics made for me so I could walk.

So, even horses can develop a kind of ptsd too, a condition where what was safe for them can completely change where they genuinely do not know how to feel safe under certain circumstances. So, my entire way of life changed drastically and suddenly I had all these animals with new fears and sensitivities they never had before. I could not relax like I used to on my own farm and I was very overwhelmed not only by the physical injuries all my ponies and horses sustained, but also how they all struggled to actually feel safe and I had to stop leaving them all out at night which created a lot more work for me, and added expense of buying more bedding for their stalls too. All of them developed new and very challenging FEARS and WORRIES and became STRESSED and ANXIOUS. Two very loved and important ones ended up dying. And I collapsed from the stress I was suddenly put under from being overwhelmed with so many big challenges that really did affect me physically, mentally and emotionally.

My point is, that it isn't JUST humans that can suffer when the way they navigate their worlds can change by experiencing a major unexpected change and sudden threat. It took YEARS to slowly get all these animals to a point where they could feel safe again. Yet I will never change the sensitivity they all have when it comes to things they hear at my neighbors. Something bad came from over there, they will never forget. I am also changed in that I too have a feeling of not feeling safe from what came from my neighbor's either and knowing these people really don't care either. They did not care to respect my world and how much I put into it that was my life and how I navigated my life. If it's not important to THEM, it's not important or worthy of respect.

I just shared something about "my world" with you, and perhaps you never realized what can happen in my world that can be something extremely hard to deal with. Truth is, a lot of people don't have any clue about how the way I navigate my own world can be so badly damaged that it caused me to break down. A lot of people would have comments of "JUST don't let it get to you, Just don't allow it to get you down, Just forget it and move on, Just learn to DEAL with it, it's not THAT BIG OF A DEAL." None of my horses an ponies JUST got over it, AND neither did I.
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Default May 29, 2019 at 09:52 AM
  #17
My perception about myself during this time shifted this morning. I was looking at old photographs and letters, and I realised that people liked me. Some people liked me and a couple of strangers went out of their way to help me. Perhaps more than a couple tried, but a couple of them stuck to helping me for a couple of years.

I was so sunk in my own tragedy and scars. I wanted people to fully understand and no one came close. But people really made an effort to be care about me, and that speaks to a different side of my personality that the terrible physical and emotional scars. It's a good thing to hold inside.

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Default May 29, 2019 at 10:27 AM
  #18
That is a great realization. The problem is that expecting ANYONE to fully understand is an impossible expectation because unless you are the one actually going through it with your own emotions & perspective of what is going on....they can't FULLY understand. They can only assume some level of understanding.

It's the ones that deny that it happened & tell you it was actually a different scenario that are the ones that are of no help.

I am glad you have seen that you did have several who did try to help you. Sometimes their help get lost in the noise of our own thoughts.

I also know for myself that my mom & probably my mother cared about me & wanted to help but they were both too dysfunctional in their own ways to even comprehend how to help. They tried to do their best BUT......I had no idea how much their dysfunction fed into my problem from the beginning.

We don't have to wear our scars on our sleeves as a badge of what we have gone through or to continually get validation of how bad it was (which it was bad) or even as our identity. Those things become learning experiences we do file into our minds storage. I find that when topics come up in conversation those lessons learned from experience are able to be shared as learning information to others.

Great realization going through those photos & letters

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Default May 29, 2019 at 01:23 PM
  #19
Sometimes their help get lost in the noise of our own thoughts.

Yes exactly, thank you! The noisiness of pain is real. The help is real. In the moment you can't appreciate both together: rather flip-flopping between them.

Same with being likeable. I can learn how to "make" people like me, but that isn't the same as being likeable without trying. I never, ever, considered myself likeable in that sense, of having to do absolutely nothing, make absolutely nothing. That is an injury. That is the strength still of my father's projected self-hated.

For sure I was simply convenient for some people because I fitted into their inner stories, but two people really tried to like me. Both died during that period. In retrospect I think that nothing-to-lose on their side had something to do with the strength of our connection. They were playing all out for real.

And some people enjoyed my company. I felt like a black dog or a sham.

Can be in agony yet still serve a need in someone else's story, and that's a good thing. Better than hiding in your bedroom.

The memory of how agonising my life is/ had been - isn't the whole story.

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Default May 29, 2019 at 02:03 PM
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Same with being likeable. I can learn how to "make" people like me, but that isn't the same as being likeable without trying. I never, ever, considered myself likeable in that sense, of having to do absolutely nothing, make absolutely nothing.
I never DID anything to make people LIKE me but for some reason I got along with most people but always at a surface level. I had no idea how to be friends at a deeper level since I had never existed around anything including my parents that was an example of more. Got glimpses of others now & then & wondered what that "MORE" was until I got away from all of them & could explore emotions in the quiet of my own home with good therapy & my wonderful soulmate dog.

I have since learned & experienced in my new environment the amazing fact that with many here we can connect just by being there for each other...that unconditional experience I have with my dogs. Makes me realize that in my own gut I was right that there was MORE. In my case it wasn't a specific injury but it was definitely something MISSING in my environment.

I think that may be why getting help that works is because there are so many different scenarios that create similar results on a spectrum.

I always felt like the outsider even though I fit in on the outskirts of every group....but realize for me that was exactly what my parents were too so that was initially learned & something I could unlearn unlike my dad's ASD.

Quote:
The memory of how agonising my life is/ had been - isn't the whole story.
It is important to see the good & the bad together (mindfulness= big picture). So often when things are so bad that is all our mind remembers. I struggle with that because after my parents died everyone only wanted to remember the good. I remembered the bad & struggled to remember the good in with it....same with my marriage....but there was so much more to the whole story just because things were on the majority bad & a struggle & a fight.

When we lose sight of the BIG PICTURE of our life & hold our total focus on all the bad it creates even more negativity in our life & makes healing even more difficult. Yes the really horrible stuff exists & never should be denied but need to remember good things also even if few.

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