emotionalflashback

Hi all Just a quick one I have been experiencing an emotional flash back for just over a week. I'm left exhausted and feel hijacked by my own brain. I have weekly therapy but after a year we are still exploring issues to treat and not yet addressing them in a recovery way. I am currently not on meds but was on some for a good 9 months. I work full time and have good support (maybe not understanding), have a loving family, very few friends. What I am asking is how do you cope with EF in between sessions? Also it feels like one of my parts is trying to keep me in this moment (is the also an issue in C-PTSD)?#CPTSD #emotionalflashback

#PTSD #emotionalflashback

Just became aware that I am working like I’m going through a crisis. I am feeling the same fear I felt while living with my Dad. This negative emotion does not match the present. My environment is peaceful. My anxiety is coming from the trauma lived through my Dad. Flashbacks are involuntary and sometimes I am not aware of them. Hm. I’ve read about this but just became aware of how it is working in my life. Interesting.

My “adopted” brother got here. I didn’t know he’s legit hilarious. He’s also gentle and kind. But I almost lost it completely when I went to the bathroom and realized I’ve been walking around with the seat of my pants split wide open (I recently lost 10 pounds and they’re way too big), the seat of my pants was fine this morning but I don’t know if I walked around the block with my underwear flapping in the breeze or if it happened right in front of my nonbiological brother or what. I changed pants and asked my “adopted” parents how long I’d been walking around that way. My Mom and Dad said nobody noticed, but I was panicking and in my classic freeze mode where only my Mom can touch me and she just stood there and held me.

We all played a board game and my brother is truly hilarious but I was still worried about my pants. I was in charge of moving the pieces the appropriate number of spaces and I was so embarrassed because I was nervous and couldn’t remember how to count or even really read the numbers right and I was feeling really dumb. I don’t know if it was one of my younger parts that sucks at paying attention to games and details or if it was just an #emotionalflashback or who the heck knows I was just not ok and I didn’t want my brother to see that I wasn’t ok. I’m already scared enough of strange men.

So he’s hilarious and he seems kind and gentle and he saved the game with his constant stream of wisecracks. And I said something during the game like this family time is much more pleasant than any family time I’ve ever spent with my bio family...but this is also only the third time I’ve met this guy. He made a lot of eye contact with me and smiled a lot, and now I’m anxious and triggered all over again. I’m afraid he’s going to try something and I know he sometimes gets up to use the bathroom at night. The bathroom is 8 feet from my bedroom.
I know I sound so paranoid and completely irrational but I don’t know what to do. I have a lock on my bedroom door and a bell on my doorknob so I can hear if anyone opens the door but I am just generally...I don’t know... it’s really stupid and I know that. You can tell me I’m being stupid and overdramatic. It wouldn’t be the first time, and you’d probably be right.
Just get me out of here. But this is where I live now and there’s nowhere else to go.

I spent a long time this morning writing a post about childhood psychological abuse and it kept getting flagged as visible only to the mighty staff and me.
It triggered me because I felt silenced and like my voice speaking the truth STILL did not matter. I also was mad at myself because I felt like what I was writing about was not that bad and I felt like I was just being whiny. The fact is that in addition to other more serious trauma, my parents and family members spent my entire childhood psychologically conditioning me to believe that my isolated childhood with no siblings until it was way too late and only bullying from other kids was happy and fulfilled and good for me, when that couldn’t have been much farther from the truth. The fact is that my mother was covertly incestuous bordering on overtly, my father either didn’t know or condoned it, and my parents were my whole world. School was no escape because severe bullying. Therapy made things worse because my therapist molested me for years. All of my trauma was denied, and the only way that I could survive was to lie and pretend that none of it happened for so long that I started to believe the lie. I was praised for the lie. All I ever wanted was to have integrity, so I started believing the lie, and consequently gave up on integrity as a concept.
When I got into what I thought was good therapy, for the first time, in my mid 20s, after awhile my therapists started psychologically abusing me as well. They were initially family therapists for me and my biological family, and they allowed scapegoating and abuse by family to continue in their office, which should have been a big red flag, but I was so convinced of the lie by that time that I thought that’s what family therapy was. I believe they may have stayed in touch with my parents once I started seeing them individually, because not long after I started individual therapy with them, they started attacking my character and denying my repeated reports of sexual abuse by my childhood therapist and others. By that time I was valuing integrity highly again and doing my best to always tell the truth. They were so adamant that sexual abuse never occurred by my childhood therapist, that they said I was inventing things for attention and creating drama. They were so harsh and crossed so many lines that their judgmental and abusive voices are permanently on loop in my head even though they have been out of my life for years now.
The fact is that sexual abuse did happen at the hands of my childhood therapist and several other people in my childhood and adolescence. That is one of my truths. Another one of my truths is that my family systematically and deliberately conditioned and brainwashed me to believe that my lonely and out of touch childhood at home and everywhere else was excellent, even superior to other kids’ lives. But I was bullied for a decade and my parents fed into it.
Thats why I was so triggered when my post got flagged.

#emotionalflashback #PTSD #CPTSD #catastrophizing Had a bad day today, went and talked to a good friend/mentor, and she said something I realized afterwards might help others here. She said that my fears of being abandoned, and left to deal with things all by myself is the worst case scenario. Realizing that she's right has helped me realize it is less something that is happening, or is likely to happen, and more just my mind spewing worst case scenarios, and worst fears.

Or, in other words, as I just realized a few minutes ago, it was my brain catastrophizing. (Again. I used to be a master at it. 😂. It'sbeen a long time since I've done it though.)

On a side note, she also pointed out to me that even if my worst fears come true, and I wind up dealing with everything on my own, I have the ability to successfully do so, and a long track record of pulling myself through things, and digging myself out of deep holes. Mistly because I insist on continuing to look for that next thing to help, and taking the actions to make them happen. No matter how tempting giving up can be in the short term. 😁 ... and this is why I keep going back to her. Even when my faith in everyone else is shot.

#Autism #CPTSD #PTSD #EmotionalAbuse #EmotionalNeglect #emotionalflashback So, today, despite the fact I'm pretty sure she was supposed to be off on holidays, my support person emailed me two documents she hoped would help me deal with my emotional flashbacks. One of them, some bits from the book "Mind Over Mood" (2nd edition) (forget the authors, and there are apparently several with this title, though maybe not edition # , but I've certainly seen it before, everywhere, so probably the most common one.) Had a chapter on "core beliefs". It's been useful. Also did a little more research online on the subject. Some of it also helpful. My public library's in city copies are all in use, and there are no digital copies, but I could request it, and either get a provincial copy, or the first available local copy. If it weren't for the blizzard, I could've gone in search of my own copy - new or used - but, oh well, maybe tomorrow. By Wednesday the weather should certainly have cleared.

Also, the rest of the books I ordered from my favourite bookstore a while ago have arrived too! A week early. 😁. So another fun task for when the weather clears!

Aling with getting the laundry folded and put away, and the dishes done, it's been a pretty good day for a change. The reboot of America's Most Wanted even had a new capture for us, only two weeks in!😀. Made me happy. (And yes, it's weird that I've recently gotten in the mood for watching true crime on tv lately, despite my low emotional tolerance for things, and current disinterest in reading anything on the subject. )

So I'm in the process of being interviewed about ritualistic abuse I lived through as a child (I'll try to avoid going into detail of actual abuse and just stick to talking about my situation now)

Basically due to covid (an other reasons) the interviews were put on hold..
the second I wasn't being interviewed more and More memories started coming back again, then I found out they are angling the case Just towards my biological father and Not the ring of powerful child killers he 'worked' with, this leaves me very afraid for my long term safety.

Well now my brain undug at least two other perpetrators I was trafficked to.
it's like the police saying they are just going after him meant my brain had to release memories of everyone else that it Knows need to be held accountable for the things they have done!!

My biggest concern with them saying that (,well there are Many!) Is that the information that I gave them that they Don't want to ask me any questions about.. is the bit that includes all the murder crime scenes I was at or taken to at..
It's the bit that includes all the rich and powerful people, but it's also the bits where my bio father and others killed children!

I'm worried he will end up with just a slap on the wrist and his name on the a register.. when he and at least 15 other 'men' should be going down as mass murderers!!

How can they call this justice?
How can they try and make this Just a historical family abuse case?
How can the system hide such horrors?
How am I meant to battle this All alone?
How can the police put my life in danger and protect serial killers?
What is actually wrong with the world!?!

#Barelycoping #childhoodabusesurvivor #Nojustice #MeToo #Childhoodtrauma #helpme #NeedSupport #warriorsurvivor #WritingThroughIt #emotionalflashback #somaticflashbacks #scared #tired #stillfighting #twistedworld

I decided to finally find out what the fuss about "Schitt's Creek" (TV show) was this week and ended up watching all six seasons. I finished the last three episodes tonight - you know, the ones where two main characters express love and commitment to one another and get married.

About an hour after I finished watching, I noticed that my anxiety was rising, which seemed odd and out of place. I couldn't think of what might have triggered it.

Well, it's getting worse now and it is totally due to that romantic storyline. I just can't engage with either fictional or true romantic stories/situations without the emotional flashbacks coming on. It feels so ridiculous and unnecessary. I wish I could just get over this.

I guess this explains why I usually stick to true crime...

#Romance #TV #Movies #triggered #emotionalflashback #PTSD #narcissisticabusesurvivor