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(JD) · Oct 23, 2011, 10:11 AM

(((O E))) I'm glad your T wanted you to share here.. .you have a lot of stuff to say and have support for (probably a month's worth of session-work just relating!) I see your insight rising to the top and hope you will continue this back and forth with all of us here.

Now...yes, let me reaffirm that I do hear you about the PTSD and I do understand how we can try and control it but it's like one of those Chinese finger puzzles..the more we work at resisting the tighter it becomes.

May I try to dissect some things I'm seeing? (And much of it is because I've been there.)

Quote:

He was describing how CSA prevents children from learning how to deal with preditors and identifying them

Quote:

Now, I am stuck in abuse, I am trying not to service it, but it has been very hard, and I feel like I am stuck servicing it.

Yes, you probably do sense them a mile away. However--and here's the finger puzzle part--the PTSD doesn't stop you from dropping lock-step into their plots.

Remember how abusive people know how to pick their targets? It's like someone who has been abused has a target on them somewhere, invisible to most, but obvious to the learned abuser. They push buttons, the victim reacts. PTSD causes this. (Maybe on both sides of the coin, but that's another matter.)

What I see perhaps is what your T is trying to help you see (IDK, so ask your T.) The very fact that you ARE reacting to this neighbor so animatedly IS proof that the PTSD is in control and you are reacting exactly as someone who doesn't know how to respond to a predator. Your mind knows...you body reacts differently. You say all the right things in one way, but in another you are feeding the fear you are running from and trying to control. (This is why I call it the "beast" of PTSD.)

This is why I suggested writing things down. Writing things as rationally as you can gives you a chance to tell your mind--okay I wrote that down I don't need to be thinking about it again. (Rather like the advice of making a list at bedtime of what still needs to be done, so you can get to sleep?) You need some groundwork foundation to be able to rely upon and build upon. "These are the facts" "I don't need to continue to remind myself of them, how unfair and outrageous and mean-spirited the neighbor is and the lawyer is and and and"