((((PurpleFlyingMonkeys)))))

I understand what your saying, I have those difficult times as well. So, let's think about what you experienced. One of the symptoms of PTSD is "catastrophizing". Now I had to really think about that because that symtom is not really explained and it really should be. I find that what happens to me is that I don't imagine things or make them up, but when I experience something like you did yesterday with the strange man and your boyfriend not answering, it is very easy for that to become a trigger, a feed trigger. Think of these triggers that way "Feed Triggers" and what that means is when something happens where we don't have a sense of control like what your describing, it can become more to us than just frustrating. With what we have, it can, if we allow it, become overwhelming and we can begin to panic and flood ourselves with emotions of anger, fear, frustration etc. The trigger and the experience is real, and we don't make it up, and the fear becomes real too. But what happens is it can hit a nerve and become more emotional than it should and it can present a feeling of catastrophie. And after everything is settled we can regret the way we somehow allowed ourselves to get over emotional.

Purple, the difficult part of PTSD is because something bad did happen in our past, our brain has a new alert system. And we can become so much more sensitive. Our brains are really set up to survive and so when something upsetting happens, it is designed to send us warning signs and we truely do become more sensitive. It is not that we are bad or failures, but because we ARE more sensitive we do feel that somehow we are over acting and not really in control.

These feelings you have, the great sense of need and the fear of abandonment and especially the feeling of being a burden or that others can never understand the depth of the need and personal struggle are all part of the PTSD. Purple, I hear you, I have these same experiences and feelings. It is difficult not having a therapist to work with, someone who can say, "You have this and I understand it and you can tell me, and I will understand, explain and help you". When we do finally find that person who can truely validate what we experience, someone we can truely sit with and let out our fears and troubles to who wont reject or deny us, finally we can feel a sense of safety. Because with that person, we can find the personal courage to learn how to address something that we cant seem to control and are deeply disturbed by and even ashamed of. It is hard to understand, hard to explain and very real and confusing.

Purple, your going to learn to get through this, your not a bad person, you can learn to have a good relationship and you will learn to feel safer. However, it does take time to slowly address this high alert that is coming forward in your brain so you can finally, slowly, learn how to put it all in the proper setting in your brain. What I did with you in my post was I gave you reason and helped you NOT "feed" that alarm that asked, "Is this a catastrophie?" PTSD is a question Purple, a big question about how do we respond to a warning signal, what we now call a "Trigger". But because we dont truely recognize what that disturbing question means, the question itself becomes a kind of pit we can easily fall into where we just somehow say, "Oh, yes, I think this is a castastrophie". So what I did for you, is, quietly say, calm down, don't feed into this, it is not a castrophy and lets work through it.

Purple, it take time to learn what these troubling signals mean that include troubling emotions. In time, you will slowly gain control over these triggers, and tell your brain to calm down and it is not a castrophy and you can work through that troubling question. It does take "Time" Purple, so when you feel the invitation to allow yourself to say, "Oh, my, this is a catastropy, you will begin to say, no, it is not, and you don't have to allow yourself to be overcome with a sense of "catastrophy".

(((((Hugs)))))

Open Eyes