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Open Eyes · Dec 09, 2012, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by InfiniteSadness

What if you practically lost all hope so far??

I have felt this way alot this past year alone, so I do understand what you are asking here.

When I look at your disorders, I think to myself that in a way I have some of those issues myself. In my disorder, I struggle with a lot of Anxiety and then I can struggle with depressive thoughts or days as well. It feels like someone just wacked my brain and it just fell apart.

I spent the last two days helping my daughter move into a new place and that involved being around her and her friends and meeting other people as well. I also spent a lot of time going back and forth in our car in close quarters with her and my husband in my very packed car. My husband can be very "in your face" and he tends to "speak over me" and interupt me when I interact in a conversation with my daughter. When that happens to me I really struggle because it makes the PTSD flare up and then I have such a hard time keeping calm.

The problem with me is that I can get so overwhelmed that I can get snappy because my brain begins to race and struggle. And that back and forth in a packed car, loud husband, in the dark not being familiar with where I was began to really challenge me. And every chance I got, when the vehicle stopped from one place to the next, I tried to walk around or get space somehow so I could calm myself down. When I did that my husband made comments about "get with it and stop being lazy" in his "hurry up quick tone that he has a habit of doing with me".

Well, by the time I got home I was mentally exhausted and when I uttered how tired I was, my husband got mad and talked about how tired "he" was and how it was a long day for him because he worked too and he was tired before we even started. So then I begin to feel guilty somehow or invalidated or reminded how other people just don't understand how much work it can be for me when I am in certain situations.

I had more moving with my daughter to do yesterday, but at least my husband wasn't there to "push" so hard. But by last night I was just really mentally worn out and when my husband got home he started his "pushing" habits and I was just so tired. And so my sleep last night was poor and my thoughts were bad in my sleep, self punishing thoughts kept waking me up.

Well, I don't mean to take so long to talk about me, but my point is, that I struggle all the time and people around me really don't realize how challenging it is for me. I struggle with anxiety build ups and then fall into depressive thoughts and it just tires me out. And then, because I struggle I begin to have the thoughts that you are discribing.

What I have done is I spent a lot of time learning about my disorder.
I have come to understand that the one thing I have to learn how to do is "control the anxiety". That is the major culprit and so I focus on learning ways to distract my mind so I reduce the cortizol buildup that presents with "anxiety".

So when I took those time outs, I walked around studied trees and focused on whatever I could to slow my mind down from racing. You have some good hobbies that you can tap onto for that. But you can also learn to find more ways to consciously stop and slow down. It takes time to develope these skills though. It is all about "learning" about how you struggle and allowing yourself to develope your own unique "coping skills" around your challenge. And a lot of disorders have the main component of "anxiety" to them.

The human brain "can" develope new ways of "adapting" and working around challenges. However, it takes a lot of time for it to do that.
So for me, instead of my focusing on the fact that it was such a challenge for me and that my husband and daughter really "don't get that", I think about how I did manage. And I have come to recognize that even though I really struggled at times, I did better than I would have done before I commited to learning about my disorder and building skills to contol it.

It is very easy to fall into saying to yourself, I have this and that disorder and therefore I am somehow doomed or can't have any kind of quality life. I have battled that many times myself. But I dig deep and find my way to allowing myself to learn about it and keep trying to "adapt" and try to "make slow gains" over it. And "yes" it can be very lonely.

But, my time at PC has made me realize that even though I have felt alone, I am not really alone, a lot of people genuinely struggle just like me. There are a lot of people that have different challenges and in my time here I have slowly been realizing that there is a lot here for me to learn about.

So, what that means to me is that while I "do" struggle, I look at the people around me that challenge me differently. I don't look at them as if "they are ok and I am the one that struggles". I now see how others struggle as well, I see their issues and even how often their issues are things they may not know about themselves.

The truth is that no human being is truely "normal" the way we might think. We all have something that challenges us. In my knowing that, I think about myself differently too, and that helps me give myself permission to say, OE, you have PTSD and these are the things that challenge you in your disorder. OE, when you struggle with it, understand that it isn't your fault, you can respond poorly, and really struggle, but learn to recognize it in you and find ways to work around it.

If a person looks in the mirror and cannot see their body in an "accepting way", well if they learn about it, understand this about themselves, then they will also learn that when they do start to experience that challenge, they can do the self talk to say to themselves, "this is my disorder, it is only what my brain struggles with and I am now going to know that and work on slowly changing that thinking pattern."

My point is that it is important to do your best to think about "challenges' as not just "damage", but to give yourself permission to learn instead. That is what "I" do, and yes, it is often hard and I often do struggle, have some bad days as well, but I just dig deep inspite of it and keep "learning" and "find my way to gaining" inspite of it.

Open Eyes