Being an over thinker, are you?

That's the way I am, but is that really over thinking? Is it a bad thing?

Yes. I over-rationalize things. It has been a long-standing problem. If there is something to worry about, I will worry about it. I worry about things that other's don't. I think it was because my mother's parenting style was to criticize.

Well, here is what I am figuring out. What you have shared in a different thread is a picture of what your childhood was like. You were ok with your mother, but you were very "afraid" of your father. You were just a child so you had to figure out how to handle that because "you" could not change your environment, "you" were powerless to do that and had no idea how to even talk about this deep fear, most children don't.

A child that grows up in an environment that "frightens them" and even has to deal with a parent that scares them has to learn how to live "in spite of". That is where the "thinking, or what might be described as over thinking" comes from.

I think that one of the reasons why you ended up doing the kinds of jobs where you functioned well in "chaos" has a lot to do with how you developed a way to "focus" and even "accomplish" in chaos as a child. It's almost like, I need to do something like this because this is what I "know" and can function in, it's familiar to me, I can detach from what seems so horrific, maybe even life threatening, and zone that out and handle the patient with a tramatic injury.

Also, it's quite possible, that you did know something was wrong with your father. He represented a "problem" that you did want to figure out, even though you were frightened of him. I think as you matured and became an adult, you were able to have more of a relationship with him and could even understand more about his "weakness" that long ago you had feared so much. You were finally "brave enough" to approach him and learn more about this man that has so frightened you in your past.

I don't think you had PTSD before, however, you did have a lot of trama that you did survive, you proved to be able to be strong and capable in many ways. I think that what broke you is that you finally found a way to have some kind of relationship with your father, that was important to you on a deeper level than you consciously realize. But when he decided to take his own life, that is what REALLY broke you and you developed the PTSD. That experience hit you VERY hard and in a way it frightened you very deeply as you had been so frightened as just a child, and what is so similar is that like that child you can't change it, you were powerless to do so.

What is important to understand about human beings Tracy is that we are designed to figure out how to "thrive/survive" in spite of. We begin this at a very young age, even before we have "life experience" so we can understand what these challenges or things we are seeing in our environment that frightens us really means. It's not unusual for a child to be drawn to something that can be scary, even toxic simply because it's familiar to them. We are designed to figure out our own unique "self soothing" methods so children can begin to practice all kinds of little things that keep them "calm".
This actually can include avoidance, disassociation and there are a lot of different things a child who has to learn how to live in a stressful environment can begin doing.

Part of the DBT, can prove to be helpful in that one of the things that tends to suffer is the language area. Many have said that at first they struggled with it, some have said that they had to take it a few times before it began to make more sense to them. I think it can be difficult because with trauma often the one thing that there is a desire to do is not "change" certain things simply because there is a desire to remember in hopes to sort through and figure out how to "fix" somehow.

I think that what leomama was saying where she feels you might benefit from CBT first is that for some people "talk" therapy gives them a chance to slowly set out the "story" to a therapist so that they can get all the pieces out there to sort through. However, I have met some people that found DBT more helpful, it really depends on the person.

I am hoping that my post to you is helpful in that I can see your puzzle that goes back to where you first had to develop ways to cope because you did have something that frightened you and you had to figure out how to thrive in spite of it. But also, how you finally were able to have a relationship with something that has so frightened you so long ago. What he ended up doing was very traumatic, and for you Tracey, there is so much involved with that and VERY hard to find a way to articulate. Your father did play an important role in your life and was always a part of you.

*****Trigger Warning************
Wow that was pretty deep and very accurate in what you had to work with, but you left out the witnessing of my Grandfather's death at age 6-7. He was walking in front of me down a hallway and opened a door, we think to go to the restroom, but the door he opened was a basement door. He stepped into the darkness with no floor to support him. It was a horrible sound as this large man tumbled down the wooden steps, to the concrete floor. When the adults heard this noise and my scream they came and turned the light on and I saw my Grandfather crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, lifeless. No one really talked about that with me and I was horrified of that door, the stairs, the basement, for a long time. There was blood on the concrete that they couldn't get up. Had lots of nightmares, especially about my grandfather being in our living room in a casket. After my Grandfather's death dad changed. Started drinking and becoming violent. I think this is where the PTSD started for me.
I started drinking alcohol around 9-10, would ride my mini bike to a convenient store and buy beer and cigarettes and go into the woods and party. This was my escape. Mom and Dad separated when I was 9 and that should have been a relief but really it was more stress.

Kind of got off topic there, sorry. But from reading what you wrote you think that over thinking is survival and a good thing?

Oh ((Trace)), what happened with your grandfather was horrible, OMG, and for a 7 year old to see that is enough to struggle with PTSD. Ofcourse that would also be very hard for your father and yes he probably developed PTSD from experiencing that. I am so sorry your family experienced that and often a parent can get stuck in a trauma like that and not realize their child needs help and comfort too and not develop yet another fear from the parent that has been traumatized and begins not only exhibiting scarey behaviors but these behaviors only add to the trauma and confusion of the original trauma. From what you have described, both of you began to self medicate with alcohol. Actually, from what I have learned over the years about alcoholism is that a lot of individuals that became alcoholics experienced major traumas and were suffering from PTSD but did not know it and never got help.

What I did in my post to you is take what I did learn about what you experienced as a child and put that into how you developed around your experiences according to how human beings are designed to figure out how to survive and thrive in spite of being in environments where they experience constant threats of somekind.

Actually, I was watching a movie called "Hope Floats" where Sandra Bullock played the mother who was dealing with figuring out how to deal with suddenly facing how her husband was cheating on her and how that was leading to her fairy tale marriage ending. Her daughter wanted her to "fix" what was broken and the mother simply could not fix it. That movie was actually a good movie because of how it showed how the mother grew up and seemed to have "it all" and how she thought she was all set in living the "ideal" until that "ideal" fell apart. At one point Sandra Bullock told her daughter that our adulthood is all about getting over our childhood, and honestly if you sit and think about it, there is a lot of truth in that statement.

When I was suffering so badly with PTSD and did not get the right help, but instead was only further traumatized by the help I did reach out for, I almost did not make it tbh, I became dangerously suicidal. Two things "saved me", one was that in my effort to find some kind of PTSD support group so I could be around others who struggled like me, I happened across this site. Second, my husband got some names from an individual he met in his AA meetings that knew of a couple of therapists that specialized in helping patients with PTSD and understood "trauma treatment".

This site presented me with a different way to tap onto who I had been IRL. Who I had been in real life was so badly destroyed and unfortunately all that trauma took place right where I live and completely destroyed all that I had created that was a huge part of who I was as a person and that "who I was" developed out of the trauma and dysfunction "I" grew up in. I was experiencing very dangerous cycles where I was experiencing very strong suicidal impulses. What really saved me was coming across an individual who happened to be a vet who explained what that meant to me and told me to pay attention to the fact that these strong impulses come in like a wave get very strong, BUT THEY GO AWAY. So, I made it a point to pay attention and recognized what he had said to me was true. With that, I had "something" to hang on to and I fought very hard EVERY SINGLE DAY, I think it was the hardest thing in my entire life that I fought through, and I have experienced some significant challenges in my life that did traumatize me. The other thing that saved me is having this new therapist who was EXPERIENCED with treating trauma patients. The reason why that was so significant is because when I finally got to the point where I could "trust" him and tell him just how bad things really were for me, he did not send me to a psych ward, I had been there, done that and that experience only traumatized me more so that is one place I would NEVER go through again. Instead, this therapist worked "with" me and helped me make "gains" not only on this very difficult stage of PTSD, but he also made it a point to talk to my husband and let him know how important it was for him to respect just how bad it was for me and more importantly, remove the loaded gun he had been keeping in the night stand next to our bed.

The one thing that kept motivating me was that what I was living through was horrific, but, how could I learn to fight through it so I could help others do the same? My core has always been "OMG this is horrible, how can I find a way to help others with this challenge?". I was lucky in that the therapist that was helping me had himself "broke down" and had gotten the right help, so he was able to interact with me on a very significant level. I did not learn that for a while, but once he finally told me when he chose to tell me, it helped me to even further recognize that "yes" first hand experience can become something that can make a significant difference in being able to "help" another person.

Wow, you have always been very smart about MH issues but this post shows how much you have grown in that field and as a person. That's awesome. You can help a lot of people and I hope you go forward with getting the education to use those credentials. I think this is your true calling and you are so lucky to have found it. It would probably blow you away to know how many people you have helped here at PC, it's a gift.

What a wonderful compliment Tracy, thank you. I have gained a lot but, I still struggle and have had to deal with some significant triggers where I experience a cycle where I react to something "first" not recognizing on a conscious level what comes out "in" the episode may offend others in a way I had not intended. What has helped me significantly has been when I have done it in writing where I can actually revisit it and have a chance to think about what triggered it. I have been doing that for a while now and when I see how it happens with me, it helps me see when it is happening in others too. That way if I see someone else do it I can PM that person and help that person in a caring way so they can see it themselves and develop a patience to allow themselves to work through it and gain rather then running away and deciding they are simply not "good enough" to try to hang in there in spite of being challenged. I had always done that IRL, but not with this kind of challenge when it involves working through PTSD or possibly another MI that someone is trying to manage better. Also, all my life pretty much has revolved around understanding learning disabilities and helping those who struggle with a learning disability to figure out how to work around it and achieve in spite of it as well as facing how others tend to put them down for it and deem them not good enough.

So, getting back to you Tracy, I did not have time to add that to my post before because I had to stop and go to see my therapist. What I wanted to say to you is that you did develop abilities to function in spite of a tramatic situation. However, you always had that significant puzzle that had to deal with what not only what happened to your grandfather, but also how your father was profoundly affected by it and your father became someone to "fear". That is too much for any child to figure out and deal with on an emotional level, it's not surprising that you embraced the escape you happened to be exposed to where you snuck into the woods and drank alcohol. Your father used alcohol too, in fact a lot of people have used alcohol as a coping mechanism and that goes all the way back for centuries.

Unfortunately, when a parent uses alcohol to escape, they fail to help their children learn how to deal with significant life challenges. I think for your father, he just could not figure out how to process and grieve what happened to his father. It is highly likely if not certain that your father developed PTSD and self medicated with alcohol. Your father never got the help he needed to find a way to process what he witnessed that happened to his father. He was under the impression as most men are unfortunately that men are not supposed to have emotional struggles but are supposed to "just" man up and "deal". Your father just got to a point where trying to do that just got too hard for him Tracy, and most likely the disease of alcoholism along with never getting over that major trauma turned into your father making a choice that has traumatized "you" significantly. You cannot change what happened in either trauma, but you CAN learn to grieve it and process it to where you can move on in "your" life and even at some point help others to learn how to do the same.

I have noticed over the years observing my husband constantly seeking support by going to AA meetings is that while initially the first goal is about how to live one day at a time without using the crutch of alcohol, the discussions are evolving into individuals helping other individuals also deal with the life challenges where they began using alcohol to "escape" in the first place. Under my avatar next to my name it says "one day at a time", well Tracy, that is how I am learning to live my life and some days have most definitely been very challenging, but, I have learned to be patient and keep trying and learning "one day at a time".

You cannot "change" what happened with either your father or your grandfather both are very traumatic. But you "can" learn how to process these events, how they impacted you in ways you did not realize and slowly find a place to store it in your mind where you can make "peace" with it. It's important that you don't encourage yourself to convince yourself that because of your history you are forever ruined.