Trouble looking at the whole you

Does anyone else have problems looking at yourself? Your whole self? It's like going through life with your eyes half open.

Absolutely. For me, it's difficult because of my dissociative disorder, but also C-PTSD. Anytime I try to look at who I am as a whole, I start feeling foggy and distant... even with just trying to identify the emotions I am feeling.

The Skeezyks would prefer to have nothing to do with himself. Unfortunately he doesn't have a choice...

I don't think the average person actually sees their "whole self" Trace.

There are things that I experienced in my past that traumatized me, but I managed to regroup and carry on anyway. Now that I have more life experience and am re-examining my own history closer, I can see how these traumas affected me in ways I had not realized at the time.

Human beings prefer a structure that provides them with predictiblity. A person may stay in an abusive situation simply because they at least got to a point where they could predict when they would be challenged or they learned how to manage whatever environment they were in where they could "predict". Often that is prefered rather then getting away from a situation because getting away has a lot of unpredictables to it.

The more a person can predict, the less stress their brain experiences. When the brain experiences a "predictable structure", it adjusts and begins to operate on auto pilot. When it gets unpredictable the individual has to use the frontal lobe more, and the individual experiences more stress in the brain which as you know produces more cortizol that pumps into the body getting ready for fight or flight. That is much more "tiring" on the brain and the body.

A big enough trauma can dramatically change one's personal sense of structure and it can be such an unpredictible event that it dramatically changes a persons personal sense of predictable structure. The conscious mind is completely caught off guard and knowing where to "fit" whatever took place that was so traumatic can really be very challenging.

I have a hard time seeing myself as I'm fighting an invisible illness that is wracking my brain. I feel like I should be better than this. I should be smarter, thinner, etc. I should have a job or going to school to get one. Everything is "not good enough."

I agree. It's like you recognize some parts of you....but not the others. I think it's that puzzle analogy. We are just trying to get all the pieces to fit again.

Why do you think it's that way? If you care to share, of course.

Wow, you are really getting deep into this MH stuff I hope this means you are going to school to become a T. You would do a great job

I agree with you too. It's hard to recognize this person we are now.

Thanks everyone for the responses and explanations. Seems this is a challenge for a lot of us. Though I hate we are going through this, I'm glad I'm not the only one, ya know? That's the great thing about this type of communication. Just knowing this is a normal part of the journey takes some stress away from it.