A lot of feelings about this...

So when I got up yesterday, around noon, I had an email from a home owner acquaintance. The message read " The suicide note I am leaving has all the Board members names on it-happy life " the email was left around 0258 hrs. So when I got it I was stunned, had all these flashbacks about finding my Dad, the guilt, but then I questioned if I could up to his house and risk finding him. Should I just ignore the message, which was only sent to me. As I was getting dressed I kept debating what I should do, he has cried wolf several times before and he knows how hard it is to handle finding my Dad. So I got a little angry too. Why would he do this to me, we haven't spoken in months? So I called his house, no answer, I called his cell, no answer. I had emailed him when I found the email no answer. So then I sent another email saying if he didn't contact me soon I was calling the Police and making a forced entry to his house. He called me back in about 5 mins., he knew I would do it. So he's fine but the he proceeded to curse me out and write vulgar things in an email about another home owner, but after his rant he calmed down. Now I'm still a bundle of nerves.

I really don't know what to say....that someone would put you in that position. You have every right to be angry.

Thanks but when I felt angry I felt like a horrible person by second guessing going to him or calling for help. Though I felt pretty sure he was okay. But you never know. I also thought if he had done something and it was now 9 hrs later not much could be done to benefit him at that point. All these emotions came crashing in on me fear, guilt, anger, sadness, it was an over load

That's a tough position to be put in. This person sounds quite manipulative. I would suggest that if it happens again in the future that you just call 911. I suspect he's looking for attention, a reaction. This way you aren't roped into the situation and you can be sure that if he needs medical attention he gets it.

Don't beat yourself up over this. It sounds to me like you had good reason to doubt what his intentions were.

Thanks and that's good advice but then again I didn't want to call the police to his house if he was okay. If he had not called back in a few minutes that was my plan. That threat got him to call me. I know he saw my earlier emails and heard my calls. Him calling me back proved that. But then again I don't want him to feel like he can't call if he gets in a bad way. Sucks sometimes to be nice, ya know?

I know you don't want him to not have anyone he can reach out to, but he is not your responsibility and you don't deserve to be emotionally manipulated the way he is doing with you either. What people choose to do is "not" your responsibility. Do people make bad or horrific choices? Yes, but it's their choice no matter how bad and not something you deserve to feel responsible for.

That's just who I am, the protector and caregiver. I know he's hurting but I also know this is how he manipulates people. He's kind of got a history of playing victim. But still...he's an unstable person.

And why are you that way?? I understand you "care", but you also have to be careful of the people that push buttons like this. I had to learn about that myself because years ago my therapist told me that given my husband was a binge alcoholic and started with alcohol so young he did not mature normally and would be pushing my buttons to mother him. It was really hard because I had not realized all the ways he did try to push my buttons.

He is an unstable person but you have your own challenges right now. What he did with you was certainly not thoughtful considering what you have had to deal with already and how you are struggling yourself.

Good grief he posted this on the thread we were emailing through
earlier
Mar 5 at 9:38 PM
"Something to think about-crazy homeowner kills 2 HOA Board members & himself in Harrisburg, ..."
“Harrisburg man guns down two neighbors, kills self after standoff”
Harrisburg man guns down two neighbors, kills self after standoff | News | hickoryrecord.com

What are this man's redeeming qualities that make him your friend? He sounds very unstable right now. It's good to be a caretaker but sometimes the one we really need to take care of is ourselves. So sorry that you are having to go through this right now.

Well he's a neighbor. He can be very nice and pleasant to be around at times. We never have been close but I think he has pushed away everyone else. It's a development like condos. Everyone is close together. I think he manipulates people and I don't want to be manipulated but I don't want to turn my back on someone who needs help. Maybe I can just wean him off slowly. Thanks for the feedback.

All is good with him today. Been a terrible day though

I can't believe it's already early Wednesday. I have totally lost time Sat-Tuesday, this must have really messed my head up.

I think this would be very stressful for anyone. I hope that you are able to separate yourself from this situation. Are you doing ok now?

Yes, I think I'm over it now. It was very triggering for me and it made me mad that he would send an email like that to me. We aren't friends, he's too negative for me to be around him much. Just not a person most people would want to be around. He knows the deal with me finding Dad after his suicide and how bad that was for me. So putting me in this situation that would make me think I was going to find someone else dead was uncalled for.
If there is a next time I will just call the police and have them go up there.

I totally understand why this would be triggering. I've had some similar experiences.

The problem is when I get triggered it's like a two day thing for me, being in a fog. Though with this one it was more of a three day thing. Yesterday after the Tele therapy session, from the VA, I went to bed around 3:30 p.m. and didn't wake up until today at 11 a.m. I had slept up to a hour before the tele session, because of shoulder pain keeping me from sleeping well. I don't usually go to bed right after a session. The bed for me is a safe place though. No doubt this PE therapy is hard, it takes a lot out of me.

I have a hard time separating pure stress from being triggered. Being triggered (as a concept) is a fairly new concept to me, and I don't have a good feel for when it is happening. Back in December I had a period of time where I think I was basically triggered for a couple weeks. I was a mess. I had a conversation with my daughter's PDoc (about my daughter) during this time and it was actually helpful because it was then that I realized what was going on. I got off the phone with him and went into a 3 hour anxiety attack. But it was after that conversation that I started having a better understanding of what was going on with me.

That's understandable I think this is new to almost all of us and you don't know what to expect or how life is suppose to go. We have lived with the flashbacks, triggers and dissociation so long we have accepted that as a normal way of life. Which is okay I guess if you are happy with it. I wasn't aware of my dissociation until I saw this counselor in my town, back when I had insurance. We were doing a session and she asked if I was still with her, I could hear her voice but it sounded far away, finally I realized where I was at and answered yes. But I was stunned that she could see the dissociation, I thought is was just daydreaming and that no one else noticed it. It was my private little get away. So it floored me that people could see it and what had they been thinking about this. She was pulling me back frequently, most I could get back but was really strong and I left the office in a fog. Ended up at a Lowes store and didn't remember driving there. I should have just stayed at the office but I was too zoned out to make that decision.

I think it's important to understand that dissociation is something everyone does to a certain extent. In fact, dissociation is even taught to people in all kinds of ways. A surgeon has to learn how to "ignore" the gore that takes place when he cuts open another human being in order to repair the damage he is trying to do so that the human being he is operating on can survive. Individuals who are trained to engage in battle go through a lot of training and in that training they have to learn how to dissociate so they don't hesitate which can lead to loss of life. When my daughter learned how to compete in riding she had to learn how to dissociate from whatever people were doing that were watching her so she could focus on what she had to do in the competition verses getting distracted. If she was asked to talk about what the people were doing that were standing around the ring watching her, she would not be able to tell. Although, she would probably remember the course she had to do and all the challenges that entailed.

If you sit and watch a movie and you find yourself getting completely sucked into that movie, are you going to remember the other people around you?

When you get up in the morning and go about your day, do you remember or have to think about every switch you turn on, every step you take? The only time you would remember is if every step was hard because you were in pain right? That would also be the case if someone who was trained to dissociate the crowd around them and compete was suddenly hit or hurt by someone that was in that crowd, that would make it much harder to resume dissociating from that crowd again.

This is a part of that "why can't I just like I used to" when it comes to trauma.

When someone has a flashback, that person goes back in time and that person loses their conscious awareness of the "now". We all do that to a certain extent, but it's more intense when the flashback involves trauma or is related to the trauma.

The brain remembers a lot more than we consciously realize and the brain also retains things in areas of the brain that don't contain language. It is highly probably that the brain during times of dissociation remembers things in the subconscious part, but because we are dissociating and focusing at a task in hand, we don't store whatever was in that entire picture in a place that contains language.

Some very good points and examples.