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Poohbah
Member Since Sep 2017
Location: A Growlery in the UK
Posts: 1,158
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#1
I'm sick of constantly putting on a 'brave face' to the world, having a constant smile, telling people I'm 'fine'. It's become such a habit this smiling and trying to appear 'well', been doing it my whole life, that it's making me feel worse because a) it's a lie, and b) it's such hard work to maintain and it's wearing me out the more I have to put into it and the worse I feel inside.
And yet I also don't know how not to be 'well' - I'm so afraid of people seeing me as someone who can't cope and I've always been the one who copes with anything (because inside nothing really touches me - I just dissociate). I don't know how not to habitually smile or say 'I'm OK' when asked. |
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#2
I know what you mean. Not that i have ptsd or anything, but i can still relate. You can either force yourself to smile and say you are doing fine (when you are not). It´s possible, it´s the route i´ve chosen. It´s exhausting and will serve you no purpose in the end. You´ll feel alone, weak, scared. I don´t recommend it.
If you´re brave you´ll share your feelings with others, be honest and open. You don´t even have to be that brave, you can start small. If someone asks you how you´re doing you can reply "actually, not doing too good right now..." |
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Tweaky Dog
Member Since Aug 2011
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#3
Carmina, thank you so much. I could have written this post. I know what this feels like too well.
__________________ 'Somewhere up above the great divide Where the sky is wide, and the clouds are few A man can see his way clear to the light 'You have all the grace you need for today, and today is all that matters.' - Steve Austin |
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Grand Magnate
Member Since Aug 2014
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#4
Quote:
__________________ "Caught in the Quiet" |
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Magnate
Member Since Sep 2017
Location: Britain
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#5
Me too. I'm trying to be more open about my mental health issues. And, surprisingly, it feels quite good.
Not good. But a relief. Things came to a head when I flipped with an aggressive superior at work. Not just once, but twice. Basically, I was pretending to be happy when I wasn't happy. Instead of making an excuse, in the conversations that followed my blow up, I just decided there and then to say thing's as they were. People think my company is a 'soft' employer. But they're not. Behind the scenes, no-one speaks back to the higher-ups. Joining this forum had an effect. I got to know some people on here a little bit. They were nice! Sensitive. And my heart went out to them, seeing how they struggled to maintain their integrity in a bruising and indelicate world. I don't know how it will turn out but I'm genuinely impressed so far with my superiors response. I have made a space for myself in which I can say what I need and what I won't accept. I am prepared to quit the job, if necessary. So, those things in combination (saying for the first time that I wasn't happy, and being ready to leave) made me feel like I was no longer trapped. |
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Poohbah
Member Since Sep 2017
Location: A Growlery in the UK
Posts: 1,158
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#6
Thanks
Well this is pretty much it https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...ing-depression I can, occasionally open up to people, the real problem is the reflexive habits - the smiling and 'I'm OK' as if I have some deep seated need to appease others (which I probably do) |
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katydid777
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Magnate
Member Since Sep 2017
Location: Britain
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#7
Interesting article, thanks for sharing it.
Could you experiment with a different phrase? |
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Poohbah
Member Since Sep 2017
Location: A Growlery in the UK
Posts: 1,158
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#8
Yes I could but I would still find a way to make it another way of coping. I don't think I'm explaining myself well - it's not the surface behaviours in themselves, they are just manifestations of the fact that I need to maintain this exterior level of functioning and can't fundamentally 'let go' of that - it's blocking me from really dealing with how I am. I wish I could take time out from myself. I feel like I'm surrounded by layers of obfuscation - they don't let people really see me but they also block me from being me. If that makes sense.
It's not so much that I can't say "I'm not coping" - it's that I can't allow myself to be... not coping. |
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katydid777
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katydid777
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Junior Member
Member Since Oct 2017
Location: California
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#9
Were you by any chance the "high-functioning" member of a dysfunctional family growing up? One of the hallmarks of dysfunctional families is that they don't allow family members the space to act outside their designated role, so the high-functioning one can never fall apart (b/c if they do, everyone else falls apart).
Everything you've written in this thread is exactly how I feel. And now my brain or body or something won't allow me to ignore it anymore, and my life circumstances no longer allow for my habitual ways of coping, so I feel like I'm going crazy and out of control. The people around me won't let me "not function", and my-self won't let me "function", so I'm just in free-fall. |
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katydid777
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Carmina
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Poohbah
Member Since Sep 2017
Location: A Growlery in the UK
Posts: 1,158
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#10
Oh yes, very much so
I had to watch my behaviour all the time because if I didn't my mother would be the one to fall apart and then everyone would be upset and we'd get suicide threats and worse ...... Actually though now I think of it perhaps my fear of falling apart myself is also a fear of becoming her? (not just like her but that she is inside me - when I was a child I had 2 nightmares, one was that she burst into my room at night just screaming uncontrollably - and that was so scary I'd wake up and it would be me screaming) I think this is what the object relations psychoanalysts call 'introjection' |
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objtrbit
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Poohbah
Member Since Sep 2017
Location: A Growlery in the UK
Posts: 1,158
6 129 hugs
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#11
Don't know how I got through last week, had the funeral for my aunt Monday, had to cope with staying at my parents over the weekend, took Tuesday off to recover and then Wednesday too but had to go back to work Thursday and just couldn't face it. But somehow I did because I had to and couldn't let anyone down. Put my 'game face' on and just got on with things. I just can't contemplate the idea of letting other people down, or giving in, or going to pieces.
I think when I dissociate it feels like I can cope with almost anything. I was talking to my therapist today about when I was bullied at school - there was this fat kid who always made for me in the playground and would just push me over and sit on my chest most of the break time. I couldn't get up or do anything so I just took myself out of myself in my mind till it was all over. |
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Magnate
Member Since Sep 2017
Location: Britain
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#12
Sorry, Carmina
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katydid777
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Carmina
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Poohbah
Member Since Sep 2017
Location: A Growlery in the UK
Posts: 1,158
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#13
Didn't sleep well, not sure I have the energy to face anything but I have to
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Magnate
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#14
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Legendary Wise Elder
Member Since Mar 2011
Location: Northeast USA
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#15
((Carmina)),
When you are asked how you are all that means is that someone else is acknowledging your presence politely. When you respond by saying I am ok, all you are doing is responding to that other person politely letting them know you are acknowledging their presence. Instead of thinking about your response as a lie, think about your response as your way of acknowledging the other person but that you have decided not to include this other person in your personal space or challenge. (this is self empowerment, not self deprivation) Quote:
Quote:
This doesn't really have to be your inner dialogue with yourself. Instead, the reason you are not going to pieces is because you need to find YOUR WAY to being strong for YOURSELF and this should not be about "them" but something you are doing for YOURSELF. (again self empowerment and not self deprivation) Quote:
Predators get a "high" off of "reaction". Actually, that fat kid got to know that he could trap you, BUT, eventually he got bored with you because once he got you down "game was over and no more fun". YOU controlled that part. So you actually did much better than you realize. However, because you were so young, you did not have the knowledge and life experience to know that so it traumatized you and you stored that experience "unresolved question". The other thing you learned from that is to avoid "fat kids" and you probably continued to feel uncomfortable around individuals who resemble that "fat kid" that caused you to have such a bad experience. Well, that is simply how we are designed, to remember anything that hurt us in some way. Quote:
A funeral in a family can mean the family facing a gathering and how that can often be worse than the death in the family. What I am seeing in what little you shared is how much that entire experience was such a challenge for you. You deserve to talk about it, but not with a person that may just be acknowledging your presence with a "hello how are you" that is not meant to be something that says, sit down with me and let your feelings pour out of you. This is not the same as telling you that you don't deserve to feel and that you need to deprive yourself of "needing to feel and have someone who can sit with you and help you grieve the entire experience you just experienced". What I am thinking from what you have shared is that in that experience there really was not anyone around that could validate YOUR feelings and show YOU respect for how you feel. I am sorry for that ((((Carmina)))) because that is how I struggle myself. This is a common challenge many who suffer from complex PTSD have. However, each person will have their own experiences and can include many times where that individual survived through something traumatic and had to be strong somehow and yet began to hear messages of how they should stay silent with how they "feel" and "need". |
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Poohbah
Member Since Sep 2017
Location: A Growlery in the UK
Posts: 1,158
6 129 hugs
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#16
Thanks both of you, was up from 4.30 as I had a crap nights non sleep, eventually forced myself into the shower to clear my head and went into work and got through a few hours, home again now, survived another day.
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Poohbah
Member Since Sep 2017
Location: A Growlery in the UK
Posts: 1,158
6 129 hugs
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#17
I have no frikking idea how I got through last week
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Open Eyes
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Legendary Wise Elder
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#18
I think you survived but you were probably talking to yourself with bad messages that you don't realize you learned to create in "self". From what you have shared your inner voice keeps chanting "I have to for THEM" and how "I need to deprive myself".
What I tried to do in my post for you was to lay out the inner conversations you have and how you can work towards being "kinder" to self instead of the way you often talk to yourself like that part of you that needs doesn't have a right to need. Now that you have gotten through last week, I hope you can revisit my post and think about how you can change your inner dialogue so that instead of doing for "THEM", you are maintaining your own boundaries about your feelings and that you even got through work because you "need" the income from that job and you are functioning through these challenges FOR YOU. |
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Poohbah
Member Since Sep 2017
Location: A Growlery in the UK
Posts: 1,158
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#19
Sorry but I really would rather have support here, not someone trying to second guess (mistakenly) what I may be thinking and advising me how to think, I know you are trying to help but it feels rather invasive.
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Open Eyes
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Legendary Wise Elder
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#20
Yes, you are correct in that I was trying to be helpful. Thank you for letting me know how my input affected you, I find that because my intent is to be helpful that when someone takes the time to give me feedback be it negative or positive I can learn from that and try to improve on my effort so that it has a more "positive" affect on the individual when I invest my time in trying to help that individual.
That being said, one of the things I noticed myself doing as well as others I have come across that struggle with PTSD is that self talk, "I have to do it for them" and "I have to not feel MY feelings (which is depriving self) so I can do for them. Where I really became aware of that was during a therapy session where I was talking to my therapist about a lot of things I had experienced and tears were running down my face and he gently stopped me and said, "you just told me some very sad things you lived through, how about stopping and allowing yourself to sit with those emotions instead of how you are running away with them". I honestly had not realized I did that and the core message in me was "I have to not feel, I have to do that for them". Well, it's taken me a long time to figure out where I developed that way of being Carmina. Quote:
It's hard for me to share my own personal challenges in that I anticipate being criticized for my own feelings. Because of that I never truly processed all the trauma I experienced in my history, and I do have a lot of trauma in my history. |
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Carmina
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