[STARLITE*1111]

And the many reasons how I became this way I do know...
Boy what a life and what a life to try to relearn

[BrokenNBeautiful]

I feel like I have to learn all over again, too.

[Open Eyes]

One day I noticed a member's name and it was "I had no Idea", and wow did that resonate with me, to the core.

I always thought I managed to survive alot of the bad things I experienced in my childhood and even my life, it never occured to me that I was "hurt" the way I have come to understand it in experiencing PTSD.

For myself looking back through PTSD, I can see that most of my life from my earliest memories when I could bearly even walk, I became a hypervigilant child. It has been very hard for me to look back on it all with finally understanding hypervigilance and anxiety and what "abuse and disfunction and victim mentality" really means. When I suffered such a sudden and big loss and I broke, I was so hurt that I thought, "my god no one is ever going to understand how deep this really goes". Through all that troubled past I had developed a certain kind of strength, and I was often admired for it, often questioned "how do you know so much?". Even in therapy when I have talked about the way I see things, I am constantly asked if I read this book or that book as if what I knew was something that some other person had written about. Well, I didn't read any of those books, I lived it and did a lot of figuring out "whys" on my own. I just thought that that is what most people do, "live and learn" and grow past alot of things that might be bad or threatening to them. And the truth is, alot of people do just that, they learn as they go really. Only some people have a more functional and safer family environment growing up then others do. Some people don't experience CSA from an early age, they actually have a safe childhood where they don't live from day to day in constant fear somehow.

My husband was always asking me, "Why are you always looking over your shoulder somehow, why can't you just ignore these things and go about your own life?" And I honestly never thought that my being "aware" like I was was something "not normal".
My husband also was constantly saying to me "you know too much" and I could not understand why others didn't recognize certain things like I did. My T tells me that I am sooo strong, but the "why" I am like that isn't a pretty picture really.

Yes, it is quite the challenge to revisit the "whys" that you just didn't know about and have to slowly learn how to see what it all meant and then slowly learn how to finally think about it in a way where you can move forward and function again. Yes, it does feel like a big "relearn".

It is important to make sure you don't "self blame" while you do this either, but instead to be patient and very forgiving of yourself. It is important to understand you did the best you could with what you knew at the time and that you "did" survive it all even though it hurt you more than you realized it did. It is ok to grieve it and even get angry too, but very important to remember you were only human too.

Open Eyes

[avlady]

Hi Open Eyes I think you "know" so much is because you have a gift from God, they do exist i believe-understanding, it is supposed to be one of the greatest gifts of all!!!!!!!!!!also wisdom

[Open Eyes]

Oh thank you avlady, that was very nice of you to say that.

I am glad this thread evolved this way, actually perfect timing.

Here is an example of how I struggle.

I posted in the forum about this "like" feature this morning and I have to admit that I was triggered in that thread. But I am struggling lately because I have some IRL situations that are really challenging me, really pulling on my heart strings and I really wish I could master "not feeling emotional pain" better. I came to PC, I do that every morning and have been for almost 2 years now. Anyway, I had a message on my profile page and when I clicked on it I noticed the "likes" under my name. And it triggered me in a way I didn't really expect it to. It just seemed like something for others to be able to look at and see how many likes I have that can show how well my imput at PC is "liked" by others. Well, I don't really think about the supportive posts I give like that. I just want to be able to be as "supportive" as I can without even thinking about the "approval rating" of what I muster up. And I can already see how others don't mind it, might even think it is cool or that it is an easy way to add to something already posted without posting themselves. But for me, I honestly don't want to look at that tab under my name that tells me how many "likes" I have aquired in my time at PC.

Well, then I saw the group of words, "your words should speak for themselves (once)". And I am quoting this not to pick on it, but just to discuss how I reacted to it with my PTSD mind. Wow, there is a lot of triggers to that small group of words for me. Also it comes from "authority" to me and that means something too. And I am not picking on this source either, just opening up to what it means to me that goes way back.

First of all, pretty much everything I uttered in front of my father "an authority figure" was pulled apart and put down and corrected before I could even complete a thought or sentence. It was so bad that I developed what I call a brain studder where I was really challenged to get the sentence/words I had in my mind to be able to come out of my mouth in a normal fluid manner. It was horrible because anytime I was around any "authority figure" I expected to get "put down and corrected for anything I could manage to say". This also added to my sense that "I must be too dumb somehow" and it is better to "say less" so "authority figures don't pick on me or notice me". It took me "years" to get over that and be able to talk to anyone I felt was educated and had authority somehow. How I eventually did learn to slowly overcome that brain studder was by being around children because they "never" corrected me.

Heres another way that phrase pricked my mind, which is not picking or disagreeing but just how they set in my mind. Your words should speak for themselves (once) meaning you should only say what you think "once" and no more right? Well, that never worked for me because "people didn't listen" and when that happened it always meant "more pain for me". How I wish I only had to say something (once) and be heard. One word that so many people will not hear is the word "no". I spent a lot of time trying to develope ways of saying that word in hopes of being "heard" but I never seemed to quite get it right and that led to "hypervigilance" in me.

In 2003 I laid in my bed in so much pain, and I said it once, and again, and again, and it got soo bad that I said "call an ambulance" but I didn't get to say that "once" either. I was dieing and in so much pain, if only I had been heard that first time. The ambulance came and they came up to my room and put me on a board. My insides were so poluted by toxins that laying on that board was "excruciating" and yes, I expressed the pain. I was yelled at to "shut up" and that no doctor would see me if I didn't "shut up" and "knock it off". It is impossible to not cry out in pain when you are in so much pain. It is hard when people are mean to you, don't believe you when you are in so much pain and very near dieing. I am very lucky to be here and I have a huge scar because they cut my entire body cavity open because I was so infected. I had perotinitus and was in surgery for a long time while they irrigated my body cavity out. My battle for recovery from that took a long time. This is just one of many bad experiences that comes to my mind.

When I was young I remember trying to tell about my older brother, and because I was not heard, I spent many hours up in the trees hiding from him in the cold until my mother got home from work. I almost died of phemonia and I do get flashbacks of sitting in the ice tub shivering. But I was also "shivering in the tree too".

I had a colonoscopy and my spleen was injured in the procedure. I am glad I gave myself extra time to rest after that procedure because my spleen was bleeding but luckily I was quiet. I didn't know my spleen was damaged until I did work and began to feel pain. The pain kept getting worse and I got dizzy and was afraid to drive myself to the emergency room. My husband didn't "believe me" and I didn't get to say it (once). He finally agreed to drive me and by the time I walked through the doors my legs just gave out from under me and I got scared and my husband stood over me and "yelled at me to knock it off and get the hell up, stop being a big baby".
Did you know that the spleen is full of nerves and very fragile and when it is hurt it is extremely painful? Well, I know first hand, but you can't say that it hurts real bad "just once" and have people believe you.

I had given my "words to my neighbor about how he needs to contain his dogs" however (once) was not enough. And I somehow wish I had realized that he never really heard me and I should have never tried to be nice and get along with him and work towards being "neighborly". Because my words never meant anything to him, and the result was his loose dog ended up wiping out years of hard work that I can't ever replace.

Now someone else can look at those words and have no problem with them. But I see them differently and I have to learn "why" and also learn how to slowly understand how to slowly "not have something small like that trigger me somehow". And I am sure there are plenty that would simply say, "OE is over reacting and she should just "shut up and deal" and "get with the program and stop whinning". Well, unfortunately as anyone knows who struggles with PTSD, that's what others "don't get about PTSD". I don't want to have just a few words clumped together be a trigger that can bring a long list of "tramatic experiences come forward in me" like they do.
I wish, just like everyone else that I could go back to the place in my life where that didn't happen.

I am sitting here typing this post with a part of me feeling like I am going to be somehow "punished" because of pointing this out. I am not doing this in any kind of protest either, but merely to share how "now" with this condition called PTSD, I can experience seeing a group of words that mean a lot more to me than "just a simple group of words".

I never expected to be challenged with this, and I am not sure if I would have understood this challenge myself until I experienced it first hand. A gift from God avlady? Oh I don't know really, I do know that I seemed to understand alot of things about other people somehow before I developed this disorder. But, I am not sure I would have been able to give this disorder the respect it deserves without experiencing it first hand. I am always trying to find a way to discribe it where others who have no first hand experience with it can "understand how challenging it is". I would like to be able to discribe it just (once) with words that speak for themselves in a way that others will "listen" and actually "understand". But these "words" just seem to escape me somehow.

I know on some level the most important thing is that "I" understand it and learn what it means and take time to "relearn" things I didn't understand in my past somehow. However, I am only "human" and in that there will be that desire to want others to "understand" my challenge.

I do push myself to be "brave" and speak my mind. But I have to admitt that there is a part of me that is also expecting some kind of "shut up" to take place. But that is why I do my best to "listen" and support as much as I can here and even outside PC. And I can't blame anyone for sitting across from a T and struggling to open up. I can't blame anyone for wondering if they will ever be understood either. What is important to understand about PTSD though, is that alot of these fears are actually "normal" fears, however with PTSD, the brain "magnifies" the fears and it takes time to slowly recognize that and work on slowly learning how to gain more sense of "control" over it again. For me personally, well, I have had a lot bad experiences where "I was simply not heard" and I did pay a painful price. I am working on that and trying my best to heal and learn how to slowly overcome. I do know it is a challenge that many do not understand though. So I try to offer support because it is easier to work on when "not alone".

Open Eyes

[(JD)]

Yep. My analogy is that PTSD causes the brain to dump all your memory files on the floor, mixed up. Everything you had neat and tidy and tucked away (closed, settled) are all back on the table again (or scattered on that floor)...