[Open Eyes]

I think this is a good question for anyone who might struggle in therapy, or with understanding the root of how one was hurt, even why one might have accepted some kind of dysfunction.

For myself, when I was little I played a lot by myself in my room. I also played outside a lot when it was nice out too. I used to spend a lot of time deciding on a theme for whatever I was going to play with my dolls, or animal toys that to me had people personalities. My room and everything in it was just a canvas where anything could end up being something with a little imagination. A chair would be a mountain, under the bed became a cave and depending on a theme, I could really do a lot of things. If I picked a theme for example, a story played out in a circus, I would think about different things that would be in a circus and then try to create it and see what I could find to "make" whatever it was. I could make a trapese, a high wire and trick horses, a lot of things, and a lot of my time went into setting it all up.

I think about what I did "after" I set up the stage for everything, and I did have the dolls living "in" whatever I had created. However, I often had a bad charactor that was a threat.

What I think about now is how from and early age we learn how to live around some kind of "bad guy", or something that is not right or disruptive. I think about my home environment, and I did have to figure out how to live with things that were very disruptive, even very scary. Yet, I also think about what watching Disney Movies taught me too, same thing, trying to live and thrive, but always something "bad or disruptive" that happens.

People ask "why" or even how they may have lived in a dysfunctional environment "accepting" the dysfunction at times. And I think it is important to keep in mind that from an early age we can and do receive messages that some kind of bad or disruption is normal to life. We also receive a lot of messages that the good guy eventually does win too. So, I think most are deeply conditioned to believe that eventually the bad goes away and it gets better somehow. We are presented with a lot of different scenarios where the good guy charactor doesn't always live in the best conditions with lots of things either, but, that the good guy perserveres and gets those happy things eventually.

I think it is important to understand "how the feeling of unworthiness" takes place when struggling with some kind of trauma that presents PTSD. I think that because so many have a deep conditioning that the bad or disruptive presence is normal and we "can" thrive and finally things get better, has a lot to do with a really deep feeling of "unworthiness" when somehow we think, maybe things "don't" just get better and I just "failed" somehow if a trauma takes place in our life. Somehow, for a person to feel they have reached that "better way where the bad or disruptive is now somewhere else", often what the person feels "should be" is what has been discribed "should be" from our early exposure to how stories are meant to go to get that happy ending or feel we did well.

Do you want something because you "think" you should want it due to how a story is "supposed to go"? Or, can you make/live your "own" story and decide that is "ok" too? Did you miss something you should have had that is in the stories we have been told? Or, did you manage to do somethings your way, your own story and only "think" you should have or missed the way a story line is supposed to go?

What I noticed about PTSD is that a person can get very confused about what I have just layed out above. And often the term "survivor" doesn't seem to mean that much, I didn't feel that I survived because "the story I thought I was supposed to achieve, was badly damaged". I struggle with the term "survivor" because I don't feel I survived because of how "I do struggle with PTSD".

PTSD, or complex PTSD is a very "personal challenge", that is one thing about it that I have noticed, noticed in some big ways too because of how I have had to deal with "what others think I should and should not feel". And then I began to realize how much others seem to need to tell us how we are supposed to feel. I think about "therapy" and sitting across from someone who is "supposed to provide help and healing", and how important it is that individual understands "how to validate what a person struggling feels". That is what "providing safety" means when it comes to being a "good therapist".

One common thread I have noticed in the PTSD forum, noticed other places too, yet just thinking about this forum, is everyone I have met thus far feels bad for "feeling" or has been in environments that "their feelings" went unheard or did not matter to others around them or they were supposed to be able to just ignore their own feelings and "just deal".

I had a really bad day this past Monday, I was crying badly and I was crying badly because of how much I recognized all the ways I had been treated badly for having feelings, or struggling with hurt feelings, or just feelings period and I should have done better, known more, and been stronger for everyone else around me.

I was overwhelmed with sadness, and alone trying to just allow that feeling to come out and just cry. My husband came in and I felt "panicked" really because I was not in a place where I could stop crying. I was not even in a place where I could discribe verbally all that was involved with this episode where I could not stop crying, just had to let whatever was there out. I really felt "cornered" too because I felt that no matter what I did manage to get out verbally, he would immediately tell me "not to feel that way" and I knew that would make it worse and that is when I began to get the heaves.

I talked about this in another thread too. I don't "know" how I managed to get to where I tried to even talk, I was cornered and I had to I guess. But, as I did "try to verbalize" and cried hard when I was verbalizing, my husband not only said "stop", but he motioned to my mouth with his hands to "stop" too. As I mentioned somewhere else, whatever I did say, he always replied with his own feelings, "Well I don't care, well I think, I think" and everything he responded to me with was how "he" felt over whatever I felt.

I even can see this in my medical records where I was really traumatized, and very emotional, and trying so hard to explain. In my records, that did not matter, what mattered more is "what the professional decided" and that decision was that "I was wrong to feel". I have seen this happen with others too.

I read a post that someone wrote and said, "forget psychologists/therapists, many of them are narcissists and sit and just judge you based on what THEY FEEL YOU SHOULD BE FEELING. You know? When I think back, honestly, yes, I have noticed that, and, I can even see that in my files too.

And, when one actually does find a "good" therapist as I have myself, that is when they begin to finally realize how "good therapy" can actually help A LOT. Because "now" they have someone who can listen to their history and describe the "dysfunctional" people in their lives that hurt them emotionally, and typically what that is about is being around individuals that were "emotionally selfish" and how they had to hide their emotions, or, be subject to being told how they are wrong for even having "their own emotions".

What upsets me, is how that sense of "deep unworthiness" comes from actually "having hurt feelings and feeling you have no right to feel, like it is terribly wrong", that if we have them we are unworthy as we should be able to function "without feeling or having our own emotions".

When I began to get very dark thoughts, and they were very powerful too. I really felt it would be easier for all around me if "I" did not exist. I was at the point where I was struggling so much emotionally, that I honestly felt it would be too much of a burden for others, and quite frankly that was how I was being treated from the moment I broke, even by the professionals I reached out to for "help". Any therapist that tells a patient, "don't get so dramatic about it" is not in any way a "good" therapist. Yes Mowtown, I am thinking about what you described.

I was more alone than ever with that challenge. And quite frankly, when I heard about Robin Williams, I really feel in the end, he was very alone that way too. I think when he revisited the AA support to stay sober, he was looking for a way to fill that void in himself and it just was not there for him. I think he knew so much about "feelings" and he was a nice man, but, I don't think he ever really found someone he could entrust his own "hurts" with. I think people just needed "him" to recognize their emotions", yet there was no one he could find to "trust" to recognize his. I have "yet" to hear anyone who knew him to really be able to verbalize Robin Williams own deep challenges. Most people talked about him as kind and caring to "them".

One day I went to see my T at my usual time. He had changed the time, but did not make me aware of it. So, when I got there he was leaving and I was triggered, but I kept myself together and he told me that he had scheduled me at an earlier time because he had a doctor's appointment. Then he told me that he was a cancer survivor, and had found a lump and was going to be tested to see if it was cancerous. I stopped all of my own feelings, and noticed he was going "alone". I gave him a hug and told him he must be scared. He said, "Yes, I am scared but I have not told anyone, so as not to worry them". I hugged him caringly and validated his "genuine fear" and in that moment I noticed he was relieved to be able to "tell someone" he really was alone and "afraid". He really did "need" a hug and "someone" to recognize what he was feeling. I am so glad I was able to do that for him. And he is a man that validates the "feelings" of others constantly, yet, here he was "alone and scared".

Are we "crazy" if we actually "feel"? I think "NOT". Are we "unworthy" if we feel? NO. If we were not meant to "feel" we would not have the "emotional" area of our brains.

OE

[Open Eyes]

I started this thread because I had noticed the question somewhere else and it really hit me. I wanted to explore it because while I have always noticed this challenge in people about "what to do with emotions, or how to surpress or hide them", I was very challenged this way myself "a lot" in my life. However, people have always misunderstood me too, thought I was strong, brave, and expected me to just be the one that knows so much that I should not struggle with my own feelings/emotions. Even if I was strong that I didn't have a right to my strong emotions and I was wrong if I did "not" see their own feelings/needs above my own.

I was the youngest, I was the smallest, and with what my environment was, I had to learn "how" to be strong and brave. However, to also be "sensitive" to the emotional needs of the others around me too. In a way, when I think about it, so much trickled down to me too.

The last time I talked to my older sister, she talked about when she took care of my grand nephew and how because he has Aspergers/Autism she tells him her rules are really simple, just "one" rule and that rule is "do what gammy says". Ok, I know what you are probably thinking, "well, that is probably much easier for a child like that". But, the thing about that rule is "that is and always has been how it is with my older sister". When we were growing up her nick name was "the princess" because the "princess rules and that's just how it is".

However, I did know that my older sister had her own challenges in the family, I did see it and I did empathize with her and I did give in to "her need to rule". I also felt that she was "burdened" by my older brother and even me, that she wanted to get away from "us" and be on her own as soon as she could. That horrific bus ride, oh she could not "wait" until that time came where she was not left with the inconvenience surrounding my older brother. She never liked my older brother, he was ALWAYS such a big inconvenience. She always resented the fact that she had to share my parents with two other children that kept my parents busy to where she did not get the attention "she" wanted and probably did "need". So, I do see how in ways she did feel "alone" too. She did get "away" from the horrible bus ride, she was four years ahead of my older brother in school and actually 5 years ahead of me, not seeing "my world and hell at all". And, I remember thinking, how lucky she is to "not be dealing with everything the way I was". What comes to my mind is "out of sight, out of mind" and that is where "she was" with me, so much she did not see of "my challenging world".

I am sharing this because I know others that also struggle with their siblings in different ways too. Often what I do hear is how often siblings seem to aclimate "better" to the dysfunction and even say it was not "that bad" somehow and can actually be distant and "unsupportive and invalidating". Often what siblings do is often say, "you had it better than me, you don't know how it affected me", too. The truth is, children live in their own worlds and tend to see how the family universe affects "them" and often really don't see their siblings and how the family universe affects them. As the youngest child, where it was "all" my universe, all of it, I saw each one and their needs and if I was going to survive somehow, I better figure out how to see the needs of each entity. To try to figure out how my little world could feel "safe" in the universe of my family that revolved around me.

When I think about the things that "trigger me", it is typically when someone doesn't want to "know" my side of a challenge, doesn't want to believe I am challenged, and stands over me in a "condescending" I know all about you and your opinions are "unworthy", and you better bow down to "my" opinions. And quite honestly, when I was at my worst, so unbelievably bad in that psych ward, that all came down on me REALLY BADLY. My older sister sat across from me and was so angry with such and angry stern face and condescendingly told me that if I did not "SNAP out of it, I would lose EVERYTHING, my family, farm, EVERYTHING". And, she would not allow my mother or father to come and see me either. I NEVER FELT SO ABANDONED IN MY WHOLE LIFE.

My room was so cold because the heat was not working in my room at that psych ward. I was also in shock, but I didn't know what "shock" meant. I never felt so alone and unsafe and abandoned in my whole life, and I have been through some awful things. I did not have any "privacy" either and I tried so hard to create my own privacy by taking the flimsy blanket I was given and hiding underneath it in an effort to shut everything out and try to stop shivering. The one person that would never have allowed any of that to happen, my mother, was not allowed to visit me, my older sister would "not" allow it.

It is a horrible thing when people around you "emotionally isolate you", I AM SO SORRY FOR OTHERS WHO EXPERIENCE THAT. I had to literally BEG to get out of that psych ward too. I was pretty much "dumped" in that place where I was surrounded by very confused and mentally ill people, many of them on several medications too, and wow, were they so CONFUSED. I was left in that place for 9 days, thats an eternity in my condition, an eternity when I had absolutely no privacy at all too. I sat at a table for a Thanksgiving meal, with all these strangers and I REALLY WAS TREATED LIKE I WAS TOO DAMAGED TO EVEN GET TO SEE MY OWN LOVING "MOTHER". I knew my older sister was having her annual Thanksgiving gathering too, her Martha Stewart perfection, and I was TOO DAMAGED to be included in that family gathering. No one came to visit me either, I was SO ALONE, I can't say enough how ALONE I WAS.

I was trying to figure out how to deal with that emotionally/psychologically and I guess I just wandered around so alone. I ended up finding this room with chairs and a TV, I had not known that was there even. The room was empty and I sat there trying to watch the TV, just someplace for my mind to go? As I was sitting in that room alone trying to escape in whatever was on that TV, a young man came in and that triggered me tbh, funny, how at the time I did not even know "what" trigger meant. I did even know what "freeze" response was, but that is what I did, I just froze. This young man began to tell me he was Jesus Christ and that he could see that I was in a lot of pain and lonely too. He told me that he was going to take care of that, he was going to help others and then give up his life so people would again see how "humanity was not caring" anymore. He told me if I let him touch me he would take away my pain, he said this in such a way that he believed what he said, that he did have that "power" in him. Wow, I was "in freeze mode", and yet I was so lost and lonely and confused that I remember thinking, "Oh, if only he COULD take away my pain". I knew nothing about post traumatic stress, nothing about fight/flight/freeze, no one even mentioned any of that to me during my time in that place either. I let him touch my leg and after he did that, I slipped out of "freeze" and went into "flight" and somehow made it back to my cold room where I fashioned my little tent of escape with this flimsy blanket that really did not provide any warmth. I had to learn how to sleep every fifteen minutes somehow because the staff came in and checked on me every fifteen minutes. I could not close the door either, and that was something that had been important to me so many times in my life too. I hid behind so many doors trying to get a door between me and someone intruding on me. I was not going to see that really until much later though. I could not even shut the bathroom door when they gave me a medication that made me so sick I spent the day kneeling at the toilet in my room, my cold room. I remember a nurse who was mean to me about that too because I was "missing group" that day too. She refused to believe that I was actually really "sick"
that day.

I had a friend that called and told me she was coming to visit me. My friend told me I had to take a shower and she told me that if I did not she would not stay. So I braved it and took a shower, and I did not have privacy with that either, I had to ask for my hair dryer and make up and I had to dry my hair and put on make up with someone watching me. And she was watching me and commenting on how I dryed my hair and did my makeup, and that was always something I considered "very private" and I felt so invaded with this stranger hovering over me. I have to say, that was the "only" shower I took in that place.

My friend told me that I had to "pretend" I was "better" no matter how hard it was. It was the only way "out". "You can do this OE, you can just pretend no matter what so you can get out of this awful place".

So, I pretended and kept asking "when" can I go. Oh how I wanted to get home to my own bed and finally really "sleep", that is all I thought about. And when my husband finally agreed to come and get me, he did not want to, I see that in my files, HE was not READY, it was all about HIM. And during that long ride home, it was very CLEAR to me, that HE WAS ANGRY AND THE ALL ABOUT HIM WAS THE NAME OF THE GAME.

On the long ride home, I just kept thinking, I have to find a way, dig really deep somehow, even though I am so exhausted, more exhausted than when I was taken to that awful place, I had to PRETEND and figure out how to IGNORE his angry body language and angry face and all about HOW ANGRY "HE" IS. I was THE PROBLEM for everyone and it was quite clear that NO ONE in that place I had spent so much time in talked to ANY of my family about WHY I was struggling. "I" was not even told either, so I really did feel like WHATEVER IT WAS WAS MY FAULT SOMEHOW.

For a month and a week now, I have been "reliving that" experience. I get the shivers every night, I am not sleeping well, my body is reliving all of those memories too. And all I want to do is SLEEP. And it's also the same scenario too where I CAN'T TALK ABOUT IT EITHER. And I had also tried to take a new medication that made me very sick. I genuinely did not see something, it doesn't even matter, same thing "HOW LONG"? My body is now in so much pain too. I honestly don't even know "how" my body is holding up to all of this either.

When someone says, "we never know what is going on in someone's mind", you can but you have to be "willing to listen". It's amazing how people lack the capacity to do that, even professionals that I have had the misfortune of experiencing first had. It's pretty sad to have to have therapy to help with the bad therapy one had. What I find very hard though, is how just having that validated, doesn't help when I am in the middle of "reliving" something that traumatized me on top of already being traumatized. Two words without an answer can turn into such debilitation for me. "How long"? It seems like that has been a constant with me now too. Those 9 days, every day, I asked that question and did not get the answer until the 9th day when it was determined I could finally be free. 7 years and counting about that same question "How long" no answer "yet" to that one. How long before I get to finish being deposed, that never got answered either. How long do I have to be stuck with this Lawyer, that took six years before it was obvious how bad it was.

I am very tired, I do try every day, one day at a time and have had to learn with simply "not knowing how long".

OE

[A Red Panda]

(I probably skimmed a few parts of this, sorry! attention span isn't that great today)

I know what you mean about not being allowed to feel emotions. I feel them... but for the life of me, unless they're happy I don't share them. If I do share.. it's muted. I always feel like, if I share... then people will be thinking that I shouldn't have those emotions and that I'm not worth being around.. and thus leave. Or that they'll get angry with me.

I give others what they want/need in regards to emotions though. I listen to what they need and do my best to give it to them.

When you were writing about how you felt you were a burden on others.. and that your huge pain you thought basically would be such a burden for others that the best solution was to not exist..... That is one of my core beliefs about myself... and something that I am really struggling with.

[MotownJohnny]

I suspect both of you are the opposite of a burden, you probably are the ones who were always responsible and did the hard work and heavy lifting it took to keep your families going. Then, crisis hits and you no longer keep up - and don't give yourselves any credit for all of those past years.

[Open Eyes]

((Panda)),

That is something I hear a lot from others here. And quite frankly, a big reason I start a thread where I try to talk about my challenges, I feel very exposed and feel that I am going to be told I don't have PTSD or should not feel. It's a major trigger because that is how I was treated not only by professionals but also by my own family.

I remember when I finally found PC, I was really looking for a "live" support group somewhere around me, but there was nothing but PC. At the time I was also seeing a therapist who turned out to be an ex heroin addict and he admitted he had been a habitual liar, and had strong narcissistic traits. When I say my therapist is trying to help me from being traumatized by "bad therapy", he can't believe how badly I was misdiagnosed and misunderstood and mistreated.

When I joined PC, I did not want to have any kind of "saga thread" either. My brain just needed to have an outlet to think tbh. My environment IRL was so incredibly "unsupportive" and because the trauma happened where I live, I could not seem to interact with it at all and I did not even know "why". I did not really have any "help" with that.

I "believe" you when you talk about your root challenge of feeling like you are only a burden, I have struggled with that myself and I avoided talking about it here at PC. Now that I think back, I was "running from that feeling", trying to figure out how to grab onto who OE used to be. You know, I wrote about a lot of things and had a lot of members come to me saying, wow, you are talking about how "I" feel.

And anyone who reacted to me like my "older sister" and believe me that did happen, triggered the hell out of me. But, I didn't really understand that at the time. I had never even heard the term "trigger" when I had joined PC either.

Yes, I believe you struggle with that core belief, I struggled so badly with that that I was in a very dangerous state of mind tbh. And the last place I ever wanted to go was that damn psych ward. I don't think words can describe how strong that state of mind is either, it isn't anything I had ever experienced before either. The average person has no idea what that is like either and my own family was very dismissive towards me about it too. I struggled with intensely strong waves of that for around 6 months, pretty much alone and waking a very dangerous line.

As I have mentioned in the past, what helped me with that was how another member explained to me it is another symptom of the PTSD, to pay attention because like the other challenging cycles it comes in waves but it "does" go away. And with that information, I noticed that was true, so I learned to work through it, and it was so hard, so very hard, expecially since I had "no support" IRL, I had to "hide how I struggled emotionally". However, Panda, as you are "allowed" to express your emotions, and that is why a good therapist is so important, why "support" is so important, these strong dangerous cycles get weaker and weaker and eventually, only come and go with a flutter instead of the driving intensity.

Honestly, if I was a treatment provider, I would absolutely INSIST on meeting with family members to explain to them "not to be hard on the patient in any way" and I would educate them on the fact that the patient is in serious condition and will need a lot of support and "how" to be more supportive too. Once my therapist that I have now heard how challenged I was, he went into immediate action, but I was able to tell him because of the help I got from a member here that explained it to me.

These trapped surpressed emotions "have to come out" and be validated, it is so important. It is not fair to anyone to tell them they need to surpress these emotions.
I could go on and on about how I had to "surpess" my emotions in so many bad situations, abusive/traumatic situations in my life. Well, that is wrong, we are not designed to continually "surpress" our emotions like we are "wrong" to have them, wrong to need to feel them, talk about them and just have another person LISTEN, and for god's sake someone who is not going to respond with "don't feel that".

[Open Eyes]

YES Mowtown, that is exactly the way it was, that is also what my therapist has validated with me too.

[Hellion]

I try with music....and to be completely honest(regardless of stigma trying not to care about that anymore) drugs. I have slowed down on that...however sometimes I am desperate for some kind of mood lift when I feel like crap.

I mean my valium prescription for anxiety helps anxiety attacks, my trazodone prescription is useful for when I need to sleep but can't.....But none of the anti-depressants or other things they've prescribed for my depression have helped that aspect.

[JaneC]

I don't know how to fill that void....I wonder if I ever will.

As you know, I was never allowed to feel and was shamed for any feeling or emotion that I did show as a kid. Now, at age 43 I have begun to peek at all of that suppressed hidden emotional pain........I feel guilty for having it. And still in my day to day life, I am only allowed to be happy. WTF!

Hugs OE......sorry you have been struggling so much with this the last few weeks.

[Open Eyes]

((Jane)),

You are not alone with wondering just that tbh. It is actually a very "common" challenge that a lot of people have, be it with PTSD or depression or anxiety disorder or some kind of learning disablity/challenge. I wrote a lot in this thread because I have definitely been very challenged myself too. I came across this question in another place and was going to post to it and realized that I had so much to say about it that I had better start a thread AND do my best to "try" to stick with it and not delete it.

I also have been very challenged IRL too, and this past weekend alone was such a huge challenge for me presenting me with a tremendous amount of DRAMA. Someone I love so much, so very much experienced a big betrayl and was deeply hurt. And, as this person sobbed, what came out was, "I AM ALONE" and "I JUST WANT TO GO TO SLEEP AND NOT WAKE UP". Now, while I could tell this person I loved them and list others who cared too, that is not what this person's "ALONE" meant.

I had so little time before yet another big DRAMA took place and I got another phone call from my sister who was at my parents waiting for someone else to get there to be with my mother so she could go to the hospital where my father had been taken because he had been out doing something in the yard and a neighbor saw him fall over and called 911. So I had to get dressed and go to my parents house and that can be a challenge for me and trigger the PTSD unexpectedly. Not to mention the drive and the fact that I was also going to deal with all the holiday traffic trying to just get there. I also had taken a Klonopin because I have had so much going on lately that I have been in a tremendous amount of physical pain. Just this past month and a half alone has been exhausting for me tbh.

Anyway, I got to my parents and my sister had left and my Neice was there with her daughter. And my Neice was busy cleaning and her daughter was in another room sitting with my mother. I just talked to my Niece and my Niece really just needed to "vent" and be allowed to "feel", so I just let her and listened. And quite honestly, the one thing my Neice and I have in common is my older sister who basically, "I have one rule, it's easy, just do what I say". My Niece has so much on her plate, too much on her plate. My Niece has a son with Aspergers/Autism and her husband is very unsupportive and can be abusive and she has Lupus and her son is at the age now where he is bigger and when he has a rage she has to be careful, he has already given her two concusions. And the system that is "supposed to be there" to help her is NOT THERE AND USELESS. My Niece is extremely smart and had been trying to go to nursing school and had to stop because of how bad the system is "the school" that she had to stop her own education and home school her son. Anyway, all she needed to be able to "do" is just vent and I "listened" and I didn't try to "fix or stop her or say I think" because it seems like that is what everyone does that with her, and what she really just needed with to "vent".

Then my older sister came in the door with all "her" emotions and needs, and I did not see that my father had come home too. And he had his "own" story about what happened. Then my mother appeared and everyone ended up in the kitchen. I sat and just "observed", and you know what, "I" am the one with PTSD and I am the one that actually "stayed calm" in all the drama. Of course today I am exhausted and my body feels like it has been beaten up badly. But, I did stay calm in spite of the tornado that had taken place around me. What I noticed though, is even though I do have PTSD, I have not forgotten how to be "inside the tornado". And how I feel today? I am very tired and my body is aching all over so I took a Klonopin and while I don't like to take that drug, my body is just too sore and beaten up by all the Cortizol that had been attacking all my muscles, even in places I did not even know I had muscles.

What I did observe though is how the people around me "feel" and "need to just feel" and yet how when they "just need to feel, they tend to be met with "I think" from others instead of just being allowed to JUST FEEL. And yet there is this idea that "feeling and needing to just feel is WRONG too. It is no wonder people FEEL ALONE. It is no wonder people have that "void". And sadly, it is no wonder that void gets so strong that people feel the only relief is to just opt out of life. That is how "I" felt, and I felt that strongly, dangerously strongly, not in a way I had ever expected to feel either.

How I really realized what I needed and didn't know I needed is when I got to actually just FEEL and VENT OUT ALL MY EMOTIONS with my T who stayed calm and never once returned with a comment of "I think or making it about him". I do need that today, but he is on vacation, and honestly, I am too tired to "feel" right now anyway.

I also realized that when something takes place where a lot of emotions have to come out, that needs to happen "first" before a person can gain that needed carthartic level, and finally get to the next level where all the emotions are out and now the brain can sort through and work on whatever is there with the problem solving part of the brain. I would have to say that what I am discribing is very much a part of what takes place when someone is triggered and a PTSD cycle takes place. And this is what a person who struggles with PTSD needs to understand, to learn that when the waves come forward, they always come in, crest and then slowly receed and to be "patient" when that happens and one can get to a point where their "conscious/escutive/ problem solving part of their brain is ready to work on what it all meant and process it.

With that, I am going to stop here, because right now, I am very tired and I just took a Klonopin so I can lay down and try to rest my mind and body. I listened to a tremendous amount of "catastrophizing and drama" and I am tired because I can see I have actually done this for as long as I can remember.

OE

[A Red Panda]

I sooo get the calm in the middle of the tornado comment... I do extremely well in the middle of someething that's super stressful. Comes with all the practice of not being allowed to show genuine emotion.

And, like I have been since a kid... I'm most likely going to have my meltdown while in the shower or in my bed. Although, I do have some people who see me partially meltdown... I struggle against it, but the walls come down a bit sometimes. I really shouldn't struggle against it, but I do.

I fill a lot of my emotional needs to various degrees. I read as both a release and a distraction - I can just feel the characters emotions and can throw mine into the mix. That doesn't sound like it makes sense, but it does to me.

I also practice showing my emotions in my classroom. It's obviously subdued, but I work really hard to let me students know when I'm angry, or sad, or disappointed, or happy, or proud, or any other emotion in between. I tell them how I feel, and I explain why (well, usually I have THEM tell me why I'm feeling upset if I'm upset... haha). It's actually helped a lot, and I can accept the caring from children and well... I've also cried in front of my classes a number of times for various reasons. It's done a lot of good for them and me.

[Hellion]

^ I kind of wondering if growing up bottling things up can contribute to PTSD...I mean like say your childhood is not traumatic per say but you are more or less taught to bottle emotions or decide to do that to avoid negative reactions you're getting...then you go on to experience something traumatic I am curious if already getting in the pattern of bottling things up contributes to developing PTSD. It would be intresting to see a study only like how many people with PTSD bottled things up regularly, and which ones haven't.

I guess I think there are probably things that make some people more prone to PTSD than others but it will probably take a long while before they figure out all the specifics on that. I know I did that a lot growing up and feel it sort of made me less able to cope with the traumatic event.

[Open Eyes]

Yes Hellion, I do feel that a long period of bottling things up can lead to depression and anxiety and can predespose the possibility of developing PTSD if a trauma takes place.

[JaneC]

I also think so Hellion. I have always bottled it all up. So when trauma happened for me, I turned it all inward, told no one, self blamed. I guess 1 trauma too far and I tipped over the edge, and here I am today. Today I feel like a broken pile of ptsd detritus.

[Open Eyes]

A big void I had pretty much all my life was how "authority/professional" figures failed me. Did not just fail me, but failed people in my life/family too.

When I finally found the therapist I have now, he wanted to talk about my childhood. I did not see how that was important to the present struggle I was having and I really thought that I had made peace with that part of my life too.

However, with the first psychologist I saw after I finally got out of the psych ward, I did try to explain not only the true value of what was destroyed/damaged, but the value it had to me too. I did mention my older brother, but I did not go into detail, I was just trying so hard to give her an outline of "why" all the loss I suffered just broke me in the little time I had with her. I was also "very worried" about being able to afford to see her too.

It was not until I finally saw my records and I saw what she wrote that I felt betrayed/belittled/misunderstood completely. However, considering the condition I was in and how I was being treated badly for it too, what she said just made me feel everything you don't want a person with PTSD to feel. Then when I saw the records for the psych ward and read what the psychiatrist wrote (keep in mind he is from India with a broken accent), I felt even worse and all that did is create more PTSD damage tbh. And "how" it even got to see my records was when a different psychiatrist I had who did diagnose me with PTSD and never discussed what the other professionals said with me, decided my GP should be able to take over prescribing the Klonopin I had been prescribed to help with the debilitating "anxiety and stress and lack of sleep". My GP was furious and basically threw my records at me and said he was not going to be responsible for such a mentally disturbed individual and he called off different things no one had mentioned to me at all from my records. I left my GP completely shaken up and having a major anxiety attack and I did not have any Klonopin to take. I had NO ONE to help me, NO ONE, because my family was of no help at all and had the opinion that IT WAS MY FAULT and basically I AM A BAD PERSON and BEING SELFISH.

The psychiatrist I had seen that diagnosed me would not "help me", my GP would not help me and I began having withdrawls that my psychiatrist had insisted did not happen when a person stopped taking Klonopin after an extended period of time.

I sat with a phone book and went down a long list of psychiatrists and one after the other was not seeing any new patients. I finally found a nurse practioner that could see me, but, not right away and so I had to go to the ER in order to get some Klonopin because I really was experiencing withdrawls and was not sleeping "at all". It ended up costing me over $1,000.00 to get a prescription renewed that at the time cost $11.00.

When I was little I sat in a waiting room and watched my older brother disappear behind the door of "the psychiatrist" who was supposed to "help". And what he told my parents to do only made everything worse and all I saw was how my parents argued about it too.
As things got worse, I remember sitting in that waiting room again, and all that did was continue to make things worse and my mother kept struggling with what my parents were told to do.

For YEARS, I watched one "authority figure" after another choose to deny my brother and I watched how it kept hurting him constantly too. When professionals discuss how "empathy" is formed, I would have to say they surely did not cover how it took place in me. I was my older brothers ONLY friend, and while he could be a good child, he could not control how so much abuse from so many "authority" figures and other children just built up in him to where he would "rage". So, I can say without a doubt how bottling things up can be "harmful" to a human being.

I always had that question when I watched how badly my older brother was treated, especially after I spent time with him and did see he really could be a good/nice little boy. WHY!!!, why was everyone so mean towards him, EVERYONE. Yes, he hurt me and scared me too, but I always knew it was because he just could not "bottle" it up anymore and it just had to come out somehow. Yes, I endured some bad things and always knew I COULD NOT TELL because if I did he would just be HURT MORE.

I have talked a lot about my husband and the challenges "he" has presented me with too. I had to learn a lot about alcoholism and I also had to learn a lot about "learning disabilities" too. I have even talked about how I did "try" to reach out for help too, and I did not get the help I really needed.

Bottled up? Yes, I had to keep a lot of things that challenged and hurt me "bottled up".
And when I did "try" to open up, it never went well for me. And quite honestly the one thing I did learn was how people who are supposed to "know" how to listen and help and diagnose often really fail at it miserably and can do more harm than good. In fact, when I first found PC and joined it, the one thing I just could not bring myself to say is "try to find a therapist to help you". It wasn't until I finally found a therapist that knew how to listen and actually "hear me" that I found the capacity to offer that kind of solution.

I basically "filled" my therapist's room every time I went to see him too. But, I did not think it was important to talk about my childhood, I really thought I had made peace with that part of my life. Also, I felt that for me to try to explain how I worked my way through that challenge and how I did make peace with it would not be something another person would ever understand. Anytime I ever did try, it really did more harm then good, no matter who I tried to share it with. However, when I approached it from a different angle and talked about the "needs of children that go unheard", suddenly I am so "gifted" and should become a therapist myself. I had tried to set down that base with a husband and wife team so I could creep towards the help "I" needed from them. Well, that never happened, instead, as I have mentioned before, the husband who was the psychiatrist told me how much him and his wife learned from me, thank you very much and my wife and I decided she is going to take a leave from her practice and be there for our children. Oh, and by he way, would you like a prescription for "valium"?

When I say that I am "conservative leaning", that really means something very different to me, and it certainly isn't what some politician is saying it means either. The way I see it is if I had allowed myself to follow along with what I consider "dysfunctional" advice, I would have no sense of "self" at all. I grew up with a Christian theme, but I never really was a part of an "organized" theme. For a long time I used to think I was a kind of outsider, but now I am "glad" that I developed my own sense of "faith". I decided that it was "ok" to ask for help and that "help" was not going to be like "Santa Clause" either. I believed that when I did ask for help that I had to learn to pay attention to a lot of different things and that "help and guidance" can take place even when overhearing a conversation taking place between two strangers. I also learned that things would come to me in "pieces" and that I would not get all the answers all at once. Well, I have to say that is really what "saved me" to be honest because at no time in my life did I ever get the "answers" all at once. And when I thought about "forgive them fore they do not know", I decided that was true for me too, because there sure were a lot of times "I myself" did not know. And one of the things I liked that was taught in AA that I learned from my husband is, "check your motives" because "if" your motives are good, then that is what is important, be patient and keep trying. And, I would have to say, that is really what I "try" to do. I will also say though, that with PTSD and my history of "abuse" that I can "react" in defense before I have time to "consciously" descide to react.

I think that a big way I filled my "void" was trying to learn and maintain good motives and try to help and understand others. And that is because the one thing I did know first hand is "being misunderstood". I just never expected to struggle with PTSD.

For the past month plus I have had to deal with something I can't talk about. And I have had more flashbacks/triggers and body memories that have really debilitated me.
It made me realize something I had been utilizing in an effort to "fill a huge void" too.
Again, it doesn't "matter what I think" about it either, and as long ago "I can't ask and I can't tell". And, as was with long ago, but also a constant, "no telling how long" either.

At the same time so many other things have taken place and I don't even have to go any where either, it just comes to me. I think of those very tall pines that I had to climb when it got bad that way, when my older brother could not "bottle it up" anymore and I had to run and hide. I remember how each branch was a rung on a ladder and I just kept climing and would get to the top with pine pitch on my hands and arms hugging that pine as it swayed with the wind. I did not know "how long" then either, often I was so cold and shivering, shivering in fear and shivering because it was cold up there too. So I finally got phenomina and was put in a tub of ice to bring my temperature down, did not know for how long then either. My body sure remembers that too, especially at night when I am trying to sleep.

OE

[JaneC]

(((((OE)))))

[Open Eyes]

I hope I did not get anyone down with all my stuff. I had a long weekend last weekend and the question about filling emotional voids "and" bottling things up, well I have some big challenges with both these issues.