Traumatized

I feel traumatized by words that spoken to me that were negative, hurtful and made me feel like I was being physically shot. These words and scenes and thoughts reverberate in my head. The habit of thinking of them causes me real physical pain inside. I am having a terrible time stopping. I repeat the pain over and over. Somethings just feel so out of control I don't know what to do with them. I have an appointment with my counselor tomorrow maybe that will help.

Hello PianogirlPlays: I'm sorry you are having this difficulty. I experience quite a bit of this sort of thing as well. I hope that your appointment with your counselor results in some useful remedies.

Hi PianoGirlPlays, I can relate to struggling that way myself. However, the positive, even though you certainly are not seeing that right now is that you are becoming aware of the words and how others present them that bother you. The first part of knowing what to work on fixing is learning what is hurting or broken. Now is a good time to write these words down so you can talk about them in therapy and get to the bottom of how they hurt you or even anger or frustrate you and who these words are connected to and why that person is saying them to you.

Keep in mind that when you experience a repetitive loop in your mind or you are recognizing as you mention, that you feel like you are being shot down or are experiencing physical pain inside that means whatever is being said has hurt you deeply, more than your realized, it does mean something. Often this is due to emotional abuse that is not your fault, instead the words were being presented to you by a dysfunctional, perhaps even abusive individual.

These dysfunctional individuals tend to corner others, present themselves as being knowledgeable and tend to talk down to others and condescend. These individuals are not empathetic and if that is needed, dare you even ask, they will not reply with empathy but will instead react in ways that put you down even further as if asking for empathy is simply and excuse, that you are stupid, that you are only making excuses. These individual's idea of empathy is to talk down to another as if that other is a child, but in a way that gives the one on the recieving end no value, unworthy in someway or insignificant to engage intelligently. However, the one who is incompetent is the one who is doing the condescending and talking down to.

I know an idividual that is like this and leaves everyone feeling the same way.

So, right now these words that hit you and cause you pain need to come out, need to not only be identified, but also the individual who was saying them to you. Often there are individuals around us that are dysfuctional, we don't always recognize it that way, and it is important to place the true blame where it belongs and then plan to have as little interaction with that individual as possible.

I have really spoken up and laid down the law that this will not happen again at least not with my husband. Other things still pop up but I am trying to take a hard line with all of them. I am setting up boundaries. Keep talking with my counselor and got some support. Right now though I am beating on my inner self for trying to help someone and feeling like they might have poor feelings towards me since I was trying to make a positive suggestion for their business. I struggle when people don't respond. No answer, no thank you , so I end up thinking I was wrong, stupid foolish. Then my self beating starts. Why try and tell. It was really quite a positive suggestion to make sure their advertising got out before not after the event. I know the ads were not getting to me until after. So that could be true for other people as well. I missed going two times because of this and they are trying to build a new business. Honestly, I think that is called constructive criticism.

It is good that you have set boundaries for yourself. Keep in mind that if the person you are setting them with has a habit of disrespecting your boundaries, it may take that person time to learn "not" to do whatever they may have developed a habit of doing.

Always remember that when another person doesn't respond as you have described, it doesn't mean they dislike your suggestion or input, often what it really means is the person you are trying to help might need to think about it more.

Paying attention to when you do beat yourself up and the situation is important to your healing. Keep in mind that with PTSD things do get magnified because you are now more sensitive.

((Hugs))
OE

Strangely enough the person took my advice an acted upon it. I just was glad for them and I can see it in action helping them.