How do you find "social support"?

Yes, I understand. Depression or even a low mood period or having a busy schedule...all this involves a high level of spent energy. Unluckily, we both know very well this.
Yes, misfit, this is the word and the story of my life. lol!
But, this thread is about you and your “opening doors” to people.

Lol I see, if you ever want to make a thread on that, I'll check it out.

My opening doors, hm yeah I think I have to fully close the door on that bad friendship first, because I think it caused changes in my perception and that adds all these bad emotions that get in the way and then I have issues like above

So maybe I'll ask more about that "friendship" when I have more thoughts on it.

It’s not easy to wholly know a person. Sometimes people fail us even when we may think they are the best friends ever, the best spouses, the best relatives.

Here, in my country, there’s a saying that states more or less as: You can only trust your father.

I partly agree with this saying. There’s not a bigger and disinterested love than the one your progenitors can provide you. But even them can make behaviours (without intention) that can make us good for nothing. So, the rest of people.

I’m with you in wanting friendship of quality. I’m very much into it. Few, but good ones. With the rest of people, I’m very reserve.

P.S.: Not here, I’m less reserve here because it’s anonymous and I kind of think that people here are more like-minded. So, I feel more free.

True. I don't trust people now, only family and not all family members either, just some of them.

I don't really know how I will manage this thought/fact though. That people can fail you anytime even if they seemed like the best friend or best spouse.


The way I imagine it is being on ALERT ALL THE TIME lol, if I befriend someone, and I see they do something negative they never did before, I'm just gonna want to take care of it right away. Not ignore it!! I used to ignore it. Or I would forget about it fast if I didn't ignore it.

So maybe it can be taken care of then if the other person is a partner in sorting it out. That's OK. I trust my new antennaes for detecting problems. I did not have them before trauma. Now I can have a gut feeling that something will happen in interaction (but I don't know what specifically will happen) and it often works. It predicts negatives only though LOL, not positives


The other problem with it all though is that if I feel I am getting attached, start to care too much about someone outside family, then I think it's too much of a liability. I think I would have to run. Simply because in my state I cannot afford more risks for my emotional well-being. Maybe if I recover, I won't have to run like that.

Plus, of course if the person isn't a partner to resolving the issue - if there is something negative coming up that wasn't there before - , then I'll again run from that relationship. That's how I imagine it now, i.e. me doing new relationships.

But too much attachment (outside my mother & my sister), I would have to run from it as it is now. Even if no negative happened. Because I know I wouldn't be able to handle it if a negative did happen and then they were not a partner to sorting it out. It's too much of a roulette game to me. I know I wouldn't be able to handle it if I got the wrong colour in the game because I am simply not well enough for it now. Maybe later.



I also have a partner (boyfriend) but we are being pretty distant so he's not a liability. He probably is afraid to emotionally connect. I can't really talk to him about my emotions, feelings at all. He ignores it all. So he's not support but he's trustable and stable otherwise.


Anyway family... With parents I know it won't change for the worse, it's been long enough, my mother is old enough now too.

Same for my sister (she's not old though)

But beyond that...I don't know. I don't trust my brother fully, though he's not bad, but after this "best friendship" fell through, I just don't. I've seen him act bad like the "best friend" would too. Though overall not as bad, sure, I still saw the same negative thingy in it. I don't know how to put it into words though. I need to find the words for it.

I just know it was manipulative and it was about money. Same with "best friend".

Apart from the one manipulative thing he said (luckily just this one time), he also has had bad rages over me not putting the dishes in the dishwasher and stuff like that. (We did not have an agreement about me loading the dishwasher!)

It was when I lived in the same house as him, we lived in the same house temporarily for a year. I already ended the friendship and I already had my trauma too. So it was bad enough that I got a lock put on the door to my room after a few months, lol.

(I would've handled it fine before trauma)

I know he was stressed out because he did full time work, as a beginner programmer, he also was doing his Bsc in IT/programming, and he worked in a church too at the weekends. But it's not an excuse to me. He wasn't like that before this though. So I know these things are linked.

I am just describing all this because I want to find the words for his behaviour. Plus because it's highly relevant to me about how people can fail out of the blue

(I am on normal good terms with him now, we sorted it out back then but I don't want that bad stuff again)

It is all complex because I know he cares about family, including me. He almost got detained by the police once when he wanted to defend me in a bad situation

Glad you like the forum!

PS: This is now going to be about the former "best friend" again but: I could not talk with her about psychology like this. I tried to a few months before our final fall-out. Because that was when I got interested in psychology and healing and recovering from stuff psychologically. But she didn't care about the topic.... this forum is better yes lol

Hm you said "It’s not easy to wholly know a person."

So if I know them enough (& with enough knowledge of people in general) then less risk of course...... but to get as far as that.....too much liability as it is now

I wonder if there might be a way to volunteer with others for a cause that you all believe in.

You also mentioned getting out of your head. Have you had experience with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)?

Thank you for this tip. This is kinda even inspiring. Though I am not sure right now what that cause would be....kinda have a blank mind on it right now but I'm tired too and I have a hard time thinking with my state in general.

I've heard of ACT. Why do you ask? Does that have some good approach for this?

I don't know if ACT has an approach specifically for the issue you raise in this thread. What brought ACT to mind was your statement about getting out of your head. That's a basic idea of ACT--to foster that. In fact, notice the title of this self-help workbook about ACT:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=get+out+o...f=nb_sb_noss_2

Thanks, I downloaded it, I haven't yet found the part on getting out of the head but I'll look through it more later, but gotta work now.

Anyway I had a few minutes so I randomly opened it somewhere at the start and it says things like

"If you’ve been struggling for some time, you’ve probably plagued yourself with different forms of the “why?” question: “Why can’t I just get over it?” “Why can’t I feel better?” “Why is life so hard?” “Why hasn’t therapy worked?” “Why can’t I be a normal person?” “Why can’t I be happy?” You may feel victimized somehow by questions that seem not to have any ready answers."

So if ACT deals with the solution to this, then I'm already stuck and unable to apply it Because I don't have thoughts like that. It sounds incredibly negative to me and I run from such negativity. It feels tiring and draining to even read these questions listed out like that. So, I block out thoughts and feelings like this.

Ofcourse, then the block itself is what prevents me from getting out of my head.

Did this make sense?




EDIT: Oh another quote (from homework assigned in the book).

"We would like you to write down a list of all of the issues that are currently psychologically difficult for you. Use the left-hand side of the space provided below. Do not write about purely external or situational events, independent of your reactions to them. In this book we will focus on how you react. Some of your psychological issues will be clearly related to specific situations; others may not be. For example, “my boss” would not be a good example of a difficult issue you experience; but “getting frustrated with my boss” or “feeling put down by my boss” might be. The left-hand column can include any of your thoughts, feelings, memories, urges, bodily sensations, habits, or behavioral predispositions that may distress you, either alone or in combination with external events. Don’t overthink it. Just write down what plagues you and causes you pain. Be honest and thorough and create your “suffering inventory” in the space below."

Yeah, well. Stuck there too, of course, lol. Because what comes natural to me is writing about the external event/situation. This says the book is gonna focus on how I react. Well I react with that block. Not feelings....but just that block. Behavioural dispositions, well the block having me not being able to come out of my head, or if I do manage to come out of it, then I do feel the pain strongly lol and then it's hard to do anything while it's that strong. But that is still easier to deal with than the block itself... As soon as I'm past the block I'm good, I can manage emotion sooner or later, I'm not actually worried about that part.

My theory on all that is that the block is there when my brain cannot contain the emotion (bc it's too strong) so it has to shut it all down. So I do define that as having negative emotions, I just don't feel them because they are behind that block.



All in all, my issue is not about having painful or negative emotions, my issue is if/when they get in the way of me doing things, in the way of concentration, in the way of my goals. That is the issue I have. That's the only thing that bothers me. The examples in the quote... feeling frustration or whatever other feeling, those are not issues for me, I don't view having emotions an issue because I'm all about controlling them (when I do actively feel the emotions). The block and the inability to do anything when that's in the way is my issue. And then the resulting mess in my life, when I have to catch up with the deadlines, not being able to train (I love training and I again couldn't do it for so long now!!) etc. So those are the issues. Yeah, external situations, I know, it doesn't do the homework in the book.

May I see if I am understanding you correctly?

ACT says "Don't try to change emotions or dwell on them, let them be as they are, just go ahead and take actions towards your goals."

You say (if I am understanding you correctly) "I would love to do that but the emotions are so dominating that my brain shuts down and I then I cannot take the actions needed to advance towards my goals."

How accurate/close am I? If okay, please edit as needed!

Hey, thanks for trying Let's see if I understood you too lol.

I didn't read the ACT book yet, just looked at a few sections, so I didn't know for sure that it says that...

"Don't try to change emotions or dwell on them, let them be as they are, just go ahead and take actions towards your goals."

This is exactly how I used to be before things went for the worse. So I know what this is like, yes.

But I abused my ability to do that, too much. Like I had no idea I entered a toxic relationship deeper and deeper for 4 years, in 2014. I kept taking actions towards the goal of trying to help the person and I believed it would help both of us too (long story). I didn't pay attention to how negative the person was and how they got more and more negative. While I put my heart and a lot of my soul into it all (not all of it or I'd be dead now lol). Again, long story... And then I had trauma from something else and then this crashed on me too and now I can't do that anymore.

And then your interpretation of what I was saying: "I would love to do that but the emotions are so dominating that my brain shuts down and I then I cannot take the actions needed to advance towards my goals."

I think I would rephrase only one thing in here:

"I would love to do that but the emotions are probably so threatening (?)/cannot be contained that my brain shuts down so I don't have to see and feel the emotions, but that creates a block and then I cannot take the actions needed to advance towards my goals."

I didn't want to use the word "dominating" because I mean, if the emotions were dominating then I would be directly experiencing a flood of emotions....? But that block prevents that. The block dominates

My psychologist recommend me this book years ago. Indeed, I have just picked it up from my library.
I’m giving it a quick check now to refresh a little. My last note was at page 207 so I guess I quitted it there. If I remember well, l left it because the proposed exercises were more complicated that the single techniques I learnt to practise mindfulness. And I didn’t want to be more focussed on whether I was doing correctly the exercises than the aim of the exercise themselves, when I already have chosen the technique I found that suited better with me.

Said that, this therapy is part and based on the same principles of that so called Third Generation therapies that it’s to first be aware of thoughts and emotions that appears in our minds, accept them, not fighting against them in order not to feed them.
What happen with this? Which are the benefits? With practise, you learn to give these thoughts and emotions a relative relevance ( as a product of our over-protector brain) so once you get this, you are freer to go ahead with your life without having to carry a heavy burden. Your brain won’t ever be the same again. It will be working little by little as an alley. Not so over-protector. More objective and attentive to what’s really happening around you. It’s immense the plasticity of the brain.

You don’t need to believe the principles of this technique or therapy. You only have to give you a chance to experience it and you will see by your own.

I was talking in a general sense. Only wanted to express you my comprehension in the sense that sometimes even when we know a person a lot, people may show reactions we don’t expect according to what we have known about this person so far.
*Want to make clear that when I talk about a person is in a general sense (I’m including myself in this group).

You asked me a question and I’m gonna reply what I do think. The more you know yourself, the most possibilities you have to know and being open to know another person. This is my personal opinion, though.

When the block occurs, what if you try to aim for a very, very small (but still positive) next step?

Do you have an example of a very small step like that?

(If you need me to provide some more context for it, let me know but I am fine with just whatever generic examples so that I can get the idea about it )

Hm, with family I don't feel this way, except for my brother maybe. With my mother, my sister I don't feel that I would get stuff from them that I don't expect. Well my sister did pull off a thing once that I didn't expect but she made up for it really quickly. So she didn't really go "out of bounds" on the whole. My brother went more "out of bounds" under that stress thingy (perhaps that was the reason for it), but he was able to go back too to his normal/default.



I like that, that makes a lot of sense. My experience confirms your thoughts here.






I'm curious, what techniques were those? If you can quote a little from page 207 I can identify that part in the ebook I got (it does not have page numbers).



I was reading a CBT book today. It was talking about: your thoughts will make you have feelings and then you will act on those emotions. I think mindfulness/DBT works the same way. And CBT, DBT, all that, they say that you gotta catch the automatic negative thoughts - that are emotional thoughts really - and not identify with them, or with the emotions either.

But I just feel like I'm wired the other way around.

I have feelings (hiding somewhere, god knows where) and then I have thoughts - indirectly - motivated by them and then I act based on the thoughts. I identify with those thoughts, I don't identify with or I don't fully identify with the emotions (I am a 3rd party/observer to them usually, when I do actually see, perceive and feel the emotions).

And it feels like the emotional thoughts run in their own separate thread that's usually blocked out. But ofcourse they are too blocked out anyway since cPTSD, it's not normal for me



I like the way you explain stuff. I don't think I ever would've understood this before my cPTSD though. I read up on a lot of psychology and related stuff and so I learned to make theories about emotions afterwards to try and make sense out of them.... Then as I got more in touch with the actual feelings, I realised the theories were arbitrary. Lol it was a BIG relief

So anyway...what I liked in your description was you talking about

1) "With practise, you learn to give these thoughts and emotions a relative relevance ( as a product of our over-protector brain) so once you get this, you are freer to go ahead with your life without having to carry a heavy burden." - This is my old self before cPTSD. I want to be back to my old self.
2) "being objective and attentive to what’s really happening around you" - This is again my old self before cPTSD. Yes I so I want to be back to my old self.

And your description gave me a perspective for a short second....I could kinda see what it must be like, when someone is starting from this pov. For me cPTSD made me a bit like it too but it's still not really "me".

I don't know if that made sense.

Sure!

Okay let's say that you hear about an opportunity to go to a large food bank with many other people and help deliver food. You really want to do it, let's say, but you are blocked.

So instead you wonder if there is a very small way that you can involve yourself in food assistance. You then realize that you could bring three small items you already have at home, and can spare, in a bag to a local church that is a one-minute walk away. You see that as a small step toward your larger goal of helping with food assistance.

What would happen? Could you make that small delivery, of value in itself but also, you hope, as a small step towards bigger things?

OK I am going to try and translate this example to my everyday situations. So...I get stuck at,


"So instead you wonder if there is a very small way that you can involve yourself in food assistance. You then realize that you could bring three small items you already have at home, and can spare"

I mean this consists of a few steps:

1. Actually remember that I can try and find a small way (I forget a LOT of the time)
2. Believe that me finding a small way for now will help enough (be patient)
3. Believe that I can actually find a small way
4. Rev my mind up/put it into gear to find options (such as, finding these three small items), thanks to being able to believe these things, or being positive enough, having enough positive energy to rev it up or whatever?

I think I can sometimes do 1-2-3. I've practiced the 2nd step too a lot already.

But 4....Feels like a jump too much. Um, like yeah.... The very small jump I could do, but I can't really figure out what small jump/way to do because it's not natural to have to break things into these extremely small steps. No one does it like that normally. So there is no "instruction manual" on it either.

Or I'm just not sure how to apply this analogy in my everyday life.

But it is interesting that we are talking about this now because I realised this really recently. That I need the revving up to think of options like that to be adaptable again to situations and stuff. Needing to use positive energy for it. Because a lot of negative is hiding somewhere in my brain that gets in the way for that too. Um, yeah, after realising that, I've had a couple of moments where I was able to do it! Do this step 4, I mean. But I don't know how long it's gonna take before I can regularly do it. But I think I at least understand it more now

It's also because I've cleared out some more negative stuff from the bad past with those bad relationships. I've done more processing recently.


It does feel like being back to my old self, too. Being able to think up the options to take action and adapt to situations, life stuff.

***

TLDR: I like your idea, I just have an issue with the execution of it because it requires enough of my cognitive skills to be back & positive energy to be back (I lost a lot in cPTSD), to be able to think up these small things

Tbh that is why I am looking for external help. If they can give me a bit of positive energy then I can get moving for a while. On my own, I would have to take a long time to clear out the negative first before I can generate the positivity

There was a scientific experiment too, it was great: going from loss to gain (negative to positive) requires energy.

Well! You went right into doing what I was talking about--you broke up the task into smaller steps!!

You are focused on your fourth step, coming up with the smaller tasks. That is something you can practice at home. Whenever something seems daunting around your place, you can practice by thinking up ways to subdivide it. Like for a basic example it is too much to clean your living space all at once, let's say, and you are blocked. How might you get started? Vacuum one room per day, dust a half of a room per day, do just one load of laundry, etc. There are many ways the task could be broken up. You could practice the step of coming up with smaller tasks by identifying many of those ways.

Heh it actually took me a few months of recent observation, that's what I used to write out this list of steps here.

And I kinda have to practice always remembering that I can get to believe in the first 3 steps. Like, I always forget still. It needs a lot of practice lol.

But yeah, it helped writing out those mental steps.



I mean, I did this fine before trauma hit me too much. I'm trying to relearn what once used to be automatic and easy. lol but yeah.

You are making me think about this again though.

So the cleaning example is simpler because it's like, familiar too. My biggest issue is with tasks that involve a completely new topic. A lot of my remote work stuff requires that.

That is what I have to relearn the most, dealing with new stuff.

Where you mention that there are many ways to break up the task into parts/ways of doing it, and you identifying those many ways is how you can come up with the way to do the actual task... That was interesting.

That is basically exactly like what I mentioned in my post above... you are revved up enough to think of all that (or at least a few of the most sensible options) and juggle all that and then quickly put together what fits best. Being adaptable and flexible in this way.

That's how I used to be.

That's what's required for all those work tasks involving a new topic/whatever new thing.

I do have one recurring work task that's basically always the same thing, very repetitive. I find it's easiest for me to do that task.

But everything else...even if just a little new stuff..... um, yeah. Have to relearn this and have enough positive energy for it. That's where social support was coming to mind lol.

Also... Today I got up feeling okay, tired because I still have sleep debt but I felt good. And I felt like I could do this a bit, this "revving up" and "juggling stuff" and all that. The positive energy was there....it's also tiring me out though. I'm tired out already lol.

I want to find out how to be like, not let it tire me out. It's probably because the positive energy - if it comes from myself - "invalidates" the negative emotions (the ones that are still unprocessed). I know depression etc can be like that.

I am not sure why if it comes from others, the positive energy, why it then isn't "invalidating" but instead I take it up fine and it helps me. Weird. Does anyone have any idea on that? Or is it just simply how humans work, needing the social support for more positive energy?

I understand there are limits to social support too, of course. And I'm able to accept that if I do a lot of this stuff alone then it takes a loooong time to get to fully recover/recover enough anyway.

I wrote more here but I put it in my journal thingy instead because it was going too far from the original topic.

So yeah.... It's gonna take time on my own to get back to fully normal with it.

But talking about how to learn & relearn all this also helps, it gives me hope too, and like, just a little step forward each time. So thank you for all your input! If you have any other thoughts, feel free to add more, if not, that's fine too, just saying.

I think I do actually have a real question....pertaining to the topic, lol. What are the proper boundaries for social support? With family and people who do truly care about me?

I get it that with most friendships, they are loose enough that you can't really ask for anything at all, if you can't have good times with those friends then don't be near them, while not being able to have good times with them. I get that. I lost the IRL friends because I didn't understand that they were only good for that. I was there for them when they were acutely suicidal, when they were being majorly deceived by a guy, when they needed money to finish their college degree, or even to just buy more wholesome food, etc.... Yeah maybe I was there for them too much because that's why I had to quit these relationships when they weren't there for me. (One of them was a toxic relationship, the other one wasn't toxic but wasn't there for me anyway & tried to just do a personal attack on me instead)

But it's whatever. What are the normal boundaries for family / for people who do truly care? What is too much to ask for, "out of the ordinary" when supporting someone with depression&trauma&cPTSD?

Does this question make sense? Is there a way to summarise an answer to it? Are there resources, articles about this, I don't know? I've never seen any.

Friends and family aren't therapists. They are going to have personal reactions to whatever is shared, not "therapist" objective responses. They are going to have limits because they aren't really trained to deal with mental health issues. They are going to make mistakes because they're just lay persons, not mental health experts. They are going to have their own personal stuff get mixed up in the other person's personal stuff, and that can be a mess.

It is easy to burn out a friend or family member with just too much heavy stuff. Honestly, people have to be careful to save the particularly heavy mental health stuff mostly for the experts, and from the other direction, it's okay to tell someone close to you "I don't know how to help you with that." That is honestly kinder and more truthful than trying to do so much that we get buried under someone else's issues and start feeling responsible for them, or we make definite errors in what we say or do (with the greatest of intentions) because we really are in over our head.

Teaching has taught me to have boundaries. Teenagers can latch on really quickly to teachers who try to be a "friend" or "counselor" to them, and it really can become a disaster. It's taught me I can listen to a point, but there comes that point when my response becomes, "Why don't we go to your counselor and you can speak to him/her about this? I'm really not quite equipped to help you with this." It's the kindest and most honest thing I can do in those instances. You can do that with friends and family also. There is a point when you have to know "this is just too big."

As a parent, I've been in some pretty serious discussions with my kids (more than I ever have with any other friends). Even there, the point came when I knew I needed to help them seek more professional help. I knew what I "could" do, and I also knew what was beyond even my ability as a parent (which is probably much more than you would run into with a friend). We ALL have limits, in ability and/or in capacity.

If a friend is asking too much, as a good friend you let them know. People have their own personal limitations, and we have to respect their personal boundaries about what they are willing to hear, to do, to help with. It doesn't necessarily mean they don't care. They have their own reasons for their own limitations. It's important (and very difficult) to not take their boundaries as a rejection, but that is what we have to learn to do to maintain healthy relationships long-term.

That's what I did for 4 years with that "best friend" I had. That is, the energy was drained out of me with me trying to help her so much.

As for the rest of your post. I know what to avoid. So you don't have to tell me any of that.


But I don't know what is okay to ask for from family. Friends are not relevant here as it is now, I don't have any IRL friends left.

As you can see, my thread title's about that too (how to find social support).


So, instead of the avoidance mindset, I would like to have the approach mindset here.

I know what's too much, but I don't know what I CAN ask for. What fits with the normal boundaries.

I did not know I shouldn't put so much energy in with that "best friend" (and another friend but that was less extreme thank god), exactly because I don't know from experience about what's a truly quality friendship and so yeah, I don't know what I CAN ask for. (This includes family too, like I said I don't have IRL friends left)

Especially as since cPTSD I have a problem with handling conflict, the more personal it is, the worse my ability. So I don't really want to learn the hard way always, like, if it looks like I'd have to have a fight about it if family doesn't feel like helping me with something, ....I'd rather not even ask for it.

So I'm asking here what's ok and normal to ask for.


I may not have worded my original question about this clearly enough because it sounds like I was asking about the "avoidance part", but I hope it is clear enough now. Thanks.

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Because I realised I didn't like the idea that family or anyone who truly CARES will EASILY burn out.

I was asking about people who do truly care.

People who do truly care do not EASILY burn out.

I didn't EASILY burn out either, I put in a whole 4 years first. Because I cared.

So yeah, nevermind this topic. I don't want to discuss how easy or how hard it is for people to burn out. I know first hand. So it wasn't what I was asking about at all. I understand you focused on other people in your response, but that's not useful to me because I already overfocus on other people. I don't need to have EVEN MORE empathy focused on other people. I have to learn to focus it on myself.

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