Posts Tagged ‘AWARENESS’

25 Feb

PTSD uses thought and emotion to gain control

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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PTSD uses certain emotions to gain control, yes it’s part of the Thinker, our Ego.

Our Ego wants total control, even in a person with no history of abuse. We are easy targets when the Ego has PTSD as a weapon or when PTSD has the Ego to dominate. Pick your poison.

PTSD brings guilt to our core. Why should we ever feel guilty for being abused, yes it’s all irrational.

PTSD distorts time, memory and our sanity.

Fear of the unknown, what’s going to happen, when is the next tragedy for us, reverberates within traumas thoughts. We are always on guard, danger is close, we sense.

Trauma, PTSD, has created an alternate world that has no safety or wellbeing for us. We live in a world influenced by things out of our consciousness, PTSD.

We can get trapped inside our thoughts and feelings without realizing it. No one is going to understand.

That’s the other sad part about childhood abuse, none of your friends or enemies will ever know the hell we endure. They will feel helpless not being able to stop our suffering.

Then, there is the fear, the doom, the knowing that things have never turned out ok for us.

Our memories are like Swiss cheese. A child without abuse has a vivid memory of childhood.

We have spotty, violent nightmares, emotionally devastating snippets of abuse called memory.

Good memories are not accessible for me, my memories are of abusé, loss and betrayal. If I have good memories, I am not aware of them.

That’s sad, as I read it.

So looking back has nothing but suffering for me and probably you.

We carry all the fear and ways to escape our abuser into adulthood subconsciously.

Anyone who slightly resembles my fathers behavior, jolts my nervous system.

What do you carry with you?

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23 Feb

Updated: Awareness: know your trauma Patterns

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

An example of what a functional MRI scan looks like. Brain activation is averaged across 20 PTSD patients compared to healthy controls in an emotion regulation task.

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Yes, I am drawing a pattern out of only two episodes of trauma in my life.

Here are a few patterns I notice.

The obvious, my trauma buries itself quite deeply for decades.

This pattern allows trauma to have subconscious impact without anytime spent trying to heal.

My childhood abuse did not erupt until I was in my fifties.

Secondly, the first couple of months are extremely intense.

My nervous system is agitated and intrusive thoughts seem to come at a rate of a Gatling gun firing.

I see that my whole personality changes.

One of my symptoms brings the feeling of imminent danger to my being.

It is irrational and very confusing.

Imminent danger for me is not physical, I fear the annihilating of my ego, emotional death in a sense.

I am intense, consumed and out of my gourd for a couple months.

You have witnessed this in my recent posts.

I sound and act like a victim, hopeless, helpless, it is embarrassing but sharing will help others push through their humiliating thoughts.

At my lowest, agoraphobic, hiding in my dark garage during the day, I thought something was going to come through the tile roof and do something worse than death.

Look how abstract that fear is. I have no idea what is coming through the roof, man, animal or alien.

My danger does not need a gender or even an origin but it is what I fear most, the unknown.

PTSD has that unknown quality about it.

The tragic memory is incomplete at the time trauma happens.

If it happened in childhood, the brain has not fully developed, storing an incomplete, distorted memory.

Somewhere in our background we need that skill that does not give up when all Common sense says it is the prudent choice.

At my lowest, Agoraphobic, contemplating suicide, a moment of clarity and strength surfaced for me.

From somewhere deep inside my head, the words, my abuser, my dad wins if I give up.

That may seem a feeble judgment by some, but every fiber in my body would not allow him to win.

In a crazy moment of crisis, I accepted my suffering, decided I would rather sit and suffer than let my dad win.

I did not realize this was a pivotal moment on my healing journey, inside my ego, that inner voice knew I would never give up.

Healing from PTSD is a war zone, expect the turmoil as part of the journey.

Ironically, surviving my fathers abuse developed the traits that helped me heal.

We have to fight for our wellbeing, fight the demons our childhoods created.

Thoughts?

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22 Feb

PTSD. Versus C-PTSD

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , , .

https://www.atrapamente.com/en/guides/post/understand-PTSD/

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Childhood abuse is much more insidious because the mind was not developed fully when we were abused.

Abuse will always be part of our life, maybe a dominant factor.

This does not minimize PTSD, just points out the complexity of repeated abuse and its damage.

The healing path is the same just more arduous.

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20 Feb

Opening my Heart: Chaos ensues Quickly! .

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

https://pngtree.com/freepng/heart-schematic-human-organs_2102360.html?share=3

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Everyday the online meditation teacher instructs us to open our hearts, open that clenched fist, let the fear, betrayal, worry and doubt come out.

Wow. I find this exercise releases a barrage of chaos for me.

I enjoy hearing others rejoice as they peruse their childhoods and heartfelt experiences.

My experience has a much darker tone. I cringe and my stomach convulses, my heart contains much different data than them.

Trying to accept and eventually surrender to my demons has been emotionally and physically draining.

It hurts reliving my past, what my heart has stored.

Hard to tell which way I am headed in the middle of this.

My intentions are towards healing, facing what has torn my life apart.

It is our unknown.

Will we ever enjoy peace of mind?

I can not answer that, results are not guaranteed.

If this does not work, I will find something else.

We have to learn to accept the suffering abuse causes everyday for us.

I can not be happy now, anticipating how I will be completely healed one day.

Happiness only exists right now, this moment.

So accepting my trauma let’s me enjoy pieces of my life as happy, today.

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19 Feb

Our thoughts and behavior are different not less!

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , .

https://pixabay.com/users/peggy_marco-1553824/

I have many trophies, many accomplishments, never could turn them in for even a day with peace of mind (happiness).

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We have to become aware when we stick out, when our different thoughts and mind shows.

Some of my friends sày things consume me. They tell me I am different. I believe them. I know I am!

On a dating app, I shared my blog with an attractive female. Her response, she could never date someone who had a violent childhood like mine. My life shocked someone this bad.

How do you process that sentiment ?

Damn, more judgment and rejection. I did not abuse myself. Why should I be special, people hate because of skin color and politics these days.

Expect to be treated unfair and harsh at times. The world is not going to adjust to our PTSD needs.

I tried my damndest to fit in, be invisible, be one of the guys.

It felt like failure to be ostracized.

I judged myself as defective, as my peers did. Sports gave me status, my saving grace.

It was not happiness but it gave me some shade.

Now, I do not try to fit in.

It’s a big burden lifted. I do not need approval of others to complete myself anymore.

I see politicians with millions of loyal supporters seeking revenge.

Approval does not contain wellbeing or happiness. Movie stars would all live euphoric lives. Sadness would never visit their mansions.

Approval in fact is connected to criticism.

One who showers you with big approval, also carries big criticism in his/her bag.

Watch out!

Judgments are so impermanent, hard to believe we crave approval.

These attachments steal our focus.

Can you curb your need for approval?

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17 Feb

Common sense versus Irrational PTSD

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , , , .

https://pixabay.com/users/piro4d-2707530/

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I studied and studied, then isolated my trigger experiences.

My solar plexus would be violently jolted, numbing, then freezing me. Breathing became difficult, unknown fear paralyzed me.

So I ran, avoided, denied and tried to think my way out.

I feared that next explosion.

This scenario repeated itself for years.

Then I realized after being paralyzed with cortisol and adrenaline, ten minutes later everything calmed.

I was fine, just the same, ten minutes later.

So, if no real harm ever happened, why did I fear the next explosion.

That’s part of the irrational nature of PTSD.

We can not see its weaknesses.

There were no real consequences. Nothing permanent.

For me, I described it as a bluff.

It is a bully, it threatens with damage and has the key to our fight or flight mechanism, but it has no teeth.

Follow your next trigger exploding, feel all of it.

Feel its strength without resisting, then follow it as it fades in short time.

I realized my fight or flight had fired over and over without damaging me.

Be a detective.

Follow a trigger exploding all the way to feeling calm again.

Observe, not judge it.

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17 Feb

Shaila Catherine explains Attachment

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

https://pixabay.com/users/mohamed_hassan-5229782/

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“Find an experience that is pleasant: looking at a sunrise, feeling the smooth fur of a cat, holding a warm cup of tea, or any other such simple thing.

Practice moving the attention between the object and the pleasant feeling it elicits.

Shift your attention between the object of pleasure (the visual image, feeling of warmth or softness) and the pleasurable feeling it evokes.

Practice allowing the attention to settle within the experience of pleasantness without adding attachment.

If the desire for more arises, notice that attachment.

Ask yourself—what is this feeling of attachment?

Does attachment increase the pleasure, or decrease it?”

Many people will recognize attachment by a characteristic feeling of contraction or separation.

How do you notice attachment to pleasure as distinct from a simple experience of pleasure?”

My two cents: Let’s explore our attachments to approval.

How real is others approval. Kind of abstract and biased.

How permanent?

How much pleasure, how much happiness, do we derive?

Approval can disappear, actually turn to criticism, instantly.

Look at our cancel culture.

How do we feel then? We have to know approval is hollow at some level, but I sure crave some.

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16 Feb

My attitude (stubbornness) has helped me

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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I have experienced trauma throughout my life.

I have also experienced never giving up every time trauma arrived.

I do not have to achieve anything to never give up, ever.

Who am I?

I do not control the trauma, I do control not giving up.

Who are you?

Our first responsibility is to never give up, never give in.

Simple.

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16 Feb

Hopeless visits me, he does not win the Battle or the War

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , .

https://pixabay.com/users/geralt-9301/

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I have spent many hours using affirmations and other techniques to change my self image and “Ego”. Change was slow and not always permanent.

Trying to fix my flawed “Ego” from childhood was not going well. It felt hardwired from extreme fear (trauma).

Then this idea of creating a new me in the future, blossomed.

I realized this new me was not alive to experience any of my trauma.

While sitting quietly, meditating, I saw the new me sitting in a chair facing me.

I realized he was free of trauma memory, free of worry, doubt and fear. Could I switch to this new me when needed.

He was not guarded, scared or uncomfortable, old trauma did not impact him.

Nothing needed to be fixed or changed.

Then I realized my old “Ego” was made 50 to 60 years ago.

My new creation was only two weeks in the future.

Two days ago, something strange happened.

The PTSD drama dropped away for a couple of hours.

Feelings appeared that were always buried. There was an ease, a peace of mind I never felt before.

I felt more connection and concern for my daughter and grandkids happiness.

The doom, that PTSD cloud that haunted me was gone. Not permanent but I never felt this free.

It is hard to describe how my mind changed its focus. PTSD symptoms are almost invisible to us, we have lived with them so long.

Was this how normal people feel things?

Well, I have found a big crack in traumas prison.

Can I expand those couple of hours to days or weeks?

I do not know but I savor the opportunity and possibilities.

Healing is not the only goal, being ok during this journey is as important.

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15 Feb

PTSD: A closer look at our Triggers

Posted by Marty in Assorted. Tagged: , , , , , .

Fight or Flight (CYP) – Psychology Tools

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We do everything in our power to stop our fight or flight mechanism from firing. Unfortunately, we think this will help us heal.

In the beginning, showers first thing in the morning, were planning strategies, trying to navigate my day mentally, avoiding as many trigger situations as possible.

My anxiety, panic and fear became acute. My nervous system started to anticipate each new event as a possible threat.

Inside my head, the world had turned dangerous, very anxious. What the hell had happened to my mind?

My mind was a prison, my nervous system the invisible bars, my thoughts, the evil guards.

All that is the exact wrong mindset.

Triggers are not dangerous. It is the bodies defense mechanism trying to protect us.

A natural body function.

PTSD has hijacked this mechanism and added trauma fear into the mix.

Being abused as a child, I developed a vivid imagination, in blazing colors.

While hiking, I imagined being in the movie, “The Last of the Mohicans”, being chased, running for my life. About a mile later my fight or flight exploded.

Cortisol and adrenaline jolted my solar plexus. I learned to use theses chemicals for fuel hiking harder.

Missing was any connection to any trigger or trauma thought.

My fight or flight was by itself. PTSD had nothing to do with this explosion.

It felt the exact same as a PTSD trigger.

Trauma memories bring the emotional fear but add nothing to the mechanism.

The mechanism is our friend. Hard to believe, I know.

Remember these memories are distorted, stored under extreme duress

and in bits and pieces.

I swear if you befriend your fight or flight mechanism, half of your PTSD will be repaired.

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