Posts Tagged ‘Dissociation’

20 May

Memories that we carry from an abusive childhood

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As a child being criticized constantly, followed by physical violence, my self-worth was destroyed.

I felt like I did not deserve or belong on this earth.

My nervous system stayed on constant alert, life was lived with anxiety and fear of abandonment.

I was always fighting an internal battle as life overwhelmed me. My early life was lived inside my head, in a make-believe world.

Living in constant fear as a kid, corrupted my view of myself and the world around me.

Now, as an old man of 71, memories arrive connected to emotional distress and anxiety.

Funny how trauma memories(implicit memories) have all the anxiety and fear of the original event.

It is how they are stored, short powerful snippets of charged emotions.

This morning an old buried, long-forgotten memory came back to life without provocation.

We never know what will surface from our childhood.

It’s hard to feel self-worth at times, while happiness is covered by traumas abstract fear.

My mind wants to engage and change the memory but that only fuels its longevity.

Best practice is to follow the breath while letting memories fade without attention.

Life is a minefield for adults with a history of childhood abuse.
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14 May

I did an interview about my baseball career

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Recently, I did an interview about my baseball career. It was for a college project on a 20th-century man. (If that does not make you feel old)

First question: Tell me about your childhood.

That froze me for a long minute. My brain has this well-developed record, that plays my narrative of childhood. I know it is how I perceive my childhood, saved under duress.

How can you share in words the damage this abuse has caused me? It never goes away completely. There is a void inside me, a feeling of not being good enough.

When you are physically and emotionally abused by your caregivers, self-worth never develops. Constant criticism leads to a flawed ego, a feeling of being worthless at our core.

My memory of childhood is sparse, and limited. My ability to hide most of my childhood back then saves me from more anguish.

These images are hard to share, I bluntly state a few incidents without any hint of nuance.

My childhood is recorded as a black-and-white movie, with short snippets of violence and shouting.

So after the interview, I felt vulnerable and exposed.

Abused kids never like to be judged. I have a sense of fear about what he will write.

It’s part of our disorder, PTSD, fear, and worthlessness.

It’s hard to write and own up to it.

A PTSD life.
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30 Apr

Our Thoughts are the Problem

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

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Childhood PTSD (complex PTSD): It is how our brains are wired during childhood that makes our thoughts (dissociation) the problem.

From the Complex PTSD workbook: “Dissociation, like all other symptoms of C-PTSD, is a learned behavior that initially helped you cope with a threatening environment. A neglected or abused child will rely upon built-in, biological protection mechanisms for survival to “tune out” threatening experiences. In adulthood, dissociation becomes a well-maintained division between the part of you involved in keeping up with daily tasks of living and the part of you that is holding emotions of fear, shame, or anger.”

My nervous system and emotional regulation are distorted: Childhood abuse fires the fight or flight mechanism, consequently, we store these memories as traumatic.

Traumatic memories or implicit memories are stored in the right amygdala, out of reach consciously.

Our brains are wired to spot danger above all else.

We spend enormous amounts of time spotting danger.

Questions bombard us on how to avoid, face, or deny our perceived danger.

Our self-worth is damaged, and we feel vulnerable and isolated too often.

Emotional regulation is a constant issue.

Our thoughts are a big issue, for me, it is a constant battle to let go and come back to the present.

How do your thoughts impact your life?
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19 Apr

Our Mindset as abused kids (Complex PTSD)

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Childhood abuse wires the brain in an atmosphere of perceived or real danger.

As an adult, we feel the world is much more dangerous than normal adults.

We are far more accomplished spotting danger, real or perceived.

Relationships and trust are problematic. We dissociate into the shadow thoughts of Complex PTSD.

We can experience mood swings when triggered by other people and situations.

Life hardly ever flows easily, we spot danger in most situations.

School is overwhelming because we are fighting a battle at home, we are compromised from the abuse.

Happy go lucky is reserved for children who were loved and supported.

It seems turmoil thrives inside our heads.

I have to work diligently, be aware, and meditate daily to curb this disorder.

Childhood trauma (complex PTSD) hard wires inside our brain development.

Our abuse happened before the brain developed, so certain parts of the brain are not online to protect us.

Be aware of our tendencies, and have a plan when things explode.

Learn better ways to cope with these feelings.

We never feel good enough, or worthy enough, in fact, we feel flawed to our core.

This is the dysfunction of complex PTSD.
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7 Apr

Fear of Failure

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It has been a while since I posted. I needed an emotional break.

Recently, while examining my behavior and habits, fear of failure was always under the surface.

Even retired, my fear of failure influences my behavior and emotional state.

I would say many professional athletes compete out of fear of failure.

We feel it’s a trial of worthiness, every challenge, game, or tournament.

If it’s a team sport, we fear letting our teammates down.

In sports, a lack of performance leads to firing, death to who we thought we were. My mother told me God made me to be a professional baseball player. Who can I be now at 71?

Some athletes have considerable difficulty losing their supposed true identity.

Fear of failure is jet fuel for worry.

Self-worth has an enormous influence on every aspect of life.

My work is to be aware of fear’s influence, then adjust letting these emotions release.

The more that I can stay present, the better chance for equanimity.

“Equanimity is steady through vicissitudes, equally close to the things you may like and the things you do not like.” By Sheila Catherine
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17 Sep

The Wounded Heart

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Excerpt from The Deep Heart

“We are continuing to learn more about the origins and impacts of childhood conditioning, particularly when it comes to developmental trauma.

Researchers have discovered that children respond differently to traumatic events than adults do.

In part this is due to their undeveloped nervous system, in part due to the ongoing nature of the traumas, and in part due to the fact that their primary caretakers — those the children rely on for stability, guidance, and protection — are the source of these traumas.

Developmental traumas arise from ongoing neglect, abandonment, or abuse.

The impacts of chronic, relationally oriented trauma are pervasive and long lasting.

All aspects of children’s experiences become distorted.

Their ability to self-regulate, experience relative control and mastery, think clearly, self-soothe, take care of themselves, recognize and articulate needs and feelings, feel worthy, focus attention, learn, trust others, bond, and stay physically healthy are all compromised, sometimes severely.

Studies have shown that 75 percent of prison inmates suffer from developmental trauma.”
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11 Sep

PTSD: trauma over time

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Childhood abuse impacts our life and does the most damage by repeatedly exploding month after month, year after year.

This strengthens the symptoms of PTSD and makes them almost a habit. We adjust our behavior, avoid triggers, while trying to limit the danger we feel.

Then, we start to anticipate danger, it feels like real fear.

It sure secretes our fear drugs (cortisol and adrenaline) numerous times a day.

We navigate life by avoiding triggers and danger subconsciously. It becomes a habit over time.

Hypervigilance becomes a way of keeping safe.

Avoiding calms our hypervigilance for a while but narrows life.

Hypervigilance happens quickly without thought, every time I go out, enter a building, or plan an outing.

I have never been able to stop my hypervigilance from happening but I can ignore the danger as not real at times.
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28 Aug

The Laundry List – 14 Traits from a Dysfunctional Family or an Adult Child of an Alcoholic

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From https://adultchildren.org/literature/laundry-list/

  1. We became isolated and afraid of people and authority figures.
  2. We became approval seekers and lost our identity in the process.
  3. We are frightened by angry people and any personal criticism.
  4. We either become alcoholics, marry them or both, or find another compulsive personality such as a workaholic to fulfill our sick abandonment needs.
  5. We live life from the viewpoint of victims and we are attracted by that weakness in our love and friendship relationships.
  6. We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves; this enables us not to look too closely at our own faults, etc.
  7. We get guilt feelings when we stand up for ourselves instead of giving in to others.
  8. We became addicted to excitement.
  9. We confuse love and pity and tend to “love” people we can “pity” and “rescue.”
  10. We have “stuffed” our feelings from our traumatic childhoods and have lost the ability to feel or express our feelings because it hurts so much (Denial).
  11. We judge ourselves harshly and have a very low sense of self-esteem.
  12. We are dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which we received from living with sick people who were never there emotionally for us.
  13. Alcoholism is a family disease; and we became para-alcoholics and took on the characteristics of that disease even though we did not pick up the drink.
  14. Para-alcoholics are reactors rather than actors.

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23 Aug

PTSD dropped away for a moment yesterday

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

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PTSD operates without any conscious input from me, he feels like an internal entity, an invisible demon.

Yesterday while skirmishing with intrusive thoughts and emotions, I felt everything drop away momentarily.

Instead of being in the middle of the triggers, I was at a distance, separate, observing PTSDs mechanism.

I could feel life without PTSDs distractions or influence.

That dark cloud dissipated for a moment. How strange a feeling.

My nervous system calmed, while my anxiety and fear took a short vacation.

Life felt entirely different with PTSD being suppressed like this.

My first thought was, how do I make this last, perpetuate a life without the constant drama, danger, and anxiety of PTSD?

Is this a breakthrough or a fleeting moment?

I felt life as a normal person for the first time, I think.

I dream of a calm mind, a normal brain with normal thoughts, and a life filled with desire.
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22 Aug

Part 1: Hooked on a Feeling: intrusive and ruminative symptoms in PTSD by Kate Dahlgrenn

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Excerpt:

“Ruminative type symptoms are also seen in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) under the general header of negative alterations in cognition and mood.

These symptoms include pervasive negative beliefs about oneself or the world, such as feelings of self-blame and guilt, which often coincide with distorted beliefs about the traumatic event that led to the development of PTSD (APA, 2013).

Persistent depressive symptoms, such as negative emotional state (e.g. anger, shame, etc.) and inability to feel pleasure (anhedonia), as well as hyper-arousal symptoms, like exaggerated startle response and constantly feeling on edge or hyper-vigilant, are also features of PTSD symptomatology (APA, 2013).

Additionally, PTSD is characterized by intrusive symptoms, defined as recurrent, involuntary, and distressing trauma-related memories; these often appear in nightmares or during flashbacks, which are powerful, involuntary episodes where a memory is re-experienced (APA, 2013).

This profile of symptoms often leads to diminished interest in or participation in normal activities and result in social isolation (APA, 2013).

These symptoms are also associated with significant distress and may increase maladaptive emotion regulation, such as negative appraisal and avoidance.”

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