. These observations arrived after intense inner exploration and awareness.
I sit in dead silence, sensing my inner world for fear, anxiety, or agitation.
My earliest memories from childhood contain worry, a space sparsely inhabited by safety.
I am aware of my mind’s tendencies and wiring.
The spell breaks momentarily when I get absorbed in an activity or during meditation sits.
At times, I can take a step back and observe the thoughts connected to my worrisome brain.
He perceives real danger, it is a highly emotional feeling.
At times I can discount these thoughts as PTSD related and calm my nervous system, still, as a result, I avoid people.
The combination of worry and lack of trust has an isolating effect on my life.
Worry is such a harmful emotion for abused kids.
The blog psychological tools define worry this way:
What Is Worry?
“Worrying is a form of thinking about the future, defined as thinking about future events in a way that leaves you feeling anxious or apprehensive.
Clinically, excessive worry is the primary symptom of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).” . .
My two cents: PTSD is also an anxiety disorder.
A correction, from NIH.gov
PTSD is no longer considered an anxiety-related disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition classification and instead is associated with trauma/stressor-related disorders. PTSD symptoms are clustered into four domains including intrusive experiences, avoidance, mood, and arousal symptoms.
“Several studies have found that people with PTSD may be more likely to worry than those without PTSD.
Why do we often see excessive worry among people with PTSD?
Well, PTSD is associated with high levels of anxious arousal, as well as other strong emotions.
In addition, people with PTSD may have difficulties identifying healthy ways of managing these intense emotional experiences.
Therefore, given that worry may temporarily bring down arousal and can distract people from more emotionally distressing topics, people with PTSD may worry in order to obtain some relief from their distress.
In fact, one study found that desires to avoid emotions explained the association between PTSD and worry.
Unfortunately, as with other emotionally avoidant coping strategies, this relief will be short-lived.
Because the anxiety is not really being addressed or processed, it will only come back and sometimes stronger than before.“ . .
My two cents: Worry is connected to fear, survival mode, and PTSD.
Worry helps spot danger, in a way my subconscious uses it to protect me.
“First, what are the social-community expectations of appearance?
Brene Brown:
.
From a societal level, appearance includes everything from hair, skin, makeup, weight, clothing, shoes and nails to attitude, confidence, age and wealth.
If you pile on community-specific expectations, you might have to add things like hair texture, hair length, skin color, face and body hair, teeth, looking “done-up,” not looking “done-up,” clothing and jewelry.
Why do appearance expectations exist?
I would say they exist to keep us spending our valuable resources—money, time and energy—on trying to meet some ideal that is not achievable.
Think about this: Americans spend more each year on beauty than we do on education.
How does it work? I think the expectations are both obvious and subtle—they are everything we see and everything we don’t see.
If you read fashion magazines or watch TV, you know what you are “supposed to” look like and how you are “supposed to” dress and act.
If you look hard enough, you also see everything that’s missing—the images of real people.
If you combine what’s there and what’s missing, you quickly come to believe that if you don’t look a certain way, you become invisible; you don’t matter.
What is the impact of these expectations? Well, let’s see. . . .
• About eighty million Americans are obese.
• Approximately seven million girls and women suffer from an eating disorder.
• Up to nineteen percent of college-aged women are bulimic.
• Eating disorders are the third most common chronic illness among females.
• The latest surveys show very young girls are going on diets because they think they are fat and unattractive. In one American survey, eighty-one percent of ten-year-old girls had already dieted at least once.
• A research survey found that the single largest group of high-school students considering or attempting suicide are girls who feel they are overweight.
• Twenty-five years ago, top models and beauty queens weighed only eight percent less than the average woman; now they weigh twenty-three percent less.
The current media ideal for women is achievable by less than five percent of the female population—and that’s just in terms of weight and size.
• Among women over eighteen looking at themselves in the mirror, research indicates that at least eighty percent are unhappy with what they see.
Many will not even be seeing an accurate reflection.
Most of us have heard that people with anorexia see themselves as larger than they really are, but some recent research indicates that this kind of distorted body image is by no means confined to those suffering from eating disorders—in some studies up to eighty percent of women overestimated their size.
Increasing numbers of women with no weight problems or clinical psychological disorders look at themselves in the mirror and see ugliness and fat.
• According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, since 1997, there has been a 465 percent increase in the total number of cosmetic procedures.
• Women had nearly 10.7 million cosmetic procedures, ninety percent of the total. The number of cosmetic procedures for women has increased forty-nine percent since 2003.
• The top five surgical procedures for women were: liposuction, breast augmentation, eyelid surgery, tummy tuck and facelift.
• Americans spent just under $12.5 billion on cosmetic procedures in 2004.” . .
In the online Kundalini group, we are working on the inner critic and the goal is to never take what others say personally.
I fail miserably, with my childhood abuse and betrayals, it seems impossible. While the group celebrates, depression takes hold, I can not behave like them, feel like them, or even fake it for a half hour.
Ten people in group celebrate the benefits of letting go criticism as if it were ordering a sandwich.
How can others do what has become next to impossible for us?
Maybe it is the smaller hippocampus, larger amygdala and compromised prefrontal cortex that makes us different, makes us incapable of being normal.
What others do seamlessly, my 🧠 brain can not accomplish.
My criticism is from a caregiver, a complete childhood and his criticism was constant and violent.
It changed my brain, I see it clearly when I join any group.
Joining a group reinforces how different my mind works, how different my thoughts and daily battles are.
I can not even fake joy for short periods.
Finally, at my age, I want the pain to just stop.
I am conflicted, do I stay in the Kundalini group?
Is it doing more good than damage?
How can we decide being inside our traumatized brains.
When we can not perform like all the others in a group, does that separate us more or what?
How do we navigate life, keep going no matter how much we suffer?
At the end of the day I have a decade of therapy, meditation and practice, it has helped tremendously but I still suffer.
I have always been an outcast soul, my father had more control in childhood with me isolated.
Can We change our basic nature?
I have changed some, the evil shit still lives on.
Worry starts way before thought for me. I know the reasons, know that severe trauma in childhood impacts our genes and undeveloped brain.
My mind worries subconsciously. I have observed it, felt how even in happy times, I never felt safe or free.
I guess it stems from the inevitability of being a prisoner, I could not escape my father, I was trapped, isolated, helpless.
My father told me athletically I needed to be twice as good as everyone else, so no one would question him as coach.
With his constant criticism, this mantra evolved into I need to be twice as good as others just to be normal. Adding to this, school brought ridicule from having a big nose.
Nowhere was safe and free in childhood.
I tried to be perfect everyday. It was the only way I could survive.
That is immense pressure on an extremely unworthy kid.
Worry was always close, always percolating, always with a level of hypervigilance, on guard, life was never safe.
In childhood my worries were accurate, and every week there would be violent beatings and criticism.
When my PTSD is active, danger is alive, close and worry becomes acute.
My work, my goal is twofold. First unplug worry when it surfaces, second change the subconscious patterns.
Exploring my inner world has revealed a mind that is partially hijacked from PTSD.
Description of this week: There is an internal war going on, battles are intermittent but intense.
My moods can switch instantly, the morose part brings many emotions, seemingly before thought even starts. Remember the defense mechanism fires immediately, the cognitive side is 5 seconds delayed.
PTSD triggers fire our defense mechanism, called our fight or flight mechanism. This is part of the mechanical, physical side of trauma. Think of that, a trigger fires before directed thought even knows what the hell just happened.
I have eliminated this repressed trauma three times, gaining some freedom for a few days, then it appears again. With my childhood trauma, once a piece was integrated, my improvement lasted.
So part of my day is good, part horrible and then the rest spent distracting my mind.
I have to play solitaire while I watch 📺 tv, it takes two things like this to prevent my mind from ruminating. Having chronic pain and being 69, I do not have the energy to go back to my workaholic distraction.
Much of my adult life, I see now, was spent working or being busy, overloaded to outrun what was chasing me. Spending time alone with my mind was avoided at all costs. Sound familiar?
Fear is not a big part of my PTSD lately, humiliation and shame are far more dangerous and debilitating.
Humiliation and shame have a huge impact on unworthiness.
Childhood abuse brings anxiety, fear and unworthiness at its core. Unworthiness and abandonment were my big fears as a child.
I was going to get beat severely no matter what.
I feared, but never cried, giving that son of a bitch (dad) any satisfaction.
Even as a little kid, there was a apart of me that would not let him think he could hurt me.
That’s hilarious now as he has stolen most of my adult life. I was using my only strength against him, sadly it was not enough.
It was the emotional crap that carried on inside. We all have strengths and weaknesses.
I can endure pain, unworthiness and shame are my weaknesses. Know your strengths and weaknesses.
For me going after the physical part of PTSD first, was using my strengths. I needed to take as much power away from PTSD before I attacked my weaknesses.
Common sense for me, comes from pro ball, how to improve and fill in your weaknesses.
PTSD - A Way Out.com 