Trauma – PTSD

Question:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – [...]   It certainly gives me something to think about.  But it also makes me wonder if perhaps what’s going on isn’t just a little different from that – if it doesn’t instead lower the perceptiveness of the "control-minded host" (good description of me!) so that I just don’t *notice* so much that I’m behaving and doing things out of character.   I’ve become aware of something new in the last month: despite my having believed that I’m always conscious when my others are active (don’t lose time) there also have been lots of incidents where I’m doing certain kinds of things, not really conscious *that* I’m doing them, with no awareness at all of *why* I’m doing them, and not feeling the feelings which would seem to be associated with them.  I’ve noticed a bunch recently but I have a feeling that this has been going on for years too, and I’ve just been tuning out when it happens so I don’t notice.   Jill (RC) can probably relate to this.  I think she described how she used to hide under things and in corners when the PTSD hit bad, and people would say to her "Are you afraid of something?" and she would respond "No, I’m not feeling afraid of anything.  Why?"  That’s what some of these are like: I’m behaving in a way that makes no rational sense to me (like dodging around the table to keep it between me and my wife so she can’t get close enough to touch me), which implies a strong feeling (fear) associated with the PTSD – and I’m not only *not* feeling the feeling, but I’m barely able to even notice that I’m doing something odd.   I think this may have been what happened a few years ago, when I got what I think is the only bad performance review of my life – my manager said that I had done badly (on this doomed project) *and* had been constantly angry with the other people on my project.  Pretty devastating, and a total surprise to me!  Not to go into too many details, I basically dredged up some sincere sounding self-criticisms and explained away my temper as being due to chronic pain, even though I couldn’t remember being, feeling, or acting angry.  Now I wonder: maybe I really was angry, only I wasn’t feeling that I was feeling it.   Does *anybody* understand what I’m talking about???

snippage galore! Yes, I understand and can relate (as you said above:) I am just now becoming more and more aware of just how much I used to do this. I _hope_ I’m not doing it as much any more!! The weirdest of it is when someone will say ‘you were acting X afew minutes ago, does this mean you felt Y?’ and I will not only remember using that behavior, but not even understand how that feeling could even remotely fit into the situation at hand’ ARGH Like you said, maybe it’s that the feeling was there but I wasn’t feeling that I was feeling it, or (as my therapist says) someone else was feeling it instead of me. Rainbow Colors (Jill) —      I choose to post non-anon because my abusers are afraid.      They would have to admit something happened in order to      confront me; this they will never do. They are the only      people who will be upset if they know who I am, and they      are too afraid to admit to what they did.                        Black of Rainbow Colors

Response:

[...] – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text –   It certainly gives me something to think about.  But it also makes me wonder if perhaps what’s going on isn’t just a little different from that – if it doesn’t instead lower the perceptiveness of the "control-minded host" (good description of me!) so that I just don’t *notice* so much that I’m behaving and doing things out of character.   I’ve become aware of something new in the last month: despite my having believed that I’m always conscious when my others are active (don’t lose time) there also have been lots of incidents where I’m doing certain kinds of things, not really conscious *that* I’m doing them, with no awareness at all of *why* I’m doing them, and not feeling the feelings which would seem to be associated with them.  I’ve noticed a bunch recently but I have a feeling that this has been going on for years too, and I’ve just been tuning out when it happens so I don’t notice.   Jill (RC) can probably relate to this.  I think she described how she used to hide under things and in corners when the PTSD hit bad, and people would say to her "Are you afraid of something?" and she would respond "No, I’m not feeling afraid of anything.  Why?"  That’s what some of these are like: I’m behaving in a way that makes no rational sense to me (like dodging around the table to keep it between me and my wife so she can’t get close enough to touch me), which implies a strong feeling (fear) associated with the PTSD – and I’m not only *not* feeling the feeling, but I’m barely able to even notice that I’m doing something odd.   I think this may have been what happened a few years ago, when I got what I think is the only bad performance review of my life – my manager said that I had done badly (on this doomed project) *and* had been constantly angry with the other people on my project.  Pretty devastating, and a total surprise to me!  Not to go into too many details, I basically dredged up some sincere sounding self-criticisms and explained away my temper as being due to chronic pain, even though I couldn’t remember being, feeling, or acting angry.  Now I wonder: maybe I really was angry, only I wasn’t feeling that I was feeling it.   Does *anybody* understand what I’m talking about???

uh huh.  this is kind of like I’d experience it.  never any discontinuity in time, cuz I’d always have a sense of the fact that the body existed and was doing things, and even usually where the body was (easy, cuz that was usually predictable given any particular day of the week).  so I knew where the body was in space and time, thought I knew what I was doing, was used to being fuzzy about incidents someone was referring to until I got them to talk about the event a little, at which point I could usually access a picture of the scene, so I could start to talk about it.  and I did that in a way that neither of us (me or the person I was talking to) noticed my fuzziness. those occasions that I could not pull up the tape, I usually just went along with the other person’s version without thinking about it.  the times that I could have sworn I remembered *exactly* what had happened, and it was *radically* different than the other’s version…well, those were truly disturbing.  and when it happened in my therapist’s office… well, she wasn’t like the others:  she actually *noticed* what I was doing, even if *I* didn’t. hard to argue with her about something she’s witnessed       Anyway… going back to Swivelleft’s original topic, I’ve tended to use a moderate but steady amount of alcohol or drugs since I was able to start getting my hands on them, maybe 20 years ago.  (With occasional binges, but fairly careful of my health.) I guess what I’m wondering is that maybe the reason I use isn’t so much to relax enough to let the others out, as to help keep me from noticing that they *are* affecting my behavior.  Or to help let them out in little ways, before I get into crisis and the strange or uncharacteristic behavior is unmistakable?

or maybe *they* are using it so you don’t notice and get so uptight?              pink bunnies                 /   ~ )    All conditions are temporary                //|  (                                                                       `o’_* — For more information about this service, send e-mail to:

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