Question:
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Suddenly the last few days everywhere I look, everywhere I go it is there again. This has happened before and it almost takes me out when it does. What could be so horrible to do this do me, to make such a frighteningly real impression on my mind and memory and on my soul? A silly thing it seems – a simple fabric seen in a shirt, a dress, or even a tablecloth or curtain. Hugs Bonnie When I lost my baby to a still birth I had things like you mention happen to me. I couldn’t stand to see anything red….. I am not fond of the color red anyway… I think what has helped for me over the years is distraction. I mean refocusing my mental energies on other things… replacing the thought patterns with things that calm be and make me happy… Green might be a good replacement color… Shamrocks try to visualize a shamrock… or green hills…
Colors aren’t a trigger for me. Open spaces on heights like glass elevators, the end of a railing on a glass walkway. Open spaces on the freeway where the concrete barriers end and the gap before the fence begins on hills. KG
Response:
Suddenly the last few days everywhere I look, everywhere I go it is there again. This has happened before and it almost takes me out when it does. What could be so horrible to do this do me, to make such a frighteningly real impression on my mind and memory and on my soul? A silly thing it seems – a simple fabric seen in a shirt, a dress, or even a tablecloth or curtain. You’ve all seen it before – a white background with red flowers all over it, kind of an Hawaiian print type design. Only this fabric has no other colors, just the red flowers on the white background. I see it once on a child’s shirt or a woman’s blouse then suddenly it snowballs and I seem to see it everywhere I look. Someone is wearing it or a store has a display with a tablecloth in it, or something, always something else with this similar design and color fabric. Why? Do you know the first time this happened to me I didn’t even know. I only knew it made me feel sick and very frightened. Then it hit me. I knew. My mother’s dress. It was a shift type dress that was popular in the late 60’s. She had made it herself and it was stylish in a simple 60’s manner. It was also the dress she was wearing when I found her after she shot herself. I was 17 and she had sent me to the store with an unusually long shopping list. I understood why when I returned. I remember how the blood seemed to blend with the colors of the fabric and I even found myself wondering if she chose that dress to wear for just that reason. I won’t go into any other details and I apologize if I’ve shared too many already. It’s just that fabric. It is all hitting me again because once again I see that fabric everywhere I go. Of course no one could possibly know or understand. It is all the innocence of what they happen to choose to wear. They might wonder why my face goes white when I see them or why there is fear in my eyes that was not there a moment earlier. How silly this all must sound. But it is happening again and I can’t bear it. There is nothing I can do, nothing I can say. Life goes on and I’m simply being weak and foolish to let something like this spin me back into my oldest and strongest nightmare from the past. PTSD. I know. I was diagnosed. This is not the only trigger for me but maybe the strangest? Maybe not, who knows? How does one handle something like this? I seem to have no choice but to let it slap me in the face when it will. It scares me because it deals with my biggest fear, my fear of suicide. Something I try to run and hide from but still it is there. Maybe I shouldn’t be here? There is no getting away from it and that is the problem. I fear daily that someone I love will take their life. Or I will finally lose whatever will I’ve had that has kept me from doing it. It follows me. Everytime I turn around someone I know or know of has done it. I seem to be a sick magnate of some type. How do you get it to stop? Bonnie —
Response:
Talk to your psychatrist or therapist. They may be able to give you some way of dealing with the emotions of the situation. *Not knowing more*, I’d suggest when it happens, you tell the situation it has no power over you and to be gone. Rather like Christ banishing the devil. It may work. Positive affirmations can be very helpful. KG
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Suddenly the last few days everywhere I look, everywhere I go it is there again. This has happened before and it almost takes me out when it does. What could be so horrible to do this do me, to make such a frighteningly real impression on my mind and memory and on my soul? A silly thing it seems – a simple fabric seen in a shirt, a dress, or even a tablecloth or curtain. You’ve all seen it before – a white background with red flowers all over it, kind of an Hawaiian print type design. Only this fabric has no other colors, just the red flowers on the white background. I see it once on a child’s shirt or a woman’s blouse then suddenly it snowballs and I seem to see it everywhere I look. Someone is wearing it or a store has a display with a tablecloth in it, or something, always something else with this similar design and color fabric. Why? Do you know the first time this happened to me I didn’t even know. I only knew it made me feel sick and very frightened. Then it hit me. I knew. My mother’s dress. It was a shift type dress that was popular in the late 60’s. She had made it herself and it was stylish in a simple 60’s manner. It was also the dress she was wearing when I found her after she shot herself. I was 17 and she had sent me to the store with an unusually long shopping list. I understood why when I returned. I remember how the blood seemed to blend with the colors of the fabric and I even found myself wondering if she chose that dress to wear for just that reason. I won’t go into any other details and I apologize if I’ve shared too many already. It’s just that fabric. It is all hitting me again because once again I see that fabric everywhere I go. Of course no one could possibly know or understand. It is all the innocence of what they happen to choose to wear. They might wonder why my face goes white when I see them or why there is fear in my eyes that was not there a moment earlier. How silly this all must sound. But it is happening again and I can’t bear it. There is nothing I can do, nothing I can say. Life goes on and I’m simply being weak and foolish to let something like this spin me back into my oldest and strongest nightmare from the past. PTSD. I know. I was diagnosed. This is not the only trigger for me but maybe the strangest? Maybe not, who knows? How does one handle something like this? I seem to have no choice but to let it slap me in the face when it will. It scares me because it deals with my biggest fear, my fear of suicide. Something I try to run and hide from but still it is there. Maybe I shouldn’t be here? There is no getting away from it and that is the problem. I fear daily that someone I love will take their life. Or I will finally lose whatever will I’ve had that has kept me from doing it. It follows me. Everytime I turn around someone I know or know of has done it. I seem to be a sick magnate of some type. How do you get it to stop? Bonnie —
Response:
Suddenly the last few days everywhere I look, everywhere I go it is there again. This has happened before and it almost takes me out when it does. What could be so horrible to do this do me, to make such a frighteningly real impression on my mind and memory and on my soul? A silly thing it seems – a simple fabric seen in a shirt, a dress, or even a tablecloth or curtain.
Hugs Bonnie When I lost my baby to a still birth I had things like you mention happen to me. I couldn’t stand to see anything red….. I am not fond of the color red anyway… I think what has helped for me over the years is distraction. I mean refocusing my mental energies on other things… replacing the thought patterns with things that calm be and make me happy… Green might be a good replacement color… Shamrocks try to visualize a shamrock… or green hills… Peace, Vicky
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