Question:
hi – reply spoilered… a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z sorry we don’t have any advice but we can certainly relate. we had extremely violent fantasies about our first therp. we would sit there during appointments imagining what it would be like to slit his throat and how the blood would look on the wall behind him. and how his head would dangle to the side once we had nearly severed it from his neck. and how the room, his couch, would be covered in blood. we *really* wanted to do this. and we were not hearing anything he was saying because we were so absorbed in imagining the pattern his blood would make on the wall. needless to say, we switched therps. but we think this is fairly "normal", as long as it is not acted upon, and it certainly doesn’t do any damage to one’s brain (we hope). we found it very helpful to talk to another therapist about this. maybe you could do this too? it sounds like you have other symptoms of PTSD which might be alleviated by seeing a therapist…it’s hard to deal with traumatic stuff alone, we know. just a thought. take care, –gillian+ Your e-mail reply to this message WILL be *automatically* ANONYMIZED.
Response:
From reading the posts here in this group, it is evident to me that many of you have experienced abuses and traumas worse than mine. I’m hoping that someone might be able to offer me some encouraging advice.
Maybe I am not getting the gist of your post. I don’t understand what the trauma is here. I strongly suspect there is a lot more going on than just a firing. I’ve never said this to another person that has posted here, but I’m not getting all the information here and I don’t feel that your reason for posting is because you were fired. Your violent fantasies tell me that there is something very wrong here, please explain more, I don’t need to know graphic details just some history. Take care, Crisis
Response:
Still think there is more involved. Much to much going on. Suspect much more history than just a firing. Been fired. Been divorced. Know what that is. What you are describing isn’t it. Theres more – has to be. When I get this feeling in my bones (very old experienced bones) I just know things. Takes more than getting fired to dissociate (even being fired badly) takes abuse history while reacting to present situation. Like the firing kicked up feelings of rage and caused you to dissociate Take care, Crisis
Response:
Your violent fantasies tell me that there is something very wrong here, please explain more, I don’t need to know graphic details just some history.
Thanks for your interest. Yes, I certainly agree that "there is something very wrong here". The mere fact that I was fired should not have caused me to become so intensely hostile. I believe my violent obessions were due to the extremely abusive manner in which I was fired. My manager screamed at me in a very vicious way — it was as though she was "barking" at me. It was like being struck by bolts of lightening. In other words, she did not merely "raise her voice" with me or "yell" at me or accidently "lose her temper" with me. She was using her voice intentionally as a weapon to cause pain. It traumatized me. She then fired me without yelling at me. However I was still at that time in a state of what I now believe to be dissociation from the trauma. I think many of my symptoms over the last two years are consistent with a diagnosis of PTSD rather than only depression, as I had orginally thought. As you are probably aware, PTSD is a form of dissociative disorder. This is what brings me here to this newsgroup. I think I’m almost over it but I’m trying to do my best to take care of myself. While the primary source of stress was the verbal abuse I describe above, and of course the fact that I lost my job coincident to it, my condition became worse as a result of my intensely violent fantasies after the firing. In fact, for all practical purposes I think it could be said that the vast majority of stress leading to my stress symptoms came from the violent fantasies. I witnessed a very bloody "war" in my mind over an extended period. I had almost no control over this "war". It was only by imagining it that I was able to relieve my intense wrath, which left unchecked might have led to a real act of violence on my part. There was a point at which the response became almost automatic: thoughts of my former manager and my termination would come to mind; I would feel an intense burst of *extreme* anger; and I would then quickly imagine my "revenge". If I tried not to do so then I would become so agitated that I almost could not contain myself. It felt as though I might physically explode. It was wrath and hatred beyond anything I have ever experienced in my entire life. I was, I think, clinically homicidal, at least until I suffered the mild breakdown experience I described in my last post. My anger was also of course due to the extreme unfairness of my firing. I was furious to have been fired and to have lost my job. However it was the subsequent violence in my mind, which was triggered by the emotional abuse preceding my termination, that caused the damage, I think. Your e-mail reply to this message WILL be *automatically* ANONYMIZED.
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