View Full Version : My Dao
Well, i really don't know what to write, so i'll start with some bits:
Reccuring Nightmare 1:
This one began when i was about 6(?) an ended when i was about 11(?).
I think the action was always a bit different ... but in the core it was like this:
My parents didn't like me so they pushed a button that made the stairs go to the ceiling opening a hole with something like a melting pot or lava or that alike, where they wanted to burn me.
Reccuring Nightmare 2:
This one started earlier maybe with 5 stayed till maybe 12. Easy actions:
Something bad was happening, i was screaming "No, no!" ... but noone heard or saw me ... then the ... well the world came to an end ... really hard to tell what it was that made it end ... something like, explosions, burning, electric shock, pressure cruhsing everything ... maybe it was me that died ... i don't know.
Recurring Nightmare 3:
This one is interesting. It started with maybe 16 or 17. Only action was me killing everybody, sometimes shooting, sometimes slashing them with knifes ... sometimes both. Interestingly after these dream i always was calm, happy, loved my friends and my girlfriend. But i slowly grew fear of myself.
Recurring Nightmare 4:
It started when i was maybe 20. Occurring maybe 3 or 4 times a week. Location: Hell. It's interesting ... i don't believe in hell, but i believe you can live in hell on earth. Though that in my dream the place didn't look like something i've seen before.
Thee room only had one flat wall. (yeah, that doesn't make sense, but thats the dream) It had no ceiling. No way out. The floor was, nah it was not really a floor, it was something like mud, mostly blood and shit. The wall was made of clotted blood and bodily parts. I tried to get through the wall, but no matter how much i tried to get through there, i didn't get through.
I don't know when this dream stopped, since i stopped to be aware of my dreams with maybe 22. Nowadays i remember some dreams and sleep much better, this dream seems to be gone forever :D
Aah, have been on a trip to a distant place, where people don't speak my language ... well smiling always works, everywhere on the world. I enjoyed the silence, the landscape was so ... otherly. When i wrote the last entry my SUDS was maybe at 6 or 7? ... while reaching the 9 within the next 12 hrs ... just when i was shooting with maybe 120mph along the highway. But well i guess the shakes begin at 10 ... no nausea this time, no vertigo.
Sometimes i see myself running down a sand desert, after an eternity i reach the sea, go straight down the beach, walking into the water, loosing foothold, then i get swept away. Somehow i reach the ice and again keep on walking, right into the ice desert.
I had fear of people. It was not like "Oh, my god there are humans!". I was just getting very aroused. Tunnelvision, shakes, not hearing them ... well, i did hear them but i didn't understand them ... the words were like ever ... hello was hello, and i reacted with "hi!" ... but i didn't understand the words as speech. ... I wonder if someone who has not had these experiences will ever understand it.
I still feel disconnected to people, sometimes i just look at them, wondering ... just wondering. Nowadays i can enjoy icecream ... so somehow i'am getting back to them ... i mean icecream is totally stupid, but so is the whole life ... you get born and sometime you will die. There is no effort, only the gift we call lifetime.
I feel the urge to "push it". Nothing is enough, unless it is not totally enough. I have to explain this: i can have fun with breathing, it fills me with warmth and the world becomes brighter, sounds get sharper, louder, fuller, it is totally enough. But when i meet a girl in a club, i am not satisfied, chat, touch, kiss, go home, **** ... and then "whoops! what am i doing here?" ... just when there is nothing more to reach (i know there is actually more to reach than ****ing a person) i stop, look and loose interest. I have to go to the fullest, everything else bores me or is to complicated, to much work for no effort. Give me back my fight.
I feel disconnetcted and alien to these people ... but sometimes ... i feel touched by them, especially by children. And i want to give them, at least a smile.
I am frustrated.
I once read an article of a guy who had severe problems, he had some oprations on his brain and descended into depression. One time he decided to go into isolation and live his life for himself, as he stated no one could understand the problems he had. So he descended into his isolation buulding up his world anew. So he did find kind of salvation and could go back into society, now he's back at his university again teaching students.
After reading the article and letting the idea grow i too decided to get acustomed to isolation ... and it did change me, i build my world anew, and made me cope with it. I accepted what happened. Then i decided to go back. Talk to new people. Oh, and i had some expectations that were not met ... but somehow this made me stronger, mostly i can laugh shortly afterwards. I won't quit. This is my way, this is my mission.
But there is this invisible barrier ... it seems like i can't relate to people on a more subtle way, it seems like i am out of synchrony with them. No one did say that i am wrong with the way i see the world ... but they do see it in an other way.
Somehow it is like playing a card game, the rules are common sense, and if you play by other rules, no one will play with you. Because the rules are common sense, no one tells me the rules.
I wonder if i am not mindful enough or if i just expect too much.
I feel very alien to other people. Maybe i am all wrong and they do understand me, but it still doesn't work the way it did work.
There was a time when i was a playful guy, had lots of friends and could easily relate to others. Now i wonder what's happening.
There are two types of flashbacks i did experience:
Flashback 1:
I don't know the trigger of this one, it just happens. I am feeling alert, and habe the feeling that right now right here something will happen and it is on me to stop this. But i can't figure out what it is. And it does not happen. The negative consequence is that i am disrupted in my thinking, i can't do work, i can't discuss with people because i get easily distracted. Actually i don't know if this is a flashback. I have it since i can remember. I don't know from which situation it could stem.
Flashback 2:
Trigger: A special kind of Haircut, maybe the headshape.
I get thrown back into the time when my best friend had cancer and i felt down, helpless, hopeless. When that happens i am socially disabled. The day is ****ed.
Traumatic Enough for PTSD Criterion A?
Usual beatings in my family, father against me
Usual beatings at school, usually more than 3 against me
Usual beatings in neighbourhood, usally more than 3 against me
Beaten till conciouslessness with 19 yrs by a group of 3
Sexual assault by two neighbors when i was 9
Best friend died when i was 4
Best friend suffered from cancer and still suffers from complications
Was somehow forced to smuggle drugs into the country, to give pain relief for best friend
Mother attempted suicide when i was 11
Brother of best friend died in traffic accidentI guess this is sufficient.
Depersonalization:
I felt like not being me. I was someone, i was a machine. I was a zombie. I guess thats a check.
Feelings of guilt:
I did go as i was not able to change the situation. It did hurt me and i tried to rescue myself. If i had been able to give my live for the cure of my best friend, i had done it. I felt guilty, and still i feel guilty for the suffering of others. Only low level but i feel it. Check.
Criteria for healed trauma not met:
5. The person's damaged self-esteem has been restored.
6. The person's important relationships have been reestablished.
7. The person has reconstructed a coherent system of meaning and belief that encompasses the story of the trauma/s.
Geez. Still frustrated. After hammering that stuff into this diary, i had to speak with a friend ... yes ... slowly i'am getting some friends together again. Afterward si went to a party. And well, at least 3 girls did smile to me, very obviously. Me didn't do nothing, did not feel ready or connected or something like that. I feel like missing something.
Somehow this is also a turnup for me. The most disgusting things might be shown, while i can smile while others would become desperate. The other times (when other have fun and socialize) i feel numb, well not like stunned, but just like nothing. Those things don't do anything with me, theres just a small, very small remembrance of something.
I guess i can't change me. Myself has to get out there by itself ... i just can't wait any longer. Looks like i have, too.
(Why am i only able to write this in english? Why not in my native tongue?)
I wanted to write something but got stuck in the forum. I read the trauma diary of batgirl. I wonder ... theres this ... damn my mind gets mixed up ... somehow i think that others have experienced much more or more harder stuff ... so maybe i should not complain ... ^^ but well we know that this is a usual reaction for people with ptsd ... "oh, no, i am fine, the others aren't." ... i guess what matters is the very personal subjective pain and trauma that one experiences. ... The thing is somehow i am fine, i have no more flashbacks, no more nightmares, less aggression, less fear, when i have fear i normally go where my fear is, thats something that i am proud of, but what did this all bring me? There are people that are envious, because i achieve things with less effort (on the surface), some are that nice that they do say this to me, i guess thats the best for them and for me. But somehow i am pissed, the things that seem so easy to achieve for me did cost much, and i've been a long way, a long way that i sometimes lack to realize myself.
I somehow feel that theres still a lie running through all this. I dont know.
There was this time when i really wanted to know something. And V was someone who did offer realization. He did do fighting training long time ago for special operations. Now he's training young people. I never did push me into that much fear and pain by myself. The whole training showed me something. Even the real bad asses, the big boys, those who go out to fight with the unspeakable, will get hurt, will suffer from pain, ... no one is invincible, but one can learn to bear it and even go further.
I was 4 when my best friend died. I can only remember some moments when we played in the garden. One day he and his family wanted to go cycling in the early evening. Sure, i wanted to come with them. But his mother told me they wanted to do this only with the family.
(Well, as he was only 5, and you now how boys are with 5. He just could not wait to get over the street when it was "red". I didn't see him ever again. My mother did not want me to see him in his coffin ... so i didn't even see him dead.)
The next day, when i was in kindergarden, i wondered where my friend was. The kindergarten teacher told me that my friend would not come. I don't know how i did get the information that he was dead, but i did knew it when i came home later:
In the kitchen there were my mother and my two sisters, screaming. They told me that he was dead, and i told them that i know. I wondered why they were screaming, because i knew that people die and they did too.
(Interestingly, i do remember much things before this day, mostly nothing of my early youth after this day. I guess i found out what death means for the people that are left behind.)
Someday, i was 11 (or was it when i was 13?) and it was Sunday. I woke up from screaming (not that this was really suspicious, heard that often) ... but i have to go back some weeks ... i guess that this will become more intersting later.
My mother had begung to work again and she was not happy. She wondered what she could do for the pupils that she lectured. One day she asked me if i would think about her when she was gone. I told her that i would and did ask if something was on. But she told me that she only wanted to know.
Two weeks later on sunday, i woke up from screaming, did go down in pyjamas, my mother lying on the sofa ... it gets a bit fuzzy here ... my sisters crying. My father did do things ... like ... handling with towel and getting her outside to the car where he did stop the bleeding with a belt. Then the ambulance arrived and later i sat on the sofa with my oldest sister. I said to her: "I knew that she would do it."
(Is this everything i remember?)
Over 10 years later i found out that my mother had psychosis. And this makes me really angry. Why did no one ever speak with me about it? Why wasn't i allowed to know? Why should i trust people that do lie that much? Why should i trust anyone, or at least how could i? Why wasn't i allowed to see my mother in the psychiatry ... yes i was young, but was it better to shut me out, rob me of the ability to understand or at least understand that i do not understand, or to speak? Who's there for me if not me?
SUDS seems not to have reached a higher level. Interesting thing: I seem not to get aware of higher stress-levels ... only when they are growing rapidly or hitting maybe 60% or 70% of maximum.
Well what do we have here? Family life ... hmm, noo ... okay lets get to the hard point.
My best friend, Ina. I loved her. I mean i loved her, nothing like i want to fek her. We had our fun, we talked, joked, we had our downs sure, but this was a good relationship, often we were lying on her bed and just talking, holding each other. Smiling, laughing. Or we were going out, mostly to the club. Then one day, a friend of her called me. Told me that she was at the hospital. So she had developed leukemia. This was a shock for me.
(... i don't have the feeling to get to the point here ... this lacks something it doesn't have the needed intensity. ... but i'll go on.)
So there were the following years when there was always only slow progress ... many fallbacks, the times in the hospital when she got into isolation and i could not reach her not only physical but when i also could not reach her mind or psyche. She developed zoster (actually 3 times, causing phantom pain, a blind eye, loss of an eyebrov and scars in the face), when things slowly got better her brother died in an traffic accident, that was when her father finally gor ****ed up and started heavy drinking, going into hospital within 1 week.
I could tell these things again and again. That doesn't seem to work.
I guess the point is that i would have sacrificed my life, really i would have done this ... but that would never heal people, would not bring someon back to life. I could not help, i couldn't even help myself, because i could not speak about the feelings i had. There was nothing i could, no one to speak with, no one who seemed to understand. No one to trust.
When i was slowly circling down the process into depression, slowly becoming unable to manage my live more than waking up sometime, eating sometime something, maybe cut my beard sometime. Did someone ever try to speak to me about the things i could not speak about or i didn't want to see? Nope. The "friends" i had, complained about me ... though their complaints could have been thrusted back at them again. Explanation: I had to get a new home near university so if i ever saw them i had to travel, and as i slowly got fed up with travelling i didn't see them that often ... they complained i could come more often, but in return wouldn't travel to my new home. The other "friends", didn't complain ... though obviously i developed manners that needed correction. But the correction came not by openly speaking, but by aggression and namethrowing. A nice sentence: "I don't tell when someone does something wrong. Everyone has to see for himself what he's doing wrong." ... Thanks, ****ers.
I guess my real trauma, the one i was confronted with my whole life. Is that there are things that i can't change, and too many people i can't reach, also when they were the nearest to me. There's nothing i can trust on. Oh, i can trust but ... it won't feel like trust. There is no security i can find for myself. Sometimes i can't even trust myself. And just in this moment i don't even know if what i am writing is right.
I will still try to reach out to people and i will try to reach out to myself. Maybe i'll find home. Because thats where i want to be: at home. But i haven't found it, and i could look through maps, and through my phonebook ... theres nothing pointing home. Not that i know.
I wonder how i can get out of here.
Trying to push SUDS:
The time when i was feeling really bad but pushed myself thorugh university, i developed the skill to kill myself while going further. Killing all the feelings sometimes helps ... o sadly that they are not that easy to get back. As long as i knew what goals i could pursue everything was fine, but when i was nearly dead, my goals weren't backed by emotions and became fluid, whoever could persuade me that something was interesting could have taken me wherever he wanted.
... hmm ... that doesn't work.
It feels like theres nothing more i could squeeze out ...
i guess that i just have to take this life an make the best out of it ... i don't know how i get a plan to change the things i want to change ... how to feel more connected, how to feel more at home. I'll try by keeping my senses open and find delight in smallest things. But still this gives me no sense, nothing i may burn for. Nothing where i can release my power trip.
I am very disappointed. I am bored and feel empty.
Looking at my life now and setting it in to relation with the last 6 years ... the most things are really fine, i have a new job, am smart, good looking, girls look after me, i know that my brain is an evil weapon of mass destruction ;) ... i bought a car, i've been on holidays, have new clothes, got a computer, ...
But i lack someone ... thats the child in me. That little fella just doesn't seem to wake up. Maybe he has become a big brute and ugly bad mother ****er ... but where is he?
Or am i just blind?
Ok, i did speak with many people about the trauma ... especially about the trauma that followed ... feeling not connected, feeling no trust, feeling nothing ... somehow becomes a trauma itself. Right now i have the feeling of feeling something.
I still don't really know what to do ... but i have this vague kind of hope.
Maybe i just have to learn to feel ... maybe it is just like theoretical computer science with all the boring and mind-bending formulas, theorems and ... stuff. I have to read the topic twice to get a glimpse of what that stuffs all about ... read it three times and wonder if i ever will comprehend ... look in a dictionary ... get frustrated ... do the whole process again ... find out that the process has to be changed a bit ... read it again ... get an idea ... idea works ... get another idea ... idea does not work ... and on.
Maybe it's just a way going up and down, left and right ... that is sometimes blocked or has no bridge over the river. Though it looks like a crippled and ugly way it is the only way and it is the straight way ...
The one who walks on ... will get forward ... and when he reaches the end ... theres the next path ... tempting to go forward. Till death.
I am the opening and closing of the door that shuts out my feelings or lets them in. As easy as this is to say, it is also as hard to control. Learning this might be an art ... it might be Kung Fu ("achievement through great effort").
Damn, i am really doing the whole stuff to myself. I am responsible. ^^
Ok, pushing down the wall with all might has also disadvantages ... numbing does not only steal the good feelings ... it also hides the bad ones.
My first reaction is: "Stop that!" ... but if i can't feel fear ... how can i intervene? How can i support rewriting the memory? And if i am that occupied how can i even think of a creative intervention?
Explanation: My fear just popped in when i was under a group of people (more than 3) for a time longer than 2 hrs.
Actually i seem to ask many "what ifs" ... what if this keeps on going the way it goes ... yes i do have hope, but it gets swept away. I guess there is a way out. But which is it?
Heh ... funny just some posts above i wrote that the way will be the way and that it is the only way and it will work ... after time ^^
I guess that just was a setback ... but to get to this setback i had to drop my defense and open wide. So somehow: Mission accomplished ^^ And yeah ... what did happen? Nothing did happen, yep i had fear, but no one did eat me.
I did learn to rely on myself, because finally everyone will leave me. But that is not necessary ... sure everyone will finally die or turn his back ... but well there's this propbability that i will die earlier ... so probably there will be people till the end of my life. I just did generalize from one snafu-situation to my whole life ... and that is not right. Probably there will be always some people i can rely on, though there might be times this is not true. But how long can these times be ... i guess maximum a month or so. That's a long period but manageable. ... When i really tried to reach someone, these times weren't longer than a week ... but the setback of not reaching someone pushes fear up to the sky. I have to reassure myself in these cases that the time won't be that long. Remember: Maybe a week, propably not more than that.
Ok, i just called my mother and asked her this and that about the time when i was 4 and later. It seems that i got emotionally less accessible when i was 6, that is mostly normal ... but in my case it was heavier than with other children. When i was 4 and afterwards i painted pictures with flowers, a grave and myself. That's nothing special i guess, but it fits the picture i am slowly getting. Interestingly it was hard for me not to cry when my mother told me the story about the pictures. .. Ehm, yes i did supress again ^^ ... but now i get the picture. The problems at school, disinterest ... And i know that from that time there are still emotions.
You call it c-ptsd i call it my life, heh. The numbing ... all that really started there. And all that afterwards always cut the tree at the same height.
So if i want to get accustomed to my feelings i have to face this one ... i have to see that people could not understand me because i did shut down to bear the pain. Once it got better, but the wound was still open and the blowflies were gathering.
Heh, now i am not angry about all this.
There were times when i literally lost time ... i sat in the kitchen and *zapp* it was 2 hours later ... i didn't know what i did within this time. I still don't know what i did ... but i now can remember that it happened.
I feel like ... well i don't know how to describe. I do not only know that i hear birds, i hear them. I do not only know that i see the trees, i see them. I guess right now i am very vulnerable ... but i feel like i am alive. There's so much coming back right now. I now do remember that i had phases like this before ... but i always did go back to sleep. Maybe now i can stay awake? This time it all makes sense ... and that makes me calm.
I still can take full control of myself ... but now i am also able to let go, and i want to let go.
There's so much beauty in this world, that it freaks me out. Whoha!
Still sometimes i get this creepy feeling, when i see people or hear the rattling of keys. But it gets better.
When i was 14 i had sensations that my body was burning. I was a walking torch.
When i was maybe 22 i had sensations ... well it felt like my belly was ripped open and the skin that did feel like it was of metal or so was turned and twisted. Sometimes my extremities did feel like they were broken and pointing somewhere else than where they really were.
Can someone just forget to feel? I was so sure that i could not feel. And then there it is back.
I am still there. Its now the fourth day. The world is the same like before but it is like i am exploring a whole new one.
I become complete.
I want to stay here. :D And i will.
Still i did not post about the main trauma. Well ... it is more a whole complex.
Putting all together,
i guess my trauma consists of these points
1. fallibility of trust
2. inability to change or communicate situations (helplessness)
3. the fact that i will loose everything and everyone
4. therefore loosing trust and interest in me, others and anything
Sometimes i find myself lying ... to myself and to others. Why? I don't know, maybe as a protective mechanism? This has to end.
I can watch myself redeveloping old behaviours. Behaviours that actually work for me. That is good. I also do regain old skills. I get back my old self-assurance and sovereignity. It feels good to get my identity back.
Sometimes it is hard, so much time has passed, so much is now unavailable. But i know that i am going into the right direction. Soon i will gain more speed on this way. It's going to be alright, and i'am ready for the negative consequences that may go with it.
Ok, it's getting up and down, i knew this. ... Point is i've found the lie: As long as i can say that i have depression or ptsd i can hide myself. Gotta cope with it or not, it's my decision.
Have been triggered again ... but this time it was not the same. I also felt something like relief and happines and it was gone after a very short time.
I am now going back into therapy. This time i feel ... unhesitant. I don't accept the status quo. There's more to my life.
anthony
05-06-2007, 05:23 PM
Burn, we all suffer the same, we all go through the same aspects in relation to exposing our trauma, hence why we all have PTSD to begin with, because we all locked it up and thought we could deal with it by ourselves. Only you can make the choice to help yourself, and that simply means exposing the truth about yourself and don't think for others, allow them to make their own decisions. We all do bad things... and these are what we learn from, they are not necessarily a true reflection off our current selves.
Hey anthony. I guess i know what you're pointing at, when you say "don't think for others". I generalise from 2 people on everyone, that's not necessarily correct.
Well, it's hard to speak about my problems ... the only people that i trust, have experienced similar things and seem to know how it is when i don't feel, the others go through a process: they don't understand and think that i just need to go out more (that's surely a good thing, but that's what i do), then it gets to a point where they ask how i feel now with them (they say it's nice, i say something like: i guess yes, i don't know.) and that seems too hurt them (what i understand), finally they seem to understand something.
But hey maybe i am wrong, and just fooling myself.
anthony
08-06-2007, 11:42 AM
Only you know whether your fooling yourself or not, that is not for others to decide. Sure, people can point it out, but only you can decide whether its true or not. Denial is a natural part of PTSD, have no doubt about that, and that is what you could still be in, denial. All you can do though is not think for others, but instead provide them the information and let them decide things for themselves, let them say things for themselves. If they say something to you that you do not fully understand, then DON'T guess, but ask for clarification. If they are insulting you, then atleast you will know it with clarification over a point, for yourself to then make an informed decision. We cannot guess, we do not know what others think, all we can do is provide the information to them and clarify in order to make our own accurate decisions based on others words or feelings.
Hey, anthony thanks for your reply.
Today i'am kinda depressed, because it seems so hard to get that wall down again ... ok, at least there's some emotional reaction ^^ Today i wondered what perspectives i would have it the new therapy won't work or will be cancelled ... i guess that's a bit of negative thinking here, but at least i have plans b,c,d and e in order.
I'am impatient. I want it back right here, right now.
It's like something in my stomach is screaming and wants out (not the alien-way though (; ) ... i guess there's much anger too ... at least i feel this vague, hmm, lust for destruction? ... I don't know where this will take me, what i will do with it.
Just got through my mind:
Opening to those feelings like love, praise etc. makes me feel good, but turns me down afterwards, because i don't believe that i am able to maintain the situations and relations that are bound to this feelings.
Just because i don't believe that i am able, doesn't mean i am not. I surely am in most cases. I have to believe this.
I did wear a mouthguard, because i chattered with my teeth. Sometimes it was so intense that it made other people in the same room wake up.