i never really talked much about this because i used to consider it normal, but now i just don't know.
i can't help fantasizing about bad things happening to me. being beaten. being forced to have sex, and tortured. being cut up. it's only natural for me to end any line of thought in one of this images. it's like... i walk past a shop window and i see a table i like and picture it in my living room and instantly i can see myself unconcious and tied up, bleeding next to it. everything ends like this. silence, and me broken.

i wish i didn't have to say this, as it embarrasses me very much, but i find it somehow relaxing. sometimes when i'm too stressed out the only way in which i can calm down is picturing myself dead, hanging from a tree by the heels, my hands almost scratching the dirt, deep clean cuts along the back of my legs and the inside of my arms. it's the only way my head can be silent again.

so i was wondering... is it trauma related? does it happen to any of you too? could any of you find a way to stop it? if so... please tell.

hugs,
v.

I have a fairly active imagination when it comes to bad things happening to me. I try not to dwell on it. Before surviving my overdose, the bad things were centered around self-harm. Now my imagination focuses on accidents and physical health issues. I usually find myself anxious or angry after these ideas float into my brain.

The only thing I have found to help is to find some sort of mental distraction like a puzzle game or something.

Vera, I do believe it is trauma related and more common than recognized in cases of severe violent trauma, rapes, ongoing domestic abuse and chronic childhood abuse.

Yes, vera this most definately has and happens with me too, yet more uncontrollably and frightening in my past. These days I'm able to flip over my imagined/ envisioned violent and sometimes horrific assaults and imagery and see what fears, emot.'s and still unresolved thoughts and/or trauma exist beneath it.

I'm yet to stop it completely, but rather do best with self-acknowledgement of it, accepting it and me, learning something from it and the it's power/ force is taken from it and I move on with my day.

I've learned not to let them scare me and this is true of even any intrusive, obsessive or hateful thoughts, that I too can out-of-the-blue get stuck in my mind.

Though these are a little different and almost entirely gone, then those occasional, violent visual imageries.

Both seem to have greatly lessened, to differing degrees, when I:

own,
understand,
accept,
forgive myself,
become willing to let go of
and move on.

Whereas, as a kid I'd turn and hate myself for such intrusive violent fantasies or compulsive bitter thoughts. Not own them and try anything or everything under the sun to forcibly distract myself from them. Often this did not work for me and sometimes it did work temp., but it still resulted in me misunderstanding, forbidding self-acceptance and in hating myself while thinking myself wicked.

Meanwhile, I neglected to admit to, own, or even broach still many specific areas of my hidden trauma(s), as I thought this would then kill me. This never helped this problem.

Hope this makes any sense at all vera, as I know it's wordy.

Anyhow, Take Care Vera and I think you've asked and opened up for some discussion, a very good question above.

((hugs)) You're not alone.
((and more ))


Hope

I have had this and some times it scared the crap out of me. I read this book called the "Power of Now" and I don't have this happen as often. When it does happen I recall what the book taught me and try to be "present" and the thoughts/feelings subside immediately. If they come back I just keep repeating what the book taught me and finally it leaves for the day.

It rarely comes back anymore because I've learned to catch it as soon as it starts, and then look at it as if I'm separate from it. I can't explain how it works, but the book does a real good job.

If your into reading maybe this book could help you too.

Peace
Tammy

I thought I was alone here. I can see I was in error.
I have this fantasy,
driving an armored deuce & half,
full tanks of diesel,
downtown Los Angeles,
playing bumper car with the taxis and pedestrians....

And when I think of that, I find myself giving a sarcastic giggle.
I feel better now!

I thought I was alone....

I would NEVER hurt anyone...But I find myself having thoughts of hurting others and myself! I catch myself and then I want to harm myself for ever even having the thoughts to start with!

I think for me...it has a whole hell of alot to do with whenever I feel....happy....and in a good mood...I find myself stoping myself with these and other types of thoughts....

It's like....I wont let me be happy and safe...and perhaps I even feel myself to be a bad person...
Maybe I am punshing myself...I don't know...anyways...thanks for listening..good to know I am not alone...good luck...

Geneva

LOL cactus, I've thought about playing bumper cars with other cars too (and a pedestrian one time who thought he could just walk out into traffic and everyone should stop for him). That's why I don't drive often.

I kind of giggle about it, but I also feel bad about thinking like that. What's one to do about the dark side? It's hard to admit we have one, but Vera we all do and it takes courage to admit it.

Peace
Tammy

Geneva, it's fun to think about because I know that while I can imagine myself doing it, reality is I could never truly approach such an act. I have spent years as a volunteer firefighter. I have cleaned up one too many messes from MVAs.

Welllll, unless the pedestrians were politicians and lawyers....

:)

I too have had violent fantasies regarding my own death. It was such a relief when I read these fantasies were a direct result of my PTSD. "Sicko" no longer, just a normal person with PTSD.

The books "Wherever You Go, There You Are" and "Full Catastrophe Living" were helpful to me in learning to live in "mindfulness of the moment". Living in moment helped me stop the fantasies when they started. Bascially they have same ideas as "Power of Now" which I have also read.

The fantasies sometimes still start, but I am able to stop them before I am in never never land.

Cheers to all,

vst

I still kinda think I am nuts...lol