C-PTSD Recovery

[kuttithevangu]

Being a calm, gentle, non-reactive person is really hard work, which is probably why many people are none of these things. Personally I think it’s worth it but sometimes one does want to just roll around on the floor wailing at the top of one’s lungs

[kuttithevangu]

People in my notes who think I’m repressed or dissociating: you will feel better when you learn emotions are not a binary of Not Feeling It vs Being Overwhelmed By It

[blorbospinninhouseplant]

Ok but How Do I Do That

[kuttithevangu]

Self-regulation for adults: Strategies for getting a handle on emotions and behavior - Harvard Health

Learn strategies for enhancing self-regulation skills, and discover the benefits of mastering this essential life skill to help emotional dy

There are many techniques (also, there are drugs)

[blorbospinninhouseplant]

Thank you, but do you have any advice for teens?

[kuttithevangu]

So my FIRST piece of information if you’re still a teen is that genuinely as you get older it will get easier to regulate your emotions. During adolescence our brains are undergoing a lot of growth and change that genuinely does make it harder to do this, on a scientific level. However, practicing emotional regulation skills can still help a lot and if you can find something that works it will make life easier going forward

This page has more information and recommendations for some basic exercises:

Emotional Regulation for Teens: Strategies to Manage Intense Feelings

Discover effective strategies for teens to manage intense emotions, develop emotional awareness, and improve overall well-being. Expert tips

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[madame-helen]

[c-ptsdrecovery]

"I sometimes ask myself whether it will ever be possible for us to grasp the extent of the loneliness and desertion to which we were exposed as children. Here I do not mean to speak, primarily, of children who were obviously uncared for or totally neglected, and who were always aware of this or at least grew up with the knowledge that it was so. Apart from these extreme cases, there are large numbers of people who enter therapy in the belief (with which they grew up) that their childhood was happy and protected.

"...As a basis for a description of the psychic climate of these persons, some general assumptions should be made clear:

The child has a primary need from the very beginning of her life to be regarded and respected as the person she really is at any given time.

When we speak of "the person she really is at any given time," we mean emotions, sensations, and their expression from the first day onward.

In an atmosphere of respect and tolerance for her feelings, the child, in the phase of separation, will be able to give up symbiosis with the [primary caregiver] and accomplish the steps toward individuation and autonomy.

If they are to furnish these prerequisites for the healthy development of their child, the parents themselves ought to have grown up in such an atmosphere. If they did, they will be able to assure the child the protection and well-being she needs to develop trust.

Parents who did not experience this climate as children are themselves deprived; throughout their lives they will continue to look for what their own parents could not give them at the appropriate time - the presence of a person who is completely aware of them and takes them seriously.

This search, of course, can never fully succeed, since it relates to a situation that belongs irrevocably to the post, namely to the time right after birth and during early childhood.

A person with this unsatisfied and unconscious (because repressed) need will nevertheless be compelled to attempt its gratification through substitute means, as long as she ignores her repressed life history.

The most efficacious objects for substitute gratification are a parent's own children. The newborn baby or small child is completely dependent on his parents, and since their caring is essential for his existence, he does all he can to avoid losing them. From the very first day onward, he will muster all his resources to this end, like a small plant that turns toward the sun in order to survive."

--The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self by Alice Miller

[notgreatbob]

''i wasted those years'' who cares. you lived the only life you could've lived in those moments

[callmezeemonic]

You did the best you could with all you had and knew. That was then. Here is now

[canary-prince]

Do yourselves a massive favor: practice asking for help BEFORE it's an emergency.

I am a social worker. I have worked in community mental health and in home-based healthcare. And it is much, much easier for me to help you when the situation you're in is not yet a full-blown crisis.

"I'm out of money and have been for a while and now I haven't eaten for three days." This is a crisis. A crisis where I'm likely going to have to put you in the car and take you to the nearest food bank--except food banks require appointments now, and the next opening is in four days, so you're staring down the barrel of a week with no food. That's obviously not going to work, so, let's call eight different food banks until we've found one that has an appointment the next day...except it's in the neighboring county and you can't drive. So now I'm calling your doctor to try and brow beat an emergency plan of care update out of him so I can come back the next day and drive you to the food bank. And we haven't even started on the "constantly broke" part of the problem.

"I don't think I have enough food to make it to my next paycheck. I have (xyz) in my house and that will only last until (date)." This is bad, but not a crisis. We have a few days. We make you an appointment at the food bank and contact your brother to make sure you have a ride there. Now we can spend our visit talking about what bills are causing you the most problems and make a jump on a long-term solution, like looping in a community action agency to cover your utilities and getting you an OTC card from Medicaid to cover some of your groceries every month.

"I'm ten months behind on rent, and my landlord said I have a week to get out, or the cops will throw me out. I don't have the money, and if I get evicted, I have nowhere to go." This is a crisis. Every single thing we do here is going to be some version of a Hail Mary. In Michigan, we have the state emergency relief fund for rent issues, but process time is well over one week. There are community action agencies that we can call to assist you with payment, but they are unlikely to have sufficient funds to cover nearly a year of back rent. We can contact legal aid clinics to try and prevent your landlord from evicting you, but they may look at your case and determine that too much "fault" lies with you. Most likely, I'm going to have to put you in touch with homeless shelters and the public housing office.

"I'm two months behind on rent and I don't think I'll be able to pay next month either." This is bad, but not a crisis. This is solvable. We have time to apply for SER, or put you in contact with community action agencies. We have time to review your finances and see if you qualify for a public housing wait list or other forms of ongoing rental assistance. We have time to talk about a million possible adjustments to try and ease the burden of your rent.

"I am the sole caregiver for my elderly parent who has dementia and is emotionally volatile and fully dependent on me. I have not slept through the night in weeks and I have not had an actual break for over a year. I am having screaming meltdowns multiple times a week and I am threatening self-harm unless someone comes to collect my parent and take over all caregiver duties." This is a crisis. This is a crisis where the ethical code of my profession demands that I call 911 and report the conversation to them. They will likely come to the house and interview you. If they determine your threats were serious, they will have you forcibly committed to a psych ward. Your parent will either be dumped into a random hospital or rehab center, or left in the house on their own. Upon release from your psych hold, you will be expected to resume caregiving duties as though nothing happened. Except, now, adult protective services is actively investigating you, because it was determined you may be an ongoing danger to your parent.

"I am the sole caregiver for my demented parent, and I have not had a break in a couple of weeks, and I feel angry and weepy most of the time." This is bad, but not a crisis. We can get you in touch with volunteer groups for respite, and apply for state funded programs to get more day-to-day help, and talk about long-term planning for when the dementia symptoms get worse. We can get you the phone numbers for crisis lines and enroll you in a support group.

Obviously, you can ask for help at any point. Don't use this an excuse to never ask for help. If you always wait until it's a crisis, fine, you have free will. But you are ALLOWED to ask for help BEFORE you're in a blind panic, and it is always easier to get help when you aren't screaming and sobbing because you think your life is over.

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

in bed after a terrible awful no-good day, the thought struck me that "and I didn't even tear up once in frustration! i deserve a gold star"

and then: "someone should give me a gold star"

and then: "im an adult. im in charge of giving myself gold stars"

and i remembered i keep a box of glitter stickers for this exact scenario.

and that's how my terrible no good awful day ended with me covered arms-to-legs in glitter stickers. there are tiny stars scattered over my bedsheets. i understand why my parents didn't let me do this. it felt amazing. i will definitely be repeating this behaviour.

anyway. give yourself stars.

[memewhore]

[bananahomo]

I reblogged this last month, tagged it, and said “might as well see if it works.” I used this video as a reference to find all the forms that i needed (which is A LOT, especially if you’re a dependent) and sent them through the mail, not really allowing myself to hope.

dude.

$2,714 of medical debt from my top surgery - gone. im shaking this was such a weight on me for 2 years and it fucking worked. what the fuck.

[cloviepops]

re-reblogging and thinking about when i have another collection agency calling that i can just do this

[secondmoredangerouseyes]

Yo this is such good info to have

[sorceress-foxgirl-ariel]

Cheers Americans, have fun with this one

[alexiaroselikethewine]

Being recently disabled this is going to relieve a FUCK TON of weight holy SHIT

[delphinidin4]

[easybbgrl]

[lyraeon]

who taught you that suffering in silence was noble, and how would you shutting up have benefited them?

[copperbadge]

Oh my guys, I am dying.

I belong to the Aphantasia Network, an organization that provides resources and discussion space for people with aphantasia, the inability to form mental images (which I have). Every so often they send out surveys and I always participate because the whole condition was really only discovered within the last 20 years or so, even though obviously it's not new in terms of existing in the human experience. I want to contribute!

But this morning I got a survey invitation that opened with

"Recent research suggests that the ability to sense internal bodily signals (called "interoception") might be connected to how we form mental images."

I spent months, when I was in DBT class, trying to figure out why all the physical stuff -- half-smiling, open posture, dive reflex, body scan -- didn't seem to work for me. I don't really feel emotions in my body or if I do I'm not aware of it, so soothing/stimulating the body had no perceptible impact on my emotions. I was still upset, I was just now upset and also felt dumb because I had a washcloth on my face, or upset and bored because breathing deeply is boring.

I was acting under the assumption that because these techniques were physical and were working for other people, they were both real and universal to the physical condition. I was simply disconnected emotionally from my body and therefore faulty in some way -- well, not faulty, but in need of some kind of repair, because the disconnect signaled a dysfunction of some kind. I had a fight with one of the therapists teaching the class about it. I had fights with people here about it when I said that my emotions don't often cause physical reactions, outside of adrenaline responses to shocks. Plenty of people thought I was lying to myself about it, and I considered they might be correct, given the data I had at the time. I say this in the tags as well but I was Unpleasant about those discussions and I'm sorry to anyone who was interacting with me and got the sharp end of my misdirected anger.

But...now here's an explanation, at least a potential one. There appears to be a link between inability to form mental images and either disconnect from physical sensation of emotion or lack of physical reaction linked to emotional state. The research is new, so who knows whether it's accurate, but I'm feeling pretty fucking validated this morning. It's very possible that I am emotionally disconnected from my body because I was born this way.

Aphantasia is also seemingly higher in people with ADHD, and both ADHD and poor interoception are linked to poor emotional regulation.

Wild.

I'm gonna have such a good powerpoint for my next therapy appointment!

Also, every time I post about aphantasia I get questions about it and I'm happy to answer them, but I would direct anyone curious to the "an aphantasia fantasia" tag which is where all my discussions of it go, including links to other research. If you venture out onto the internet to research it, I would stick to scientific research sites; there's a lot of woo going on around the idea right now, including attempts to "cure" it with meditation and hallucinogens, and the Reddit aphantasia community can be a very negative one (lots of talk around "suddenly" being "abnormal", looky-lous questioning if people with aphantasia are even truly sentient, etc), so read with care.

[alienaficionados]

““When I was about 20 years old, I met an old pastor’s wife who told me that when she was young and had her first child, she didn’t believe in striking children, although spanking kids with a switch pulled from a tree was standard punishment at the time. But one day, when her son was four or five, he did something that she felt warranted a spanking–the first in his life. She told him that he would have to go outside himself and find a switch for her to hit him with. The boy was gone a long time. And when he came back in, he was crying. He said to her, “Mama, I couldn’t find a switch, but here’s a rock that you can throw at me.” All of a sudden the mother understood how the situation felt from the child’s point of view: that if my mother wants to hurt me, then it makes no difference what she does it with; she might as well do it with a stone. And the mother took the boy into her lap and they both cried. Then she laid the rock on a shelf in the kitchen to remind herself forever: never violence. And that is something I think everyone should keep in mind. Because if violence begins in the nursery one can raise children into violence.””

— Astrid Lindgren, author of Pippi Longstocking, 1978 Peace Prize Acceptance Speech (via jillymomcraftypants)

[shamebats]

In 1978, when she received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, Lindgren spoke against corporal punishment of children in a speech entitled Never Violence! After that, she teamed up with scientists, journalists and politicians to promote non-violent upbringing. In 1979, a law was introduced in Sweden prohibiting violence against children in response to her demands. Until then there was no such law anywhere in the world.

What a legacy. We’re so lucky to have had her.

[delphinidin4]

Inuit parenting techniques are definitely gentle parenting (NPR article by Michaeleen Doucleff and Jane Greenhalgh):

Across the board, all the [Inuit] moms mention one golden rule: Don’t shout or yell at small children.

Traditional Inuit parenting is incredibly nurturing and tender. …The culture views scolding — or even speaking to children in an angry voice — as inappropriate, says Lisa Ipeelie, a radio producer and mom who grew up with 12 siblings. “When they’re little, it doesn’t help to raise your voice,” she says. “It will just make your own heart rate go up.”

Even if the child hits you or bites you, there’s no raising your voice?

“No,” Ipeelie says with a giggle that seems to emphasize how silly my question is. “With little kids, you often think they’re pushing your buttons, but that’s not what’s going on. They’re upset about something, and you have to figure out what it is.”

Traditionally, the Inuit saw yelling at a small child as demeaning. It’s as if the adult is having a tantrum; it’s basically stooping to the level of the child, Briggs documented.

…In contrast, parents who control their own anger are helping their children learn to do the same, Markham says. “Kids learn emotional regulation from us.”

Keep reading

[c-ptsdrecovery]

"Any family in which the family unit is operating to serve the needs of a parent more so than the needs of the children is qualified as a dysfunctional family." --Heidi Priebe, "What Are the Dysfunctional Family Roles"

I've recently realized that my role in my family of origin was to regulate everybody else's emotions (especially my mom's). It's really opening my eyes to certain patterns in my reactions to things - like why I get so distressed when other people are upset.

[c-ptsdrecovery]

[lamignonette]

[c-ptsdrecovery]