235 -PTSD of abandonnement (3)

Trigger warning : religious cult. Abuse. Domestic violence. Trauma. 

(read parts 1 & 2)

• Third part of this series, I’m leaving points 18-21 out of it, and go straight to 22, difficulty naming my feelings or sorting through an emotional fog. This goes in pair with my cptsd emotional numbing that interferes with the hyper-emotional part of my personality and which I had felt most of my life. This can be problematic in any relationship because I sometimes just cannot tell if I care about a person or if I feel complete disgust. 

Luckily, this hasn’t been an issue with my wife, but with some friends and acquaintances, it has been an issue and I try to take my time to discover what my feelings are before acting (though there have been occurrences where my dissociation caused overreaction or rash decisions and I cut out friendships or not forgiven people’s hurtful /neglectful attitudes to me).

• I don’t think I have totally avoided close relationships altogether as described in point 23,  although I was heading toward isolation before I’d started CBT for my social phobias.

I do have the reverse tendency of point 24 to rush and clamp too quickly unto a new person’s offer of friendship, something I’m trying to change, as getting attached too quickly can create an emotional havoc if the person doesn't stick with me long enough. 

I discussed point 25 in ptsd of abandonment 2, alongside points 9, 12 & 13, in the first 2 paragraphs.

• I alternate between 26, the excessive need of self-control, and converse point 27 by procrastinating, giving up control to others and feeling out of control. My lack of self-esteem and affirmation pushes me to remain in a beta position, letting many decide the course of a discussion, activities and so on, but all the while controlling myself and having unrealistic expectations. I made some moderate progress in these regards, but there is still a lot to do.

• 28, heightened sense of responsibility to others, rescuing and attending to people’s needs even before they express them. I call this my fixer nature and I’ve become quite aware that I have this natural empathy and wish to help everyone and I try to correct this by letting others tell me to back away and not get too offended at their request. I used to get hurt a lot and would feel rejected and this goes very well with both points 29 (tendency to have unrealistic expectations and heightened reactivity toward others such that it creates conflicts) and 30, people-pleasing, and the excessive need for acceptance or approval.

Someone telling me to back away has been difficult for me to accept, because it meant that I wasn’t good at helping, but I learned this past year or so that this isn’t always synonymous and that some will ask and enjoy my support and fixing-advice, whilst others prefer their independent actions or inactions, and want to use me as an ear. I’ll admit that serving only as an ear is still tough.

Despite these intellectual realizations and my will to correct these issues, an online friend with whom I had talked daily and who became a lot more distant with me over the years, partially due to her job and who condescendingly rebuked me for my fixer-nature and grew the rift of her neglectful friendship toward me even further and which made me question the entire nature of this relationship  to the point of considering ending it with her. She simply doesn't ask me how I am anymore, and I got stuck in the loop of doubts regarding our rapport. I think we simply took different paths and exhausted all that we had to tell one another. 

• The results of all these issues are logically those obstacles in interactions, and then, point 31 self-judgments as I have unrealistic expectations of myself and my capacities to help, or to just befriend people.

• 32, or the danger of my fear of response to people’s anger, (I’ll add disagreements to the official statement) are to unwittingly setting myself to being controlled by others.  But, in the sense that I can discern narcissistic and manipulative people due to my father's example, I find that I see when this occurs and can nip it in the bud.

• 33 I do experience dependency issues as I feel far less capable of dealing with certain aspects of daily life due to phobias, and function rather poorly alone. I have had some tough experiences during my wife’s travels a few months ago, and now that I know where this dependency stems from, I can work on it – eventually. It’ll take time to regain self-confidence and self-sufficiency – especially in regards to some of my phobias and the absolute need of a person to deal with some things that I just cannot do yet. But, I hope to at least become more autonomous in other areas.

• 35, I had assumed my tendency toward unpredictable outbursts of anger solely were the result of my cyclothymia. Learning that this can happen with this particular form of ptsd and learning that it can also be a part of my other cptsd issues adds a layer of information that maybe these are all inter-connected issues and that despite an overall peaceful and relaxed nature and having calmed down with age, I still do have some rage and frustrations within my psyche and I try my hardest not to let them spill on people who only care about me.

I’m not aware if I had the converse point 36 of under-reaction to anger out of fear of breaking the connection, but this isn’t impossible to have occurred and I simply don't recall.

I'm not aware how the impulsive acts depicted in point 34 may have any expression in my life, because I tend to be so reserved, over-analyzing and avoiding so many things that I rather get the opposite : I lack spontaneity.

Despite many successful friendships, some of which are still lasting after a few years, the nature of ptsd in general, and specifically that of abandonment is that every single disagreement or confrontation has set me back and I’m trying to break this cycle and to learn self-acceptance of my limits and those of my friends or what they need of me.

This past year has been tremendously challenging and I made huge progress. Therapies, both psychotherapy and CBT have both been very helpful in learning better coping skills and the support I receive online and in person from local friends have all helped me a lot.

The difficulties are numerous and I do suffer from many side mental illnesses, but I do believe that I can tackle some of my issues, recover and heal from a good deal of them, in due time.

This is all I can discuss at this point. But it’s plenty enough with a grand total of 3050 words spread over 3 posts.

Thank you for reading!