6 months of fighting against PTSD - breaking point

Part 1- 6/4 Faith

Today I am going to be talking about faith.

~~But you're a nontheist.. you don't like faith.~~ Not True, friends.

Human Beings are hardwired neurobiologically for connection. It is in our CELLS. Looking at it from a perspective of our instincts, the deepest most primal emotion we have is in fact a survival response. a shame emotion. what it is: the fear that we are not fit for connection to the others in our life. that something is wrong with us or we are not good. A survival response like none other. we cannot survive if we are not connected to our peers.

Now where faith comes in for me. I have written about this before, but new research I have recently come across frames this brilliantly.

I recently discovered the following: sometimes I have to force myself to treat others like I deserve their attention.

... How do I know I deserve it? I don't.

All I know is I refuse to be afraid of not fitting in anymore. We are all going through the same set of emotions. This is what makes us human. I believe that I am good enough to connect with my fellow humans. I want my action now to be based fully on that belief. In my post theist terminology I have named this Egalitarianism of Self. Really, it's just faith. A positive force I choose to accept. It makes me confident. It makes me know who I am without a toxic need for certainty.

[This is what the faith of the theist does at best-- it lets them let go of fearful instinct, in attempt to transcend it]

These instincts have a purpose- to facilitate connection, keep us in the best position for survival connected with our group. My idea of morality already comes from this exact instinct. How well I do depends on how well my peers do.

I don't get morality or sense of worth from a presumable, unseen creator/parent/origination point of self. I get it from the vast years of memory that my species has passed to me. A collective origination point of self. In this way I am not an individual. I am my parents. They are theirs. We are humans.

My faith is that this state of self is good enough. That I have a life worth living. That I appreciate what has been entrusted to me: consciousness and membership in a very long running species.

Part 2: 6/13- Wrap up (save & continue)

If you (like I did) misunderstand what my PTSD is, thinking some external force broke me, consider the following:

what's been freezing me is far more esoteric than anything that could be inflicted by a "shaming" parent or abuser of any kind.something happens to you when a day doesn't pass without hard contemplation of the end of yourself and the end of everything.

to find a resolution to that, it will be requiring a complete surrender to the nature of what I am, a creature which has inherited abundant, ancient instinct-bounded capabilities & knowledge, and whose role it is to pass these to the next.

With all of this new language from Brene Brown's research and conclusions, helping me to define self in terms of master emotion (evolutionary, primal fear of disconnection), & 3 gifts of imperfection (courage, compassion, connection) ...  it's become apparent a better way to define where my self is today:

PTSD made me painfully inauthentic.

Let the battle for authenticity begin.

The fight for an emerging self that's ready & able to do things I've never done before.

~~~SAVE POINT REACHED. Continue?~~~

There is no easy way around this post

Nearly June, 2013---- So here it is.. writings assembled to form this post have been of the past several months of thought and interaction with overall community to gain my footing. I am actually a bit astonished with the point I've reached at the rate it has proceeded. I really.. did not know what to expect from December. It felt like I had not the strength to stand again.




12/22 - Thinking about treatment by thinking about me as affected by cPTSD

I am attempting to come up with goals for treatment of now apparent PTSD 

In researching, I come across a thing called c-PTSD. Complex ptsd--- Which is at this point a proposed set of loose criteria, that essentially defines a PTSD sufferer where the main feature is an impact to self more than any of the other usual features of the current PTSD criteria. Your identity, broken down or made completely frail, or dissociated. Most often found as the result of a prolonged helplessness or inability to be free of the trauma source. Grief is a huge one found there.

The sort of items in cPTSD criteria were downright spooky to me in familiarity. 

Just looking through, I was struck by nearly the first thing I found. The glorification of the perpetrator. For me, death itself... became a still standing obsession, at times leading me down "depression attack" episodes of high suicidal special interest activity, and associated feeling of being absolutely unable to ever escape the trauma/loss of control of your life/oppressor.

I could have sudden moments of depersonalization, like a Death strike on my consciousness, a sink, most often when I am on my way to going to sleep and having a hard time of it. Just this shrill prodding... Your life amounts to nothing. You will expire and leave behind the ones that love you, with nothing but bitter grief. None of this is physically verbal. It's just a freefall that hits me in a single instant and blasts me out of myself, then the sudden moment thereafter I feel that adrenaline flight response and nothing I can do about it.

Also: explosive intermittent/anger. Covert anger, from procrastination to literal behaviors that perpetuate hostility toward others by passive means.

Freezing up, completely unable to move or speak when under a startle or conflict stress. This one appears under possible item to look for in a child.

A lot of fear of a reappearance of the oppressor/cause. Hypervigilant mindset referencing specifically to the prevention/response to such possibility.

The feeling that your identity doesn't exist, that you are absolutely and completely alien to all humans and will never be like them. [Tony Attwood references this having seen it in some aspies as a challenge of reaching the self-understanding process.]

Dissociative defense mechanisms--- essentially escapism at full force. I am drawn into fantasy world, in such a way that the only self in me that matters becomes the one represented by the game identieis--- in gaming a particular game that can hold attention for months on end consuming any free time and spare moments that I may be able spend writing or reading about it as well. 

My interests have very rarely deviated from something I can become completely lost in this way.

To me the idea of complex PTSD makes absolute sense as a broken self, whose behaviors create distance, escapism, and simply coping with the altered state of living that exists in that mindframe where every single day you imagine again the possibility and impact of that thing that Ruined you, and cannot help doing so. A mode of self that effectively stops almost any productive relationship building behavior, other than when can be shut out by the right environment of safety and relaxation. It's no way to live. I do not want to feel like this anymore

Thinking backwards, reaching out~~~~ 3/15

To explain who I am and how in hell I've gotten to where I am in adult life.... there's a lot to summarize. it wont be a fast, concise sum up.

I am capable of extreme verbosity and detail. I've come to call myself detail oriented after a trek through self discovery a few years ago. I came to find that I am like the aspies-asperger/autistic spectrum individuals. More recently I tend to self define as a breed of super-aspie with attention-differential brain, intense introversion, & complex-PTSD. Labels lose their usefulness without taking ownership of your individuality. This is what I've tried to do. All my life I've been labeled adhd and medicated. I came to disagree with that around high school age. I should mention I'm now 28. I've been living my own life for about the past 9 years, working to pay for everything and to make a general living. I work essentially in a help desk role doing wireless troubleshooting.

my whole life ive felt like i wasnt like anyone else, they were all alien to me. during aspie discovery, it finally became clear to me how my personality made sense, how my talents matched up to certain unique methods of thinking and communicating.

Since discovery of my self in aspie form though, that info has been more vexing than empowering as I observe my ways of doing things and how exactly it can create failed interactions. I actually saw for the first time my stone avoidance and withdrawn behavior. It goes beyond introversion, to something a lot more significant that didn't make sense to me as a neurological feature. How could i have such lack of access to myself? It was like that self was imprisoned in stone. In the past I felt I had never had an identity. The aspie discovery was kind of a solution to that. Dr. Attwood had even talked about an extremely abstract sense of self in some aspies he encountered.

I slowly realized something more was going on, without ever looking directly at it. Somewhat like you wouldn't look right at the sun, even though you can feel and observe its immense influence. 

I came to clash with my as yet ignored complex PTSD... the day 20 children were murdered at their school several months ago. I can not describe the crushing sorrow that this brought, that it could even happen much less that I am part of society that could host such horror. Lifetimes of potential, struck down, no recourse just brutal grief continues forward the years their lives could have possessed. My child turns 2 only a few weeks after these parents lost theirs. WHAT was I supposed to do with that?

it was not immediate however the shell shock that came with this put me in a new frame of self.. one that was reconnected to all helplessness and abuse I had ever dealt with. A choking cloud of unfathomable despair. I say unfathomable... because I can't remember hardly any of my life from ages 10-16 following the death of my mother.

I'm not going to rehash anything more on the bullying, abuse, and general lack of a single ally during critical developmental years that created my helplessness and my associated inward behaviors cutting me out of collaborating, trusting, or even coming close to a need of help from other people. Not just because i cant, but more relevantly It's pointless to do so, I've learned. What's useful is mindfully looking at myself and my behavior.

The path of implementing that ideal has led to looking at the me that is and always has been a gamer. Why have I been so persistently interested in advancing imaginary manifestations of me inside imaginary realms? I had misread it as component of the spectrum traits of special obsession interest. my patterns were more project based, never sticking with one overarching interest beyond the theme of video game world activity.

The answer to this greater question became partly clear upon hearing Mike Langlois, a gamer and psychotherapist, explain how the vast majority of time we spend in games is failing, and because we might win we keep at it. Just a small time spent immersed in the control of a powerful &/or attractive avatar gives us lasting buffs of self confidence & esteem. THIS is why we game. That was a truly exhilarating moment of enlightenment.

This fact, I believe is why I have been deeply connected to gaming at all stages of my life. Going back to grow stronger on that virtual self may be the only thing that's kept me from sinking to the depths of desire to exit my own life. Or at least brought me back from those depths as its own positive exit I could just switch off when necessary to attend the productivity of making my own living.

Will of the forsaken -3/28

18 years ago, I died

I disappeared: It came for her, and without mercy, it withered her, and left ruin for us that she had nurtured.

I was no longer.... alive

Yet, I'm here. Inside this fumbling machine of tissue. Inhabiting a similar appearance to those surrounding me. Completely alien.

my functionality is impeded by rotting limbs of self. Cold, difficult to harness. A state of undeath of which I have scarcely even had awareness.

Why did this happen? how am I not gone? how I can still breathe, or eat... how can i sleep, or seethe in fear? I, am, dead. what is this?

I am, as nearly literally as is possible, forsaken. dead but not gone. just colder, slower, and alone.

However.

I'm still here.

It seems.. I possess the will of the forsaken. It is, I believe, a vital refusal to rot and lose the person that is me for good.

New thought process - April

The theory was that reforming the self within connected gaming would dictate a model for accessing that same self in any area of life. A new method of succeeding at interaction could be born for me.

The worst PTSD effect is crippling ruin upon your ability/desire to interact with or trust people. Your self gets broken. How difficult it is to even realize you have that issue, it can be impossible to see. You are stuck in a stone enclosure. you can't see ANYTHING.

My process of therapy has been so short and basically nothing compared to how long I have stumbled in stone, unaware of the problem.

Games & game exploration as a means of grasping self

The emotional value of Game Exploration: you are taking ownership of space. You own it by your presence. You are in control & mindfully empowered, if you CHOOSE to be. 

In other words games help us grasp self. They may be second only to some forms of meditation for this, when utilized effectively. 

you need this knowledge to properly approach the VAST depth of how terrifying and disempowering the fear of death is

that's a common ground that can be stood upon.. as the terror isn't solely for the afflicted but those who may face losing the one they love as well.

As I have comprehended the PTSD that has locked my self away for years, I have begun to face the loss, and root fear & horror, which existed for not just my afflicted mother but my father as well, leading up to the end of the road for her

Conclusion - emotional currency & egalitarianism of self. Attempt deletion of obsolete selves

Knowledge I have processed by examining what I do and considering what result I actually want:

1. PTSD has made me emotionally stupid 

2. "don't pay attention to me. leave me alone. stay out of my way. I don't need your help. interacting with you disadvantages me" is the prevailing mode of behavior

3. Trust & the benefit thereof is the most abstract knowledge within emotional intelligence.

4. Where a gap in trust exists that could benefit me, I need to SEE it, and act by reaching out. motto of help me help you help me.

Egalitarianism of self: sometimes it is necessary to treat others like I deserve their attention. Something most people do automatically... Gaining accessing to myself begins with this

This me is now in deep conflict with the many selves that have occupied this person. They've been made obsolete... & don't want to be erased. .....Selves free from the economy of emotional currency. You guys can't live in this world. Sorry. Out of my way!!

chapter 2- PTSD ~~~~~ 12/20/12---- process crash












Resume.

an approach that had been suggested before but that I was not able to face with the right open mind.

catalyzed by an evil deed, the crippling despair reverberates---- the force of death inflicted smashes into every human able to comprehend what was done


for me a sudden recognition of an even deeper level of inaccess to myself than I ever thought possible

to be continued---

progress report

i somehow feel that i haven't made any progress, instead it has become more difficult for me to interact with people and endure noise and idiocy. i have gained an ongoing awareness of social inadequacies such as

• not being able to come up with the right quips during conversation in time to use them
• speaking with far too many words, too quickly, without the right kinds of pauses or contextualization for my listener
• not knowing when to look at people such as baristas or coworkers

still getting frustrated as hell during car driving due to the recklessness and unawareness of others on the road, still failing to procrastinate long time-sinks into the interests of the moment in favor of things that keep my life in order such as

• keeping the place in good shape and
• self-maintenance.

at the same time i am now the keeper of a brand new life, and am happier than ever to be exactly who i am.

the only thing different is that i notice the gap between me and others, the total disconnect that exists as i attempt my best known fakes and imitations. i see in brilliant detail how and why the ones that aren't effective come out that way. i have a diagnostic of the problems that need solving in my ability to interact, i just don't have any solutions despite reading a book about learning social thinking. i feel like my firmware just doesn't have code that would support the implementation of efficient, behavior-defining social thinking.

autistics speaking day impromptu

my most severe difficulty is very poor attention. some aspies become overwhelmed by noise. for me, thoughts themselves are often noisy. besides that, my mind is constantly occupied by a musical hallucination, always. when i wake up it sometimes carries over from a dream. if not, i distinctly notice when the song starts, as clearly as if it began playing in the next room. but has no location, it is inside me.

echoes, vibration, rhythm. as i navigate a usual day i am carrying out sequences, notes & phrases in an indeterminate symphony. syncopation occurs, sudden motions out of the pattern... thoughts outside the current path, literal tics of varied tension.

bellowing bass tone, a wide stretch that feels completely encapsulating... my emotion is unknown to me at most times, suddenly presenting. it is not that i improvise... i am a vessel for these rhythms. they are mostly unknown to me. i observe them as they manifest.

i am slightly foreign to myself. "me" is defined by my knowledge of things that seem of value. abstract identity. thus, it is even more difficult to dance in step with others around me, seeking to greet and otherwise socialize--- it feels foreign. if the topic is related to some information that defines me.... then i participate by offering my information. i offer myself.

stranger

you suddenly notice the reasons why you did everything you have done, and why you weren't aware of any of it, exactly.

you previously thought you knew yourself, but you were mistaken.

you have become a stranger. you are foreign. someone who is completely inexplicable and yet somehow totally predictable.

despite being well practiced, all your actions feel strange and forced. still going through the same exact motions, but all the old meaning is gone.

habits made obsolete, but... you don’t quite know how to construct better ones.

have you ever wondered what it feels like to wake up?

Different to the core

Throughout my life, I've always felt that other people were incredibly irrational and unethical. I felt like a completely different species, in a way. This is an interesting dynamic, since in a way spectrum individuals are that different from the average person, and the result is that there is a mutual bewilderment about each other. We have an impossible time trying to imagine that someone can be so enormously different than ourselves.

This may well be the best card to have up your sleeve in those types of conversations with people in your life that you want to involve in knowing the real you. That though it may be difficult to understand, we are very different to the core, and that this isn't a bad thing. Then follow it up with 'the discovery criteria for aspie' as a way to illustrate all the great positive elements.

I was realizing today with these thoughts, that though I've sensed being different throughout life, I based it on will. That's where I was missing some of the big picture. I felt I was choosing to be different from others, with their self-oblivious non-identities. I felt I was living the examined life.. In a way, I was, but I've so far transcended the micro-focus on components of myself with this new perspective and access to network of people so much more similar to me than I ever felt another person could be.

"[It's] not wrong to like being by yourself... I think the main treatment is self-understanding and self-acceptance... You don't suffer from asperger's, you suffer from other people." - Dr. Tony Attwood, Autism Spectrum expert

I think I've fully assembled the pieces of myself and reached the starting point on the path to self-understanding and self-acceptance. I realized that the reason I've coped quite well so far is because of my literal obtuseness. I rejected the idea of attempting to fit in or be accepted by conventional society from VERY early. In kindergarten I refused to do the projects assigned and demanded to make my own versions my own way. I always felt boxed in and minimized. This compounded in high school years when I felt like I was just being put on an assembly line on the path to being a work-drone for the bureaucracy...

My resilience was my protective layer of shutting out the criticism of others. Although I recognize now the disadvantages of shunning social thinking through these stages of development, it was also my only resilience. I really was suffering merely from other people, as Attwood put it. I simply didn't allow the fact that I was different to weaken any of my resolve to follow what I wanted to do and be. I felt I was walking my own path due to my own strength of will. My rebellion was to do what felt valuable for myself, in spite of all the discouragement and hassle that came to me from everyone in my life. But up till now, I never properly gave myself genuine permission to be different and to understand and harness the vastness of the talents of my mind.