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!!
No comments:
Post a Comment