http://www.pete-walker.com/fAQsComplexPTSD.html
I'm reading along here, once again trying to find out how to ease off the constancy of triggers. I guess I already have quite a lot of methods of coping already but I see there's need for more. I'd like to see that I'm doing it before I get going, for instance, and remember to stop. I'm only just coming to understand the whole business of triggers. Starting to understand that I'm being triggered. At this point I'm working on avoidance but it's incomplete. Sure I can stop watching TV entirely, but it comes up in the stupidest of reminscences. Like a post on afros and the only afro I ever met in my entire life is tagged to a terrible time in my life and belonged to a queen bully. But I was too autistic to recognize the dynamics.
Well with the CPTSD one of the symptoms is fawning, and I realize that's what's going on when I sit there endlessly trying to explain myself. But others see it as making excuses, shirking the shame due me, failing to take it seriously, and finally, accuse me of getting overly angry because the stress has tightened my voice and their constant interrupting has raised my volume. So I've become first shrill, then loud, then insistent, and now I'm angry because they've manufactured this state in me only to try and shame me for me. and they're calling me crazy and unstable and telling me i"m frightening. And I can't tell anymore who's a genuine innocent getting stressed by this and who's the aggressor manufacturing it for narcissistic supply.
And it's always when someone brings me up short for something, in an accusatory tone. That's a point when I am starting to realize the conversation is not going to be productive for me. I'm switching to extreme cold shoulder more easily. Which of course is the safest response for me. Skip the courtesy, if I'm feeling stressed there's a good chance they did it on purpose.
But then there's the moments when something threatens me, like a commercial telling people to report others to mental health (invented example, it's not that bad yet, but that would be the 10 of worst case)
It can happen therefor in the quiet and solitude of my own home while engaging things meant to distract me from my own constant brain. I'd love to get that zen thing where I just turn it off but at the moment it's not reliable enough. I need outside help, in the form of cheery videos and distracting documentaries.
Here's an example of a trigger: seeing good parenting. Seeing children play harmoniously or disharmoniously. Hearing about other people's childhoods. A song about "the good old days." Frankly anything that reminds me of what I've not received in life that others take for granted, and often even declare necessary.
and I know getting over it is part of the healing but with no change in their problem one feels like apathy isn't that reachable. Because only apathy could make one stop giving a damn about an ongoing problem, right? But you see, that's what the world has been demanding at me from Day One. From the very first offense it's been a constant "it's water under the bridge, get over it." And never so much as "gee I"m sorry, here's retribution."
So yeah, I am not over it.
Well so, if I can remember that explaining myself is about trying to please someone who doesn't deserve it, maybe I can skip it next time someone is putting me on the spot.