Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
Find support with others who have gone through a traumatic experience. Whether you have chronic or acute PTSD, we are here for you.
Choose... "the path of acceptance when a situation is both disliked and unchangeable, or when change may be possible only at great cost or risk..." Quote ~ Wikipedia
To move forward in my life I have to make some deliberate and mindful choices about what to INCLUDE in my life... and follow through by also REMOVING the things which I do not need...
When I think about "letting GO" my first and only instinct is to drop everything and run for the hills... I've been running for so long now I have no idea what I "need" ...
So, I guess my questions are... HOW have you, personally, managed to unravel what YOU needed versus what you HAD? For me, I haven't even started that process... I have the things I don't need... the things I'd like to change... but... should I just start getting rid of those things... without knowing what I NEED instead?
Some examples, to clarify...
I'm trained in teaching... BUT, hyper-vigilance & distrust stops me from relaxing & enjoying my passion FOR learning... I love to teach! BUT, I always notice those wounded, struggling, little people who need help... the fierce part of me just can't stop myself from taking on those battles... arghhh! There isn't going to be an environment where that doesn't happen... but that is what I NEED...
To move forward in my life I have to make some deliberate and mindful choices about what to INCLUDE in my life... and follow through by also REMOVING the things which I do not need...
When I think about "letting GO" my first and only instinct is to drop everything and run for the hills... I've been running for so long now I have no idea what I "need" ...
So, I guess my questions are... HOW have you, personally, managed to unravel what YOU needed versus what you HAD? For me, I haven't even started that process... I have the things I don't need... the things I'd like to change... but... should I just start getting rid of those things... without knowing what I NEED instead?
Some examples, to clarify...
I'm trained in teaching... BUT, hyper-vigilance & distrust stops me from relaxing & enjoying my passion FOR learning... I love to teach! BUT, I always notice those wounded, struggling, little people who need help... the fierce part of me just can't stop myself from taking on those battles... arghhh! There isn't going to be an environment where that doesn't happen... but that is what I NEED...
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Hey All...I hope that you have a lovely, peaceful beginning of your weekI have a bunch of chores that need doing but may put them off til tomorrow and just hang out with my landlord/roomie todayWhat about you?...Anything special going on?Have a great day and take good care of you!!..Xo
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Once again I've had a fever today. I'm not going to the hospital because that's a huge waste of time but I did schedule a dr appointment for Wednesday afternoon.
Yea, running for the hills might have been my first notion of, "letting go," too. Alas, I always seemed to carry my emotional baggage with me, no many how many sets of hills I ran to, then passed up on the way to the next set of hills in the eternal running. Never did manage to outrun my demons... Letting go of them is another subject, entirely.
Next came my self-annihilation phase where I attempted to rip the demons from my being with brute, take-no-prisoners force. Ouch. I think I might have hurt myself worse than my perpetrators ever did with that one...
Acceptance and small bites were what finally led me to effective change. With GENTLE, LOVING acceptance, I was able to sort subtle elements in small, digestible chunks and make small, effective changes which healed my wounded parts without creating new wounds with the frantic yanking.
Just me.
Gentle support while you sort your own, Caballita. Again, welcome to the forum.
Hugs... I have no brains today. I am too sick, honestly physically sick. This is causing me to have no brains... If you see my brains, please send them home!
but welcome and I hope to get to know you.
yadlim
As for letting go of past things, for me it takes a long time to let go. Really only time does that for me. I can accept things but just letting go of it is a struggle.
Happy you got the caballita reference... I have a 3 1/2 year old pinto gelding... he is teaching me a LOT about thinking, doing and social situations! He's very social... a bit of a clown, likes to strut his stuff... a bit of a mis-match with me being so much more reserved... but he does remind me to laugh... and ENJOY life!
I'm wondering if my desire to get "rid" of what I think I don't need is partly self-annihilation rearing its ugly head... I don't know but running is definitely a terrible self-affirming coping strategy, that's for sure : )
I hope you feel much better soon... HUGS, a gentle hug... Horses and back/knee injuries are a bad mix... I know that from personal experience.
Thanks for your comment! That is awesome to hear that you aren't letting PTSD stop you pursuing your dream of being a social worker... I think that in the "right" environment my love of teaching would over-ride my anxiety about aggressive people... Had a pretty traumatic experience happen about four months ago which I've let derail me from doing what I most enjoy... was looking after two little children and the boyfriend of the mother of the children committed an armed home invasion of an elderly couple, threatened them, stole their wallets & car and tried to rob a local store... He'd picked the kids up from my place at 2pm that same afternoon and, yeah... two hours later... he was doing that??? Turned out both the mother and him are p addicts... those poor kids...
I guess I'm learning the hard way that walling off the past, then rushing off to "help" others without having let myself grieve for my own years of abuse... sometimes comes back to bite you. I was working on the "accept" what happened and move on despite the past adversity without realising I'd kept it with me the whole time... dang PTSD you are a massive pain
Letting go works for me best when I have something new I need to grasp. Letting go and staying empty handed is hard to anyone. Needing to let go so as to grasp the new thing gives letting go a purpose for me. So that's what I ask myself: if I keep hanging on to this old thing, what new thing am I missing out on grasping instead?
Whether that's different from acceptance or not I can't say. What I learned this week about acceptance in a class I teach from one of my students is that no therapist ever said acceptance was happiness. We don't have to force ourselves to be happy with something we accept, my student said. Just accepting it us enough. I thought my student's words on this were wise. I was confused on the topic.
I think that is where I might have made a significant miss-step... in the past. I've rushed ahead to grab new things... BUT I forgot to let go of the thing it was supposed to replace, lol, dang! I'm surrounded by those abandoned ideas...
For example, left over stock from my self-employed business that went extremely well until the customers, happy and satisfied, moved on to other ideas...
I have set myself the goal of just letting go a LOT of bits and pieces that I'm dragging around, and I don't mean just the stock... but I'm still wrestling with the "what new thing am I missing out on grasping instead" aspects... With the hindsight from a PTSD perspective I look back and go... OMG... I've zigged and zagged all over the place trying to escape... so much so, I feel like I've misplaced myself, lol... arghhh! : )
To me "letting go" mean "rejecting the toxic". It was part of the Denial-Repression strategy that enabled me to survive childhood. Sadly, when I was 43, the memory zombies got outta the mental basement and now I'm stuck on the long slow hike to Acceptance. Of what happened, in full, and of what lies it taught me....
Just my uneven path, still on it, placing my paws a bit more carefully.
Supportive vibes to you.
I love your av pic!
I'm on that long, slow hike to Acceptance with you... tried a few years ago but, yeah... just did a weird cross country dash trying to outrun memory zombies...
Argh! If repression and denial worked PROPERLY I'd still be zig-zagging all over the place... confusing everyone, myself included...
The visible zombies of acceptance (fears, anxieties, triggers, hurts...) are much harder to ignore than the ghost zombies of denial (the exact same fears, anxieties, triggers, hurts...) BUT at least they can be marked, watched and stabbed in the head if I get brave enough, lol... (Can you tell I'm a The Walking Dead Fan... I think Tyreese, Carol, and Glenn are AWESOME ~ the quiet survivors : )
As the Serenity Prayers says 'accept the things I cannot change, change the things I can and have the wisdom to know the difference'
I find when I accept something I'm not fighting against it as much as working with it for a hopefully good outcome... "what can I do to make this better" ..if that makes sense
DS is a really great site... big hug....x