Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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"random targeting" is a symptom for which i have received considerable psychotherapy. "random targeting" is where anger is channeled onto innocent bystanders, etc., rather than the target at which you are actually angry. it wouldn't be much of a surprise to find there is a new name for ^it^ now, but "anger management" is the title of the formal therapy by which i learned about random targeting. my hyper-active metabolism predisposes me to explosive behavior and the challenges of life in the kiddie whorehouses fine-tuned that nature into a dirty fighting machine. i am as likely to bite a hand off as i am to shake a hand in friendly greeting. the good news is that all that anger management work has paid off. these days the hands i do not care to shake are going home with their owners, unshaken and intact. the anger management tools work when i work them. i still frequently wash wishes to be a normal girl who cries instead of biting off hands, but. . . ply radical acceptance here. i is what i is and i ain't what i ain't. over the decades of radical acceptance, i've gotten to where i can recognize my anger and ply anger management tools before i act that anger. just lengthing the space between reaction and action was a breakthrough, all by itself.
i caught myself random targeting in my head this morning. i am struggling with a moral dilemma within my three chicken flocks and my dog mama conditioning is howling like an animal rights activist. i gotta do WHAT to my feather babies!?!?!?!? alas, procrastinating on the solutions has created far more cruel conditions within the flocks --mother nature ain't no dog mama-- and a solution is sorely needed. letting nature run her course is ? ? ? equally shocking to my dog mama morals.
the aha moment this morning was of just how much easier it is to channel my anger at nearby targets than it is to shoot for the heart of the problem. as i walked past the problem coops on my way too and from the school bus stop, i was able to give brief thought to the list of potential solutions, but my dog mama conditioning immediately resisted and jumped to criticizing the people who live nearest those coops. they live closest to the action. it must be their fault.
am i making sense? anybody relate? reality checks requested. unsolicited advice tolerated.
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
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First, I hope everyone is doing well, and continuing to fight that good fight! Keep up the great work on yourselves; I'm rooting for all of you!So, I started doing therapy at the beginning of the year, when I was in my most depressed state, but with my therapist, I made big changes and steps in the right direction. But, over a month ago, she couldn't take my insurance anymore, and I had to stop...
I slip in and out of hating them as my PTSD recovery progresses and regresses along its lengthy trajectory, but I took to heart that I would only further the repetition of the trauma cycle by lashing out at innocent people. After all, I found out in therapy how much both of my mentally ill parents were abused themselves as kids, which in turn fueled their abusing innocent me. It was time to stop that. As the saying goes, "if you can't help 'em, at least don't hurt 'em."
Thanks for the reminder, arfie. Good stuff.
Here with you amiga. I could relate with when you said about being a normal girl, I won’t ever be that. In my twenties I was super feisty but in like a crazy way, like I would feel myself in my head get mad at people that seemed like all perfect or something or didn’t come from the ‘school of hard knocks’. I would really then internalize the anger of beating myself up inside like ‘what’s wrong with you, you’ll never be a regular girl’, I used to hate when I would hear someone say ‘I’m a daddy’s girl’ then I would feel like a freak and alien realizing how far I would ever be from that & how that term triggered me & why it triggers me so much… the more I would target people like that in my head the more it would quickly switch to hating myself for being such a ‘monster’ on the inside … then pmdd rounds would have me get aggressive with men in my life all 5 foot nothing 115 pounds of me like thinking i could or should beat up all ‘the thug men & pendejos’ …. that didn’t really work out for me.
Unfortunately now I very much so struggle with immediately hating on myself. (I still have to catch myself here & there on feeling unjustified angst toward normie girls (especially when I have mood swings, I’m better then I use to be with it but still happens sometimes)& I always feel bad after I do it, sometimes rite away) I have to have compassion for them too & when I get those clarity of through the fog of seeing the good in those girls I then really really feel bad & immediately go hard core hating on myself even more … I guess that’s all to say that none of these targets myself included were or are the actual source of the pain & trauma. I don’t know what I’m saying, but I’m being honest ..
hopefully I don’t sound too psycho .. I promise I’m not always like that .. I do try to be a nice girl, I really do … & sometimes am just a nice girl, I’m just speaking about the ‘episodes’
& since I can have different personalities …. sometimes it’s just like I’m scared of everyone & don’t feel that stuff at all. My therapist says I have different parts , she says everyone does actually
Either way after all that bla bla mess I just wrote here
I actually think you are one of the truly kindest people I ever met .. like for reals
I would have trouble with the chickens too, I think it may have to do with your heart … it’s cause the heart of beauty and warrior mixed I think
Big hugs <3
*lobas locas para siempre :)
you aren't fooling the beaten crazy bitch wolf, missy. i think you are at least as psycho as i am and you are long overdue for letting your freak flag fly. it's much easier to be nice all the time when you aren't fighting your nature. a real bitch will bite if she must, but tail wagging and face licking are mucher funner. keeping the ugly stuff honest and efficient lets you get back to the good stuff much faster.
some of my pros believe i am high functioning autistic. the explosive nature of my anger and aversion to touch is high on their list of reasons for believing so. my anger doesn't simmer for long enough to repress. it explodes with deadly force. i was in my 30's before i could consistently keep my weight over 100 pounds, but a two hundred pound man would back off when i exploded. quickly and completely. i've learned how to get in front of those explosions and manage them, but i can still back down a 200 pound man quickly and instinctively.
i totally agree with your shrink that we all have different personalities and even mandated. context counts. church calls for a whole different persona than a saturday night hootenanny.