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klastParticipant
Dear Anita,
First I must apologise for what I said about how you sound like my wife. It came across a bit mean when I didnt really intend to. I think I got a bit overcome by the Messiah complex.
I’ve been a bit stressed since seeing my therapist, being given all these labels. My BP has gone right up and my GP is getting me to do a raft of tests and scans to eliminate any other physical reasons for my high BP. He put me on medication to lower it, which has a whole raft of side effects itself. It got as high as 150 over 110!.“knowledge is power“- I think that at times, in some contexts, denial is power.
I think of knowledge as unbiased facts as things are right now. However knowledge has no quantity or quality.
That’s why they say “A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing” because if you think the knowledge you have is all there is, things can end up going bad. “You don’t know, what you don’t know”.
Denial can put a quantity value on knowledge, there could be more knowledge(accomplishing the impossible).
It can also be qualitative, the knowledge could be declared not true(too scary to endure). This is when knowledge stops being factual and becomes lies, untruths. Trump likes to play around with this. Flat earthers etc. “I’ll believe it when I see it”I think everyone has a world view based on their nature(the qualities we are born with) and nurture(upbringing, education, experiences).
I think if people have bad nurturing in life, and their nature means they can’t make sense of their nurturing ,they will have a low resolution, granular black and white view of the world. My father was like this, we haven’t spoken for 20 years. I remember having a dream yelling at him “Shades of grey, Shades of grey!, things aren’t just black and white!”
Whereas if you are the other way you have a more colourful high resolution world view. You are more aware and accepting of its complexities both known and unknown.I’ve always had this desire to explore the universe to the fullest extent I can get out of it. Just like I have always felt all the bad things that have happened to me aren’t the be all and end all. I always had this seemingly unlimited wellspring of hope coming from somewhere unknown. Maybe its my physical and psychological arrested development that has blocked the sense of despair and hopelessness that others seem to be afflicted by. The whole power/greed dynamic.
dogs hearing is way more developed than humans, could it be that he heard a change in your breathing as you woke up?
Maybe he was extra observant, the other dogs we’ve had never acted like this.
I’ve always been good with wildlife, I can pick up non venomous reptiles and show them to others, pickup injured birds or other small animals.
One time someone gave us a large wild parrot with a broken leg, we put it in a cage and fed it for three months while it stood on one leg, then one day it lowered its healed leg. After that it would follow me around like a puppy.
People at work always get me to come and rescue some animals that has got itself stuck in a sticky situation.Of eriksons first 7 stages I am pretty much the same as you. The last line of the forward of that link says
“These stages, however, can be resolved successfully at a later time.”
This is what I think we have both been doing to varying degrees of success, playing catch up to be ready to enter the 8th stage. Accepting how life’s journey played out, all the good and bad, with or without regrets.
Although I do agree that the age boundaries Erik places are a bit strict.It’s been slow in the forums recently, but this is a place where you can try to help others by replying to other members who ask for help..?
Maybe, life’s been a bit intense recently.
Klast
klastParticipantDear Anita,
The only disadvantage is that ever since I stopped, I rarely sleep throughout the night, it feels like a miracle when I do.
Have you tried sleep aids like Ashwagandha, or Melatonin?
I am glad that your D.L was not suspended because no one was hurt and it’s feels good to be trusted, doesn’t it?
It is common knowledge that the transport departments standards to return to driving was destroying lives, especially when 90% of people need to drive just to go about daily living. the health system unofficially considers each patient on a case by case basis. Everything in life should be done on a case by case basis, but power and greed stop it from happening.
I am thinking about cancelling the brain scan (yet to be made) appointment. Because let’s say an artery in my brain is somewhat blocked or twisted: what can be done about it other than brain surgery..
My mother has had a benign brain tumour for decades, nobody has needed to do anything about it. If you get the scan you will at least be in control of what is going on, knowledge is power, and you can reject any recommendations they might make. They may not even need to do invasive surgery. You sound like my wife, she’d prefer to tough it out, than go through any unknown procedures or drugs. Mainly because she feels she wouldn’t be knowledgeable or emotionally strong enough to resist other peoples opinions on what she should do, “What if they are right?”. Lack of self worth.
I hope that you can tell me more about finding your center means to you.
Che sera sera “What will be, will be”. Worrying about something outside anyone’s control, like most others do in my situation; “My life will never be the same”, “My partner will reject me”, “what if _______”, is bad for metal health which is in turn bad for physical health. If others reject you for the situation you are in, they were never worthy of you in the first place.
Most people in my situation end up splitting from their partner because they start putting up emotional walls that push the partner away. “I am no-longer good enough for them, I am not who they thought I was, I have betrayed them” etc. I was aware of this so I made sure I didn’t. To this day we are over 20 years strong.I remember now: I too used to think of it as an additional dimension, a dimension that cannot be measured. How do animals tap into it..?
Animals know stuff about the world around us that we cant explain, yet. Evacuating the area before natural disasters. Then theres brain syncing just by looking at each other, humans do it all the time too, when interacting and when it feels like your being watched.
https://www.sciencealert.com/dogs-brains-sync-with-ours-when-we-gaze-into-their-eyes-study-finds
Living on a hobby farm I see animals out of range from each other reacting to each others intentions.
One of my dogs used to start banging on the back door in the morning, because I had just woken up in bed and hadn’t said anything to anyone about going for a walk to the beach, but somehow he knew. Another time I was patting two of our cows and while patting them I visualised a bolt gun at a meat works, immediately they both jumped away from me. Then there’s all the stuff about twins and close relatives I said earlier.makes it possible for me to think in an orderly way/ to process information.
I’m glad to help, life has been getting busy recently. I’ve been reading about Erik Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development, he was a peer of Freud and Jung.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/erik-erikson.html
I am struggling at stage seven, trying to get out of stagnation and enter generativity. You, my wife and my therapist are helping me in small baby steps to leave stagnation behind and become more generative (helping others, contributing to society and the next generation). Stuff my life long traumas have restricted me from doing so far. Turning my issues and knowledge into wisdom to help others.
My therapist doesn’t want to see me for a month now, which is good. He basically confirms my conclusions then adds more, or challenges me to think past my blockages.Klast
klastParticipantDear anita,
Not that I recommend drinking alcohol
I don’t touch alcohol much, because it will make the brain fog side effect, of my duty of care medication, even stronger. There is a warning sticker on my medication that talks about being cautious when operating machinery. I drive a forklift every day at work. I know how strong the fog is because the couple of times I missed a dose, I had a minor headache but my thoughts were much clearer and stronger than normal. I feel like I am being chemically restrained from fully engaging in life, by a society that is fearful of the effects of my brain damage. Even if I change to another similar drug, my drivers license would be taken away until the docs thought I was “safe”, which could end up being never.
After my BC surgery, my medical team was legally supposed to have had my license suspended. Fortunately for me, they knew how hard it would be to get it back. So they trusted me not to drive, and didn’t notify the transport department. Something I am really thankful for. My current GP said that it was a massive breach of duty of care on their part, and they shouldn’t have done it.When I heard the PT, I almost panicked, as in: what if I will always hear that?
I got over that feeling when I started regularly diaphragmatic breathing, Its sort of like floaters in your eyes, you look through them 99% of the time. Now I only notice my mild PT when things are quiet, and I write it off to ‘just another brain damage side effect’
Daoist saying: ‘When you are ‘sick’, do not seek a cure. Find your centre.. and you will be healed.“
Finding my centre is how I have got myself 4 years ahead of the BC reoccurance curve.
I noticed that my attention and learning abilities improve when I tap into the BHC-Energy.
I visualise BHC like a universe wide cosmic 5th dimension that we are all connected to, like the force in starwars. Also known as the Unified Field at the fringes of scientific understanding.
“Unified Field and the Quantum Field are seen as a way to connect with the underlying oneness of the universe. Practitioners may visualize these fields as vast, interconnected webs of energy that underlie all physical reality.”
Supposedly animals tap into this directly, humans used to be able to (third eye/pineal gland/intuition) but we’ve pretty much lost it due to becoming obsessed with technology and ‘stuff’.Our chats have helped me to ground myself. Helped me gather my thoughts for my next therapist session.
Klast
klastParticipantDear anita,
Hows your blood pressure? Alcohol intake?
The alcohol probably acted as a sedative. Abnormal blood pressure can cause all sorts of strange effects with hearing and vision, I have hissing/ringing in my ears pretty much all the time, it fluctuates throughout the day. For about 2 years after coming home from BC surgery I couldn’t go to sleep on my left side without loud whooshing/pulsing. Later in the night it would go away.
I might have to stop using the label ‘fate’, maybe BHC, beyond human conception. I get relief in knowing there are big mysteries humanity doesn’t understand yet. That I am just one infinitely small part of it. There is no who or what, there just ‘is’. When I am being mindful, I repeat the phrase “just be” and visualise/imagine other intrusive thoughts disappearing in a ‘thought shredder’. I have a tshirt with ‘be’ hand written inside a hand drawn circle.
I would love to fall through the cracks and stop this fog inducing medication from threatening my drivers license.
Hopefully your issues are just related to stress.
Klast
klastParticipantDear anita,
Some needed connections between brain cells/ neuropathways were not made.
In my brain scan I have two black holes, one where the tumour was and one where the epilepsy was. When I had the epilepsy cured I thought I was fully back on track to live a “normal” life. Seizure free, medication free and I had just had laser vision correction to be free of wearing glasses. I got my 1st job, got my drivers license, met my current wife etc. I never really comprehended that my invisible disability was still there, still sabotaging me, just not in ways that really mattered. I spent 20 years believing this….then BC came along……..
I was ..unhappy, to put it mildly).
I became numb after my similar experiences, especially when any intensely sad family event happened(death of pets, close relatives). I would just stand there being numbly stoic. I just thought I was all ‘cried out’ from my own traumas.
We are those baby sea turtles that get injured on the way to the ocean. Once we get there we cant deep dive with the others very well. We mainly hang around just below the surface.
…..severely down on my luck due to ‘fate’. Now I have a chance to get myself unstuck and try to move on.
Don’t get me wrong, fate isn’t completely absolved. It still was the root cause of my seed trauma(prolonged febrile convulsion), and choosing neglectful/abusive parents for me. But realising this and understanding the overall effect on my life is a big relief. A bit like when I got BC, part of me was so relieved it wasn’t my old enemy epilepsy back for revenge. BC had worse odds, but was something different.
I remember looking through the glass wall from my bed in ED, at the nurses station monitor. It had a brain scan on it with a white blob, I instantly knew it was mine. Then I started seizing and was flown by air ambulance to the nearest capital city.I would fit the CPTSD diagnosis, if it was available in the U.S., where I live.. and if there was a reason for me to pursue it
Yes, I have read about how the US health system is run by the insurance companies. They aren’t keen on having new diagnoses added to the DSM.
Where I live, the CPTSD label has no real effect on my life, unless I can convince a psychologist, to convince the government/insurance, that it has stopped/severely reduced my ability to do “my normal occupation”. How vague is that, especially when I have never had a “normal occupation”.
And these days health insurance companies run a mile if you have any sort of mental health label. That is why people won’t get their genetics tested because the gov/insurance will ping them for it.the labels can be helpful in that a person feels no longer alone
That’s the irony, all through the first 30 years or so of my life, I never met someone with any sort of epilepsy. Let alone someone with an invisible disability like Arrested Psychological Development. I was constantly alone.
And yes, I am way, way better than I used to be.
Me too. Now I am going to do some intense research on how to deal with APD in adults.
Kind regards,
Klast
klastParticipantHi anita,
“I guess so. I am a bit concerned about going through all this with the current state of my brain“- good point, something to ask a competent professional, if you are interested.”
I just happened to finally see a professional for the first time in my life, usually I would avoid them like the plague. At our first session he agreed about childhood trauma delaying emotional growth, he called it arrested psychological development. Reminds me of that noughties show Arrested Development, that I avoided watching.
He said I’ve spent my whole life wrestling with an invisible disability that I got when I was 18 months old. This disability was the prolonged febrile convulsion I experienced, causing hypoxic brain death of critical emotion and memory functions, oh and epilepsy.
This meant that every trauma after that, including my arrested development, was due to the invisibility aspect of my disability, and made worse by being so young. My natural intelligence meant I was really good at masking my disability, all the way till my 50s. The imposter syndrome I mentioned before.
So I’ve lived my whole life in a grey area, between appearing not disabled enough to get recognition and not being able enough to fully participate in society. Unable to engage in playing the game of life you could say.“In general, any kind of re-associating/ re-personalizing work should be done very gently, a bit today, a bit tomorrow, noting rushed.”
Fortnightly should be enough time for me to process each session.I feel a huge relief at realising I have an invisible disability that isn’t obvious to others, I thought I was just someone severely down on my luck due to “fate”. Now I have a chance to get myself unstuck and try to move on.
“C-PTSD is an umbrella diagnosis. Last I read, in the U.S. (DSM-5) it was rejected as a diagnosis because it’d make many previously accepted diagnoses obsolete”
What separates Cptsd from ptsd are 3 DSO’s; Disturbances in Self Organisation
1. negative self worth (how worthless you feel)
2. affective dysregulation (emotional control)
3. disturbances in relationships (how well you relate to others and maintain relationships)Look up(google) the International Trauma Questionnaire, I rated myself highly on 1, and about medium on 2 and 3.
Generally speaking: CPTSD is rolling life long traumas. PTSD is discrete traumatising events, like what first responders, soldiers victims of crime etc.
“There are so many mental health diagnoses available, no wonder most- if not all people fit at least one. I was diagnosed with quite a few.”
-Alot of people don’t like labels, too convenient. I am not to keen on them myself. Some people need a label to feel better about themselves. It is similar to the concept of god, someone who people can pass their self responsibility of their mistakes and failures off to, be “absolved of their sins”. That’s where I got my definition of god I mentioned earlier.CPTSD is the first mental health diagnosis I have ever been labelled with. It usually starts with a seed trauma somewhere in childhood, then all the other traumas throughout life, are triggered by the deficits the first one created. Like a snowball effect. My invisible disability was the seed trauma. The resulting social isolation led to child-abuse, then the abuse led to distrust of society, which reinforced the social isolation, etc.
Hope you’re keeping well,
Klast
klastParticipantThat’s OK, u seem to be busy on this forum. I’m in no rush
Klast
klastParticipantDear Anita,
– that’s hilarious, never read this before. We better do better than god, then, so that he/ she/ it can look up to us for guidance.
Those three lines are mine. They are my conclusions to the whole organised religion thing. Bureaucratising everyone’s personal spiritual life.
I grew up going to a christian church. One day when I was 13 and I was shaking the hands of the elders as I walked out, I thought; nah none of this feels right, WTF am I doing here, it all felt so insincere. Like all of us there were living some pretense.
Later in life a wise person said to me “Ahh you finally started thinking for yourself”, critical thinking.
Soon after my whole family left, the people we said goodbye to admitted they weren’t true believers, they were just there for the socialising. It was one of those churchies that abused me in unspeakable ways, that I fortunately don’t remember.– re-associating with anger, re-personalizing your life: making it personal and real.
I guess so. I am a bit concerned about going through all this with the current state of my brain. I have recently been diagnosed with Complex PTSD, after all the traumas throughout my life. Seems like I am regularly getting diagnosed with something, every decade or so.
I used to have bad panic attacks, but I learnt to down regulate them with diaphragmatic breathing(triggers the vagus nerve, calming the parasympathetic nervous system fight/flight/freeze/fawn etc). Yoga Nidra at bedtime helped as well. Most people rely on drugs, Xanax etc.
Back then the docs said I had the lungs of someone 11 years younger, now it’s only 5 years younger.Haven’t had an attack for about 7 years now. Fortunately I haven’t had to go on the big pharma merry-go round.
I am still on “duty of care” seizure meds, which I hate, due to the brain fog they put me in. But I have to stay on them for life or I get my drivers license cancelled. One of those times I wish I could fall through the cracks of the medical system.– a reminder of how important it is to not mock others, to treat others (with aphasia or not, tics or not, short or tall, lean or obese, etc.) respectfully.
I feel I am just marking time until, we win lotto(HA), get an inheritance or some other random event turns up.
– saved by intuition!
My intuition seems to have increased since BC, but maybe I am just taking more notice of it. Some around me infer that intuition is a part of a normal persons life. For me it comes on like a strong sense of dejavu, during the day I can look at a thing or person and feel that I will be more involved with them/it sometime later. I was in a shop once when it happened and 3 months later my stepson got a job there.
When I met my wife 20 years ago. I had a strong sense of us having a long term relationship. Within 3 months of me moving in, her kids wanted to call me Dad. She’s a trauma child/woman like me, we feel we are on a committed life journey of healing together.Klast
(short form of Iconoclast)klastParticipantDear Anita
I am mentioning this because a belief in (bad) fate/ destiny prevents healing and progress that are possible for a person.
Definitely not me. At the risk of offending any lurkers:
What is heaven? The ultimate carrot
What is hell? The ultimate stick
What is god? The ultimate self responsibility avoidance
All the religions and existential ideologies are just attempts at trying to explain what we cant comprehend.
Religion shuts down free and critical thinking and exploration of all possible options. Like eating takeaway food instead of cooking your own.
“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him” – VoltaireAs you know, there are plenty of people who are appear physically healthy/ intacta, with plenty of money who are miserable.
For the western hemisphere there is a peak in the happiness/wealth bell curve. Not enough wealth to cover the basics of life and life goals/desires creates misery. Too much creates paranoia about managing it and who is only after your wealth. The end result of paranoia is loneliness.
Plus it’s all about connections and networks, mine have been weak my whole life due to development/brain issues my whole life.I experienced much healing (intentional healing) from 2.5 decades-long Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
I have been through all the depersonalisation, derealisation and dissociation.
-Depersonalisation when I felt like my past childhood memories etc, weren’t mine. Like I was some sort of imposter (syndrome?).
-Derealisation when I felt like I was staring into the infinite abyss of nothingness, where the edge I was standing on was crumbling away. I reckon if my super supportive wife hadn’t been there for me to physically hold onto I would have had a full break.
-Dissociation for most of my life. Feeling different to everyone else. I remember wishing aliens would arrive to wake society out of its power/greed obsession.I have to accept TS, ADD and learning disabilities as parts of my life, and I am glad that I had the courage to change the OCD part.
I have always accepted my deficiencies because they have been there in different forms my whole life. It is only just recently that I have been throwing a tantrum about it all, triggered by my emotional development restarting. Which was triggered by reaching an age of feeling like doors were finally closing on me. I have been doing everything I can to encourage neuroplasticity and neurogenesis. However I feel that is now no longer as effective due to the natural mental declination of the aging process.
It is only lately, in my later years, following years of intentional healing, that I feel like a child (when interacting/ connecting with people): a new feeling to me, a joyful feeling!
I have this experience but so far its not in a joyful way, I get mocked or treated with disdain, mostly at work. If I wasn’t constantly being triggered at work, and feeling obligated to work to cover living costs, I would be happier.
My aphasia has gotten much better over time. After BC surgery I could barely string a sentence together. Then I went through a stage of not fully sounding out my syllables. Then swapping syllables and words around in a sentence. These days you wont get anymore than a couple of sentences out of me, anything more and I start tripping over the words as I line them up and try to spit them out. It gets worse if I am stressed or tired.
At the start of my radiation treatment, intuition made me look through the paperwork. I couldn’t believe it when I stumbled upon the fact that they were going to radiate the wrong side of my head(classic MRI scan misinterpretation). It took them 4 hours to correct the error that day before beginning. I could have ended up a vegetable in a wheelchair or worse.
Kind regards,
Klast
klastParticipantHi Helcat
I was a total computer nerd for 15 years due to my social isolation, it’s only through IRC and online chat that I began to start relating to people in the real world. I was there at the start of the internet, I used to go on BBS’s before the internet. My first internet access was 90mins a day with a 14.4k dialup modem. I could have done IT but my brain issues held me back. I always saw myself as some sort of backroom techhead but my health issues stopped me.
Best wishes with your journey as well
Klast
klastParticipantHi Anita
“Do you believe that these (and other) unfortunate events were planned and executed by a supernatural power/ a god?”
I don’t believe in any sort of interventionist deity.
I am just well aware that there is more going on out there than we humans can possibly understand or comprehend. Intuition, the feeling of being watched, close relatives instantly knowing something has happened to the other even on the other side of the world, twins etc
I am more of an agnostic, who doesn’t need a convenient explanation of the unknown. I am quite happy for the big picture to stay a mystery. Humanity will work it all out eventually, like how quantum physics and spirituality are similar. Like twins and superposition.
I’ve always though of fate as part of this mysterious unknown. I assumed that if fate was connected to a god/deity, people would directly refer to this god/deity as the cause.“All the sea turtles had about the same built in ability and potential.”
All my life until now, I have believed this, I would rationalise to myself “If the universe is a zero sum game, I am just balancing out someone else’s extremely good luck”. However, now that I only have a decade or so before retirement, the chance for any quality of life changing change is almost zero.
“The usefulness of my potential is all gone now“- in some areas, I imagine, not in other areas.
As mentioned above, I am in the sunset years of my working life. I know I have lots of potential in other areas, just not in areas that would improve my quality of life. I would be a good writer etc. I might have been able to help others with similar traumas( I had a really tough childhood as well) but my expressive aphasia, like bruce willis has, counts me out. My brain tumour was right next to the brocas speech area, so I can have what I want to say lined up in my mind but vocalising it, making myself heard is really difficult for me.
I’ve known about the serenity prayer for ages. I just thought it never applied to me, until now, now that I feel that I have run out of options.
Trauma Regression
When a child is subjected to some form of emotionally damaging trauma, their emotional development stops. The wound never heals because they are too young at the time and don’t have the tools to work through it. The healing wont restart until a level of self awareness is reached, for some this never happens.I know that this discussion is the continuation of my general emotional development that has been frozen since I suffered abuse(s) as a child. I have been using my intelligent abstract brain to compartmentalise and push away any attempts to restart it, until now.
Thanks for your input.
Klast -
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