Thoughts on Depression and C-PTSD from emotional Abuse

Depression can make you feel like staying in bed and not interacting with other people. You know that if you go out of the house, you will feel different and out of place.

Other people will not understand your inner world. You feel like you will be forced to put on a mask to fit in. It is difficult to function.

You get more and more internalized. So you self isolate, and limit your social interactions. This is understandable because certain kinds of interactions can be emotionally traumatizing.

You feel like the one person that is out of place in the world.  You sit alone and hear the thoughts that come up from your subconscious. Thoughts that there is something wrong with you.

Some of the feelings you get are from emotional flashbacks. There are things that happened and ways you were rejected during childhood that cause your subconscious to store these kinds of feelings.

If you can identify the false beliefs behind your thoughts, then the feelings can be sat with and calmed. You were not born feeling like you did not belong in the world. These thoughts were taught to you….even brainwashed into you.

When you have a feeling that is painful, like hopelessness…try to discover what core belief that thought is driven by. The belief might be that you are not as good as other people. .. Or that the world is unsafe.

If you are carrying the core belief that you are less adequate than other people…that is a bad programming. These things are programmed into children who do not have emotionally supportive childhoods.

Think back to your childhood and if you were made to feel insignificant, unworthy, unneccesary, or anything else negative. If your thoughts and feelings were dismissed, criticized, or made fun of then you are probably carrying CPTSD…complex post traumatic stress disorder.

People with C-PTSD often get depressed or feel extreme anxiety. You may have trouble keeping up with other people or feeling normal.

Those false core beliefs that were fed to you can be re-programmed. You need to question each one of those negative beliefs about yourself. Be like a scientist attempting to disprove a theory.

If you feel that something is wrong with you compared to other people, then ask what things are Right about you. Write them down. Engage in activities that prove you are as good or better at those activities, than other people are.

Look at the qualities of your parents and whomever fed those negative, false beliefs to you, about yourself. What kind of people are they?

Would you consider those people reliable critics? Did tbey have any agenda in which lowering your power would have helped them?

If those people told you something bad about the character of a person you love right now….would you believe their opinion without question? Or is their opinion not reliable?

You can begin to go out and interact with people in small increments. Go over your present state of mind, before you go out…and before you leave your car. You can just sit in your car for a few minutes and listen to music that calms or peps up your nervous system.

How you feel when you interact with others is based on the current state of your nervous system, how much sleep you have had, your mental state, and your blood sugar.

You can think of those categories and assess each of them, before you go into a store or any other place. Then you will feel more in touch with yourself and have some ways to help yourself.

If you are interested in learning. NLP State Management techniques, you can send me a message via my web site

Gentlekindnesscoaching.com

For information about C-PTSD and how emotional abuse causes depression and anxiety disorders, join us at the gentlekindness facebook page.

You are special. Your gifts and personality are an important part of the puzzle of humanity. You are connected with all living things in an important way.

You matter. You have a unique voice that other people need to hear. You have special characteristics that someone really needs right now.

You have innate value.

Namaste,

Annie. Gentlekindnesscoaching.com

Gentlekindness facebook page

Annie Mimi Hall youtube channel

PTSD Re-traumatization and Self Isolation

PTSD is a term most people have heard, but often they do not really know what it means.

If you tell someone you have PTSD, it may be hard for them to know what you mean by that, unless they have it themselves or maybe they have a close friend or family member with it.

People with PTSD have trouble with relationships, but not for the reasons people think.

Once you have been traumatized, and then re-traumatized by triggering situations, you feel generally unsafe and there is a natural tendency to want to retreat…back up your steps and run for cover.

People with PTSD can be re-traumatized by people who do not understand, and by people who are more concerned with their own agenda than really understanding.

When someone with PTSD has certain triggers, and explains those triggers to someone, it is important that they are validated and respected. If someone wants to care about a loved one with PTSD, they need to really listen to that person, when they talk about what triggers them. 

*A person that intentionally uses your triggers against you is dangerous to your mental well being. 

But then there are people who just don’t want to listen to or respect your boundaries. Your perceptions are not of an significance to them. 

Everyone has personal boundaries, but people with post traumatic stress disorder can suffer severe re-traumatization when a loved one does not honor their trigger boundaries.

Some triggers cannot be avoided, such as loud noises that may occur independently from either person. However, talking someone into going to a loud dance club, or guilting them into going to fireworks, when it has been made clear that loud noises are triggers, is abusive.

People who have PTSD from the military, and people who have PTSD from domestic abuse have different causes for their symptoms, but some things are the same.

The fight-or-flight mode is activated by the amygdala. If the brain perceives a threat, even if that threat is not real, the amygdala will send chemicals into the body like adrenaline and cortisol.

 The feeling in the body of a “perceived threat” and a real threat is exactly the same. The same physiological responses occur, including blood pressure elevation, and feeling of extreme fear and the feeling that you have to act right away.

Someone who had their jaw fractured by an abusive boyfriend, who suddenly stormed towards them in a fit of anger, may be triggered by someone coming quickly into their personal space, especially if that person is angry.

Once you have asked someone not to do certain things which trigger you, it is a terrible feeling when they still continue to do them. It feels very violating, and only serves to break the trust bond.

Relationships need to be based in trust. Intimate relationships, as well as friendships and family relationships have to feel safe. If one person does not feel safe, then there is a lack of understanding and a lack of trust.

Without both parties feeling safe, the relationship will break down. People with PTSD can find it difficult to trust again, after others have invalidated them about their symptoms.

Sometimes someone will disbelieve you, minimize your trauma, or accuse you of trying to manipulate them with your explanations about your trauma and your triggers. This is very painful and re-traumatizing.

People who have PTSD or C-PTSD from abuse were invalidated as part of the abuse process. Their emotions were minimized, disregarded and made fun of.

To have someone close to you minimize your PTSD, or disbelieve you is re-traumatizing. It gives  the victim into an emotional flashbacks or actual sensory flashbacks.

You can only tolerate being traumatized and re-traumatized so many times.

Soldiers that come back from war only to be disrespected by civilians, or invalidated and ignored by the Veterans Administration, are being re-traumatized.

It is a way of invalidating a person’s reality. This has negative effects on the person’s mental and emotional state.

People with PTSD can be perfectly good and caring partners and friends. They just need validation, respect and understanding.

But after repeated re-traumatization, a person feels isolated and too vulnerable to take a chance on trusting another person again. This leads to self isolation, depression, and often suicidal thoughts.

Evolutionary psychology tells us that our subconscious brain feels threatened by the potential that we would be completely isolated, shunned or thrown out of the social circle.

A Little Evolutionary Psychology

In the past, humans lived in social survival groups called tribes.  Being accepted and included by the tribe was critical for survival. Being shunned would have meant death !

Our primal brain  (called the reptilian brain) perceives rejection by the tribe to be potentially life threatening.  When we are feeling a similar kind of threat, it triggers the fight or flight response in our limbic system of the brain. The amygdala becomes active and send all kinds of alerts and chemicals into the body.

Technically, we could survive living alone and isolated these days, but we were not meant to live in isolation… especially isolation due to “mobbing” or “scapegoating” by the tribe.

This is one of the reasons that scapegoated family members, suffer such severe mental and emotional trauma.

People with PTSD need to feel that they will still be accepted by the Tribe (family, community…whatever applies to the situation…).

They need to know that their personal reality will be validated, even though it may be very different from that of other people. The experiences someone with PTSD has endured may seem strange to people that have not ever had that kind of trauma in their reality.

Isolation can cause death by suicide or “failure to thrive.”

Self isolation will almost always cause severe depression. But being re-traumatized is just as bad, and the brain will try to lead people away from that pain.

Our primal brains are designed to take us away from danger, or perceived danger….and towards pleasure. But the “away from danger” is the priority.

Re-exeriencing the feelings of danger, fight or flight chemicals and physiological responses, is not something that anyone could tolerate on a regular basis.

We were not built to feel in danger all the time. Being in a state of hyper-arousal all the time depleats the immune system and causes mental disorders.

People with PTSD need understanding and validation.

They need their loved ones to be sensitive to their triggers, and to pay attention to what the person asks and needs. 

Otherwise. the relationships cannot continue in a way that is safe for the PTSD sufferer. The person with PTSD will shut down and crawl inside of themselves. No healthy relationship can be sustained without safety for both people. 

 

Light in Darkness

Step lightly and tread a gentle path

You never know what you are walking on

Until you are mindful of it as you go

Listen and see with watchful eyes

Your heart will speak the truth

Be open to seeing more than others

Tell you is around you because

There is always much more than

Your eyes can see if you rush

Breath in your surroundings to perceive

Without biases , without assuming

Things are what you are expecting

If you assume what is there…then

That is what you will see….

Presupposition can murder the senses

And dull your ability to see truth

Sometimes more beautiful than

The others can perceive it to be

And other times darker and more sinister

But see what you are able to see

Never allow others to do your seeing for you

Or give meaning to things without your consent

Your perception becomes your reality for the time you are perceiving it to be

You must see what you need to

And not let others influence you in a way that distorts your truth

Or tarnishes your vision

Walk gently and look freely

Choose your own meaning and feel your emotions

Your spirit is resilient but the mind can be interfered with …

If you are not mindful

Walk gently for you know not where you are walking

Or what you are stepping on

Unless you are aware as you go

Create your own manifestations, and build your own bridges to walk over the water

Until you can walk upon the water with faith…

And without fear

Do not bury your feelings or let others minimize them

Do not allow others to discount what you feel and what you know

Walk softly but speak the truth loudly when it is necessary

And speak the truth gently if it is harsh o

Have compassion when no one around you does

Believe in what is right when others turn their back

Always believe in yourself especially when others shun you

Believe in your intentions when others try to shut you down

What you see and what you feel is yours …and yours to value

Stand up when others have fallen

Stand up when others try to make you stay down

Live with kindness and speak with truth and light

If you let the darkness make you hard to see

The ones who need your light cannot find you

Your light is very important to the ones lost in the dark

Let fear be comforted by truth …

Not the truth of darkness…

But the truth of the light that is within you..

The light that sometimes barely breathes and flickers in the dark

But cannot be extinguished

By anyone

Let your light comfort and inspire

Allow it to flicker like a flame…

Next to fear and sadness

To give them hope

Your light is always within you

Even in the darkest of times

When it is hard to see

No matter how small it may seem at times

Your light has great power and strength

Compassion will flame the fire

 

Highly Sensitive People and Empaths ; Dealing with the Dark Tunnel

painting  by Taras Loboda 1961 Link to more of their paintings HERE

If you find yourself in the darkness….it is partially a solitary battle. Trying to get out of that tunnel backwards, by retreating will not work.

You are thrown into the middle of the dark tunnel, by your personal demons.

If someone has hurt or abused you then you are realizing that this has triggered your old wounds to open up and your sleeping demons to awaken. 

You have to sit with the darkness and interact with those fears, angers, grief or sadness demons. You need to let your inner child know that you are confronting those demons for them, because the child in incapable to battle them or defend against them.

If you try to run away from that tunnel, the demons will always follow you, because they refuse to be ingnored. Your inner child will continue to feel rejected and abandoned by you, because you are not integrating the demons.

If you experienced trauma at early ages, those demons are still haunting the child.

An incident of coming face to face with evil or darkness, will trigger the old fears, because they were never consoled and accepted.

You can sit with these feelings and let your inner child know that you accept them, love them, and will always protect them.

Once the child realizes it is not abandoned then the process of integrating the fractured child parts, and fractured memory pictures, can begin.

image from pinterest Link HERE

Each picture has a meaning attached to it. The meanings of things during childhood are programmed into you by others, who were concerned with their own agenda. You can change the meaning that your subconscious holds about these memories.

Take your time as you walk through the dark tunnel. You will get to the other side stronger and with greater ability to perceive truth.

Society, and people from your life, have dropped a veil in front of your eyes.

Any feelings you are carrying of shame, guilt, or obligation to violate your authentic self, are part of this veil.

There is more to see and perceive….and there are more possibilities that exist….and more possibities that you can create. People limit you by telling you what you cannot and should not do. 

The darkness does not have to be pushed aside, in order for you to survive it.

Painful emotions are guides, telling you not to go in a certain direction.

Your emotions are an alert system that is important for you to pay attention to.

Others are not living your life. They do not have any right to dictate how you feel about their behaviors and words. They do not have any right to program your mind with the meaning they want you to attach to things.

Your brain and your emotions are your own. You have a right to  feel how you feel, and to care about those feelings. Others who discount your feelings are not supporting you and those people are not good for you.

Highly sensitive people and empaths are criticized by the ones who want to dominate over and subjugate them.

They will tell you that you are “too sensitive” or that you are “over reacting.. “

They may even deny things they say and do, in order to gaslight you.

When you try to set boundaries with them, they tell you they never did what you are remembering them doing….or they just plain say that your needs are irrelevant. 

This is to create ficticious examples of how your “highly sensitive person” qualities are not valid. If these people can make you question your perception of reality, then they can manipulate how you feel about yourself.

Do not discount or minimize your feelings.

Experience them and integrate all parts of you into the whole. Others will attempt to fracture your parts, because this disables you from being powerful.

You have a great purpose and there are many possibilities all around you. Accept and love yourself for who you are.

Photography by Karina Chernova – see more of her work HERE

As you begin to integrate the light and the darkness of the old and new demons, you will begin to see how you belong in the world.

You have purpose and are part of all life. Your gifts are special and unique. .

Listen to those people that nourish your soul…rather than those people that seek to cripple your spirit. Find others who can validate your worthiness ….

Highly sensitive people and empaths are in the minority.

It is important for you to exist in an environment that supports you. Seek out those who value your gifts and accept you for who you are.

Blessings,

Annie

Note – If you are interested in life coaching for expanding and blossoming your unique gifts, or help finding your direction, please feel free to visit my web site and join the email list.

gentlekindnesscoaching.com

-overcoming narcissistic abuse

-recognizing gaslighting

-dealing with the “red pills” and truth being revealed to you

-hypnosis and NLP

-energy healing

-compassionate conversation and validation

Red Flags of a Psychopathic Narcissist

When you are with a devil of a partner, you do not see their dark side at first. The really good predators are skilled at creating a shared psychosis…an illusion that you are two perfectly matched souls….destined to be together

When you are with an authentic partner, who has true compassion for you, they do not feel the need to state things like….

I have compassion for you.

I don’t usually have compassion for other people, but I have compassion for you.

Other people do not really understand you or see you. But only I see the real you.

No one sees your talent but me.

I am the only one who has really loved you.

I am the only one who could really love you.

You are so different from other people that I am the only one who understands you.

You are too special to be with anyone but me.

No one will love you the way I do.

You are the only one who can save me.

I would die without you.

You would die without me.

You and I do not belong in this world.

We are nothing without each other.

You can only do great things if you are with me.

I will kill myself if you leave me.

I will kill myself if you….

I will kill myself if you don’t….

My life was nothing before you.

You don’t need anyone but me.

Your friends are not really your friends. Only I am.

Everyone always lets me down in the end.

Everyone disappoints me sooner or later.

Every relationship I have ends up with them abusing me. You will do the same.

Everyone leaves me. So will you.

No one is willing to give me what I need.

I never get enough help from anyone.

People should help me and do what I ask, without wanting something in return.

If you really loved me you would not expect things in return for doing everyhing I ask you to do.

How can I believe you love me if you are not waiting by the phone when I call?

How can you do things for other people when I am so needy?

How can you do things for yourself (like take a shower) without checking that I am okay first?

I should not have to be there for you to prove my love.

Love is about you being there for me and doing things for me that I can do myself.

Love is being there for me when you have an impotant business meeting to go to.

Love is being there for me, when your friend or family member has an emergency.

Love is about being there for me when you have an emergency.

Love is being there for me when you are sick or sleep deprived.

Love is giving up all your friends and family for me.

Love is you knowing that my job is more important than yours, but that I not help you pay your bills.

Love is YOU paying attention to MEEEEEE and me ignoring, rejecting, demeaning, minimizing and lying about you.

 

 

Cell Phone Light

The light from the cell phone
Only partially illuminates the room
All else is silent but the wind
And the sound of the tiny clicks
that sound out loud
each time a letter is typed

The writing keeps me thinking
The writing stops me from thinking too much
About the darkness
The writing keeps me feeling
The writing keeps me from feeling too much
Of the darkness

The resonating echo of the clicks
Filling the emptiness of the room
Makes me feel some safety …
Something familiar
Something “normal”
Something reliable
Something to frighten
the darkness away

To ward it off
To block it’s path
To distract my mind
To pretend it cannot reach me
But it’s all around
I can feel it rising
From the floors of the bedroom
To the top of the mattress

But I just keep typing
To hear the clicking
Of the cell phone keys in the dark
Because it isn’t the darkness
From the lack of light
That frightens me the very most
But the other darkness that rises
And closes all around me
That no one thinks is there
And no one else can see

Emotophobia

Emotophobia is the fear of unpleasant emotions, not to be confused with emetophobia, the fear of vomiting.

There is little online about emotophobia.

The few articles I found offered the suggestion to “stop treating negative emotions as if they are your enemies and can harm you.”

This is somewhat condescending and implies that emotions themselves cannot harm you.

The person offering this advice clearly has never been in a situation where showing negative emotions could harm them.

So, they think it is rather ridiculous that someone would associate their negative emotions with danger.

The problem with this thinking is that there are situations where someone’s emotions can cause them harm.

This advise shows a complete misunderstanding of emotophobia and its root causes.

People with emotophobia are not “treating” emotions as if they are the enemy.

For people that have emotophobia, emotions were the enemy and they were followed by consequences.

People that grew up in mentally abusive childhoods were not permitted to have emotions like other people are.

The expression of emotion, which represents being an individual, is often punished by abusive parents.

Even children who were not physically abused, could have had their right to individual ideas and feelings violated.

Narcissistic parents and other overbearing, maniplulative parents do not want their children to develop independent thoughts and ideas.

They do not want their children thinking in terms of their own needs at all. When their children expressed feelings, the abusive parents retaliated. If the child thinks independently and can express their feelings then it might threaten the narcissistic parent. 

The narcissistic parent wants to create a false narrative about the family. It is the vision of the family that is portrayed to the outside world. Everyone in the family has to back this story up. 

Children are not allowed to talk about abuse that occurs in the home. The narcissist re-frames the abuse to the mind of the child. The child is taught to believe the shared psychosis of the family, created by the narcissist. 

Punishments are inflicted on a child who goes against the narcissistic parent in any way. These can be emotional or physical in nature. 

Everyone in the house is trained to cater to the narcissist. Everyone knows that there are consequences for disobedience. The family members are made into a kind cult that follows the lead of the narcissist. 

These mentally abusive parents, want the focus on themselves. The needs and feelings of the others in the family do not matter.

They demand for the child to cater to their ever changing desires and demands. The narcissist will set rules and then change them when they feel like it. 

The children are expected to follow the rules, even when the parent has not informed them of changes. It is like playing a game with someone who changed the rules randomly and does not tell you. 

In order to survive in this type of environment, the child must learn to constantly read the parent’s body language and tone of voice.

They must anticipate the desires and moods of the parent. If they fail to do so, it is met with negative consequences.

If the child expresses disagreement, or unhappiness with a narcissistic parent, they will likely incur the anger and wrath of the parent.

The smallest indication of disagreement  with the parent can bring out their anger.

For their own protection, these children and teenagers learn to disguise their feelings and push them down.

They do not want the parent to see their feelings because it will be used against them.

If you grew up in this type of environment, then feeling negative emotions was the enemy. It is not something we have suddenly developed an irrational fear of as adults.

This environment causes C-PTSD, which is Complex Post Traumatic Stess Disorder, in many people. This is carried over into adulthood.

So, the advice to “stop treating emotions as if they were the enemy” and to tell people that feeling emotions is safe, does not make sense to someone with C-PTSD from childhood mental abuse.

Adults can also develop emotophobia from ongoing abusive relationships with a partner. Women become afraid to disagree with their partner because they fear the consequences of his anger.

Abusive people do not tolerate their partner exercising their personal rights, or expressing opinions that are different from them.

Again, the brain rewires the neural connections to avoid showing negative feelings. This is a necessary survival tactic at the time.

It is not easily undone. The brain considers it necessary in order to protect the safety of the person.

It takes years to develop this survival tactic and to learn how to detach from one’s own emotions.  The brain becomes wired to avoid entering into situations that may cause negative emotions.

To undo what was a learned survival skill takes a lot of work in re-wiring the brain.

Telling someone “emotions are your friends” does not work, especially without any idea why the person feels such anxiety about emotions like anger and sadness.

The only people who really understand what it feels like to have severe anxiety about showing anger, and sadness to others are those of us that are carrying the C-PTSD that causes it.

This is not a simple problem to just fix. You have to re-wire your programming. You have to learn that it is okay for someone else to be upset with us when we say “no.”

You need to learn how to identify what you want and what decisions will support you in a healthy way.  It is okay if other people do not agree with your choices. 

It takes practice to be able to stand your ground about things without fear of the consequences making you comply with others even when it is hurtful to you.

 

Fight or Flight – Narcissistic Abuse / Domestic Abuse

Thanksgiving Meet-up on Gentlekindness Blog

On Thursday  you are invited to connect with all of us here. Thanksgiving is the first of the holiday season and can trigger depression and anxiety in many people. Others are feeling lonely during the holidays.

If you are feeling alone or just want to connect, you can come here on Thanksgiving. I will create posts during the day that you can leave comments and also leave links to your own posts.

If you want to contribute a Guest Post , A Poem, or a Letter , feel free to do so. If you want me to post something for you, you can contact me at michelemimimish@gmail.com

If you have posts that you want to post the links to, you will see posts you can put them in the comments section of.

Artwork, poetry , details of what you are doing or how you are feeling are all welcome. Everyone is encouraged  to leave kind, thoughtful comments on anything that others leave.

 

The Art of the Abuse , Bullying Cycle

Just because someone has momentarily stopped tormenting, bullying and abusing you does not mean they are being kind.

It can be easy to confuse the lack of cruelty with kindness. You may even project intentions into someone’s actions, assuming they have changed and now intend to be good to you.

How many times have they “changed” for the better? How many cycles have you lived through?

Don’t deceive yourself about what comes next or think it will be different this time. Selfish, self centered people will repeat the same patterns.

In fact, many abusive, narcissistic people know that a reprieve from the abuse on you will make you suffer more the next time. The act of starting and stopping their bullying tactics is all part of the same cycle.

Your nervous system is more severely interfered with when the abuse starts and stops. It creates a false sense of hope which causes you to be crushed with disappointment, disillusionmant and causes mental instability.

The starting and stopping cycle causes PTSD and other kinds of anxiety disorders. The brain’s system of fight or flight does not know when to turn off because the threat is unpredictable and imminent.