Talking about fear and examples of fear can be triggering for some people.
Sometimes an example will help clarify the fear continuum. There are every day fears that everyone experiences that people laugh about and can control fairly easily. There is the silly kind, like Chicken little running around screaming the sky is falling after being hit by an acorn. There is learned fear like after being stung by a bee. Different people have different fears. Sometimes you have the one time horrible experience like a car crash or the long term trauma of childhood abuse. Some people wonder what sets apart PTSD from all the other stuff generated about fear. I think two things set PTSD apart from the rest. The depth of fear...often life threatening situations involved. The second is PTSD interferes with everyday living. Sometimes it can stop you right in your tracks.
About 8 years ago, I found out that I had a significant level of hearing loss. I remember being sick often as a kid and thought this was a possibility as to the reason for the early hearing loss. One of the procedures is to create a mold of your ear by pouring warm wax into the ear. Wait a few minutes for it to cool and dada... a mold of your ear. This procedure is simple and painless. No apparent reason for fear. When I had my first mold taken, the poor audiologist was horrified. Only thing I remember was the warm wax going into my ear. The next thing, I was groveling on the floor whimpering that I would be good. Terrified out of my mind. In one corner of my mind I knew that my behavior was at the far extreme of bizarre behavior but I could no more stop what was happening as fly around the room. In that moment in time fear grabbed me by the nape of my neck and threw me to the ground. I was embarrassed and apologized and fully understood when audiologist recommended that I went to someone else. The audiologist did nothing wrong. I still haven't retrieved the memory that this triggers. What I did do, was desensitize my reaction. I am not comfortable having it done but I now stay in my chair. Tonight, I had a victory. I stayed for a second exercise class where we stretch out our body. The end of class the teacher goes around the room and massages each students' back. I have just about flipped out in the past to have a stranger touch me. I made the choice to stay. I watched as the teacher worked her way around the room. My goal was to not flinch. Not only did I not flinch, I actually started to enjoy the feeling of being touched. Stiff shoulders appreciated the extra attention. I far exceeded my goal. I am looking forward to taking the class again.
The hardest thing for me was realizing that over the years I had tried to describe how afraid I was. Unfortunately, my fears were discounted and I was told I was exaggerating. I needed to just smile and go forward. I was teased for being a 'baby.' People laughed at my 'over reaction'. Learning about PTSD allowed me to understand that my fears were not without basis. I also learned that I can over come the crippling affects of PTSD. The healthier I become, the less control it has on my life.
For Drama: Follow link :)
http://youtube.googleapis.com/v/316AzLYfAzw&autoplay=1&rel=0
4 comments:
I've been thinking about you after my PTSD therapy sessions these past few weeks because I've recently realized how fractured my sense of self truly is. I'm not a multi-personality, but I am seriously compartmentalized and there are distinct voices to those parts. In therapy, I've begun having these weird conversations between theses splits -- primarily the young me who didn't trust anyone including the other parts of myself and this solid, steady voice that almost felt like it came from outside myself because it is so calm and competent and kind of wide. I've known that voice has been pushing me along, but for a long time I was confused about whether it was my mother because it was so firm and a little relentless and sometimes scolding. But what I've come to realize is that this voice is my core self that was doing whatever it took to help me survive the mess of my childhood. My mother was the one masquerading as someone with my best interests at heart, not the voice in my head telling me to stop crying because being vulnerable around my mother was dangerous. Some of that calm voices demands felt restrictive and mean, but it was the best path to get me through and (possibly) put myself back together again when the danger was gone.
I laughed out loud when my therapist gave me a "parts" workbook this week to help me understand how to resolve the schism.
But I have to say I'm grateful to you for putting your story up for me to read so it made me feel less alarmed about the conversations with my selves. I've always talked aloud to myself, but this was a whole different animal :)
Oh, and I forgot to add that I agree that PTSD is a royal pain in the rear. I did so much great work in therapy and have a pretty good grasp on the how's and whys of how I got so messed up, but the physical reactions to perceived dangers still continued despite knowing what was happening. And it's worse when I recognize that I'm not in true danger like I'd been in the past, yet I still would get painfully anxious and scared.
I have a pretty severe hearing loss and wear two hearing aids, which in spite of their cost and amazing technology let me down in certain situations where there is background noise. I still get embarrassed and frustrated at times bit have had to switch to visible hearing aids and now force myself to let people know about the problem.
My DD is taking an ASL course and is passing along the knowledge to me.
In the course of being diagnosed, I was told the loss was most likely caused by childhood trauma. That's when, for me, the memories came flooding back. My NM's favourite form of punishment was to hit me on the head with a big hairbrush. She generally aimed for the ear as it was the most painful.
Another thing she liked to do was clean out our ear wax with a bobby pin! I can still recall crying with pain and begging her to stop. At times, my ears bled internally.
NM had a weird thing about cleanliness and she considered ear wax a sign that you were dirty.
My NPs are merciless in making sarcastic comments about my hearing loss, but odds are NM caused it!
Maybe someone in your past cleaned you ears as mercilessly as my NM cleaned mine.
Oh. My. Gosh. I'd completely forgotten about NM cleaning our ears with a bobby pin. It was horrible.
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