Worried

[Rainshaddow]

Hi , new to this , don't know what to expect , suffer from anxiety and depression and C-PTSD , live alone out in rural Aus and just wanted to talk , some form of contact ,

[Rainshaddow]

Oh yes ! It all makes sense to me what you have said , I have had the fight and flight response and also a freeze response where I can't think , for example if 2 people start talking to me at once , or if there is a too many people around I feel an intense desire to get away . I am sad that your experiencing those emotions , it can be overwhelming , I understand what your saying with the crying afterwards , it's an emotional release , I get a simalar thing , I find towards the end of the day/nite my brain is frazzled from the worry and I am exhausted even if I've done nothing all day , my brain stopping is like a gift , I get numb too , to the point where I just don't care what's going to happen . Just the cycles through the emotions can be exhausting , I wish it could stop , I stopped my medication as it was having some bad side effects ,

[Rainshaddow]

Yep I feel guilt about everything and I am a good , law abiding thoughtful decent human , it's guilt about anything and everything , nothing I have done or said , it's just always there , in the background ,

[Kitty1991]

I am so glad I am not the only one going through this emotional exhausting roller coaster! I run away when there is too many people otherwise I get completely overwhelmed. I always excuse my self and walk away like I am on a mission.
Have you thought above trying a different medication? Maybe another will have less side effects?

[Rainshaddow]

That's exactly what is , an emotional roller coaster whilst blind folded as I/ we never know what's coming next , we just know something is coming . I'm ok ish around ppl I know but around strangers or in public I get that adrenaline squirt and I am highly vigilant , I occasionally get a heat wave run through me , so yeah I understand when you say you have to go and your on a mission to get out of there , I recently got a new script for a different anti anxiety tablet but I am hesitant for a few reasons , don't want the same side effects and looking for work in mining over here with drug n alcohol testing , I don't want to disclose that so I figure just stay on the roller coaster and mask what's going on inside me .I have also had sleep tabs but found they made me foggy the next day , Are you on a medication for yours ? Do you have any things you can do to distract yourself from what's going on ?

[Guest9337]

OK, ones guilt is always there. Since it's always there we have to deal with it hey. So some of the ways to deal with that follow.

Examine the guilt. What type of guilt is it?

You mention being law abiding - ok, you are guilty of being law abiding.

I value law abiding people. I think they are innocent of not abiding the law. If I met a guilty feeling yet law abiding person I would offer them my hand in friendship, for to me they are wonderful.

Make a practice of bringing feelings of guilt into your foreground, like maybe a few minutes as a daily practice, giving yourself headspace and room to acknowledge and think/feel about your guilt.

What do you feel most/least guilty about?

[Rainshaddow]

It's not a real guilt , not a guilt from an actual occurance , it's just a guilt that's there for some weird reason , had a bit of a tough childhood , alcoholic stepfather , screaming angry mum , they had heaps of physical fights that I saw , recon it's from all that era , well it's what the experts told me in therapy sessions anyway , it's where my cptsd comes from apparently too . And thankyou for saying those nice things about me ,

[Rainshaddow]

I try breathing exercises , I try the 3-3-3 thing , name 3 things , hear 3 things and move 3 body parts , apparently it makes our brains disconnect from our worrys and concentrate on the things we are doing , it sort of works for me depending on how wound up I am ,

[Guest9337]

Evening Rainshaddow!

Thank you very much for sharing those 4 lines of post about your experience with unreal guilt. I feel like I know you a bit better!

As a kid some of us were often expected to be sorry and apologise for something our angry parents accused us of. With them being adults, physical size and loudness becomes threatening for children. So off the child goes, "Yep I'm sorry I spilt the drink, I'm sorry for making you mad."

Children respond with flight, fight, freeze and fawn responses.

We run away, either physically or emotionally.

We fight hard and angry.

We freeze up and let them do whatever they're doing.

We fawn and appease, to avoid causing confrontation.

Eventually we become so appeasing people walk all over us and we accept that as life.

We might even feel guilty all the time, just to heighten our senses towards appeasing our angry parents or eventually any one else we ever meet.

[Rainshaddow]

That makes sense to me and actually rings true , I also get doubts about things that happened , I question if they happened or not , if I am remembering correctly or not ,

[Guest9337]

Yeh, issues with memory is a known problem for some people who have experienced threatening situations.

As a trauma sufferer myself, I note my memories of the incident(s) are fragmented, intensely emotional and that similar situations can provoke my anxiety responses.