C-PTSD and fear of people

[Eagle Ray]

Warning: possibly trauma activating content.

I have made significant improvements in complex trauma symptoms in the past year. One of my biggest fears is that people are going to harm me which is ever-present but had lessened a lot. Then on Monday I got triggered by something that is probably not harmful but activated terror in me. It’s too much to explain the context here.

Do others have this extreme fear of people and if so is there something that you’ve found helps you?

To me it is experienced as life threatening terror. I can feel my body literally recoil from any contact with humans. Animals are safe to me but not humans. I have experienced a lot of trauma throughout my life.

Over the past week I’ve had unrelenting anxiety which yesterday also became depression which I know is a result of the anxiety not resolving. I want to run away from all people and go somewhere remote in nature. I’m also dealing with bouts of cognitive confusion linked to an autoimmune condition I have which isn’t helping.

I know self-isolation is not a good or healthy long term strategy. However, I want total isolation from people right now. It is the only way I can feel safe. It can feel like this is the only way I can be safe in life, to avoid people as much as possible, even though there is part of me that loves people and wants connection. But right now connection feels profoundly dangerous. I am back in the centre of my childhood terror.

Right now the Bruce Springsteen song Brothers Under the Bridge is speaking to me in which a Vietnam veteran tries to explain his need for isolation to his daughter. I think my grandfather was like this in how he isolated from others following traumatic war experiences. I think I’m trying to work my way out of this inherited intergenerational trauma as well.

[Eagle Ray]

Thanks Tony,

Being a prison officer would indeed help you to form boundaries out of necessity. When I think back to some jobs I’ve had, they did help me establish some boundaries, but nothing as strong as being a prison officer would.

This current person barely knows me but has decided I’m his new best friend, that I owe him attention, should be attending things with him and by the last phone message, which was quite demanding, I’m supposed to call and interact with him when he is clearly in an aggressive mood. My instincts to not answer the call were correct.

 I don’t like ghosting people, but sometimes it feels like there are contexts where for your own wellbeing it is best not to respond at all. On the other hand, sometimes it is better to clearly state a boundary with them that you don’t want further contact.

 I can see why I get fearful because attempts to reasonably communicate my boundaries as a child were violently quashed and I learned it leads to harmful outcomes. Because I expect angry pushback if I do communicate my boundary in the current situation, it’s possibly best to not put myself in harm’s way.

I can feel I need a nap now. Hopefully I’ll wake up with restored energy and a clear sense of how best to handle things. But you are right, the new Eagle does not pander to the demands of others. I’m interested in wedge-tailed eagles recently and saw a huge one on a recent trip. I will internalise the spirit of the wedge-tailed eagle! 🦅 

[Eagle Ray]

I’m just feeling exhausted from fear. My nervous system is in freeze mode again after a disturbing phone call this afternoon. I was just reading how people with C-PTSD tend to attract harmful people into their life inadvertently because of the disturbed dynamics they experienced in childhood. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times it’s happened to me, I still end up with a disturbing person attaching themselves to me. I’ve ended up in some very harmful situations before because of it. I assume certain people to be safe who turn out not to be. I just feel worn down this afternoon and this evening. I hope to feel better tomorrow.

[divine_inner_goddess]

Hi Eagle Ray, 

I haven't been keeping up with all the posts in this thread but I just saw this one this morning. 

I'm sorry to hear about the disturbing phone call. I can totally understand how that would trigger the fear all over again. And yes, it is exhausting to go through that over and over and over again. Sending you lots of healing energy. I hope you were able to get some rest last night and you're feeling a bit better today. I hope you can find some comfort armed with your knowledge, tools & supports - riding it out, nature, your psychologist, RAIN etc. 

Yesterday I had a trauma trigger but it wasn't until this morning that I figured out what set it off. I realised the trigger was an email, from my insurance case manager, just asking how I am going. Totally benign and friendly. But because of the association with the insurance company which is associated with my breakdown, it set off the fear response. I can see now that after that email yesterday I was on edge,  and little things were extremely stressful and I could not wind down and woke up feeling stressed and anxious. Then when a second email popped up from the case manager, I realised, "Ah ha", that was the trigger. I cried and let my body tremble and my partner held me in a lovely comforting hug. I feel exhausted now (I can relate to the exhaustion you descibe!), but much better having moved the energy through my body. I wouldn't have been able to do that without being able to recognise the trigger. Or without knowing that the energy is stuck and needs to be discharged. 

I guess I intuitively did the RAIN strategy again. I think I will write that down and put it up on my noticeboard as a reminder!! 

I don't know if any of that helps you at all. But, I just want to say thank you, again, for putting me on to Peter Levine, and the RAIN strategy and for sharing your experiences. It's helping me A LOT. 

Take care of yourself, 

dig

[white knight]

I hope you both are bouncing back.

When I wrote the threads "fortress of survival" (also part 2 and "workplace") - recap for others benefit - it is the development of a secure place whereby you judge strangers as to their suitability for friendship and if not you use the various doors/rooms in that fortress to keep safe. It's a process those without mental health issues often dont grow up with.  Well the word "survival" was not misplaced. When we are on a downward protectory we are really down and we must put in place strategies to counter it.

So, this leads me to triggers. Imagine you are standing at a dam wall. All your problems and triggers are the leaks in that dam but that dam is 50 metres long and your height. An email comes, you see the leak at the other side of the dam so you begin to run. You arrive and plug the leak, then you see another so you run to that and plug it. After a short time you are exhausted and the leaks, well they have one good thing- they are usually unexpected but constant. After a while you get wiser, you walk to those leaks rather than run and while walking you'll plug the odd leak on your way, up and down you'll walk and your boss will be happier because you constantly plug leaks for 8 hours a day and do it efficiently whereas earlier you exhaust yourself and go home sick.

I had to learn to pace myself in employment because of mania. It ran against my nature. So with emails and other triggers, take your time to reply if that suits you more. The emails rarely say "reply to me today". Set up a white board in your study next to your desktop and write it down. After all, if you are at home unable to work then due to that stress who is to know you cant answer emails immediately?

Triggers will always be there, its how we mould them to be suit our tolerance.

https://forums.beyondblue.org.au/t5/staying-well/triggers-that-down-you-triggers-that-lift-you/m-p/1... 

TonyWK

[Eagle Ray]

Dear dig and Tony,

Thank you so much for your caring responses. I’ve been in a very severe fear response. I was bad enough yesterday that I knew I needed help. I called the Blue Knot Foundation who help with Complex PTSD. The woman I spoke with was very attuned and present with me and I felt safer and calmer afterwards. My fear somewhat escalated later in the day and I’ve hardly been able to sleep. But I’m now in bed with exhaustion in a good way as the trauma response is starting to ease. So very much like what you describe dig, my body is starting to sense safety again which is what the exhaustion/letting go indicates.

 I was not feeling safe in my own home. Getting a stern, unpleasant phone call was really triggering for me. I’ve been through assaults before with dangerous men in what were experienced as life threatening situations. So my body responds as if I am back in those traumas and in very severe danger.

I’ve realised too that although bad things happened with my parents, I need to see the good experiences and good sides of them as well. If I focus too much on the negative it is extremely destructive to me and I start to disintegrate. It’s what has held me together over the years because there were good things in them.

Their nervous systems like mine were totally messed up by complex trauma. The difference seems to be that they were stuck in the fight-or-flight response and I go straight into freeze. I think quite a few people with uncontrolled rage have that issue. It doesn’t excuse abusive behaviour but it is a sign of extreme autonomic dysregulation and that the person needs to get help.

I’ve been reading how complex trauma is essentially a brain and nervous system injury, not a psychiatric illness. That makes a lot of sense in my case. While I’m also diagnosed with anxiety and depression I know they are offshoots of the complex trauma, the latter being the primary and much bigger issue. There is research now demonstrating that the brain and nervous system can somewhat recover in Conplex PTSD. So my goal is to recover as much as possible even though I may always be prone to some level of fear and trauma response, especially as that it is all my body has known since birth.

Dig I’m really glad that Peter Levine, RAIN etc have helped and that you are doing better since your trigger and you have that loving support from your partner. And Tony I agree that pacing oneself helps. Finding a secure place from which to judge strangers as you mention is also really important and something I am trying to learn. Thanks again 🙏

[white knight]

Hi ER,

If you choose I'd be very interested in what you recall are the good deeds, qualities of your parents and at what ages you were when changes came about in them. 

TonyWK 

[Eagle Ray]

Both of my parents were rageful and highly stressed from my earliest memory. I think from photos my Dad was happier and more nurturing when I was a small baby which I can see in photos but by the time of my first birthday he had gone into rage and you can see that change in the photos too.

But at their core both my parents were good and kind. When I was a kid my Dad was in the city. An Aboriginal woman was looking really unwell. Everyone else ignored her and walked past. Dad asked her if he could call a taxi to get her to the hospital. She said yes. He waited with her but when the driver saw her he just drove away - racist. So Dad asked her if he could call an ambulance for her. She said yes and he waited with her till the ambulance arrived. He would never walk past a person in trouble.

Mum helped kids with learning difficulties as a volunteer. This was brave of her because she was terrified of the world. But it was her attempt to reach outside of herself to help others. She genuinely cared about people. It’s just the doing of the caring was so challenging. When you’ve had a mother who abused and beat you as she experienced, how do you feel safe to reach out to the world? It’s really hard. So I’m proud of my Mum that she tried to do something like this.

If Mum knew someone was having a hard time she would phone to check in on them. Yes, it’s ironic she didn’t check in with me growing up, but I realised she had dissociated from me at birth. Being a parent was pure terror for her. But she cared about people and phoning them was a non-threatening way of being able to provide support to others at a distance - less frightening for her.

As a kid I did athletics. I was in a running race and put in a big effort at the end. People were cheering me from the sidelines. Mum said to me afterwards she had tears come up hearing them cheer. That was an early clue I remember registering that my Mum did actually care about me.

My Dad mellowed in my 20s and was able to tell me he loved me one day. I realise looking back me never once hugged me (except as a small baby from photos) but I know he loved me and his family meant everything to him because of the loss and neglect he’d experienced as a child.

When I was 33 I wrote a song for my Mum and played it to her for her birthday at an open mic event I performed at. I drew on the love we shared of certain things in nature. Afterwards she said, “It was a special day when you came into the world.” Once home I cried for about 2 hours after that. It was as close as she could get to expressing love for me, and was said in her usual distant way (fearful reticence), but I know it meant everything to her to be acknowledged in that way and helped her feel a bit like someone, even her own child, might actually love her, as she felt so profoundly unloveable due to the nature of her childhood abuse.

She struggled to the end and died broken hearted. My brother had a go at her without understanding her and she completely unravelled in her last year. We had built up a connection in those final years where there was some real trust, then it all broke and I watched her disintegrate. Both my parents are at peace now. I know they were good people who were severely traumatised. I actually have huge gratitude for the efforts they made despite their trauma.

[Eagle Ray]

I cried a lot this morning when I wrote the above post, but it is actually grief that is good to come out. I had a Bowen Therapy appointment this afternoon which really eased a lot of the activation in my nervous system. A couple of hours later it was winding up again and now it is subsiding again.

What I have learned in my case is that people are complex beings and there will be many reasons for the things they do and everything that has made them who they are. I remember my Dad screaming at me aged 8 because he thought I had crossed an intersection on my bike on too much of a diagonal instead of a right angle. I had looked carefully for cars and signalled I was turning right with my right arm, but he just screamed and screamed at me. I stopped my bike by the road and a nice man on his bike coming the other way stopped and asked me, "Are you ok?" with my Dad continuing to scream in the background. I think I said yes in some way and he looked concerned but I think didn't know what to do so continued on, but it was like a glimpse into the world of a balanced adult who doesn't yell at you irrationally. So I had this vague sense that somehow my family dynamics were not quite normal, but you have to kind of normalise it to live in it.

A few years later I would learn that my Dad witnessed the deaths of an adult and several children in his late teenage years in a horrible accident. I can see looking back that him screaming at me was likely the intense fear response that children can die suddenly and unexpectedly, so as brutal as it seemed at the time, the irrational screaming was probably coming from a real mix of fear and concern. No one back then got any kind of help after exposure to a traumatic incident, and that among many other things that happened to my Dad in his first 20 years were traumatic imprints on him.

Likewise, everything my mother ever did that was harmful stemmed from fear. Rescue dogs will do the same behaviours because they have been mistreated. They will seem very dangerous, snarling and showing aggression. I've watched some episodes of a new TV show, A New Leash On Life, where they take a dog from the pound and help the dog start to trust and feel safe again, before finding a suitable new home for that dog. You really see the dog transform into this loving animal when they know they are safe and loved.

With my Mum, in the last few years she was making something of this kind of shift, despite some ongoing upsetting events and the struggle of my Dad's illness in his final years. There were real signs of healing and her beginning to understand her own reactions and behaviours. I was sharing everything I had been learning about trauma and she was getting it and beginning to apply it in her own life. She tried her best to be brave within the limitations she had. I know at the time of her death, just metres away in the operating theatre in the hospital, her spirit was with me and my brother. She was at peace now, as is my Dad.

They were actually both very brave with everything they went through in life. It was just really tough that life felt like a matter of life and death for them so much of the time. That is the nature of unresolved post-traumatic stress. What I am working on now is breaking the pattern. I have good support with an excellent psychologist, physical therapy help from the Bowen therapist who has an interest in helping people with trauma, and I have the tenacity and resourcefulness that I actually inherited from my parents, because they had to find those things within themselves to keep going at all.

I have a need to resolve that which is broken and fragmented. I have a very strong drive to do that. And I know that by mending myself I mend the past. I am healing the past for those who came before me and the future for those who come after me. I am a bit too old for having my own children now, but I want to be a healing influence for whoever I come into contact with as I go forward. There is a Native American saying I have heard that when you heal yourself, you heal 7 generations before you and 7 generations after.

I feel that as the healing unfolds my fear of people will get less and less. I just wanted to share those hopeful thoughts.

[Doolhof]

Hi Eagle Ray,

I have just read your recent post. My heart goes out to you and to the memory of your parents before you. I don't know why some people seem to be so affected by trauma and others who experience something similar seem to be able to move on more easily. 

Why do our minds and bodies hold on to so much pain, conflict and confusion? 

Triggers can certainly deplete us and make us feel like we need to shut down, escape, rescue out selves and shut ourselves away so we feel safe.

I am thankful that you, myself and other s have this safe place to express ourselves. 

The words of understanding, care, acknowledgement and support are not coming to my mind right now, I just wanted to let you know that in part I recognise the anguish you are experiencing and I hope you find ways to get through this.

Deepest regards from Dools

[Eagle Ray]

Thank you kindly Dools.

One thing that has really helped me understand how and why the nervous system acts and responds the way it does is Polyvagal Theory developed by Stephen Porges. There is a good video on YouTube where he explains it quite well in discussion with a psychotherapist. The title of the YouTube clip is:

Stephen Porges - Polyvagal Theory: How Your Body Makes the Decision 

I think our minds and bodies hold onto the pain, conflict and confusion as a survival response. We are evolved to go into fight-or-flight or freeze responses rapidly and spontaneously, and this system is designed to override our conscious brain processing because otherwise our reactions would be too slow when we encounter something potentially dangerous. For people carrying trauma, such as in PTSD, these processes get stuck because the trauma was severe enough in its impact combined with a lack of reparative influences at the time of the trauma, that the system is stuck in overdrive. In addition, some of us inherit a susceptibility for this tendency via epigenetics which refers not to the genes themselves changing but whether they are expressed or not. Where there are family histories of trauma there can be an epigenetic vulnerability to getting stuck in these responses. So certain genes associated with these responses get switched on (the good news being they can also be switched off by environmental influences just as they were switched on by them, and there is a lot of research in this area now).

Stephen Porges explains, via his use of the term neuroception, how our brains search for potential risk in the environment as well as for safety. This is an unconscious automated process. If we sense safety the nervous system can go into parasympathetic rest-and-digest mode. If there is a potential danger perceived the sympathetic nervous system activates - fight-or-flight. If we are overwhelmed and can’t escape we freeze which is another component of the parasympathetic nervous system that is extremely primal.

If you have early life complex trauma these emergency responses are overactive and change the developing brain. So it’s possible to have ongoing challenges into adulthood with feeling safe, regulating fear and emotions, and being able to use the prefrontal cortex to down regulate those reactions.

 A lot of therapy is top-down, such as CBT, trying to use the conscious brain to change thoughts and behaviour. But for people with trauma this often doesn’t work because the intense fear responses override the prefrontal cortex which is non-voluntary, as anyone with PTSD knows. That’s why there have been increasing approaches that are bottom-up instead of top-down, starting with where the nervous system is at. Once the nervous system starts to develop some regulation, then it is easier to bring some conscious cognitive approaches online.

I was really drawn to these somatic-based approaches as things like CBT absolutely didn’t work for me, especially as the trauma responses in my body started at a preverbal, precognitive stage at the very beginning of life. My psychologist does co-regulation with me, being really present with me at a nervous system level in the way my parents were supposed to have co-regulated with me but were not able to. Gradually my nervous system is learning that safety exists which in turn has huge benefits for how my body is working (regulating better) and for my health. It is a bumpy journey at times as it always will be trying to recover from early life trauma, but I have made great progress over the past year in particular.

Sorry for long explanation, but trying to give hope that these things can shift and change. I know you’ve had a challenging journey too Dools, so sending you lots of care and support.