For me if things go well, I sometimes keep on looking where the bad in it is. I keep thinking: Okay, this seems good, so what am I missing here? And if people are nice to me and I feel I can trust them, I get scared and want to flee and be by myself. The more I feel there is genuine contact, the more scary it is.
I was diagnosed with cPTSD as well, by the way.
Usually I am not so direct as I was with this. I am glad you still considered it respectful. I always try to be respectful, but as English is not my mother tongue I am sometimes scared that I miss some nuance or something and come across differently.
You do not need to apologise either. You have every right to express yourself. Especially when it is something personal. It is not other people's job not to trigger me. Getting reminded of things like this is just part of life. If you fight it or try to avoid it, it will become worse. So it is fine.
I wish you a lot of success with making more art!
I am sorry to hear that it is part of your life as well. Bullying someone for that is especially harsh. I am very sorry that happened to you.
I think that I reacted this way because I saw other memes and stuff making fun of anorexia or treating it very lightly. That hurts when you are still in mourning. I now understand that this is not what you meant to do and I apologize if I responded too angry.
I think another reason for it is that the picture actually triggered the memory of my sister when she was very ill in the weeks before she died. It is very difficult to explain the mixture of love and horror I felt when seeing her during that time. But your work made me think of it. This is okay, it is part of her and my life and I need to accept that. But I did not expect it and I think that I responded more emotional because of it.
I think it is in a way very good that you are able to express something that is so complex in a way that I responded to it immediately. I think it shows you have talent. I now think it was not a random trigger, but actually recognition of a shared experience.
Ik bedoelde het niet als aanval, maar ik kan me voorstellen dat het zo over kwam of in elk geval onprettig over kwam. Ik probeer me een beetje te verzetten tegen het idee dat de instroom van asielzoekers een van grootste problemen is die we hebben in Nederland. Dat is iets dat de rechtse partijen zo framen en dat lijkt heel breed over genomen te worden, vooral ook in de media. Tegelijkertijd is het feitelijk onjuist. Ik vind dat gevaarlijk en als ik dat zie gebeuren probeer ik daar iets tegenover te zetten om dat recht te trekken.
Ik interpreteerde dat je de woningcrisis en asielzoekers als enige twee voorbeelden belangrijke problemen noemde als ook het groter maken van de problemen rondom de instroom van asielzoekers dan dat ze zijn. Als je dat niet zo bedoelde, dan spijt me dat.
Yes. I always say that it seems like my mind just does not have the program to process good situations and respond. It just does not know what to do with it and starts looping and responding as if it were a bad situation but it cannot find the danger.
Much (not all) of my trauma is due to emotional neglect and psychological abuse. Someone literally baked me a cake a week ago and now part of me never wants to see them again because it feels too dangerous. :-( It takes so much effort to go back and act like everything is okay. If someone hurts me, I do not like it, but at least I know how to deal with that. It feels less dangerous.
I am sorry to hear you have experienced so much you are in the same boat. I wish it wasn't the case. I am a good responder in crisis as well. I immediately get energy and feel like I know what to do! Although in some cases I tend to underrespond.
A couple of years ago I saw some people fighting in the street. It was a typical situation where people seemed to be feeling the bystander effect and did nothing. So, I thought I should probably do something and I went calmly to the police station nearby to get them. Looking back and discussing with others that were there, in hindsight, this was a situation to run and get the police, not walk calmly. But I just thought it wasn't that big of a deal. At least I did something.
Another time the fire alarm went of at my work. I started to search the building for people that needed help to get outside or did not hear the alarm instead of going outside myself. This was not my job. We had dedicated people for that. I should have just gone outside, but my automatic behaviour was starting to try and save people. It was a false alarm, by the way, but apparently it still triggered some kind of trauma response or something. My boss was angry with me as they could not account for me outside of the building.
I think you are right. I was 'trained' to always put others first even if it harms me. So that is what I do when the alarm goes off.
Have you found stuff that works? I write a lot of letters to express what I cannot say. This helps a bit. Also, some forms of massage help me. People touching me also triggers me, but I have found a message therapist that I somewhat got used to now. EMDR only worked for some of the more recent trauma's, not for the more structural earlier ones. I recently started doing somatic experiencing as well, not sure yet whether that helps. I still have a long way to go before I start functioning normal again. (I did for a long time until suddenly I did not a couple of years ago.)