Trying to Stay Grounded

Right now is a real struggle to not dissociate. I spend a lot of time trying to focus on solid things or tactile sensations. Something cold. Walking  on carpet in bare feet. Always live streaming content to have something to focus on. But it's also a real struggle to screen everything.

If I don't have to go somewhere, many times I just stay home and focus on what's around me. I want to feel safe in my own home. I don't want to be bombarded with pain. Because many times you are. You can't just sit bak and do nothing. You have to fight back.

Sometimes I'm so wiped out that I just sit and do nothing. You just want to feel safe, and not always being attacked.

Nightmares still happen. At other times, there's nothing. This is your system taking a break? I'm not sure.

Screen everything. Because weird triggering stuff comes out of nowhere. You have to protect yourself.

Have a good day. Also, more links coming soon.

Fighting to Stay Focused

It' s been a rough week. Almost every day feels like pain. You wake up and try to go thru your day. But everything is pain. Triggering content is everywhere. Which means that many days are silent. You just want to feel safe.

Many days you feel like you're being bombarded. Sights, sounds, flashbacks, the pain of being raped. Nobody listens and nobody cares. You have to fight back. You can't just sit back and do nothing. Just "going with your feelings" doesn't work. You want to feel safe and feel like someone is actually listening to you.

Is anyone paying attention to you? On really bad days, we just sit and want peace and quiet. It's not safe to go outside and potentially attacking someone. You don't have agoraphobia. That's not the problem. The problem is that you have to think about both your safety and the safety of others.

The constant stress of trauma totally drains your energy level. At times I can barely move. Try walking from the car to my front door. Just carrying a few bags. You feel like you're 100 years old. Going up and down stairs is exhausting. You go into a crowded place, and everything is a threat. You strike back first. How do we go thru a crowded place and not black out? We want to scream and just run away.

What happens if we black out and one of my multiples lashes out? It's been a long time since that's happened. But what if it does?

I'm not insane
I'm not a danger to anyone
I have no desire to hurt either myself or anyone else
Just because I was raped by three pedophiles, I have no desire to rape an innocent little kid

Bear with me if gaps happen between posts. I'm still here. Just struggling to keep going.

Let's Focus

Hi. Sorry to be away for a while. The past week's been really long and hectic. 5 job interviews and struggling to balance that with symptoms. How do you focus and not cry in the middle of a job interview?

It seems like triggering stuff is everywhere. Can you trust anybody or anything? Much of the time I feel like I'm about six steps ahead of everybody else. Am I the only person that sees that this isn't normal? Am I the only one that sees that this needs to stop? Yet, it goes on because that's how the "real world" works?

Not always, but at times despair and feeling abandoned are there. You don't want to hurt yourself or anybody else. Despite that, it feels like all the pain and frustration of being a rape survivor is hitting all at once. How do you not feel abandoned? How do you fight back so it doesn't feel like everyone who laughed at you and treated you like dirt is trying to beat you down so you'll just shut up? You didn't ask for this. But that doesn't matter?

Body pain and violent dissociating still happen. You go out, drive somewhere and feel like you're in downtown Kabul. Is everything and everyone a threat? Is the person walking in front of you carrying a semi-automatic and will kill you? Is the person next to you a psycho rapist that will go down on you, cut your throat, rape you and then laugh about it? Will anybody listen to you or help you? What do you do when you feel like nobody will listen?

When you try to ground yourself and you can't, what does that do to your system? How are you supposed to function when your feel totally wiped out all the time?

Meditation and other things can help in different combinations. Then again, what happens when they don't? The fear and despair is there. If everyone says just shut the f**k up and go away, what do you do then?

You can't control what others do and say. On the other hand, being a normal human being with emotions, you're not a light switch. Just turn all of this off and it magically goes away?

How do you cope when you literally can't move? Either because you're exhausted from trying not to black out. Or, from despair?

I could go around the corner to a liquor store and get almost anything I want. What good would that do?

Protect yourself as best you can. If something feels bad, it probably is. Therefore, trust that and do something else.

I know I'm not "weird" in any way. I'm not psycotic, deranged and I don't have any type of disability. I just want to be able to have some sense of balance and not feel under attack all the time.

Now, how do you do that when it feels like 99% of the world just doesn't care?