On seeking escape and safety; emotional numbness; self-delusion

 The concept of 'self' is fascinating. Not just because of the importance that is given to it, but also due to how it ties into how it affects how one experiences the world. One's 'self' is not a static thing. It grows and changes, just like one's personality, ultimately forming one's ego. Basically how one experiences and responds to the world around them.

This also means that one's experiencing of the reality around oneself doesn't necessarily have to match up with the facts. One of the amazing things about the human brain is its ability to predict the future, not only with the outcome of physical actions, but also in a social sense. This ability to run a simulated version of reality is also one of the major weaknesses, as this 'simulation' can grow stronger than reality and real sensory inputs.

When one talks about emotional numbness in response to traumatic events, this is essentially when this simulation ability reroutes real inputs and thoughts related to said events. Effectively one 'shuts out' the undesirable impulses and thoughts. Short-term this is an amazingly useful ability, that allows one to get through moments of trauma and adversity. Long-term one can loose one's self completely and one's connection with reality along with it.


I first noticed this strongly more than a decade ago, when I found suddenly that while watching a show on television, I suddenly could no longer 'feel' the characters on-screen, while this previously had not been an issue. This was in a period when my physical and mental health were degrading rapidly after moving houses a few times amidst traumatic circumstances. Physically I looked like a ghost, with clumps of hair falling out and overall poor health, while psychologically I had essentially lost all contact with the world.

Mostly thanks to my mother's care during that time did I make somewhat of a recovery, and began to notice that only did my health improve, I also regained my sense of smell, which had vanished without me even having noticed it. This made it clear to me just how far this 'psychological numbness' can go. Not only does it numb one's emotions, it literally numbs one's senses along with it, even if there is no physical cause for the loss of smell, touch, taste and hearing.

Although I am still making a recovery in that regard, it delights me every time when I notice that I can smell more, feel more, empathise more and basically feel more alive. The awareness of one's own body, of it existing in this reality. Not as some abstract entity defined by something as nonsensical as a social role or gender preference, but as a real, flesh-and-blood, breathing, living human being. I am my self, and not something others have made up.


In that regard, I think it's pretty terrible to think back to when I was still feeling so lost in that regard. Even when I wasn't in any immediate threat over the past years, I still knew on a fundamental level that I had lost my sense of self, of belonging and safety. Unable to deal with changes as a result, and fundamentally incapable of seeing a way out of my situation on multiple occasions, I felt trapped. Where does one even go to? Where can one go to? Where is safe? What is safety?

So many times that I just left the place where I was staying at that point in time, to walk outside for hours. Often during the winter, wearing too little clothing. Returning eventually, often with the first signs of hypothermia. Because I knew that I could walk out of the door, but I had nowhere to go. No matter how bad things got. I was always trapped.

I think that's what ultimately drove me to honestly consider taking my own life. In a sense it offered me the escape and safety which I was craving for at that point in time. Having run all the simulations and crunched all the numbers, it was the only option that I felt was still open to me. I'm pretty sure that it was because of my mother once again taking care of me and allowing me to heal and recover in a safe environment that I am still writing this today.

And not just my mother. Others were also there at crucial times, to provide that support and taking off some of the load when things felt like they were escalating out of control again. I feel that I literally owe my life to every single one of those people. Which is where it is frustrating to me to still deal with so much of this emotional numbness today, along with the lack of social skills on account having lived so socially withdrawn since I was five years old. How do you undo decades of emotional trauma and lack of development in a matter of months?

Feeling so socially awkward is one of the worst feelings I know today, even more so when I know that reading a social situation wrong can have severe negative repercussions. Maybe it's that I missed out on learning all of that, but I do not think that all this guessing involved in social situations is very fun or enjoyable, especially when I spend 99% of that time questioning everything I say or do. Guess it says a lot that at any party worthy of such description I'd prefer to just find one or more people to talk about technological, scientific or geo-political topics, rather than be forced to 'have fun'.

There's also the awkwardness when someone seeks to surprise you, with a gift, or similar. Like this time when I got a cryptic note from a friend, telling me that there was something for me in this one location, I think. That led me to finding this packaged up bundle, which I awkwardly opened after doing everything I could to make sure that it was something that I should be unwrapping. Inside the package I found a backpack filled with supplies and everything needed to 'make an escape', according to the note inside. Just a bag you can grab whenever you need to get away from things and can walk out of the door without without a second thought.

That was a gift that confused me in many ways. To my knowledge we had never talked about such a thing, and I was unpleasantly reminded of all those times when I was walking for the sake of walking, to get away from all those troubles that would ultimately drive me to the ultimate act of desperation. Because back then I knew that there was no escape, and no getting away from things.

But maybe I was too weak? Too cowardly? I do not know.


All I know is that to me 'feeling safe' is the most important thing of all, whether it is inside one's own mind, at the place where one lives, or whenever one is travelling. Being in control is an important factor there, I think. The knowledge that you are in control of your mind, your body, your immediate surroundings and that your travel preparations were sufficient and everything is going swimmingly. That you can stop focusing on those aspects and instead focus on the things in life that truly matter, whether it are friends, family, hobbies, pets or any other pursuits.

I feel that I'm slowly regaining this sense of control, enjoying the way it changes what I see in the mirror, how I see and experience the world and how it's enabling me to focus more on those things in life that matter, instead of the tediousness of surviving one day at a time.


Of course, all of this is just the version of reality that is playing in my head now, so maybe I'll look back on what I just wrote here in a few years the same way that I now cringe at blog posts I wrote a few years back.

What does it mean when you feel that you don't like this past version of yourself much?


Maya

School as a source of cruelty and humiliation

 There's a lot of unpleasantness one can deal with through simple emotional numbness as a coping mechanism. Problem is generally the aftermath, when the limitations of that numbness become clear. It seems that often, one of the consequences is that the emotional trauma is still there and still doing damage, but one cannot place why one feels a particular way, because the numbness has blocked direct access to the memories.

Much of therapy appears to be focused on easing those blockages, to regain access to those memories so that one can give those disturbing feelings and thoughts a place. For me it appears that my mind has decided to unblock a lot of memories regarding my time at school.


The most amazing thing about bullying and cruelty towards others is probably that there was no real reason. Finding myself submerged in those old memories of primary and high school again it hits me just how cruel and unrelenting the bullying and other actions were. It wasn't just that I didn't get picked during PE classes when teams had to be formed even though I wasn't clumsy or bad at sports. It was mostly things like having dozens of students seek me out to stand around me whether between classes or during breaks, to hurl insults at me.

There were also the moments when I was attacked, such as getting punched in the gut, or that time when this fellow student at primary school saw fit to spit into my face right before classes resumed. I didn't tell the teachers about either. In the latter case I used some dirt to mostly scrub off the disgusting smelling saliva before heading back to the classroom while pretending nothing happened. Ignoring bullying was supposed to be the best strategy to deal with it, after all.

The teachers and parents of the students involved all knew that something was going on, of course. It's hard to keep such large scale bullying a secret, especially when it gets so large that when I cycled back home one time there was this whole group of students on bicycles trying to block the road. I never bothered to ask anyone what they would have done if I hadn't slipped past them.

All of this took up most of my primary school time, although the last few years got a bit more quiet after I had apparently beaten up the main bully (which I do not recall at all). Him and I became friends for years afterwards. I guess it is true what they say about some people turning their loneliness or dissatisfaction with their life into bullying others.

I guess I did take that lesson to heart, so that when I found myself getting bullied again in HS, I singled out this one fellow student during PE class and slapped him in the face, then apologised to him when the teacher pulled us aside. Remembering the feelings at the time, I felt no hate or anything to those bullies, only anger at constantly being made fun of and humiliated.


As someone who is sensitive to stress-induced migraines, I found that the bullying was causing me to start getting those migraines with aura, to the tune of at least once a week during the second year. I think that puberty made my susceptibility to migraines a lot worse, with them really ramping up around that time until they mostly stopped some years ago. Combining migraines, bullying and the constant feeling of being an outcast did not serve to make me feel like I enjoyed school in any sense. It was required to attend school, but I was always happy again to be back home, where it was safe.

The last few years of HS were less stressful, however. Even though I lost fellow outcast friends when they went to other schools, I eventually ended up with this small group of friends who accepted each other without question. It was with them that I did nerdy things, such as playing Magic the Gathering card games in the cafeteria during breaks. And those times were great.


I'm glad to have so many of these memories related to that period covering my childhood and teenage years coming back now. It gives me a better perspective on the past which formed the person I am today. Even though it shows me mostly scenes of a period in my life that I do not like to remember, it makes me understand more things about myself which didn't make sense before with just the memories of other traumatic parts of my life, such as the child abuse trauma or medical system trauma.

I still do not really get why I got bullied so much, to the point of physical violence against me. Maybe it was just something about my attitude or whatever. Maybe it doesn't really matter. All that matters is that I got those memories back now so that I can direct my energy at processing them and giving them a place, instead of getting frustrated at the parts of my mind that do not make sense.


Maya

PTSD, personal responsibility and being able to live with yourself

 Reading back my recent post on 'the selfishness of PTSD' [1], I cannot help but feel that I blundered in writing it. Even though it was sincere, it was also heavily biased, more written from my own desires and emotions at the time than objective truth. Reading what I wrote again, it reads as if I am making excuses. That the actions of someone who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder are never their fault. I vehemently disagree with that notion.

For a while now I have been considering writing about being able to live with yourself when you can remember things you did in the past, even if they were likely because of the consequences of the traumatic experiences. I can remember countless social situations where I just had to get away, because I didn't feel comfortable or felt unsafe, leaving me to later consider the impressions this must have left on others. Then the times when me misunderstanding something resulted in someone else getting upset or felt hurt. Then being incapable of fixing this or apologising properly.

Worst of all are the times when I hurt others, or reacted in a way that was decidedly aggressive or even violent. Even if it involved me blacking out and beating up that one bully during primary school, that's still not something which I am proud of. If there's the risk of losing myself to those impulses, that doesn't mean that I, or for that matter anyone else with PTSD, shouldn't have the obligation to do our utmost to apply at least some level of control.

As the Canadian Veterans Affairs says on their site:

Try not to use your PTSD or your war experiences as an excuse for hurting yourself or others. There is no excuse for being violent, aggressive, or otherwise mistreating other human beings. It is important that you take responsibility for your own behaviour. [2]

As I have mentioned previously in earlier posts, during depressive moods especially I often feel that I am worthless. Usually I can see all my failures over the years, the times where my actions hurt myself or others in some way. And the crushing feeling of how sorry I am that I'm such a terrible person. It's not okay that I hurt myself either, whether it is through words, thoughts or physical actions that inflict pain or damage.

It's easy to use the excuse that I have had to deal with the effects of PTSD practically without professional help, but that's not an acceptable excuse. All one can do is do better, or stop trying and give up. Yet all without ending up hurting oneself in the process. Or others. PTSD recovery should be about safety and getting away from the trauma. PTSD recovery can only happen when one feels that the traumatic events are behind one. Being hurt by others is bad. Hurting oneself is bad. Hurting or lashing out at others is worse.


From a blog post by someone who suffered PTSD due to a traumatic religious background [3], the following:

Living through trauma can make us feel like we don’t have control. We certainly didn’t have control of our lives during the traumatic event or events. It’s important for trauma survivors to understand we do have control of how we react. Thinking that we have no control over our emotional reactions is part of our traumatic wound. We may not be able to control whether or not our heart starts racing after being triggered, but we absolutely do have control over how we respond to someone who has said or done something triggering. We aren’t puppets being controlled by the past.

Here the phrase "Thinking that we have no control over our emotional reactions is part of our traumatic wound." jumps out at me, as this is exactly the point where past and present start mingling together. Often childhood trauma seem to take the shape of an almost subconscious desire to replicate the trauma over and over in the present. This is the part where one has to break with the past, and with it the trauma.

This same sentiment is echoed by an article over at Providence by Marc LiVecche [4]. It starts off with describing how Sarah Palin used PTSD in 2016 as an excuse for her son's recent arrest during which he was charged with domestic violence against his girlfriend. It's beyond the pale that a PTSD diagnosis would absolve anyone from any personal responsibility. Even a PTSD sufferer still understands the difference between right and wrong and that hurting another, innocent person is wrong in every applicable sense of the word.


Finally, there has been a lot of research on PTSD the past decades. Anthony Charuvastra, et al. [5] explore the unique nature of human-generated traumatic events (e.g. abuse and neglect), examining the effect of childhood abuse in particular, the long-term neurological and social impact and possible treatment methods.

From such research we can learn that while yes, the physiological and neurological impact is often permanent and severe, it does not turn a childhood abuse victim in a 'puppet of the past'. We are still our own person, even if we have seen and gone through more than anyone should ever have to deal with.

In a similar vein, I do not, or at least should not feel attacked or uncomfortable when someone rightfully points out flaws in my reasoning or behaviour. As long as it is done in a manner that is respectful (between fellow human beings) and with the intention to help, not hurt. Because hurting others or oneself is never cool or okay.

Which should really be the motto for humanity as a whole, I guess.


Maya



[1] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-selfishness-of-post-traumatic.html
[2] https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/health-support/mental-health-and-wellness/understanding-mental-health/ptsd-warstress
[3] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/waystationinthewilderness/2019/06/1404/
[4] https://providencemag.com/2016/01/490/
[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2722782/