PTSD and Trauma recovery

[dark_crystal]

Originally Posted by dark_crystal

I had an insight last week about why i always feel so sick with shame and dread the day after family/social/work functions that require extended interpersonal interactions with people who have not made my "safe" list.

I always spend the whole next day ruminating over my behavior and looking for shameful things that i did that might match up with the horrible feeling of having exposed myself.

In the past i have usually been able to identify some comment i made that seems thoughtless in retrospect and then i will connect all of my yucky feelings with that, and just shame myself for whatever i have identified as my own bad behavior.

Earlier this month, though, i spent a day feeling shamed about my behavior at an author event-- but, try as i might, i just could not find anything i had done that justified the shame.

Like, i had not spoken to anyone at all-- i just came in looking beautiful and sat listening respectfully, then waited in line to have my book signed and thanked the author for coming. Then i went home and i did not actually interact with anyone except the author and the lady next to me who asked my favorite of the author's titles. There was nothing at all in my own behavior that i could pin the yucky feelings to.

Last weekend the same thing happened. I had a very intense day at my dad's birthday, with four different traumatizers in the mix, and the next day i felt shame and regret and i still could not identify anything i had done that was at all problematic.

I have figured out that i am not feeling shame and regret, i am feeling exposure and vulnerability, and that these are not connected to my behavior.

Being around unsafe people makes me feel vulnerable and exposed, but i cannot function in the situation with those emotions at the surface, so i seal them up and push them down while the interaction is happening. The next day, when i am safely out of the situation, the feelings come to the surface to be felt and then i assign them a cause from my own behavior because i was raised to blame myself for everything.

Here's the rest of the story about my dad's birthday: I could not remember any bad behavior, but i could not remember going to bed, either.

I remembered my sister and i saying goodbye to the last of our cousins and then coming upstairs, where my mom was feeding the kids and my dad.

I remembered we sat down and ate with them and then moved to the couch.

Because i did not remember what happened after that, I convinced myself i must have then gotten blackout drunk and showed my ass, even though i had been extremely vigilant about drinking all day (bc at the last family beach house party my uncle publicly denounced my marriage over lunch and i DID get a little sideways, although not to the blackout or ass-showing level, just designated-driver level.)

I have been waiting two weeks for the lecture i was sure Mr. Jenny had been sitting on about my bad behavior, then...

Last night in the car she started laughing about the whole family falling asleep on the beach house sofa after dinner, how i barely woke up enough to move to the bedroom, and how she tried to wake me up by jiggling my boobs and my sister was like "i don't think that's going to do it."

Then the whole family went to bed!

Everything was just as innocent as could be (except the nonconsensual boob action), but i woke up before dawn the next day just sick with shame, and i laid there for three hours convinced that everyone was mad at me, i was on my way to an intervention and possibly inpatient treatment, and maybe would not be allowed to be around the kids anymore.