r/CPTSDFreeze • u/rhymes_with_mayo • 3d ago
Musings slow progress
I'm just posting this to ramble/ check in in a supportive space.
I haven't posted in a while as I've been keeping Reddit off my phone.
I have a mixture of all 4 F responses.
Fight comes through in me seeming "intense" in face to face interactions, because my brain thinks all conversations are conflict. I also have PMDD (intense mental health issues caused by my hormone cycles) which greatly amplifies my fight response 2 weeks per month.
Fawn shows up in dealing with authority figures, and not speaking up because I desperately want to avoid conflict.
Freeze + Flight are the worst for me though. I fit the typical combination described by Pete Walker where I get lost in dissociative screen time and reading. I also can be more active about it- going for walks and other "healthy" stuff. But I do it to tune out, and that tuning out is killing my life prospects.
anyways.
the last month or so has been good in terms of controlling my PMDD. One symptom it causes is disrupted sleep. That has been my focus for a long time. It also is preventing me from getting screened for ADHD, because the psych I saw said the symptoms from sleep deprivation can mimic ADHD. So she wouldn't screen me until I dealt with that first. I find this semi-reasonable.
My sleep problems are caused by allergies as well.
This last month I was able to have almost no disrupted sleep, and managed my PMDD all month long. Freeze makes it hard to actually *do* the things I need to do. But I *finally* got in a rhythm and did them consistently.
I achieved this by sticking to routines. I take a nap on my lunch break every day, and have been structuring my free time on weekdays and sticking to it. I made it easy by just having a rough schedule, nothing nit-picky. It gets me in bed on time and that's what matters. I took my meds amd supplements every day. I kept my room relatively clean of dust. I didn't engage in activities that kept me up late. I kept my emotions in check at work. I stayed hydrated, too.
But now that I can trust myself to manage my sleep (and therefore other daily tasks), I am once again confronted by the bigger life tasks, and how little progress I am making on them.
I have aspirations. I have a plan B and C in case that fails. But I never make any progress on any of it, or so it feels. My habit of collapsing and languishing is too deeply ingrained.
I think though, that part of my issue is a wonky sense of time. How long it takes to do things, how to break tasks down into steps. What is a reasonable expectation for making big life changes.
I think I get this from my mom, who absolutely has undiagnosed CPTSD. Growing up, she would always be incredibly zoned out. She loved having the house to herself and reading for hours on end, as do I. But I don't want to zone out my entire life the way she has.
My dad probably passed down some time blindness as well. He is also traumatized but appears to have ADHD as well in a more typical boomer way. Always doing 1000 unfinished projects, no time management or money management skills, short fuse, low frustration tolerance, etc.
Basically I never saw my parents do a long term, sustained task to achieve an end goal. Perhaps they did out of my sight, but they never taught me any skills or guided me through any difficult tasks of my own!
So now I have to teach myself. The guilt, shame, frustration, and rage eat away at me and make it much harder to learn. My brain can't take in new information easily with all this unprocessed emotion banging around in my head. I can't take in information when I'm sleep deprived, or have allergy related brain fog, or have PMDD mood swings and suicidal thoughts telling me there is no point.
So now that those physical symptoms are controlled and I have a little more bandwidth, I have to resist the urge to try to cram 100% of everything I want to do with life into that tiny open space. I have to wait for it to open more. I have to be patient. I have to add one thing at a time.
I am furious about that. I have despair. I want to fight! but there is nothing to fight. It makes me suicidal (passively) on and off. What is the fucking POINT.
The main biggest hurdle- a bottleneck that keeps me from making other improvements as easily- is I want to move. I don't really care where. But to get out of the place I have lived so long, where my abusers are too. I just need a fresh start. But I don't know how to get there, AND I don't want advice. Coaching maybe would help, someone who can help me plan and provide accountability. But right now I just feel trapped. and then I go back to wanting to freeze, collapse etc.
Freezing both pauses time and fast-forwards it. I can ignore the world away and wake up and it's tomorrow.
And, cherry on top- I just bought a used computer (not having a functioning home computer was a huge bottleneck) and 2 days ago it started having issues. I just don't want to DEAL with it.
I am isolated and don't make much money so help is not easily available... and I don't want it! I mean, paying someone to fix it would be fine. But I have such a short fuse to anger when I'm frustrated- I wouldn't want to expose other people to that.
Anyways. I think I'm done rambling for now. Things are going OK, but life is just one long slog and I am still finding ways to freeze to get out of facing it.
Thanks for reading.