So sometimes, when I see things that remind me of some shit I saw and totally failed to deal with when I was younger, it kind of... sets me off, I guess? Like I don't get angry, but all of a sudden I start breathing hard and it's like every muscle in my torso clenches and all I can think about is how badly I need to get away from this holy mother of God do I need to get away from this. I usually feel like I'm too in the moment. Like I'm getting hit over the head with something ugly and terrible and I can't bear this. I guess kind of like the saying 'everything came crashing down around me'? Whenever I need to explain this to people I say I was triggered because that's the best word I have for it, but I feel bad because I know I'm using that word wrong and applying it to my not-serious problems (although of course at the time they're rather serious to me). In theory I guess I don't need a word except that, well, it's hard for me to explain what happened/is happening if I'm freaking out but I have to say something along the lines of 'you know, that really hit something in me that shouldn't be hit. I feel terrible and scared and need to leave this situation immediately.' Does anyone have similar experiences or know of a label for this?
on my way to bed, but... that actually sounds a lot more like being triggered than about 62% of the stuff I hear about on tumblr I mean, you see/hear/think/whatever something that reminds you of a past trauma and that causes you considerable emotional and physical distress that negatively affects your life? I would classify that as being triggered. #i am not an accredited professional
No that is very much a correct use of trigger. Panic attack might also be an accurate term. And it does sound like a very serious problem. It also sounds a bit like PTSD to me. Have you considered looking into help for this?
The reason I'm hesitant to call this a panic attack is that my breathing isn't usually so out of control that I can't breath, and I'm able to function on a very basic level - for instance, if someone called me and told me 'hey, this is very important - I need you walk to X, purchase Y, and bring it to me at Z place' then I could do it, so long as I didn't have to drive at any point (I'd definitely be too shaky and unable to focus on one single stimulus for driving to be a safe option). I'd be jumpy, hypervigilant, shaky, and scared the whole time, but I'm able to do it, whereas when I had panic attacks when I was younger (it's been a while since I'd formally say I had one, although I've skirted around that quite a bit) I was hardly able to breath and was basically incapacitated. I have actually thought about seeking therapy for this, because the older I get the more I realize that I may have a skewed worldview and be overly defensive against non-threats and way more primed to feel threatened or very frightened for someone else's safety in a non-threatening situation. The main thing stopping me from going is that nothing ever happened to me - it was a lot of really bad stuff I witnessed. And I've always figured that the general response to that would be 'wow, I can't believe you're focused on yourself when you literally walked away unscathed. Really?' Which could be partially attributed to the fact that I internalized a lot of blame for all of that, but still.
Just saying, witnessing bad stuff IS enough to give you PTSD. 8( It doesn't have to happen to you directly.
Oh no, I definitely believe that, I just kind of spent a lot of time shoving this down in my mind so I didn't have to deal with it but the more I look at my weird responses and bad reactions to certain things that I didn't quite understand at the time the more I'm like 'Actuallllyyyy... it makes sense if you remember that stuff you deliberately try not to remember'. But I think I still struggle with the fact that I've conditioned myself to think 'don't think about this, this didn't happen, it doesn't effect you, leave it alone.' So in that respect it makes it hard for me to fully acknowledge how much of a problem this really is.
Ah, gotcha. Sorry for the short reply, I'm not too wordy at the moment. But I hope you can get proper treatment, that sounds really tough. We may not be therapists here but there's some p good listeners around, if you're up for talking more, it might get you some perspective on getting help?
Thank you, I really do appreciate it. It's been years and I'm just starting to get to the point where I can open up about it. It helps to hear that I'm not just overreacting.
looks like you've already gotten advice on this and I don't have a lot of experience with this particular kind of anxiety but I wanted to add that often if you've lived with a high level of anxiety and depression for a long time you basically assume that it's normal and not a big deal when it is. I've lived with moderate-severe anxiety and depression basically my entire life and everything I thought was normal wasn't, and everything I was worried about was normal. So my advice would be not to sell yourself and your problems short. Mental stuff and trauma is really difficult to deal with. PS: /Lain avatar fistbump
(I'm glad you recognized it!) Yeah, I really do have that problem - the whole 'it's not severe'! thing. It's been made worse by the fact that I know I frustrate my friends with anxiety and depression because 'you don't ~really~ know what it's like' (I have OCD/depression combo, my friends with anxiety have Generalized Anxiety Disorder) so they think I've never dealt with anxiety or know how it feels. Which I'm pretty sure anyone with OCD can tell you that's straight up garbage because it's extremely nerve-wracking and terrible. But at the same time I know they didn't mean anything by it. Still, I think that contributed to my mentality that 'oh, I guess nothing is wrong then.'
