(Untitled)

[tiamatschild]

It's amazing how much of a fret I can get into sometimes. The strange thing about it is that I have to remember that I am not necessarily fretting about whatever my brain has latched onto as being reason I'm fretting. In fact, I'm probably not. I'm just scared, so I'm trying to hang that fear onto something. Lots of convincing myself I hurt someone

Comments

[tainry]

Sourcing the Nile! A clever and possibly v helpful way of thinking about that! ::SNUGS!::

[tiamatschild]

*snugsnug!* Thanks! It's really tempting, because that's the intuitively obvious paradigm we're taught, right? "Where is this really coming from?" (And in my case the answer is often 'nowhere in particular, my fight or flight system is just borked.' Though sometimes there is an actual trigger, and it's good to address those.) And it works for many people! It's a legitimate skill! Just.

[tainry]

Oh! I see! I was thinking, wellll, if it were me, I'd hate to try tracking down what I was *really* afraid of because that would likely be p unpleasant! But... So knowing your f/f system is borked also helpful though? Ah, okay, addressing actual triggers. Skill. With caveats. ::nods::
::hugs!::

[tiamatschild]

If I have been triggered by something specific, it's usually much less unpleasant than the feeling itself, or all the obscuring stuff my brain is pulling up! For an example: last week I had one of my obsessions triggered by, ironically enough, a trigger warning. It took me about four hours to figure out what was going on, and then another three to deal with the specific trigger and the obsession, but I wasn't up all night, and the actual trigger was really entirely harmless. Sometimes what I'm actually worried about is deeply unpleasant, but even then, if it's triggering an obsessive/compulsive pattern it's usually less unpleasant than the pattern itself.

Knowing my f&f system is borked is kind of helpful? It can be scary knowing that, too, because it makes actual threat evaluation more difficult. But on the other hand, just the fact that I have elevated levels of fear compared to most people makes that evaluation difficult just in and of itself, and knowing how that works for me means I have options between treating every time I'm

[playswithworms]

Hugs!

Oh tumblr *facepalm*

I love the metaphor of your brain trying to find a source of the fear like trying to find the source of the Nile - I think I do something like this mostly at night, sometimes, when my brain is insisting on finding something to worry about. Doesn't matter what it is - if I wake up enough to talk myself out of worrying about it, it latches on to some other ridiculous thing (that email I should have worded differently! That time ten years ago when I did that thing that was so embarassing!) as soon as I start drifting off to sleep and I end up clenched in a panicky knot of tension until I wake myself up enough again to realize that that stupid thing ten years ago is perhaps not worth worrying myself silly over at present. Mostly the result of a lot of internalized work stress these last few years, I think, better now, and if I get in that cycle I've been mitigating it by listening to my favorite books on auto-narrate (I have a Kindle now, it'll even read fanfic!), works most of the time.

[tiamatschild]

The creepy Probably Stolen antiquities tumblr is ungodly creepy but I don't think it's actually violating the terms of service. :/ :/ :/

Ooooooh yeeesss, it gets bad at night! Audiobooks are such a good way to short circuit the tangle of associations if you can, for sure! I think it's the whole - latching onto a voice and following the train of someone else's thought thing. I use Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels for that a lot when it's working for me. Sometimes you even just dream the book that way!