The Number One Reason Traumatized People Pull Away

isolating is an almost Universal symptom of PTSD from childhood or for anyone with wounds from trauma there's what it looks like from the outside and then there's what it's like in here the real reason that we shy away from other people even when we want more than anything to have love and connection in our lives so isolating can take the form of totally avoiding other people but in its more covert form it can look like you know going to the social event even acting friendly but then avoiding being real with people holding them at arms length with small talk never really joining them in any kind of bonding activity for a person who gets triggered by people isolating often feels like it's the right and best and most self-caring thing that you can do in the moment when you have to make the decision about whether to go out with a friend or go to a party or invite someone to dinner well there's a temptation to make an excuse in the short term because it relieves stress that tends to hijack your mind you might regret it later but saying yes to people can immediately dysregulate your nervous system do you experience this neurological disregulation is that stressed and discombobulated feeling that everyone feels sometimes but that can be extra intense and extra frequent for people who are abused or neglected as kids when we get triggered by a criticism or by hurrying or fearing that we don't belong in a group it can cause a whole Cascade of emotional and physiological and cognitive changes glitches really that make it hard to function so a party can be hard an argument can cost three days of being able to focus and until you learn to heal your disregulation you'll unconsciously arrange your life to avoid triggers that bring on that neurological chaos and that set you back and that means isolating now when I say trigger I don't mean the way that the word is tossed around to say something you don't like or that makes you uncomfortable I'm talking about an experience or thought you know a stimulus that causes neurological disregulation to kick in and for a person who relies heavily on isolation to manage their cptsd symptoms being with people is like standing in a field with a tornado coming you might not be totally conscious of it but an anxiety kind of revs up at the thought of having to deal with people and it can make you feel helpless and scared and honestly the choice to isolate in any given situation can feel good it can feel empowering as if you're taking care of yourself and sometimes you are so you say no to invitations or you say yes but then cancel at the last minute or you end a dating relationship or you ghost a friend who has texted you to ask why you have they haven't heard from you and you may have become a master of excuses making up illnesses traffic jams family emergencies so that people wouldn't see what was really going on with you which is that you can't deal with them not right now it felt like too much so you were isolating just to feel safe and feel like you could have a little breathing room it's understandable but here's the thing if you keep using isolation to manage your cptsd triggers just about every option in your life will gradually close off to you that's how it happens you're not there to keep the door open and people and opportunities will move on without you you can heal this but get ready because it takes honesty to face it to really admit that it's not the world but you who has been holding you apart and I know there are times when people do act clickish and unincluded and cruel but when we're isolating we're doing most of that ourselves if you isolate you may have become good at justifying it a little too good I get letters and you see it in the comments where people will just say things like you know people are just horrible everyone out there is just out for themselves or they say you know dating is just a Cess pool where they just want to use you or all jobs are just exploitation by greedy capitalists trying to get everything they can from you then they throw you out like garbage these are trauma driven beliefs they start as a reflexive reaction to something that did happen a hurt an injustice but they calcify into hard walls around you making you intense to be around rigid in your thinking and making it harder and harder for you to feel comfortable participating in life so you slip into loneliness maybe you're good at tolerating your loneliness I get letters from people like all the time but you know what I don't want you to be too good at being lonely it's better to be uncomfortable with loneliness it's better to be sad about the relationships that are lost or blocked for you because of your trauma it is sad and that grief and that discomfort with being alone is what is going to lift you back into connection with people and this time if you can learn to heal those triggers that make dealing with people so difficult you can start to connect with them just one little step at a time and I'll come back to explain how to do that in a minute but first I want to talk about that free and peaceful feeling that you're craving that you get even if just for a moment when you isolate once you get triggered and your heart races and your emotions rise up out of their normal regulated levels your mind starts distorting things that's what cptsd does you feel overwhelmed literally your brain can't process thoughts and feelings so they're building up there's a lot going on up here and this is when traumatized people will become vulnerable to slipping into their pattern you know what I mean by patterns some people go blank and defenseless some will frantically start trying to make everybody happy fearing they're about to alienate everyone other people will lash out and start yelling and some of us withdraw and find a way to excuse ourselves from participating without ever explaining why and trying not even to be noticed we all have a few patterns but usually one or two will dominate and this is being driven by neurological disregulation it amplifies the stress feelings you already have and it makes them hard to manage hard to bounce back from so there's a huge temptation to just avoid the triggers altogether or most of the time look like you're showing up but avoid any real connection and those are strategies that you can use to keep looking like everything's okay but really you're just keeping your Rel relationships as Hollow as possible you're not showing up for people and soon they're not showing up for you so isolating yourself is an instant solution to the stress you feel when your cptsd symptoms are triggered could be an argument a mistake something embarrassing you feel rejected or judged or ugly or you feel like people are placing demands on you that are more than you can handle it seems like it's going to be exhausting if you let anybody in right it can feel like it's going to be a marathon that just won't ever end so it's very tempting isolating is a way that you can shut the door on all those unpleasant feelings and anxieties for a while now if isolating feels empowering and helps you to have control over your time and energy maybe it's showing you that you need a way to protect yourself instead of making excuses you could work on having boundaries you can practice the words and the actions that make it okay for you to hang out for a little while and then go home you need it to be okay to be social but also it needs to be okay to say no when people ask something of you a lot of us isolate just to prevent ourselves from giving away all our time and energy to people who ask just cuz we don't know how to say no it's too stressful it is possible to be friendly while saying no now watch your thinking because another thought that people have while isolating is that pulling away from people is only temporary I'm just doing this for a minute you just need to rest I just don't like this one person I just need a little bit of self-care time and it feels like self-care doesn't it it's like a little spa for one with Netflix and door Dash and it feels like you're doing something good for yourself but but really how does it feel how does it feel after you've done it a couple of days in a row or a couple of weeks or a couple of years if you do it enough times there's a dread feeling that is really hard to push down and I know because I've done it it tends to come up and haunt me about 3:00 in the morning and I can't sleep do you ever get this it just feels like life is passing you by and feeling this way is you know in my experience it's more stressful than having people in your life and showing up for them and clumsily figuring out how to have boundaries and say no so when you're promising yourself that soon you're going to get back out there just remember the longer you aren't out there the harder it gets and sometimes the isolation will cause you to go deeper into behaviors you know anything that makes you feel shame that trigger an even stronger urge to isolate so it can be kind of a downward spiral it can begin to feel like an addiction where you almost want to feel overwhelm or exhaustion because then you can give yourself permission to just lie down and keep isolating that's when you know you're in a bad spot so let's talk about why it's so important to come out of that to heal that raw place where it feels feels like people are too treacherous to handle now some of you will argue with me but here's the fact you need people in your life pets are wonderful but they're not enough even if you didn't have the emotional need for people your immune system needs to be around people your mental health needs to be around people your physical health needs to be around people and when you're actually connecting with people it has the healthy effect of drawing you out of yourself out of your preoccupation with hurt or grievances that you hold against others you know how do I feel about all this what's going to happen I can't forget what they did to me these are the kind of thoughts that sort of get bigger when you're isolated and when you're isolated you can take them too far practicing connection feels risky but it can be rewarding very quickly and it opens up your day to a little Adventure some Delight some hopefulness some exercise maybe some friendship maybe even romance maybe being with people helps to keep your your thinking grounded too and it helps keep you socially limber when you hide out for a while Everything feels halting and awkward I felt that like at the end of the lockdown I I wasn't aware that it was happening when I wasn't hanging out with people but as soon as I was I had trouble finding words or knowing what to I felt you know self-conscious now with practice it got smoother and that's how it works we need to be socialized or we get rusty and we need to feel that we're needed that what we give matters to people so I believe strongly that our happiness it's not just a feeling it's almost like an organism that can either be destroyed by relationships or it can flourish in relationships and knowing the difference of the you know who are the people that help you grow it takes practice and it means you have to try you can't do this in isolation so you can say hello to the cashier when you buy your groceries you can check on a neighbor you can run an errand for somebody you can call somebody who you know could could really use a phone call and take time to listen to them this is good not just for them but for you you need to be playing this role of someone who cares about others you need this for your continued development or it traps you it's like a developmental barrier you can't mature now some of us can tilt a little too far into people pleasing and codependence as a sort of backdoor way to connect with them that will exhaust you soon enough real relationships are not transactional like I'll clean your kitchen if you drive me to the pharmacy or I'll listen to you tell me all your health problems if I can tell you about my horrible mother that kind of exchange will bring both people down when you help other people don't expect anything back sometimes you will get something back some people can't give that but sometimes they do reciprocate and this is when you might be tempted to isolate too so it takes practice to hang in there and allow people to get a little closer to you see if very slowly and naturally you canow allow a friendship to Blossom it's easy when you've been alone a long time to put a lot of pressure on new friendships and then to be hurt that they aren't what you hoped it's good to spread your friendliness around so no one acquaintance is a life and death situation for you either they become your friend or you know your world becomes terrible it takes practice to learn to connect you have everything to gain from persevering with people we need them so that we can flourish and so that we can become ourselves and we need them when we're sick or in the hospital or going through a hard time now it might feel impossible for you right now to step out of your comfort zone but that feeling of difficulty is exactly why now is a good time to fight the urge to isolate if people trigger you you can learn to calm those triggers if you can get Mastery over your triggers and the disregulation that results and you can you'll have more flexibility to hang out with a variety of people and have fun in all kinds of situations if you feel like experiences in your childhood have hurt your ability to connect I have a series of questions you can ask yourself they're listed in this free download right here that you can access and I will see you very [Music] [Music] soon

Channel: Crappy Childhood Fairy

Views: 503,389

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Id: HLvqeqLlF6g

Length: 14min 27sec (867 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 25 2023