π My Trauma and Overwhelm was Actually OK Enough to Finally do Something for the Homeless Guys Outside
Last Updated: 3Β months, 2Β weeks ago
--- Update from 1 June 2024 ---
Formatting and re-publishing this now on my new journal blog I realise just how far my mental health has come. I now not only go outside with significantly less anxiety, but actually even take the train again without being anxious about it, for the most part.
I really have been recovering, and it turned out that one of the biggest things preventing my anxiety and PTSD from healing - and perhaps worsening it- was being in my own extended lockdown since 2020, and only slowly starting to come out of it in 2023 and only *properly committing to significantly engage with the outside world since 2024.*
It turned out that often healing is an *active process, and that, despite my having to learn to listen to my body and not push myself too hard - countering an anti-pattern of my entire ADHD life and being mindful of my CPTSD and learning what "comfortable" and "safe" should feel like - there are in fact times that one needs to push oneself.*
I had to take active steps to get back into reading and writing, I had to push myself to go and socialise at certain meetups the way I used to, and *that triggered the healing. Waiting to feel better before being ready to go out may have worked when it came to immediate fatigue/overwhelm/emotiona l exhaustion recovery, but it wan't solving the ongoing, seemingly endless fatigue/anxiety/low-level depression and the state of limbo of me always waiting to feel better before I could go out.*
That one got better with taking action, active steps towards active healing, and the improvement was immediate, something I could even feel cognitively. Writing again, going to writers' meetups and creating stories which ultimately became my story blog, made an immense difference, as did getting back into gaming and reading and other things I enjoyed. But significantly social interaction and finding the courage to express myself thorugh a creative outlet instead of the fear and paralysis of perfectionism and trauma-led fear of engagement with something I may grow to love, grow attached to and then be hurt by or lose - overcoming those fears and doing the thing... those made all the difference, adding absolute leaps and bounds to my healing!
And now, I cannot stop writing, and the creative thoughts come so easily! It turned out the only real problem was when I chained them up! All I have to do is let them free!
--- Original Post ---
A Positive Shift: Breaking from the Ritual
Something shifted today, where I was actually able to break out of my usual ritual of rushing out of my house without lingering on the sidewalk or engaging with comparative strangers longer than absolutely necessary on my walk to the shopping centre and back.
What happened is that I was actually able to be calm enough to stop, talk to, and even sit with the homeless guys (their wording to describe themselves) who beg on the street corners just outside my house, and they told me their story about where it is they sleep at night - which is outside, and note it is currently freezing wintertime, has been pouring with rain eight out of the past ten days and there has been flooding in some areas.
And what came out from that interaction was that I was finally actually able to help them by actually having something to give, after years of mostly having to turn them down - they needed a blanket and it turned out we actually had one in our long-forgotten donation pile Not only that but I was actually able to find some very warm socks and a pair of shoes as well as a pair of slippers, which looked like they might fit. I apologized as I didn't hadn't tested the blanket so I didn't know if it was truly warm or not, but he looked me in the eyes and said gratefully "but it's dry", and I know it may seem cliche but thinking of that does bring me to tears.
This is Generally Intimidating for Me
My generally having to turn people down when they asked for food or money was attributable in recent times to living on a tight budget, but there are other reasons I generally find myself too anxious to stop, properly engage or give.
Protective Ritual
Part of it was my aforementioned, worryingly ritual process of rush-don't-stop-and-don't-leave-home-right-after-getting-safely-back which I'm starting to feel is in some ways symptomatic of trauma-induced OCD. This generally made it hard after getting home to then bring myself to search for and identify remaining donate-ables and brave the outdoors again to find the same person who may or may not still be there.
ASD/ADHD Sensory Overload and PTSD
This ritual was probably largely caused by focusing on just getting through the overwhelm of being outside in that not-quiet neighbourhood- of combined PTSD and sensory overload I experience from cars and people, certain loud noises and sudden movement (I am ADHD and on the spectrum).
I have recently also become aware of just how much my sensitivity to temperature affects my anxiety, which complicates things because I am seldom aware that I am being distressed or overwhelmed by a change in temperature until later.
Apparently ADHD/ASD people tend to be less aware of our bodys' needs, the former probably due to the struggle to regulate our body's attention, but also both groups possibly because we're so used to our needs not being met and everything being overwhelming at once and not knowing how we got there.
So temperature is actually often the thing dysregulating me and is something I have had to take note of as part of my realise-I-am-anxious-then-try-to-reverse-engineer-the-cause-of-this-anxiety-through-a-checklist-to-deduce-what-discomfort-I-am-feeling-that-could-be-distressing-me process.
This once-home-stay-home part of the ritual arose originally due to feeling mentally worn out from a trip outside, that the experience of going out would bring, and might be more of a comfort ritual now even when I don't feel overwhelmed.
Fear of Detainment
I guess I also have a big fear of being trapped somewhere or detained by someone and unable to safely leave or get home, (I've witnessed the bystander fallacy plenty in action so I don't have faith for people to step in if I need help) including having some kind of meltdown and being unable to extricate myself from a public situation surrounded by people while my mind kinda leaves my body. This is anxiety-based also related to when I used to have panic attacks many years ago, probably not rational or likely to happen.
There's also the related fear of going too far from home, thanks to situations where I've had to depend on people for lifts home from far places whom it turns out weren't reliable and been stuck managing panic and maintaining consciousness (what I've recently learned is the "flop" response to trauma) in order to find a way home. There's also events I've attended where I've ended up having to be around transphobes in close proximity and had to listen to them spew their radical opinions while knowing they already know I'm trans and witnessing the people around me entertain these opinions and knowing I am therefore not safe in this environment watching the bystander fallacy unfolding once again along with a certain unawareness of the paradox of tolerance (or perhaps just a lack of concern over the rise of naziism) by the mainly white cis het people present.
Then there's the fact that while walking I am stressed at what my brain tells me could become a confrontation with people on the street, (it doesn't help that when I'm not read as male or appear "too feminine" or "too queer" I don't know if men are going to start acting creepy) even though the guys I encounter begging when I'm out walking are overwhelmingly really polite and friendly and I somewhat know the guys in my neighbourhood in the sense that I'm familiar with them and we say hi and have occasionally had short chats, though I was anxious to move on when that happened and stayed due to not wanting to be rude, which I guess doesn't help that whole anxiety-fear-of-being-detained thing.
CPTSD from Pressure/Guilt Conditioning and CPTSD from Pressure/Guilt Conditioning
The problem is I also have a lot of trauma around being pressured or guilted to do something, thanks to the aforementioned cult and parental abuse upbringing, which I will likely talk about in future articles.
It's been enough of a struggle to learn to navigate these boundaries around people I am comfortable with, friends of mine who fortunately also aren't in as desperate a situation as being homeless in the freezing winter and also have other people they can rely on in a crisis to keep them off the street.
Being asked more than once for something - being pleaded with after saying I can't help, or even being afraid that that's what's going to happen, has a tendency to evoke my freeze and flee responses as well as massive amounts of guilt - possibly even disproportionately more than what is "normal" when having to turn someone down (though there is no way for me to really measure that) whom you know is struggling and desperate but clearly (objectively, at least, maybe not to my subconscious) not posing a threat.
I guess this all comes down to a fear of being unable to assert my boundaries when I need to, which has also, unfortunately, happened before, though in more dire situations unrelated to people begging.
Self Sacrifice Almost Killed Me
The problem is, not even a year ago I had a self-sacrifice-even-if-it-kills-me mindset resurface, which was something I thought I had gained control over in all the trauma processing and boundary learning and enforcing I thought I'd already done.
I do mean literal self-sacrifice-even-if-it-killed-me - I came out of a very scary situation last year where if it weren't for one person, I may well have ending up on the street and possibly dead for the sake of someone else who was abusing me, thinking my only true purpose in life, my identity and my worth, was to keep them alive.
No wonder I related so hard to Jennette McCurdy's I'm Glad My Mom Died, where she describes growing up with her literal and sole purpose in life before her mother died being to live for her mother and keep her alive!
It turns out I still have some unaddressed vulnerabilities from the cult and being deliberately raised to not have boundaries.
Now that I think about it... this kind of vulnerability to manipulation, which has showed up too often when I thought I was safe and had learned sufficient boundaries to resist such abuse, might just be the reason I experience such terrifying trauma responses and overwhelming triggers when I realise I've been manipulated into doing something I didn't want to do or wouldn't have consented to otherwise. If I can lose so much safety without even being aware of it, it basically feels like my brain has been hacked.
It's a similar situation to how, after leaving the cult, I felt a sort of awakeness I didn't have except in brief moments before, as if I had woken up out of a coma or some kind of dissociation, and was suddenly fully conscious. That fear of being manipulated and losing willpower through deep manipulation still deeply affects me, which is not irrational now that I understand that I was raised in a cult, by abusers and a narcissist.
The Pressure to maintain the Ritual had Dropped, For Once
So, some things were different this time around that put me more at ease. Specifically, all my social and being-outside-by-the-road anxieties weren't active, probably helped by the fact that the weather was for once neither overwhelmingly hot nor as freezing as it had been, nor even in danger of raining right then.
Today, there were also very few cars to trigger that particular PTSD and also very few people around and very little sudden movement or general motion going on all at once to have to pay attention to and cause me anxiety.
Also, for once, I wasn't urgently rushing somewhere on a tight schedule of to-dos but was actually looking to kill time outside the house after being ambushed by good old South African load shedding1 I'd for once not been consulting the schedule on.
This was Actually a really Positive, Manageable Experience
So I was actually feeling relaxed, able to engage in the moment without distraction or stress, and not at all pressured when I decided to sit with and listen to these two guys, and in the process of conversation, realised I actually did have some remaining donate-ables still left at home.
Being able to feel comfortable and calm enough to actually stop, sit down and talk to these two guys, one of whom is often there on my way to the shopping centre to shout a friendly greeting, and to actually be able to find a way to help them out by finding some warm clothes from our donation pile for this freezing weather feels like massive progress for me.
I felt really happy afterwards, to have been able to make that difference for them at least one of the many times I encountered them.
Actually Genuinely Giving - without Fear that it's a Trauma Response and getting Triggered
A crucial thing here for me was that this giving was NOT from guilt or a guilt-induced behavioural change. It was a healthy cognitive shift, improved mental health, and maybe luck from the weather and outdoors conditions being as they were (come to think of it it was a weekend so no work traffic) enabling me to actually do something for someone else instead of trauma taking over to either make me give something I didn't feel comfortable or, more likely, to avoid the situation entirely.
For once I was able to engage in this kind of situation completely comfortably, and I did what I wanted to do, I was able to be genuine and follow my heart and feelings in a healthy way which didn't risk feeling manipulated or pressured or controlled, and the who and the resulting triggers and flashbacks that brings when realise I have been manipulated and that am still, and once again, unsafe in my own mind.
Small Steps, Day by Day, are Better for Managing my Trauma, Healing, Boundaries and General Limitations
So yeah, I know the weather and external conditions were involved, but this still feels like real progress over the learned guilt programming and the perfectionism I was raised with (the latter often hindering my giving where small gestures were seen as somehow meaningless and hopeless in the greater global crisis of poverty).
I've had to keep reminding myself to not feel guilty over the reality: that for now, on the emerging theme of my current life stage and this emerging journal series, trauma processing means:
helping oneself first and processing the causes of my own emotional dysregulation before being able to consider helping others. Which is also an extension of basic well-being and basic boundaries. And
overcoming the need for perfectionism so that doing small everyday things when I can for other people feels like enough. In essence, mirroring how my wellness plan involves taking small, everyday steps in life instead of getting fixated on a massive ultimate destination goal, in fact, the knowledge that just daily living WITHOUT an end goal or destination at all has to be enough, too.
And I'm starting to see the results in days like today where just taking steps towards healing have helped me to have moments where I feel safe to engage with giving, instead of the dangerous trauma-bound self-sacrifice-even-if-it-kills-me mindset I had even this time last year.
This means sometimes I actually am able to help others, just as an effect of healing and improving and paradoxically not (like with the other things my routine is accomplishing) if I actually seek out being able to give as my ultimate goal.
Small daily steps at healing matter, and being immersed in the now as what is important. Healing, survival, and being ok and well.
Just like starting this blog with the simple commitment to write every day (rather than focusing on my initial goal of attempting to write a novel about my experiences and somehow massively raise awareness on cults) has had massive beneficial effects on me in moving my healing, my routines/productivity and my life forward in helping me process my trauma, release the pent-up words I have had to say, express my creativity and feel validated in being able to take up space in my little corner of the internet, and feel like I do, truly, exist, despite what my abusive conditioning has taught me.
Focus on the healing, focus on the being, the expressing, not on summoning or mustering strength or willpower, not on the end goal. This is what I take away from this, in a similar way to the process I learned of how to commit and stick to doing something everyday.
What I've Learned on How To Feel More OK Going Outside and Potentially Engaging with People on the Street
So basically:
This shift came from several things I've now identified:
I've been learning to let go of perfectionism ("grieve it" as Psychiatrist Dr K aka HealthyGamerGG says which has actually been helping me achieve far more as I stop trying to be an achiever and instead just focus on getting things done as I can do them, step by step. Not burning out and feeling the instant need to take a nap, like the hare in Aesop's most famous fable, but in fact, really understanding how the tortoise got so far in not burning out at the start. It seems there is true wisdom in this story, clearly originating from someone* with experience!
I've been processing my CPTSD trauma and the healing has made me less susceptible to getting triggered including identifying and starting to dismantle the guilt programming, along with other triggers. This has partly been due to the process of writing this blog in general, as it forces real engagement with and analysis of my thoughts and memories in order to shape them coherently. Teaching a subject, or explaining an experience to others, truly does seem like the best way to understand it oneself! (I guess that's part of why therapy and talking to people about problems helps in general... that seems obvious in hindsight!)
Certain environmental changes significantly help me to not feel anxious, and I can bear these in mind. Today I felt more comfortable going outside with fewer people, general activity and cars around to thus not trigger sensory overwhelm and that specific PTSD. The temperature was also not too hot and was not raining. Come to think of it, enduring heat and cold and learning to become unaware of my body's discomfort may itself be a subconscious trigger.
Unmentioned thus far, but I think feeling less triggered by noise and motion may also be an effect of taking up reading, writing and other absorbing, imagine-stretching routines not centred on instant gratification and rapid context-switching.
These have noticeably been helping my ADHD brain far more relaxed and focused and to feel less bound to immediate demands, in addition to feeling more creative and actually far less depressed and far more capable at doing things - the trickle-down effect in shaping and giving meaning to the rest of my routine has also been amazing!
This is not just my own experience, there are studies on this, for which Cleveland clinic gives a nice TL;DR. Dr K (whose specialisation is actually in addiction research) also references similar things in a video on how focusing on prioritization instead of multitasking helps reduce overwhelm, which I also share and discuss here in relation to how it affects my ADHD and CPTSD in particular. He has another video of his explaining how to become less impulse-drivenin order to commit to practising creative skills daily where he acknowledges the impact of video games and content algorithms in encouraging this impulsivity in the first place.
There's also the fact that reading and writing are both things I have done since childhood as things I truly enjoy, as a healthy escape into my own world, and I think my mind and body remember that, which is why finally getting into both of these is so healing.
A Final Reminder for Myself
I guess a final takeaway from all of this to myself besides those identified is that may not be able to change the world and end poverty and the cycle of so many people freezing outside in this cold and rainy weather any more than I am able to instantly transform my own life and healing and overcome all my trauma and other life struggles, or achieve everything I am struggling with immediately, or possibly ever.. but something was different today.
And those guys still sleep outside trying to shelter from the rain, but crucially, today things were better for both me and those I wanted to help.
Or the way I prefer to see it, things got better for me, and as a result of that, for others I wanted to help, not simply because I did something to help, but because I was healthy before I did it - there was an earlier cause: I was able to help because I had finally learned to start building the healthy foundation of mental health and boundaries to enable me to sit down and talk to someone and listen to his needs, in a context I possibly would have been far too overwhelmed by before.
It may not seem like much, and I'm certainly not "there" yet with healing, but for me it was big ... and it feels like massive progress, and a sign that things are getting better.
1 where our monopoly power company has to cut the electricity for two-hour periods
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