Planning vs. Spontaneity
One of the greatest challenges I face today with my own PTSD is my intense need for preparation. I am currently in between treatments and though I would like to have something stable that I can trust and do now, I do not trust, I do not see “something stable” and so I’m going to do the best I can with what I have until I can find someone to work with me that I am willing to trust AGAIN!
What I am doing is creating a life-environment that eliminates as much of the triggers for my PTSD as possible so I can finally rest, let my guard down and start learning to feel safe. I’ll get into how I do that at some point but today I want to talk about the loss of my spontaneity.
My wife can be a very social creature. She is precious in how she’s always willing to mingle and share herself with her loved ones. Most of our friends and family are beyond 9 to 5. They usually own at least one business, work for themselves, work from home, etc. So no one keeps “regular hours”. Last night after she went to a “Goddess Party” (don’t ask I didn’t go), she called me and told me we were invited to dinner at a close friends house.
Now the woman who invited us can cook and I have no aversion to eating her fine food. However for me to leave my “safe zone” I need hours if not days notice. I need to see the target of my reluctant ambition. There are things we all have to do so most of those I require to be planned out in as much advance as possible. I get angry when someone drops something on me that requires spontaneity because I don’t have it to give right now.
The reason I require this is that I have to literally psych myself up to go out into a world full of trauma-triggers. It’s not unlike what a young man might have to do to ask a girl out on a date or an athelete and the rituals they go through to get ready for a game. I suspect this is some weird form of control that I demonstrate over a nervous system that is mostly out of control.
What I do find though is when I do this ritual of getting ready that it’s not the same as the always ready state that PTSD had me in. Although there is still residue from the PTSD always ready that spills over into my getting ready rituals. If my wife and I have agreed to leave at 8pm and she’s still gathering things to go out the door at 8:03 I start to get angry. My PTSD-think is in the form of alarming questions “What danger will happen if we are late? What will happen to us if we stay here any longer?” I know this sounds like a movie script but it’s not, it’s my PTSD script.
I suspect the reason for the anger is that I’ve spent all that time building up to leaving and now I need to do it! Being ready and not leaving is the opposite of feeling safe in my own home.
So how do I manage this dynamic? I have boundaries that I define, explain and enforce. If “you” want something from me beyond what I’m offering then you have to give me the space to get ready. You see I could go back to the PTSD readiness and always be ready, but with that comes all the inappropriate responses and the complete exhaustion from living with an incessant danger signal clamoring in my head. I am ready to be free of my PTSD.
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Bruce
A newbie PTSD Recoverer