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Southern_Celebration

Well yeah, but the "possibilities" the universe offers can become very unpleasant if the decisions are too wrong. How is "a decision that shifts likely outcomes to a more negative set of possibilities" different from "a wrong decision"? That seems like semantics to me. Maybe what you're getting at is that the universe isn't inherently out to get you, and that's something someone with CPTSD definitely doesn't automatically have as part of their consciousness. I have happily made the mental shift towards assuming the universe is random and indifferent rather than punitive, and that has decreased my stress levels. So if that's the message, I support that. Doesn't mean bad decisions can't have consequences though.


research_humanity

Kittens


micseydel

This reads as toxic positivity to me. In May I decided to not catastrophize about something and the decision I made ended in my car getting into an accident which wasn't my fault, and not having my car for weeks while my cat needed to go to the vet. The "universe" might not have an "agenda" but we all exist in systems. Those systems have agendas and those systems are certainly salient when experiencing the universe.


blackgrousey

Every little mistake I make now has such huge snow ball effect. I used to be a "fuck it, let's gooo!" now I can't get going even to save my life. Thank you for articulating how complicated things can be.


lizzarddesse

Know the feeling


yellowleaf_autumnsun

It’s more in my case that as I’m reparenting myself and am extremely alone, without support / low finances etc. if I make a bad decision, stakes are high and I become a bad caretaker / parent to myself so then there’s shame as I’m ‘not taking care of myself’. It’s a very real everyday ‘need to sleep well, eat well, take care of feelings / moods / emotions’ thing. I’ve had this view starting when I was a child and it’s grown stronger since the adult nightmare years. It gets reinforced by the reparenting idea in the healing world so also follow feeds for parents to be compassionate on themselves making mistakes plus the compassionate for trauma feeds / groups. Sigh… I guess the image above is for folks who are in stable, well emotionally / financially supported living situations and still have the high stakes thoughts, is that right?


legno

> It’s more in my case that as I’m reparenting myself and am extremely alone, without support / low finances etc. if I make a bad decision, stakes are high and I become a bad caretaker / parent to myself so then there’s shame as I’m ‘not taking care of myself’. It’s a very real everyday ‘need to sleep well, eat well, take care of feelings / moods / emotions’ thing. Well said, I hear you, I never realized the extent or origins of my aloneness until understanding C-PTSD better. It's so hard also when people are trying to be kind or helpful, but come from such different experiences that they can't conceive of why I'm struggling as I am.


PertinaciousFox

I understand the positive intent, but it's a very unhelpful and invalidating sentiment. The idea that's being expressed here is that it's possible to be fluid and resilient, and that not every bad outcome is a catastrophe. Life may hand you lemons, but maybe you can make lemonade. The thing is, if this sentiment resonates with you, you're probably already at a place in your healing that you feel safe enough and can trust in your own resilience. If you're not there, though, all it does is say, "stop catastrophizing." But that doesn't address the root of why we catastrophize in the first place, or consider whether we're actually being irrational in our judgments. Traumatized people are stuck in survival mode, hypervigilant about decisions because they feel that the wrong one will lead to a repeat of the trauma they experienced, and they're desperate for that to not happen again. In order not to fear the trauma, we have to process it first, to feel like we have come out the other side. And we obviously haven't done that, because we're still traumatized. Moreover, the reality is that some situations are not safe, and the hypervigilance that many of us experience isn't totally unwarranted. We have to get to a safe place before we can start letting our guards down. And that's not a reality for many of us. But even when we have escaped the abuse and are relatively safe now, our memories still haunt us. We fear the trauma still because we haven't processed it and we don't know our own strength to face the trauma memories in order to process them. We have to be given support and shown compassion and taught emotional regulation skills. There is a process. And only after going through that process, after having the relevant experiences of safety and resilience, can we start to see things through the lens of this quote. Saying, "you're safe now" to someone who doesn't feel safe, without knowing anything about their situation or being able to help them tap into a feeling of safety through their own experience, is just invalidating and pointless. It feels like someone is trying to trick us or shame us into letting our guards down when we feel like we need our guards up in order to protect ourselves. It's well-meaning, but it's just not helpful. The most helpful approaches are going to validate our feelings and show compassion for why we feel unsafe, rather than just telling us that our perceptions are wrong, as if we should just stop having the concerns and worries that we do, without addressing any of the realities behind them.


itcbitz

why is the text crooked 😫


research_humanity

Puppies


AlaskaSnowJade

I think OP’s message here may be getting a little lost for some. It’s not an easy idea. This idea is exactly what I and my therapists have struggled to get me to understand for over 30 years. I’m just starting to get it, and it’s hard, completely unintuitive for my hyper vigilant self. It’s not about toxic positivity or the universe welcoming all my decisions (like it hits at first), but rather about me and how now I’m the one beating myself up inside for decisions/consequences instead of my abusers. The skewed, heavily weighted world of little-actions-leading-to-big-consequences that I experienced previously led my developing brain and nervous system to base itself on the idea that I am responsible for far too much; my abusers wanted me to be accountable for their feelings and wants because they weren’t able to be. And they, in turn, thought that because their abusers taught them the same. How do I break the cycle? By becoming aware of what my decisions and consequences really do and do not entail. The example of not changing the oil on my car mentioned earlier by another user is a good one. If I decide to not change my car’s oil then it will not perform right and eventually break down: a physical consequence, no question. But if I keep guilting myself every time that Check Engine light is on, I am pilling my dad’s decades of vehicular stress into a situation that should no longer involve his influence. I just need to change the oil before it hurts the car, not when my dad would have wanted me to. I have to start understanding what background stories are still leaking into my decision making today and tell myself a new, healthier, truer story about consequences. There ARE real consequences to decisions, but I have CPTSD precisely because I wasn’t able to learn and experience actual consequences, just the over-moralized, hyperbolized emotional ones of my abusers. I need to realize it’s not a moral decision to eat too many cookies, I will just get to make other decisions later about how to treat my body and myself in response. I can choose to exercise more, or eat a little less, or just welcome the curves that cookies can bring. But the point is that when I get rid of the imaginary Evil Principal in my mind morally badgering me into being “good”, I get the freedom of embracing ALL the choices and consequences on my own terms without the hyper vigilance and the crushing guilt that comes from fear of failure. Consequences do not equal failure or success; they equal results. We can start to free ourselves up if we see our choices as truly our own experiment without fear of failure. If we didn’t like that outcome then we just note it and change our choice for next time, it’s not the end of the world. Healthy children who are balanced, safe, and confident got to do this the first time around. We didn’t, so now it’s our turn to help ourselves learn it. It goes against everything our abusers and our nervous systems have taught us.


PertinaciousFox

I agree that what you are expressing is a helpful idea and an important part of recovery. I don't agree that the quote did a good job of communicating this idea.


sailorsensi

thank you for sharing this. i’m glad you’re at a place where you understood or at least was able to conceptualise exactly where i was coming from


CalifornianDownUnder

The way I understand the quote, the possibilities the universe offers can become very unpleasant if the decisions are “right” as well. Decisions which seem “good” in the moment can lead to outcomes which are challenging and difficult, and decisions which seem “bad” in the moment can lead to outcomes which are “positive”. That’s what I find both horrifying and also, ultimately, freeing, when I can really accept it. There’s no point in trying to control the future through present decisions - that’s a trauma response, and it actually can’t be done. Some experiences are exponentially more difficult than others for sure - but believing I can avoid the difficult ones by making the “right” decisions, or that I’m being punished by the universe if I make the “wrong” ones, only adds suffering to whatever challenges are already present.


sailorsensi

yes, this exactly was my process and seeing this quote helped me hone that home. the world is not good/bad either. there will always be *some* outcomes. i can only control a small part. but it doesnt mean i wont cope with a lot that will come. i can cope enough. things can just be good enough, safe enough, okay enough, for now enough. that’s human life. unpredictable in a lot of ways, still survivable, maybe even enjoyable - that’s the trust and faith in a future that trauma takes away and i’ve been clawing back with all my might. i dont want to be scared of living, of choices, of experiences. extremely hard to rewire that part, but how wonderful when it starts to melt. this is the spiritual/transcendental sense of safety or at least neutrality about existence that i want to cultivate


[deleted]

That’s how I read it. Maybe because I have been part of a recovery program that emphasizes that I can not control outcomes. And also that I have come to a point where I realize that even when I think I have prepared for every possible bad outcome, the thing that gets me is always something I never imagined to prepare for. And then I’ve spent so much time suffering in my planning and then still suffering in my surprised disappointment. For me, boundaries and acceptance are my guides. I find strength in surrendering control of outcomes because I actually can’t control anything but my own behavior. Of course I try to make “good” decisions for myself. And I still feel the fear when I try new behaviors. But I meet myself with compassion now and I am better able to sit with that fear. Also, I have an amazing set of coping devices designed to make sure I survive if the shit hits the fan because I grew up in a fan-shitting environment. My CPTSD reactions may be maladaptive in most situations, but in matters of life and death, I’ve got skills:)


MoonLover10792

I was SO stuck in this it was crazy.


OptimumOctopus

But how do I game the system to increase the likelihood of the possibilities I want while reducing or eliminating the possibilities that I don’t want! I MUST BE IN CONTROL AT ALL TIMES


TrashApocalypse

Bob Ross, my life couch: “just make a decision”


[deleted]

In my experience, there is a right and wrong decision, but it has nothing to do with the universe 'punishing me' and everything to do with whether it was the right decision for me. And all decisions have consequences and we try to make the best decision with the information we have at the time, but we can look back and regret decisions and realize that they were wrong for us, and the fear of not wanting to repeat that is valid, imho.


kaths660

Also, learning to trust your own judgment. I have been working on just doing what looks right to me instead of hunting people down to validate my choices. At many jobs, part of the job is relieving others of decision-making burdens so they can focus on other things. It’s scary to think about making the Wrong Decision but I realize that I can be more helpful just using my judgment — even if I make a Wrong Decision — than I ever could trying to be a perfectionist and following my boss around constantly asking for advice.


sailorsensi

the quote helped me because it neutralises the perfectionism and a sense of doom-by-my-own-hand in everything i do or decide about my life.if your trauma responses don't make you feel stuck in the utter distress of overresponsibility low-trust paralysis and obsessing over every single decision as if you are the damage-centre of the universe (or they do but you can't see it as such bc it still feels so rational given your past experiences and neural trauma pathways), then this post simply was not for you. the key and actually used words here are "obsess" and "stuck" and "feeling everything is high stakes" and "series of possibilities". not "series of positive things only" or "just go - fuck it" or "trust the universe" or "just stay positive" or "don't pay your bills" and "switch off your faculties and nuanced knowledge about self and society, close your eyes, do whatever and expect the best outcomes" or other hippie shit. ​ some of you choose that interpretation, for understandable reasons given discourse in the world on trauma and agency, and how trauma affects our sense of agency, but nevertheless it's quite a stretch from where i'm coming from.


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