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Hi everyone! I've been here before, posting from time to time but I normally lurk here. I believe I posted my story in the past but a lot has changed since then.
I've suffered from PTSD since childhood but never was properly diagnosed until two years ago. I was traumatized by my abusive father and the hostile environment he has created for my family and I for the past 21 years. However, he abandon my family, left us in the streets, and created a chaotic divorce with my mother that managed to suck my brother and I in the middle of it. The good news is I am seeking help from a therapist that performs EMDR on me.
But I am here seeking advice. I would like some help with how to stop avoiding stressful situations. I tend to push things aside that I considers stress because it too much for me to handle. Things like school, finances, health issues, and other problems I try to not deal with. I think this might be the reason I've had a few random panic attacks but I am not sure. Anyone has good coping mechanizing that might help? I'm trying to branch out from depending on Xanax.
I'm a bit nervous about posting but I'm willingly to take the risk. I'm hoping to also branch out and bond with others like me.
I think Chieftain has given you excellent advice on this.
Some kinds of stress can be avoided, but when we're talking about things that won't just go away, like school and money management and health (which are things that are going to cotinue to affect you at least in some way for the rest of your life) and things that need to be dealt with at some point, trying to avoid them just makes them way more complicated, and when you reach the point where you simply can't continue avoiding them, it's become a whole big mess that's about a thousand times more stressful than it was to begin with, and you still have to deal with it.
Believe me, I know. I was a master of the bury-your-head-in-the-sand technique of "dealing" with things that were uncomfortable for me to deal with, and I can't think of a single instance in which it ended well. Obviously in the short term, it wasn't so bad. It would often buy me weeks or months or even years where I didn't have to think about it or deal with it, but eventually, I would reach the inevitable point where there were simply no more places to run from whatever it was, and every single time, it had become exponentially more complicated every time I'd avoided it.
Finding someone who can help you through dealing with these things is extremely helpful, whether it's a family member or a close friend or a romantic partner or whoever you have available to you in your life who cares about you. I think you'll also find that when you ask those people for help with these kinds of things, they're usually more than happy to offer you whatever assistance they can, whether that just means giving you a ride and/or waiting with you at the doctor's, or sitting down with you with all your bank statements and helping you get your finances organised, or whatever else you need. Usually, it's the mere act of asking for help that is the hardest part. Once you get over that hump and actually get down to the nitty-gritty stuff, most people seem to find that all these things they've been running away from for ages really aren't that bad if you just stop panicking and DO IT, and of course if you have supportive people helping you through it. And even when that stuff is unpleasant, it still usually feels a lot better knowing that you're being proactive about dealing with it, rather than constantly having it as this dark cloud looming in the horizon of your psyche.
And once you do start getting on top of that stuff, just knowing that it's getting done, and that you'll now know how to deal with it in the future makes your entire existence less stressful and anxiety-ridden. I know I was surprised at how much energy I was putting into just being worried about all this s**t I'd been avoiding dealing with, and always having the knowledge in the back of my mind that any number of procrastinated things could jump up and bite me in the arse at any moment. I didn't realise how negatively that was affecting every aspect of my life until I dealt with those things, and the worry was gone.
I think the first step would be to consider who in your life is best-suited to be able to help you with which things. Obviously one person can help you with more than one vector of "issues," but for example, if transportation to to a doctor is a problem for you, someone who has access to a car during normal business hours would be best-suited to help you out with that. If you live with someone (flatmate/friend, family member(s)/romantic partner), that person may be best-suited to help you with finances, since your financial situation could potentially affect them as well. And so on and so forth.
Obviously none of this stuff is going to get fixed overnight, and it's going to take some work. Not just in terms of taking care of the things that have already piled up, but also in terms of adjusting your lifestyle and your way of approaching these things mentally so you don't just end up in exactly the same position several months or years down the line. Most of all, don't be afraid to ask for help, now or in the future, and think of ways that the people in your life can continue to help you with these things, even if it's as simple as having them remind you to do things, or to check in with you every so often. In my household, we keep a calendar print-out for the current month and the following month on the fridge where my partner and I both write down things like appointments and when bills are due, which serves to both remind us of our individual responsibilities, and allows us to check in with each other to make sure everything is getting done.
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