LJ and roleplaying
Nov. 25th, 2003 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mousmeIt's nice how a bit of RP and reading LJ can make all the bad things go away. Or, at least, push them away for a while so they don't seem so big and overwhelming a few hours later. It doesn't always work like that, of course, but sometimes it does.
I got to write some more in-character entries for LJ (if you're really interested, you can see them at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
margotv and frankenbauer, but they won't make much sense if you're not in the game), although I may have to post fewer entries there since I've received a complaint concerning the amount I post. I'll see what happens. I *am* a very chatty girl in LJ, after all. ^_-
So, in other words, I'm feeling better. How was I feeling before? Well, a mix of things, all of them bad. It's Tuesday, which meant group therapy. Yay. I don't really like it all that much, but generally I've been putting up with it, and there were even some interesting things that were being said in the last session or two.
Today got off to a reasonably good start, all things considered. Nothing earth-shattering, again, but that seems to be par for the course. Then one girl came in late, and that seemed to be the trigger for a whole bunch of badness. It was mostly under control, though. The therapist kind of poked at the group, trying to make us realise that we had used her as an excuse to get off the important topic we'd been discussing earlier, and the girl took it badly (as I would have: it sounded a lot like an accusation, even though it wasn't). So we concentrated on that for a while, and the girl was getting increasingly upset, saying things like she felt she was going to throw up, that she was devastated, that she wanted to be dead, etc., which, while they were melodramatic, really seemed to be the only way she knew of communicating what she was feeling. It may not have been the most constructive approach, but that's why we're there, anyway, to figure out how *not* to alienate people.
And this one guy was laughing at her. Well, laughing in general. Really loudly. To the point of drowning out her voice. He's been really aggressive from the start, and seems to take pride in being violent and "snapping," that is to say dissociating and lashing out physically at people. He was sitting next to me today, and I found it particularly disruptive, but since he was clearly doing it for attention, I ignored it. Everyone else appeared to agree with me, and a few of them called him on it, but that mostly got them nowhere.
Finally the girl in question asked me to comment, and as she was answering my question, the guy started to laugh again, and I couldn't concentrate on what she was saying (it was right in my ear, you understand). So I turned around and told him to be quiet. I was exasperated, I'm the first to admit it, and I wasn't excruciatingly polite about it. It wasn't downright rude, but it was peremptory.
He went absolutely ballistic, started yelling, wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise. I didn't know what to do to fix my apparent blunder. The understatement of the century would be that I don't deal well with conflict, especially not outright, naked anger. This was something beyond that, and I was actually frightened. His eyes were wild and staring, and he'd half-risen out of his chair and was screaming at me, and I was convinced he was going to hit me, or throw a chair at me, or something.
I had a brief mental flash of my father, in one of the three outbursts of temper I've known him to have in his life, throwing a chair halfway across the kitchen at our house.
I had the same reaction that I had with my father. Fourteen years later, the only thing I could do was to sink as far back in my chair as I could, and try as I might I couldn't help myself and burst into tears. Not outright sobbing or anything (the way I did when I was ten and frightened that I would go next after the chair), but I shut my eyes as tightly as I could and willed myself not to cry, and the tears spilled out anyway, until I knew I would choke to death. (Stupid anxiety attacks)
I could hear the guy still talking, while around him the silence grew louder and louder, and I knew people were looking at me and all I wanted was for them to look elsewhere, anywhere but at me. I wanted them to pay attention to the guy who had just reduced me to tears, if only because it would attract attention away from me. Finally, one of the therapists broke in, interrupting his flow of (admittedly very abrasive) verbiage:
"[Name of guy], do you realise what's going on?"
He hadn't, apparently. He'd been completely oblivious to the fact that he'd reduced me to a quivering wreck, which didn't endear him to anyone there, as far as I could tell. So the next fifteen minutes or so were devoted to both therapists hammering at me to tell the group why I was so upset. *sigh* Well, it didn't exactly make me feel better, but I guess it made the group feel better. I wasn't particularly keen on sharing it with them, since they all seemed so ready, able and willing to be nasty and dismissive with the first girl, but I guess tears made them gentler about it. Also, I used smaller words and tried not to make a big deal out of it, which is possibly why they took it better from me (I also neglected to mention that I wanted to die. I didn't, really, not then: I just wanted the floor to open up and swallow me. ^_-).
Meh. It was Not Fun™.
I can't tell who was more anxious to get out of there: me, or Aggressive!Dude. He left with his tail between his legs, as someone put it, and I just wanted to avoid anything having to do with him at all. I wasn't in any shape to face him, after all that, no matter what he said or did, and I wasn't prepared to deal with another outburst, no matter how remote the possibility.
***vaguely triggery stuff follows***
T
R
I
G
G
E
R
S
P
A
C
E
I didn't realise it at the time, but I was so upset that I was worrying at a spot on the back of my right hand with my fingernails, and I scratched away an entire layer of epidermis. It's now very very raw, and it stings like a sonofabitch.
I got to write some more in-character entries for LJ (if you're really interested, you can see them at
margotv and frankenbauer, but they won't make much sense if you're not in the game), although I may have to post fewer entries there since I've received a complaint concerning the amount I post. I'll see what happens. I *am* a very chatty girl in LJ, after all. ^_-So, in other words, I'm feeling better. How was I feeling before? Well, a mix of things, all of them bad. It's Tuesday, which meant group therapy. Yay. I don't really like it all that much, but generally I've been putting up with it, and there were even some interesting things that were being said in the last session or two.
Today got off to a reasonably good start, all things considered. Nothing earth-shattering, again, but that seems to be par for the course. Then one girl came in late, and that seemed to be the trigger for a whole bunch of badness. It was mostly under control, though. The therapist kind of poked at the group, trying to make us realise that we had used her as an excuse to get off the important topic we'd been discussing earlier, and the girl took it badly (as I would have: it sounded a lot like an accusation, even though it wasn't). So we concentrated on that for a while, and the girl was getting increasingly upset, saying things like she felt she was going to throw up, that she was devastated, that she wanted to be dead, etc., which, while they were melodramatic, really seemed to be the only way she knew of communicating what she was feeling. It may not have been the most constructive approach, but that's why we're there, anyway, to figure out how *not* to alienate people.
And this one guy was laughing at her. Well, laughing in general. Really loudly. To the point of drowning out her voice. He's been really aggressive from the start, and seems to take pride in being violent and "snapping," that is to say dissociating and lashing out physically at people. He was sitting next to me today, and I found it particularly disruptive, but since he was clearly doing it for attention, I ignored it. Everyone else appeared to agree with me, and a few of them called him on it, but that mostly got them nowhere.
Finally the girl in question asked me to comment, and as she was answering my question, the guy started to laugh again, and I couldn't concentrate on what she was saying (it was right in my ear, you understand). So I turned around and told him to be quiet. I was exasperated, I'm the first to admit it, and I wasn't excruciatingly polite about it. It wasn't downright rude, but it was peremptory.
He went absolutely ballistic, started yelling, wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise. I didn't know what to do to fix my apparent blunder. The understatement of the century would be that I don't deal well with conflict, especially not outright, naked anger. This was something beyond that, and I was actually frightened. His eyes were wild and staring, and he'd half-risen out of his chair and was screaming at me, and I was convinced he was going to hit me, or throw a chair at me, or something.
I had a brief mental flash of my father, in one of the three outbursts of temper I've known him to have in his life, throwing a chair halfway across the kitchen at our house.
I had the same reaction that I had with my father. Fourteen years later, the only thing I could do was to sink as far back in my chair as I could, and try as I might I couldn't help myself and burst into tears. Not outright sobbing or anything (the way I did when I was ten and frightened that I would go next after the chair), but I shut my eyes as tightly as I could and willed myself not to cry, and the tears spilled out anyway, until I knew I would choke to death. (Stupid anxiety attacks)
I could hear the guy still talking, while around him the silence grew louder and louder, and I knew people were looking at me and all I wanted was for them to look elsewhere, anywhere but at me. I wanted them to pay attention to the guy who had just reduced me to tears, if only because it would attract attention away from me. Finally, one of the therapists broke in, interrupting his flow of (admittedly very abrasive) verbiage:
"[Name of guy], do you realise what's going on?"
He hadn't, apparently. He'd been completely oblivious to the fact that he'd reduced me to a quivering wreck, which didn't endear him to anyone there, as far as I could tell. So the next fifteen minutes or so were devoted to both therapists hammering at me to tell the group why I was so upset. *sigh* Well, it didn't exactly make me feel better, but I guess it made the group feel better. I wasn't particularly keen on sharing it with them, since they all seemed so ready, able and willing to be nasty and dismissive with the first girl, but I guess tears made them gentler about it. Also, I used smaller words and tried not to make a big deal out of it, which is possibly why they took it better from me (I also neglected to mention that I wanted to die. I didn't, really, not then: I just wanted the floor to open up and swallow me. ^_-).
Meh. It was Not Fun™.
I can't tell who was more anxious to get out of there: me, or Aggressive!Dude. He left with his tail between his legs, as someone put it, and I just wanted to avoid anything having to do with him at all. I wasn't in any shape to face him, after all that, no matter what he said or did, and I wasn't prepared to deal with another outburst, no matter how remote the possibility.
***vaguely triggery stuff follows***
T
R
I
G
G
E
R
S
P
A
C
E
I didn't realise it at the time, but I was so upset that I was worrying at a spot on the back of my right hand with my fingernails, and I scratched away an entire layer of epidermis. It's now very very raw, and it stings like a sonofabitch.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-11-25 08:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-25 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-25 10:27 pm (UTC)*hugs tightly*
no subject
Date: 2003-11-25 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-26 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-26 04:17 am (UTC)Do you HAVE to keep going to this group therapy? It sounds to me that it's only causing you pain and trauma. It should not be like that!!!!
no subject
Date: 2003-11-26 05:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-26 06:37 am (UTC)When something like that happens in the group, one isn't allowed to leave. Instead you're supposed to stay put and deal with the emotion in a rational way.
:P
Not that I don't agree with you right now, mind you, but I can sort of see the logic behind the theory. I'm just going to stay as far away from that guy as possible from now on. He makes me feel very, very unsafe, and he's definitely not the type of person with whom I'd associate in the real world.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-26 08:40 am (UTC)*hugs back*
Things are looking much better now.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-26 08:41 am (UTC)It was unpleasant, but in the light of day it doesn't seem quite as bad. :)
no subject
Date: 2003-11-26 08:43 am (UTC)Is all better now. :)
The guy's an arse, and I can move on, comfortable with the knowledge. ;)
no subject
Date: 2003-11-26 08:43 am (UTC)Thank you. Means a lot. :)
no subject
Date: 2003-11-26 08:48 am (UTC)Still, that's just the PTSD talking, I think. Hypervigilance and overwhelming need to feel safe no matter what. :P
In other words, thank you for the kind words. :)
*hugs back*
no subject
Date: 2003-11-26 09:12 am (UTC)I'm not especially worried. :)
no subject
Date: 2003-11-26 09:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-26 05:34 pm (UTC)Good to hear. :)
no subject
Date: 2003-11-26 09:13 pm (UTC)As for your "trigger"... well, actually, I've heard of that before, and I'm not surprised. You didn't draw blood though, so good for you on the close call.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-27 10:10 am (UTC)