I Feel Like a Yo Yo

[Jesus Loves Me]

I feel like a yo yo. One day I am fine and then a few days later I am so depressed I can barely get out of bed. Is this normal? I am barely functioning today...what's wrong with me? Has anyone else gone through this too? Any words of wisdom? I could really use your prayers right now...thanks

[yeshua'smags]

You are totally normal! It goes like that for awhile, and the lows get higher and higher....uh, if that makes sense:D . We are at an amazing church that I love and that loves us back. But if I hear anything about St. Lucifer's , or see someone from there.....or if I'm vacuuming and my mind wanders.....I can still get my self all whipped into a wild fury about that place. What I should have said to whom, what I would say now....But those are very few and far between now. It's been 1 1/2 years since we left.

Sorry, didn't mean to ramble. I just didn't want you to feel alone.;)

[mary]

Dear JLM,

Yes, yes, yes... We've all been there, and we're all going to go through it again - but we will, each of us, get through it and be stronger for it. :( but then :) !

Read up on post-traumatic stress disorder, JLM. Then read Psalm 103... and then the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). Wrap it up with 1 Peter 5:7, and picture those everlasting arms under you, constantly holding you up and doing battle against your enemies on your behalf (Deuteronomy 33:27).

It's been 15 months since I was thrown out of the church I thought I'd be in for the rest of my life - and I still have good days and bad days. Sometimes I have nightmares about the place; I had one on Saturday. They seem to be getting worse. I can't watch a James Bond movie and listen to, for example, Sean Connery speak and not have at least a "mini" panic attack. I haven't yet driven on the road that the church is located on so as to avoid going by it and "pastor's" house, which means that I go out of my way sometimes - I can't go within two miles of the place or I start to panic. My sister lives about 2-1/2 miles from there. I was at her house yesterday - and I noticed that I was getting nauseous just being even that close. It's also the fact that he's televised on local cable there and my sister might be flipping channels and he might all of a sudden appear on her big-screen TV. Scares me. (The station runs him at all hours of day and night, it seems.) When my sister and my niece see him on there, they sit and laugh, but it makes me sick that he's even on TV.

People say, "Get over it. It's in the past..." It's not entirely in the past when it's become part of your subconscious and it has reinforced past negative feelings that you thought were gone.

We must look to our Great Physician, JLM. He's the One Who'll heal us; by His stripes, He's put away our own sins and we belong to Him. He's the One Who'll bring us through. He won't suffer us to be destroyed or harmed by our own thoughts, by the wicked or by anything else. Romans 8:35-39!!! THEY RULE THE DAY!!! Let them rule every day and every minute for us!

Nothing - and I mean NOTHING - can separate us from the love of Jesus Christ!

Praying for you, dear JLM,

In His love,

mary

[SpinningHead]

Definitely sounds like PTSD...

We've done a couple threads on the subject full of great info but I don't know how to link them...

can any of you computer savvy minds assist?

[Erin]

I am very glad to know I'm not the only yo yo around here! :)

Erin

[Voyager]

It does get better JLM and Erin, but in all reality, it doesn't happen overnight. It's a gradual process of recovery. As the layers of brainwashing come off, reality begins to set in - and it is difficult to deal with at times. We were all conditioned to live in a world that was not real, and once we begin to realize that, it's like someone took the wind out of our sails.

I left my former abusive church in 1998 after being their for 12 years. When I first got out, I was filled with fear. I was not used to coping with reality on reality's terms. I felt lost, and as if I had been transported to a different planet. I felt like a fish out of water. I tried in vain to find another church to fit into, but I couldn't trust pastors or church leaders anymore... I had a hard time even trusting anyone but my own family.

As the others have stated, Post Traumatic Stress began to set in. I grew depressed and had a hard time even wanting to get out of bed. I started drinking and doing drugs again, and this lasted for several years. Only in mid-2006 did I stop drinking and doing drugs again. The struggle for me was trying to fill the void that was left when I lost my church family and friends. It's a documented fact that people with PTSD symptoms have a tendency to lean to addictive substances to attempt to numb their mental pain and anguish.

At first I didn't want to accept the possibility that I was suffereing from PTSD, because most of what I rad said it was incurable. However, I have not found that to be true. I feel much better now that I am off drugs and alcohol, and I am beginning to be able to enjoy life again with out the depression and torment that pagued me for years.

I hope that this gives you hope. I don't want to lie to you and say everything is going to be better tomorrow, next week, or next month. You will have some bad days... and you will have some good days. Layer by layer the brainwashing will come off as you educate yourself on spiritual abuse and PTSD. Some people end up getting back into a bad church again and actually stunt their recovery process. I'm not trying to scare you away from church, but I have seen so many postings on here from people trying to re-integrate into a church and torturing themselves in the process.

Their is a reaction from PTSD that is called being "triggered". This is the same symptom that war veterans have when they face situations that remind them of what they went through in combat. This can also happen to spiritual abuse victims wirh they attempt to re-enter the church scene. Little things such as Scriptures and exclusion-type actions can trigger you. I have even had panic attacks when this happened to me, but I haven't had one for over five years. I had never had one in my life until I left that church, and I didn't even know what it was when it happened. Thank God they only lasted for about a year.

Just lately I have been able to find a peace with God again. For many years I was so angry with God. Now, I have a firm confidence that Jesus made atonement for my sins and made me right with God. That is all the deeper my religion goes. I don't need anything more. I believe that Jesus is inclusive, not exclusive - which is the opposite of what most churches seem to preach. Therefore, I don't need a church anymore. I have broken my religious addiction.

:cool:

[Voyager]

Here is something that I posted on PTSD a while back:

MSNBC
Updated: 7:32 p.m. ET March 16, 2006

After the storm, depression settles in
Plagued by nightmares, insomnia, Katrina's refugees struggle for stability

CHICAGO - When William Villavaso closes his eyes, the nightmare is waiting for him — the one about the 15 hours he spent in water slick with diesel fuel in New Orleans, a life jacket and a chunk of wood keeping him afloat until he was rescued.

Six months after losing his home and his possessions to Hurricane Katrina, the 49-year-old New Orleans native is now living in Chicago, where he has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and wakes up from bad dreams in a cold sweat.

On a scale from 1 to 10 — 10 being well — Villavaso says that emotionally, “right now I’m probably a 2.”

“I hope to have normalcy again in my life,” says Villavaso, who is trying to battle his depression at group counseling. “I’m just hoping for that stability.”

As many as 500,000 Katrina evacuees around the country may need mental health counseling, according to the U.S. Substance and Mental Health Services Administration. And while Villavaso is getting help, the government says many others are not, and may not even know they need it.

Several states that took in evacuees are recognizing the problem, changing their focus from providing housing and jobs to offering counseling and emotional support.

In Illinois, about 20 counselors are tracking down approximately 7,000 evacuees, and officials are referring them to professionals.

“We know that there’s several stages of emotional crisis that people go through,” says Carol Adams, Illinois’ human services secretary. “Right now, people are in the stage when they realize things won’t work out quite how they thought.”

People like 46-year-old Reginald Lucien, who like Villavaso came to Chicago from New Orleans’ devastated Ninth Ward.

“When I first came to Chicago I thought it was easy to cope, I never questioned it,” he says. “As time goes along I come to the realization that this is where I’ll be for some time, it gets harder. I get anxious.”

Dr. Anthony Ng, chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Committee on Psychiatric Dimensions of Disasters says Katrina evacuees run the risk of such problems as depression, recurring nightmares and drug and alcohol abuse.

“When people are talking about post-traumatic stress disorder, they usually talk about something like a plane crash, but this is more complicated than usual,” Ng says. “What makes Katrina different is the scale of the disaster and the length of time people went through it.”

Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, breaching levees and submerging 80 percent of New Orleans. It killed more than 1,300 people, most of them in Louisiana, and caused over $200 billion in damage. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced from their homes.

At first, evacuees “had sort of a honeymoon phase, when the assets, the Red Cross and volunteers are rolling in,” says J.W. Holcomb, coordinator of mental health disaster response for the Illinois Division of Mental Health. “But just now they’re coming to grips with the fact that, ‘Hey, I’m no better than I was before. I’ll never get back my picture of Grandma or my high school yearbook. And I’m in a strange place.”’

To help evacuees handle the stress, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency have given states more than $67 million, including a $19.2 million grant announced this month.

The grant will go toward local mental health programs for Illinois, Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri and Colorado. Texas — which received the largest share of the evacuees — will get most of the latest grant, about $12.1 million.

Almaz Oko, a Miami resident who came to Chicago after Hurricane Andrew destroyed her home in 1992, says Katrina’s victims face a long recovery. She says she still suffers from insomnia and flashbacks.

“You’ll be in the grocery store and you’ll bust out crying and you’re not sure why,” says Oko, who helped process Katrina evacuees in Chicago for the Red Cross. “I also went through a hoarding stage when I just wanted to buy, buy, buy. I guess I was trying to buy back what I lost, to fill the hole.”
Right after Katrina hit, I knew these folks would suffer PTSD. The losses they suffered were similar to the losses that many of us suffered: Loss of life investment, loss of friends, loss of familiar surroundings, loss of purpose, etc. Personally, I believe that the losses I suffered when leaving my former church were more psychologically damaging than the spiritual abuse itself.

Another post:

I'm beginning to see news reports that are documenting the fact that many of the Hurricane Katrina victims are showing signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. When I was watching these reports on TV, I was reminded of how many of the spiritual abuse victims I have met over the years had also suffered P.T.S.D.

Many of us here on the Spiritual Abuse Forum can relate with the Hurricane Katrina victims. We went through a very similar experience - we lost friends, our church, and had our very lives stripped away from us. My wife and I even moved to another city when we left our spiritually abusive church. We had to start our lives all over. Our kids went to a different school. We had to make new friends. We didn't have any family to speak of, so we also lost our church "family".

This type of experience is what can cause P.T.S.D. It's not so much the abuse that I experienced that caused it, it was having to start a new life. It was caused from losing everything. This is the same experience that the Hurricane Katrina victims are going through, and it is causing them to suffer P.T.S.D.

My wife and I have been wondering how we could help the victims of this disaster in addition to giving money to the Red Cross. I believe that many of us on this forum could be of help to these victims. We went through the loss of everything dear to us, so we can relate to what they are going through. It can really help to have a shoulder to lean on, especially when it is someone who has been through what you are going through who can tell you "You're gonna make it through this."

Continued below (text too long).

[Voyager]

Another post:

Originally Posted by Voyager
“You’ll be in the grocery store and you’ll bust out crying and you’re not sure why,” says Oko, who helped process Katrina evacuees in Chicago for the Red Cross. “I also went through a hoarding stage when I just wanted to buy, buy, buy. I guess I was trying to buy back what I lost, to fill the hole.” I think that's where my lack of motivation comes from. It's like the loss I suffered was so great, and nothing I could do would bring it back. I invested my whole life into something, and lost it all. All the friends who I thought loved me are gone. The cause that I had invested my entire life into for 12 years turned out to be a fraud. Trying to re-motivate myself after these losses is very difficult. You develop a "no care" attitude because all your attempts at replacing your losses come up empty-handed. No matter how hard you try, it seem hopeless to gain back what was lost. It's like a big part of me died, and cannot be resurrected. So you just want to give up.

Does anyone else deal with this?

Another post:

Originally Posted by Voyager

Re: Similarities: SA Victims and Katrina Victims

Here is the CNN news article from today that I referred to:
Quote:
Is New Orleans Having a Mental Health Breakdown?

A new medical study provides a bleak snapshot of the city and its residents
By RUSSELL MCCULLEY/NEW ORLEANS

Background: It's Worse Than You Think

Posted Tuesday, Aug. 01, 2006

Over the past several months, psychiatrist James Barbee has witnessed a disturbing trend among his patients in New Orleans — a noticeable slide from post-Katrina anxiety to more serious, and harder to treat, cases of major depression. At the same time, the city’s system for dealing with mental health care is suffering a major breakdown of its own. "People are just wearing down," says Barbee. "There was an initial spirit about bouncing back and recovering, but it's diminished over time, as weeks have become months."

Nearly one year after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, killing more than 1,300 and displacing thousands more, frustration over the slow pace of recovery is taking a toll on the region's overall mental health. Initially, complaints reflected what some locals have dubbed "Katrina Brain": general fatigue brought on by the disruption of their lives, difficulty concentrating, mood swings, and mild depression. In most cases, it was nothing that reached critical levels. But since the first of the year, Barbee says, "there's been a steady increase in depression, specifically major depression." Worse, he adds, there's little evidence that things will get better any time soon.

Barbee, a professor at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center and director of the Anxiety and Mood Disorders Clinic, sums up the situation with a quote he saw in a local magazine recently: "There's no 'post-' to the post-traumatic stress syndrome in this situation," he says. The stress, in other words, never goes away. "The event is still unfolding. People are losing jobs. They're moving because they're so discouraged by the situation. There's a lot of uncertainty about the future. It's not easy to live here."

Barbee is co-author of a report, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which tries to put some real numbers behind what many health care professionals have known anecdotally: that New Orleans may be in the midst of a serious breakdown, both among residents and the health care system needed to treat them. Barbee and his co-authors — psychiatrists Mark Townsend, also of LSUHSC, and Richard Weisler, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — pull together data that, collectively, provide a bleak snapshot of the city’s mental health condition as it approaches the storm's one-year anniversary.

Shortly after Katrina, the report says, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention poll determined that roughly half of respondents indicated a possible need for mental health assistance, yet fewer than 2% were getting counseling. A February survey of people living in temporary FEMA-subsidized housing found that more than two-thirds of female caregivers reported feelings of anxiety, depression and other mental health disorders. As many as half of the children they were caring for were suffering from mental disorders of their own. A poll of police officers and firefighters, most of whom lost homes in the storm, found that roughly 20% were experiencing post-traumatic stress syndrome and that one in four emergency responders was suffering from major depression. More troubling, perhaps, is a 25% jump in the mortality rate, including a threefold increase in the suicide rate — a conservative estimate since many self-inflicted deaths are classified as accidental.

To make matters worse, the city is suffering from a dearth of mental health services. By most estimates, a little less than half of the city’s pre-Katrina population of 450,000 has returned. But there are only a total of 20 psychiatric beds available in the few New Orleans hospitals that have reopened, compared to about 300 before the storm. By last April, the report says, only 22 of 196 psychiatrists were practicing in the city, shifting a good portion of mental health treatment to the 140 primary care physicians, out of 617, who had returned. With 96 inpatient psychiatry beds, the Medical Center of Louisiana — better known as Charity Hospital — was once the city's biggest mental health care provider. Now, it dispenses emergency care from a makeshift clinic housed in a former Lord & Taylor department store. The heavily flooded hospital may never reopen.

Townsend, head of LSUHSC's Behavioral Research Clinic, says part of the problem boils down to bricks and mortar. "We literally do not have a lot of buildings to put beds in right now," he says. Despite the physicians' best attempts to gauge the scope of the looming disaster, much is still unknown — the real suicide rate, much less how many people are even living in the city. Says Townsend, "All I know is there are a lot of people in emergency rooms all over town who aren't able to be admitted and are just kind of hanging in this limbo between being admitted and being on the street."

To rebuild the system, Townsend and others are calling for more help from the federal government, including an amendment to the 1974 Stafford Act that would provide long-term mental health assistance, rather than current rules that only allow funding for services in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration provided 1,200 volunteer counselors for the Gulf Coast until June 30, when funding for its Katrina response program ended. Local doctors would like to see that help continued as well as more help rebuilding the area's teaching hospitals and physician training programs.

If there's a hopeful note to be found in the depressing pile of statistics, it's that Katrina's aftermath should yield lessons for mental health care providers dealing with a future disaster. "People will learn from us," says Townsend. "Because a disaster like this will occur again."
Can any of you relate with these symptoms?

Hope this helps.

:cool:

[Voyager]

I realize that these Hurricane Katrina comparisons may seem somewhat discouraging, but I truly believe that the survivors of this storm are dealing with the same type of difficulties that spiritual abuse victims do: We are traumatized by having our entire world as we know it turned upside down and stripped away from us. Then we have to learn to live all over again in a new environment. All of the props of our former lives are taken away. It is not an easy thing to deal with, but I can say this with confidence:

You can make it through this. Life does become enjoyable again. There is recovery from spiritual abuse. And we are here to help you through it.

:cool:

[Jerry]

I feel like a yo yo. One day I am fine and then a few days later I am so depressed I can barely get out of bed. Is this normal? I am barely functioning today...what's wrong with me? Has anyone else gone through this too? Any words of wisdom? I could really use your prayers right now...thanks

Dear Jesus Loves Me,,,,,,
I can't help a lot but I know this for fact,,,,,,,,; The longer you work on yourself (with Gods help of course) and the better you get,,,,,the bouts of depression get further and further apart....... ;)
Love Jerry

[cryfreedom]

Jesus Loves Me,

Congratulations, you are a normal, healthy person who is in the process of healing and recovery.

Are you able to reflect and identify any 'triggers' that alter your moods or perceptions?

I know sometimes there are no triggers aside from simply opening your eyes in the morning, it's just 'there'. Can't explain it, but I believe that it is all a part of the healing process. I know it is hard, but try to see it as a positive experience - you're on the road to wholeness.

[Reg]

A belated welcome Cryfreedom.

Catching up on some posts.

Voyager understands this very well. He has some excellent info.

Personally, this is some of the experience I had/have with it when I was having some difficulties with someone at our church who was triggering me. Found out later why. She was a controller. Fortunately she has left since.

This is from the book, "Hiding From Love". By Cloud/Townsend

“INTERNAL HIDING FROM DETACHMENT” January 27, 2003

(My Comments)

When our need for attachment, or our “yes muscle,” is injured, we tend to view relationship itself as
the danger. Our ability to trust God and others may have been violated by abandonment, abuse,
detachment, superficial family intimacy, and other injuries.

What gives rise to hiding in this area? The fear of our needy parts will cause our emotional
annihilation. At some level, a person’s ability to reach out emotionally is damaged. We become
certain that if we risk further relationship, at least one of two things will happen: (1) our own needs
and dependencies will engulf and overwhelm us; or (2) others will betray us because of our needs.
(My comment: Because we leave ourselves open, exposed and vulnerable in some of the areas that
have caused us the most pain in the past. Those who were closest to us have betrayed us and hurt us
the most. To go back to that kind of pain is out of the range of our ability to accept it again.)

The overwhelming terror we experience when our unmet needs for connection and our needy parts
come face to face causes tremendously powerful hiding patterns.

(My Comment: As stated above, the terror of ever experiencing that kind of pain is avoided at all
costs. A rape victim never wants to go back to the experience of being raped again. They will run as
far away and as fast as they can from their abuser. For me as a victim of Sp Ab who was
intellectually and spiritually raped, the feelings are just as strong. This may explain why I have such
difficulty in trusting those in Church authority no matter how safe they may be. I have an extremely
difficult time to distinguish the differences of who and who not to trust, because of the subtlety of my
abuse. It’s a bit like knowing how to sort the wheat from the chaff analogy. Those parts of me that
would normally be available to me as it is to others, has been damaged to the point that it no longer
works effectively. It has been disabled because of my abuse. This is the dilemma many of us face as
victims of Sp Ab when we try to integrate into church life again. It is the part that we struggle with so
much, to try to explain our abuse issue to others, hoping they will understand.)

We can identify six styles of internal hiding from attachment: projection, introjection, splitting,
perceived omnipotence, devaluation and hostility.

(Mine are splitting, perceived omnipotence, some devaluation and hostility. Four out of six. It’s no
wonder I have the difficulty I do.)

Black and White Style (Splitting)

Without the ability to make distinctions between ourselves and others, decision-making would be
impossible. Yet a black and white hiding style can be a way to “cut off”, or remove, parts of ourselves
from others who diminish us.

The Fall created a fundamental split in the universe, when we were separated from God, and each
other, by sin. The alienation and isolation caused by this rift in closeness was solved on the cross:

Eph 2:12 Remember that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens (excluded) from the
commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without
God in the world.
13 But now in Christ Jesus you who were once afar off are made (brought us) near by the blood of
Christ.
14 ¶ For He (Himself) is our peace, He making us both (groups into) one, and [He] has broken down
the middle wall (barrier) of partition (the dividing wall) [between us], (emphasis added)

This description of Christ’s integrating Gentile with Jews gives us the counterpart to splitting. The
antidote to splitting is reconciliation.

For the individual with attachment injuries [me]- love and limits are split. That is, our bonding ability
and our aggressive parts are kept away from each other. We fear that our hatred toward neediness (as
illustrated in self-statements such as “Why don’t you grow up!”) will destroy those injured weak
parts.

Elaine would talk about her own soul this way: “There’s a strong independent Elaine who’s good. But
there’s also a weak clingy Elaine who’s bad.” (Personally, I may have that side to me but have not
acknowledged it yet. One thing I do not want to do, is to be weak or appear to be weak. It leaves me
too vulnerable to exposing myself to further hurt and injury. I do not want to surrender my critical
thinking process to another person again. Admitting weakness to another person I may not have
learned to trust fully yet, opens myself up to being vulnerable and hurt again.)

Elaine spent most of her time trying to keep these two parts away from each other, especially by
keeping “weak Elaine” out of the picture entirely. (Most likely what I have done.) That part of her was
too much trouble. It made her do foolish things like fall in love, get close to the wrong people and get
hurt. (This most likely describes me.)

Another example of splitting in this area of attachment has to do with serious trauma, such as
physical, sexual, emotional, ritualistic (let me add - spiritual) abuse. When people have suffered this
sort of severe injury, it’s common for them to use splitting to a great degree. ( So that helps explain
what I have done without ever knowing it. It is a revelation to me to help explain why I do what I do
that causes me such difficulty in my relationships.)

Sometimes large segments of time, such as the abusive years (29), will be split off from memory
entirely. (I think that has partially occurred with me) And in extreme cases, sometimes the splitting is
a fragmentation of the self into several or many “selves” as in multiple personality disorders.
(Thankfully it hasn’t gotten to that point with me.)

Splitting protects us from having to remember and re-experience traumatic events that would be too
destructive to handle all the time. It takes years, and a great deal of work, for people with this sort of
background to develop trusting relationships for split-off parts of the soul to come together within
attachments.

(That explains it as clearly as I’ve ever seen it described before. It’s like Dr. Townsend has gotten
into my mind to see exactly what’s going on. I find that remarkable. It is one of the largest
breakthroughs in my recovery to date.)

[Reg]

Sorry Jesus Loves Me. The Welcome was for you

Although I also meant that for Cryfreedom, I should have posted it on the appropriate thread. Just chaulk it up to the 60 something bunch. :D

A lot of newer folks coming here lately.

[Jesus Loves Me]

Thank you everyone for your words and prayers. I am so thankful to have found this place, you are all so wonderful. I am feeling much better today, much stronger...

I hadn't read much about PTSD until now and that definitely seems to fit. I don't think it's just from the spiritual abuse but I have had several major things happen in the past 7 years and I never had the breakdown that anyone in my situation would have had, I just kept going because I had to and every once in a while it would sneak up on me and I would be so depressed I couldn’t get out of bed and would spend a whole weekend sleeping.

When I got involved with the cult I just left, the leader promised me that God would heal me emotionally, I was looking for healing, I was searching for help and was so sick and tired of being sick and tired I was willing to listen to anyone who appeared to have the answer. It’s hard to believe now that that is how they sucked me in, with a promise of emotional well-being when they so completely abused me. The truth is God will heal me cause His word says he will.

I have noticed Tuesdays are really hard for me, I think that day is a trigger because the group always met for prayer on Tuesdays. They have stopped calling me which is good. I am in the process of trying to restore some relationships that I messed up because of the cult.

Reg, I want to get that book, Hiding from Love. What the author says makes so much sense…on one hand I feel soooo needy but I don’t allow that part of myself to show because I fear not having my needs met and being rejected because I appear too needy. I often see myself in parts, the good me and the bad me, the bad me is needy, the good me has it all together and doesn’t need anyone…I’ve been believing a lie, having needs does not mean I am bad or unworthy and not having needs doesn’t make anyone good.

There is a wealth of information on this website..I am so glad to have found this place. I am not sure how much I will be posting but I will definitely be reading and praying for you all. Thanks