too many life events (memories) making brain hang up?

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omid
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15 Apr 2018, 8:27 am

I hope I can put this question in a simple comprehensible way.

I believe that just too many things have happened in my childhood / teenage / early adult life. And I have the feeling that my brain has been rendered unable to "swallow" all the data. like a completely full hard drive or rather smartphone that is so full that it won't even let you open up the file manager and delete or reorganize the data. This (or whatever) has caused me to be unable to take any new action in my life or have a perspective. I have to meditate at least twice the day to just get myself at a somewhat functional level. Or else I'm just lost in a soup of random memories and informations. I also had to learn two additional languages (english and German) and that on it's own is enough to clog everything up. I literally felt that as I learned German.

As of what I've experienced: War, various graphic traumas, insane parent(s), dictatorship, VERY rough punishment at schools (in home country), emigration (twice!), mobbing and racism in German schools by teachers and students alike, psychiatric admission (3 times) and mistreatment (both interpersonal/psychological and actual medical) of galactical proportion by German doctors.

I was just wondering whether just the bulk of all the stuff happening to me is the problem, rather than the content. I tried to work on the content and it didn't help really (years and years of actual therapy or self therapy or hypnosis and whatever. all futile).

It seems to me that all those stuff are not that bad and could happen to many people, but the fact that all of those happened to me ALL AT ONCE may have caused such a quantity of memories and impressions that my brain is kind of unable to sort it out for itself.
I'm actually also implying that I do not believe that I have developed a neurotic disorder due to these experienced, nor PTSD.

Many years ago someone here said something like this: my memory is good, it's the front side bus that is the problem. or so. At that time it made very much sense to me.

Of course AS does it's job in it too, as I can't blend out / Ignore ANYTHING. It all floods in like crazy and stays there at maximum possible intensity. I sometimes even know what everyone who passed me while walking in the city was talking about. I'm a too good observer.

Can you relate to this or do you have any ideas?


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IstominFan
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15 Apr 2018, 8:50 am

I have this sometimes, but not on as graphic a scale as you describe. You had some very traumatic experiences. With me, it is just memories of dumb things I did and missed opportunities to do better. I also learned three languages during my lifetime (German, English and Spanish-in that order).

What country are you from originally?



omid
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15 Apr 2018, 9:04 am

I'm from Iran.
As of traumatic experiences, of course, if someone just looks at my records, he might think that, I agree. But I'm not sure whether trauma is the main reason for me being so paralyzed in my life. I went down that rout and it didn't help at all. I'm searching for new explanations that fits my personality and neurology better and the thing above is my latest attempt to explain it.


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15 Apr 2018, 9:39 am

That's a lot to happen to anyone in a short space of time.

A friend of mine spent 10 days in a silent retreat. It really helped her sort out clogged up memories. I could imagine doing something like that could be a bit full on though, it feels like one of those things that could go either way.

I recognise myself a tiny bit in what you describe. I had a traumatic experience in my early 30s and afterwards it made me re-assess a lot of different things and it was very hard in part because I found it very hard to access the event in question. I assume this was because I had taken self-protective measures in relation to the event and it was just hard to remember it correctly and with the clarity I felt I needed to be able to process it. I think this is quite common with post traumatic stress but I am not sure it was PTS in my case, I think it is was just the struggle of having to get to a place where I could get through all those protective layers and access the memory and then deal with it. That was just one single traumatic event. In your case there are so many really stressful events piled together. One on top of the other and hard to pull apart and work through.

In terms of your last paragraph and how you can recount what everyone in the street it talking about. My daughter is like that. She will come home from school and be able to detail everything about everyone. That must be utterly exhausting. I have found that I can operate on two different modes of thinking, one where I am slightly behind everything and not actively at the surface taking it in. Being in this slower thinking, more meditative state, is also a self protective measurement. Seeing people as blobs, zoning out background noise, taking a breather and closing down a little bit. If I was forced to be in the active awareness phase it would burn me out in no time at all.

I'm not sure this resonates at all but could you explore if you can get any respite from meditation techniques or any other activities that help you feel calm: music, dancing, walking.... whatever it might be.


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15 Apr 2018, 1:28 pm

Many people experience numerous traumas and yet go on to live full, fairly happy lives. But many others do not have that outcome. What is the difference? In a word, vulnerability.

If a person has an inherited predisposition to depression, anxiety, or they have autism, then such a vulnerability exists.

I don't have a lot of suggestions for you omid, but I do feel you should remember that you are a person with a vulnerability, and expect less of yourself than of NTs or of people who had a vulnerability, but no trauma. You get a free pass. Accept it and be grateful. You may want to make life choices that involve less personal risk, or that shield you from stressors. I wish you all the best.


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omid
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19 Apr 2018, 6:03 am

Thank you for your valuable input.

Probably I'm "just" traumatized. As in Complex-PTSD.

I'm just wondering right now about the Asperger's thing, as it could as well be NOT asperger's in my case, but a very bad case of developmental trauma disorder (DTD), which is what children with c-PTSD usually get.

The guesswork crap about diagnosis just started all over again. Shoot.


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Aspie score: 131 of 200
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Possibly Aspie (diagnosed by an autism expert, doc moves abroad, forced to change docs and all say it's schizophrenia NOS or schizo-affective disorde or personality disorders. initial doc was a colleague of uncle Simon btw. you do the math.). (edit: by Uncle Simon I mean Simon Baron Cohen. Just to clear things up.)


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19 Apr 2018, 6:20 am

It could be that some people are lucky enough to make a "clean break" and start over again.

While others are constantly reminded of their past and there is no way to avoid that.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
This book suggests you can better your life by simplifying your life by getting rid of physical objects. Why shouldn't the same be true of things that only exist in your mind?