Don't feel safe anywhere

Hello
I really need your help I feel so hopeless. I came from an extremely emotionally and physically abusive family, just the thought of them makes me stop breathing. I was never allowed to ask any questions and was basically beaten for just talking. I have recently moved away from the city they live in. I have done everything possible to keep my address private but I fear that they will hire a private investigator to follow me or track me down. Now everywhere I go I feel dissociated because I fear someone is watching me or following me and everyone has become them. I feel like I can't trust anyone, I completely lose track of time, I don't know where I am and I've lost my job over this and its been going on for over 6 months. Please can anyone give me some advice I would really appreciate it!!!
Thanks in advance

Hello and welcome to the forum. I'm sorry to hear you are feeling like this.

I think it would help you a lot to get a therapist who understands trauma and dissociation if you can. I know it will be hard for you to trust them, but it will help you to have some real life support.

If you are getting lost, I found buying an iPhone really helped me, it's got a map function on there which when it is connected to the internet will pinpoint your current location and then you can get it to give you a route back to where you are supposed to be. Equally I have found the alarm on my phone very helpful to alert me to when I have something important that I am supposed to leave now to go and attend.

You are obviously aware that you are dissociated when you are going places. Are you aware if there is other parts taking over sometimes? It sounds like there might be. I think it will help you to get to know them as well so that you can all start to work as a team to feel like you are free from your family and won't be tracked. Perhaps start to try to communicate with any other parts you might have by writing to them in a journal and introducing yourself and asking them to write back.

Is there an agency in your area that helps battered women? They can give you good advice about how to be hard to find.

Thanks for your replies guys. It feels good to communicate with people that can relate to me in some way. I will lookup some agencies to help protect my privacy! What are some coping strategies that you guys use to help yourself when feeling panicky/ dissociative?
Thanks again

inahaze wrote:What are some coping strategies that you guys use to help yourself when feeling panicky/ dissociative?

When we feel panicky, we do whatever we can that helps us relax normally. Music for example, is universal. Then there's personal things people do, as each of us have our own preference. Like, going for a walk, or drawing. So, if you liked to run, you would go out running when you were panicky, and things like that. Unfortunately, we have no advice on coping with being dissociative, since we're just learning about it ourselves.

If you google "grounding techniques" that will probably help you with a whole lot of ideas of things to do if you are starting to feel panicky or dissociative. There are things like clap your hands five times or take your shoes off and concentrate on the feeling of your feet on the carpet, say your name out loud and the year you are in and that you are safe currently, take notice of your surroundings, that type of thing. I find those types of things can really help me to focus on the current moment and realize that I am currently safe and that my anxiety is related to what I think will happen as opposed to the reality that I am safe currently.

A few years back I was being stalked at my workplace, and that triggered an old PTSD, apparently. It took a long time before I stopped seeing the stalker everywhere -- over a year -- and even longer to stop thinking and being afraid of him on a daily basis. In the beginning I got some medication which helped me to get sleep (the panic was unbearable at night), but my mistake was to try to deal with it on my own, since I considered it an overreaction and thought that if I talk about it to my employer they will brush me off. I also avoided discussing it because I started to feel panic if I did. I found a new job because everything in the old one, and I mean everything, reminded me of the incident, but it didn't stop.

I hope you have someone to talk to, I think it would have been better for me to get a chance to express my fears and try to seek a way out of them with someone instead of trying to suppress it.