brainless_twit
New Here
Hi all,
I was first diagnosed with PTSD ten years ago, when I was 14. Now, at 24, I am seeing the same therapist and trying to accept the fact that I have chronic PTSD. I will say it was much easier to accept the dx when I thought it was just temporary, but apparently it's here to stay.
When I was 13, my best friend committed suicide. I live in a small town, and the gossip mill started churning - people said we had a suicide pact (we didn't), that I encouraged her to do it, that I was dangerous and deranged. So on top of losing my best friend of 7 years, I was also alienated from other kids at school because their parents didn't want them around me. Her parents also believed the rumors; I talked to them once after she died, but they didn't want to talk to me. I sent them several letters but never got a response. Other kids from our school were invited to their home to look at pictures and talk about their memories with her, but not me. It truly ripped my life apart. I wasn't suicidal in any way before she died, but I definitely was afterward because of the way people treated me.
I never firmly resolved all the issues surrounding that trauma. I was released from therapy after almost a year because I was coping better and having fewer flashbacks. However, the suicidal ideation never went away and still hasn't. In one way, it is almost comforting to me to know that it's an option. Not one I plan to act on, but it's there. I like knowing I could have some kind of control if I wanted to.
About the time I stopped going to therapy, I met a great guy who is now my husband. I got pregnant a few months after we met (yes, I was 14, when he was born I was 15) and we now have a son who will be 9 next month. We didn't get married until 2002 because I didn't want to marry him just because we had a child together. I had lots of hard times throughout our relationship, but overall my life seemed so much better because I could talk to him. He has never experienced PTSD or even depression, but he has always tried to understand. He supported me while I went to college and grad school - I am now a master-prepared social worker, and had intentions of becoming a therapist.
Last summer, I finished my master's degree and had a nervous breakdown. I was so used to doing school work and writing papers, I didn't know what to do just sitting at home. I would come up with things to look up online to keep from panicking, and as a result, I spent way too much time on the computer. My husband started going to a martial arts school and I was glad because when he was gone, I could be online without him griping. By the end of the summer, we were hardly speaking to each other and I still didn't have a job.
On our son's birthday (of all days) I learned that my dear, wonderful husband was emotionally involved with a coworker. The "relationship" had not become physical yet, but it was headed in that direction. When I confronted him, he told me he wanted a divorce. That he loved me but wasn't IN love with me. That this coworker was so beautiful and understanding and wonderful, and that I wasn't any of those things any more. As I burst into tears, he said he felt so relieved to know it was "over" and went to bed. I was completely stunned.
Every feeling and memory from my friend's suicide came rushing back. It was literally like being knocked over by an ocean wave. I started having the auditory flashbacks, only intermingled now with the harsh things my husband said to me. I kept seeing his face over and over saying, "I think we should just get a divorce." In the weeks following discovery of the betrayal, I totally lost it. I couldn't even drink water without vomiting. I couldn't get dressed, I couldn't answer the phone when people called me for job interviews (we ended up filing Chapter 7 last September). I would lie in bed all day and relive that night, the couple of days afterward, my friend's suicide, my grandmother's death in 2005... Everything hit at once and I was totally unable to function.
After several false starts, we are working on reconciling. I can't even describe how badly shaken I've been by this - my husband was my safe place, I trusted him completely, and he betrayed me! Everything I thought I knew about life and the world has been destroyed. To learn that he is capable of falling in love with someone else makes me wonder what other horrors he is capable of. He is so remorseful, and when I'm not upset, I can look at it intellectually and see how it happened and that it could have just as easily been me. He was just looking for approval and an ego boost, and all he got from me is complaints.
Anyway, I have thrown all my psychotherapy training out the window and am working as a social worker in a dialysis center. I like what I do, but it's so different from being a therapist. I just realized that I have no right trying to deal with people's mental health when I can't even straighten out my own. Plus, since all this, my self-esteem is obliterated and I can't even maintain eye contact. I don't know what kind of therapist I would be if I can't even look my clients in the eye! I'm lucky that no one at my current job really knows or understands what I'm supposed to do, because I am not functioning at all. I surf the internet all day and only do the work that I absolutely must do.
Yesterday I went back to therapy (with my original therapist) to try to get my life back together. I started 50mg Zoloft last night and am hoping it will kick in pretty quickly. It's so scary, though, to imagine feeling better or different after wallowing and suffering for so long. I don't know what I'm like when I'm not this way, so it's extremely weird for me.
Anyway, I am so sorry for this huge novel. I have just never had an opportunity to talk about this with people who might actually understand, and I have needed to get some of this out for a long time. I look forward to getting to know you all.
I was first diagnosed with PTSD ten years ago, when I was 14. Now, at 24, I am seeing the same therapist and trying to accept the fact that I have chronic PTSD. I will say it was much easier to accept the dx when I thought it was just temporary, but apparently it's here to stay.
When I was 13, my best friend committed suicide. I live in a small town, and the gossip mill started churning - people said we had a suicide pact (we didn't), that I encouraged her to do it, that I was dangerous and deranged. So on top of losing my best friend of 7 years, I was also alienated from other kids at school because their parents didn't want them around me. Her parents also believed the rumors; I talked to them once after she died, but they didn't want to talk to me. I sent them several letters but never got a response. Other kids from our school were invited to their home to look at pictures and talk about their memories with her, but not me. It truly ripped my life apart. I wasn't suicidal in any way before she died, but I definitely was afterward because of the way people treated me.
I never firmly resolved all the issues surrounding that trauma. I was released from therapy after almost a year because I was coping better and having fewer flashbacks. However, the suicidal ideation never went away and still hasn't. In one way, it is almost comforting to me to know that it's an option. Not one I plan to act on, but it's there. I like knowing I could have some kind of control if I wanted to.
About the time I stopped going to therapy, I met a great guy who is now my husband. I got pregnant a few months after we met (yes, I was 14, when he was born I was 15) and we now have a son who will be 9 next month. We didn't get married until 2002 because I didn't want to marry him just because we had a child together. I had lots of hard times throughout our relationship, but overall my life seemed so much better because I could talk to him. He has never experienced PTSD or even depression, but he has always tried to understand. He supported me while I went to college and grad school - I am now a master-prepared social worker, and had intentions of becoming a therapist.
Last summer, I finished my master's degree and had a nervous breakdown. I was so used to doing school work and writing papers, I didn't know what to do just sitting at home. I would come up with things to look up online to keep from panicking, and as a result, I spent way too much time on the computer. My husband started going to a martial arts school and I was glad because when he was gone, I could be online without him griping. By the end of the summer, we were hardly speaking to each other and I still didn't have a job.
On our son's birthday (of all days) I learned that my dear, wonderful husband was emotionally involved with a coworker. The "relationship" had not become physical yet, but it was headed in that direction. When I confronted him, he told me he wanted a divorce. That he loved me but wasn't IN love with me. That this coworker was so beautiful and understanding and wonderful, and that I wasn't any of those things any more. As I burst into tears, he said he felt so relieved to know it was "over" and went to bed. I was completely stunned.
Every feeling and memory from my friend's suicide came rushing back. It was literally like being knocked over by an ocean wave. I started having the auditory flashbacks, only intermingled now with the harsh things my husband said to me. I kept seeing his face over and over saying, "I think we should just get a divorce." In the weeks following discovery of the betrayal, I totally lost it. I couldn't even drink water without vomiting. I couldn't get dressed, I couldn't answer the phone when people called me for job interviews (we ended up filing Chapter 7 last September). I would lie in bed all day and relive that night, the couple of days afterward, my friend's suicide, my grandmother's death in 2005... Everything hit at once and I was totally unable to function.
After several false starts, we are working on reconciling. I can't even describe how badly shaken I've been by this - my husband was my safe place, I trusted him completely, and he betrayed me! Everything I thought I knew about life and the world has been destroyed. To learn that he is capable of falling in love with someone else makes me wonder what other horrors he is capable of. He is so remorseful, and when I'm not upset, I can look at it intellectually and see how it happened and that it could have just as easily been me. He was just looking for approval and an ego boost, and all he got from me is complaints.
Anyway, I have thrown all my psychotherapy training out the window and am working as a social worker in a dialysis center. I like what I do, but it's so different from being a therapist. I just realized that I have no right trying to deal with people's mental health when I can't even straighten out my own. Plus, since all this, my self-esteem is obliterated and I can't even maintain eye contact. I don't know what kind of therapist I would be if I can't even look my clients in the eye! I'm lucky that no one at my current job really knows or understands what I'm supposed to do, because I am not functioning at all. I surf the internet all day and only do the work that I absolutely must do.
Yesterday I went back to therapy (with my original therapist) to try to get my life back together. I started 50mg Zoloft last night and am hoping it will kick in pretty quickly. It's so scary, though, to imagine feeling better or different after wallowing and suffering for so long. I don't know what I'm like when I'm not this way, so it's extremely weird for me.
Anyway, I am so sorry for this huge novel. I have just never had an opportunity to talk about this with people who might actually understand, and I have needed to get some of this out for a long time. I look forward to getting to know you all.