• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Poll Do You Re-create Your Trauma?

How you re-create your trauma? (Select no if you don't). Please discuss below if comfortable.

  • No - I dont re-create my trauma.

    Votes: 19 17.1%
  • I seek out many partners to have sex with.

    Votes: 20 18.0%
  • I sexual want to be hurt by partner (sexual harm).

    Votes: 42 37.8%
  • I sexual self harm (gentials).

    Votes: 19 17.1%
  • I tend to cheat on my spouce/partner, with or without knowing why.

    Votes: 17 15.3%
  • I have once or more than once sexually touched a child (as a child or an adult).

    Votes: 4 3.6%
  • I tend to have regular risk seeking behaviors (life threatening or very close to).

    Votes: 35 31.5%
  • I tend to anger easily and tend to scream and/or lash out at others on a regular basis.

    Votes: 30 27.0%
  • I tend to put others down all, or a lot, of the time.

    Votes: 9 8.1%
  • Other - please explain below.

    Votes: 28 25.2%

  • Total voters
    111
Status
Not open for further replies.
I used to re-create trauma scenarios and I suffered for it greatly. I no longer do this but, still have to wrestle down the urges that I sometimes get. It is an ongoing process of self-understanding and self-restraint.

With time, it has become easier but, I stilll have compulsive urges that need to be tamed and tempered with wisdom and self-compassion. I haven't acted out, in many years, but I still struggle with the addiction to the adrenaline rush and the urge to act out. However, I just have to do this one day, one urge at a time.
 
Last edited:
"I just can't, and that's okay, because I know I can cope if I don't."

I like that! :)

have a real inability to say no - I don’t feel like I have the right to and even if I did, I have no idea how to.

I share that issue with you. If im not out seeking being forcefully seductive and if someone comes up to me (even with my severe fear of people) and wants sex, I dont know how to say no and feel I dont have a right too anyway.

My freakish neighbor used to do that every night to me and he was more than willing to hurt me and do something I had since stopped until my dad freaked him out by threatening him. My dad acted sort of crazy...it was awesome. He stopped asking after that as he thinks my dad is crazy. Its awesome lol.

There were also times I’d use the internet to meet guys for sex under the proviso that they could do whatever they wanted to me (never good stuff). It wasn’t a healthy scenario at all, and yeah looking back it was was purely retraumatising, and I still have a lot of shame tied up with that.

I did that as well. You shouldnt have shame (though I know thats easier said than done) but it was normal to you and a lot of us have done it. It sounds like you havent done it in a while. Knowing that many of us have done it and it was your normal, or was normal to you, can you release that shame? Its ok if you cant, just wanted to help you a bit. Either way, we are here for support for you! :hug:

However, I just have to do this one day, one urge at a time.

You've got this Lionheart! It does give me a bit of hope that it gets easier with time! I know those urges continue to happen like an addict, once an addict always an addict with an "addict brain" that you have to tame and wrestle with it on hard days but I believe in you! :hug:
 
Hey, I shifted my vote to "other" because I woke up in the middle of the night and realized I absolutely did recreate my trauma when I chose to marry my first husband... it was an immature attempt at a "re-do"/recreating history... which failed miserably (surprise, surprise, surprise) and it almost killed me literally. I picked a man as bad or worse than my father... basically. Pretty screwed up but I lived to tell about it so I guess that's something.

My mister has done this as well... recreating situations that are maladaptive thinking he'll be able to work it through to a better outcome (how he ended up marrying me I expect) and he's not a PTSD so recreating situations/scenarios might just be a subconscious people kinda thing... not necessarily all due to PTSD. ???
 
recreating situations/scenarios might just be a subconscious people kinda thing... not necessarily all due to PTSD. ???

I dont think, personally, its a PTSD thing, I think its a trauma thing, in my opinion. Im not exactly researched on re-creation of trauma and why but Ive known people in the prostution industry that was re-creating past trauma. Unsure if any had PTSD (im sure a lot did but unsure if all did) so i dont know.

I should research this but it seems to follow trauma, PTSD or not.

Im glad this has made you think about things related to re-creating trauma. This subject needs to he talked about so I hope Ive carved out a place to do that! :)
 
@Gadgie, I understand that one! My dreams and nightmares are very vivid too to the point of doing some insane things in my sleep and even a while after waking up not realizing it was a nightmare and wasnt real.
 
Aye! it takes my brain a while to figure out where I am, when I wake up screaming!

That's the most confusing part about it, as I don't actually know where I am during that time, and that's the scariest part!
 
Yeah I engaged in some of these kinds of behaviours, for years.
Never really thought of it as recreating trauma or self victimising til I came here.

But it was almost a compulsion, something I did sub consciously, never an open thought.


What stopped it?
Finally being with someone who believed in me, and who I wanted to be more for.
 
Never really thought of it as recreating trauma or self victimising til I came here.

Well, thats a good thing huh? I think its helping people think a bit harder on this subject.

What stopped it?
Finally being with someone who believed in me, and who I wanted to be more for.

Awww! I want someone like that! Im so glad you have someone like that in your life! It makes such a huge difference! So happy for you!
 
Like a couple other folks here, I never thought I was recreating my trauma. I never became promiscuous (actually I have the opposite problem), but when I was in my 20's I would put myself in really dangerous situations (hitchhiking alone, going way out in the country alone to party with men I didn't know). There are a couple of theories about repetition compulsion - one of which is that it is an attempt to resolve the original trauma. Another is that these actions are familiar and therefore somewhat comforting, even while being simultaneously dangerous or disturbing. In my case, I think maybe putting myself in these situations was an attempt to feel safe, to feel like I could trust these strangers (logically, doesn't make a lot of sense - but maybe that's what my traumatized part was hoping for).

I think the "why" is complicated and resolving them is difficult. I think that behavioral therapy can eliminate the behavior, but there's value in understanding what's driving the behavior. Without the understanding, I think there's a risk of simply replacing the eliminated behavior with another one.

As an aside - I am an older (ahem) member of the LGBT community and I like and use the word queer to describe myself and others.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top