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The Anp

The ANP

Confident
I live with depression and PTSD with dissociation. When I was a teen my mother died. The rest of my family fell into drug use and alcoholism. I went hungry a lot. I had a boyfriend who was controlling and abusive who I relied on to feed me and a group of shitty horrible friends. When I broke up with the controlling boyfriend I became a target for a group of both his friends and people I believed were my friends. First came the social ostracism, the vandalism of my car, the physical assaults. The grand climax of all this being the time a group of his friends drugged me, kidnapped me in a van and took turns raping me. They also through in some terror and dehumanization. Mock execution, making me exchange sexual favors for water, cigarettes and cheeseburgers, as well as desecration of my mothers remains (on oft "friends" helped them get her creation remains). To what end? I think to teach me a lesson, to break me, to try to get me to kill myself... Took me years of therapy to even say this much.
 
I didn't know I had PTSD until 12 years later. Although I suppose I had symptoms all along. I buried that shit so far, tied it up and put rocks on it. I was fine-ish. I accomplished a lot. It worked. Then I got cancer. Not just cancer but a type of hereditary cancer. The same kind that had taken my mum when I was a teen. I couldn't have created a more profound trigger than this if I was writing a novel. My mum's death was the first in a series of traumas that left me vulnerable to all of those others. It was in treatment for my reaction to my diagnosis that a counselor suspected PTSD and referred me for diagnosis and treatment. It was well into my first year in treatment that my dissociated memories of being kidnapped started showing up. My triggers have corroborated my story along with a spontaneous drawing from my non dominate hand (that was weird). I've tried to own it. Sometimes it feels pretty far out and crazy though.
 
I recently ended a life long friend ship with my "bestfriend". She was part of the group in high school that ostracized me after my mom died. Most of it is blurry but I remember a lot of people putting me up to things, getting me to do something and then using what I had done as an example of how crazy I was... This is the same group from which my rapists came. They picked my friends off one by one until I was alone. Culled from the herd as it were.
When this "bestfriend" came back into my life, I was so grateful to have a "friend" again (because I would not be alone/I would be protected) that I was willing to take a lot of shit just to keep her.
Flash forward 20 years.... I threw a dinner party for my birthday. I was going through a seperation that became a divorce. She and my ex were both invited. She became heavily intoxicated and was upset because I spent more time talking to others than to her. She ended up in my bed, with my ex, on my birthday. Both he and she have stories of sexual lewdness regarding the other's behavior and their own innocence (like talking to a broken record, two alcoholics with the same damn story pointing fingers at the other).
This has been going on in various ways for years. My ex had told me about it for 10 years, how "bestfriend" when drunk was trying to sneak up on him and see his penis in bathroom, get him alone and come onto him, proposition him. What did I say? No that can't be true. She would never. It must have just been the alcohol. My compartmentalized and dissociated mind kept me from knowing what I had been told over and over again. Until he stopped saying no and I saw it with my own damn eyes.
I swear, as an author, I couldn't make this story up.
 
It is sad what we will put up with to not be alone. But very proud of you for advocating for yourself and getting one more toxic person out of your life. I would rather be alone than have someone in my life that perpetuates pain and memories. Great move !!!
 
I've had to stop looking at how long something takes. I would start to feel defeated and take so many side trips that when I realized 'time' isn't even relevant really, for what all we have to do...It's like I was always on this train going nowhere, just chugging along, counting time... It has helped me a lot to just be so damned proud of myself when something so important ,as your experience of getting ugly people out of your life, has been accomplished... So, gentle hugs for realizing you are worth REAL friends...!!! You have some here by the way... ones that are supporting your journey and understanding what it takes to 'get there'....
Hope you have a gazillion more happy endings....
 
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