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Sufferer Thinking of addressing my past trauma head-on

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Aw I'm sorry @Dailyshifts :( .

I think regret isn't an emotion, but rather a description of emotions, together (I didn't know til today, either), i.e. a descriptor. For example, (a combination of) searing grief, sadness, shame-? Etc.

I believe it doesn't have to even be a trauma you need to refer back to- just find the emotions (not descriptor) and ask when you recall feeling that in childhood.

Do you think you're trying to avoid what your dad felt? You said it's the 'worst'? How did you feel when you were on the receiving end of his actions when ill? Did you know he was ill?

How do you feel if you leave these other people out? Their actions were wrong, but your emotions come from within you, (natural) response or not. Our responses always say more about us than what others do to us (that's not a condemnation, just a reference point we can work off of).

Must head off, not avoiding, best wishes.
 
Aw I'm sorry @Dailyshifts :( .

I think regret isn't an emotion, but rather a description of emotions, together (I didn't know til today, either), i.e. a descriptor. For example, (a combination of) searing grief, sadness, shame-? Etc.

I believe it doesn't have to even be a trauma you need to refer back to- just find the emotions (not descriptor) and ask when you recall feeling that in childhood.

Do you think you're trying to avoid what your dad felt? You said it's the 'worst'? How did you feel when you were on the receiving end of his actions when ill? Did you know he was ill?

How do you feel if you leave these other people out? Their actions were wrong, but your emotions come from within you, (natural) response or not. Our responses always say more about us than what others do to us (that's not a condemnation, just a reference point we can work off of).

Must head off, not avoiding, best wishes.

Can I ask you a question? Do you have any mental illnesses besides PTSD? You might not want to answer and that's fine, and you might wonder why this is relevant, but based on your thoughtful questions, I have a hunch you don't quite understand. That's ok, for me to expect you to fully understand would be nonsense. You don't know me at all. But I ask because I can tell you are very empathetic and wise.

As for your questions, this is ultimately a combination of sadness, grief, shame, and rage. Those emotions pemeate many events in my life and many of my waking hours. They also interrupt my hours of sleep. This is probably common for a person with chronic PTSD. It's especially common for someone who manages multiple mental health conditions. As for the frequency and severity, I don't know. Perhaps my PTSD is more severe than many others in this forum. I am triggered by a variety of things, and many of those triggers surface in real life on a daily basis.

I am not avoiding what my dad felt. Quite the opposite. I feel it with an acuteness he never did. My emotional awareness is very high. His was not.

My dad's actions when he was ill never phased me, as difficult as they were to stomach. I understood what was happening from the get-go. It comes with having deep knowledge of his illness. I was aware of his illness since I was young and he first got hospitalized when I was 7.

The major gap in leaving the abusers out is that it brings no justice and accountability for me, nor does it deliver the truth. To tell the full story but leave them out of it is to tell the story but not the entire story. Justice and accountability are intrinsic themes in my life, and they are directly tied to my emotions and this trauma.

Have a good day.
 
Adding to my last post:

If anything, part of this desire for justice is driven by my empathy for my dad, who was wronged many times and misunderstood by so many, friends and family alike. Part of my thirst for disclosing the truth and holding the abusers accountable is linked to my conditions, namely autism, and also to redemption for my late father, who died in December.

But the main change in my life that led me down this path to consider making the truth known was a biochemical change that happened midway through 2019, before my dad passed. I changed my primary med with my former psychiatrist, and for the first time in my life, my severe depression lessened. It was amazing.

While I still struggle at times, and while the med change brought on new challenges such as increased anxiety, I am now approaching my days with a level of strength and clarity I never had before. It's a bit like letting a tiger out of its cage, but a tiger who carries empathy and maintains a balanced viewpoint and an open mind to opposing angles.

That said, you can't eliminate mood volatility, and I observe myself go up and down regularly. My mood disorder doesn't follow a pattern. It's a type that is random, and it can change multiple times within a day or remain constant for weeks at a time. But unlike most people with this form of mood instability, mine is also very severe on the depressive end due to unique genetic mutations. My psychiatrist who is very tuned into genetics explained this to me recently after I got some DNA testing done, and it turns out my serotonin levels from birth are incredibly low, so my experience with depression is particularly severe. I've had some dark times where, for example, the sound of music meant nothing to me for weeks. For a musician, that's extreme. Suicidal ideation is quite common for me, but never action. I am too resilient, too strong. But we must all remember that suicide isn't selfish. I educate people about this frequently.
 
Can I ask you a question, @Dailyshifts?

Why in hell would you crazy shame and abuse a person you never met trying to help you, A.

What's up with that silence and not even describing what the trauma you allege is about, B?

And make no mistake. People here often have very public careers, and/or lot to lose.

Yet here we all are, not playing games with each other, around trauma no less.
 
Can I ask you a question, @Dailyshifts?

Why in hell would you crazy shame and abuse a person you never met trying to help you, A.

What's up with that silence and not even describing what the trauma you allege is about, B?

And make no mistake. People here often have very public careers, and/or lot to lose.

Yet here we all are, not playing games with each other, around trauma no less.

crazy shame? That’s an awful term. I’m asking if the person has certain experience which can help us both assess our common level of understanding. If he doesn’t want to answer, that’s fine. But there is no shame in mental health struggle. Please don’t spread views that there is. We have enough people in the world who do that already.

Nothing about my discretion is a game. With all due respect, I don’t feel comfortable sharing those details for reasons I already explained.

If this bothers you, I can’t change that for you. But I do think your tone and word choice is a little offensive. Beyond that, I think it’s important we not interject on behalf of other people. I for one don’t appreciate that. If the person Im chatting with here doesn’t like what I’ve asked, that’s perfectly fine.
 
Manipulativeness, generally, doesn't assist recovery.

Troll somewhere else.

I don’t understand and it sounds like you don’t understand me. That’s ok. I’m used to it.
 
I'm not American. So, maybe this is a cultural thing that I don't understand.

But since when did "telling my truth" (big fan of that when people reach that point in their recovery) = going public in books and newspapers and magazines etc?

Those are 2 completely seperate things in my mind.

The second, it seems that people are motivated to do this for 3 common reasons:
1) to name and shame (ugh - knowing the media climate in the US atm, hate will get thrown both ways) - sometimes that frees up other victims to come forward, but it's also a mud-slinging thing (not personally a huge fan of doing that publicly, but a lot of people seem to be).
2) to bring public awareness to an issue, to open a dialogue about that issue, and in so doing, become an advocate about that issue (doesn't sound like you want to make your future all about this past abuse and assisting others with that process, so much as heal and move on - being very public about a traumatic past may make it difficult to be anyone other than "that person who...")
3) to initiate some form of justice process (which, personal bias, I think is the wrong way to go about it - if you have a judicial wrong to be addressed, that's what courts are for).

Of course, then there's the people who just want their 15 minutes. Which, I'm going to assume isn't part of this, because the people that know you are apparently backing you on this and so hopefully that's not what this is about.

You've probably got an inherent bias here. Because this is a forum where people come for support anonymously.

To me, "truth telling" is about telling the people who I will benefit from knowing. People who are going to be supportive. And people who can help me with justice - the police. Going public is only one version of truth-telling. And, it's fraught with the danger of potential new trauma, and the very real risk that putting your story in the public spotlight will make you, and your future, all about your past in the minds of the general public.
 
I'm not American. So, maybe this is a cultural thing that I don't understand.

But since when did "telling my truth" (big fan of that when people reach that point in their recovery) = going public in books and newspapers and magazines etc?

Those are 2 completely seperate things in my mind.

The second, it seems that people are motivated to do this for 3 common reasons:
1) to name and shame (ugh - knowing the media climate in the US atm, hate will get thrown both ways) - sometimes that frees up other victims to come forward, but it's also a mud-slinging thing (not personally a huge fan of doing that publicly, but a lot of people seem to be).
2) to bring public awareness to an issue, to open a dialogue about that issue, and in so doing, become an advocate about that issue (doesn't sound like you want to make your future all about this past abuse and assisting others with that process, so much as heal and move on - being very public about a traumatic past may make it difficult to be anyone other than "that person who...")
3) to initiate some form of justice process (which, personal bias, I think is the wrong way to go about it - if you have a judicial wrong to be addressed, that's what courts are for).

Of course, then there's the people who just want their 15 minutes. Which, I'm going to assume isn't part of this, because the people that know you are apparently backing you on this and so hopefully that's not what this is about.

You've probably got an inherent bias here. Because this is a forum where people come for support anonymously.

To me, "truth telling" is about telling the people who I will benefit from knowing. People who are going to be supportive. And people who can help me with justice - the police. Going public is only one version of truth-telling. And, it's fraught with the danger of potential new trauma, and the very real risk that putting your story in the public spotlight will make you, and your future, all about your past in the minds of the general public.

Great feedback and spot on with the pros and cons my docs and I are speaking about.

My latest thinking is to see if some of the abusers are open to chatting directly. I think it really starts there, and I owe them the opportunity, plus I have plenty of questions for them to understand their thought process at the time.

As for publishing something, I think that is separate but it falls in line with accountability and truth. It's a bit like if a tree falls in the forest but no one hears it, did it really fall? There are also immense lessons in the story--implications on accountability, empathy, fairness, legal frameworks, privacy, abuse of power, etc.

Beyond that, I'm a writer by trade and I like to write. I have aspirations to write a separate piece about my parents.

I have no legal recourse. Even though individuals here, depending on the state, can sue for damages in civil court as a result of getting PTSD by the hand of someone, the statute of limitations is 2 years and the burden of proof requires negligence, which is very difficult to prove in my case. As usual, the legal codes are written to align with first amendment rights above all, and those rights are regularly misused in the US.

Thanks for connecting.
 
So as someone with several mental health disorders, including CPTSD (so I do understand the internal drive for justice). That justice? Never truly comes. Telling your truth is very different than what you seem to think. I tell my truth, now, to this forum, to my therapist, to my psychiatrist, and to very specific friends. I share education on Facebook but stay away from details as my trauma involves family members on my friends list who participated in molesting and other abuses of me and my siblings as children. It’s hard to see others *not see* the truth about them. But I’ve learned to pick my battles. Being loud and trying to get people to hear me never results in them truly hearing me. It backfires, everytime, I become a crazy maniacal idiot who should be hospitalized let alone listened to. It doesn’t accomplish anything.

I’ve been watching this thread for a bit, and honestly I’m getting the same feeling that Ronin has of you being a troll. I could be wrong, but I’m curious if you are able to see why it feels that way?
 
So as someone with several mental health disorders, including CPTSD (so I do understand the internal drive for justice). That justice? Never truly comes. Telling your truth is very different than what you seem to think. I tell my truth, now, to this forum, to my therapist, to my psychiatrist, and to very specific friends. I share education on Facebook but stay away from details as my trauma involves family members on my friends list who participated in molesting and other abuses of me and my siblings as children. It’s hard to see others *not see* the truth about them. But I’ve learned to pick my battles. Being loud and trying to get people to hear me never results in them truly hearing me. It backfires, everytime, I become a crazy maniacal idiot who should be hospitalized let alone listened to. It doesn’t accomplish anything.

I’ve been watching this thread for a bit, and honestly I’m getting the same feeling that Ronin has of you being a troll. I could be wrong, but I’m curious if you are able to see why it feels that way?

Well, I am not. This entire thread is real.
 
Doesn't matter if it's real.

Trolling is about how you react and interact, not the content of your posts.

You could be completely lying and still respectful to the other posters, and I'd have way fewer issues with that.
 
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