Accepting That You Have A Ptsd Personality

[freakofnurture]

To me it was a relief to finally get the right diagnosis. It explained so much about my life and my symptoms. It allowed me to finally make some big changes that felt good and that I haven't regretted.

I can accept the PTSD (because of complex trauma) label because it fits me perfectly.

 

[Thinkingman85]

Thinking man, I have only recently come to terms with the fact that my most recent abuser, my husband, will never, ever admit he did anything to hurt me, including the fact that I was immediately dx'd with PTSD after the abuse he inflicted.

Sorry to hear about the parental and spouse abuse. My abuse came from my brother, my uncle, and my previous best friends. After my father died, when I was 17, my brother became a drug addict who exploited me. I was doing well in college and I fell off track because I was so stressed catering to him. My uncle moved in and started supporting his addiction. Therefore, I left and got my own apartment. They were the only family I could rely on. My previous best friends overpartied and I had tro cut ties with them. It hurt me very much because we were like bloodbrothers. They started taking acid, vandalized, and were publicly intoxicated. I didn't want to see them like that.

That led to immense trauma... Losing your brother, uncle, and previous best friends to drugs. I had practically nobody left, so I flipped out. I threw away much memorabilia from my life because what I grew up with (my previous best friends, brother, uncle, mother, father) was gone. All that I was trying to do was to do right. Now, I'm still in the same city with them and I don't know how to cope. Honestly, I always feel like I want to put a baseball bat to their faces. I think they like it that I'm suffering. I wish that I could just move on and be able to function in my city.

 

[woundedsoul]

Well it must have been very sad and difficult to realize you had no one you could rely on or trust because they were all doing drugs. I admire and respect you for not getting involved in drugs yourself with that environment and at such a young age.

What is it that you feel about those people? Abandoned and betrayed? I am so sorry if so, those are very, very difficult emotions to deal with. Are you able to see a therapist to help you unbury all of the emotions and fear that you have felt from having lost both of your parents at a very young age, and losing these friends and relatives as well, although you chose not to be around them, it was/is a loss nonetheless.

 

[Thinkingman85]

How I feel about the people is that they think I am dumb because I didn't stay with them. I feel betrayed. The facts are that basically all of them got into trouble with drugs. I probably would have if I would have stuck around. I don't think they regret what they did... just another chapter in life.

I can unbury my emotions with a therapist, but the damage has been done. I tried to follow the path that my dad would have wanted me to follow and everyone else around me wasn't. The only thing that came out of it was PTSD for holding on to my father's death. I have to find myself again.

 

[woundedsoul]

I hear your pain. I do believe forging a new identity is necessary after discovering you have PTSD. PTSD is not easy to deal with, it can wreck havoc in our lives if we are not aware of all the complexities it can cause psychologically, emotionally, physically and mentally. However, that does not mean we cannot find a life worth living and finding healthy coping mechanism to deal with all of the symptoms of PTSD. The choice you made to eliminate drugs from your life is one which should be admired. As I've read people with PTSD often use drugs and alcohol as a means to self-medicate and numb out all the symptoms of PTSD, and your friends and family chose that path, it is really incredible you walked away. Do you feel proud of yourself for resisting that? Sounds like conflicting emotions going on inside of you....missing them for not being the people (not drug addicts) that you needed in your life, etc. and despising them for it? I don't know.

It takes guts to get the help we need for PTSD, at least it did for me. I was afraid of being looked at as less than in many ways. Weak, ill, mental, etc. really really scared me. But then I decided I was worth getting better no matter how difficult and scary. Do you have the means to find a trauma therapist to help you sort out everything you've endured? Losing both parents at a very young age, I cannot imagine. I did lose my mom at 20 years old, but I still had a father, still do in fact, he's in his 80's. He become sober about 25 years ago, but was non-emotional, ex-marine, hard, disciplinary type. There were no words of encouragement or hugs or love exchanged. He was what he was, what he learned, etc.

Anyway, I hope you find a therapist thinkingman. Have you ever tried it? Or do you plan to?

 

[Thinkingman85]

Yes, there are conflicting emotions. I am proud of myself for resisting it. There is a difference between being a martyr for partying and partying while being responsible. They crossed the line and I didn't cross it. I wish that we could be friends now now that most of them are responsible. At the end of the day though, they are just Hedonists. When my dad died, that hedonist side of me started to disappear. I miss that side of me because I was a hedonist, but still caring. I'm glad that your father became sober.

I am 99.9% sure that I'm going to see a therapist soon.

I think that drugs have ruined my life even though I didn't do any of them.

 

[woundedsoul]

Well, it appears they robbed you of people you loved?

I just saw the heading of your post again and thought I'd comment due to remembering. When I first got PTSD I felt robbed. I hated my husband for giving it to me. I felt horrible inside, like I was the walking dead but full of emotions that were overwhelming. I do remember those feelings, but it took a while for me to recall them because I have just begun to start a new path, that of accepting how PTSD changed me, and moving on with what I've got left and beginning the healing process that I need to get well, or at least better than I have been for 2 1/1, 3 years now (emotionally dead).

I don't think we can heal alone with PTSD. It left me isolating and alone and feeling very very sad and as if no one could or would ever understand me again. I felt like I had things to hide, to feel shame for having felt. So much emotional turmoil that I couldn't deal with it. My attempted suicide in Oct. made me come out of the protected numbness I had surrounded myself with. I had stopped feeling.

This is all new to me, the healing, don't mean to sound like a know it all, for I am far from it. I've been suffering for a very long time, alone, lonely and isolating. Still isolate, except for therapist and a great lady that came in after i attempted suicide to help with family stabilization. But I am happy that I've taken the steps towards coming out of this long exile. Don't know if I'll succeed, but I'll die trying.

 

[Thinkingman85]

Sometime I wonder if it's a fight to get the old you back or to force yourself into a new person.

 

[woundedsoul]

And thinkingman, I also thought it would be impossible to recover until very recently, thought it was pointless to get a therapist as there is no cure for PTSD. However, a cure isn't necessary, but a healing process, hope is. I fear you sound hopeless sometimes, that is why I am encouraging you to find a trauma therapist, when you are ready. You sound angry too. And it sounds like you have valid reasons for feeling angry about losing your parents and having no one to rely on. I'd be angry too.

I realized myself, that I was never going to be the same. And I that is why I was angry at my husband. It took me a long, long time, as I said, 2 1/2 years to accept the new me. Changed, altered with this PTSD, for life, but still a worthwhile human being. I think PTSD can make you feel less than. I've learned it's not less than, but it's different for sure. Going through the mourning process, of who you once were, how you remember you felt before PTSD, is a personal process, and each has to take their own time going from that to acceptance.

I also discovered that accepting a changed you is vital to beginning the recovery process. I think you are still in the fighting stage, not wanting to believe everything you've had to endure and become because of PTSD. That you've had to fight to survive, etc. That's okay. You don't need to fight it, although we do, because we don't like feeling bad about ourselves and the world and the people in it. You are reaching out here, that is an important step. You should be proud of what you have accomplished in life....surviving without parents is a very scary place. I can only imagine how that must have made you feel. Angry and betrayed and scared are very normal emotions to experience under those circumstances. Have you thought about how self-reliant you have become? You may have been forced to fend for yourself, but you have done it.

 

[Thinkingman85]

Suicide won't solve anything. There's still many things to enjoy. My emotional numbness has been for four years. Forging your own path is a feat in itself.

From 0 to 22, I believed that God was on my side. Then the trauma started creeping in. From 22 to present, I believe that God is not on my side (there is no god). The belief that God was on my side kept me going. Even if I was deluded, I still had a sense of living. Now it seems like it's just me. I have to live to survive and the universe doesn't care if I have a mental issue. What I fought for was different then. I loved life. Now, I don't have a feeling toward it. If I love it, I'll get robbed again. There's hope, I just feel like I see Life's true face. Fighting for life when life has taken so much from you is something I struggle with.

I have come to accept the new me, but now I am having trouble dealing with the pain. I have been the new me for four years now. All the people who have hurt me in the past have seen the new me. I have done many things as the new me. I am very proud of myself. Yep, I have been self reliant for around four years now. NOBODY but me. I don't have fear in my vocabulary. I am not afraid of anything, even death. It is not just a figure of speech... I live that way. The samurai lived that way as well.

What has me deeply concerned is the mental pain I feel with the new me. I have to take headache medicine all the time. The right side of my head always throbbs. The only way I can function is by being connected to the pain. If I can find a way to function properly without having to go through so much pain, I may be able to get back on track.

 

[woundedsoul]

I agree there is a lot of mental pain associated with coming to terms with the traumas that assaulted your sense of well-being and safety.

It sounds like you have developed a coping mechanism and gain strength from samurai. I know very little about it, other than the Tom Cruise movie I saw advertisments from. Do you practice it?

 

[Sky Heart]

I found out by accident when a visiting doctor was reading my medical records of a computer. I was shocked that no one had ever told me. But I was already considered disabled so it wasn't such a major up set for me.

I actually think some of the things that made it hardest for me are gone. Up until a few years ago I could not sleep without someone else in the room. I believed that (probably the main person) was going to drive though the window and slit my throat. As a child and teenager this person made attempts on my life normally when I was sleeping. But I have since gotten past that. I have trouble sleeping still and sometimes have horrible night mares but with the help of medication I can get a good nights sleep. The diagnosis would have done more good back in the years when I was not coping at all.

Sometimes it seems after the point now. Although I definitely have symptoms to do with other traumas, my difficulty speaking as a child has turned into a fear of speaking as an adult. I was very badly bullied though school. I was the child that other children did not want to be seen talking to in case they started to be bullied themselves. I got spat on daily sometimes they would hold me down and blow snot on my face. I was physically assaulted by the other children covered in trash. I was called all sorts of things. I had no friend and not a single kind word. My own teachers did not like me and once dragged me of the ground by my arm and then hit me in front of the class multiple times. I was also denied toilet access by this same teacher which often led to myself wetting my self in class and then being punished for it.

I then went home to be bullied there also. My brother used to beat me up and until last year still did occasionally. The last time he through me against a wall so I feel to the ground here he stomped on me and punched me. He has PTSD also but reacts often with anger, he still cannot sleep.

My dad was away from home as much as he could as my mum had a serious mental illness. He was afraid of her. But he would happily leave the three of us to be looked after by her. Her mother fled to Australia when we were small to escape her but again didn't care about us. When she returned (7 years later) I think she went a bit nuts also. She believed I caused mums mental illness and would push me into the corner of my room and hit me around the face and tell me to stop being evil. She actually thought I was demonic and had prayer groups praying to stop me evilness. If my brother or sister misbehaved I would be punished. She agreed with the teachers about me being retarded and would try to have me removed from school because educating me was a wast of time.

I went a bit violent in my mind at 14. I started to fantasies about people dying. I had still never had a friend and did not know kindness. I also dreamed at night about killing my self in violent ways. I never acted on it. But did start to self harm not on my arm like most teenagers. On places where other people would not see, I have risin purple thick scars from that time.

I watched my mum try and kill herself many times. I stopped reacting to it and would just watch. I knew she would end up in hospital and sometimes we would not see her for months and in that time we would raise ourselves. Sometimes I would wonder if she was going to die this time. But she didn't. She did end up comatose one time. Sometimes she hated me and would tell me to go and kill my self and showed me how to with a knife up my arm. And then suddenly she would tell me that she loved me. She saw and herd things that no one else did and talked to things we couldn't see. She was completely insane. A miracle doctor saw her when I was 20 and managed to correctly diagnose her and correctly medicate her. Suddenly we had this women that we did not know. She was depressed and had nightmares about things she had trouble remembering from her insane time. Night mares about the things she did to us. But she was so sorry.

She cried and begged for forgiveness. Most of the 20 years she spent insane she could not remember. I spent a lot of time with her. I was afraid of her but I knew I had to. I needed to see her and get to know her I think I hoped for the mother I had never had. Even after all those years I wanted a mum that loved me. And she did. Mum also got to know me and my sister and it was suddenly like we were a family. It is still strange. When I visit her it does not feel right and it's been nearly 7 years. I still flinch when she touches me even though I try not to and it hurts her. I have also found out a number of things that anger me. My nana used to get calls from the school about the bruises on us. She would blame it on our dad and then that would be that. The school did nothing. It wasn't our dad but still. Isn't that as good as an admission?

Sometimes we seem to happy when we get together as a family. All of us with exceptions to my brother who is still so angry. He lies and cheats and steals to keep up with alcohol and drugs. He can't sleep without them even with medication. I know its hard for him but he is hurting himself and everyone else. He refuses to join in most of the time but when he does he acts nice to us all. I think he likes it as well when we are happy and together but then as soon as its over he goes back to saying how he hopes mum and dad will just die. He told me he thinks its all a stupid act. But it's not. If he would spend some real time with mum and get to know her now that she's well he would know that. If she ever raised a hand to me that would be the end of it for me also. But I know she wont.

I am still angry at my bullies. I had enough going on without them adding to it. Sometimes I hate them. I still face bulling. When I go out and about people just know a bully victim and start it up again. I am now afraid to travel on buses because last year there were a group of teens who liked to shot spit balls at me. I would just close my eyes and try and ignore but it just felt to much like my childhood and some where in there I have become afraid of traveling on buses. I can't drive so this is a problem (I have a disability that prevents this). I'm afraid of supermarkets also. I don't know why. And houses with certain color bricks. I cant be in them without freaking out. It is the same color bricks as my childhood home so I think thats self explanatory.

I don't see a therapist. I cant afford to. I have a psychologist and psychiatrist but can only see them with my behavior is a danger to others of my self. I am not dangerous and am so put of my suicide attempts that I cant get help. My sister and brother have both made attempts which including my mum I just get angry when people talk suicidal. I know its hypocritical but It makes me angry and I just think 'how selfish'. last year we had a visitor who over dosed in our house. Did we drive him to the hospital? No we told him to leave and never come back. It was not the reaction he was expecting. Good news he was fine and has never done it again he even apologized. My brother rounded up all the nail polish remover in the house and drank it while I watched and told me it was my fault. Well, you can guess. I ignored it all together and didn't even mention it to any one. Not the reaction he was expecting. He never apologized and has done similar things since. I think I'm desensitized to suicide attempts. a friend was crying and told me she was suicidal and said to her "well that's stupid". Not a very supportive friend am I. Considering friends are rare and I barely have the energy to see them I should be taking better care of the relationships I have. but no. Mention suicide and I'm just as likely to say 'go ahead' as I am to say 'no please don't. It doesn't help that my brothers friend hanged himself. My brothers other best friend died in a car accident, killed by a drunk driver. My brother is not a happy person... I do try to be helpful but there is only so much I can do. I'm so messed up myself.

Wow I've really let it all come out. Is this allowed here? Feel free to delete my post if I shouldn't have mentioned it...