Sufferer Old Man; Implict And Explicit Complex Ptsd

[TeddySue]

Bitzer said: "I'm glad you're caring for yourself."

Today, I actually walked for 30 minutes! To be given a reprieve to the constant PTSD and finding something I can do for me is so out-of-the-box. There IS a lowest point because I've been there. It's a long way up, but just reading here and feeling the kinship with those who understand is a first baby-step toward life. What I lived all these years was not life, it was a life-on-hold. To find that one link with the world is like that light in the window waiting for me to come by. I think I've missed it many times as I dwelt in the abyss in fear; fear is of the devil and I want no more of it. Speaking it out is a huge undertaking, but I have to start somewhere because I'm just so tired of the triggers. I, too, yell out, NO! NO! NO!

 

[bitzer]

Today, I actually walked for 30 minutes! ... baby-step toward life ... What I lived all these years was not life ... I dwelt in the abyss in fear

Well done TeddySue! Have you heard of mindfulness? Walking without thinking/analysing is a great "baby-step" mindful exercise.

You say, "... the constant PTSD ..."; how are you experiencing that in terms of hypervigilance, meanings (e.g. I'm unworthy), and loss (i.e. I can't trust them/they shouldn't trust me, I'm not in control/I cannot NOT be in control, I don't feel safe/they're not safe around me)?

All of my life until fairly recently, including those bits of childhood that I can recall, was "not life".

I have no recollection of mother ever touching me or acknowledging me as a unique individual. She was totally codependent, never intervened when my father did horrible things to me, and somehow managed to get me to take the flak when things started escalating between them so that I got my father's negative attention rather than her!

My earliest memory is of being woken up by noises downstairs, and finding my father standing over my unconscious mother, with blood and broken crockery everywhere. I was terrified at the prospect of losing her.

Rational reality check! Clearly I must already have had abandonment issues, because I was terrified of being without this "mother" that never loved me, never protected me, and used me to protect herself from the man she chose to be with.

 

[emmacub]

Bitzer,

I can completely relate to the treatment you've received at the hands of your family. The guilt-complex is the same for me too- I'm making progress in that, baby steps. It's very hard to move forward after working so hard in therapy when people (the ones who mistreated you in the first place) still won't get the message that you want no part of their behaviour/talking about the past/further mistreatment. I find it hard to just turn my back on my mother, I'm not a cruel person & I never will be, but knowing my ability to emphasise more with others more than with myself I find myself between the devil & the deep blue sea. I want to be happy; God knows I've put enough work into it! I've had to deal with the mess that others have left for me, discover who I really am. I'm 34 & I developed PTSD at the age of 3 or 4. I was diagnosed a year & a half ago. I don't want to waste any more of my life. I refuse to.

But to be happy we can't let others drag the past up, we have those ghosts in our minds anyway- we don't need anyone else's help! I don't want to just be another survivor, I want to live my life to the full now it's in my hands & mine alone.

I relate so much to what has been posted on this thread, we need to cut any puppet strings & write our own story now. One that's a damn sight happier & more fulfilled. Not easy, but nothing worth having ever is.

Love this description!

' I'm not happy about it, but I believe that the people that abused me are alive and well and living inside my psyche (I call them the "Toxic Twats").'

 

[TeddySue]

Bitzer: Mindfulness. That's exactly what I do, walking to please myself and my body while having a mind full of nothingness. It's like a mild tranquilizer that works. Flat surfaces so there is no fear of stress. People can be around me, like in WalMart but I'm dissociating just enough to not allow them to interrupt. My own world within the world.

I call my PTSD constant because I never, ever have suspected when an attack of rage will roll out of my mouth. I guess how I'm dealing with it is to suppress my emotions just enough to recognize the start of another "seizure." So far I'm pleased that just beneath the surface is the ever-alertness and just maybe i'm gaining a little control. It's all about control for me.

Being worthy: I've always felt I have been worthy, but my so-called parents' voices have been inside my head since I was 4 years old, telling me I was/am a "sorry child." I can remember back to when I was 18 months old. I only recognized the baby crying was me in the past 4 years. I was the one crying for someone and no one paid any attention. I started the daily crying, beginning 8 years ago when the dominoes of trauma started falling all around me, I recognized the cry and soon discovered it was me at age 18 months. It was ME! To hear a grown woman crying like a baby was so validating. That baby SO deserved to be comforted but wasn't.

I spent my childhood telling my mother that I loved her. Just once, I wanted her to tell me first, but it never happened. She made it very clear I was not to cry because it embarrassed her. She demanded I be her therapist, her companion, and to never require anything from her. She hated my dad for what he did to me, but forbid me to have any kind of relationship with him. She spent hours telling me of their earlier married life and how horrible a man he was/is. But then she sat in the kitchen with him for breakfast and supper, only giving me a plate of food and telling me to go watch tv, I heard them in there, laughing and having a good time while I was totally shunned. She could not bear him to show me any attention. It was SO unfair.

Bitzer said: "Rational reality check! Clearly I must already have had abandonment issues, because I was terrified of being without this "mother" that never loved me, never protected me, and used me to protect herself from the man she chose to be with."

Early abandonment issues were, for me, from 18 months old, when she would not answer my cries. And why that made me cling to her all the more is not clear except that babies need their mother's attention. When we went places I would scream in fear of people, climbing up her dress trying to get her to pick me up. The only reason she did was because it embarrassed her. I still have a terror of people and there is no one but myself to nurture the child inside.

 

[TeddySue]

My so-called parents are both dead. My husband of 35 years is in prison for the next 12 years. All three of them betrayed and rejected me to such an extent that even with them gone I have to stop and think that they have no more control over my life.

Like emmacub said, "...we need to cut any puppet strings & write our own story now." The first thing for me is to care; care what happens to me. I was the good and faithful daughter and wife and I don't have anything to regret. I was faithful! And I need to keep reminding myself it was NOT my fault, no matter how many times they told me it was; maybe not always in words, but definitely in actions. I think that's why I jump to conclusions about reading other people, and getting it wrong.

"The guilt-complex" that runs in my veins needs a transfusion. They are no longer relevant. And as I form my two index fingers into a cross, they must release my mind.

 

[TeddySue]

When I'm working on an open gestalt, I reflect on the paradoxical contents of the Wounding Parent and Abused Child ego-states, and attempt to reconstruct the original event. It is very disturbing to do this as I tend to lose contact with who I am and act-out in the most bizarre fashion as I vacillate between the deranged and narcissitic Parent behaviour and the horrible experience of being the crushed and broken Child again.

Wikipedia: "Gestalt therapy is an existential/experiential form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility, and that focuses upon the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist-client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person's life, and the self-regulating adjustments people make as a result of their overall situation."

Working on the abuse and neglect in present tense is new for me; getting me all mixed up with the past and finding the trigger hurtling toward me at warp speed and crushing any form of control I am using at the moment; then comes the word-vomiting. In reconstructing the original event, I can see why my so-called mother gave me a plate of food at mealtime and sent me to the living room to watch tv. The sexual abuse must have been a slap in the face to her, therefore she had to live with the human (me) who her husband (my so-called dad) preferred to have sex with rather than herself. It must have been humiliating, I was her flesh and blood child whom she chose to place the blame. She might have felt in-control by sending me to eat alone; she made sure I heard the laughing and then whispering in the kitchen, which would put me in-my-place.

Great post, bitzer!

 

[bitzer]

emmacub said, "knowing my ability to emphasise more with others more than with myself ... we have those ghosts in our minds anyway ... I want to live my life to the full now"

From the context I'm guessing you meant empathise? Isn't it weird how being traumatised gives you special powers?
- If you've been abandoned, you get super-vision: the ability to see rejection coming way before anyone else.
- If you've been treated like an object, you get super-humanity: the ability to be there for anyone, anytime
- If you've been groomed to be the special one, you get super-invulnerability: nobody means anything to you
- If you've been abused, you get super-courage: you've survived the worst, so nothing touches you now.

Here's to a full and happy life!

TeddySue said, "I still have a terror of people and there is no one but myself to nurture the child inside"

The trouble is, not only did I get negative parenting and absense-of-parenting, but there was precious little positive parenting in my childhood, so I never worked out until fairly recently that I need to be there for my inner child in the here-and-now. Even as a grown man, that child was inside dealing with all the terror, impingment and loneliness, plus the neglectful, engulfing and abusive inner parents, ON HIS OWN.

 

[TeddySue]

I remember always being so alone. My sister was injured at birth and my so-called mother cared for her until she was 19 and I was 5. No one asked me how I felt about my sister being put into an institution and left for 6 weeks before we could see her. No one but I stood there by her bed and saw her wasting away because she thought we had abandoned her; 6 weeks was enough to traumatize her AND me. I remember feeling, why did the so-called parents not know what they did to her and me with the abrupt severing of my sister with no explanation to me? Losses in my life started very early and have extended 62 years; each loss revealed to me another layer of emptiness. Many times I felt like I was the parent and they were the children and it was just too much to put onto a child's shoulders.

I had a swing set and lay under a swing (on a hand towel) staring up into the sky. A friend knocked on the door and told my mom I would not play with her. My so-called mom called out to me but I did not answer. She went back inside. I still don't know what would have been a better response from her. I knew there was something gone from my life with no explanation, and I wondered from that time on, what would be next.

 

[bitzer]

... what would be next.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop; yeh, I get that.

I often fantasise about being there for myself as a child - I see myself-as-an-adult hugging me-as-a-child and telling me that it's going to be OK, and that it's not me that's whacked, it's them. I see myself-as-an-adult physically intervening with my father, and trying to shake some sense into my mother. It feels nice.

Have you noticed how the traumatic Parent and Child ego-states are dissociated? I find that when I'm doing the Wounding Parent bit (e.g. pushing people away) there is no cathexis in the Wounded Child (e.g. I'm not empathising with the person being pushed away). And vice versa, when I'm the Wounded Child I can't associate with the idea of being the Wounding Parent (e.g. I can't imagine ever pushing someone away). I can't cathect both at the same time, they are mutually exclusive - like the vase-faces picture, you can't see both the vase and the faces at the same time; you can switch between them as fast as you like, but can only see one or other at any given instant.

 

[TeddySue]

Bitzer: I imagine you feel safe enough as the adult you to confront the abusing parents, trying to make some changes that will allow you to heal? I can not imagine myself ever confronting my dead so-called parents, even in my mind. That takes a lot of courage, Bitzer, and I'm proud of you.

 

[bitzer]

... I imagine you feel safe enough ... I'm proud of you.

No. I don't feel safe around my family. I don't think I will ever feel safe around my family because the introjects are too primal and too powerful. My father is dead and my mother is senile, but they are both alive and well, and living in my head as introjects (despite hundreds of hours of therapy). I don't have contact with my sisters because they have the same primal and powerful introjects, and so they can press my buttons at will (their Parent ego-state, my Child ego-state).

It's so frustrating that I don't have any say about what goes on in my own head.

The fact that you are proud of me feels very, very good. Thank you.

Love and hugs to you.

 

[TeddySue]

1.

My father is dead and my mother is senile, but they are both alive and well, and living in my head as introjects (despite hundreds of hours of therapy).

Having a so-called father or mother who is dead, for me, does not mean they are gone. I fought so hard to never be like my so-called parents, especially when I became a mother. I was determined to be the best mother in the world. I found out there was a lot of "them" in me and I fought even harder down through the years. I've come to believe it is truly my fault for allowing them to be there. Holding a grudge is letting someone live rent-free in my head. A grudge, for me is an ongoing resentment for what they did and didn't do. My goal is to take control, with God's help. My mantra is: Renew my mind and take every thought captive!

2.

It's so frustrating that I don't have any say about what goes on in my own head.

But I believe with my whole heart that we do have a say. We have become willing to allow the abuse, neglect, rejection and bitterness to cover who we really are; and then when we try to be ourselves it comes out THEM. I've been through years of therapy, too and the best thing I learned about was boundaries. I am obsessive compulsive and whatever I do I do it to excess. For me, this is a good thing; like my triggers and how I am trying to make them useful in my healing.

3.

The fact that you are proud of me feels very, very good. Thank you.

I truly admire your ability to stand face to face with the enemy; to know "they" are primal and powerful and yet your exterior can stand there. Just the thought of standing in the same room with my left-over cousins makes me literally want to vomit puke, after vomiting words because I know that is what it would be. The last verbal battle was written in an email and if it would have been face to face I just might have attacked physically... my kids need me and so I have drawn tight boundaries around my family and DARE them to even step foot near us. Something funny: I told this so-called second cousin to watch her back from now on and she was so scared of me she sent that email to her parents (cousin & wife) and brother telling them I was dangerous. HA! That was a sweet victory!


4.

Love and hugs to you.

I'm so new to love of any kind that I cringe inside at the thought of someone sending me loves and hugs. It's NOT a bad thing, only something I've lived forever believing there is NOTHING about me that someone could ever love. And that's where the enemy (so-called parents and left over cousins) infiltrates my mind and I need to go into fight mode, which makes it almost impossible to receive words like yours. And remember, this fight mode and lack of acceptance is all about me, never about someone like you who has the ability to reach out with words. I recognize compassion now, but love and hugs make me cry tears of regret; regret that I have spent my whole life trying to be accepted like I feel I am here. Thank you.