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Another Boring Abuse Story

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ClancyBoy

New Here
I despise internet drama. I'll try to make this as undramatic as possible.

Actually I don't really know why I'm here. There is a lot of airing of grievances here, but I don't see any solutions anywhere. All I know is I need help before I destroy my life for the umpteenth time.

Backstory:
Extremely violent, emotionally abusive father, weak mother who cannot stand up to father and was abused by him herself.

I think I can almost understand fathers who were drunken assholes. That sounds like it sucks.
My father was not a drunk. He was more the religious zealot (Mormon, if you care.) Rather than passing out in front of the TV with a bottle of whiskey (and preferring to be left alone) by dad is a very proactive abuser. He will come after you. He will not let you ignore him.

Being a tightly-knit family and religious community, I get no sympathy from either and am estranged from both. I haven't spoken to my father in years, but that is ok because he is (still) a flaming butthole.
Still, there's a big hole marked "family" that nothing can fill.

I don't remember details. The memories are completely worn out. The more I recall them, the dimmer they get. All I remember is him COMING AT ME with his face red and his veins pounding. That's enough though.

It's so boring and predictable. Male authority figures makes me FLIP THE **** OUT and there is nothing I can do about it. I KNOW where it comes from I know exactly why I am responding the way I am. And I've told the story to numerous counsellors. I still cannot control my emotions.

I have never held a job longer than 6 months. As soon as whoever Mr, Bossman is finally asserts his authority (as bosses are prone to do, being bosses) that's the end for me. I freak out and do something antisocial, which makes him hate me more, which increases my agitation and propensity for doing more antisocial things. I'm in the middle of that cycle now. HELP ME.
 
I don't understand why this happens. How can your brain sustain injury from being in a violent situation?

If we were all hunter-gatherer type pre-civilized "wild" humans wouldn't we be exposed to death and violence on a regular basis? Did the Mongols experience post-traumatic stress? Somehow I doubt that they would.

Is this a normal reaction to danger whose after-effects are also normal, but which are not suited to polite post-industrial society?
 
You can read up in the information section to find many useful tips to ease and control symptoms, and airing it out is a starting point and it takes a long time to work with one individual here on there own (as people need to be walked through this one on one) to go through those steps and get to where they need to be and change thinking styles on so many different aspects.

Also in reading the information section throughly you will see exactly how long symptoms of PTSD have been described in writings. People have suffered from it through the ages. Not just since the world wars.

As to when peoples were hunter gathers it is that part of the brain we do not need as hard core as back then but in some people it trips back a little more easily (put very simply). Hunter/gathers did need the fight-flight-freeze response or we would not be here now. There brain had to respond this way. It is commonly referred to as our "reptilian" part of the brain being too active for what is needed for the current times.

But where in abuse and combat through long term conditioning to unlock this portion of the brain daily to survive again would easily set you back to the time it was a needed part of life. And it not shut off once danger is gone. And in some people a single car accident can do it.

People with PTSD are the ones I would want to be around if the world ever fell apart. It is through all these symptoms that kept many people alive for a long time. They are the ultimate survivors, but for life as it is now it is a disorder that is not needed if it stops you from being able to go to the market for milk.

Hope this helps and welcome to the forum.
 
Hey veiled, thanks for the informative response. By the way, I'm feeling much better than I was 12 hours ago when I started this thread.

You're right that PTSD can make you stronger. I've gone back and forth between periods of uncontrollable terror and depression to periods where I felt almost superhuman strength and fearlessness. I think maybe more people tend toward depression because in our society it's not acceptable to show anger or aggression for any reason ever at all.
My anger is always there, and its like an engine. I feel like it really drives me to improve myself. It really ruins everything I attempt to do socially though, and that sucks :frown:

So from here on out its an ongoing process to learn to control it I guess. Being a natural response I would think there was no getting rid of it. Unless I decided to drug myself, and I don't want to do that again.
 
Anger. You will soon be told here and quite accurately that anger is fueled by a huge list of emotions. That is why you see so much airing of emotions because you have to find what emotions are fueling your anger. If you don't find them and get them out you will not heal and you will stay angry.

The terror and depression sucks too! In modern society it seems unacceptable for us to have any of our symptoms, not just anger. A lot of people seem to treat you like grade school level of "cooties". And you will come across a few genuine people who try to help. Most of which you will find here as most here won't tell you what you want to hear but what you need to.
 
I too was raised in what point of time with a father who was a little heavy on the religious side, luckily this did not get bad enough for the PTSD, but probably might have been better then where I got the PTSD. Know the anger here, at times it seems this is the only thing that keeps me going. Anger at my abuser, anger at the people that I feel should have protected me, but did not for what ever reason. I feel with my anger it tells me I will not give up the fight and let these people win anymore over me.

I hope you find some good people in here to share and talk with, and I hope you find something or someone to hold to, in order to get through some of the bad times.

Shane
 
Clancy, I think veiled hit most of it on the head from your initial writing. I would suggest maybe you read the information section on anger management, because education is actually the key to helping yourself. As veiled stated, airing of emotion is the core root of the issue, being anger is an emotional response, being it is fuelled by actual emotions, which means you have to come to grips with these emotions in order to fix the problem. The symptom is not the problem, the symptom is the side effect to an underpinning issue. The underpinning issue is what you feel. Learning how to know what you feel and deal with that feeling before it becomes a symptom is the key to learning how to manage PTSD itself. Drugs don't work, they are a bandaid, and even if you require them your entire life, you will still need to face reality at some point and look within yourself to what is truly happening in order to stop or limit the symptomatic issues, even with the help of drugs.
 
I know why I'm angry. I'm angry because I hate my father. He was and is a giant bag of dicks. He's the kind of pathetic waste that would terrorize a 6-year-old. I would kill him if I ever thought I could get away with it.
I'm angry at my mother for being too weak to put a stop to it, and at the religious community for never taking domestic violence seriously.

I'm not afraid of him anymore, because I am far far away from him. Also he's old now, and is only capable of emotional abuse. I can protect myself from that by not talking to him. So I don't.

Still, in some triggering situations I am six again. I am six, and there is this massive evil force as big as the sky that hunts me and that I can never escape from. I know that's an old memory, that the evil force represents "dad," and in reality dad is a person who I don't need to be afraid of. The memory and the person are seperate now though. As I got bigger, it got bigger, and I still can't control when or where it manifests itself.

So that is the cause of my symptoms. I know the thing I'm afraid of isn't real, its only a memory. I don't think it's ever going away, either. I am facing it, but it persists. To be a normal adult you have to have a normal childhood, and there is no possibility of that. It's just gone. Just like facing the train that hit you won't bring your legs back. They're just gone.
 
Anger. You will soon be told here and quite accurately that anger is fueled by a huge list of emotions. That is why you see so much airing of emotions because you have to find what emotions are fueling your anger. If you don't find them and get them out you will not heal and you will stay angry.

The terror and depression sucks too! In modern society it seems unacceptable for us to have any of our symptoms, not just anger. A lot of people seem to treat you like grade school level of "cooties". And you will come across a few genuine people who try to help. Most of which you will find here as most here won't tell you what you want to hear but what you need to.

Is it so bad to stay angry? There are two responses to intense fear, anger and despair. Despair is death. Despair is isolation, drugs, obesity and suicide. Also it perpetuates the fear so you never get out from under it.

I prefer to be angry. Anger gives you strength to fight whatever it is that threatens you. People think that's bad, but people don't give a shit about you, they just don't want you to bother them. Despair bothers no one. No one will give you much crap about being depressed. Then after you've been depressed long enough and you make yourself your sleeping pill martini, they say "oh, too bad. Someone should have paid attention to this poor repulsive wreck of a person." Then a week later your dead ass will be forgotten.

I don't care if society thinks anger is inappropriate and threatening. I want to live, I don't want to die.
 
My question would be though, are you really living life if angry? There are two inappropriate attitudes to "live" life to its fullest when you talk in regard to people, one is passive, the other is aggressive. The actual ideal personal attitude is assertive. Passive aggressive is merely an offshoot of both inappropriate styles, hence why it was not mentioned as a fourth.

To be assertive is to live life in regards to people, being your not in self sympathy, poor me shit, your not an abusive, aggressive person yourself, just as what was done to you initially, your the good mix of both, where you won't allow others to walk over you, though you also don't need to be aggressive towards a person unless they are first aggressive towards you, ie. appropriate force to match, not aggressive just because you don't like the words you hear, or the person in your space. Big difference...
 
No no, I'm not angry all the time. I'm not angry very much at all anymore, actually. I just think anger is the better of the two options if those are the options you have. Violent outbursts and passive agressive behaviour, those are all symptoms of weakness, of anger unexpressed.
My anger drives me to overcome my weakness, to defeat my abuser so he has no more power over me.

My anger makes me calm. Does that make sense?
 
Yep, that makes sense, so what your saying is your use your anger inwards to help you overcome, not outwards for abusive or destructive purposes?
 
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