Sufferer Have Complex Ptsd, Trouble With People

[Cat Herder]

It's hard for me to write this thread, after reading other intro threads where people have had worse experiences like combat, sex abuse, and whatnot.

I was initially diagnosed because of issues I had with being bullied in school and having an emotionally abusive mother, that I never quite got over. I was cyber-bullied before there was even a word for it, back as a teenager in the 90s. So, it wasn't just at school, or walking home from school, but when I got home. I remember as a kid being afraid to go outside. Later in life, I became very shy and unable to trust people because of how I was hurt.

I was recovering for a while and then two years ago, while I was swimming and got caught in a rip-tide and almost drowned. I am a good swimmer (almost made Canada's Olympic team) so I never thought anything like that would ever happen to me. I had a really bad flashback one time of it while playing Grand Theft Auto IV where I was swimming to Happiness Island in the game, because in my real-life situation, I was swimming to an island when I got caught in the current.

After that I also gained an online stalker who has been harassing me for two years. Also, me recruited a bunch of people to also harass me and this has been going on. This has caused a full-fledged relapse and I am afraid that I will lose my job because my mental state is hurting my performance, and I have had MGMT on my ass lately but I am afraid to open up about what is going on.

I get a lot of bullying still in real life, and I feel like nobody gets me, not even my own family. My own mother called me "silly" for being afraid of being in the ocean since my drowning, and as for the bullying, tells me to "get over it" and sometimes tells me it was my fault I was bullied in the first place. I have not told her about the stalker because she will probably just say I brought it on myself.

People are always saying I am mentally unstable and crazy when I am really just hurting. I wish people could feel what I feel then they'd not judge. PTSD I am always told is an injury but I have this reputation of being insane. I don't get this part of humanity, though. If someone has a physical wound, and someone picked the scab they would be called sadistic or disgusting. But when it's PTSD an emotional one, they pick at it freely and then call you crazy when it bleeds. I am sick of it, and sick of dealing with people.

If I do meet other people with PTSD, sometimes I feel like a wimp because my trauma seems so miniscule. I have a friend who is black and grew up in Apartheid South Africa, he is probably the only person who gets me, he was also in a car accident so he has suffered both prolongued and sudden trauma, just like me, but yeah, my experience compared to his is so insignificant, and I never really told him about my childhood, he only knows about the near-drowning.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

Welcome to the forum. :) I hope you find some support here.

Wishing you peace.

 

[Maggiemay]

Hugs! And welcome :) xxx

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Hi and welcome to the forum. You are not alone in how you feel. I was there too. I know how it feels. You are not crazy or insain. You have ptsd and that is illness. You are perfectly normal for what you have been through.

This is a real supportive community. Wishing you peace and healing here. Hugs.

 

[Cat Herder]

You have ptsd and that is illness. You are perfectly normal for what you have been through.

People don't seem to realize this and people say I am insane and they avoid me or gossip about me. There are also people who try to prod me, it seems, like they see the wound and want to reopen it. I really can't deal with this anymore.

 

[nimkekaa]

PTSD is PTSD. It doesn't matter how you got it, you have it. I have surprisingly found, in this forum, that PTSD from different types of trauma have a lot of similar symptoms. I have connected with a few people that have trauma completely different then mine but we seem to show it in similar ways.

Anyway what I am trying to say is people on this forum will understand what your going through. Especially the lack of understanding from people that don't have PTSD.

I'm glad you found the forum.

Welcome!

 

[Cat Herder]

PTSD is PTSD. It doesn't matter how you got it, you have it. I have surprisingly found, in this forum, that PTSD from different types of trauma have a lot of similar symptoms. I have connected with a few people that have trauma completely different then mine but we seem to show it in similar ways.

Thanks. And that was the similar experience I mentioned with the friend in my initial intro. We both display the same symptoms. But he does a lot better than me, he is married and has a kid, and emigrated to a new country and became successful here. I just can't seem to get over the hump, so to speak. I am about ready to give up.

 

[Resilientbibliophile]

Hello,

Ideas really even if no outright help is possible. I imagine I find certain literatures compelling on the basis of what seems a shared experience. I don't believe I'll ever feel less, or certainly ever sense less - but there is something quite positive to say for informing perceptions others can't be troubled to do. What follows are are few paragraphs articulating directions and literatures to sample. Be an activist, even if you should have to accept the responsibility of writing seminal works articulating what such could mean.

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Holocaust memoirs resonate at the same frequency, as do analogous experiences of repression and marginalization of which we've experienced plenty. The list of such works is practically endless and deeply engaging. Such quality, and in many an extraordinary and difficult circumstance, such unlikely dignity maintained. Materials that speak of the resiliency of people or peoples in conditions of extreme duress can a shine a light towards means and methods to invest oneself in community and activities that can expand upon a capacity to simply survive. If you ponder on the matter a little, you'll likely agree that nearly every war memoir penned constitutes a traumatic coming of age tale for someone. Such constituted my childhood reading whilst the bullying suffered then in some way or fashion never really let up or eased.

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Mass movement histories and formative documents inspiring the same can help - and such a vast range of the same exist across periods. Civil Rights struggles, diaries, reverses suffered, etc. can afford some sense of control in the present even as people stare, chatter and laugh. Social criticism of the American scene but also rooted in the broad spectrum of man's inhumanity towards his fellow man confirm that in elevated circles that people do pay attention. Individuals become activists in relation to the outrages they've suffered or witnessed close-in, whereas it is often the dull and cruel who resist, who stoke conflict, who make up the heartless disengaged majority who can be relied upon if nothing else to mock us when we are feeling our most vulnerable.

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Sociological material, especially titles by one Erving Goffman such as Stigma, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, as well as Asylums reframe what is experienced and help to define what the cruel majority blithely and routinely blame on us. Materials typically written by abuse victims manifest however can be studied to better understand what are regarded as boundary issues, whereas our deeply-rooted personal tendencies to gravitate towards people and circumstances that perpetuate abuse needs to be interwoven into the sociological materials if some reasoned balance is to be struck concerning 'us' and our legacies versus 'them' and their cultural baggage.

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Others might embrace existential literature however it be manifest, delve deeply into literature written and evidencing survival within sociopolitical circumstances far from the best (i.e. Russian greats like Dostoevesky), and invest in the habit and discipline of recording their own impressions of what is a collective sense suffering means - especialy when circumstances deny that suffering could have meaning.

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Sample parenting guides and sociological treatments deconstructing the dynamic of schoolyard bullying, these include anything having to do with what is termed alternate aggression, social aggression, and behavioral aggression can help to more fully flesh out your defense against wanton cruelty. It won't stop them, but in some broad sense you'll develop an understanding of what won't be formally tolerated in any workplace say twenty or thirty years out. These are early days where understanding and policy aren't strictly linked concerning where psychological knowledge is and to what extent human resources policy has evolved. Gruesome, a matter of deep regret, but we too can be pathfinders for embracing aspects of the fight others needn't concern themselves with unless forced to do so.

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The entire film genre of what is termed 'film noir' is interwoven with themes of disillusionment, trauma, secrets, etc. and again resonates on some agreeable level. Much was experienced by the players and the writers of such works across the war years; i.e. tales of dislocation, love lost, identities hidden, etc. Embracing the artistic expression of what couldn't be fully disclosed or shared helps again to find empathy and sympathy in the world even when it is too infrequently experienced live. Hoping then that something here may offset what should never be endured. Kind regards...


M.K.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I am so sorry that you are being gossiped about. I hated that when it was happening to me. I had to move away to get away from it. I have had a year and a half of privacy and it has been very nice. Such a relief. I hope you can hang on. You are worth it. Hugs.

 

[Cat Herder]

I am thinking of moving away myself. But I got in a fight with my friend in the city I was going to move to who was going to help me out till I found work. :(

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Cat that is so sad. I hope something else will turn up for you to get away from there. Hugs.

 

[Mcll]

Cat, please read this blog and see if you can relate to anything. It is important to understand the strategy and tactics stalkers use and where they learned it from.
']rupture

I apologize for not reading the rules on link posting.