Sufferer Addicted To Trauma!

[keith Amato]

Hi all Keith here.

I am hopelessly addicted to truama, this last frontier is the childhood emotional and physical deprivation I experienced- then as a young boy looming to have that filled outside the home I was preyed upon and raped and sexually abused .

I am now at place where the other addictive traumas I picked up along the way have been arrested one day at a time .

I am looking to begin a 12 step based fellowship for others who can realte to the addiction of trauma- in anyway shape or form.

Gimme a shout I you wanna talk more about this possibility may we be free from the suffering from our traumas!'

 

[arfie]

Alanon is a great program for working through cPTSD issues. It has helped me more than any other single source in my own healing journey.

Good luck, Keith. That addiction to trauma-chaos-control-etc., sure is a common piece of PTSD.

 

[zaniara]

I am looking to begin a 12 step based fellowship for others who can realte to the addiction of trauma

What do you mean with 'addicted to trauma'? And in what way would a 12 step group work with that? As it's sole purpose?? Viewing this 'addiction to trauma' to be an addiction in it self functioning the same way an addiction to alcohol or drugs or food do?? If so I think this is horse-shit and nonsense. I have been in the 12-step program for 11 years and I have seen some people getting very sick(even sicker that is) and even ended up dying in the 12-step groups when they have use the 12-step program to try to treat stuff that a good, skilled therapist should help them with. And sometimes it's all madness. It was for me. I couldn't see that some of the stuff I said was 'the addiction' for real was PTSD. It all meant I tried to treat a very severe problem with 'band-aid' and praying and working the steps, when I really needed professional help. Also it meant I was blind to how powerless I was over the PTSD I didn't understand I had(I didn't know for real what PTSD was). And furthermore it meant I was vulnerable for new abusers, and was abused once more and almost died when my PTSD flared up. (The abuser found me in the 12 step program. And I re-enacted it all again. And was totally screwed. Again.)

Sometimes when I go to 12 step meetings now I get so extremely provoked by all the very sick people sitting there giving so much bad advice and not referring people who are in desperate need of professional help to that help, instead trying to use the 12 step program to mend what is really not only a spiritual problem, but a very severe mental problem. But please do explain more about what you mean. And in what way you think you have the solution? And also do answer the question if you have been diagnosed with PTSD, since that is what this site is aimed at.

 

[zaniara]

Alanon is a great program for working through cPTSD issues. It has helped me more than any other single source in my own healing journey.

Agreed. They help me with some of this, but they do not cure PTSD. And severe PTSD is something few people master on their own.

 

[Lost Pup]

I am curious how you came to consider inflicted trauma as an addiction. Could you share something about how you arrived at this idea?

 

[EvenStrongerNow]

Are you talking about trauma re-enactment?

 

[franciemarnie]

I don't quite get this. I have never chosen trauma. I don't wake up and have my thoughts all geared around how to accumulate more.

I think 12 step groups can be fantastically helpful for some people.

Do you mean maybe addicted to adrenalin type activities?

I can see how I am powerless over changing the past, and accepting what happened as having happened, and certainly avoiding it if at all possible in the future.

Maybe this is a semantics issue.

 

[keith Amato]

Sorry to have triggered you. I do understand your aversion to certain people on 12 step fellowships- its hard to explain what I am saying but I can tell you If you were attracting people who traumatized you that is exactly what I am talking about.that it I a very cunning addiction.

And yes complex PTSD is my diagnosis . Furthermore frankly your tone is traumatizing so take it down a notch please I meant no harm instating what I posted!

 

[intothelight]

Hi Keith,

I edited your introduction to remove the contact information as any type of self promotion is prohibited. If you want to start some type of support group, there is a section of the forum to set one up. However, please refrain from putting personal contact out there as this is an internet mental health site.

If you have further questions, please direct them to the Help Desk.

 

[keith Amato]

For me I got inflicted trauma- whatever the chemical reaction happened to my body created a craving to those chemicals released. So as I child I was always injuring myself physically always putting myself in harms way- then as a teenager I began to trauma my body with blackout binge drinking vehicular accidents drug abuse criminal activity that landed me in jail living in deprivation- all behavior that was traumatic in retrospect. This went on until my forties until I tried to kill myself the ultimate act of self abuse or trauma. Then I was hospitalized for the first of 3 times.

In the end at mt Sinai at a mica program that saved my life they diagnose me with complex PTSD after I was diagnosed with every mental diagnosis other than borderline and schizophrenic throughout my lifetime starting at 7 yrs old with hyperactivity. So In my experience the traumatic state is actually an addiction so subtle at times we don't even know we are doing it to ourselves until something major gets our attention.

 

[EvenStrongerNow]

Oh! I understand what you mean. Do you mean like re-enacting trauma? Like, it's a pattern?

I totally get what you mean, I think. For me, I had to learn about the difference between safe people and unsafe people--and get rid of toxic people. I had to learn the warning signs, etc.

There is a book called "Safe People". Though it's a Christian book and some people might not like that, it has a lot of very sound advice in it and is a book I read at the beginning of my recovery. It helped me tremendously as well as reading other books on toxic people, environments, etc. It gave me the strength to say no to the inexcusable and to protect myself to avoid further trauma/re-wounding experiences.

Also, it helped me look at the ways that I was unsafe to change my own patterns.

 

[keith Amato]

Gotcha sorry about that.