• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Other Locked In A Box -v- Voluntary Bad Living Situations

Friday

Moderator
I don’t know if anyone here shares the trauma duality of imprisonment …& either… DV, stalking/assault etc., or just a ‘bad’ living situation deliberately chosen over worse living situations.

I’ve been held against my will, a few times, in a few different ways, to different ends.

I’m relatively okay with all of that.

It’s the CHOICES I make, having choices, that both gut me & totally disconcern me to the point that I don’t relate, rightly, to those who have never known the extremes.

It means I avoid shelters, camps, and other places with… easily avoidable consequences.

And a few other things. Other consequences.

Anyone with me, here?

No worries, if not.

But I’m also not averse to points of light in the darkness.
 
I've never been held against my will......I don't think? But I think I know what you mean. But I've never thought of it as "a problem". The first time I was living out of my vehicle, I, theoretically, could have moved back to my parent's house. Never thought of it. At all. It wouldn't have been good anyway, but, years later I realized that's how a lot of people would have handled the situation. (They didn't know I was living in the truck, but, looking back, I wonder where they thought I WAS living.) Camps & shelters seem like they'd be dangerous in a different way.

Are we talking about the same general thought process?
 
@scout86

Yes & No, I think.

Definitely yes, in the whole… The truck is the best option, full stop. Been there, done that. I would rather be 15 different shades of homeless than 5 different shades of better on paper, but not in real life.

No, in the sense of if you HAD moved back to your parents, as the ‘best’ option available… and were “stuck” there. Not really, as you could leave at any point, and had had not only FAR worse, but are free to leave at any point, and are choosing not to.
 
Like omg this situation sucks I should do something about it. *Continues to not do anything about it*? Or like learned helplessness?
Or like executive dysfunction as it’s triggering or as in ADHD paralysis?

Or do you mean like feeling trapped is triggering even though you could “do something” this is the lesser of the evils but is causing distress?
Sorry that was a lot of questions, I think I may need more information haha.
 
I get it as when my momster killed our puppy when I was five, I learned to keep my mouth shut, but ran the minute I could. Jumped from the proverbial frying pan into the fire and ended us with the ex who told me so many times he'd kill me if I left with gun in hand, and let's not forget involuntary Russian Roulette. So it took saying I would die fighting for me to leave and spending ten years even after I left being stalked and me armed whenever I went, changing up vehicles and routes and all kinds of crazy.

Fast forward as where I live holds all the memories and to be honest, I was never happier living in our camper in the middle of BFE KY. Psychologically and emotionally it is a place as I see "not tainted". Most people do not even comprehend why I would "want to leave a beautiful home and live in the sticks". Me, if I was physically able, I'd take a tent in the sticks over any suburban prison. Freedom and peace is everything.
 
I think the aspect of inescapability has a huge effect on the way we react to traumatic events.
My childhood could easily be seen as bucolic if it weren't for the lack of ability to escape and the harsh punishments for anything that resembled discontent. Once I was able to live elsewhere, going back was on my terms and if I chose to visit it was only because I wasn't being force-fed their deeply disturbed religious ideology. Being there was no longer traumatic, but the trauma of having been forced to be there and to knuckle under the strictest of religious tyranny carries on decades later. Eventually, their gloves came back off and I chose not to visit them or even to hear them on a phone. Conversely, the memories of that hostage-like life are still there and are now it seems, inescapable.
 
I’m finding this very interesting. For my own part I came out of quite a bad depressive episode and realised I was “trapped”. As in I had burned through my savings and was totally reliant on my partner. Now I love my partner and he’s never shown any signs of abusive behaviour, but I need to know I can leave if I need to. I want to be here because I want to be here, not because I have to. Getting well this time around has had a lot of focus on getting back to work and getting my savings back. I really need the “lets get tf out of here” fund to feel safe.
 
Trapped but not held captive, which is a huge 'but'.

Closest I can add is, the choice to leave apart from giving everything up or being homeless, is hugely the choice is something such that it would be a moral injury, goes against my grains and my word, what I can live with.
 
Trapped, was part of both traumas. Anniversary is a bad day for details. First was blindfolded (in effect) drugged and unable to escape. The second was trapped and a victim of trauma 1 and inescapable circumstances. Trapped because those circumstances lit up my PTSD to the point I couldn't function or do anything to change things, or even let people know what was going on......
 
I sure understand living in a situation, choosing it, against my good sense because it was viewed as not as bad as alternatives, that being a DV situation.
Been held against my will, aside from dv situation, only one short time.

The hardest to function for me is when I wanted to flee, or the other person to leave, but needed to keep peace to avoid a bad situation. How long will I be able to maintain until I can no longer.....in which attempts to walk away resulted in my being assaulted physically.....which is not as bad as the walking on eggshells....however, thats my outcome......I know others that have died when they walked away
 
it strikes me that all of my life has been in some kind of confinement, and most of it by choice. Do I want to be in my truck and headed for a job at 4:45 every AM? Oh hell no. Is it awful but better than broke and headed for bankrupt? Thats why I choose it. If everyone else is doing it, I guess I would be a damned fool not too, but that's a thin line of reasoning that early in the morning when I just want to find a side street where I can sleep until the sun is warm. I think I was wired to have to scramble every day for my food and shelter, it would have kept me in the game and feeling better about my rice bowl and mat at the end of the day. I have it verrrry good, especially when comparing to a global standard, but again, that's a thin line of reasoning when I am making that slog of a commute, just to drag home and wait for the inevitable paycheck and bills cycle to repeat.
oh poor poor pitiful me, lord have mercy on me, whoa oh woe is me......
it's a living
 
Back
Top