Undiagnosed 21 Year Old Potential Sufferer Having A Bad Night. Greetings!

[MementoMori]

Hi there.
I am a 21 year old girl who is a very likely candidate to have PTSD. I am very against self-diagnosis however most mental heathcare in my area is privatized and I generally cannot afford to find a diagnosis, so I am just trying to live with it and live with the feelings.

Spoiler: Abusive relationship/torture/child abuse recollection, if this may bring you discomfort please don't click here.

I basically endured a whole year of abuse at the hands of my ex-boyfriend. I moved across the world for him and he turned into a new person. I found child porn on his computer and I was horrified. My life was over, as I had just moved there to be with him and had nothing. My passport, birth control, and bank card all mysteriously went missing. He would gaslight me and make me feel like a horrible person. He physically harmed me, slapped, kicked, and otherwise abused me, he deprived me of food and contact with my family and friends. I was to always 'respect' him. He'd take my shoes with him to work so I could not run away, and also the internet. I was not allowed a phone. He did much worse things and it is too hard to talk about. After I fled and returned to my home country, he harassed me for months and told me he would come back to get me on my birthday. He is on a sex offender list now and luckily I have not had to seek a restraining order.

So after all that I think I am likely to have PTSD, I have nightmares about my abuser almost nightly. I have certain triggers that will take me back to what happened, the other day a special needs child attacked me at work and I just completely shut down and couldn't function for a week. I have experienced disassociation although I did not know what that feeling was named until a few weeks ago. I am super paranoid that everyone around me is actually working with/is my abuser, to try and find information on me or get back at me somehow. I have just not been myself, I am drinking a lot and making huge mistakes at parties and I am unable to show affection or have desire to open myself to anyone physically or emotionally. I am feeling very hopeless and I don't really know what to do anymore. Everything is numb. It's been over half a year. I still cry when I try to talk about it, including when I wrote this post.

So without a diagnosis or access to proper mental health, I am stuck like this. I found this site when I googled if PTSD can just... 'go away' on its own, but I guess it can't. I just don't know how much longer I can 'live' in this state.

Thanks for listening.

 

[seedling]

Welcome to the site! And to the great group of people that are here.
You have made a great start by reading here and reaching out for support. It's small steps like this that make for healing in the long run.
Sorry to hear that it is all so much for you right now. Keep reading here and trying to explore any options you can come up with for treatment.
I understand about how expensive it is to get the right treatment. I think most of us have gone through that.

You can read about coping methods here, you can start to practice some on your own. Anything that helps you is good. Everyone is different.
All the best.

 

[Anarchy]

Hi memento mori,

Welcome to the forum!

We all get here by different means, but, yup, from you're description looks like you belong here.

This is a safe place, and there are people here who really get what it is and what it's like, and theyre here 24/7/365.25

Have a look at some of the articles here
And look for the thread about grounding techniques ( getting back out of flashbacks and into the present).



I wouldn't get too hung up about diagnosis, it's not like testing for broken bones or malaria, and even with the psychoses, the repeatability between practitioners seeing the same patients is pretty low, something like 60% once random overlap is controlled for.

For getting to see a therapist, you're possibly in a better position with a private one. State healthcare systems that are free at the point of use have to use things like waiting times to ration their services.

Your drinking and parties superficially look like self medicating, and trauma reenactments/ acting out.

If you're able to, can you check out grounding techniques, and download the audio book of the mindful way through depression. Ignore the word depression, its useful for far more than just that.

If you are able to, avoid drink.
It doesn't teach any coping skills, your demons can hold their drink better than any of us lot can, and they escape easier with a bit of drink too.

Any money you save would be much better spent on a therapist, or even on yoga classes. I'm not joking about the yoga.

Pills don't teach coping skills either. There's a school of thought that medications can calm us enough for us to be able to benefit from talking therapies... I'm not convinced, neither are some of the top researchers ( eg Bessel van der Kolk). If you do go for pills, beware of increased suicide risk, and things like trashed sexual function. And make sure that you do learn some grounding skills.

 

[intothelight]

@MementoMori Welcome! :)

Until you are able to get some help, as one member suggested, there are many things you can do to help yourself. Definitely seek help with drinking or any other forms of self medicating as this will make things far worse in the long run. Also, learn all that you can so you can focus and do something for yourself that will help with the symptoms that make life such a struggle.