Sufferer A Little About Shmeg

[Bonsiren]

Good morning!

Trigger warning: Sexual assault details farther down.

My online alias is Shmegegi, or "Shmeg" for short. I am a twenty-two year old woman living in the Pacific Northwest. I'm involved in a stable, loving relationship with a man, I have precious few friends, and a small but sympathetic support group.

I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder at the age of eleven. I grew up with PTSD. I have been in and out of various one-on-one and group therapy sessions over the next seven years. They never really worked, and neither did the medication. My therapists were either uncomfortable with the explicit details or they generalized and stereotyped men, encouraging me to hate all men for the crimes of a few. The antidepressants were responsible for most of my suicide attempts. I stopped both about five years ago, and I've been looking for another means of support ever since.

I have a long and complicated history with sexual abuse and rape. Between the ages of seven and ten, I was molested by my mother's then-fiancé, whom she later left when she found out he was cheating on her. Afterwards, my younger brother and I moved in with our biological father. That man is...barely human. Do any of you know David Koresh? Or Charlie Manson? Like that. I was allowed to learn math because women need to know fractions in order to bake. Beyond that, he didn't think women needed any higher education. He loved to rant that the government was going to break down our door and kill the men and rape the women. He would get explicit for hours. I moved out when I was twelve. He's in prison now, serving a seventeen-year sentence for rape and sodomy.

I started dating at sixteen. The boys I dated raped me repeatedly and subjected me to various humiliations. I'd dump one, break free of his abuse, and somehow find myself in the same situation with another boy. No one knew. My ex-boyfriends would then go to school and tell everyone what a slut I was.

My home life was horrible. My mother was a teen mom who didn't think she could get pregnant. She's a survivor of abuse, but she refuses to talk about it and has only once admitted that it even happened. Her boyfriends and ex-husbands are abusers of varying degrees. After they help themselves to her, they'd sneak into my room at night. She's called me a liar, a whore, and she's accused me of wanting to run off with her boyfriends (I was twelve at the time). She's always sided with her boyfriends. Even now, after her latest pinned me against a wall and threatened to kill me if I ever told the truth.

I didn't have a stable, healthy relationship until I met my current boyfriend. He's a sweet man. I've taught him how to cook and he's teaching me about computers. He's listened to my stories, cried with me, held me. He helps me through my triggers. He helps me with my migraines and rubs my neck when I can't relax. We talk about everything. He's never insulted me--never called me a whore or a liar or a slut--not even when we fight.

I love Boyfriend, I really do. But he, along with what few friends I've managed to hold onto over these years, doesn't really understand. He grew up in a wealthy environment with everything handed to him. He's never known anyone who was abused or traumatized before. He can't even fathom it.

Nevertheless, Boyfriend got me away from my disbelieving mother, her violent boyfriend, and my abusive exes. He's held down a stable job even while we were homeless, and now he's gotten us into a quiet little apartment complex in the next town over. It's weird. For the first time in my life, there's food in the fridge, my pants fit me right, and the neighbors are all quiet. No screaming. No yelling. No police. No couples beating each other. No children crying in the corner. It's...quiet. Unfamiliar. I've never lived in a place like this, where most people are sober and the couples actually like each other.

Now I have all these other problems popping up. I'm in a safe place, I suppose, and it's creating...havoc. I've been emotionally numb to my trauma for well over a decade--during my entire adolescence and part of my childhood, when my brain was still really developing. Now I'm safe. I'm starting to feel, and it's driving me crazy. I cry all the time, I have panic attacks when I leave the house, I get scared for no reason. My nightmares are coming back. I'm remembering vivid details that I've tried to forget.

I lost my job last month because I had to have my appendix removed, and FMLA doesn't cover temps. I was working fifty hour weeks, working myself to the bone so I wouldn't have to think. Now I have all this time on my hands...and all I do is think. And cry. And think some more. And huddle up on the couch and cry and cry until I run out of tears. It's hard to get to interviews when I'm scared of leaving the house.

I've always gotten tension migraines, but now they're popping up more frequently. I'm worried I might not be able to hold down a full-time job even if I got one. I have no energy and no motivation most days. I feel like a burden. I'm overwhelmed. I have days where all I do is cry and other days where I go back to feeling numb. It's like I'm trying to grieve for long-past crimes, but I don't think I'm ready to grieve. Feeling anything is overwhelming, and most days I just want to go back to numb again.

Therapy and pills have never really worked, so I'm here trying to find support and advice from other people who are familiar with or have suffered the same thing.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Hi and welcome.

Do you have a strong set of coping skills you can use when things get rough?

 

[open eyes]

Hi, I'm Meg. I'm 16. I'm so sorry for everything you went through, but I'm happy to hear you're in a safe place now.

This website has helped me so much; it's full of people who understand exactly what you've been through.

I can relate to a lot of things that you went through- I was sexually abused as a child, although by my next door neighbors. Although it was not my home that was a wreck, I was around their family so much (one of their children is still my best friend today) that seeing the abuse that went on in their family really left a mark.

I also had suicide attempts due to medication- the worst were Zoloft, Wellbutrin & Lexapro. I was later diagnosed as Bipolar which explains why the antidepressants didn't sit well with me.

I think you really nailed it on the head- you're safe now & that's why all of the emotion is coming through. Sometimes our minds temporarily suppress the feelings just so that we survive. I only started feeling emotion from my childhood abuse after I had been hospitalized multiple times, because I was finally stable enough to begin to deal with it.

Even though "feeling" is hell, it gets better the sooner you deal with it- which will still take time. But it's much healthier than pushing it down again. Things grow bigger the longer you lock them away.

 

[Bonsiren]

@Solara Thank you!

I wasn't too affected until the last few months. Coping, for me, has a lot to do with isolating myself in a quiet environment. Writing fiction, sketching, drinking tea, playing single-player video games, reading a novel, going for a walk, working out for a bit. It used to be enough. I could leave the house, function in society, go to school, have a job, see my friends.

Now...I don't know. Leaving the house makes my throat close up. The phone ringing fills me with dread. I'm afraid all the time. I realized over the last week that I've slipped into a weird combination of coffee and alcohol and I'm never hungry. I'm sleeping too much.

We live in a second-floor apartment. I can stand on our back patio and feel fine. As soon as the front door shuts behind me, I feel naked and vulnerable. Worse, it's like everyone knows I'm panicking (when I sincerely doubt they even notice) and are all judging me negatively for it. My apartment has turned into a secure cave, and every noise or phone call or knock on the door is an unwanted intrusion.

@open eyes Thanks for the welcome!

This feeling thing is horrible. I took a Grief/Loss/Transition class while I was in college, and it was easily the greatest class I've ever taken. My teacher was brilliant. But somehow I walked away thinking acceptance and acknowledgement would be so easy.

As a young teenager, I was either angry or numb. Then I was just numb. In the last year, I've dared to fall in love. Try to be happy. I look at myself in the mirror everyday and pick out one feature that I like and compliment myself. I'm trying to fit in my skin. There was this brief few weeks where I was just happy, and it was like I transitioned from apathy to happiness. Then it all came crashing down, like someone's death hitting me all at once--except it was...almost like my own. Death of my innocence? My childhood? It's grief, and I don't know who I'm grieving for, but all I do is cry and cry.

It feels like such a burden. I know it's smarter to experience these emotions and accept them, but I resent them for the impact they're having on my life. It's hard to function most days.

 

[open eyes]

The best advice I can give to you for right now is to take care of yourself. Don't stress about leaving the house, you don't need that pressure right now. Eating right, drinking enough water & some basic hygiene can go a long way.

You seem like you have a lot of insight. Trust yourself.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

It sounds like most of your coping involves avoidance. I suggest reading up on various coping skills that will actually improve things overall rather than just in the moment of distress. Don't get me wrong, avoidance can work, but it doesn't sound like it's working anymore.

 

[NewDayTomorrow]

I tend to get worse when I feel less pressure. I am a chemical engineering major. When I have lots of lab stuff and homework and exams, I seem to be doing better because I have to be efficient and stay focused on school. When the deadlines pass, I fall to pieces and my brain goes to work on the trauma. I try to let my brain work out as much as it can when it wants to, and then when more deadlines come up, I am able to focus as needed.

You sound like you are in an extreme phase of "no deadlines" because you are looking for a job and resting. If you are like me, then when you get a job, you will swing back into focus and power through the migraines and you will not lose the job. I have migraines too. They are pretty debilitating, but my professors have been understanding and flexible, and I plan on using my sick days and vacation days wisely when I get my first full time job. You sound like a strong person. Just keep taking advantage of whatever circumstances you find yourself in, work on healing, work on finding a job, and then when you get a job, you can change gears.

 

[Promicarus]

My heart goes out to you. Yours is truly a terrible terrible history, and I wish I had the words to express...your post brought tears to my eyes.

I'm so glad you're here. I was in a very similar place around six months ago, when I found this forum, and though I can't credit my significant improvement since entirely to the site, i do know it played no small part. Just having a place to vent, and gain some sense of resonance, the experience that you are supported, and not completely alone and unique in your plight, is invaluable.

I do hope you'll do what you can to seek out therapy administered by a counselor specializing in trauma treatment and recovery.

After a history so protracted and rife with continuous unending trauma as a way of life--I think it would be unwise to do otherwise, in all honesty.

And yes, I agree...it is grief...but I think the labels as to exactly what we're grieving are of minor and only abstract philosophical significance. Why? Because its the emotion we have to experience, which we've bottled up for so long, during periods we've been forced to numb in order to function. And being brain/understanding based creatures...we so often fool ourselves into thinking that if we just had an explanation, if we just knew, it would somehow go away, or at least get better. That was me, anyway. It took a long long time for me to begin to appreciate that emotion is a force in and of itself...and is stored literally in the body and brain. And to ask "Why" is sort of like asking "Why Water?"...because its there.

My point in saying so is not to admonish you for trying to track it to its source in attempts to categorize it and understand its causes. That is natural, reflexive even. But what I found, personally, that all of that time spent in so doing...despite the fact that it was sincerely well-intentioned attempt to address my condition....was in fact only twisting the knife in the wound. Or like having a crystal of glass wedged into my skin....I was ;poking at it, trying to get a good look at exactly how its sharp edges were cutting me and causing pain.

Do you have any public resources in your area for assistance? If not, you would very likely find a trauma specialist willing to treat you on a sliding-scale basis according to your ability to pay.

I urge to seek professional guidance in the form of a trauma specialist simply due to the fact that the amount of trauma and its nature, has been so severe, that its likely difficult to predict how it will manifest next...and how to handle it. I don't want to suggest that there's any reason to expect it to be likely--and I'm not a health care practitioner of any sort---but I have done considerable reading and been in contact with many who have suffered extensive trauma...and it is possible that what only seems a relatively minor inconvenience at this point could suddenly take an unexpected turn, producing symptoms which at the very least you would want an attending specialist available in order to evaluate and adress...before you are incapacitated by them to the ;point that you are without the wherewithal to go out and find one.

Again, I don't suggest that this is likely at all...only as a matter of precaution, considering the degree and amount of trauma you've suffered and "stored"

There are newer techniques for releasing the trauma thats actually stored in your body itself, through specific exercises...which I hope you'll look into...but only under the guidance of a trauma specialist...especially as they have been known to have an "opening of the floodgates" effect...which in someone with as much stored trauma as you have, could be debilitating.

be well, and welcome again to the forum, you're among friends here...and I hop;e you'll stay to find out

 

[Smile]

@Promicarus, do you have any further information on how to find someone qualified in these trauma releasing exercises?

 

[intothelight]

Hi Shmeg,

Welcome to the forum!

When a person who has had multiple traumas finds themselves "safe", it is really normal for a PTSD sufferer to have symptoms flair up. It seems that when it is safe to "feel" all of the feelings that were shoved aside just to function come flooding back. As overwhelming as it is right now, it really can get better.

Sometimes people get therapy and it isn't the right time for them and that doesn't mean that therapy doesn't work. Perhaps finding a good trauma therapist may be very helpful for you at this point.

This site is a great tool for information and support, and I hope you find it beneficial to your healing.

Debbie

 

[TimeToHeal]

Hi @Shmegegi, and welcome to the forum!

I am sorry to hear of all you have been through. But here, you are not alone and many of us can empathize and understand.

I agree with @Promicarus and @intothelight - often we enter therapy looking for help and healing but, for whatever reason, it's just not the right time for us. I think it's completely natural, now that you're in a safe, quiet environment, to have old, and new, symptoms emerge. You are not in "survival mode," likely for the first time in your life, and your mind and body are actually able to feel the effects of years of trauma.

I hear you when you say that therapy hasn't worked or helped you in the past - which I understand because I too, have gone through years and years, and many different therapists, that really didn't do much for me - well, except for giving me a handful of "labels". But now, just at the end of last year, I began working with an awesome trauma specialist and it has been a totally different - and positive - experience. I too, am in a safe and relatively stable place in my life for the first time, and have had lots of things come up - hence my return to therapy after several years. I guess what I'm trying to say is, things have a way of coming up when we are in a position to address them. Perhaps you could/would have a much different experience with therapy, starting fresh with a trauma specialist. They will work with you to establish positive coping and grounding strategies before even addressing your traumas.

I'm glad to hear you have found a kind and supportive partner - even if he doesn't really "get it". My partner doesn't "get it" either, but is very supportive of my getting help and healing and does what she can to help, even if that means just giving me some space.

Again, welcome! I look forward to getting to know you better! :)

 

[Bonsiren]

@open eyes Thank you. I'm taking a break from coffee and alcohol for a while. We still have some Mike's in the fridge, I told Boyfriend last night that he could help himself to those. I have a tendency to get migraines when I don't drink caffeine, but I think I've gone too far in the other direction and now it's doing more harm than help.

@Solara Oh, it's definitely avoidance. Most of what I do are actual recommendations from when I was in therapy as a teenager. She emphasized physical activity to elevate and balance out the hormones in the brain. I'm also an extreme introvert. Going outside and socializing with people isn't energizing, it's exhausting. It's so easy for me to slip into this sort of agoraphobic-like behavior because I don't really need to get sunlight often.

I have spent a lot of time sitting and thinking and talking about the sorts of people that have hurt me over the years. I know big chunks of their stories, how they turned into the people they are. My mother is a survivor of abuse and deep in denial, her boyfriend killed a relative on accident and has been angry at himself ever since. My biological father is the neglected son of a prostitute that would abandon them for days at a time and physically abused him when she was around. My exes all have sad tragic stories of their own--except for one. It doesn't excuse their behavior, just explains it.

I've a couple books on post-traumatic stress that I've been reading through. The difficulty is finding something that helps with my situation. The abuse and rape of women and children in the US isn't a small or uncommon occurrence, but nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to research it. They're all so content to just point the finger at the victim, blame them for somebody else's actions, and go about their lives sleeping comfortably at night. Trying to rationalize and understand what happened to me has been extraordinarily difficult.

@JBS I'm the exact same way. I'm not a sturdy sort of person. My last job had me working fifty hours a week--ten-hour shifts five days a week--and it was awful. The pay was great, but the co-workers were difficult and the supervisors were inflexible. There was a lot of media pressure on us. Temps don't get sick leave or paid vacation, and when they let me go in April they blamed me for poor attendance that was a direct result of my surgery.

On the bright side, my applications for volunteer work and a part-time job have both been acknowledged. I've been contacted for some follow-up information. 20 hours a week isn't much, but I think it would be perfect for my situation right now. Boyfriend has an interview this afternoon for a better-paying job, so the stress of our financial position might be lifting soon.

@Promicarus A 'trauma specialist'? I've been to many different therapists and support groups over the years, and it never...clicked. Some were uncomfortable by the topic, others took it too personally and were angered at what I've undergone. Group therapy and support groups didn't work because they weren't on the same level of healing that I am. It was like being forced to back-pedal.

Names have power. The fact that I was suffering from a known disorder with a proper name was a huge relief for me. Unfortunately, there's little-to-no knowledge of little girls with PTSD. I grew up with it. My therapists had no idea what to do with me, even the specialists who were supposed to know what they were doing. I've had so many pills pushed on me only to have them either not work or make the situation worse.

Someone has to know something, but I'm tired of pouring out my heart for two hours just to have them give me that blank sort of look. I'm an extreme case that no one knows how to handle, so they shove me off to someone else, and the cycle repeats. I'm tired of being the unwanted, difficult case.

But it's something to keep in mind. With Boyfriend looking for a better job, our employer coverage will be changing soon. I've already managed to accumulate thousands of dollars in medical debt from my appendectomy last month, and we're still trying to figure out why we owe four digits when I have full coverage.

@intothelight Thank you. It is something to keep in mind, but as previously stated, I haven't had much luck there. Finding a good therapist is like going on a blind date with the requirement that you pour out every naked, debilitating detail about yourself. And getting stuck with the full bill afterwards.

I hear all these great stories of people finding the right therapist, and I'm jealous. My therapists, psychiatrists, and specialists have just managed to twist this trauma into something worse--either denying it or making it about themselves, leaving me still on my own. I kept thinking the next one might be the right one, but it never worked out.

I'll look into it again after our employer coverage is settled.

@TimeToHeal Thank you. I am grateful for the people in my life, Boyfriend especially. He's incredibly supportive. That he doesn't get it isn't necessarily a bad thing--this sort of abuse should never happen to anyone, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. It just makes it hard to talk to him sometimes. There is a lot of extra explaining that has to go into it because he just can't imagine what my situation was like and he doesn't know how to respond to it.

I've been in survival mode for such a long time that I don't know what to do with myself now. Leaving the house yesterday caused a massive panic attack that still hasn't quite subsided. Boyfriend and I went for a walk down to the grocery store after he got home from work, and I'm thinking about heading down to the mailbox here shortly to pick up the mail. There's still the bigger things to deal with--no job, no family, friends that work night shift, a hamster that sleeps during the day, and a thousand story ideas that don't seem to want to get onto the paper. I'm hoping for a part-time job to ease myself back into this, and I'm going back to school within the next year.

When I was working, I had migraines constantly. They last for days at a time. There are times when my neck muscles will not physically relax, and other times when I get worked up physically. Work has exposed me to a number of triggers that I've had to cope with, and part of me is afraid of going back to that.

I used to work in healthcare, processing applications for coverage. One of applicants lived with his mother, who was unemployed, disabled, and had no income of her own. Then I noticed they were thirteen years apart. The mother was born in 1970, the applicant in 1983. I was so furious, I had to take my break early. No thirteen-year old consents to have a baby at that age. I left the building and was walking up and down the street. It was like I was wired, and I was angry and sad and it took a lot time to work that down.

I can't avoid work, but those tiny little things that pop up and take you completely by surprise are hard to work with. I don't know a single person who's led an easy life--even my sweet boyfriend was bullied, ostracized, and felt like an outcast at the private high school he went to--but supervisors are only understanding for so long. I'm thinking right now that fewer hours would be better, but that slims down my options a lot.

Something will eventually fall into place.