A Question For All Who Have Abuse Induced Ptsd

[greenleaf]

@RussH, the thread has been very helpful for me to read, although I am sorry for peoples' pain -- that is always lurking in us I guess, ready to pop up... @rightkindofme has great points there.

Without this post, I'd have likely never read the stuff about dissociation that @digger posted: Link Removed
which seems really relevant for me. While I do have degrees and have been moderately 'successful', it is not near the level that I could have based on various things, IQ scores test results and "peer" successes and whatever. My paid job is intellectual, but I can use some of my old "survivor" skills to make things better for others sometimes, which feels the best for me I think.

The most "successful" stuff I've done I think is volunteer work to help others, it is a lot less stressful for me to volunteer as no one has life-and-death power over me (part of me feels that way sometimes about paid work or maybe about taking risks pushing for more stressful but higher-"success" work.)

 

[digger]

You are curious if some people can move on. The answer is yes. Can everyone move on and feel successful? No. Life isn't like that. You are going to find out about bad when you ask for good.

Absolutely. This is a discussion thread. You will get more than one point of view and people answering from different perspectives and experiences.

When I said that the thread made difficult reading for me, that is exactly what I meant, that it made difficult reading for me, not that I felt anyone intended to make it difficult for me.

Do I think RussH shouldn't have posted it? No. Do I think it was okay for me to respond to thread with my own, different, experience? Yes.

In my opinion, if you only want a certain type of response to a thread then the title and original post needs to be clear in that. For example , a thread asking specifically for people's positive examples of how they have been more successful than their abusers, I wouldn't have responded to because I would have nothing to add. The opening post in this thread I felt asked a more open question than that.

 

[Recovery4Me]

@greenleaf Nice post!

@RussH of late ...I have taken a job, to lose weight, lower cholesterol, & build muscle as a bartender. So it is not the title of a job that defines a person (so do not feel less because of your position) ;).

~~~~~~~~~~
One of my abusers hit me so hard (years ago) that he destroyed my middle ear portion on one side. It developed over time into Meniere's ear disease or rotational vertigo+. So I decided to learn to walk again with funky balance. I have been somewhat successful walking about 3-4 miles (sometimes a tad more) during my half shifts (as I needed to back down from 6-8 miles from full shift). As well, I am an alcoholic in grateful recovery from a family line of abusive & functional alcoholics: so again another test for sobriety and another form of success.

As I work in this retirement home as a bartender, I have met many hard working immigrants striving for citizenship. I felt grateful for being born in this country and realized how delighted they were as they told their stories of waiting 12 years to come here for this chance: their stories were also indicative of major trauma. Also, I have met many wheelchaired PTSD war-vets - residents that felt they were successful in recovery from a disease like cancer, or that they lived to hold their great grandchildren and can have an icecream with their wife (of 50-60 years of marriage). All stories of success.

So can we of PTSD be successful more than the root causes...yuppers! We can prevail and we can thrive. Be the change.:)

 

[Go Hungry]

This is a hard one for me, because I feel like my primary abuser has surpassed me by every standard. He's a good church going man with two beautiful children and a stable marriage and a well paying job, respected by his community and basically the model of middle class success. By contrast I am a psychotic madman with split personalities (whose bitterness and hatred towards God borders on satanism) working a menial job that I can barely maintain; a recovering alcoholic and co-dependent who destroyed my marriage due to the unbridled chaos I bring to relationships. He's always kept himself in shape while I vacillate between great obesity and just mere obesity. He lifts weights, I smoke.

I recently found that I'm a chronic addict who always finds a new one after conquering the last one. I ate my way into diabetes and still have to rely on my parents for rent money despite being 39 years old. He is the a paragon of stability and I'm steeped in dysfunction. He finished his Masters in Engineering in one (1) year while I'm still trying to fight my way through a bachelors. By every standard of American middle class values, I'm a complete loser compared to him.

So yeah, basically... He wins. That's really hard to live with.

 

[Go Hungry]

Well, somebody got a little triggered, LOL.. Okay, so now that I shook that off and am feeling more like me again... I'll try and list some accomplishments that I do think count for something. I quit drinking by simply pouring out my rum and never picking up any booze again. According to my doctor's that is simply unheard of. I got out of an unhealthy marriage, which was slowly killing us both. I dropped 60lbs in 8 months (thanks, Paleo diet!). I beat Nihilism and got back in Paganism. Since just the mention of the christian God's name makes me dissociate into a raging maniac, as you have seen above; no choice in that matter. Besides, it really is quite a beautiful spirituality.

I am finishing college, if a few years late. I am (mostly) self-sufficient. I've beaten him not by the standards of the world, but by other standards, of a different world. A different morality. I've let a much wilder, more fun life. I've had more lovers, experienced more wonders, dodged death a number of times, saved a person's life, written a story that caused a major MMO to alter their prime fiction and release a game expansion.(!) I'm braver than he is. I've taken risks that he hasn't, I accepted challenges that he ran from, I've broken boundaries that hold him in bondage to this day. I've cared for people no one else cares for, put dreams into action, set up people on dates with folks they eventually married and had kids with. (Including my rotten brother.) And to top it all off, two songs have been written about me.

I could probably go on for a bit, but yes.. Depending on which standards you're using, I'm either an abject failure or something of a folk hero... Just in how you look at it.

And I've got a date on the 21st, so that's something! ;)

 

[RussH]

He's a good church going man

With all due respect. He may go to church, but he is not good. A good church going man would not be an abuser. Going to church does not make a person a christian, it just means they occupy a pew.
A good church man will love his fellow man, and will build them up; not tear them down.
A good church man demonstrates the love of God: An abuser demonstrates the evil of satan.
So, I am truly sorry that you were abused by a church going man, but if he abused you then he was not good.

 

[Hashi]

@RussH maybe you've started a thread that's helpful in ways you didn't anticipate. I'm sorry if you feel bad about the various directions that have been followed. At the same time, I don't think you need to.

Either you still maintain your original position from when you started the thread, or you've revised it. If you still maintain it, it's fine for others to express different opinions. If you've revised it, then that's allowed too. It isn't so bad, either way. :) You seem to have opened up a very interesting discussion. When that happens, often it can help people come to a clarity for themselves which is helpful.

So I hope you won't mind or feel bad that my point of view is a bit different too. I have found it helpful to be reminded of it, and I think that's a positive.

I used to try to measure myself against my abusers. They feel superior because of X, but I'm actually superior because of Y - etc, etc. In my case this wasn't education but other things that to me personally meant success. It was exhausting to try to "keep score" in this way, and I always had the feeling that even if I awarded myself a win I might be kidding myself.

It was a watershed moment when I realised that I didn't have to do "better" than them in any way. It wasn't relevant. I am not here to keep score against people who hurt me. Nor am I here to measure myself against other people who have had different life experiences and now have a big savings account and a house. I'm here to do the best I can in my own life, with my own history, my own challenges and my own circumstances, regardless of what anyone else is doing.

I say this with a lot of good feeling towards you. I don't agree with the initial idea of this thread, and I also don't think you meant anything bad by it but only good. To me, it has been helpful to remind me of what I've realised, because I do need to remind myself of it.

 

[RussH]

I'm here to do the best I can in my own life, with my own history, my own challenges and my own circumstances, regardless of what anyone else is doing.

This is the measure of success. Very good for you!

I did not necessary mean we should compare ourselves to our abusers, as much as to show we have succeeded. And if we have succeeded, regardless of your definition of success, then they, the abusers, have failed because they could not distroy us.
I personally do not know what ever happened to the vast majority of my abusers, I only know that I have been broken to to point of wanting too be dead, I have been so wounded that I am fragile in many areas, and easily hurt. I have been dehumanized marginalized and thrown out on the trash heap by people who did it just because they could.

But in spite of their best efforts to distroy me, i have survived. I still struggle with self image, insignificance, rejection and several other crappy feelings about myself, but I still get up every morning with a determination to live my life in service of others; to lift them up and encourage them, to live my life to the betterment of my fellow humans, and my abusers cannot say that.
ok I will get off my soapbox now:)

 

[Lucycat]

If the only 'success' in my life is that I haven't abused anyone else, well, I'm sorry but that's not a success to me. Not abusing people should be a given in my opinion.

I must admit I baulked at that idea too. I agree with you here Digger.

 

[RussH]

If the only 'success' in my life is that I haven't abused anyone else, well, I'm sorry but that's not a success to me. Not abusing people should be a given in my opinion

@Lucycat I know you did not say this originally but I quoted it from your post

don't think not abusing another is a success, because not doing a negative is the same as doing nothing.

I think treating others with respect, and letting them know that they are a valued member of society; being willing to care about others to lift them up and encourage them makes you a better person, and that is being a success.

As it has been said abuse is a learned behavior; those who have been abused learn to abuse: the cycle of abuse. So when you have been abused, but break that cycle and refuse to abuse others you have succeeded where others have not.

 

[RussH]

I have met some incredible people here on the forum, and have developed really good friendships with them through private messages, and I am truly, truly blessed to have them as friends, and they, hopefully, will realize I am talking about them right now.

These are people who have been abused, traumatized, and truly hurt to the point of dispair, and yet they are rebuilding their lives; they are living, rasing their families, pursuing their interest, they are surviving, and more than surviving, they are living! And they are a living example of success, and I am honored to know them.

 

[Notsowild]

What about us "unsuccessful " ones. Where do we fit into on this forum? I feel like the outcast here.