Do you feel that abuse is justifiable due to your illness? I have in the past at times. I try to make amends for it later. It's been a difficult lesson to learn, to go against everything I learned in childhood. It's been hard to break through the belief that my mother was perfect (in her eyes) and whatever she did was right. I now see that my past explains how I behave but doesn't excuse it.
Do different types of abuse seem less abusive? eg Is physical abuse worse than mental abuse? Mental abuse is harder to define, the lines are greyer, so perhaps that's what makes it seem less abusive. I suffered physical, sexual and emotional abuse as a child, plus some forms of neglect. That's what I've been using to try to answer this question - which has left the worst impact (although I know this question is in the context of current adult relationships). Starvation and emotional abuse have probably been the hardest to overcome (compared to physical and sexual abuse), so in the context of this question, I'd say emotional abuse is possibly more damaging.
Do you feel remorse after you have abused someone when having a bad day?
Sometimes it happens spontaneously, sometimes I need to have it pointed out to me.
Would you be happy if someone treated you like you treat them when you are having a bad PTSD day? I'm usually dissociated rather than angry. But yes. And I experience it sometimes from the point of view of a carer, because my partner is also working through past abuse issues/flashbacks/anger/dissociation.
Does uncontrolled PTSD or un-medicated PTSD allow you, in your own mind, to excuse more of your bad behaviour? Intellectually, the answer is no. But when I'm overwhelmed by triggers, in the heat of the moment, it feels justified. It takes a lot of effort afterwards to disentangle it.
If you have abused someone being in the throws of PTSD, did you feel remorse when you felt better? Usually, yes. Sometimes straight away, sometimes later, sometimes I need it to be pointed out to me what the effects of my behaviour were.
If you do abuse someone (inadvertent or not) do you realise that you are re-creating the cycle of abuse you yourself may have suffered but in a different way? Yes, most definitely. It's the motivation to try to change my behaviour. It's not easy, because I only know what not to do (ie to not do what I saw growing up) but I don't have any role models for healthy behaviour, so I have to read books and think about it a lot and watch other people, eg at work and try to copy what they do. But because I don't know what healthy behaviour looks like, sometimes I choose badly in terms of who to copy behaviour from. And everyone behaves differently, and I can't easily tell what's just variations of healthy behaviour, and what is unhealthy. This might seem obvious to others but it's extremely confusing for me.
Do you think that if the person who abused you was mentally ill changes the effect the abuse had on you? Would you find it easier to forgive them if you know they were mentally ill? It explains it to some extent but in no way excuses it, particularly the physical and sexual abuse - because I can't see how under what circumstances could cause someone to kick a young child repeatedly in the stomach, or smash their head against a washing machine, or sexually assault a four year old. (and it's not person singular, it's plural for me) I don't think I can ever forgive what happened to me. I'm hoping I get to the point where I can stop being angry and resentful for it and wanting them to be punished in some way. But that is quite different to forgiving them, because in my mind, forgiveness = acceptance of the actions/behaviour.
Do you know what the cycle of abuse is and do you think any aspect of your PTSD symptoms cause you to model the cycle in your personal life? To some extent, yes. I can see in my past that I've acted out repetition behaviours and I'm sometimes sickened by seeing that. My partner and I have been gradually realising over the past 4 or 5 years how our relationship dynamic has been influenced by our childhoods and we've been gradually changing how we think/act towards each other. We're now in couples counselling to get help with finding healthier ways to support each other and to identify other ways to behave/think.
