After 9 Years it is Determined: Complex PTSD but My "Trauma" is Unusual

[my witness: the empty sky]

Yea I am on six different meds (lol)... :-( for anxiety and anger and depression and crazy-weird sleep issues. they run my life, run not ruin. My life revolves around the meds. For many years I really needed them and I truly believe they saved my life. in 2002 I was put on 10mg of zyprexa and spent three years in an apartment isolated from the world completely ZONKED out. I had enough energy to get through 12 credit hours a semester and that’s what I did. But if I wasn't put on it right then, I think I could be dead. I needed to be stopped dead in my tracks and fast.

But now I am at a point where the costs/benefits have tipped to the other side. After all these years I have come far and now I think they do more damage than good.

Actually, for 8 years I have been on xanax and it is advised to NOT be on that for longer than a few weeks at a time. But I never had a problem with it. A few weeks ago I had an "episode" AT my therapist’s office and it must've been quiet intense cause he sent me out the door with a Rx for three doses a day of xanax and three of adderall. HA! (My episodes are anxiety attacks and anger that I really cannot control. and they are NOT serious in comparison to six years ago so it is amusing when people see them as scary).

As much as I would like to be stoned the rest of my life, I just DONT.

So after that I have been doing research and I want to do the Cognitive Behavior Therapy thing called Gradual Exposure. You know that Gradual Exposure has been known to CURE people with PTSD if they really devote themselves to it. So my avoidance thing.... can’t last too much longer. I can’t let it.

I have been researching rape. I am not at a point where I can say I was raped, because I was willing. Supposedly if you feel emotionally forced to have sex and are suffering through it, mentally, it is rape. This falls under a category: Coercive Rape.

BUT, I could have told him at any time over the three months that I didn't want to have sex and he would've been fine with it. There were different, more indirect, ways that I felt I had to. So I just don’t think I was raped. And I would never feel okay calling it rape. That is a serious word and I feel I would undermine the severity of the term rape, and even undermine rape victims. That sounds odd? Point blank, I don’t want to be a drama queen and the way I picture rape is not what happened to me.

I keep going off on my own tangents but these past few weeks it has occupied my mind more than ever. And these are the thoughts I have.

 

[Deleted member 1606]

Hi again. I'm on effexor and Wellbutrin and they work pretty well for me. Have you tried other drugs besides the ones you mentioned?

 

[SOB]

** "In nine years I have come so far!!! SO FAR! and most of it on my own but i cannot live up to my dreams or reach whatever potential i may have because of the tiny, pestering, traits of PTSD that never fail to break through and ruin everything. I haven't had a boyfriend in nine years. I spent three years in isolation. Today, I have friends who i keep at a very, VERY far distance. It is too hard to do things that I should be able to do, things that every other college student i know can do just fine.It is only so many months of crawling up the hill that has become of my life, when i simply get tired and break. my strength and confidence only lasts so long. then i have to start all over. And never seem to get anywhere"**This is almost identical to the way I have felt for the last several years. I ask and tell myself, "I'm almost out of it, if I do just this one thing, I'll be fine" But it seems so hard to break and get over that mountain top. Over 6 years have passed by and it feels like it could have been 2years since the event(s).Best regards and best of luck!

 

[notjustfriends]

Why hello and welcome, my friend! I also am supposed to be blonde, perky, a perfectionist, and one who would have saved the world.

But........ bad things occur even to those sorts of people. Really bad things. And if those bad, horrible things occur, you can be diagnosed with PTSD.

From what I have gathered, PTSD has nothing to do with intelligence, or if you were the valedictorian, or the Angela Jolie of Africa, etc. Bad things happen, and that is why we are all here.

When you are ready to share, it may help you. That is your decision and your decision alone (see you still have control over SOMETHING) :).

Please know I am not making light of your situation in any way, shape or form. I was raised to become "somebody", and I was almost there... until someone way high above took advantage of me, and i lost my husband, my job, my happiness, and my love for humanity.

Things happen.. but you can make your way back. It has taken me 18 years for the first bad thing, and 2 years for the second, but I can spew out what happened to me to anyone, and I don't really care what their response is :).

Hope I have been helpful, in some way. You sound like an incredible individual with so many things going for you... with just bad things in your past... what you choose to do with the past is your choice. I personally have chosen to tackle mine.

With spirit and joy,

NJ

 

[movinahead]

HI....I see so much of my story in yours....it is so ....warming to know that I am not alone. THank you.