Sufferer Am I A Weak Person?

[Hopp]

I am a 40+ woman who suffers from complex PTSD. I haven't been aware of this until two years ago when memories and feelings came back to me. I realized that I didn't have that fantastic childhood that I always thought. I have experienced different kinds of trauma through a long period of time (about 20 years) and that's why I have so few memories.

I have always heard my family wondering why my memory (long-term) is so poor. Is it a brain damage that hasn't shown in any other way? Now I know...I know that my parents forced me to eat at the age of two. They did that with force. They held me very hard and told my brother to use bricks to open my mouth and then forced food into my throat. I thought I should die and I didn't understand why. This experience gave me a feeling that I wasn't allowed to live, to exist. I have now realised that I still have that feeling left.

My parents probably wanted to be good parents but it seems though that was a difficult job for them. They have more or less abused me emotionally through childhood. I never felt that it was possible for me to tell them if I needed help. But I did need help...

During nine years of school they were bulying me. It was physical, psycological abuse. When I turned 13-14 years of age it became sexual abuse. That was when I probably got PTSD for the first time. I kept everything for myself because I didn't think it was possible to find somebody to talk to. I have been depressed most of my childhood, without saying anything, I have had PTSD and also panic attacks. I have had a lot of suicide thoughts.

When I turned 40 years old it started to come back to me. It is a difficult experience. I have started trauma-therapy and hope that I finally will be able to live with my memories. I still have difficult remembering, but at least need to be able to live with the memories I do have. I feel ashamed because I think/feel that I should have been able to live with these experiences in a better way. I feel like a week person, but try to accept that I need help.

I hope it is possibe for you to understand. English is difficult for me.

 

[safenow]

I feel ashamed because I think/feel that I should have been able to live with these experiences in a better way. I feel like a week person, but try to accept that I need help.

Please, the guilt is not yours. You are not a weak person. You were traumatized. Any person who went through what you did would be. Please, remember, it is not your fault. And it's a myth that you "need to be strong and not suffer over what happened to you." If you are human, you will feel things when bad things happen to you.

Hello Hopp,

Welcome to the PTSD Forum. We all have either supported a person who has PTSD or are a person with PTSD. Many people here can tell you they can understand how you feel, because they have gone through it themselves. I suffer with Chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from multiple traumas myself.

You will find a lot of good information here as well as wonderful people that are very caring and supportive.

Nice to meet you. And your English is fine.

 

[Hopp]

Thankyou...

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

Welcome to the forum. :)

 

[KP the nut]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

 

[WillyKat]

You just posted your story for a whole bunch of strangers to see. No, I would say you are not weak. You are one of the strongest.

 

[intothelight]

Hi Hopp,

Welcome to the PTSD Forum! :)

Having PTSD is not a personal weakness. It is a normal response to an abnormal situation, and it seems that a body can get stuck in that response. It takes great courage to be honest with one's self and to work on becoming better.

I hope the information and support on this site help you as you work towards healing.

Take care.

Debbie

 

[Hopp]

Today I went to my psysical therapist. She helped me to understand that my feeling of not being allowed to live makes my body to get stuck. I sometimes have difficult to move even if I don´t have any psysical problem. I get very tense and I´m not able to move or at least very little. Is this something someone else can recognize?

 

[safenow]

Is this something someone else can recognize?

Yes. It is part of the fight or flight response. For some people they freeze. It is also part of having body memories.

The body never forgets anything. Many times in the past I've had that same issue. Your therapist is going to help you learn how to resolve those issues, as well as how to ground yourself when you are having them, so they will go away.

I'm so glad to hear that you have a good therapist to help you. Baby steps will help much better than trying to go too fast and not doing it right. Good luck on your journey.

Take good care of you.

 

[Hopp]

She does say that I have a lot of body memories. It is difficult to understand why they come.

 

[safenow]

It is difficult to understand why they come.

This is my understanding of why they come.

When the mind feels safe, it is like opening a box. Memories that were once hidden begin to come forth. It is not just the mental memories, it is also the bodies memories, since the body, mind, and spirit together make up the soul of a person. As the body begins to feel safe all sorts of things began to crop up. Which is why it's important to have a good trauma therapist to help you through what you don't understand.

This is something that was shared with me yesterday, and I'd like to share it with you.

"Compartmentalization - generally found in those with multiple personalities, where the memories are stored or compartmentalized in different personalities, so one personality remembers an event, whilst another knows nothing about that event, but about other events, and vice versa." [DLMURL]https://www.ptsdforum.org/c/threads/what-is-dissociation.13867/[/DLMURL]

That is only part of the different categories, but the reason I share this with you, even though you do not have multiple personalities like I do, is that the mind did this same thing with you. The body is one compartment, the mind is another compartment, the spirit is another compartment.

Thus, to my way of thinking, when the mind and body and spirit begin to relax and feel safe and are ready to heal, they each open up, small amounts of what has been set aside while you were being traumatized. It is a form of protection that your body did that for you.

In one respect, I hope you don't know what I mean when I say this. But I'm afraid, since you have body memories, you will understand. While you are being tortured, you only feel the first of the pain. The rest is lifted to that place in your memory and body to come back later when it isn't so severe. If you felt the whole thing at that time in history you might have either died, or gone insane and murdered whomever was hurting you or been murdered yourself for trying to stop them.

I hope this helps you to understand.

 

[safenow]

[DLMURL]https://www.ptsdforum.org/c/threads/dissociation-explained.13879/[/DLMURL] Here is a better explaination that I gave you before. I hope this helps.

Professional people can explain much better than I can. I am only a multi who has PTSD.