News Article claiming divorce caused ptsd

[shimmerz]

came in the form of threat of death, serious injury, or sexual violence, or threat of same to an intimate loved one?

Look, I really haven't been able to process the shit that happened to me there. It was my mistake for getting baited into trying to explain in the first place. It's fine. I actually can't articulate the why's and the wherefore's because I still haven't processed it in a way that translates easily into words. But what I can tell you is that I believe with 100% certainty what I have posted above. And it's okay if you guys don't. I am happy that most of you can't relate tbh.

 

[Gs172003]

Personally I'd rather be harrassed than emotionally abused. But I guess that depends on what your defini...

You know thinking about this thread I'm not sure how to define emotional abuse either because,well, people tend to do it different. Harrassment is just annoying in my opinion. Abuse is a way to "break down" a person. It can most certainly be done in an emotional (psychological?) way. One example in my life is that my grandma was just plain mean. We lived in her house from the time I was 5 til I was 13. When school was out we were only allowed in the house to eat. When we were there she was hateful. Real hateful. One time she smacked the crap out of me for throwing up at the table. She was great at telling is how bad we were. Etc etc.

My mom has never been good at telling us she loves us ( well not me anyway can't speak for my siblings). She lives across the street from me as we speak and I never see her. Affection from her is pretty well non-existent. I blamed myself for her divorce because she never explained why until I was almost an adult. She let me blame myself. I guess she did the best she could because she was a very young mom.

My dad was an alcoholic. He was a serial adulterer and got arrested several times for drunk driving. I don't remember any of this my mom had to tell me these things. She would step in the way of him so he'd hit her instead of us before she finally left. Once they were divorced he would promise to come see us and never show up.

It goes on and on.

How do you define any of that?

 

[Suzetig]

I guess fur me emotional abuse was my parents communicating that me, my way of being was completely unacceptable to them. It was threatening to put me into care for spilling some milk, it was calling me selfish for needing new shoes, it was calling me fat when I was borderline anorexic, it was blaming me for their unhappiness and calling me a mistake, it was knowing that I wanted X for a birthday and buying it for a sibling, it was never comforting me when I cried, never helping me when I needed help. It making it clear to me that I was the very worst thing that could have happened to them.

It went far beyond harassment, or whatever we term bullying. It was a constant criticism of me, the person I am and my place in their life. I fully expected to be put into care at any moment, or for my mum to just leave me in the street because she couldn't bare me any longer. Abusive, absolutely.

There was physical abuse and neglect but if all they ever did was what I posted above, I know I would have been severely impacted, because those core beliefs are what I struggle with day to day.

 

[Gs172003]

I guess fur me emotional abuse was my parents communicating that me, my way of being was completely un...

That too. Nothing I ever did was good enough unless it was what Mom wanted me to do. I was a habitual runway for a reason. Even my kids are a target. Messed. Up. My kids are old enough now that they see it are are avoiding it now.

 

[Gs172003]

And my poor cousins. My mom would remind them that " she could have put them in foster care" the whole time they were living with her. With her her "love" was a debt. You owed her anything she did. It was pathetic.

 

[Gs172003]

My ex husband would withhold money from me. The whole time I was married to him I had no idea how much money he made, how much we had, nothing. I had to borrow money for everything except what he allowed. He worked at Ford. I worked 20 hours a week at a daycare making 3.80 an hour. My checks were what I had to use. He would scream at me about everything including what direction the toilet paper was facing. If I was gone to the grocery too long he called everybody I know looking for me. There were times he ripped the phone out of the wall and punched holes in them. I would lock myself in a room and he'd pick the lock. Hed call my work so much they finally told him to stop.

None of these examples are why I'm even know this site.

And again . How do you define that?
Holy hell how have I stayed off alcohol?

 

[CatInTree]

I don't think we should dismiss something completely because it hasn't been proven to cause ptsd.

A decade ago I couldn't have been diagnosed. Now I am.

I was volunteering in suicide prevention 40 hours a week. This falls under 4A, the repeated indirect exposure part. After the "anything but that" when my therapist brought up ptsd my reaction was "but I didn't get paid, so technically it wasn't my job".

My brain doesn't care that I didn't get paid. My brain cares that I never knew when I'd be in over my head trying to help someone. My brain cares about the lack of support. My brain cares about the downright hostile reactions I got.

Looking back it was late 2012 that I started spiralling. At that point it wasn't diagnosable. That doesn't mean I wasn't getting it. It means that the research wasn't there. I didn't suddenly get ptsd when they updated the dsm. I had it, then they updated it and included what I had been through as something that could cause it.

 

[shimmerz]

Post number 85 in my diary.

LD says to all on deck
"It is obvious she is paranoid schizophrenic. Her bio mother is, it is clear that it runs in the family. I don't know why you guys (speaking to police) bother even coming out here. She is cracked wide open. I wouldn't bother coming out when the house alarm rings (he were setting the alarm to scare the shit out of me, which it was) and especially when she calls. She is nuts. She refuses to go to the doctor for it and wouldn't take medication unless she was forcibly detained. She refuses to realize that she 'has a problem'.

I didn't link the entire posting, but the entire posting is relevant. There is more in my diary but I won't go further than this one posting. Emotional abuse can literally destroy any sense of self that one has created in their lifetime That, to me, is a death. A psychological death. And I am going to tell you that it matters.

And it is usually the one who complains that they are being abused that are the abusers. Because the one's being abused in this way have no freaking words for what is happening to them because, due to the abuse their sense of any kind of 'self' is literally being annihilated.

So I am going to say that this talk about the poster having had an affair - well - that is entirely relevant here. And it should be a red flag. Is he taking full responsibility for it or is it just put in as an aside?

 

[joeylittle]

It was my mistake for getting baited into trying to explain in the first place. It's fine. I actually can't articulate the why's and the wherefore's because I still haven't processed it in a way that translates easily into words. But what I can tell you is that I believe with 100% certainty what I have posted above.

That's totally fine, @shimmerz - I wasn't trying to trap you into anything, and I believe you, am not trying to disprove you.

 

[shimmerz]

I wasn't trying to trap you into anything,

Yes, I know you weren't JL. Thanks. I am just not there yet as far as articulation. The physical abuse is so much easier to stare down than the emotional.

 

[Cyberluddite]

Post number 85 in my diary.


I didn't link the entire posting, but the entire posting is relevant....

Agreed, it is extremely relevant. Unfortunately, trying to get help for psychological abuse is far more difficult than sexual assault or DV, because it doesn't leave any visible injuries on the victim. So, as I learned, it's incredibly easy to "laugh off" or explain away as hallucinations and paranoia -- which is why it was difficult to be taken seriously.

Sorta like how @shimmerz is feeling right now. It's bad enough to go through something like that, because you can't completely undo the damage of what isn't physical. But the abuser gets away with it far more often, by placing the Dead Link Removed on the victim. In the eyes of the law, if it's not obvious to the observer then there was no crime. As a trafficker once said, "Who'd be crazy enough to believe a schizo?"

Which is another form of argumentative fallacy as well: ad hominem. For a species that claims to be the most intelligent to have ever walked the earth, H. sapiens can be a bit underwhelming sometimes.

Thanks for clarifying, @joeylittle . Sometimes we need to be reminded that we're still in a safe environment. Much appreciated. :hug:

 

[mumstheword]

More examples of emotional abuse;
Being forcibly sleep deprived for years.
Being manipulated into never even learning to drive,, so you're stuck.
Being screamed at that you're crazy, sometimes for hours or through the night.
Being isolated on the road or in a primitive shack in the bush, having child after child from a teenager.
Being overdrugged constantly, so much that it drives you psychotic (along with lack of food and sleep and accompanied by the constant abuse).
Being denied medical treatment when incredibly ill.
Being written off as a "hypochondriac", when in fact you are actually very ill and in constant pain and denied pain relief.
Being kept in poverty with lots of dependants and having your self esteem constantly undermined so you never even learn to ask, because you're programmed to think you deserve nothing.
Having your children denied education so you are kept bound to care for them constantly for years, knowing you can't educate them yourself but powerless about the situation.
Being threatened, if you leave you will never get the kids because you are crazy.

There's more, but yeah ...
Developing Acute Stress Disorder from long term emotional abuse and care deprivation actually feels like you are literally dying. Even my organs became cold, my insides were cold and I would shake uncontrollably, becoming so weak I couldn't move, or manically elevated like a bipolar person and sleep became an impossibility. BTW, PTSD from trauma/abuse/neglect was already present from very young.