Blamed For The Trauma And Blamed For The Subsequent Pain

[Powder]

In the space of one week, I began to contact the toxic old family for answers about a question. In so doing, I was asked by my grandmother why I don't allow contact with her son.

I've already decided it's not right for me to tell her that her son is a pedophile. She's old and her life is near an end. As a widow, this son is her only close-by relative upon whom she depends for daily human contact. I will not deny her needs.

I did tell her my dad's friend sexually abused us kids, and she grew suddenly very stern and said "YOU should have told your parents!" I replied that I was 4 at the time and could not understand what was happening, nor did I have the ability to hold the memory in my mind long enough to focus on it. She became quiet. Perhaps she thinks I am angry they didn't stop it, and that is why I have no contact with my parents. I cannot fill her in.


Then, later in the week, I got a reading done by a friend of my sister. Even really intuitive people are biased. Her reading said that I'm "Wallowing in my pain." This person knows I lived through severe, repeated trauma over time at a young age, yet, she sees my PTSD condition as "wallowing."

I see this as essentially the same as what Anthony has pointed out, that non-informed people, even therapists say, "Just get over it!" showing they don't get it. If that were possible, PTSD would not be what it is.

It is necessary to have a self-defense in place, a tough skin prepared, to handle this and not feel re-traumatized by others shaming of the PTSD. How do you respond?

Could anyone share ways you have learned to minimize the eliciting of this kind of responses? Do you speak back and teach? Do you walk away? What helps?

People may not realize that for a PTSD sufferer to start to expose oneself to the trauma and feel the pain it is not "naval gazing" but in fact, an overcoming of denial. It is exposure therapy.

Thanks for your thoughts and ways of coping with the "shame/blame" crowd who acts reflexively to human suffering.

Muse

 

[silkleaves]

I wish I had some advice...my way of minimizing has been through avoiding. Only once did I try to confront my mother, she denied everything and I hadnt even barely gotten a word out. She knew where the convo was going, and stopped me point blank...like literally, all I said was "there were a lot of things that happened when I was a kid that you did that I..." and she started with the screaming, crying, praying to god why is she doing this to me, saying Im a lair and she never did anything wrong... and I literally had not even said anything. I had to hang up on her, she just kept going on screaming to god and I couldnt take it anymore.

So to avoid situations like that, I just don't confront anyone, don't tell anyone anything....this Christmas, I sort of told my cousin a few things, and she rationalized what little I was telling her away. I was close to the brink of just spilling it all out, with stuff that there is no way she could rationalize away, that was not right at all, but just with the way she was looking at me, I could tell, all I would be doing is embarrassing myself. I could see the thoughts forming already that I was the problem. So I stopped myself and didnt bother.

From everything I can understand though, it's better to get it out, to face what happened, and I guess also the people who caused it. But I can't...that whole get over it, it was in the past, you choose your own path and choosing to let this affect your life blah blah blah thing, I just cant deal with people assuming without even bothering to actually listen, assuming it's that easy...

 

[KwanYingirl]

My mother was very dismissive when I told her I have PTSD. She doesn't want to talk about it, nor do any of my siblings. They all know they contributed to my abuse history and any genuine concern for my well-being is coming from outside my nuclear family. My mother admitted that she knew my step grandfather was a pedophile and told me when he chased her around a room, she just got away. I should have done the same. Yea right a 4 year old vs.a 50 year old brute.

I've been assaulted later in life, and when I told her it just made my PTSD worse, she just said ,"oh, that didn't bother you". WTF, being strangled and mugged and kidnapped is extremely bothersome!!

PTSD has far reaching tentacles, like cancer. It requires the best of the best therapists to help us gain any semblance of a life well lived. It operates on every level of functioning. And we are miracles, because we face them head on in spite of the flashbacks and the depression and the isolation. I think our realities are horrribly minimized by the "agents of good". That just perpetuated the blame the victim mentality.

Our plight reminds me of cancer victims. When someone is supposedly cured of the cancer, we hear people say, well she had a lot of people praying for her, or she was strong and fought back. As if to say some cancer victims DON'T. What a freaking insult and trash to put on the relatives and loved ones who lose their friends to cancer. That drives me crazy.

PTSD is a life threatening illness. We deserve compassion not reluctance or abandonment. Families just want to paint themselves into a Norman Rockwell painting. We're not the cowards-they are.

 

[desiderata310]

WHOA! I have gotten that one thrown at me by well meaning friends. I have actually beaten myself up on occasion: I have panic attacks and had NO FREAKING IDEA why!

My therapist recently took a different approach with me. I am a very "under the hood" kind of person. I want to know the whys and hows of what is happening. He initially handed me what I considered to be a "touchy feely" book onEMDR (Shapirio's EMDR book). I actually kinda got mad at my therapist and explained that I didn't want to hear all the lovely stories of people's recovery, I wanted to know WHY my brain was doing what it was doing. He liked that and has been shoving technical articles at me. It actually helped me to understand. So, now I can say, " ok, it's a panic attack. My amygdala is in hyper drive. This is currently out of my control because this is a type of brain damage that is reversible. I need to get my pre-frontal cortex involved by running or engaging someone in conversation." Talk of neuropeptides and GABA receptors and a shrunken hypothalmus... it takes the "emotion" out of it and makes it all much easier to explain.

yeah.. I know.. it helps ME.

But there is SCIENCE behind why we feel the way we do and WHY we can't just "get over it"

I have explained it as an illness the same way cancer is to my oldest son who was just dx with PTSD. And explained that because there is a certain amount of neuroplacticity that we can actually reverse the effects at least to some extent- hence the EMDR.

All that said...
A. I don't explain anything to anyone unless they specifically ask. (and that means that they would have had to already known something. I have one friend who knows and actually did research and one who has taken a great deal of work to help that person understand.)

B. I don't bother explaining or trying to seek help/comfort/ understanding from family that was involved. Their involvement and their ability to deal with what happened is their problem. I have to deal with the aftermath of my life. I am not concerned about their recovery or them having a roll in mine

 

[Deleted member 1860]

This is what works for me. I always use the disclaimer that I am not narcissistic, yet have learned a few tricks of the trade so to speak as I have grown up with a few narcissists. Having said that.....

Pity them. Realized that they are limited in their capacity to fully understand you or empathize with you. In this sense they are limited. (In truth, we all have our limitations, and I see no problem with recognizing the limitations that others have....or those in ourselves, for that matter.) It really IS a mind game. There is nothing you can do to change them, so you MUST do everything internally to deflect the harm and negativity that they throw your way. This is the only effective way that I have found to get past the nasty stuff they throw my way.

In a perfect world, I'd be able to empathize with THEM (yeah, odd twist there!), but the truth is that I must protect myself first. I oftentimes cannot wrap my head around how people can be SO insensitive and uncaring, that is easier to just say they do not have the capacity to understand me. That means I am not internalizing what they have done to me, rather, I am keeping it at a distance.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

@desiderata310,
I'm not blaming you or disagreeing with you, but just wanted to share this.....

I had a former "friend" who tried to use the science behind PTSD as "evidence" that my symptoms are NOT PTSD related, rather indicate that I am a horrible person who should be ashamed of myself! (I kid you not, my "best" friend since the age of 13 said this to me....former best friend, that is!) What was one of the symptoms she pointed to? The fact that I had sexual issues! That is pretty much in the definition of PTSD, lol. (She's the narcissist I've posted about elsewhere, and oddly enough, she has PTSD, too.....)

 

[desiderata310]

Yeah. well, she's a narcissist! What could you expect!? UGH!
Sorry, @Solara . I have a bit of a visceral reaction when someone talks about narcissists. I've spent my entire life around them being invalidated. I'm sorry she is/was like that.

I haven't tried explaining it so much in scientific terms to others yet, since I am still trying to form a cohesive narrative that could be easily explained (again- only if someone probed). It helps in shutting down some of my self blame when I get going on how I shouldn't have these problems, I should get over them.. yadda yadda yadda. Not always but sometimes.

 

[Jane.l]

@desiderata310 I like your approach I think this would actually really help me - I always want to understand the 'why' and I can understand the practical way more than the emotional - thanks I am going to look into it more.

As for people that don't 'get it ' when I feel they should - I keep them very much at arms length and keep the relationship very superficial - i emotional and sometimes completely shut them out - I except as solara says some just don't have the capacity to try and understand and I don't need people like that cluttering up my life .

 

[Go Hungry]

I mostly just don't tell anybody except for a select few friends.. I know of some people who simply don't believe that PTSD exists. I tried explaining that it is a physical illness like diabetes or autism, but this one guy just couldn't seem to see it. Alot of people just can't perceive that there could be something wrong that isn't seen, and so they protect themselves by insisting that people are faking, or should just 'get over it'... but I think alot of it has to do with an inborn terror that it might happen to them someday.

As for my family.. well my abuser and his wife certainly don't believe in it at all, because that might lower them a bit on the self-righteousness scale. So I avoid it with them. They will see the truth one day on their own, and I'll probably be horrible and laugh at them. :bag:

 

[Powder]

Thanks for all replies. All are so validating and show how this keep happening like a pattern. Wish that were not so, but I agree, the blame is not helpful at all. It's more crap.

I think the struggle to make "them" see is a desire for connection on some level, from a good place of love, but misdirected, "throwing pearls to pigs" in a way. Also a sense of duty prevails in me.

My sibs take and leave their kids with our abuser. They have amnesia for most of the abuse and are deniers. I sometimes feel morally obligated to report to the police, because I have no way of knowing if more abuse will occur. But I also see that the abuser has tried to change. There is no way of knowing if that is all for show. The mind game is totally crappy, and I know it.

I don't know what is best to do, other than get outta there and let them all self-destruct or heal as they will, leaving myself out of it. I know I owe them nothing. I only think of the innocent kids, the other kids, not knowing if they are safe.

My T's have NOT supported the reporting decision. They have highlighted it as mere revenge or desire to force others to see the dark side of their family and be confronted with the nasty truth. I am aware that such elements are present in my motivation, or have been mainly in the past. I mostly worry that if another child were hurt, that I would feel terribly guilty and more helpless. If it happened and I at least reported, then I would not beat myself up over it as much, even though my heart would be equally devastated by it all.

 

[Go Hungry]

Hate to say it, but I'm in agreement with the T's. It wouldn't do any good in my case to report my abuser. I don't know if he's changed.. He seems to have. Hell, as far as I know he doesn't even have any perception that anything he did was wrong. So I don't know if a person can change under those circumstances... :depressed: But at the same time, my nieces totally love their father, and breaking that family would traumatize the absolute hell out of them.. So I don't know what to do. I guess I just have to rely on the idea that their mother would surely destroy the world if somebody hurt her babies...

 

[silkleaves]

I think I went off on a bit of a tangent without actually reaching the point I meant to get to up there :sorry: But the only person in my family that knows I have PTSD is my sister. But the reaction of the one friend who said there's no way I could have PTSD, and my ex who used it against me, scared me enough to keep this to myself as much as possible.

I just don't need or want to hear it that I will get over it, have a bunch of motivation poster memes texted to me and urging to not have a pity party for myself...all things I have heard in response to what I was going through before I was diagnosed, a reaction which I know would not change.