B
Bill
hi. First of all, I don't know if I really ought to post here at all, because I'm really not sure what happened was hard enough to really count as C-PTSD.
I know y'all aren't necessarily psychiatrists capable of diagnosing, but I'm just trying to figure things out a bit and thought this would be an easier place to start.. I'm sorry if this is really long. It's hard to explain?
So, I'm polyamorous - I have relationships (consensually) with multiple people sometimes, and I'm cool with letting my partners have multiple partners, too. A few years ago, my SO was broken up with by the person she thought she was going to be with for the rest of her life. A few days later, my senior year of undergrad started and we moved into my single room dorm together, since she had nowhere else to go. Unfortunately, because I was friends with her partner as well as her partner's partner, we had arranged the previous year to live in a shared dorm - so we had a bedroom and bath to ourselves, but shared a kitchen and living room space with others. Others which occasionally included the Ex.
She was...completely shattered for a while. She dropped out of college, she cried most of the time, she needed me home as soon as possible after classes. I couldn't even trust that she'd be able to eat if I made sure there was food in the fridge in our room, because if I forgot something as small as a fork she just wouldn't eat, as she refused to venture into the common area to get it, lest she accidentally run into the Ex who was abusive to her. (and me, but yanno. I wasn't dating the Ex, so I didn't get the brunt of it. She's acknowledged some of my trauma but always in a "but it was less bad than mine" way.) She tried to work a job for a while, but she couldn't wake up in time, and I was so stressed out that I wasn't really able to wake up in time to wake her, either. I couldn't bring up emotionally charged topics without prefacing them, and even that was too much sometimes. She needed me to stay up with her until she was able to sleep - and she's a perpetual insomniac... so I spent most of senior year running on ~ 4 hours of sleep somehow.
I thought I would be better once we finally moved out of that dorm to our two-bedroom apartment, and things are better, sure, but... I dissociate more often than not and still get bursts of undefined rage every now and then. f*cking...two years later. The other week we were talking to someone going through a breakup with an abusive ex and I think I was triggered because I was...almost hallucinating? The friend we were helping's face started looking more and more like the Ex's and their voice started to, too. I was upset for hours and couldn't get over it. My SO soothed me a bit, but told me not to put too much stock into it - that thinking about it too much would make it more upsetting and more of a Thing. She took a nap and was a bit pissed at me when she woke up ~6 hours later and I was still disturbed by what had happened, telling me I was making it a bigger deal than it needed to be, and I just needed to move on without making it real by thinking about it so much.
I know y'all aren't necessarily psychiatrists capable of diagnosing, but I'm just trying to figure things out a bit and thought this would be an easier place to start.. I'm sorry if this is really long. It's hard to explain?
So, I'm polyamorous - I have relationships (consensually) with multiple people sometimes, and I'm cool with letting my partners have multiple partners, too. A few years ago, my SO was broken up with by the person she thought she was going to be with for the rest of her life. A few days later, my senior year of undergrad started and we moved into my single room dorm together, since she had nowhere else to go. Unfortunately, because I was friends with her partner as well as her partner's partner, we had arranged the previous year to live in a shared dorm - so we had a bedroom and bath to ourselves, but shared a kitchen and living room space with others. Others which occasionally included the Ex.
She was...completely shattered for a while. She dropped out of college, she cried most of the time, she needed me home as soon as possible after classes. I couldn't even trust that she'd be able to eat if I made sure there was food in the fridge in our room, because if I forgot something as small as a fork she just wouldn't eat, as she refused to venture into the common area to get it, lest she accidentally run into the Ex who was abusive to her. (and me, but yanno. I wasn't dating the Ex, so I didn't get the brunt of it. She's acknowledged some of my trauma but always in a "but it was less bad than mine" way.) She tried to work a job for a while, but she couldn't wake up in time, and I was so stressed out that I wasn't really able to wake up in time to wake her, either. I couldn't bring up emotionally charged topics without prefacing them, and even that was too much sometimes. She needed me to stay up with her until she was able to sleep - and she's a perpetual insomniac... so I spent most of senior year running on ~ 4 hours of sleep somehow.
I thought I would be better once we finally moved out of that dorm to our two-bedroom apartment, and things are better, sure, but... I dissociate more often than not and still get bursts of undefined rage every now and then. f*cking...two years later. The other week we were talking to someone going through a breakup with an abusive ex and I think I was triggered because I was...almost hallucinating? The friend we were helping's face started looking more and more like the Ex's and their voice started to, too. I was upset for hours and couldn't get over it. My SO soothed me a bit, but told me not to put too much stock into it - that thinking about it too much would make it more upsetting and more of a Thing. She took a nap and was a bit pissed at me when she woke up ~6 hours later and I was still disturbed by what had happened, telling me I was making it a bigger deal than it needed to be, and I just needed to move on without making it real by thinking about it so much.