Sophie's Daddy
Bronze Member
I've wanted to express my feelings to this forum for months regarding a very sensitive subject, one that has been recently censured because of the unproductive negative feedback it drew.
But in light of the PTSD – related personal struggle it causes me, and in the welcoming spirit of this forum, I have to share my thoughts here.
In writing this statement, I consider myself only a politically neutral cPTSD survivor.
I have not intended this message to be a political rant, nor expect that anything within it will change the current state of affairs in American and world politics.
It deals, of course, with the current situation in American political leadership.
For these reasons, I am hoping just to state my case, and leave it at that.
In fact, I almost prefer the administrators lock this thread after I post it, for I don't want its content to become yet another thread that gets sidetracked by negative political tirades, and I doubt they do either.
It's taken me a lot to write-then share this-with you, and I appreciate your taking time to read it.
Anyway, politics are part of most of our everyday lives, and their influence must therefore be given due consiederation.
First of all, let me state that as a result of my complex PTSD, I have developed a personality disorder known as borderline personality disorder or, BPD.
For those of you that don't know, borderline personality disorder or BPD is an affliction that, among many other things, boils down to the inability to trust anyone.
It occurs as a function of being unable to bond properly and completely to our parents and/or caretakers at that most vulnerable and impressionable time in our lives when we need it– from infancy on up through our earliest years as children.
One of the primary characterizations of cPTSD, as many of us know, involves repeated abuse with no possibility or likelihood of escape. In other words, we are captives to our abusers.
In my case, my borderline personality disorder developed for both reasons: Very limited parental attachment, and extended abuse involving both my parents until age 17.
So, how does this fit in with politics today?
Well, in the actions and the appearance of the new US president, who recently has dominated worldwide headlines, I have seen the face as well as the same symptoms of BPD my father displayed towards me.
What's more, I can clearly see the narcissistic qualities my mother had as well. She stood by my father as he abused me, emotionally, physically, and otherwise.
The specifics beyond that are too troubling for me to go into any further here, nor will they have any bearing on my point.
As I've said on this forum before, being an untreated- or as-yet unsuccessfully treated borderline like me - means being condemned to a very lonely life.
In my case, I literally have no friends, no family and I even have trouble maintaining a therapist because of the trust issues I have been unable to overcome.
Twice now, I have been married and, of course twice divorced. I also have a daughter in her mid-20s, from whom I've been estranged almost all her life.
I simply knew I would not be a good father to her because of my own experience with my father and, because of my ignorance with my own past, I did not want to put her through what I went through.
Just as with my daughter, and my ex-wives, I have reached a point where I don't believe I would "wish myself on anybody."
If you look at my avatar, you will see part of my face, as well as that of the only being I have spent my life with – my dog, Sophie.
And even with her, I thank her every day for sharing her life with me. I have literally anthropomorphized her.
She has seen me at my worst, both in terms of my actions towards other people, and my own recent tendency toward self-mutilation due to my own self revulsion; I am a cutter.
Because of my lack of support system – and I am not crying on anybody's shoulder here, for it's by design, not by accident – I stay in touch with the world around me through my only lifeline; my smart phone.
I consider everyone on this forum to be a potential friend and, as such, vicariously conduct my friendships and associations within its safe confines.
News events of our current president's follies dominate daily headlines. However, because I see so much of my own father's behavior in him, very little about it is funny to me.
I have seen the president's symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder, NPD, ever since he came to prominence in the news cycles.
He combines the worst of both my parents, all wrapped up into one nightmare of a person.
Naturally, because of the codependence I have toward people who hurt me, yet push away those who show concern and/or love for me, I have a hard time looking away.
And like the presidential campaign, the current us president's presence in my life began gradually, and increased with his continued campaign successes. In retrospect, so did the faint hint of an increase in my feelings of obedience, then self revulsion and my inner shame.
I didn't vote for him, not due to his policies, but out of spite, as I always passively defied my own father. It was my adaptation to my situation.
The overriding symptom involved with this is (if I recall correctly) referred to by Dr. Judith Herman as the Dialectic Cycle of Behavior.
Essentially, it's a completely contradictory and terribly destructive thought pattern specific to many of us with CPTSD, and to all of us with BPD. Orwell called it "doublethink ".
However, it isn't just that I see reminders of my own traumatic childhood daily on the news. I get it; I need to break away from the news and, if I can't fill the void in my life with healthy relationships with people, I should at least be out taking care of myself. That's true-I am aware that I need help.
The problem I am finding with this, though involves the cultural backlash of having a major role model – like the US president – influencing others in my – and our world.
In short, the US president brings a polarity in thought and in action not only to the world, but to American citizens as well.
The increase in hate crimes, and the incidences of hate – related behavior between people has seen a drastic rise in the short time the president has been in office and even months before then, while campaigning.
For the president himself, that hateful energy has been there all his life and, like my father, it comes out in virtually everything he does.
As the feedback I read on earlier posts on this forum indicate, many of us are already long aware of the prejudicial and downright hateful nature of the platform upon which our current president ran his campaign.
The reason I have chosen to raise this subject in writing today is because I finally have read an article that outlines support for what I have seen - and for what many psychological professionals have seen all along – Donald Trump is a mentally ill person.*
*The New York Daily News article President Trump Exhibits Classic Signs of Mental Illness: Shrinks, by Gersh Kuntzman.
His illness, like mine, my father's and probably his father's, too, etc. began in childhood.
Because questions regarding the US president's mental health are finally in the mainstream media directly from the perspective of psychology experts/professionals, and serious speculation of it has been for sometime by non-professionals, I feel compelled and justified in bringing it up here.
Psychological experts, however, apparently have a professional sort of code hat they will not speak out on behalf or against a public official, for that person is likely someone they have not counseled and therefore have no firsthand knowledge of him/her.
Also, they don't believe – and I agree with them – that they should use their professional experience to influence the voting public, et al.
However many of these psychological professionals – the very kind I have trouble trusting myself, though I know I should on an academic level – have chosen to speak out now, even though it means breaking that professional gag order and facing the potential wrath of their colleagues in so doing.
Their rationale is simple; they see the bluster coming from the US president in the same light that I have for months, and that is the negativity of his speech transcends much more than remarkable headlines and hilariously funny skits on Saturday Night Live.
America under the direction of the current US president, in their opinion, is leading the country towards an authoritarian, even fascist state. It's quickly becoming an unsafe place in reality, and not just in my mind.
Just as the "normal" I grew up with I later learned to be anything but normal, the US president is similarly normalizing negative and personally destructive behavior.
And that's where I come in.
Besides being BPD, I am also agoraphobic. Because of my fear of people, I avoid them, period, end of sentence.
My imagined fear of people has only been exacerbated by the man I see in the White House.
Many of them voted for the current US president, and that may be what scares me the most. It's very real to me, and its negative influence on my life cannot be understated. I feel like I am surrounded by unknown and potentially harmful people, not just benign ones.
While I read those news stories, I am unable to look at the images of the president that always accompany them.
That horribly angry face and pursed, angry lips from which so many invectives have spewed are frighteningly reminiscent of my father’s, to the point where they have triggered flashbacks.
It takes me back to a terrible place in my childhood, one that I naïvely still hope to go back and fix so that it doesn't turn into the nightmare that my life sometimes feels like.
Fixing my childhood, my dissociative self believes, will also allow me to avoid creating the nightmare I have turned others’ lives into all along. Then maybe I won't have to live with this terrible sense of shame I've always carried, like a ball and chain through life.
But finally, when I come out of that dissociative state, I still feel that terrible sense of shame with which I have always lived, the place where my mind, unfortunately, is most comfortable.
Can I change the situation in the White House? Not without joining bands of protesters in the process.
Can I stop exposing myself to those news stories? On an academic level, yes, I can. In reality, I cannot.
And just as I know those around me may have voted for the current president, I cannot avoid them, either in order to be functional. At the grocery store, and elsewhere in public.
My mind reasons that turning my back on those news stories is the same as turning my back on an enemy who is sneaking up on me – I need to keep an eye on them so that I know I won't be their next target.
In short, I am afraid of them, just as I was afraid of my own parents. The term of the new American president renews, in my mind, my original cPTSD nightmare. That is, horrible verbal abuse with an ever-present threat of physical abuse with no apparent or ready escape.
Thank you for taking time to read this lengthy post. I know others out there may have similar feelings and it is for all of us that I have written this.
Again, I did not create this thread to stir up the awful stew that currently exists among us regarding the political figureheads and journalistic headlines in the US, and probably much of the world.
I certainly don't wish to create undue anxiety for any readers and fellow forum members here.
So please, out of respect for my story – and for those of our brothers and sisters on this forum, please reserve your political remarks for other forums that welcome them. Thank you again.
But in light of the PTSD – related personal struggle it causes me, and in the welcoming spirit of this forum, I have to share my thoughts here.
In writing this statement, I consider myself only a politically neutral cPTSD survivor.
I have not intended this message to be a political rant, nor expect that anything within it will change the current state of affairs in American and world politics.
It deals, of course, with the current situation in American political leadership.
For these reasons, I am hoping just to state my case, and leave it at that.
In fact, I almost prefer the administrators lock this thread after I post it, for I don't want its content to become yet another thread that gets sidetracked by negative political tirades, and I doubt they do either.
It's taken me a lot to write-then share this-with you, and I appreciate your taking time to read it.
Anyway, politics are part of most of our everyday lives, and their influence must therefore be given due consiederation.
First of all, let me state that as a result of my complex PTSD, I have developed a personality disorder known as borderline personality disorder or, BPD.
For those of you that don't know, borderline personality disorder or BPD is an affliction that, among many other things, boils down to the inability to trust anyone.
It occurs as a function of being unable to bond properly and completely to our parents and/or caretakers at that most vulnerable and impressionable time in our lives when we need it– from infancy on up through our earliest years as children.
One of the primary characterizations of cPTSD, as many of us know, involves repeated abuse with no possibility or likelihood of escape. In other words, we are captives to our abusers.
In my case, my borderline personality disorder developed for both reasons: Very limited parental attachment, and extended abuse involving both my parents until age 17.
So, how does this fit in with politics today?
Well, in the actions and the appearance of the new US president, who recently has dominated worldwide headlines, I have seen the face as well as the same symptoms of BPD my father displayed towards me.
What's more, I can clearly see the narcissistic qualities my mother had as well. She stood by my father as he abused me, emotionally, physically, and otherwise.
The specifics beyond that are too troubling for me to go into any further here, nor will they have any bearing on my point.
As I've said on this forum before, being an untreated- or as-yet unsuccessfully treated borderline like me - means being condemned to a very lonely life.
In my case, I literally have no friends, no family and I even have trouble maintaining a therapist because of the trust issues I have been unable to overcome.
Twice now, I have been married and, of course twice divorced. I also have a daughter in her mid-20s, from whom I've been estranged almost all her life.
I simply knew I would not be a good father to her because of my own experience with my father and, because of my ignorance with my own past, I did not want to put her through what I went through.
Just as with my daughter, and my ex-wives, I have reached a point where I don't believe I would "wish myself on anybody."
If you look at my avatar, you will see part of my face, as well as that of the only being I have spent my life with – my dog, Sophie.
And even with her, I thank her every day for sharing her life with me. I have literally anthropomorphized her.
She has seen me at my worst, both in terms of my actions towards other people, and my own recent tendency toward self-mutilation due to my own self revulsion; I am a cutter.
Because of my lack of support system – and I am not crying on anybody's shoulder here, for it's by design, not by accident – I stay in touch with the world around me through my only lifeline; my smart phone.
I consider everyone on this forum to be a potential friend and, as such, vicariously conduct my friendships and associations within its safe confines.
News events of our current president's follies dominate daily headlines. However, because I see so much of my own father's behavior in him, very little about it is funny to me.
I have seen the president's symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder, NPD, ever since he came to prominence in the news cycles.
He combines the worst of both my parents, all wrapped up into one nightmare of a person.
Naturally, because of the codependence I have toward people who hurt me, yet push away those who show concern and/or love for me, I have a hard time looking away.
And like the presidential campaign, the current us president's presence in my life began gradually, and increased with his continued campaign successes. In retrospect, so did the faint hint of an increase in my feelings of obedience, then self revulsion and my inner shame.
I didn't vote for him, not due to his policies, but out of spite, as I always passively defied my own father. It was my adaptation to my situation.
The overriding symptom involved with this is (if I recall correctly) referred to by Dr. Judith Herman as the Dialectic Cycle of Behavior.
Essentially, it's a completely contradictory and terribly destructive thought pattern specific to many of us with CPTSD, and to all of us with BPD. Orwell called it "doublethink ".
However, it isn't just that I see reminders of my own traumatic childhood daily on the news. I get it; I need to break away from the news and, if I can't fill the void in my life with healthy relationships with people, I should at least be out taking care of myself. That's true-I am aware that I need help.
The problem I am finding with this, though involves the cultural backlash of having a major role model – like the US president – influencing others in my – and our world.
In short, the US president brings a polarity in thought and in action not only to the world, but to American citizens as well.
The increase in hate crimes, and the incidences of hate – related behavior between people has seen a drastic rise in the short time the president has been in office and even months before then, while campaigning.
For the president himself, that hateful energy has been there all his life and, like my father, it comes out in virtually everything he does.
As the feedback I read on earlier posts on this forum indicate, many of us are already long aware of the prejudicial and downright hateful nature of the platform upon which our current president ran his campaign.
The reason I have chosen to raise this subject in writing today is because I finally have read an article that outlines support for what I have seen - and for what many psychological professionals have seen all along – Donald Trump is a mentally ill person.*
*The New York Daily News article President Trump Exhibits Classic Signs of Mental Illness: Shrinks, by Gersh Kuntzman.
His illness, like mine, my father's and probably his father's, too, etc. began in childhood.
Because questions regarding the US president's mental health are finally in the mainstream media directly from the perspective of psychology experts/professionals, and serious speculation of it has been for sometime by non-professionals, I feel compelled and justified in bringing it up here.
Psychological experts, however, apparently have a professional sort of code hat they will not speak out on behalf or against a public official, for that person is likely someone they have not counseled and therefore have no firsthand knowledge of him/her.
Also, they don't believe – and I agree with them – that they should use their professional experience to influence the voting public, et al.
However many of these psychological professionals – the very kind I have trouble trusting myself, though I know I should on an academic level – have chosen to speak out now, even though it means breaking that professional gag order and facing the potential wrath of their colleagues in so doing.
Their rationale is simple; they see the bluster coming from the US president in the same light that I have for months, and that is the negativity of his speech transcends much more than remarkable headlines and hilariously funny skits on Saturday Night Live.
America under the direction of the current US president, in their opinion, is leading the country towards an authoritarian, even fascist state. It's quickly becoming an unsafe place in reality, and not just in my mind.
Just as the "normal" I grew up with I later learned to be anything but normal, the US president is similarly normalizing negative and personally destructive behavior.
And that's where I come in.
Besides being BPD, I am also agoraphobic. Because of my fear of people, I avoid them, period, end of sentence.
My imagined fear of people has only been exacerbated by the man I see in the White House.
Many of them voted for the current US president, and that may be what scares me the most. It's very real to me, and its negative influence on my life cannot be understated. I feel like I am surrounded by unknown and potentially harmful people, not just benign ones.
While I read those news stories, I am unable to look at the images of the president that always accompany them.
That horribly angry face and pursed, angry lips from which so many invectives have spewed are frighteningly reminiscent of my father’s, to the point where they have triggered flashbacks.
It takes me back to a terrible place in my childhood, one that I naïvely still hope to go back and fix so that it doesn't turn into the nightmare that my life sometimes feels like.
Fixing my childhood, my dissociative self believes, will also allow me to avoid creating the nightmare I have turned others’ lives into all along. Then maybe I won't have to live with this terrible sense of shame I've always carried, like a ball and chain through life.
But finally, when I come out of that dissociative state, I still feel that terrible sense of shame with which I have always lived, the place where my mind, unfortunately, is most comfortable.
Can I change the situation in the White House? Not without joining bands of protesters in the process.
Can I stop exposing myself to those news stories? On an academic level, yes, I can. In reality, I cannot.
And just as I know those around me may have voted for the current president, I cannot avoid them, either in order to be functional. At the grocery store, and elsewhere in public.
My mind reasons that turning my back on those news stories is the same as turning my back on an enemy who is sneaking up on me – I need to keep an eye on them so that I know I won't be their next target.
In short, I am afraid of them, just as I was afraid of my own parents. The term of the new American president renews, in my mind, my original cPTSD nightmare. That is, horrible verbal abuse with an ever-present threat of physical abuse with no apparent or ready escape.
Thank you for taking time to read this lengthy post. I know others out there may have similar feelings and it is for all of us that I have written this.
Again, I did not create this thread to stir up the awful stew that currently exists among us regarding the political figureheads and journalistic headlines in the US, and probably much of the world.
I certainly don't wish to create undue anxiety for any readers and fellow forum members here.
So please, out of respect for my story – and for those of our brothers and sisters on this forum, please reserve your political remarks for other forums that welcome them. Thank you again.
