Other Experience Terrorist Attacks? I Am So Alone.

[EmmaOwl]

I mostly interact with people on this site about childhood s. abuse. Recently, though, I've been awfully screwed up and obsessing about a terrorist attack that I lived through. Not everyone exposed to these things develop PTSD, but I did. It's what truly ruined my life. But I rarely see anyone here mention such traumas. I'm wondering, is it something people don't want to talk about? Or am I truly alone here?

I am so sad right now and I do not know what to do. I have made friends here that I would like to help with support - reading, responding, encouraging. But I do not have it in me. I am all alone. This post here is a last-ditch thing, the most I can do. All alone.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I have learned in my time here that I will not find many that has been through what I have. I grew up in a cult. I went through actual torture. I was advised by my therapist I had Stolkholm and had to work through that before I got to the site. I have issues with doing cult rituals as an adult. Not many can relate to that.

But, many people can relate to my induvidual issues. Not just the PTSD symptoms but issues with a screwed up belief system, of thinking I have to have sex with people so they don't leave, issues with fighting myself, issues with abandonment, issues with self injury, issues with seeking painful sex....and all sorts of other things.

If you take my issues from my past and piece them out, MANY on here can relate to them. And by gaining support that way, I have been able to take HUGE steps foward in my healing.

I saw your thread about the catigories on the site and so i am replying partly to that as well. You don't need someone to relate to your exact trauma to learn you aren't alone.

But speaking of 9/11, think back to how many people survived in the building, first responders, so many people affected due to a terrorist attack. So many still are after 9/11. You are no where near alone with that.

I know how it feels to feel alone with something and most of my cult research I did (which was very indepth research) it was to find that I wasn't alone with my issues.

Once I started gaining support for the individual issues, though, is when the site really helped me move foward in my healing.

You aren't alone with this! :hug:s

ETA: And I am sorry that you had to go through 9/11! I can't imagine. I didn't mean to sound cold. Was just saying how I was able to gain a lot of support here as I also have a trauma not many here have had. So I appologize if I sounded cold. I didn't mean to.

 

[hodge]

@Allie D., I am so sorry for what you've been through. I didn't know.

I am sending hugs and prayers for you.

 

[Casey_03]

Just because no one else on here has experienced what you did doesn't mean you should feel like you can't share it with us. I mean, I recognize that we can't understand what you went through, but I'm sure that many of us still want to hear your story, and to help in any way we can.

 

[ladee]

I only know what I was feeling watching it in my safe home thosands of miles away. So can not begin to know what you have experienced.

I am grateful you are here. And as was shared...

 

[ladee]

Sorry.. Hit send.
We are here for you. Maybe by you posting others will step foward that also experienced what you did.

We can relate on a feelings level if not the actual experience.
I hope we can help you to not feel so alone.

 

[Arebas]

When I was a kid the terrorist group ETA was very active in Spain. They put car bombs in the building in front of our house twice cause it was like a police headquarters. On both occasions there were casualties and a lot of damage. We were not hurt tho. The first time we weren't home but we saw it on the news and had to rush back to see the damages. I had nightmares for days just to see my house destroyed and all the cops around the other building. Eventually they went away.
The second time we were home, in bed. I wasn't fully asleep and I felt the explosion go through my body. It was so loud. My parents were still in the living room when the bomb went off. We had a huge window frame that flew right over their heads into the house. There was glass everywhere, the TV was in pieces, the table was on the floor, the dishes with dinner and all the food was everywhere... but they were miraculously not hurt except from some minor glass cuts and a ringing in their ears. All the doors in the house opened and closed by themselves with the blast and they broke. We had to have a policeman standing guard until we got the main door fixed cause it remained open and we had wood panes installed where the windows were while they made new windows. That one was scarier and the nightmares went on for longer but they also faded. I was afraid of walking down that side of the street for many years after and I am still afraid of very loud noises but I am not afraid of terrorists. Strangely, I think that statistically I am not in danger anymore. That's not a very realistic thing but it works for me.

 

[Friday]

It's something I've spent a fair bit of time around, professionally. Which means it's on my list of shit I don't talk about. But it also informs a lot of my daily life.

 

[EmmaOwl]

Thank you all so so much for the many and varied responses! I was quite overwhelmed.
Oddly I ended up feverish that night. So my original post, asking about a different spot to post, I was thinking clearly, but it turns out that when I got down into the doldrums I had a raging fever - and since the possibility of a Sept. 11 board was probably the last rational idea I had, I turned it into some kind of nightmare of loneliness. This is off topic - but it is always interesting to me to note how physical and mental disorders can overlap and feed into one another.

Mostly thank you all for sharing your experiences and support @hodge, no way you could've known.... It is all a little odd, because IRL ("in real life"), when I'm asked about PTSD I usually mumble something about Sept. 11th and people leave me alone - and they have no more questions (except one exceptional idiot who said, "Wow! What an experience! Which building were you in?" (which to me felt something like meeting a stranger on the street, eagerly asking: "Oh, I heard you've been raped, tell me what THAT is like!" Like it was a vacation to the Bahamas or something. :P

. HERE, though, where it is so much more common to read about childhood abuses and rapes, that is what I focus on.

@ladee, I have heard more and more about people developing PTSD from September 11th no matter where they were, from the ridiculously extensive news coverage. I think the media was irresponsible. Of course that was not the ONLY problem, but is certainly didn't help. (To me, that media reaction falls somewhere between a pet peeve and a small rant).

Thank you those who have shared your more extensive stories... It really helped see that the bits and pieces and reactions of PTSD can be cut down into pieces and shared that way. I plan to stick around on this site - I have come across so many good people here! - so I will try to separate things into bits.
- an example is my comparison to being asked about rape. I was able to put it into an analogy that maybe other people here would be able to understand - and this is not to say anything negative to anyone who has been suffered through such experiences! After all, I can't understand what that is like.

Of course, no one can *truly* understand what another person's experiences are like. So we do the best we can with what we have been handed. Thank you all for the kind responses. I'm going back to bed now but I hope I'll be better and up and around more, soon.
I'm sending all my very best thoughts out to everyone. I hope I make sense to some people. A lot of this, I don't know how to respond to, but I hope to figure it out as time goes by.

I'm not good at hugs but I will offer some small ones to those who would like :)

 

[EmmaOwl]

Strangely, I think that statistically I am not in danger anymore. That's not a very realistic thing but it works for me.

This is actually true. I have two people in my life who tell me that I could not be in a more safe place, in a more safe time in all of human history. They've convinced me. They are logical and correct. But I personally don't find it very comforting.

So much of the fear in PTSD is not rational (though it seems pretty darn rational in your case). I'm glad you've gotten through some of your fears.

 

[Sheera]

While I currently live in Colorado, Ive lived in Israel for a considerable amount of my life, my family moved there when I was 10 and most of them still live there today .. I have dealt with terrorism and war situations... I have survived bus bombings shootings and other types of terrorist attacks watched people I love die while I helplessly watch and just in general have a lot of experience in this area...

While my ptsd doesn't stem from these experiences they certainly didn't help and are a big part of my 'issues' ... Also if it helps my hubby was 'there' on 9/11 he was one of the people who ran towards the buildings and stayed there working for weeks I don't have to tell you what he saw and experienced ... That being said... Im always available if you ever want or need to talk about this different kind of fear..

 

[ladee]

I'm sorry you have seen such horrfic things in your life. Can't begin to imagine what it was like for either of you.
Please tell your husband 'Thank you' as feeble and shallow as that sounds compared to what he did.