Finally I Know What's Wrong With Me - But It's Really Scary

[Queen Boudica]

Thanks so much to everyone for all the positive words. That helps a lot.

I never realised how many methaphors and similies I could come up with to describe all this stuff in my head. It is all like a huge tornado, spinning wildly and spitting out the junk that has built up inside me at an enormous rate, too fast for me to catch and deal with.

I never thought I was that imaginative. But then I realised that when I was a child I had a huge imagination. That is what I thought got me through. I had my fantasy dreams and I would go to bed and make up my World where I was rescued from my life by Super Man and I was now Super Girl flying around defeating all the villains. All that imagination seemed to disappear some time in my teen age years. (Or did I just shut them out and go onto bullimia and trying to study study study to get myself out of the hell hole?)

I was walking back from taking my 3 year old to preschool this morning in the pouring rain (There is no way I would drive - too scary, but walking in the rain is very cathartic, and my daughter loves splashing in the "muddy puddles" with her pink gum boots). But of course all the stuff was churning away in my head. So I have to try and deal with it somehow.

The image I had in my head then was that I have been travelling in one of those airplanes that they used in World War II to parachute soldiers into enemy territory. I am a coward really who does not want to be a soldier at all, but if I had not joined the army then I would have had to stay with my mother and that would have been far worse. So somehow I have got myself in this mess even though that is not what I wanted at all.

I am the last one in the plane and I have been cowering, hiding under the seats so no-one would realise I am there.
The airplane has been circling over and over going nowhere waiting for me to jump and I have spent years trying avoid that jump.

Sometimes I have had moments where I have tried to be brave and get up to face the danger and try to jump and I have thought that I was doing really well. But then one or more of the other soldiers has sensed that I am different and pathetic and useless (including my partner) and they have laughed at me and mimicked me and told me I am totally useless at being a soldier or tried to tell me I should be doing things their way which is far better than my way. And my partner has got so mad with me because I am so useless that he has even hit me and shouted in my face and slammed me against the wall to try and make me see that I should be doing things his way and how I am so useless and that is why our partnership is failed because it is all my fault.

So it is so scary to jump. But now the plane is running out of fuel, so I have to jump or die in a horrible ball of fire (that will destroy my children as well, because the plane will crash on the house that I had tried to make so safe for them, even though it is in enemy territory).

But it is so terrifying as I don't know what will happen. Will my parachute fail and I end up broken in bits or even dead? (After all, my sister was also found cowering under the seats and she was dragged kicking and screaming and forced to jump, but her parachute (the mental health establishment) failed her and she is dead.) Or will it all work out and I jump down safely feeling so brave that I have done it and overcoming all my fears? That would be the nice ending that I really want. But I HAVE to jump now or my children will be damaged in the explosion.

But my even more negative side knows that, even if I manage to achieve this huge brave fete, I will still be in enemy territory. There are enemy soldiers waiting to ambush me who know that I am still really a coward and a useless soldier and now they know that I have mental problems as well so that they have the power to gun me down at anytime (and that includes my partner soldier, who is really a double-agent).

So if I jump I know I will then have to somehow build myself up and make sure I am the best at defending myself and my children who are in the safe house but danger is encroaching them in the form of psoriasis and anaphylaxis and school bullies and too much homework and shyness and lack of confidence and being late for school and stress stress stress.

I have to be the fastest at anticipating the danger before it happens. But isn't that what I have been doing all my life anyway? Isn't that the problem that I am so stressed out from trying to anticipate all the problems before they happen? And that I am trying to protect my children from all the horrible stuff that happened to me? Or maybe it is the way I am trying to defend myself and my kids just leads to the stress and I have to find other ways and that is what the pyschologist is for?

Sorry this has turned out to be a novel and I am not sure whether all these thoughts are helping or hindering.

 

[Kintsugi]

Hi Lizio,

This is some really great stuff, a lot of imagination and a lot of effective expression. I suggest that you start a trauma diary once you have enough messages to reach member status. It seems like you would really benefit from a place to go and write this all out to look over and chew on.

I am worried about your situation with your husband. Is it possible for you to get your own counselor separate from your son who can zero in on your trauma as well as perhaps your relationship struggles? It sounds like an abusive situation, but I know that marriage is not something you can just get rid of or replace when it's not working properly.

I wish you all the best.

 

[Queen Boudica]

Thanks MissAntiSunshine,

Yes I feel like I really need to write it all down to sort out the jumble in my head.

It has been abusive and I know I have to sort that out. At the moment he is "being good" as I told him exactly what the pyschologist told me he was doing and that was being controlling and abusive. I'm not sure he has accepted that but we shall see what happens in the counselling. I feel I have so much to deal with at the moment that I am putting this stuff on the back burner until we see the counsellor.

Yes I need to see a counsellor as well, but not sure what the process is, what therapy I need, what to prioritize on. I'm hoping my son's counsellor will have the answer. He seems good even though he is very busy. I'd seen a pyschologist before but she never identified the PTSD even though I told her about what had happened in my childhood, but maybe I just wasn't willing to delve too much at that point.

My son's counsellor has worked with assylum seekers who have been held in detention centres here so I suspect he has had some experience with PTSD and perhaps that is why he was able to identify that I have it so quickly. I guess time will tell. Fingers crossed I will see him on Thursday and I am brave enough to ask him the right questions.

 

[Kintsugi]

It has been abusive and I know I have to sort that out. At the moment he is "being good" as I told him exactly what the pyschologist told me he was doing and that was being controlling and abusive. I'm not sure he has accepted that but we shall see what happens in the counselling.

I do not believe that there is an ounce of truth in your husband's feelings that you are "useless." However, I believe that he believes that.

Now, this isn't at all the same situation, but I think it may be applicable. When my fiance starts raging, yelling, whatever, because something I said that was admittedly off, on-edge, snappy, whatever, finally made his patience snap. In these moments, I just look at him and ask, "What is it that I did that warrants yelling? Am I raising my voice?" very calmly. Perhaps there is someway that you could help your husband see that even if he feels this way, he is bringing a gun to a fistfight. Does that make sense?

 

[Queen Boudica]

When my fiance starts raging, yelling, whatever, because something I said that was admittedly off, on-edge, snappy, whatever, finally made his patience snap. In these moments, I just look at him and ask, "What is it that I did that warrants yelling? Am I raising my voice?" very calmly. Perhaps there is someway that you could help your husband see that even if he feels this way, he is bringing a gun to a fistfight. Does that make sense?[/quote]

It does. But mostly by the time he has got to that point he is out of control and wants to shout and force his point of view.

Thing is it does not happen that often, so things calm down he behaves nicely and eventually I forget. But then something happens.

Last year he got made redundant. That was when he ended up slamming me against the wall. We had argued but I had actually realised he was out of control told him that was enough and gone into the bathroom to get away from him. (The bathroom was my haven when I was a kid), but he followed me and was shouting in my face and I was shouting at him to just get out (I was actually using the toilet at the time) And I just stood up and put my arm out to push him away because he was shouting in my face and he would not get out and I could not stand it. And then he slammed me against the wall. And then he told me I was "the worst thing that ever happened to him".

This was all in front of the kids. I told him I wanted him gone, but of course he refused to leave. He told me that I should leave. And he didn't really show any remorse afterwards. He said something like "These things happen when you are angry and you say things that you don't mean". He said that he was going to sort out counselling but then he got a new job and nothing happened. And my kids were so upset they don't want us to separate, that I just felt powerless and that I had to stay for them.

But I can't get the image out of my mind of him slamming me against the wall and how he could actually do and say those things in front of the kids.

I know this all has to be dealt with. I just never know whether it is really my fault because with all my problems have I just stressed him out so much that he is pushed to breaking point. But then I know he can't behave that way it is wrong and he has to stop. So I need to see the counsellor

 

[anthony]

I suggest that you start a trauma diary once you have enough messages to reach member status.

Nobody is limited from creating a trauma diary within the member trauma diary forum. The only limits are that you can only have one.

 

[a3a2]

It sounds to me like he is taking no responsibility for abusing you. Lizio, it isn't your fault. Your kids may not like the idea of a seperation now, but when they are older, they will thank you. Talk to your therapist. I am sure she is aware of resources to help abused women and their children. You don't want your kids to need this forum when they are older. Right now taking care of yourself, is taking care of your kids.