Sufferer Glad to be here - Developmental Trauma & Anxiety

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Everglade

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Hi there

I'm 41f, have received a few different psychiatric diagnoses over the years from psychiatrists: OCD, social anxiety, generalised anxiety, depression, bipolar, ADHD, developmental trauma. My current psychotherapist says it's mainly developmental trauma and my current psychiatrist says anxiety stemming from adverse childhood experiences.

Family history of generational trauma, abuse, mental illness and addiction.

My mother was severely psychologically abused by her mother who I believe had severe trauma and resultant cluster-B personality disorder with high narcissistic traits.

My parents were young and immature but tried their best. There was love and care and discipline and a good education and opportunities and holidays and jokes and pets and treating us how to treat other people and animals with respect. There was also neglect, abuse, violence, fighting, chaos, secrets, despair, resentment.

When I was 6 months old, my mother was hospitalised with post-partum depression for a few months at a state psychiatric hospital. I and my brother went to foster care. I believe this is the start of my trauma. Abandonment. Perception of parental rejection.

My mother was hospitalised for depression and anxiety a number of times after that, while I was growing up.

My father was emotionally shut down.

My abusive grandmother 'looked after' us quite a bit.

I did not develop an identity. I repressed all my feelings. I had to be quiet and good in order to get love.

I was bullied badly by my older brother and then peers at pre-primary school onwards.

At 14 I got drunk for the first time and all the fear, pain, anxiety and despair melted away. I drank alcoholically from that point on.
I also abused drugs and continued my abandonment by abandoning myself. I allowed myself to be abused by others. I abused myself. I didn't care if I lived or died.
I went to rehab at 28 and have been in recovery since them but with a few relapses.
I have used AA and mental health care to great effect.
I have rescued three cats and managed to find a job that does not trigger me too much.
I have a loving husband and a happy home. No kids - I am too scared I would mess them up in the same way I was messed up.
I have been clean and sober for nearly three years now. I take quite a bit of psychiatric medication but not sleeping pills or benzos in case I abuse them.
I struggle daily with severe anxiety and night terrors.
I sometimes feel hopelessness and despair.
After being a lifelong atheist I have come to believe in a higher power that loves me. It may not make logical sense but I realise that I need this belief in order to avoid becoming so hopeless that I harm myself again. I am enjoying reading about spirituality and faith and religion. It is interesting and comforting. But there are some aspects of religion that I feel could be dangerous and re-traumatising (especially regarding my sense of shame and worthlessness and belief that I'm bad and defective).
I will keep my spiritual journey as one more tool in my toolkit - it's not the whole thing. I will continue to make use of therapy and psychiatry and books about C-PTSD and evidence-based approaches to healing and recovery.
 
hello everglade. welcome to the forum. sorry for what brings you here, but glad you are here.

i, too, come from a vicious cycle of family dysfunction and carry a smorgasbord of psychiatric dx'es for all the psychoweirds attached. personally, i don't much care about what we call ^it^. i address the symptoms, one at a time. names for the big ^it^ are relevant only for the sake of making the symptoms easier to talk about. this would be one of the very places i come to talk about those symptoms, one at a time.

welcome aboard. hope you find healing companionship here.
 
Hi there

I'm 41f, have received a few different psychiatric diagnoses over the years from psychiatrists: OCD, social anxiety, generalised anxiety, depression, bipolar, ADHD, developmental trauma. My current psychotherapist says it's mainly developmental trauma and my current psychiatrist says anxiety stemming from adverse childhood experiences.

Family history of generational trauma, abuse, mental illness and addiction.

My mother was severely psychologically abused by her mother who I believe had severe trauma and resultant cluster-B personality disorder with high narcissistic traits.

My parents were young and immature but tried their best. There was love and care and discipline and a good education and opportunities and holidays and jokes and pets and treating us how to treat other people and animals with respect. There was also neglect, abuse, violence, fighting, chaos, secrets, despair, resentment.

When I was 6 months old, my mother was hospitalised with post-partum depression for a few months at a state psychiatric hospital. I and my brother went to foster care. I believe this is the start of my trauma. Abandonment. Perception of parental rejection.

My mother was hospitalised for depression and anxiety a number of times after that, while I was growing up.

My father was emotionally shut down.

My abusive grandmother 'looked after' us quite a bit.

I did not develop an identity. I repressed all my feelings. I had to be quiet and good in order to get love.

I was bullied badly by my older brother and then peers at pre-primary school onwards.

At 14 I got drunk for the first time and all the fear, pain, anxiety and despair melted away. I drank alcoholically from that point on.
I also abused drugs and continued my abandonment by abandoning myself. I allowed myself to be abused by others. I abused myself. I didn't care if I lived or died.
I went to rehab at 28 and have been in recovery since them but with a few relapses.
I have used AA and mental health care to great effect.
I have rescued three cats and managed to find a job that does not trigger me too much.
I have a loving husband and a happy home. No kids - I am too scared I would mess them up in the same way I was messed up.
I have been clean and sober for nearly three years now. I take quite a bit of psychiatric medication but not sleeping pills or benzos in case I abuse them.
I struggle daily with severe anxiety and night terrors.
I sometimes feel hopelessness and despair.
After being a lifelong atheist I have come to believe in a higher power that loves me. It may not make logical sense but I realise that I need this belief in order to avoid becoming so hopeless that I harm myself again. I am enjoying reading about spirituality and faith and religion. It is interesting and comforting. But there are some aspects of religion that I feel could be dangerous and re-traumatising (especially regarding my sense of shame and worthlessness and belief that I'm bad and defective).
I will keep my spiritual journey as one more tool in my toolkit - it's not the whole thing. I will continue to make use of therapy and psychiatry and books about C-PTSD and evidence-based approaches to healing and recovery.
Thanks for sharing your story. I can relate to a lot of what you are saying. Every day is a struggle. I have high anxiety, social anxiety, PTSD, AADD, like you do my mother was abused when we were growing up so our stories are familiar I join this group because I want to talk to people that I can relate to because family and friends, which I don’t have any friends just don’t understand should I say the disease

🖤🖤
 
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