Hard Times Behind, Hard Times Ahead

[traumablackout]

Sometimes it feels almost impossible to accept that I am the only one who can undo years and years of trauma and abuse that was caused by someone else. Will I be living my whole life trying to undo the mistakes of others?

 

[TLight]

Yeah, sucks these cards we got dealt.

 

[Kintsugi]

I would prefer to put it this way...

I am way, way better than my abusers.

Therefore, if they dealt this damage, I can totally clean it up and hopefully rub it in their faces, too.

Because I am just that much better than they are.

 

[hazen]

Sometimes it feels almost impossible to accept that I am the only one who can undo years and years of trauma and abuse that was caused by someone else. Will I be living my whole life trying to undo the mistakes of others?

I try not to focus on the fact that I spent 20 some years not knowing I had PTSD and never dealing with it. It used to piss me off horribly. Then I talked to my therapist about it one day, and she told me about the litany of patients she has had who didn't come to realize their PTSD for what it was until they were 50, 60, and even 70 years old.

Now even if you are 70, now that you know what you are dealing with, at least you CAN and ARE dealing with it. even just by being on this forum and talking about it!

So a big middle finger to the people that traumatized you, and show them you can undo any crap that they did to you!

...and if that pep talk didn't work, its OK... my parents are my traumatizers and I haven't yet flipped them off. It might be awesome though now that I think about it... :)

 

[traumablackout]

TLight- Yeah, it does suck. The older I get the more I see that life is full of suck, it would probably do me well to realize that it doesn't just suck for me, it sucks for everyone else too. Sometimes my PTSD makes me feel so isolated I forget what other people feel.

MissAntiSunshine- Don't you ever get tired of having to clean up though? I feel like since I was four I've been cleaning up other people's messes, and it gets so tiring sometimes I want to sleep and never wake up. It's refreshing to see your confidence in yourself, did you obtain that on your own? Or with therapy/meds? I think you're right though, nothing feels better than climbing up high and reaching the top when everyone's waiting for you to fall. It just gets hard when you yourself is waiting for you to fall.

hazen- I can't imagine living in agony for 50 years and not knowing whats causing it. I think one of the hardest things about PTSD is knowing that my abusers got away with what they did, and they will never be held accountable, and they get to go on in their lives like nothing happened. My birth mom is one of the people who has messed me up the most, and she acts like nothing even happened. She gets to live her happy go lucky life being spoiled by her rich boyfriend while I can't even leave the house or hold down a job because I'm so messed up. What hurts most is that she tells me she loves me and she wants us to be a happy family, but she refuses to acknowledge the past and what she's done. She tells me to stop acting silly (when I'm having PTSD episodes) and that I'm just making it harder for myself, when really SHE'S the one making things harder for me. I haven't flipped her off yet, or anyone else for that matter, but it's quite tempting. You're right...it'd feel damn amazing to overcome this, get a job, and live for myself instead of this "illness". To say "F**K YOU I'm taking what I deserve in this life and nothing can stop me".

Thanks so much for replying guys, I have so much in my head that I never get out, it kind of just spilled out here. I was so ready to try killing myself again, but now I don't feel so alone, so I won't be trying that again anytime soon. Thank you thank you thank you for this forum!

 

[ronin47]

I personally don't see it as being the only one who can undo the trauma. I see it as I'm the only one who can make the choice to undo the trauma. I made the choice to walk into the Counseling Services of the Wellness Center at my university two and a half years ago, I was the only one who could make that choice. I was the only one who could chose to continue trying to find an avenue for getting better despite being dissapointed and let down so many times. I was the only one who could decide, "I've found a tremendous resource for healing here, I'm going to make the absolute most of it."

But trying to actually mend the damage on my own did not and would not have worked. It's not something you can or need to do on your own, you must do it with the help of others. I learned to cut myself off from the mentality that my trauma was the property of my abusers. That's not to say that they don't have the responsibility, but when I seperated the trauma from them then they stopped negatively affecting me so powerfully. I was able to take the trauma and make it my own in the sense that I now had control over it and could decide to work on getting rid of it and not letting it control me. No, I didn't ask for this pain nor did I do anything to earn it or deserve it. However; I can either spend the rest of my life asking myself "Why me?" or I can chose to make something good out of the hand that's been dealt to me for whatever the reason and emerge a much stronger person for it. Thoughts like "Why me," "This isn't fair," "Why do I have to suffer because of someone else," "I shouldn't have to fix this," may be entirely valid and legitimate, but nothing good can come of letting them overtake you. It's like the Earth rotating and bringing winter to you, it's just the way it is.

 

[traumablackout]

Yeah you are right ronin47, it is pretty pointless to just sit around feeling sorry for yourself, even if things are rough. Thank you for giving me a new perspective on the situation! Sometimes the PTSD makes me so depressed I feel like I'm falling into a hole and suffocating. Like the whole atmosphere is closing in around me. Then I start questioning "why me, why did I deserve this?" but you've made me realize that while it is a valid question, it's extremely childish. I'm just growing up and learning a million new things about life every day, so I don't always realize when I'm being childish. Thanks for helping to teach me that I don't have to become my trauma, I can separate from it. It's going to be there no matter what, so might as well be positive about it.