Have You Always Known?

[CBP]

I haven't been on this forum for a few years now so I would just like to apologise if I am posting the wrong discussion in the wrong place.

I just have a question need to ask, even before you got diagnosed did you always know/ suspect/ feel that you were suppressing something?

I have several family members with PTSD who are only just remembering things and sometimes it's hard to ask them things for various reasons.

 

[Stickler]

I started gradually feeling that something bad had happened after my mom threw my dad out and divorced him; I was 16.

 

[ladee]

Seems I always knew something wasn't right .... even as young as 4 or 5. I did not belong anywhere, to anyone. But the real stuff started after I got clean and sober in '84. With no self medicating.... it roared to the top and overflowed.

 

[Heather]

The last time we went to visit my dad, I was 11 y/o. I came back from that visit and I felt like a completely different person. I felt horrible about myself, thought everyone was better than me....felt lower than low. The depression gradually got worse. I began cutting myself and first suicide attempt at 15 y/o.

Obviously it didn't work boy was I pissed. I really wanted to die.

As I reached later teen years I knew there was something wrong.....No one could possibly that miserable because their parents get divorced at age 3 and their mother is an idiot from time to time.

I knew there had to be more......just didn't know what it was until confessed to my therapist I cut myself.

Then flashbacks started and my life has never been the same since. I've never fully recovered.

T'il this day I struggle.

 

[Ronin]

I was aware I'm suppressing things for it was a choice. Had to keep going, surrendering to shadows and partial memories and the like wasn't an option, current shadows / potentially violent people to be watched.

 

[mary1979]

I had no clue

Distorted thinking and emotional detachment were the norm for me.

I still struggle with usual relationships and attachments

I look at people grieving the loss of their parents and scratch my head, I have no attachment to either of my parents at all.

But I develop unhealthy attachments to my partners.

Go figure.

 

[EveHarrington]

Can I ask what sorts of things you are asking and why you're asking them?

Just curious so I can get a better picture.

Thanks. :)

 

[dnp]

No, I don't think so. I thought I was fine before I got my memories back, which caused me to frequently throw up or lie in bed shaking to the point where I struggled to function at all. Before that I was semi-functional so I defined success around what I was able to do, not what I couldn't do. People who need to repress to survive can really repress things.

Like Eve, I'm also curious about the context.

 

[Friday]

I didn't suppress things.

My trauma wasn't childhood, however.

 

[Deleted member 33023]

I never knew I had ptsd my whole life. I've always thought that what happened to me as a child wasn't too bad. I had survived and was working and raising my kids as a single mom like so many out there. What was so different about me? It wasn't until a toxic work environment triggered me so badly my life suddenly stopped. I came to the realization I had an almost impossible childhood. I suppressed some memories that were too hard emotionally to remember. I denied how terrible it was and denial has been very hard to overcome for me.

 

[jaccat]

I knew, but then I managed to wipe large chunks of my life seemingly overnight. I noticed when I was eleven, trying to recall an everyday thing and realising it wasn't in my head anymore. Then I realised there was much much more that had just gone.

 

[HowDoIWorkThis]

Thank you all for your replies. As I mentioned I have several family members suffering from PTSD from childhood abuse. I have people close to me remembering things that had been repressed for decades.

If I am honest I have never felt normal, never felt I was good enough, I can't seem to hold a job down and I am not good at friendships. I am currently on medication for my anxiety which I seem to always had have. With everything that has been going on I find it hard not to wonder if there is something I have forgotten. Sometimes I can drive myself crazy trying to go over past memories seeing if there is something I missed.

I don't like talking to my family about it because I don't want it to look like I am making it about me or I'm afraid of coming across as crazy and obsessive when everything is alright. I don't know if I am making any sense or not.