Hi everyone, my name is Shelley.
My partner has suffered from C-PTSD most of her life. An adopted child, she suffered multiple instances of extreme sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at the hands of multiple perpetrators from the age of 5-16. This included being physically and sexually abused by her paternal grandmother at the age of 5, violently raped with a stick at the age of 7 by a gang of neighborhood boys, and being sexually assaulted on an almost daily basis by a neighbor and his wife from the age of 8-14. At the age of 8 she was shown a graphic real-life video of two young children being violently raped and murdered, and told that she would share the same fate if she told anyone of the abuse.
For 6 years, she lived in constant fear of her life. To compound her fear, at the age of 14 her adoptive father arranged for her to visit a police station to be shown a series of graphic photographs depicting horribly mutilated, murdered young women and told she would end up the same way if she was not careful.
This abuse took place against a backdrop of continual physical abuse and emotional neglect by both of her adoptive parents. She was a pawn in their marriage, adopted after her mother discovered her father's infidelities and demanded another child as compensation, in addition to their four biological children, as long as the child was not fathered by him. She was, thereafter, a constant reminder of her father's failures as a husband, and he hated her passionately for it. A surgeon by profession, and a psychopath in his own right, he made a total of 5 serious attempts on her life, the first when she was 2 1/2 years old and continuing into her adult life.
At the age of 15 she was the victim of a violent rape, and fell pregnant as a result. She took care of herself during her pregnancy and planned to have the child adopted. Then one morning, late in her pregnancy, she awoke to find herself being forcibly injected with a powerful sedative by her adoptive father, and dragged to hospital where an illegal termination was performed. The foetus was 7 months old. She was so butchered in the process that she is now unable to have children.
She also suffers from Grave's Disease and has been clinically dead twice. Both times her father deliberately delayed emergency medical treatment that would have saved her life. By some miracle she is still here, though extremely traumatized by the events and with next to zero trust in the medical profession.
Recently, she entered into an EMDR treatment program, which has had the effect of re-connecting her emotionally with her traumatic memories, after a lifetime of dissociation and repressing. The illegal termination is the most current traumatic memory to surface, and for her, the most distressing. She is taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication to help her through the processing phase of treatment, and has both her GP and psychologist on stand-by to assist when her distress becomes overwhelming.
My concern is that, because much of her trauma is centered on the medical profession, and hospitals in particular, her options for treatment if she hits breaking-point are severely limited. Forced hospital admission would be extremely counter-productive in her case and there is no way on this earth she would ever agree to it or that I would ever force her. If anyone has any suggestions for me as a carer in helping her through this, I would love to hear your thoughts.
My partner has suffered from C-PTSD most of her life. An adopted child, she suffered multiple instances of extreme sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at the hands of multiple perpetrators from the age of 5-16. This included being physically and sexually abused by her paternal grandmother at the age of 5, violently raped with a stick at the age of 7 by a gang of neighborhood boys, and being sexually assaulted on an almost daily basis by a neighbor and his wife from the age of 8-14. At the age of 8 she was shown a graphic real-life video of two young children being violently raped and murdered, and told that she would share the same fate if she told anyone of the abuse.
For 6 years, she lived in constant fear of her life. To compound her fear, at the age of 14 her adoptive father arranged for her to visit a police station to be shown a series of graphic photographs depicting horribly mutilated, murdered young women and told she would end up the same way if she was not careful.
This abuse took place against a backdrop of continual physical abuse and emotional neglect by both of her adoptive parents. She was a pawn in their marriage, adopted after her mother discovered her father's infidelities and demanded another child as compensation, in addition to their four biological children, as long as the child was not fathered by him. She was, thereafter, a constant reminder of her father's failures as a husband, and he hated her passionately for it. A surgeon by profession, and a psychopath in his own right, he made a total of 5 serious attempts on her life, the first when she was 2 1/2 years old and continuing into her adult life.
At the age of 15 she was the victim of a violent rape, and fell pregnant as a result. She took care of herself during her pregnancy and planned to have the child adopted. Then one morning, late in her pregnancy, she awoke to find herself being forcibly injected with a powerful sedative by her adoptive father, and dragged to hospital where an illegal termination was performed. The foetus was 7 months old. She was so butchered in the process that she is now unable to have children.
She also suffers from Grave's Disease and has been clinically dead twice. Both times her father deliberately delayed emergency medical treatment that would have saved her life. By some miracle she is still here, though extremely traumatized by the events and with next to zero trust in the medical profession.
Recently, she entered into an EMDR treatment program, which has had the effect of re-connecting her emotionally with her traumatic memories, after a lifetime of dissociation and repressing. The illegal termination is the most current traumatic memory to surface, and for her, the most distressing. She is taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication to help her through the processing phase of treatment, and has both her GP and psychologist on stand-by to assist when her distress becomes overwhelming.
My concern is that, because much of her trauma is centered on the medical profession, and hospitals in particular, her options for treatment if she hits breaking-point are severely limited. Forced hospital admission would be extremely counter-productive in her case and there is no way on this earth she would ever agree to it or that I would ever force her. If anyone has any suggestions for me as a carer in helping her through this, I would love to hear your thoughts.
