Hello, I'm pogo. It's the first name I knew, so to me it's my real name and that other official name is something I don't well relate to.
Don't kill me if my typing is bad or the caps go missing. My hands can be pretty spastic at times and there gets to be a time when it's laborious to go through and correct everything. It's not because I'm lazy or illiterate, I am fairly certain that it stems from head and spinal injuries.
I don't have medical care. I've recognized and known for very long time that I had PTSD, but not officially diagnosed. It seems that everything evil happened my way in life and forced me in position even as a small child to wear a mask or live double life. I can sympathize with just about anyone who crumbles from stress or freezes or flees simply because I've been through hell and back so many times in life and I freeze, panic and flee myself. So I try to be a little compassionate, but I find this hard to do for people who torment me.
I don't know very much about ptsd and because I was reading something else, it accidentally led me to this forum, so i came here to read. I think what is very hard to bear is the denial of trauma or the cost of trauma to the sufferer. The refusal to acknowledge that a person has suffered perhaps a harrowing experience and it's really only normal that this experience is reflected in ptsd. There is something wrong with a person who has been attacked or stalked or abused or endured some traumatic experience and goes through it singing, "be happy, don't worry..." I think the expectations are unreal.
There is something wrong with a society that doesn't acknowledge or recognize the consequences of pain or traumatic experience and that somehow, somebody who has undergone harrowing experience should go on living and acting as if nothing happened. If you put even a miniscule drop of red dye into clear water, the dye colors the water. So I never understand how I should be "normal" when my life has been filled with abuse.
When I was selling Avon many many years ago, I was invited into a small cosy bungalow filled with all the nice cosy things of American domesticity. The neat rugs, the plush furniture, etc... and somewhere, I was challenged as to "why are you doing this. Who are you?" Jobs were very scarce, I was selling Avon. I personally respect the company for its quality.
The man challenged my education. Classics, I said, Latin and Greek. So he immediately ridiculed me because women aren't supposed to be educated. It's pathetic view, but many have it. So he went into next room and pulled out his Greek Testament and popped it beneath my nose. I can't recite Greek. It's dead language, so I struggled through reading the passage and gave him his demanded translation and identified the correct verbal forms. The test was a bit absurd because NT is not Classical Greek, but it was done to show superiority over me. Then the man went on to scoff my clothes and other things regarding women and women's social roles. He snooped and made derogatory remarks regarding women being raped as it was on the news; this offended me. I've been raped. rape is not the fault of woman... how many times? I didn't know. So I was honest, "it depends on state law". He found this answer hilarious and began deriding me for it, so I tried to answer his derision evenly by explaining differences in state laws and how rape is defined. It wasn't the answer he wanted. He wanted to see me humiliated and emotional, guilty before God sort of thing. So I said I honestly couldn't remember, but at least 8-9 times...and this brought forth mirth, ridicule and some pretty nasty comments. He was Baptist minister and to him I was guilty of being raped.
I didn't know what to do. I finished my immediate business because I wasn't there to discuss rape or myself being raped. It's my life. It's personal and not to be bantered about in public or ridiculed by others. When i left, I got an earful regarding how it was my fault I was raped.
It's as if I have to be two separate people all my life--the one on outside which public demands to have and the real one which is tormented inside. the tormented one I have respect for it. If it's tormented or panics or flees, I still respect it because I look at the hardship or trauma I've endured and think, actually it's pretty rational, normal behavior. If You'd been raped or physically assaulted or abused continually, you might always jump back three feet each time you got tapped on the back. You might end up staring at walls and shaking for hours if you had seen or endured the same experience. So I understand the reactions but I live in an intolerant world which gives and grants me no compassion and no or little acceptance, but as result of trauma and its consequences, I've become more and more isolated. I can't communicate the stress I live with or limitations I face because the reality of my experience/ past trauma is negated; but I can't negate it.
So I came here to read. I don't have medical care or psychologist, but I know that before I was attacked by landlord and friends I was very different person. On other hand if a person is attacked three times in short period of time, it's shouldn't be so unusual that the person suffers terror or flashbacks or spends days staring at walls and shaking. I did nothing to deserve it and religious moralizing forced upon me is demoralizing. Nothing causes me so much torment as self-righteous religious person telling me that I deserved the evil of my life since I was not obeying the "will of God". duh? and when I avoid such nastiness, then of course I am labelled "anti-social" and "avoidance personality disorder" but who should have to endure such superficial criticism? Sometimes i really want to scream. Instead, it isolates me further from the world I used to know.
So I came in to read and learn form others.
Now watch me flee.
pogo
Don't kill me if my typing is bad or the caps go missing. My hands can be pretty spastic at times and there gets to be a time when it's laborious to go through and correct everything. It's not because I'm lazy or illiterate, I am fairly certain that it stems from head and spinal injuries.
I don't have medical care. I've recognized and known for very long time that I had PTSD, but not officially diagnosed. It seems that everything evil happened my way in life and forced me in position even as a small child to wear a mask or live double life. I can sympathize with just about anyone who crumbles from stress or freezes or flees simply because I've been through hell and back so many times in life and I freeze, panic and flee myself. So I try to be a little compassionate, but I find this hard to do for people who torment me.
I don't know very much about ptsd and because I was reading something else, it accidentally led me to this forum, so i came here to read. I think what is very hard to bear is the denial of trauma or the cost of trauma to the sufferer. The refusal to acknowledge that a person has suffered perhaps a harrowing experience and it's really only normal that this experience is reflected in ptsd. There is something wrong with a person who has been attacked or stalked or abused or endured some traumatic experience and goes through it singing, "be happy, don't worry..." I think the expectations are unreal.
There is something wrong with a society that doesn't acknowledge or recognize the consequences of pain or traumatic experience and that somehow, somebody who has undergone harrowing experience should go on living and acting as if nothing happened. If you put even a miniscule drop of red dye into clear water, the dye colors the water. So I never understand how I should be "normal" when my life has been filled with abuse.
When I was selling Avon many many years ago, I was invited into a small cosy bungalow filled with all the nice cosy things of American domesticity. The neat rugs, the plush furniture, etc... and somewhere, I was challenged as to "why are you doing this. Who are you?" Jobs were very scarce, I was selling Avon. I personally respect the company for its quality.
The man challenged my education. Classics, I said, Latin and Greek. So he immediately ridiculed me because women aren't supposed to be educated. It's pathetic view, but many have it. So he went into next room and pulled out his Greek Testament and popped it beneath my nose. I can't recite Greek. It's dead language, so I struggled through reading the passage and gave him his demanded translation and identified the correct verbal forms. The test was a bit absurd because NT is not Classical Greek, but it was done to show superiority over me. Then the man went on to scoff my clothes and other things regarding women and women's social roles. He snooped and made derogatory remarks regarding women being raped as it was on the news; this offended me. I've been raped. rape is not the fault of woman... how many times? I didn't know. So I was honest, "it depends on state law". He found this answer hilarious and began deriding me for it, so I tried to answer his derision evenly by explaining differences in state laws and how rape is defined. It wasn't the answer he wanted. He wanted to see me humiliated and emotional, guilty before God sort of thing. So I said I honestly couldn't remember, but at least 8-9 times...and this brought forth mirth, ridicule and some pretty nasty comments. He was Baptist minister and to him I was guilty of being raped.
I didn't know what to do. I finished my immediate business because I wasn't there to discuss rape or myself being raped. It's my life. It's personal and not to be bantered about in public or ridiculed by others. When i left, I got an earful regarding how it was my fault I was raped.
It's as if I have to be two separate people all my life--the one on outside which public demands to have and the real one which is tormented inside. the tormented one I have respect for it. If it's tormented or panics or flees, I still respect it because I look at the hardship or trauma I've endured and think, actually it's pretty rational, normal behavior. If You'd been raped or physically assaulted or abused continually, you might always jump back three feet each time you got tapped on the back. You might end up staring at walls and shaking for hours if you had seen or endured the same experience. So I understand the reactions but I live in an intolerant world which gives and grants me no compassion and no or little acceptance, but as result of trauma and its consequences, I've become more and more isolated. I can't communicate the stress I live with or limitations I face because the reality of my experience/ past trauma is negated; but I can't negate it.
So I came here to read. I don't have medical care or psychologist, but I know that before I was attacked by landlord and friends I was very different person. On other hand if a person is attacked three times in short period of time, it's shouldn't be so unusual that the person suffers terror or flashbacks or spends days staring at walls and shaking. I did nothing to deserve it and religious moralizing forced upon me is demoralizing. Nothing causes me so much torment as self-righteous religious person telling me that I deserved the evil of my life since I was not obeying the "will of God". duh? and when I avoid such nastiness, then of course I am labelled "anti-social" and "avoidance personality disorder" but who should have to endure such superficial criticism? Sometimes i really want to scream. Instead, it isolates me further from the world I used to know.
So I came in to read and learn form others.
Now watch me flee.
pogo
