Abelabelabel
New Here
Hi everyone,
I'm 29 and am not diagnosed with PTSD, but I know, and my therapist knows that the way I am triggered is definitely in line with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And the things I read about complex PTSD seem to match my personal experience. I didn't know what this was a few years ago, and as I've jumped down the rabbit hole, with lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of doubt searching the web for self help, and suggestions, and ways to help me "snap out of it," google searches inevitably send me back here, where I read post after post that resonates deeply with me.
Here's my story in a nutshell. My biological mom was institutionalized at a young age, probably a combination of her poor upbringing, and some biological factors. When I was born I was put up for adoption and lived with an adoptive family for a couple of years. I have two memories of this: getting a bath in the sink, and swimming in a diaper in the pool. When they realized that nobody was going to adopt me they started working to get custody of me. My grandfather decided to adopt me instead. I lived with him and other relatives, and struggled and squirmed my way through life until the present.
So I lived with a combination of my Grandpa, my Aunt Phyllis, and my Grandma for the next 8 years or so. I was put in to Kindergarten at age 4, slightly after the normal cut off date for school. . . I was a little too young! There was a lot of abuse, emotional and physical. A lot of it is a blurr, and certain things are only coroborated by other people. . . like trying to do homework while My grandpa yelled at a 5 year old version of me calling me stupid, and idiotic, until I was in tears and developed a knack for avoiding homework because of the triggered stress it brought me after that. Or getting beaten with a Yardstick until it broke. And geting taken from a bed I was sleeping in, getting manhandled by My grandpa and one of his daughters, and thrown in to another room where I cried myself to sleep. My Aunt Mary (changed name) raised me between 3rd and 4th grade while my grandpa worked on property in Northern California. Mary was good for a while, I actually had a parent that helped me with projects, and made sure I finished my homework. But she suffered from depression, and eventually started drinking when my grandpa returned, exhibiting control-freak like behavior. Eventually she split and abandoned her daughter Dawn, who was also living with me when I was younger. Aunt Mary finally succeeded in committing suicide after several attempts in 2010.
At age 11 I was taken in my by Aunt Lynn (Name changed). I remember going to sleep in her house the first night. We didn't even wait to get furniture, so I slept on a sleeping bag on a blanket with a smile on my face. . . Was I free? She helped me study for my Bar Mitzvah (still can't believe I did it), and I continued to live with her until I was 19. I believe she saved my life, since I was prone to pretty bad fits of anxiety and self-agression. I had no idea what I was going through, and neither did I, and I continued to have a difficult time. And Lynn was my grandpas favorite daughter. She was not abused when was younger, and rathar than challenge some of the things my grandpa did, she would often make me appease him to go with the flow. This lack of acknowledgement of my own boundaries still messes with me today.
School was always difficult, dealing with difficulties concentrating, a horrible inner critic, and unexplainable dark moods, I eventually made it through a Cal State University with a healthy GPA and a degree in communication over more years than I'd like to admit!! Then everyone else got on with their lives. A bad break up got me in to therapy, and on medication for a short while. . .I quit an office job that I had held for almost 7 years, thinking that I would take time to relax, and focus on music. I had plenty of savings, from when my mother passed away, and could afford the break. This was naive.
For about one year, I attempted to perform as I seemed to run in to gigantic invisible wall after gigantic invisible wall of anxiety, stress, and brown notes of emotions that made what was supposed to be a productive time of in to a scary, oft triggered, mess. I didn't really know how to relate the very strong, very compelling, horrific feelings that were coming up, so I often ignored it, pretended that it wasn't there and quietly took note as I began avoiding more and more things. I started to see that the reactions I was having seemed a lot like "body" flash backs. . . since I could be triggered, and feel extremely altered, Not necessarily a memory, but I felt as if I was small, and in a lot of danger, and that everything was threatening. This was followed by a desire to run and run and run and run, even if there was no real threat. This was not turning in to the life I expected. But I ignored it. . . I had been struggling wit this for years, and it had never "stopped" me.
I eventually found work again. Part time working what I thought was a dream job. And it was great, but I was still triggered, and found it difficult at times to function on "all cylinders" when I felt triggered and extremely anxious. I'd have to suffer through some days, with a fake smile on my face. I needed to work, and this was a great opportunity. I finally started to do more stuff, got another job, and began running a monthly event. I still struggled a lot with anxiety, feeling spaced out, and basically like any social interaction was a roll of the dice, unless I had alcohol in my system. I struggled with a budget, even though I had money in savings, I wanted to break even, and I kept getting stopped in my tracks by this enormous invisible stress. I struggled with several things that I kept to myself in favor of "faking it until I made it." I put on as good a facade as I could. Which was not good. Things were beginning to catch up with me.
Over the Summer I worked full time plus, had a girlfriend, and was more busy than I'd ever been. On paper things were awesome, Girlfriend, Work, extra gigs, but the stress was mounting, and I knew that there was something seriously wrong, even with all the outward appearances of success.
Then August hit, and my world unraveled. August was the 2 year anniversary of my Aunt Mary committing suicide (A date I find hard to remember, and place in time, even now). Due to a spetacular failure on her family's part she did not even have a funeral, just a defacto celebration of her life with several people thrown by her good friend, that I was too anxious, and fake-smiling to express any real emotion at. Work slowed down, a band I was in fell apart, an event I ran stopped suddenly because the bar that ran it went temporarily under, I had been wrestling with the idea of disowning my own family and I struggled to build a good alternative support group for myself, and my dog got hit by a car (and survived!). So from August to December, I fell in to a pretty deep depression, without really realizing it. The mounting stress of the summer, compounded with the bing bang boom of the last quarter of 2012 left me totally unable to cope. I didn't look for work, I often spent lots of time in bed, trying to keep myself distracted by working on a blog, or journaling in perfectionistic detail as I struggled with a self proclaimed "memory problem," I was finding it difficult to remember things, and keep my days and weeks firmly in order. My priorities turned upsidedown, I would spend time on things that weren't important, because I did not have any clue how to cope with the stress that I was under. I was probably really responding to the stress.
At that time, my G/F was continuing a semester at school. It was difficult because she was succeeding, and I was floundering. I was becoming very withdrawn, and was so unhappy that I didn't want to celebrate my own birthday. Eventually, I'm sure, this took a strain on the relationship, and me and the girlfriend broke up. I had a mini breakdown, but ultimately, all things considered. . . the break up was pretty mutual and drama free. We had a lot of understanding, and I was already knee deep in a strange world of stress and depression that had me stuck a couple of months before we broke it off. Still losing that support didn't help. But I realized was really struggling, and for the first time in my life I look at the last several months of 2012, and really believe that I was doing the best I could, even though it was a mess.
2013. I was deposited with all of this in my wake. I have health insurance, I'm trying medication for the first time again in a couple of years, I'm exercising every day, and I feel just as stuck as ever. I cannot seem to get "past" all of the things that have happened. And all of the events at the end of the last year brought me face to face with my own extremely poor coping mechanisms, mainly avoidance, acting in, and withdrawing. I'm seeing how much of my childhood difficulties are still mixed up with everything, and am realizing how much of a mess I've been in the past, despite outward appearances. I go back and forth between trying to be gentle with myself, to feeling the urgent need to get my life together. I find socializing to be difficult at times, easy at others. Sometimes I'm unable to keep up with a conversation, and begin beating myself up for not being able to make association after association with my friends. I show up to work, and am so anxious I begin forgetting people's names, and struggle to think clearly. I make a to do list, only to feel the urge to lie down, or try an understand whatever gigantic emotional eruption is occurring at any given moment. I feel a little lost in a maze. I can make clear goals for myself, and with considerable effort I can follow through with most things, but I find that I am not able to do much right now.
It takes a lot of energy and effort to get through my pretty lackluster schedule. This makes me really frustrated and really worried, because I watch people around me seem to get on with the hustle and bustle of life, and I seem extremely stuck in the mud, and unable to earn my own keep. The desire to "give up" comes and goes. Even though I know when it's bad it's temporary, it never feels like it's good long enough. And last year, even getting everything "I wanted" still didn't make me a happy camper. Now it's taking all my energy to just flounder. My friends and family say that I'm being hard on myself, and that a lot of the things I'm doing have promise. . . But when I'm faced constantly by this insurmountable, almost unexplainable cloud of stress and pain, and pick a part how i've managed and failed to cope, I feel overwhelmed. When I see how "little" I have going on that makes me feel that way, I worry that I might not be able to take good care of myself. I go back and forth from mad motivational dashes to Dot my eyes, cross my T's and prepare for my responsibilities, to inevitably being burned out and tired when the stress catches up with me.
I'm no sure what to do, I go back and forth from taking baby steps at figuring out what the hell is going on with me, to feeling frustrated at how unable I am to get back on my feet and join the 'real world.' There's no balance, and I feel a growing shame as I try unsuccessfully to un-stuck myself while struggling even find consistent energy for my passions, work, and responsibilities.
I'm 29 and am not diagnosed with PTSD, but I know, and my therapist knows that the way I am triggered is definitely in line with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And the things I read about complex PTSD seem to match my personal experience. I didn't know what this was a few years ago, and as I've jumped down the rabbit hole, with lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of doubt searching the web for self help, and suggestions, and ways to help me "snap out of it," google searches inevitably send me back here, where I read post after post that resonates deeply with me.
Here's my story in a nutshell. My biological mom was institutionalized at a young age, probably a combination of her poor upbringing, and some biological factors. When I was born I was put up for adoption and lived with an adoptive family for a couple of years. I have two memories of this: getting a bath in the sink, and swimming in a diaper in the pool. When they realized that nobody was going to adopt me they started working to get custody of me. My grandfather decided to adopt me instead. I lived with him and other relatives, and struggled and squirmed my way through life until the present.
So I lived with a combination of my Grandpa, my Aunt Phyllis, and my Grandma for the next 8 years or so. I was put in to Kindergarten at age 4, slightly after the normal cut off date for school. . . I was a little too young! There was a lot of abuse, emotional and physical. A lot of it is a blurr, and certain things are only coroborated by other people. . . like trying to do homework while My grandpa yelled at a 5 year old version of me calling me stupid, and idiotic, until I was in tears and developed a knack for avoiding homework because of the triggered stress it brought me after that. Or getting beaten with a Yardstick until it broke. And geting taken from a bed I was sleeping in, getting manhandled by My grandpa and one of his daughters, and thrown in to another room where I cried myself to sleep. My Aunt Mary (changed name) raised me between 3rd and 4th grade while my grandpa worked on property in Northern California. Mary was good for a while, I actually had a parent that helped me with projects, and made sure I finished my homework. But she suffered from depression, and eventually started drinking when my grandpa returned, exhibiting control-freak like behavior. Eventually she split and abandoned her daughter Dawn, who was also living with me when I was younger. Aunt Mary finally succeeded in committing suicide after several attempts in 2010.
At age 11 I was taken in my by Aunt Lynn (Name changed). I remember going to sleep in her house the first night. We didn't even wait to get furniture, so I slept on a sleeping bag on a blanket with a smile on my face. . . Was I free? She helped me study for my Bar Mitzvah (still can't believe I did it), and I continued to live with her until I was 19. I believe she saved my life, since I was prone to pretty bad fits of anxiety and self-agression. I had no idea what I was going through, and neither did I, and I continued to have a difficult time. And Lynn was my grandpas favorite daughter. She was not abused when was younger, and rathar than challenge some of the things my grandpa did, she would often make me appease him to go with the flow. This lack of acknowledgement of my own boundaries still messes with me today.
School was always difficult, dealing with difficulties concentrating, a horrible inner critic, and unexplainable dark moods, I eventually made it through a Cal State University with a healthy GPA and a degree in communication over more years than I'd like to admit!! Then everyone else got on with their lives. A bad break up got me in to therapy, and on medication for a short while. . .I quit an office job that I had held for almost 7 years, thinking that I would take time to relax, and focus on music. I had plenty of savings, from when my mother passed away, and could afford the break. This was naive.
For about one year, I attempted to perform as I seemed to run in to gigantic invisible wall after gigantic invisible wall of anxiety, stress, and brown notes of emotions that made what was supposed to be a productive time of in to a scary, oft triggered, mess. I didn't really know how to relate the very strong, very compelling, horrific feelings that were coming up, so I often ignored it, pretended that it wasn't there and quietly took note as I began avoiding more and more things. I started to see that the reactions I was having seemed a lot like "body" flash backs. . . since I could be triggered, and feel extremely altered, Not necessarily a memory, but I felt as if I was small, and in a lot of danger, and that everything was threatening. This was followed by a desire to run and run and run and run, even if there was no real threat. This was not turning in to the life I expected. But I ignored it. . . I had been struggling wit this for years, and it had never "stopped" me.
I eventually found work again. Part time working what I thought was a dream job. And it was great, but I was still triggered, and found it difficult at times to function on "all cylinders" when I felt triggered and extremely anxious. I'd have to suffer through some days, with a fake smile on my face. I needed to work, and this was a great opportunity. I finally started to do more stuff, got another job, and began running a monthly event. I still struggled a lot with anxiety, feeling spaced out, and basically like any social interaction was a roll of the dice, unless I had alcohol in my system. I struggled with a budget, even though I had money in savings, I wanted to break even, and I kept getting stopped in my tracks by this enormous invisible stress. I struggled with several things that I kept to myself in favor of "faking it until I made it." I put on as good a facade as I could. Which was not good. Things were beginning to catch up with me.
Over the Summer I worked full time plus, had a girlfriend, and was more busy than I'd ever been. On paper things were awesome, Girlfriend, Work, extra gigs, but the stress was mounting, and I knew that there was something seriously wrong, even with all the outward appearances of success.
Then August hit, and my world unraveled. August was the 2 year anniversary of my Aunt Mary committing suicide (A date I find hard to remember, and place in time, even now). Due to a spetacular failure on her family's part she did not even have a funeral, just a defacto celebration of her life with several people thrown by her good friend, that I was too anxious, and fake-smiling to express any real emotion at. Work slowed down, a band I was in fell apart, an event I ran stopped suddenly because the bar that ran it went temporarily under, I had been wrestling with the idea of disowning my own family and I struggled to build a good alternative support group for myself, and my dog got hit by a car (and survived!). So from August to December, I fell in to a pretty deep depression, without really realizing it. The mounting stress of the summer, compounded with the bing bang boom of the last quarter of 2012 left me totally unable to cope. I didn't look for work, I often spent lots of time in bed, trying to keep myself distracted by working on a blog, or journaling in perfectionistic detail as I struggled with a self proclaimed "memory problem," I was finding it difficult to remember things, and keep my days and weeks firmly in order. My priorities turned upsidedown, I would spend time on things that weren't important, because I did not have any clue how to cope with the stress that I was under. I was probably really responding to the stress.
At that time, my G/F was continuing a semester at school. It was difficult because she was succeeding, and I was floundering. I was becoming very withdrawn, and was so unhappy that I didn't want to celebrate my own birthday. Eventually, I'm sure, this took a strain on the relationship, and me and the girlfriend broke up. I had a mini breakdown, but ultimately, all things considered. . . the break up was pretty mutual and drama free. We had a lot of understanding, and I was already knee deep in a strange world of stress and depression that had me stuck a couple of months before we broke it off. Still losing that support didn't help. But I realized was really struggling, and for the first time in my life I look at the last several months of 2012, and really believe that I was doing the best I could, even though it was a mess.
2013. I was deposited with all of this in my wake. I have health insurance, I'm trying medication for the first time again in a couple of years, I'm exercising every day, and I feel just as stuck as ever. I cannot seem to get "past" all of the things that have happened. And all of the events at the end of the last year brought me face to face with my own extremely poor coping mechanisms, mainly avoidance, acting in, and withdrawing. I'm seeing how much of my childhood difficulties are still mixed up with everything, and am realizing how much of a mess I've been in the past, despite outward appearances. I go back and forth between trying to be gentle with myself, to feeling the urgent need to get my life together. I find socializing to be difficult at times, easy at others. Sometimes I'm unable to keep up with a conversation, and begin beating myself up for not being able to make association after association with my friends. I show up to work, and am so anxious I begin forgetting people's names, and struggle to think clearly. I make a to do list, only to feel the urge to lie down, or try an understand whatever gigantic emotional eruption is occurring at any given moment. I feel a little lost in a maze. I can make clear goals for myself, and with considerable effort I can follow through with most things, but I find that I am not able to do much right now.
It takes a lot of energy and effort to get through my pretty lackluster schedule. This makes me really frustrated and really worried, because I watch people around me seem to get on with the hustle and bustle of life, and I seem extremely stuck in the mud, and unable to earn my own keep. The desire to "give up" comes and goes. Even though I know when it's bad it's temporary, it never feels like it's good long enough. And last year, even getting everything "I wanted" still didn't make me a happy camper. Now it's taking all my energy to just flounder. My friends and family say that I'm being hard on myself, and that a lot of the things I'm doing have promise. . . But when I'm faced constantly by this insurmountable, almost unexplainable cloud of stress and pain, and pick a part how i've managed and failed to cope, I feel overwhelmed. When I see how "little" I have going on that makes me feel that way, I worry that I might not be able to take good care of myself. I go back and forth from mad motivational dashes to Dot my eyes, cross my T's and prepare for my responsibilities, to inevitably being burned out and tired when the stress catches up with me.
I'm no sure what to do, I go back and forth from taking baby steps at figuring out what the hell is going on with me, to feeling frustrated at how unable I am to get back on my feet and join the 'real world.' There's no balance, and I feel a growing shame as I try unsuccessfully to un-stuck myself while struggling even find consistent energy for my passions, work, and responsibilities.
