Hi-Very Nervous About Being Here

[tiredlex]

Hi- you guys can call me Alex. I am frightened about putting too much info down in case my family searches the net and finds this (even though I am an adult and they can't really do anything to me anymore). I've had Complex PTSD probably my whole life due to severe child abuse. I am tired of being defined by my PTSD and have it run my life. My counsellor is okay, but I don't really trust her (because of PTSD? Who knows). I am trying to decide right now if I should write my family out of my life- all of them. My sister continually denies or minimizes abuse I suffered (she was abused too, but I took the brunt of it and am considered the bad one)- my blood family seems to just keep me around (on email, I live nowhere near them anymore) to bitch at me or blame whatever is going wrong in their lives on me. I feel so tired and I want to be free of them and I feel the only way I can really do that is to cut all ties, but at the same time, I "love" them and so the idea of cutting them out of my life is very painful, too. Not an easy decision. So far I have tried to have limited contact and set clear boundaries, but they walk all over them anyway. Strangely, I am more angry at my sister than my parents, because she continually denies or minimizes everything and seems to glorify my mother (who emotionally and physically tortured me according to my counsellor- at first I thought the word "torture" was melodramatic, but if I am honest, it did amount to torture- its just hard to think of torture happening in a family in North America- I think of Pol Pot or the Holocaust or something.)

I am not sure what I want out of life or what the point of this post is. I am not sure if I am posting too much, not enough or what. :crazy: I just feel exhausted with life and the strain of the past (don't worry, I am not suicidal, so please, no one worry about that!). I also suffer from horrible panic attacks, nightmares and somatic symptoms (fevers, nausea, headaches, stomachaches... constantly) so anyone with any advice for me would be a god send. I feel like life is wearing me out, like I have been treading water my entire life and I am so tired and want a break, but you can't escape PTSD, I know that well enough.

Sorry if this seems melodramatic, strange, or anything weird. I am not sure how much to say or what to say.

Thank you in advance for any posts.

Alex

 

[fin]

Alex welcome,

Nothing sounds melodramatic here, you have PTSD please don't be so hard on youself.

Please read as much as you can, there is a wealth of experience here in journals and threads and posts. We are all at different points in moving forward with this, and I want you to know you are not alone. I understand some of the feelings you have described about your family in this post. And I am C-PTSD also.

welcome

~fin

 

[cragger65]

Hi Alex, welcome to the forum. It sounds like you have suffered a long time, and understandably so. I am sorry to hear of your family's continued denial, sadly that is typical for many families to continue on disfunctional ways. It sounds like you want something better for yourself, and kudos for searching for it. I hope you find everything you need here to start, great bunch of people here, really.

best of luck,
Dave

 

[Ursa]

Hi Alex,

I feel more or less like you. I don't even touch in the point with my family because nobody ever talked about it. The times I did I was punished.

I really would like to know what to do with the pain. I feel pain everyday from my muscles being tight and I cannot even take an aspirin or tylenol or anything of the kind because I am alergic to ALL of them.

I know that what I am saying does not help very much... I am not even sure why I am posting this.

 

[jeapea]

Alex~
Welcome. Glad to see you here and posting. Writing it out 'gets it out' and that's a lot better than trying to hold it all in. Great start! Keep up the good work.

Ursa~
Welcome to you, too. And I can relate to not being able to take any meds because of allergies to them all. But then, on the other hand... after my GP said this I had to agree with him. "Do you want to take meds? And if you do, will it change the way he IS?"

We post because when we do, we find out we're not alone. That's a good thing.

 

[2quilt]

Welcome! We were all afraid of writing here at first, but I am , for one, no longer afraid that my family will read what I write here because it is all true what I say and they know it, they can't hurt me by knowing what I write or think. So what if they read what I write or figure out that this is me writing about them? What's the worst that can happen?

 

[Ahhtiff]

Hi Alex,

Please do not be afraid to post what you're feeling or going through. That is what this website is here for (thank goodness!). I think it's extremely beneficial that you are in counselling. Have you tried switching counselors? Sometimes it takes seeing multiple people before you find one that you mesh with. For now, I can only recommed a book that was recommended to me. I've read it already and it really is a wonderful, insightful book. The books is called "Toxic Parents" and was written by a professional. I would suggest reading it once for your head and once for your heart.

 

[Ursa]

Hi JPS.


At this point I don't really know. I think I am too afraid of them too. My reactions are so strong that I actually carry an epipen for this.
:poke:

 

[the racha]

Hi, Alex. Nothing you've described seems "weird" to me.

Regarding your therapy, it would be beneficial to have a therapist that you can wholly trust-- I know that this can be scary for someone with PTSD, and I have certainly had issues with my therapist, but ultimately I do trust her (even if I am (rarely) disappointed or angry at her).

I also have C-PTSD and in my case, and this has been very difficult, I have learned to recognize when "family" or "friends" take more out of me than than I have to give.

 

[fin]

Hey Alex, I have re read your thread again, not all the responses but I wanted to share with you that a part of my problem (a aprt not the whole) but a part of it for me, is shame. I have been ridiculed so much through different points of my life, and by people that I believed were my friends as well as family, that I have found trust to be so very fragile, almost brittle.

It is so difficult to know how and wehn to approach people. It is also so diificult to know how to give of your self when everything you or rather I hva been told all your life or again my life, is that I am worthless. My feelings have counted for nothing for so long. And decisions I have made have been put down as though I am incapable of seeing anything straight or knowing some things. I have pTSD but I am still now able to make some decisions myself, a little known attribute that I did think I had lost completely.

I am not sure how you are doing at the moment but I hope perhaps thatthis might help you better to know if you identify with any of this, but to help you know you are not alone. It is veru difficult knowing how to behave and think sometimes, but we are not devoid of ideas, it is just difficult to know how to present them.

I want to say here take a step, "small steps" I call them..but in actual fact they are huge great big leaps of faith really, well try to take a step and open yourself more if you can here. I am sure that people will warm to you here and encourage you more than maybe you have known before. It is difficlt I understand that, but be patient with yourself and others here, I believe it can and will get better. There are people I believe that can and will show you the way. Sometimes though I do understand it is hard to know how to ask.

But I hope that this can help you in some way more and better than I have perhaps already said here.

Take care of yourself please, and try to remember you are not alone here.

~fin

 

[jrgm13]

Hi-very nervous about being here

greetings alex and to the responders to his introduction. i'm new here but i can relate to this thread. some of you people are real smart about this PTSD thing. i'm wondering if this constant paranoia and worrying that i have could be all part of it? good luck alex. see ya.

 

[nickeldoor]

Alex - welcome here. Putting your fear and feelings here will make you feel better, as what it did similarly to me.

We are rather similar due to the excessive abuse when I was 7. I am 32 now, and in this entire life, I almost trusted no one. And the worse thing is that I almost and always avoid people as I am so afraid that they would hit me in the face anytime when we are talking face-to-face. It's like a flashback to my young days where my dad would hit me at interval times without any reason - so silly!

My situation also sounded like Fin, who is always ridiculed at and shamed at. I had a hard time trusting anyone and I always find myself so disoriented. With a failed business on hand right now, sometimes I would wonder the street in my car for hours at the wee hours of the morning. Same feeling as you Alex, I always have this feelings of what I want out of life. I really have had a hard time figuring out my life, some times I felt so worthless (due to the excessive scolding and ridicules from my blood family and relatives).

Even right now, I occasionally have flashbacks of my beatings from my parents. The worse thing is that those friends whom I loved and trusted took advantage of me, and some of them would scold and yell at me, treating me like a low-grade human being - what 'friends' they are!

I am currently avoiding my family as I think they have really scared me for life - that I am so dysfunctional and disoriented. My mom kept asking me to go back home, but I am really scared to see that home again (where I was constantly 'tortured' like an animal - locking me in the toilet, no food to eat, and constant daily beatings with construction boots, leather belts and layers of rattan canes)? Sometimes I wonder - are my parents barbarians?

Well, these questions that are always on my mind:
- What have I done to deserve all these?
- Does my parents love me?

Alex - hopefully you know that you are not alone and this forum is here to help people like you and me - ordinary people that is trying to straighten their lives and get some answers out of it.

Don't give up and I know it's really tough because we are in the same shoes. Do take care of yourself especially your health as it's the only best asset we have got to make our lives purposeful and shine out of the ordinary, and against those people who put us down like an animal.

Just a quick warning - a little stress is good, but too much harms our body. If we ever fall into depression which eventually might lead to hopelessness and helplessness, our immune system will drop dramatically and this is very dangerous. Even though we might get ourselves out of depression, the time we are in it is very very harmful to the body, as diseases and sickness might start to set in, without our knowledge. That's when the start of heart diseases and cancers start to form. It's medical knowledge and I learn a lot about these stuff. Hope these will help you too. ;)

Have good faith in yourself and the forum here, and know that no one is as special and lovely as you are.

Wish you a good recovery.
~nickeldoor~