Relationship How Common Is It For Supporters To Be Temporarily Vilified?

[StormySea]

I know PTSD sufferers often isolate from their supporters when they are triggered but I'm wondering how typical it is for them to also temporarily vilify their supporters in the process?

 

[Fadeaway]

I don't think vilifying is a ptsd thing. I am not saying it doesn't happen, but it it isn't ptsd specific, nor does it happen in all relationships. I think I do that to my husband sometimes if he is standing right in front of me, but after an hour or so apart, I forget all about it.

The cycle goes like this I feel stressed > he was insensitive to my stress > therefore he adds to my stress > I feel he is to blame for my stress (not trying to defend or say it is logical, it just is) > I shift my focus from other stressors to what he is doing that is stressing me.

If he could just learn not to engage me when I am like that, because in the moment it feels real to me, even if it isn't, then we could both be spared. The way I see it, he is that he is the one capable of thinking more logically in the moment so he needs to set the boundary. Alas, he never does.

I hope I am answering what you mean by vilify.

 

[Sweetpea76]

Oh god yes... when he is stressed and lashing out I'm every manner of dumbass in existence, have multiple mental illnesses only he can see, am secrecy plotting his demise and/or financial undoing, and I'm pretty sure I killed all the dinosaurs and made Jimmy Hoffa disappear. :angelic:

 

[dulcia]

^ Same. I'm a child that lives in a bubble, with a degree from a joke of a school from a shitty town that's only after his money. My cooking sucks and I don't even sweep the floors. And I'm crazy.

 

[TheMinsterman]

I'm ONLY vilified currently unfortunately, I've mentioned it to my SO yesterday so we'll see if that changes anything but for the past few months I have been the target of plenty of vilification, I don't open up, I don't show her I love her, I don't find her attractive, I worry too much and make her miserable.

I just put it down to the fact that when I am annoyed I might be a little grouchy, so I try to imagine what it's like to be under permanent non stop stress and don't take it too personally, it took some time to learn that though believe me.

 

[Sweetpea76]

@tiredtexan you have a joke degree too? I went to a liberal hippy farm college myself...

 

[TheMinsterman]

I have a Masters and am doing a PhD, I think that's the only reason I haven't got that one lol

Yet.

 

[Twinkles28]

I appear to receive the opposite my sufferer (currently awol and shut down) has never raised his voice to me, never said a bad word or blamed me for anything, not put me down and never been angry in a way that's been directed at me it's always directed onto himself. The common themes of him saying I deserve better/I can do better/he messes me about (he doesn't, he is like any other PTSD sufferer and can isolate from time to time) and he can't give me the emotions I deserve. He often says I'm too good for him and he is a burden :-( .

It's strange how it's projected from sufferer to sufferer but always comes back to the same thing; how they're feeling about themselves and at what stage of their symptoms/recovery they're at!.

 

[Amack]

Sad to admit......but I am glad I am NOT the only one who becomes the target of all that is evil and wrong in his life when he is at this stage. And also glad to know my intelligence, why I married him, and why I stay, and all my evil plans to take his money and run are not alone in their vilification.

So, my answer is yes. I think some call it relationship hypervigilance, a focusing in on one particular person their actions thoughts and habits and reasoning. Roughly defined...... It is more so common I believe with Complex PTSD

 

[dulcia]

@TheMinsterman, I've got a Master's too.

@Sweetpea76, I was initially going to add "hick" to describe my school, but "farm college" is waaaaaay more accurate. Who knew we both got joke degrees from the same school!

 

[TheMinsterman]

@tiredtexan Oh no, I thought I may have been safe! I assume I'll be to blame for world hunger soon enough.

 

[Friday]

One of my boyfriends I swear to f*cking gawd had PMS. Like clockwork, once a month I was evil incarnate, all things terrible/wrong-with-the-world/or that he was even remotely afraid of...aaaaaand apparently I very desperately needed to be informed of those facts. At volume. :shifty: It didn't really bother me, because he was hyper aware that he did this. He caught himself doing it more often than I needed to smack him with it. "Oh. You're evil again, huh?" // "Yep, babe. I've had a very exciting week crushing the world under my bootheel, and turning in library books late. We still don't have a cat for me to pet and laugh sinisterly, though. We need a cat." // We are NOT getting a cat. // :sneaky: You could pet my cat? // :shifty: Maybe.

Had another friend, not boyfriend/not f*ckbuddy, just damn good friend who did the same thing... But at random, and he wasn't really aware of it until after. ((What the HELL is up with people deciding I'm evil??? :mad: Like, for real. Monster? Yes. Evil? No. :banghead: Grrrrr.)) So I couldn't tease him about it, it would just spin him up more. And I couldn't really jolly him out of it with sex, since that wasn't our relationship. I just had to wait until he came out of it. He always did, but one time it landed badly. Like reeeeally badly. Pretty much spelled the beginning of the end of our friendship. Which is more on me, than on him.

My kid? Not PTSD, at least not yet, but whenever he gets mad or stressed out I'm completely untrustworthy, manipulative, and a liar. ((ETA. I'm safe to be mad at. I get it. So I get burned as an effigy. Proxy for all he hates. I'm not me. I'm who he needs me to be. I actually came back to this post to delete it. But I needed to remember this bit, I think. So thank you all for the space for that. And sorry for my ramblings.))

As for myself? <wide blinking eyes> :photogenic: :angelic: :smug: Perfect. Angel. :smug: :angelic: :photogenic: I would neeeeeeever... Cough. Yeah. I totally do that. I just don't do the verbal lashing out thing. Or, at least, not often. But then I also consider 'f*ck off' to be a term of endearment? So I may be biased.