I Don't Want To Have Cptsd - Wait, Complex Trauma

[KatB]

No... facing your trauma is often found to be far more difficult than living it in the first place.

Trauma period, is 99.99999999999% of the time, not the actual issue. Its the emotional aspects surrounding the event itself that does the damage and is the difficulty, not the physical act itself.

I agree with Anthony 100% on these points. Life is harder when you dont face your traumas so facing it, makes it feel like it's impossible.

I believe that trauma in it of itself is hard enough than having to face it. It's harder but more personal and intimate. The emotional and psychological damage it does is the difficulty to face. It's like living in a place where you experienced all or almost all, of the traumas itself. I don't recommend it to anyone but someone once told that the only way out is in. I think it's true but to have the guts and strength to stay through it is the tough part.

 

[LSNP]

Wow. A year later.... over a year.... and I am still in the same boat, except worse. The two major issues I have dealt with for nearly eight years ended in July. Well, one of them. The second ends with yet another court case in December that has been continued three times.

The thing is? Instead of the relief I thought I would feel... instead of the New Beginning.... I have found that I am still High Adrenaline and Waiting. I am still waiting for it to end, for the relief. I have realized over the last few months that there is no end. I am now standing in the rubble. I am the aftermath of a train wreck. A holocaust. I have honestly never felt anything like I am feeling now. It has been four months since the first "end." One would think I would now be "happy." My loved ones expect this and are bewildered. "It's over," they think, they say. "Move on."

Except it never will be. I am as damaged as any one person could be, ever. It is a constant struggle. I HATE waking up. I HATE not knowing, not making plans, not knowing what "mood" I am going to be in, when next I will break down and cry.

The anger and hatred is so strong. I am in no way who I once was. The devastation is everywhere.

I used to be sweet and hopeful and ... I am just not, anymore. I am Hopeless. I believe Hopeless is kin to Hell. The lack of Good. The lack of Love. I have become a recluse.

And now I feel like a whiner. :-(

 

[LSNP]

I cannot face the trauma.

"GET THERAPY!" they say.

Sure. OK. First, I can no longer afford it, thanks to frigging OBAMA.

Second, it will take a lifetime to fix and I do not have enough time.

Third, it HURTS to face it. IT FRIGGING HURTS. Who wants to bawl their eyes out once a week?

Fourth? Once a week? Are you FRIGGING KIDDING ME???? I need a thirty day intense alldayeverydayohmygodcananybodyhelp kind of treatment. And I can't do that. I have kids. Smile and work and cook and love and do it all in spite of the fact that I am dead inside. If not dead, then dying.

Crazy that the two things that innocently caused it are the two things that prevent me from ending it.

 

[Abstract]

Trauma period, is 99.99999999999% of the time, not the actual issue. Its the emotional aspects surrounding the event itself that does the damage and is the difficulty, not the physical act itself.

Anthony,
Not sure if you will see this but thank you, thank you!

What you describe is what I have started to "feel" as I have started understanding my reactions more or seeing what makes things more tolerable. Understanding is very important to me as a person so this helps.

I am far from being new to therapy but am new to understanding trauma and how it has affected me. I was trapped in a dissociated state, avoidance and denial for so long that I could not tell anyone what I was experiencing and was desperately hiding things to appear normal - even from my therapist's.

 

[Abstract]

Hang in there LSNP. I am sorry it is so impossibly hard and am hearing your pain.

 

[therapybankrupt]

Me to LSNP. It is as though I can feel it! I am sending you hugs and well wishes as you journey down this path to your recovery!

 

[Shellbell]

LSNP, you are not whining, there is real, devastating pain, I can feel it in the way you write.

This is a safe place to vent and share that.

I also feel as damaged as a person can be and it is frightening and often does feel hopeless. I swing between wanting to have hope and feeling numb knowing I am so damaged that it feels beyond repair.

And I know that court hearings, legal action, it doesn't matter their outcome, they damage us further, they don't take the pain away.

The support I gain here does help to give me some hope, hearing people's fight to heal, knowing they have also had horrendous amounts of abuse and pain, yet have been able to heal, maybe not fully, but enough to have some quality of life.

I hope you can gain some hope from this forum.

 

[LSNP]

"And I know that court hearings, legal action, it doesn't matter their outcome, they damage us further, they don't take the pain away."

This is so true. It just further reduces and stresses and hurts.

I stopped coming to this forum because it HURT. I stopped going to a therapist because it HURT. What I am learning.... and why I have become, suddenly, so absolutely hopeless.... is that there is no way out but through and I feel too old for THROUGH. I can't bare it. I have endured enough. I do not want to revisit it. I like to pretend nothing ever happened but it is getting harder and harder to do that. I feel dead inside, all the time. Before it was terror and anguish and sadness and hopelessness and depression, mixed in with that "hopefulness" of "when THIS is over." And it is now. And I cannot explain how much worse it is now, now that it is "over" and I am left standing.

I remember when I first came here reading Anthony chastising about using complete sentences and capitalization and all that crap that I thought was just weird... yet I find myself now struggling, sometimes, to even read a frigging sentence. So I get it now. But to me, that means I am so much worse than I was. I had hope before. I fully, fully understand, now, the vastness - the completeness - of the damage. I can't fix this. There is no fixing this. I am too old, now, to fix this.

 

[LSNP]

And has your abuser - the one who made you this way - has he or she ever complained to you that you are "not the same" and "bitter" and "angry" and "cynical?"

Wow.

Just wow.

 

[LSNP]

I am absolutely trapped. I think that if I could leave my job, my home, my city, my car, my current life... I think I could begin to heal. The trauma lasted too long. Seven years. I think asking me to recover in my current state would be like asking a Vet to recover but to stay in Nam and continue in the same job, except behind a desk, maybe?

I cannot escape memories. They are literally everywhere. EVERYWHERE.

I began cleaning out my office last week. I do not know why. I decided to remove every personal thing from it. I found CDs the stalker used to make for me before I realized he was crazy. Right next to the MACE a friend bought for me when I realized he was. I then found the warranty for the blinds I asked to have installed because of the stalker. And so, so, so much more.

Everything is defined as "BEFORE" and "AFTER." I found old calenders. Some were "before." I marveled at how innocent I was then. I marvel at it now.

My entire house and office and car and mind is so MESSY. I have spent years collecting "evidence" because it was the only power I felt I had. It was something to hold onto.

Now I have to clean it all up.

There is too much to clean up. I do not have the strength.

 

[LSNP]

And here I sit, absolutely fighting a meltdown, because my daughter is in the next room.

I do not have TIME to heal. Does anyone understand that? I do not have TIME. There is TOO MUCH PAIN. I am a working mother with two children I adore and a home that needs tending and clothes that need washed and pets... and I do not have the time to wallow or melt down.... and because I do not have the time, it festers and consumes and I just feel so empty now, but also completely filled with Grey.

 

[Shellbell]

Do you mean me LSNP?

If you mean me, I had multiple abusers, starting with my parents who caused considerable damage from a very young age.

The abuser (who was a psychopath) who went to prison, caused further damage, that I do believe to be irreversible. He wanted me to terrified, weak, compliant. I was young and very vulnerable and left that court hearing at 21 yrs old, very damaged.

My parents have always put me down about everything and never validated my feelings of anger etc. They set me up to be abused, so must have enjoyed seeing me at the point of self hate and depression so bad I tried to end my life as a teenager.