I'd Like To Be Her Supporter

[barefoot]

PTSD isn't healed by time. If anything, symptoms only get worse over time if left untreated

Oh, so true!

 

[Anarchy]

@ehsan ,

Wanting to help is good, but, the effective ways of helping are not obvious.

The first care is to yourself. It can be very easy to end up "walking on eggshells" and unintentionally learning all sorts of behaviours which will make you an unpleasant, manipulative, controlling and totally miserable and passive aggressive person. I'm writing about co-dependency, you'll see a lot of it on display in the supporters forum here - it is not a good set of behaviours to develop. so don't develop them.

Recovery from any of the long list of crap including PTSD and depression, involves regaining a sense of self agency.

You can offer gentle validation and support as your friend re finds her self agency and re builds her confidence in her own abilities - but you can't do any of that for her, if you try to, you will only take her self agency even further away from her.

Trying to "save" her will probably just re traumatise her and probably damage you as well. and I'll include cajolling her to see a doctor when she doesn't want to, in that.

You can learn to help her ground herself when she is flashing back, you can show her sites like Pete Walker's which contain resources on dealing with flashbacks.

You can tell her that you visited this site

you can also find some of the self help resources, for her to teach herself some skills, for example some of the CBT and DBT workbooks (e.g. "mind over mood")

some of the mindfulness stuff e.g. "the mindful way through depression" - the audiobook of that is often up on youtube (I looked earlier today and it is currently down due to copyright complaints, it will be up again soon though, and it's well worth buying, it is about 5 hours, but you should take it in short, 15 to 20 minute sessions.

It might help to search this site for "bubble-izing"

 

[Freedomfighter]

When a person has to go through the first couple of years of PTSD they usually are not an active person. Regardless of how the PTSD started, I very strongly remember not being able to do much either. Just sleep and relax and it would take a huge strength to just get up for a couple of hours and do something productive. So that is actually normal for someone with PTSD, but not only that: when someone tells you that a prior relationship was like rape then the likely hood of a criminal act is present. Hence, your friend needs much more than understanding but professionals that clear up everything that happened.

When a victim mentions rape, all kinds of alarm bells should go off.

 

[ehsan]

@Kroatien

thanks I have two questions which I didn't get it from your comment.
"the likely hood of a criminal act is present" what do you mean? you mean she is potential to act something on me? this is a threat to me?
and "all kinds of alarm bells should go off." what kind of alarms? suicide?
Do you think I better to leave her alone and just find another girl friend?

 

[Neverthesame]

@ehsan I think what @Kroatien was inferring as to criminal behaviour, is not your friend being dangerous.

@Kroatien Correct me if I'm wrong.
If your friend has been raped, besides being an awful terrible thing to endure. It is also a criminal offence one which is punishable with prison for the perpetrator. But for that to happen, she must come forward, press charges, submit a statement, undergo questioning from police, doctors, prosecuting attorneys and psychologists. Then during the trial she will likely have to tell her story in front of a room full of strangers, family and the person who did it to her. Then be cross examined by the defence teams lawyer, doctor and psychologist. All if which are going to be doing their best to make her look like a lier. Even with all that there is always a chance the rapist may walk free. Or receive a ludicrously short sentence, for such a heinous crime, It can be overwhelming to put it mildly.

So no one is telling you what to do or not do. Simply that you are easily stepping into an enormous uphill battle. One that may never end, or end badly. So you need to think carefully about what sort of role you want to have in her life. As well as what sort of role you are hoping she can fill in yours, and whether or not she is going to be able or willing to.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I think It makes me a little sick to hear a fellow sufferer say "when a victim mentions rape, all kinds of alarm bells should go off."

this makes me want to never disclose anything to anyone again and see if I can get by with just faking it all for the rest of my life.

 

[ehsan]

Recently, she doesn't pay attention to me anymore. I mean she used to text me several times a day but now, even no single "hello!" message appears. I told her I'm falling in love with her, but she has no any sensation. She says she loves herself.

 

[Powder]

I wonder if someone who is cutting herself off from the world might be interesting and a bit of a hard-to-get challenge slash damsel in distress. I can see how that might be attractive to someone who wants to see himself as a hero and a savior.

That's what the ego says, but the heart knows that it's really just smoke and mirrors, and after all, love is love, and it's a tough row to hoe, no matter what, but especially with a significant disorder to boot.

 

[ehsan]

I also realized that she has the following behaviors, I'mm wondering if it is related to PTSD:
- she sometimes has a mixture of feeling in a couple of hours: sad, happy, angry, ...
- she admits that she needs me to talk with and hold her hand and stuff like that But whenever I propose to meet up, she says "I don't know".
- it happened quite often when we had arranged for a meeting but just few hours before, she said she doesn't want to meet and she stays at home.

 

[ehsan]

just to update my "story", I cut the contact with her because I loved her but she didn't want to be in a relationship with me. I asked her to break. she was a bit upset but i think what i did was the best solution for both of us. what do you think?