wtfhappened
New Here
I'm new to this site. I've never been diagnosed with PTSD and, besides my anxiety, I've always felt like there's something else psychologically wrong with me but I've had different theories about which other disorder I might have. I have a therapist but I don't feel comfortable talking with her about many things. I don't think I could ever be fully comfortable talking about my deeper issues in-person with anyone. I joined this site and started this thread to see if anyone else has insight into what's wrong with me and how I can move forward.
I'm 23. I do not have any memories of being physically or sexually abused as a child. However, when authority figures besides my mom raise their voice at me, even if it's a mild scolding, I struggle to control my bladder. I do manage to control it for the most part, but when I was a kid and maybe in my early teens (I have a hard time remembering exactly when things occurred) I lost control of my bladder a few times when my dad yelled at me. I live in constant fear that this will happen again and now that I'm older, there would be no way to get over the embarrassment. I've never been suicidal even though I've been depressed but I think I would at least contemplate killing myself if that ever happened.
I hate being around my dad. When my parents lived together and I lived with them (all of my life until college, when I left and they began divorce proceedings) I would almost never leave my room when I was at home, which was pretty much all the time when not at school or whatever extracurricular my mom forced me to participate in. I hated both of my parents in high school and would sometimes wish I would get a call about them being killed in a car accident. Sometimes I felt guilty for thinking that. When I try to remember all the reasons I was so angry at them, the following stick out: They thought they knew what was best for me but I knew that was impossible because they didn't really know me because I was very secretive (because I didn't trust them at all-why would anyone trust the people they most rely on with their darkest secrets? If they judge you, they have the most power to use what they've learned against you), My dad would be mostly permissive and then explode with anger at random things that I didn't know were wrong the first time I did them (like resting papers on a keyboard which apparently can damage the keyboard), My mom took pride in her parenting ability because she was a strict parent and she'd say things like "I'm your parent, not your friend" and I hated her because I felt like she didn't know me or what I needed and she'd tell me to do things and all that mattered to her was that I was obedient and that she appeared like a good mother to other people-she didn't judge her parenting based on how healthy or happy her children were (I could go on with this one but it would take too long), I was very depressed and actually somewhat homicidal in highschool (fantasized about school shootings, being a serial killer, and killing my parents), and while I kept the latter very secretive, the former should have been obvious and they did absolutely nothing to help, My father was horrible to my mom and would belittle her constantly, My mom would get mad at me because my dad favored me over her and my brother, at least in her eyes, My mom thought she was treated much worse by my dad than my brother or I were, which, even if that's true, ignores the fact that, unlike my brother and I, she had the ability to separate from my dad and try to gain custody of us, whereas my brother and I were trapped, My mom waited until I left for college to divorce my dad
Now that my parents are divorced, I live with my mom and choose not to stay at my dad's at all. My brother switches houses on a weekly basis. My relationship with my mom is still strained but better. We have very different values and I think she bases her idea of truth on her emotions instead of trying to empathize with others feelings or use logic (for example, even if she knows she did something wrong if someone calls her out on it she gets upset with them because them calling her out on it made her feel bad, even though it was justified), but if we avoid certain subjects and I'm careful to only tell her certain parts of my life goals we can get along. My relationship with my dad is better, in that it's healthier for me, but we also have less of a relationship. I get dinner with him and see him at family gatherings sometimes but we are very emotionally closed off from each other and struggle to have any type of real conversation about anything. Our conversations are mostly small talk with a lot of awkward pauses.
I hate being touched or having any type of closeness (physical or emotional) with men who are much older than me. When my uncles hug me at family gatherings I act like I'm fine with it but in my head in those moments I'm absolutely repulsed and even somewhat angry. I cannot imagine what a healthy relationship with my dad would look like besides no relationship because the idea of talking about anything meaningful with him makes me feel grossed out, like I would feel violated just from being emotionally open with him. I don't remember ever being molested as a child by anyone but my feelings about older men and intimacy make me wonder if I was and just don't remember.
I'm terrified for children. Whenever I hear a child crying, whether it's at the mall or the beach or whatever, I immediately have a very hard time not focusing on it and I worry that they're being abused. In some ways, I think this fear is a good thing because it's made it so I've decided to devote my life to becoming a lobbyist on behalf of children's human rights. On the other hand, I'm in constant anguish. I think corporal punishment of children, such as spanking, is basically normalized assault and when it involves taking their clothes off it's basically a physical violation on par with rape, and so many people defend it so passionately and even more people just see it as normal and not a problem. I also think that forcing children to practice certain religions even when they say they don't believe in that religion is abusive. That, and more extreme and legally recognized forms of abuse are so hard to detect that I feel like I'm surrounded by this horrifying world of violence against children and oppression of children that I can't really fix because I can't really see into their homes and there's no way to monitor and other people just don't see it or don't care or even endorse it. I feel like children are treated like property more than people and it horrifies me. If you don't feel the same way but you want to understand what this feels like to me, just imagine the sense of anger and sadness and hopelessness you probably felt when you first learned about the holocaust, but try to imagine what that would feel like if the holocaust was still happening and no one cared. I know child abuse is different from the holocaust but my point is that to me it feels like grave injustice that is being widely permitted. I don't think the fact that I believe the way children are treated is unjust is a sign of PTSD but the degree to which I feel it makes me wonder why I feel so differently about it than everyone else, and maybe the degree of feeling and paranoia is a sign of some kind of traumatic event I don't remember.
I feel like I can't talk to anyone about this. I'll hint at different parts and talk about being opposed to corporal punishment and passionate about fighting child abuse, for example, without mentioning how I feel when I hear a kid crying at the mall. I feel like I can't just say the whole truth to anyone, even my therapist. The world horrifies me, and I don't think it's wrong for me to feel that way and want to change it but I am concerned that I'm not strong enough to change it and part of that may be because I haven't addressed trauma that I've experienced because I don't even know I've experienced it.
I feel like that probably wasn't very coherent. I normally am good at communicating, but I'm so worked up writing this that I can't think straight.
Please don't turn this into a debate about corporal punishment of children. I just want to know: Do you think I could have these symptoms just from having a father that randomly explodes with anger, even though he never did so with physical violence? If not, do you think I have repressed memories? If so, how do I get those memories back?
I'm 23. I do not have any memories of being physically or sexually abused as a child. However, when authority figures besides my mom raise their voice at me, even if it's a mild scolding, I struggle to control my bladder. I do manage to control it for the most part, but when I was a kid and maybe in my early teens (I have a hard time remembering exactly when things occurred) I lost control of my bladder a few times when my dad yelled at me. I live in constant fear that this will happen again and now that I'm older, there would be no way to get over the embarrassment. I've never been suicidal even though I've been depressed but I think I would at least contemplate killing myself if that ever happened.
I hate being around my dad. When my parents lived together and I lived with them (all of my life until college, when I left and they began divorce proceedings) I would almost never leave my room when I was at home, which was pretty much all the time when not at school or whatever extracurricular my mom forced me to participate in. I hated both of my parents in high school and would sometimes wish I would get a call about them being killed in a car accident. Sometimes I felt guilty for thinking that. When I try to remember all the reasons I was so angry at them, the following stick out: They thought they knew what was best for me but I knew that was impossible because they didn't really know me because I was very secretive (because I didn't trust them at all-why would anyone trust the people they most rely on with their darkest secrets? If they judge you, they have the most power to use what they've learned against you), My dad would be mostly permissive and then explode with anger at random things that I didn't know were wrong the first time I did them (like resting papers on a keyboard which apparently can damage the keyboard), My mom took pride in her parenting ability because she was a strict parent and she'd say things like "I'm your parent, not your friend" and I hated her because I felt like she didn't know me or what I needed and she'd tell me to do things and all that mattered to her was that I was obedient and that she appeared like a good mother to other people-she didn't judge her parenting based on how healthy or happy her children were (I could go on with this one but it would take too long), I was very depressed and actually somewhat homicidal in highschool (fantasized about school shootings, being a serial killer, and killing my parents), and while I kept the latter very secretive, the former should have been obvious and they did absolutely nothing to help, My father was horrible to my mom and would belittle her constantly, My mom would get mad at me because my dad favored me over her and my brother, at least in her eyes, My mom thought she was treated much worse by my dad than my brother or I were, which, even if that's true, ignores the fact that, unlike my brother and I, she had the ability to separate from my dad and try to gain custody of us, whereas my brother and I were trapped, My mom waited until I left for college to divorce my dad
Now that my parents are divorced, I live with my mom and choose not to stay at my dad's at all. My brother switches houses on a weekly basis. My relationship with my mom is still strained but better. We have very different values and I think she bases her idea of truth on her emotions instead of trying to empathize with others feelings or use logic (for example, even if she knows she did something wrong if someone calls her out on it she gets upset with them because them calling her out on it made her feel bad, even though it was justified), but if we avoid certain subjects and I'm careful to only tell her certain parts of my life goals we can get along. My relationship with my dad is better, in that it's healthier for me, but we also have less of a relationship. I get dinner with him and see him at family gatherings sometimes but we are very emotionally closed off from each other and struggle to have any type of real conversation about anything. Our conversations are mostly small talk with a lot of awkward pauses.
I hate being touched or having any type of closeness (physical or emotional) with men who are much older than me. When my uncles hug me at family gatherings I act like I'm fine with it but in my head in those moments I'm absolutely repulsed and even somewhat angry. I cannot imagine what a healthy relationship with my dad would look like besides no relationship because the idea of talking about anything meaningful with him makes me feel grossed out, like I would feel violated just from being emotionally open with him. I don't remember ever being molested as a child by anyone but my feelings about older men and intimacy make me wonder if I was and just don't remember.
I'm terrified for children. Whenever I hear a child crying, whether it's at the mall or the beach or whatever, I immediately have a very hard time not focusing on it and I worry that they're being abused. In some ways, I think this fear is a good thing because it's made it so I've decided to devote my life to becoming a lobbyist on behalf of children's human rights. On the other hand, I'm in constant anguish. I think corporal punishment of children, such as spanking, is basically normalized assault and when it involves taking their clothes off it's basically a physical violation on par with rape, and so many people defend it so passionately and even more people just see it as normal and not a problem. I also think that forcing children to practice certain religions even when they say they don't believe in that religion is abusive. That, and more extreme and legally recognized forms of abuse are so hard to detect that I feel like I'm surrounded by this horrifying world of violence against children and oppression of children that I can't really fix because I can't really see into their homes and there's no way to monitor and other people just don't see it or don't care or even endorse it. I feel like children are treated like property more than people and it horrifies me. If you don't feel the same way but you want to understand what this feels like to me, just imagine the sense of anger and sadness and hopelessness you probably felt when you first learned about the holocaust, but try to imagine what that would feel like if the holocaust was still happening and no one cared. I know child abuse is different from the holocaust but my point is that to me it feels like grave injustice that is being widely permitted. I don't think the fact that I believe the way children are treated is unjust is a sign of PTSD but the degree to which I feel it makes me wonder why I feel so differently about it than everyone else, and maybe the degree of feeling and paranoia is a sign of some kind of traumatic event I don't remember.
I feel like I can't talk to anyone about this. I'll hint at different parts and talk about being opposed to corporal punishment and passionate about fighting child abuse, for example, without mentioning how I feel when I hear a kid crying at the mall. I feel like I can't just say the whole truth to anyone, even my therapist. The world horrifies me, and I don't think it's wrong for me to feel that way and want to change it but I am concerned that I'm not strong enough to change it and part of that may be because I haven't addressed trauma that I've experienced because I don't even know I've experienced it.
I feel like that probably wasn't very coherent. I normally am good at communicating, but I'm so worked up writing this that I can't think straight.
Please don't turn this into a debate about corporal punishment of children. I just want to know: Do you think I could have these symptoms just from having a father that randomly explodes with anger, even though he never did so with physical violence? If not, do you think I have repressed memories? If so, how do I get those memories back?