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Sufferer Is Five Years Too Little To Heal?

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violets

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Hi,

I'm Violet, I'm 24 years old. I've been diagnosed with PTSD by a few psychiatrists but I haven't been in therapy for it. I'm agoraphobic and extremely picky, which makes it difficult, but I would love to have a therapist to talk to once a week.

I spent my whole life as a prisoner of my parents and their friends. My father was an alcoholic, who would go between not speaking for days and being sexual with me, as well as screaming and belittling me and my mother. He had my mother completely under his control, until she left us when I was 4. While she was gone, he and his sister ritually abused me. My dad did horrible sexual things to me that I don't want to talk about here.

My mother came back during their divorce proceedings and won custody of me. She had joined a neo-fundamentalist church. They promoted flagellation, violent baptisms, etc. They were extremely conservative, so I was not allowed to read, watch cartoons, play with children from school, etc. Her friend began molesting me on a regular basis; when I tried to tell her she said I was being a bother on purpose.

My mother hated my guts. Everything I did drove her crazy, and she was always calling me names, hysterically crying, and hitting me. I became extremely subservient to her, learning to cook meals at age 7, keeping house etc. I was not allowed to have feelings; if I cried at my dad's house I was mocked, at my mother's I was punished and hit; if I was silly and laughing my dad would make sexual comments that shut me up, and my mother would hit me her hardest (she hated it most when I was loud or effervescent, especially around company).

When I was 10 my dad started transitioning to become a woman. I was taught to support this, but he became increasingly inappropriate with me, showing me his growing breasts, constantly talking about my developing body, always going into detail about his various secretions and hormone issues. This was also when he began to drug me. Mocking me while I cried no longer shut me up, so he took a new approach-- giving me "medicine." This "medicine" was drugs he had illegally bought online-- valium, oxycontin, codeine, etc. I became addicted to these pills, and later when I sought help for my chronic anxiety/suicidal ideation at hospital I was always dismissed as a drug addict and kicked out.

When I was 19 I moved into my boyfriend's house and stopped taking drugs, which I now found vile. My dad cut his testicles off with kitchen shears and told me he did it for me. He began stalking me. I fled the country and eventually stopped speaking to either of my parents. My physical symptoms (syncopy, chronic pain, fibromyalgia) instantly disappeared. But PTSD took it place. I've been on a hair-trigger ever since. I have flashbacks every day. I can't sleep, I can't hold a job. Going outside is hell. I am convinced that my dad will kidnap me. Some days I can't leave my room even to go to the bathroom. I'm suicidal, because I feel like this PTSD is never going to go away.

I just don't believe that anything I've experienced would cause PTSD, so I feel like I have it because of some kind of failure on my part. When I do manage to believe I didn't get this disorder through any fault of my own, I feel stupid for not being better after five years. Isn't it time I was better? Am I not doing this right? Why do I still feel afraid when NOTHING IS HAPPENING?

So, here I am. I don't have a therapist, but I need to talk to someone about all this or I'm gonna go completely nuts. I hope this wasn't too much information for an introduction.

PS, PLEASE do not tell me to forgive my parents. I do not believe in "forgiveness" in this sense. Please respect this within this thread.
 
You don't have to forgive them. That's totally up to you. And yes, you have every reason to have developed ptsd.
I'm sorry what happened to you. I'm not sure what else to say right now. I didn't get help until I was in my 40's and it didn't help. I have CPTSD. Won't get into what happened, but you can read my diary TLight's nightmare diary.

This is a tough road, especially trusting. You can trust people who have been through similiar things on here. Trusting therapists who just got a degree is hard for me.
 
Hi and welcome to the forum.

I have had ptsd for 13 years and have not been abused for 10. Hun, these things are not easy to get past. You may not feel that it was enough to cause ptsd but some people handle things and situations better than others.

I understand why you don't want to hear forgive them, I still can't forgive my uncle who raped me repeatedly. I don't want to and never will I feel he ruined my life.

I am sorry for what happened to you and hope you find this forum a good place to come to get information, support, or even to just vent.
 
Welcome, although I'm sorry for the horrible experiences that have brought you here.

It isn't time that heals PTSD, it's the work we do on healing. That work can be different things. For many people, it includes therapy. If it's OK to ask, is there a reason that you're not seeing a therapist?

Often PTSD symptoms don't appear until we're in a safer situation. PTSD is our reactions after trauma, even if we're not being traumatised any longer. The symptoms are the effects of our past trauma.

This doesn't go away of its own accord because the trauma has stopped. However, there are things we can do to process it and heal. I hope being on the forum will help you with this journey.
 
I'm sorry, I just realised I missed something at the beginning of your post about being agrophobic so it makes therapy difficult. In that case, is therapy by phone, messenger or skype an option?

I'm not sure what you mean by being picky, in the context of therapy.
 
I just don't believe that anything I've experienced would cause PTSD, so I feel like I have it because of some kind of failure on my part. When I do manage to believe I didn't get this disorder through any fault of my own, I feel stupid for not being better after five years. Isn't it time I was better? Am I not doing this right? Why do I still feel afraid when NOTHING IS HAPPENING?

You have not developed PTSD because of a failure in you. It is a totally understandable and in a sense normal response to the experiences you have had. Keep in mind that one incident of sexual violence can potentially cause PTSD. No you shouldn't just be better already and that isn't your fault either.

Healing can happen in many different ways over time. Its possibly about seeing what you need and making sure you get it.

It sounds like part of what you are dealing with is denial. And that way the anger is turned in on you rather than seeing the full impact of what has been done to you.

And the reason you are afraid even when nothing is happening presently is because that is what PTSD does. It is as if it is still happening now and stays that way until the old traumas are dealt with.
 
Hi Violets,

Welcome to the PTSD Forum! :)

To have PTSD is not a personal failure, as the biological response to trauma is a "normal response to an abnormal situation". Many times people experience the first major effects of PTSD when they are actually safe and not in an abusive situation. Not sure why it works that way, but it seems that our brain gets a message that it is OK to deal with the fallout from the past now.

There is also a sister site you may find helpful: MySexAbuse.org and a link can be found at the bottom of this page. I hope you find the information and support here helpful as you work on healing.

Take care.

Debbie
 
I'm so sorry to process the story that I read here,

Though not as complex as the tale you relate, my own tale (if I dare relate it in full) seems like enough narrative material to fill three independent film productions entire. I maintain a cork board with a few quotes and such on it, whereas one that I will stare at for minutes at a time reads simply: It isn't your mind - it's your life. I latched upon this given that I had become wholly disgusted by discussions to the effect of depression being conceptually pushed onto to me as a disease, to the strict discounting of what split existed between exogenous and indigenous cause. Wildly cruel circumstance (in fact several) slamming home the judgment 'in favor' of exogenous cause(s) is so painfully apparent here.

Massively angry for the overlap in themes I detect relative to myself, my own history, and in a metaphorical sense, thirsting for blood I am. Forgiveness? - Wrongo! I'm told by siblings and other family that relations with my father "...would have been so much different if only he had more time, if he hadn't worked so many hours, if only he'd TOUCHED you more!". Really? Is that what you simpletons believe? My father suffered from 'I don't love my son disorder' that equated to a desire for my personal extinction. Few days pass when I don't want to apply a stencil to his grave site so that I might pour a gallon of gasoline on it to kill the grass covering it. The intent would be to freak out child passersby in particular - at least THEY would have warning! This 'matter' was the environment I was born into, whereas how old am I now and what further adventures awaited? It's been a bitter fight, a far better sense of self and capacity for self-respect has been established, but forgiveness? Sorry - that isn't on the program and you'll not hear it - thank you very much!

It would be trite and unfeeling to afford a quote as to when some semblance of healing occurs or is availed. Though again your tale is more complex than my own, some means to abstract away is required to the extent that you were surrounded by people consumed with their own problems, and that the sheer horror of matters extends out to the degree they intimately involved you in those horrors. Though what I say here is rooted in self analysis of my relation to my own parents, there is nothing you owe these cruel and selfish ghouls who masqueraded as parents. The influence they traffic in appalls, whereas the love and understanding you possess within and henceforth should always be directed towards those capable of reciprocating in a reasoned and normative fashion and range - and yes, we each can come to know what that is. An echo chamber of trauma is no place in which to fashion an identity in the wake of all that has happened. Out an away from these influences even as such crowd in within the darkness is your path - and you know it.

What am I saying in sum then? Gosh - I suppose for breathless assertion and work upon self that security and a bullet-proof sense of personal worth and esteem will be yours - for you'll hack it out of the jungle with your bare hands if need be. Salvage past relations? Nothing to salvage there - thank you very much. Horrors of matters and memories contained within compartmentalized cells within memory will always beat the *hit out of me if I linger near an open door and look it - for there is NOTHING to be learned or creatively reconceptualize for the further pondering of themes and the motives of key players present across so many circumstance. I've written about 300 pages of recollections to wick out of my system the worst of much - and hence a compelling record exists of what cannot be denied. Such - only in part mind you - permits or allows partial permission to 'forget' - for I can't EVER forget...

I feel I carry a 55 gallon drum on my back stenciled with letters 'C-PTSD' most places I go, although I place ever greater stock on the healthful influence of new circumstances and new relations that prompt within greater recognition of the futility of trying to pen 'a fine tale of self-discovery via assertion' from much that I clamor to forget in full. Afford me 'found family' relations of worth every day of the week - again, and thank you very much! Fight circumstantial determinism with all that you've got, and when you fall or fail, find still more to throw and fight with still grittier resolve with what rocks and any old *rap you can find to hit 'em square, and hit 'em again. For myself, such is the way forward - the only way. A one-person Holocaust is STILL a Holocaust, whereas yes and indeed in a JDL- sense - never again!

Although I know it isn't the way of everyone, formal psych. study (or aggressively pursued in an independent sense) will afford the tools and concepts to deconstruct dynamics in and at play even if a 'cure in a box' isn't availed to anyone. Seek 'it' out and 'own it'. If recall of wildly unsettling traumatic ghosts and goblins is projected to be 'on the menu' and involuntary looking out into the future, you can prepare to afford them a hot reception akin to being a PTSD vampire slayer of considerable sophistication and worth. Professionals can help, the pathways and insights both clocked and recited across web resources such as this can help, normative and compassionate expressions of what loving influences exist 'out there' despite all that has happened help enormously - although the 'front line' still exists inside of me. Kind, compassionate regards then...


M.
 
You feel this way because you grew up in an environment that made you have to feel this way to survive and endure. You're denying that anything you experienced would cause this because you weren't allowed to have feelings and they became a liability for you so you can't honor them now.

It sounds like you've been through hell, I feel for you. No one deserves crazy parents.
 
I just don't believe that anything I've experienced would cause PTSD, so I feel like I have it because of some kind of failure on my part. When I do manage to believe I didn't get this disorder through any fault of my own, I feel stupid for not being better after five years. Isn't it time I was better? Am I not doing this right? Why do I still feel afraid when NOTHING IS HAPPENING?

I think this quote says so much more than I can go into but what stands out to me is that you really don't understand PTSD - and what it takes to treat it.

"Isn't it time to feel better?" - time alone does not heal this wound. So if you have not taken the steps to get treatment and learn about it - then no, it is not time to feel better. Life only gets worse with untreated PTSD.

"Am I not doing this right?" - That seems more accurate to me. If you break your leg and never get it reset would you be getting the care you need? I think getting the care you need is what defines "doing this right".

You feel afraid when nothing is happening because your nervous system is wounded - and sort of locked on overdrive as a result. You won't just stop being afraid one day - you have to work towards it, and that means getting some help to support you, teach you and guide you through the process. There is so much that you don't understand about this - BUT when you do, healing will begin for you!

If it is hard for you to leave your house, I know of a therapist that will treat you by Skype. If you are interested in her information (in the US), please let me know by PM.
 
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