Is It Possible For Me To Have A Normal Life?

[Bragado Jansing]

Good morning everyone,

My question of the day is: can I have a normal life? As in, is it possible for me to recover to the point where I can actually have relationships and don't live with this horrible condition?

I've had PTSD since I was 16 years old and I'm in my early 30s. The majority of my life has been defined by this condition. I just didn't understand it because it was caused by my abusive, cruel family who've been tormenting me up until I cut them out a few months ago. I interpreted symptoms of PTSD as me being a "loser" and "pathetic" because that was the message I was getting from my family, who were the ones who caused it in the first place.

Just a taste of the stuff I lived through. When I was 10 years old I was kidnapped and tortured. I had to escape from it like in a thriller movie. Instead of going to the cops, my parents laughed. I looked up my state's kidnapping laws, and it's true, I was legally kidnapped and tortured. My parents should've called the police. Instead they thought it was funny. I had no support or care after that horrible experience. Not only that, but they encouraged me to hang out with those people again -- and I did, and I got the sh*t beaten out of me. Naturally.

My whole family's been like that to me: hunting me down, seeking me out, jamming themselves into my life, just to torment me and torture me for fun. My mom encouraged me to date this woman who raped me (yeah, it can happen to guys), gave me an STD and then blamed it on me and told everyone about it, etc. Then my mom and family threatened to disown me if I broke up with her. I've probably had dozens of highly traumatic encounters, many of them life threatening, and I was never able to get any treatment for them, let alone support or concern from another human being.

So yeah. I have no idea what it's like for another human being to care about me. I have no idea what life is like without PTSD. That's basically all I know about life. I've never enjoyed sex, or friendship, or companionship, or anything like that. I became acclimated to a life of terror, fear, misery, dead emotions, and basically staring off into space. The only thing I've been able to do is get an education and work a job, but my quality of life has been utter garbage.

Is there any hope for me? The therapists I've called have had no idea what to do about my situation and basically just hung up on me. What I lived through constitutes decades-long torture, basically, and there aren't any services like that for civilians or people who aren't political refugees. I just quit an extremely abusive job, that my family encouraged me to stay in, naturally, so I'm in a dicey situation. It's like ... homelessness? Suicide? Not sure what my options here are right now.

Thanks!

 

[Bragado Jansing]

Thanks for the support everyone. I figure I'm a lost cause, so no worries.

 

[Sideways]

Even with the incredibly overwhelming history of abuse that you've survived, the goal is still 'recovery'. There will never come a time where you weren't abused - it's always going to be part of your life story. And therapy and recovery are a long hard road.

But can you ever have healthy, mutually loving, respectful and rewarding relationships? Absolutely. I'm not sure what a "normal" life looks like, but we reach a certain point in the recovery process where the past is behind us, rather than continuing to dictate how we think and how we feel about everything around us.

So whether or not "normal" is possible, you will come to a point where you get to redefine who you are, and what your life looks like. That's the goal. That's recovery.

From where I stand right now, where I'm at in the recovery process - I'm struggling to believe any of that. I feel so damaged by my trauma that anything even remotely resembling a "normal" life seems impossible. But the thing about forums like this is I log on and I witnes people doing just that - recovering and redefining themselves on their own terms. There's hope for all of us.

Deciding to heal, committing to recovery, even when it feels overwhelming and hopeless and impossible- you do it anyway. That's what courage is. And in the long run, yes, it is worth it.

 

[EveHarrington]

I believe it is indeed possible for you to have a normal life. Tomorrow? Next week? Next month? Next year? Probably not as childhood wounds run deep. However recovery as a long term goal is completely in the cards so to speak.

Don't lose hope.

Ever.

You'll go through bad times. Very bad times. But then things will start to improve. It will be up and down, but what counts is the overall picture of healing.

 

[joeylittle]

@Bragado Jansing - just so you have some context, three hours for a thread to sit without replies isn't that unusual. We all deal with mental illness - so, sometimes, you have to be a little patient.

Have you ever been evaluated for anything comorbid with PTSD?

Also - I know you mentioned on another thread that you didn't have insurance right now (which makes things tough), but the short answer is yes: you can absolutely improve the quality of your life. You need to start getting therapeutic support, though.

It strikes me that you might be calling the wrong kinds of therapists. What are you using to identify potential resources?

 

[Panda Bear]

PTSD has been apart of my life since I was very young, more years have been spent battling it then not....

And yes, you very much can live a more normal life! With the right support and interventions, changes can be made, skills can be taught and adaptations can occur in your life. These things make PTSD more manageable, and will allow you to make a new life. One you can thrive in!

I noticed your not able to access any help? As Joeylittle pointed out, already...what type of therapist have you sought? Maybe they aren't the right fit. Maybe we can help guide you?

 

[Truthful_Whispers]

No. PTSD is, unfortunately, incurable. It is a permanent change in the physical brain. Best you can do is learn coping skills to deal with everyday life. You can have some sense of "normality", but it takes a lot of work.