North_Wind
New Here
Hi Folks, Looking for some insight or advise for anyone who has been through this or something similar.
I am 1 year into a relationship with a female sufferer of PTSD. Its been a helluva journey and started out to appear very promising and 'normal' but then went south quickly.
Here's a bit of her story, then I will share about the relationship....she is in her late 30s. 7 years ago she came to the end of two back to back abusive relationships - the first lasted 5 years and was psychologically abusive, the second was 2 years and was psychologically & physically abusive and at one point he hurt her quite badly. She eventually left and proceeded to move on with her life but she repressed it and wasn't aware of the trauma building up inside of her. He then reappeared about 2 1/2 years ago and threatened to take her home which she had a full and legal right to. The reappearance of him and her life started bringing on early symptoms of PTSD. Anxiety, panic attacks, depression, shame, and a host of other experiences that increased slowly but steadily over the past two years.
Our story - She and I met a year ago and fell madly in love. She told me she had PTSD at the time but I didn't really know to what extent and how it impacted her life. The early signs that I knew she was suffering were her states of hypervigilance and paranoia and very rapid and disproportionate dysregulation (rapid anger, yelling defensiveness etc). She would also begin to fight very quickly and very aggressively established boundaries and would become quite rageful if she thought those boundaries were threatened. A couple months into the relationship she alluded to "a dangerous place that she could get to", but she did not say what it was. Because of some of the mood intensities she was experiencing we would have ruptures that arose very quickly. In one of those ruptures, when she perceived that I was blaming her for the conflict, she suddenly ran past me and down the outside stairs and ran her head straight into the side of a vehicle. I came to learn that part of her PTSD episodes if she is severely triggered or just regulated is that she recreates the physical violence that was set upon her by her abuser - and smashes her head against dangerous surfaces. Something inside of her creates so much shame that she believes the words he told her when he said she "deserved" the violence she received. Over the next few months she became more depressed and had more panic attacks - usually in the morning. We were somewhat long distance so I wasn't always able to see what was happening. She went to a doctor and was prescribed sertraline or Zoloft. We were both feeling very encouraged that the medication would help pull her from her depression etc. She was on a very low dose and she came to stay with me for a while. A couple of weeks into the medication she began to become very rageful and have daily bouts of severe dysregulation. This went on for about 10 days day and night until eventually in one rupture we had, she suddenly bound across the room and put her head through my glass door. We soon came to learn that because this was her first experience with psychotic medication, she'd had a bad reaction and it brought severe dysregulation and trauma to the surface and she remained in a hyper-traumatized state for two months. Having multiple episodes a day and always on the verge of self harm, even though she had stopped the medication immediately after the door incident. For two months we struggled through to try to keep her regulated but it seemed to not be working and she was perpetually retraumatized through our normal relationship functioning. Eventually we broke up, and within a matter of days she returned to be with a previous ex, not the abusive one mentioned by somebody who had abusive tendencies. Somehow, after three months we found our way back to each other. I was very reluctant obviously given what I had witnessed and what she had been through. She had spent the previous three months in severe dysregulation and at one point was committed by her family for hospitalization. She begin to take lorazepam and sleeping medication on advice from the psychiatrist. We are tenderly and carefully going through this time because her system is completely cooked and she is having daily dysregulation and severe panic attacks, severe blaming of others for her situation. She has self harmed as well in some of those occasions. I know this is a very long thread and if anyone does read it I guess my questions are:
- because this came on so quickly for her after repressing for a number of years, is it possible that she could pull herself out of this as quickly? Is it possible that she can pull herself out at all?
- given the severity of the panic attacks and the self harm, does this seem like a severe form of PTSD or possibly something else? When she was in hospital she was diagnosed with PTSD as a primary diagnosis but the full range of cluster bee disorders as a secondary diagnosis.
- obviously, given her history, being in any kind of relationship is going to be triggering for her. I wonder if there's any hope for this relationship to continue given how acutely inflamed her nervous system is right now. And I just want to try to figure out if there's immediate hope for her and if she can turn her life around to be able to show up in this relationship the way she wants.
- and I guess I'm asking this question because it is still new for me, and while I love her dearly, we have certainly been through hell. And I'm trying to get a sense of what might lie ahead and if I have what it takes to move forward to help her live a normal life and for us to have a normal relationship. Or if this is just gonna be how it is from now on given the rapid escalation in the severity of all of it.
Many thanks in advance for any thoughts on any of this. Also open to any considerations for medication. The benzos don't seem to be doing the trick.
I am 1 year into a relationship with a female sufferer of PTSD. Its been a helluva journey and started out to appear very promising and 'normal' but then went south quickly.
Here's a bit of her story, then I will share about the relationship....she is in her late 30s. 7 years ago she came to the end of two back to back abusive relationships - the first lasted 5 years and was psychologically abusive, the second was 2 years and was psychologically & physically abusive and at one point he hurt her quite badly. She eventually left and proceeded to move on with her life but she repressed it and wasn't aware of the trauma building up inside of her. He then reappeared about 2 1/2 years ago and threatened to take her home which she had a full and legal right to. The reappearance of him and her life started bringing on early symptoms of PTSD. Anxiety, panic attacks, depression, shame, and a host of other experiences that increased slowly but steadily over the past two years.
Our story - She and I met a year ago and fell madly in love. She told me she had PTSD at the time but I didn't really know to what extent and how it impacted her life. The early signs that I knew she was suffering were her states of hypervigilance and paranoia and very rapid and disproportionate dysregulation (rapid anger, yelling defensiveness etc). She would also begin to fight very quickly and very aggressively established boundaries and would become quite rageful if she thought those boundaries were threatened. A couple months into the relationship she alluded to "a dangerous place that she could get to", but she did not say what it was. Because of some of the mood intensities she was experiencing we would have ruptures that arose very quickly. In one of those ruptures, when she perceived that I was blaming her for the conflict, she suddenly ran past me and down the outside stairs and ran her head straight into the side of a vehicle. I came to learn that part of her PTSD episodes if she is severely triggered or just regulated is that she recreates the physical violence that was set upon her by her abuser - and smashes her head against dangerous surfaces. Something inside of her creates so much shame that she believes the words he told her when he said she "deserved" the violence she received. Over the next few months she became more depressed and had more panic attacks - usually in the morning. We were somewhat long distance so I wasn't always able to see what was happening. She went to a doctor and was prescribed sertraline or Zoloft. We were both feeling very encouraged that the medication would help pull her from her depression etc. She was on a very low dose and she came to stay with me for a while. A couple of weeks into the medication she began to become very rageful and have daily bouts of severe dysregulation. This went on for about 10 days day and night until eventually in one rupture we had, she suddenly bound across the room and put her head through my glass door. We soon came to learn that because this was her first experience with psychotic medication, she'd had a bad reaction and it brought severe dysregulation and trauma to the surface and she remained in a hyper-traumatized state for two months. Having multiple episodes a day and always on the verge of self harm, even though she had stopped the medication immediately after the door incident. For two months we struggled through to try to keep her regulated but it seemed to not be working and she was perpetually retraumatized through our normal relationship functioning. Eventually we broke up, and within a matter of days she returned to be with a previous ex, not the abusive one mentioned by somebody who had abusive tendencies. Somehow, after three months we found our way back to each other. I was very reluctant obviously given what I had witnessed and what she had been through. She had spent the previous three months in severe dysregulation and at one point was committed by her family for hospitalization. She begin to take lorazepam and sleeping medication on advice from the psychiatrist. We are tenderly and carefully going through this time because her system is completely cooked and she is having daily dysregulation and severe panic attacks, severe blaming of others for her situation. She has self harmed as well in some of those occasions. I know this is a very long thread and if anyone does read it I guess my questions are:
- because this came on so quickly for her after repressing for a number of years, is it possible that she could pull herself out of this as quickly? Is it possible that she can pull herself out at all?
- given the severity of the panic attacks and the self harm, does this seem like a severe form of PTSD or possibly something else? When she was in hospital she was diagnosed with PTSD as a primary diagnosis but the full range of cluster bee disorders as a secondary diagnosis.
- obviously, given her history, being in any kind of relationship is going to be triggering for her. I wonder if there's any hope for this relationship to continue given how acutely inflamed her nervous system is right now. And I just want to try to figure out if there's immediate hope for her and if she can turn her life around to be able to show up in this relationship the way she wants.
- and I guess I'm asking this question because it is still new for me, and while I love her dearly, we have certainly been through hell. And I'm trying to get a sense of what might lie ahead and if I have what it takes to move forward to help her live a normal life and for us to have a normal relationship. Or if this is just gonna be how it is from now on given the rapid escalation in the severity of all of it.
Many thanks in advance for any thoughts on any of this. Also open to any considerations for medication. The benzos don't seem to be doing the trick.
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