Looking For People Who Have The Same Traumas

[just tina]

I don't want to single out people who have suffered my trauma and relate to them exclusively, but I wouldn't mind talking with someone who has been traumatized by a false alarm in nuclear forces. It's too abstract for most people. It's not that I want to compare the severity of impairments or experience, but most people have no idea what it's like to face the threat of impending omnicide. I've found that counselors are especially good at minimizing and denying that the nuclear threat is a real threat and I'm experiencing THREATS and not just triggers---a threat that threatens everyone.

It's difficult to find a framework in which to think about it. Coping with the traumatized self is pretty much the same. Coping with the reality of the continuing threat is something else though. There doesn't seem to be any place to put it. And activism is out of the question.

 

[becvan]

Coping with the reality of the continuing threat is something else though. There doesn't seem to be any place to put it.

Ahh but see that sentence right there? You just attempted to single yourself out. No one else can possibly understand, right?

Wrong. That's why we have this subject brought up. It's hard to force our brains to start thinking more healthy, and this is a very problematic area for all of us at first.

Do I know what it's like to live under threat of nuclear attack? No, I don't. I've had nightmares about it but not enough to consider it to be traumatic. What I can understand, is living under constant threat of death. For years. I've been there. However it wasn't nuclear, it was a man.

These are two separate threats. What they have in common is what it causes to the person living like that. Helplessness, terror, fear, hypervigilance, distrust etc...

So.. you see. It doesn't matter how you got there. It doesn't matter how long you endured it. It doesn't matter how abstract you believe it to be. It gives the same result to you, as mine did to me.

Being threatened, has it's own unique results. It makes us doubt ourselves. People can treat us as if it doesn't exist, that we are crazy, that we are making it up. So we react with self-doubt, self-blame and the continual feeling of being all alone with it. We become conditioned to minimize it ourselves and to believe that no one else can get it. All because it's a threat. The only proof of a threat is our reaction to it. It's insidious really.

However, this forum helps to slowly start undoing that type of thinking. We are not alone. Others do get it. Others have lived in similar circumstances, with similar results, and we all battle with that monster called PTSD.

bec

 

[oksofineimnutz]

Pain is pain...its all bad. My take is that I can learn perhaps some vaulable tools for survival from those with like symtoms, but also from others with different afflictions. Albeit, knowing that im not the only one with the kinds of issues i have is helpful to a humongous degree....nice to know im not alone ya know and others feel/think the same as i....but hearing others with a different story often times gives me the strenght to find the strenght within myself also. Maybe it just depends on my mood at the time also, who knows??

 

[just tina]

I'm not minimizing anyone else's pain, or saying that PTSD isn't PTSD. I'm not saying that I'm not being helped by others. I relate to others. I've had the usual family trauma, as well, and I agree that PTSD is PTSD.

I know there are others who know it and I'd like to meet some. That in no way disrespects all others. I'm not being black and white about it. I'm not looking to exclude anyone or to single myself out, or to start a cult, or anything.

I do think I could benefit from talking to someone who has experienced the same thing, though. Not going to marry them and disregard all others. There are just some issues I'd like to discuss with someone who has experienced what I have.

I'm not having a pissing contest. I'm not denying the validity and depth of anyone else's suffering. I'm not saying it's necessary for coping. And with all due respect, I do not think that it is wrong for me to want that.

Since it's a touchy subject, I won't bring it up anymore. But neither will I accept that there is something wrong with me for wanting that or that I am merely trying to single myself out.