My Childhood Friend (May Trigger)

[Manic11]

My best friend and I became best friends when we were about 12 or 13 years old. We found out that we were both being abused at the time. We clung onto each other. Gave each other hope.
The beatings we would recieve were severe. Concussions, broken bones, etc.
This is one of the reasons I developed PTSD.
Finally, her stepdad starting traveling more for his job. He was home less and overtime her beatings stopped. Mine didn't for a little while after.
She told me that she will never be able to let her guard down around her stepfather. That is completely understandable.
Not too long ago she has started to accept him as a father. She tells him she loves him and he responds with "I love you too" most of the time. They're closer now.
Recently she got in a very horrible car accident. She almost didn't make it. The passenger in the other car didn't. The driver did.
Anyway, after months of healing and physical therapy, I asked her if she's been driving. She said she has been and she's fine with it. She enjoys it. Was a little shaky at first but she's back normal again.

So... two things...
Its always on my mind that no...she's gotta have PTSD after that or something....How can she be perfectly fine? We went through a lot of the same experiences especially when we were younger and I came out with PTSD. She came out clean? How is that possible? Is she lying? I don't know. I've talked to her about this many, many times.

Also, when she tells me that she now accepts her stepfather like an actual father, why does this bother me so much? I don't like it at all... I dont like him. I still fear him and her around him. Yet she seems to be fine...

Don't get me wrong. I want her to be okay. I love her with all my heart. But I just can't believe that she is.... After all she's been through. She simply states that some people deal with things differently than others. And shrugs it off.

Help?

Manic

 

[TLight]

Hum, this would probably bother me too.

However, coming from a family of six kids where I was the youngest, I have been astounded for years and years that some of my older brothers and sisters act and say that nothing was out of the ordinary in our childhood.

I remember a nightmare, they say it was pretty much normal and they have no continuing scars.

I remember reading that as children and then adults, we each sort of write a script of how our childhood was and then cling to it. I think for their survival, they had to go into a deep denial. And you know, that works for them. They wrote a different script..........I however, suffered from the intense stress of the situation and it affected me.......with a BRAIN INJURY.

They obviously don't have this brain injury called PTSD. I've also read that some people are genetically prone to it. It's like when stressors reach a certain threshold, we sort of snap..........others in the exact same circumstances don't.

Unfair......yes, it seems very unfair. Possible?.......yes, very possible.

 

[BlankCanvas]

Hey Manic,

I can relate to what you've written here. My best friend through high school was the closest person to me for a very good reason. We came from the same place - the physical abuse, substance abuse, etc. I can't tell you why some of us come out of these things in better shape than others. My friend has been struggling with addiction for years now, and until my PTSD diagnosis last year she seemed baffled with the way I handled things. I was always very nonchalant about the past.

It's very true that we all deal with trauma differently. I find that some people are better at burying the past than others. Maybe some people are able to process trauma as it comes? Who knows.

Trauma seems to have its own set of rules that I sure as hell can't understand.

 

[2quilt]

I dont know why, but some people are more resilient than others. I know people who saw people die in front of them in war, and they talk about it with a matter of fact tone, as if they were talking about the weather; others end up alcoholics or worse, and never get over it, have PTSD and the memory of deaths become a daily part of their miserable lives.

One is not "better" or "worse" than the other, we are simply wired differently.

Personally, I have no common frame of reference with your best friend; she is hard for me to understand. I am not good at forgiveness, and that's part of PTSD. It's possible that she has had a heart to heart talk with the abuser and he has sincerely appologized and has stopped abuse, swore off abuse and he has changed as a person. Maybe because she knows why he abused her (he was abused too) and they have had counselling and have healed together...who knows.

I cant forgive my abusers. They were abused too, but they were also responsible adults. It's hard to understand her.

 

[Manic11]

I understand that some people are wired differently...I guess but that just makes me feel weak. Like they're stronger than I am....
:wall:

Manic

 

[Seeking_Nirvana]

Manic please don't feel weak. If you compare yourself to everyone you will find that every person you meet will be either stronger, weaker or the same.

We all fight our battles differently, and DNA plays a strong role in PTSD, and that has nothing to do with being weak.

I have a friend who had a real bad childhood and I've seen the beatings she has endured, but she doesn't show symptoms of PTSD except when she drinks and she is a workaholic.

She may have a slight case of Chronic fatigue or Post Traumatic Stress, but she handles her symptoms much better than I do, and I have a hard time understanding why she doesn't have the same symptoms I have.

The only thing she has ever told me is that she gets these visions of violence happening to her family and it scares her. She said she didn't understand where they came from or why she has them.

I told her those were intrusive thoughts probably stemming from the abuse, but that doesn't mean she has PTSD.

Anyway, after rambling I just want to ask you to please be gentle with yourself and don't compare. I know it's hard not to, but if you can stop comparing it will help your self esteem.

Tammy

 

[pebbels]

Hi Manic,
I agree with Seeking Nirvana, please don't think you are weak because you are not, you have your own set of strenghts.

I also echo what the others have said, we are all wired differently and react differently to situations.

I can say of myself that i am a strong person but, lol i can also say sometimes a stupid one for what i have allowed myself over the years to tolerate just bacause of it.

Living and learning.
Pebs

 

[Ursa]

Denial sometimes play a part to allow people to go on with their lives.

 

[popeye]

I think i can relate to this because there was a whole bunch of us close to 400 of us at the plant when it blew up and from what i have heard only about 8 of us got ptsd from it. does it make me weaker i don't think so i think it makes me just more sensitive. there are alot of variables to having ptsd and wether or not we get it. alot of army vets go through the same things and not all of them get ptsd..

 

[KateG]

Manic

I coped with my father by completely forgetting what he did to me. As an adult I actually felt quite close to him. It wasn't until his death when I was 33 that the terrible memories of rape and smothering started to surface.

In retrospect, before his death I think I felt because I was now an adult instead of a small helpless child, that I could physically overcome him if he ever came at me again. This gave me a sort of confidence. It also allowed me to have a father figure, which I wouldn't have had if I had been aware of the reality of him.

My dream world was shattered when the memories began to surface after his death and I'm still dealing with that, but I can see why your friend could get along with her stepdad.

For some of us, the rejection we experience when we are abused by our fathers is too extreme to cope with. It cuts to our very souls. One coping mechanism is to put it away in a locked part of our minds and try to create a relationship with a father figure that is helpful to us.

I know when I was 17 my father started yelling at me to make his bed!!! (Yep, I was still his slave in his eyes.) I remember going for him verbally and walking towards him, screaming at him that I was not his wife and he wasn't going to treat me the way he treated her. To my surprise, like the old soldier he was, he put his hands up in surrender mode and started to back away from me. I kept yelling and he actually walked backwards right across the kitchen and out of the room!

From then on, I knew he would never physically hurt me again. And until I was 33, I had a reasonably non traumatic relationship with him. I learned to admire his gardening skills and his handyman skills around the house, and all the other good stuff we can learn from fathers. Yes, I was in "wonderland" but it helped me salvage something from the relationship, and it has helped me to know what good stuff to look for in men.

Now I just have to cope with the C-PTSD symptoms. Ha bloody ha!

I don't know your friend, but this may be one explanation.

 

[Manic11]

Sorry.... C-PTSD?

Manic

 

[Freddy_hiding_less]

C-Ptsd, complex-ptsd , as I understand when trauma is experienced before important development to being grown up, it can change the way that development happens. So it is expected that it will a bit a different situation for every growing stage that has to be done with the ptsd, although the basics are the same.