My Girlfriend Has Ptsd Related Nightmares

[jankdingus]

Hi there. Um. I'm not sure how to really word this. But my girlfriend suffers from PTSD over when she was sexually assaulted as a kid. She refused professional help and she's started having nightmares about the event so vividly that she wakes up screaming. It's obviously very traumatic for her and its making her restless and in general depressed among other things. It happens everytime she sleeps.

I obviously can't force her to seek help and I'm not fluent in any of this but I'm trying to research this particular topic because its heartbreaking seeing her constantly miserable. Is there anything I can do to help her stop the nightmares? I'll try anything and I'm the only one she trusts to open up to.

Thank you.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Hi and welcome.

Unfortunately there is probably not much you can do to reduce her nightmares.

 

[jankdingus]

Nothing at all? Nothing I can share with her to practice? I'm desperate, she's self harming recently over it and it worries me..

 

[HelenB]

I am sorry to hear that things are so hard for her at the moment. I know you said you cannot force her to get help, and that is right but being alongside to support her and demonstrate her worth through your love and concern I really believe can help her.

Until she is ready to face the issues I am sorry to say that it is unlikely to go away, but I know for myself that the relationship I have with my husband and the way he really loved and supported me - even when he did not know at all what the right things to do and say really helped me so much towards my journey of healing.

For me it had been a pretty long and hard journey but my husband repeatedly reminds me that we are in it together and that he is committed to loving me and being there for me - even when things are so hard - and that in itself really helps with so much of the things I have been going through and helps me find the strength to be able to work through and continue to face the issues.

I do not know why she does not want professional help but know for myself that in many ways I never wanted it to be a problem and spent my whole life trying to shut it out and make it all go away and did not want to let it matter and also know that asking for help had many connotations for me from when I did as a child and the response I got ended up resulting in more abuse and a very bad situation.

Again I would reiterate that your love and concern and really demonstrating the worth she really does have is the best thing you really can offer her and your post here really does demonstrate how much you do care and I really believe that this love you have for her can help her so much if she is in a place where she can accept it, and that gently being there for her and allowing her at her own pace to work through and be ready to decide when to face it, will help so much.

God bless
Helen

 

[HelenB]

Just as an additional thing. I know that when I am going through such a hard time the thing I need to know most is that I am safe now and if you can help her feel that and speak to her saying that when she is in such a hard place words of reassurance I would hope that that will also be able to help her and ease the distress she is having at the moment.

I hope that can be of some help to you.

Helen

 

[jankdingus]

Thank you very much. that's better than feeling totally helpless. I constantly try to show her that I care and love her but she becomes distant frequently or will tell me she's fine even though it's evident she isn't. I realize she's trying to make things easier for me and trying to cope but I feel so helpless.

She doesn't want professional help because she's ashamed of what happened and believes none of them actually care about her situation. I'm doing my best with what I've read but I don't understand exactly what "deal with your trauma" means. if I knew that, maybe I could help her come to a resolve of some kind. This is scaring me. It makes her suicidal because she wishes she had just died instead of dealing with this now.

 

[HelenB]

Again I would reiterate that showing her that you care and that it does matter can only help her in the long run. I know that for me when I have to face the things which really happened I often feel like it is my fault and feel so bad about it all, and have recently realised that for me it is a defence mechanism because it feels easier to feel like that than feel the pain and hurt of it all and so much I often want it to all go away and hate myself so much.

To deal with it I know that I do have to connect to the reality of the pain, allow myself to experience and express the many emotions and come to a place where I can really feed in to myself, where I still feel so terrified and hurting, that I am safe and that the things which happened are not going to happen any more. That is very hard and still is a hard journey, but I know that just trying to get away from the emotions and shut them all out, is never going to work. I know that at the time the things happened the little girl I was then did not know how to deal with it any other way, but that because of the way I shut it out I effectively became trapped in the place I was in, and that freedom can only come as I let all that hurt and pain have a voice, and dealing with it now means not shutting it out and being angry with that little girl any more, but realising that it really was not my fault and finding the safety to really be able to work through and express all the emotions and feelings which have been torturing me for far too long.

I don't know if that will help you but know you wanted to know what I meant by deal with it, so thought I would write that and do hope it helps you. Again I really feel that providing that love and safety now I really believe will be so valuable to her and am so glad that she is able to trust you and that you have so much which you do offer her.

I also know that you said that she feels that professionals will not care, and do not know what her past experience in this has been, but would also think that as you show that you do care and do not judge her for the things she does tell you, this can also help her build up more trust and hopefully help her feel less ashamed of herself and believe she is worthy of help and care from others too.


God bless
Helen

 

[jankdingus]

Thank you so much. this really is good information. You see as it happened to her, she told her mother about the event. Her mother told her she was lying and to "get over it". Terrible I know..I try to show her I care but it's very hard to get anything out of her when she becomes distant. I have patience though. I know it's difficult.

So do you think if she could have her feelings validated and tell exactly what happened it would do her some good?

 

[mytai]

@jankdingus She is very lucky to have someone who cares as much as you do. When she tells you she is fine, but you know she isn't just let her know that if she does want to talk that you are there to listen, and if hugs are something she likes, maybe even offer her one.

When it comes to her not wanting help, that can be a completely normal response. I understand her feelings of shame and being called a liar. It's hard to open up to a therapist when you feel that way. I don't know if this is the case for your girlfriend because I'm not her and can't begin to guess how she feels, but maybe she is afraid to do it alone. If she is open to talking about therapy maybe offer to go with her into the sessions until she no longer wants you there.

It's a possibility that she just may need that extra support in order to take the step to get help. If you have questions or need support we are here for you. There are a lot of supporters on this forum too that might also be able to provide some helpful advice.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Yes you can be supportive but it is selfish (yes, selfish!) of her to use you as a surrogate therapist. You're not trained to deal with her issues and you're too emotionally involved for true objectivity. Yes you care but if she's unwilling to do anything to help herself you may have to let her hit rock bottom. Sometimes it's the only thing that spurns sufferers to get help.

 

[HelenB]

With a response like that from her mother it is no wonder she feels as she does. I always believe that the thing which does the most damage is not the event itself but the ongoing things it teaches us about ourself which we take on because of what we have experienced and the experience and way she had to learn to deal with it will have had a massive effect.

Yes I do think that having her feelings validated and being able to be believed and listened to will help her enormously.

I do agree that it is not your job to be a therapist for her, but do think that loving her and having compassion for her will help her enormously as I suspect that she has taken from the event that it is not ok to let it matter, and your love can really show her that in fact it does matter because she has value, and from there she will hopefully be able to see that there are people who do care and that getting the professional support to really work through her experiences is something which she does deserve and can help.

Helen

 

[cherryblossom]

I don't understand exactly what "deal with your trauma" means

Processing trauma, in its absolute simplistic infancy, is about changing a negative emotional connotation into a neutral / positive one. Remove the negative to either one, neutral or positive emotion. When confused, swap out trauma for emotion instead. Processing emotion.

See here for more thoughts on the subject.

Guilt and shame also have a huge influence on how we deal with trauma, particularly where sexual abuse is the trauma. You can read more about that [DLMURL="https://www.myptsd.com/c/articles/guilt-and-shame.8/"]here[/DLMURL].

Without a doubt, she needs professional help. A specialist trauma therapist, if you can find one. If she is uncomfortable talking about things face to face, perhaps you could encourage her to join this site, or our sister site MySexualAbuse ? I think she needs to realise that there are many other people out here who understand what she's going through, which is why support from people who've been through similar can be hugely beneficial. Yes, her story is unique to her, but the feelings of guilt, shame, despair and suicidal thoughts are very common, along with nightmares and depression etc etc. Just finding out that you are not alone in how you feel can be a big help.

There is only so much you can do for her. You sound like a lovely guy. The best thing you can do is to learn all you can, keep lines of communication open, and listen if she wants to talk. Give her space if she needs space, pass on anything that might be helpful without pushing her into anything. Yes, she needs professional help, but she also has to want to do it for herself.

Therapy is incredibly difficult - that's why it's so scary. It brings every negative emotion to the surface, and makes everything 100x worse, before things even begin to get better. That's the tough thing. But, with the right help, things do get better. Once she can accept that process and ride the bad times without doing anything stupid - then she has every chance in moving forward.

It's very difficult to give individual advice, when the information you need to start with is probably already here. There are loads of resources here. Check out the following page, which has loads of links to some of the best information on this site. http://www.uic.edu/cuppa/gci/publications/workingpaperseries/pdfs/anderson 05-04.pdf