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Sufferer My limited one time introductory post. complex trauma - csa, combat, mvas, crime.

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Momento Mori

New Here
Greetings,

Time does not heal,
it buries wounds,
only for them to come back as zombies
to eat your brain.

I hate zombies.

I've been fighting this for many years, not knowing what it was, or having the right tools to fight. I believe I'm finally on the right track.

Diagnosed in 1999 after my Father passed away while I watched. Those flashbacks were the hardest to get through. I still have them, but they don't affect me like they used to. I'm not going there right now. IF I were to describe the situation it would take me to, what I refer to as, "the bad place". I try not to got there often. It usually ends up with me in trouble.

Sometime in my youth, think 5-8 years old, I was sexually abused by an older half brother. We don't have proof, but I'm pretty sure he gave me acid as it took several years for me to stop tripping or seizing from time to time. I was held at gunpoint forced to do things.....

It is 2017. I am here, not there. That was 40 years ago. This is practice for me to bring myself back as I start to go there....

My father was an alcoholic, his hobbies were fighting and beating up mom, oh and the police when they showed up. Ever sit in the corner with your older sister wondering if they were there for you, if your dad was going to kill them, they would kill you, your mom would survive?......

I'm at work, distracted again. I need to get these things out. Some of which I haven't spoken about in years. I have a psychiatrist through the VA who gives me Prozac 80 mg/day and Topamax 100 mg/day. I also have a psychotherapist who I see twice a week. We have been tiptoeing into some of these areas.

I originally joined the Army to be my own boss. I see now, I joined it so I could learn to protect myself and how to handle situations that may come about. That worked probably to well. I ended up in Iraq with DS. It was not a long time, but it was impact-full. I always knew what humans were capable of, I just didn't know what I was capable of. During one of our.... "special-recon" missions, I found out. My buddy Tex and I were part of a 6 man team surrounded by enemy and villagers. We called in air strikes to soften them up, that lasted a couple of hours.... then something snapped - I killed them all..... Men, women, children, dogs....

I've been married 15 years, my wife just heard that story last week. No one knows what happened there but the guys that were on the ground. Of my team, only Tex is still around, and he's in prison serving 25+.

There is no transition for us. We learn to do a job, and do it well, then we are sent home and told thank you, now don't do that no more.... That was 1991.

Several years of drinking, a little cocaine and bad decisions, 13 arrests, 6 counts of criminal damage of property 6 counts of reckless misconduct, 2 DUI's, fleeing and aluding, contributing to the delinquency of minors.....

Best friend died in 1994, March 11. Motorcycle accident. I was with him.... HUGE Trigger.

Quit everything, not even a cigarette.... I think I was catatonic, I don't remember much for years actually. Just worked, went home, went to bed, went to work, over and over, and over..... It did me some good though. It actually started a career which has proved to be very successful. I don't have much to worry about money wise any more.... (hey a positive +++) yay me...

Married in 2002, Son in 2002, all is awesome on the home front then the past few years the zombies have come back. Slowly at first... A flash, visual.... A sound. An image. A smell.
Before long I'm in that place.. It is familiar. I was there as a child when I was hiding, I was there in Iraq, I was there when my father died, when my best friend died, I was there last Friday in Therapy, I almost went there today. I don't like it there...

I scare me sometimes. If you know what I'm saying, say hi. It would be freakin' great to meet someone who really knows what this is like. I know I'm not alone, but I've never spoken to anyone who has cPTSD before.

Thank you for your time.
 
know each other?

Theoretically possible, but highly unlikely. Big damn world.

Marine Corps. Late 90s. Followed by a few other things. Meant familiar by themes. Each time I came home? Got a little wilder. Got in a little more trouble, a little more often. No adjustment. No time to shift gears. Just wham bam thank you ma'am slammed from one world into the other. And this world wasn't the one that made sense anymore. Got out, but didn't. They call it private contracting these days. Crossed over to the dark side for awhile. Long story short, made good eventually. Had a family, a life, about 10 good years. Then shit went sideways a few years back. Past started crashing into my present, my worlds started colliding. And I've been learning how to sort shit smarter, ever since. Ish. Jarhead, afterall. ;) There's an upward limit on smarts available.
 
The easy answer? Forward.

The better answer? Will make more sense if you swim. I sometimes think of PTSD like plunging into fawking deep water. First step? Bubble up. Break surface. Breathe. Tread water. Find my bearings. Strike for shore. Don't tangle with coral. Rest as needed. Seems simple enough. But do those steps out of order? Suck water, fight a current, or start swimming in the wrong damn direction? Makes things just a little bit harder than they need to be. Which means I've definitely done that. Sometimes I outright specialize in stupid, or making shit harder than it needs to be. Some of us are just special that way. Shrug. But it gets easier. By repetition if nothing else.

A lot of what I've been doing this time around has been avoiding a repeat of the first time shit went seriously sideways. The long-story-short meant that there were things in my life that worked the first time around. Most of them? Involved downgrading, from the shit that was seriously f*cking up my life, to things that were actually beneficial to my life. Sure, a bar fight is a great way to suddenly be very present in the now (grounding), and is fantastic exercise (stress management), but one better? Downgraded? Sparring. Downgraded again? (Solo instead of partner required). Working a bag. Lateral move? Gravity sports (think anything that if you're not paying attention, the ground smacks you, instead of a person). Unhealthy vs Healthy. Same for most other things. Seriously f*cked up options that work? Usually have not-f*cked-up alternatives. Same end result, if a little slower/less instant gratification... But ...without the mess to clean up, afterward. Also has the not small side benefit of being a life I can share with my kids.

PTSD ain't rocket science, it's pretty straightforward when it comes down to it: Deal with trauma, (learn to) handle symptoms, & (learn to) manage stress. Like most simple things, the hard part is the doing it. PTSD may be simple, but lives & trauma get complicated as f*ck. Putting those 2 pieces together? Is hard. And painful. And takes longer than it "should". And is really f*cking worth it.
 
It's great to be here. Thankle you. Life for me should get better now for a few months. No trigger dated until October. I just deal with the occasional images that come back from time to time. Indead looking forward to a great summer.
 
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