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Undiagnosed My Timeline Of Headmess.

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novirginmary

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Hi everyone,

I'm an almost-31 year old female from Australia here.

I'm technically undiagnosed, as I had a breakdown last year, attended some counselling where in the 3rd session, the psychologist advised me that she thinks I have PTSD from childhood bullying.

Because I thought PTSD was only for soldiers, and that I hadn't been bullied - I just went to school with a bitch - I stopped attending counselling and taking the lexapro they'd prescribed for me.

So technically, I haven't been diagnosed, but a year has passed since my breakdown began, and in that time I managed to end my six year relationship and throw my world into even more chaos.

Now that I'm outside my relationship, I can see parts of it for what they truly are. My ex is still living with me 3 months later, and I physically can't make the words "you have to leave" come out of my mouth. There's still that thing inside me that says "even though it's for your own good, it's better to keep putting up with unhappiness than risk life without him".

He's scarred from his own issues - like we all are - and those issues are incompatible with the jumbo jet's worth of baggage I have now discovered I've been carrying, and adding to, for the past... however many years the age of 9 is from 31. I failed maths and ceebs counting.

In any case, I've started to have flashbacks, and yeah, pretty sure that counsellor was right...

Without wasting your time with the details of my life, here's the timeline:

Age 9: New girl arrives at school and teachers ask me to show her around. She becomes part of our group, and swiftly proceeds to take over the entire thing, transforming it from a bunch of girls who used to go to school to play dolls with each other, to a bunch of girls who went to school sick with fear over being the girl who got picked to be the hated one for the day. Cue Lord of the Flies self-preservation. Little girls are pure evil.

Age 12: Start high school. Like my friends, use this chance to make a new start and find new friends. Interestingly, none of us made friends together.

Age 12: Discover that I have lost the ability to form words in public and spend lunch times following groups of girls around, but not speaking. Girls find this creepy and shun me.

Age 13: Get the internet. Discover new things: people, and music, mostly. Become a goth, and stop worrying about "real" life through the day. It's just school. Life life happens when I get home, get online, and talk to my actual friends, 5 hours away.

Age 13: Goth persona has become armour, and I can speak now. Interestingly, I find a wonderful group of friends and life is beautiful.

Age 15: The only other person in my town who knows who Marilyn Manson is, asks me out.
LIFE TIP: Do not base your romantic relationships solely on musical taste. It helps if you also get to know them. Or listen to the rumours that have already been spoken about how, at 14, he bashed his ex girlfriend.

Age 18: The relationship, and your abuse, finally ends because he moves away.

Age 18: Hey, you should totally go nuts with alcohol now that you're allowed to make your own decisions.

Age 18.5: Move out of your small town, into a big city with a boy you really like, who straight away becomes your boyfriend and also signs up to dating sites.

Age 23: After five years together, you're off the pill because it makes you sick, you've run out of condoms and your (same) boyfriend still wants to have sex. You remind him of the above factors, and he says "we've been together for 5 years now, if it happens, it happens".

2.7 months later: You go to take a bite of your favourite dinner and immediately need to throw up. It dawns on you. The pregnancy test confirms it. "It" happened.

4 days later: You are about to head to the abortion clinic, because he decided it wouldn't happen after all. You've been unable to eat or drink since midnight, been awake since 4am with worry, and your partner decides to scream and stomp around the house because you're not in the headspace right now to write a grocery list. You have the abortion.

Age 24: In order to end that relationship, you move interstate to a city you've never been to before. There, you don't know anyone, and proceed to drink your worries away.

Age 24.5: You've been single 6 months and meet a boy. He likes to drink with you.

Age 29.5: You have a mental, emotional and physical breakdown. Suicide point. You get drunk and try to cut yourself and your mother stops you and you lay her out. You get medicated.

Age 30: You stop taking your medication and your 6 year relationship dissolves under the pressure.

Age Almost 31: You realise your psychologist was right, and that your entire goddamn life has been one crazy bunch of shit you've been conditioned to accept. All the things you felt convinced you were okay to feel about situations, were in fact blown out of proportion by your past trauma, and all the things you excused away, were things you should never have accepted.

Also, you totally have Trichotillomania, and that's why you've twirled your hair into pull-out knots since you were 9.

... so that's where things stand right now.

I've taken the day off work to try and organise some more sessions with my psychologist. I can't get in to see a psychiatrist because we only get one visit per month, and there's a waiting list as long as my history up there...

I've been having flashbacks in the 3 months since my relationship ended that have convinced me that I do, in fact have PTSD. It's opened a giant can of worms, but at the same time, that feels better than constantly questioning whether i'm right to feel a certain way. I always think I am until someone else tells me I'm overreacting, or acting crazy.

I can now see that I was. They weren't gaslighting me, nor was I gaslighting them - my brain is just all whacked out, right now and I have a whole heap of work ahead of me to rewire it.

But I can... and that's much better than thinking that this is it...
 
Hi and welcome to the forum.

Well done on your introduction, I know it isn't easy. You are not alone here. Many will understand what you have been through and many more will understand your symptoms.
 
Hi NVM,

Honestly, I'd say that you have been diagnosed. That you didn't accept the diagnosis is however true. We are glad that you are here.

Do you ever feel like there might be memory gaps, back in your history. That's a classical component of PTSD. It doesn't always happen, but when it does, it can leave you wondering what the hell is going on! I guess I feel from your first post that you may be feeling some of that.

Take Care!

Bear
 
Many will understand what you have been through and many more will understand your symptoms.

Thank you for the warm welcome and the support.

It's the understanding I was hoping to find - it's so amazing right now to NOT feel completely misunderstood!
 
Do you ever feel like there might be memory gaps, back in your history.

Oh wow, talk about memory gaps - I have very few memories at all. My sister can remember all manner of things but I just have this .. blankness, apart from significant or traumatic events.

I'm quite shocked at just how quickly I am connecting the dots, now that I've accepted her initial diagnosis. It's really quite thrilling to be aware of WHY I react to things, and completely empowering.

Today is a good day, thanks for being part of it :)
 
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