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Need Help - Cannot Control Ptsd Symptoms In New Relationship

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Hi everyone

Like many others on this site, I stumbled here when I was trying to google an explanation for my increasingly erratic and often unexplainable behaviours and thoughts over the years. It wasn't until I discovered PTSD that I finally felt like for once, I had found something that could explain to me why I had always been different and abnormal in my thoughts and actions. Just reading some of the experiences from others have really cracked down my emotional barriers and caused me to cry in both empathy (as I understand their pain) as well as hope (because I now don't feel alone anymore).

I came from an abusive household, my father was both physically and emotionally abusive to both my mother and I. During childhood I watched him beat her and attempt to kill her. As I grew older, he vented his frustrations out on me, often throwing me across rooms as a child or hitting me with his fists, alcohol bottles and bits of furniture. In high school he once injured me so badly that I finally confessed to a friend as I had scars all over my chest and neck. Through consulting her, I finally had the guts to tell my mother to make him leave. He left but from then on my mother has hated me for what she calls 'destroying her marriage' and believes that I made her husband who loved her dearly leave their family. As much as I tried to explain and help her with the housework and everything I think my presence only angered her more. I grew up fearful of her anger and hatred which was coupled with occasional bursts of love and affection. This left me very confused. As I reached senior high, one of my father's friends came to visit my home although my parents were already separated. When my mom left the house to pick something up my younger sister, he watched me and followed me around the house, often staring at my backside as I bent down to feed the dogs or standing near the bathroom waiting for me to finish. After a while he came up to me and asked me to talk with him on our sofa. He began telling me that I was a very bad person for making my father go away and that I would be punished in hell. He asked me if I was scared of hell and told me to think about my horrible actions. I tried to get up and leave at this point but he grew frustrated and pinned me to my sofa. He grabbed my hand and forced me to sit down and continue listening as he told me more about how I would be damned for what I had done. This persisted for 15 minutes until my mom came home. She walked in on it but didn't say anything to him. Later when he left I told her what happened but she didn't believe me and accused me of lying. The next time he came over I was so afraid I came downstairs with a wooden stick and told him to leave whilst crying. Instead my mom kicked me out of her house. She later let me back inside around midnight after he left.

Furthermore my boyfriend at the time knew about my family situation and had grown more and more manipulative towards me as well as increasingly abusive. He often threw glass bottles, smashed things, punched walls or slammed doors whenever I did something that made him unhappy. During arguments he would often threaten me and shout at me whenever I cried. When we were outside and I upset him, he would leave me on the streets after publicly humiliating me. All of this, coupled with his sexual aggression towards me and coercing me into doing things with him that I felt ashamed of caused me to feel suicidal on many occasions during my childhood.

Now that I've grown older and he is gone from my life, I find it hard to have any kind of intimate relationship with men. I can't be with a boyfriend or date someone who longer than 2-3 months as I begin to withdraw myself and my behaviour becomes erratic at the smallest things. I find that I have severe anger issues, such as throwing chairs and furniture when arguments escalate and then breaking down and crying at nights till sunrise. The smallest things that they do could trigger an irrational response in me and cause me to think that they don't love me, that I'm unworthy of being loved or that they want to manipulate me. Because of this I often hurt people who care about me and love me as I say hurtful and emotional things to them that I know isn't true sometimes but I impulsively say anyway. Currently I have an amazing boyfriend but due to past experiences with being lied to and cheated on, whenever I see girls sending him photos or love hearts, I become so emotional that I withdraw from him completely, refusing to see him and either have episodes of anger or severe depression. Sometimes I almost exaggerate and imagine him to already be cheating on me as if to justify my own anger and hurt. What I'm doing to him is unfair and I know it. He is a really good guy and means a lot to me. I just really need help with what to do.. I have seen a psychologist in high school but was told by this man that I needed to let go of my anger at my dad and let him back into my life so he and my mom could be together again. I'm not sure why he said something like this especially because my father had tried to kill my mom on multiple times. I feel my mom may have paid the psychologist to tell me this. Because of this I am really afraid to seek out the help of professionals as I cannot trust them.

Is there anyone here with any wise advice or has suffered similar experiences? I really don't know what to do anymore and I feel that I am reaching a boiling point. For the past week I have not slept and cried every single day followed by periods of anger and the desire to run away and withdraw from everyone.
 
The first thing you need is a therapist who isn't a douche-bag. Oh kiddo. (I don't actually think you are much younger than me.) That sounds really rough. It makes sense that you have a hard time trusting.

I really hate the way people get stuck on "let your anger go". I find that over time my anger waxes and wanes in intensity. I can tell that the anger drains me so sometimes I just don't bother to put energy into that bucket. That doesn't mean I have "let it go" it just means it isn't my main focus this minute. Sometimes I feel something resembling peace.

It's a roller coaster and always will be. You are going to need a good therapist. You are also going to need some friends who aren't assholes or your life is going to be really hard. People who play games with you are not good people to know. I have no contact with my bio-family. It is the right choice for me.

Be careful of self-fulfilling prophesies. Sometimes when I catastrophize (Oh no! Everyone hates me!) it happens more. I create that result by obsessing over it. I also try to set people up to succeed. If you tell someone over and over that they will cheat on you and they have opportunity... yeah it's more likely to happen. :-\ Humans are tricky creatures. Which isn't to say that if you stop ever worrying about cheating that it will magically go away.

I don't have wisdom. Life sucks. :-\
 
Therapy has worked well for me. Try and forgive yourself and accept it. Once I realized that i can't change my stripes things got easier. I would withdraw from my girl friend alot and also act erratic. Until I got help I realized i had PTSD. Its soo hard. I have to constantly verbally remind myself that "its OK man, relax. Its probably just me being irrational." You create your own reality, so try and surround yourself with things you enjoy and people you trust! Youre soo strong to still be pushing after all you've been through, don't give up!!
 
Therapy. (Lots of it). And a guy willing to stick around long enough to prove me oh so wrong. (I still don't know how that happened...?)

But, I'm concerned that this wonderful guy is getting photos of other girls? Are you two official and exclusive? If so, a good guy would tell these girls to stop as its inappropriate. By not saying "no", he's actually welcoming this behavior.
 
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