J
Justified
Hi to everyone!
I was diagnosed with PTSD just 4 weeks ago. I was totally surprised because I never knew that someone other then people in the military or police could possibly have this. It totally caught me off guard and to be honest with you all, it opened the door to floods of emotions that now I don't know how to deal with. Let me give you a bit of my history...
When I was 10 yrs old, my aunts dad touched me inappropriately and I never told a soul until I was 15 and at a church camp with some friends. 3 of us girls at the camp came forward with untold sexual abuse. The adults we chose to tell really were wonderful and convinced us to go home and tell our parents. So, that was in my plan, but, in order to explain further, I'd have to go back and tell a little more.
Growing up, my home was not all peaches and cream. I always knew there was distance between me and my dad. Like I could tell that I was definitely not his favorite by far, I just could never figure out why.
I would always try to get close to my dad by constantly doing everything he liked to do and going with him every time I got a chance. If he went hunting, I went hunting. Fishing, 4-wheeling, everything.... the same! My dad played the guitar and so he got me and my sister started playing the fiddle when I was 10 yrs of age and she was 7. Years we competed in competition after competition, playing in bands, and even on tv. While that was all awesome, there was the behind the scenes that weren't so wonderful. My dad would always favor my sister so much that even my aunts, uncles, cousins and other friends noticed it. My parents, of course fought.... a lot! Many times getting very physical with one another and abusive. After these fights, my dad would later that evening, at night, come in my room and stand at the foot of my bed and glare at me with fierce anger and even showing me his teeth.
Many times my dad would tell me that he hated me and that he wished I was dead! I would look up at him with tremendous fear, not knowing why or what I had done to deserve it, but knowing that for some reason my parents were fighting over me! I would try so hard to be a good kid and to be the responsible child every parent hopes for but it would seem I just could never get approval.
Now, going back to coming home from church camp... I was dropped off in my driveway and as I was walking up toward our house I was talking myself into telling the truth to my parents. As I was nearing the door I heard yelling and screaming and wondered what on earth was going on. I walked in and immediately saw my parents in a verbal shouting match to which I heard my mom tell my dad she had had enough of what he put her through and was going to tell me everything!! (My thoughts-->TELL ME WHAT??? What the .... do I not know?) My dad yelled back at her to shut up and was threatening her trying to create fear so she would not tell all. It was at this moment my mom turned to me and told me, "Your dad never believed you were his child because his brother (my uncle) raped her!!! Suddenly the picture became perfectly clear! I was handed the missing piece to the puzzle!
After that, they proceeded to physically hurt one another and I turned around, walked out the door, hopped on my bike and rode as fast as I could back to the house of the people that had just dropped me off and proceeded to have a nervous breakdown to which I would up in the hospital for. They told me my blood pressure was within stroke range and had to give me a shot to calm me down. Needless to say, I moved in for a while with my cousin till I was brave enough to go back home and endure more but when I finally did, it was as if that didn't just happen except for now my dad's anger at me grew even more because I now knew...
Skip forward to my when I was 17 and a senior in high school, holding down a full time job and living at my parents by myself holding down the fort because they moved 150 mi away because they had to find work. Where we lived was a small town and so work was hard to come by. I didn't want to change schools my senior yr and I also had a job working as a sacker at Furrs grocery store. At this time I begin to see this guy who was older than me and definitely more experienced. One night we were drinking with some friends and the next thing I know he was trying to get me to sleep with him. I told him NO countless times but he had got me alone in another room to talk about it and then suddenly he was not taking no for an answer... Now, I found myself having to deal with just being raped! I did finally seek counseling but wound up going only a couple of times. It was a group counseling session and amazingly, at one of these sessions, my story and another girls sounded eerily similar and come to find out we had the same perp!
Skip forward a couple of months... I'm working at Furrs and many times from directly after school until11:30-12:00 o'clock at night cuz the store closed at 11:00 if I remember correctly. One night when there were 4 of us left working and having to close the store a man came in and hid in the ceiling of the building until we closed the store. Once closed, he came down with a gun and held us all at gunpoint and robbed the store. He made us go into a small office and lay face down (which absolutely flooded me with terror cuz I thought we were going to be executed!!!) and then he proceeded to tie our hands together and also our feet with duct tape! I WAS ONLY 17!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 17 and had already been through sooooo much!
Mind you my parents were 2 hrs away in another town. Another lady, who was old enough to be my mom and was a mom herself, heard the call come in over the scanner at her home and she knew I was at work that night and that I also lived alone. She got up and came to the store to follow me home and wait with me till my parents got there. She made me call my parents and tell them to which they told me, "Well, your ok now you just have to move forward." I asked them if they were coming and they said to me that I knew that they couldn't because their boss would never let them off... WHAT???" I was soooooo embarrassed when I got off the phone and my friend as me if they were coming and I had to tell her no. So, I did what my parents told me and pushed it into my past as much as I could.
Through the yrs though I have had flashbacks and countless moments of anxiety. I have tried to suppress my feelings and once in a while would try to talk to someone about my thoughts and feelings but NEVER felt I was justified in the way that I felt until recently when now at 41 yrs old I have found myself severely depressed and flooded with tons of emotions like ANGER, pain, desertion, frustration, moments of fear and never trusting my surroundings or people, and even traumatic dreams. I'm REALLY TIRED and can't take anymore! I decided I needed to do something and that going to a psychiatrist doesn't mean I'm crazy, even if I feel as though I am going crazy! I have been to 2 sessions and she diagnosed me with PTSD. I thought, WHAT? You mean what I'm feeling is normal, real, and has a clinical name???? You mean I'm not crazy because I can't seem to "GET OVER IT AND PUT IT IN MY PAST!" as everyone has told me to do???
FINALLY FEELING JUSTIFIED FEELS AMAZING!!!!
Praying my story will help others know THEY ARE NOT CRAZY!! This is normal and you can find healing!
I'm now finally, 24 yrs later, working on my healing... Thanks to God for always carrying me through cuz I know with all that I have been through I could never have ever survived it had he not have carried me through it all... just like the poem of footprints.
I was diagnosed with PTSD just 4 weeks ago. I was totally surprised because I never knew that someone other then people in the military or police could possibly have this. It totally caught me off guard and to be honest with you all, it opened the door to floods of emotions that now I don't know how to deal with. Let me give you a bit of my history...
When I was 10 yrs old, my aunts dad touched me inappropriately and I never told a soul until I was 15 and at a church camp with some friends. 3 of us girls at the camp came forward with untold sexual abuse. The adults we chose to tell really were wonderful and convinced us to go home and tell our parents. So, that was in my plan, but, in order to explain further, I'd have to go back and tell a little more.
Growing up, my home was not all peaches and cream. I always knew there was distance between me and my dad. Like I could tell that I was definitely not his favorite by far, I just could never figure out why.
I would always try to get close to my dad by constantly doing everything he liked to do and going with him every time I got a chance. If he went hunting, I went hunting. Fishing, 4-wheeling, everything.... the same! My dad played the guitar and so he got me and my sister started playing the fiddle when I was 10 yrs of age and she was 7. Years we competed in competition after competition, playing in bands, and even on tv. While that was all awesome, there was the behind the scenes that weren't so wonderful. My dad would always favor my sister so much that even my aunts, uncles, cousins and other friends noticed it. My parents, of course fought.... a lot! Many times getting very physical with one another and abusive. After these fights, my dad would later that evening, at night, come in my room and stand at the foot of my bed and glare at me with fierce anger and even showing me his teeth.
Many times my dad would tell me that he hated me and that he wished I was dead! I would look up at him with tremendous fear, not knowing why or what I had done to deserve it, but knowing that for some reason my parents were fighting over me! I would try so hard to be a good kid and to be the responsible child every parent hopes for but it would seem I just could never get approval.
Now, going back to coming home from church camp... I was dropped off in my driveway and as I was walking up toward our house I was talking myself into telling the truth to my parents. As I was nearing the door I heard yelling and screaming and wondered what on earth was going on. I walked in and immediately saw my parents in a verbal shouting match to which I heard my mom tell my dad she had had enough of what he put her through and was going to tell me everything!! (My thoughts-->TELL ME WHAT??? What the .... do I not know?) My dad yelled back at her to shut up and was threatening her trying to create fear so she would not tell all. It was at this moment my mom turned to me and told me, "Your dad never believed you were his child because his brother (my uncle) raped her!!! Suddenly the picture became perfectly clear! I was handed the missing piece to the puzzle!
After that, they proceeded to physically hurt one another and I turned around, walked out the door, hopped on my bike and rode as fast as I could back to the house of the people that had just dropped me off and proceeded to have a nervous breakdown to which I would up in the hospital for. They told me my blood pressure was within stroke range and had to give me a shot to calm me down. Needless to say, I moved in for a while with my cousin till I was brave enough to go back home and endure more but when I finally did, it was as if that didn't just happen except for now my dad's anger at me grew even more because I now knew...
Skip forward to my when I was 17 and a senior in high school, holding down a full time job and living at my parents by myself holding down the fort because they moved 150 mi away because they had to find work. Where we lived was a small town and so work was hard to come by. I didn't want to change schools my senior yr and I also had a job working as a sacker at Furrs grocery store. At this time I begin to see this guy who was older than me and definitely more experienced. One night we were drinking with some friends and the next thing I know he was trying to get me to sleep with him. I told him NO countless times but he had got me alone in another room to talk about it and then suddenly he was not taking no for an answer... Now, I found myself having to deal with just being raped! I did finally seek counseling but wound up going only a couple of times. It was a group counseling session and amazingly, at one of these sessions, my story and another girls sounded eerily similar and come to find out we had the same perp!
Skip forward a couple of months... I'm working at Furrs and many times from directly after school until11:30-12:00 o'clock at night cuz the store closed at 11:00 if I remember correctly. One night when there were 4 of us left working and having to close the store a man came in and hid in the ceiling of the building until we closed the store. Once closed, he came down with a gun and held us all at gunpoint and robbed the store. He made us go into a small office and lay face down (which absolutely flooded me with terror cuz I thought we were going to be executed!!!) and then he proceeded to tie our hands together and also our feet with duct tape! I WAS ONLY 17!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 17 and had already been through sooooo much!
Mind you my parents were 2 hrs away in another town. Another lady, who was old enough to be my mom and was a mom herself, heard the call come in over the scanner at her home and she knew I was at work that night and that I also lived alone. She got up and came to the store to follow me home and wait with me till my parents got there. She made me call my parents and tell them to which they told me, "Well, your ok now you just have to move forward." I asked them if they were coming and they said to me that I knew that they couldn't because their boss would never let them off... WHAT???" I was soooooo embarrassed when I got off the phone and my friend as me if they were coming and I had to tell her no. So, I did what my parents told me and pushed it into my past as much as I could.
Through the yrs though I have had flashbacks and countless moments of anxiety. I have tried to suppress my feelings and once in a while would try to talk to someone about my thoughts and feelings but NEVER felt I was justified in the way that I felt until recently when now at 41 yrs old I have found myself severely depressed and flooded with tons of emotions like ANGER, pain, desertion, frustration, moments of fear and never trusting my surroundings or people, and even traumatic dreams. I'm REALLY TIRED and can't take anymore! I decided I needed to do something and that going to a psychiatrist doesn't mean I'm crazy, even if I feel as though I am going crazy! I have been to 2 sessions and she diagnosed me with PTSD. I thought, WHAT? You mean what I'm feeling is normal, real, and has a clinical name???? You mean I'm not crazy because I can't seem to "GET OVER IT AND PUT IT IN MY PAST!" as everyone has told me to do???
FINALLY FEELING JUSTIFIED FEELS AMAZING!!!!
Praying my story will help others know THEY ARE NOT CRAZY!! This is normal and you can find healing!
I'm now finally, 24 yrs later, working on my healing... Thanks to God for always carrying me through cuz I know with all that I have been through I could never have ever survived it had he not have carried me through it all... just like the poem of footprints.
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