Sufferer New - Looking to not cut myself off the the world

[RyanBernadsky]

Hi everyone, my name is Ryan, I've been diagnosed with CPTSD recently, though I was diagnosed with it before about 8 years ago, but me being me I didn't believe it.

Little about that, I have had some form of ptsd going back to when I was 7. Im survivor of child abuse, some physical but mostly mental and emotional, which has translated into domestic abuse as an adult as I've been in a trauma bond with my one parent who is one of the primary abusers who I'm slowly trying to break away from. Along with this, I've witnessed people die some pretty horrible deaths (First when I was 7), and I grew up in a very bad area which saw a lot of violence in the late 1990s-2000s when I was a young. Not so fun fact about that, we had a serial killer and child abductor active there when I was kid.

Hoping to meet some people and maybe help out a little too with my experiences.. took me a while to actually sign and write all this too.

 

[arfie]

hello ryan. welcome to the forum. sorry for what brings you here, but glad you are here. congratulations on finding the courage to heal.

i've come a long way on my own healing journey, but the urge to isolate remains one of my more therapy resistant symptoms. is it progress that i can now recognize the urge and ply therapy tools before the urge escalates to stonewall isolation, etc., etc? i still don't typically enjoy the company of other humans, but it's been a while since i've hated on myself for being one of those stinky humans.

support groups such as this one, both live and online, are my number one isolation breaker. the live groups tend to make better therapy tools because they carry far more exposure therapy than the social distances of virtual world.

 

[parrotthepolly]

Welcome, hope you're in a better place away from all that now.

It's very normal to have denied your trauma or diagnosis since the brain desensitises long term exposure to help you cope with the horrors.

Proud of you for reaching out and talking about it! As someone who isolates a lot I know how hard it can be.

 

[Sideways]

Welcome to the community - glad you found us:)

 

[Susan Jane]

Hi everyone, my name is Ryan, I've been diagnosed with CPTSD recently, though I was diagnosed with it before about 8 years ago, but me being me I didn't believe it.

Little about that, I have had some form of ptsd going back to when I was 7. Im survivor of child abuse, some physical but mostly mental and emotional, which has translated into domestic abuse as an adult as I've been in a trauma bond with my one parent who is one of the primary abusers who I'm slowly trying to break away from. Along with this, I've witnessed people die some pretty horrible deaths (First when I was 7), and I grew up in a very bad area which saw a lot of violence in the late 1990s-2000s when I was a young. Not so fun fact about that, we had a serial killer and child abductor active there when I was kid.

Hoping to meet some people and maybe help out a little too with my experiences.. took me a while to actually sign and write all this too.

Welcome to the community. I had the same experience with my diagnosis. PTSD was diagnosed more than 2 decades ago but I just in the last 4 years began to understand what it meant. I relate and look forward to reading you.

 

[Friday]

Aloha!

took me a while to actually sign and write all this too.

Looking for solutions? Is the name of the game, IME/IMO. Improvise, adapt, overcome.

One of my own cardinal rules? I do everything that scares me… eventually! Doesn’t have to be in the moment, in normal life. In TRAUMA??? It’s often act-or-die. Or conversely? Waiting for the other shoe to drop, and the longer it goes, the worse the anticipatory anxiety (just do it, already!).

So there can be a great deal of fear/shame/terror attached to… waiting.

As lessons learned in trauma tend to brand themselves, meanwhile we’re cramming desperately, and still struggling to recall, the things we want to learn. >.<

But waiting? Ain’t wrong.

Take all the time you WANT. Always.

 

[RyanBernadsky]

I like that idea, and there is something I can apply that too. I already feel the shame of it and the fear.. I've never felt such fear before. Yesterday I thought about going to a place to help overcome, but I feel that fear and along with anger. Then the migraines kick in, hopefully soon.

hello ryan. welcome to the forum. sorry for what brings you here, but glad you are here. congratulations on finding the courage to heal.

i've come a long way on my own healing journey, but the urge to isolate remains one of my more therapy resistant symptoms. is it progress that i can now recognize the urge and ply therapy tools before the urge escalates to stonewall isolation, etc., etc? i still don't typically enjoy the company of other humans, but it's been a while since i've hated on myself for being one of those stinky humans.

support groups such as this one, both live and online, are my number one isolation breaker. the live groups tend to make better therapy tools because they carry far more exposure therapy than the social distances of virtual world.

I apologize for the late reply as that urge to isolate can kind of be like a drug. It hit, but thank you. I only enjoy the company of very few humans, mostly animals or trees. Heck even the dirt makes for better company sometimes. If you don't mind me asking, how do you fight the urges?

Aloha!




Looking for solutions? Is the name of the game, IME/IMO. Improvise, adapt, overcome.

One of my own cardinal rules? I do everything that scares me… eventually! Doesn’t have to be in the moment, in normal life. In TRAUMA??? It’s often act-or-die. Or conversely? Waiting for the other shoe to drop, and the longer it goes, the worse the anticipatory anxiety (just do it, already!).

So there can be a great deal of fear/shame/terror attached to… waiting.

As lessons learned in trauma tend to brand themselves, meanwhile we’re cramming desperately, and still struggling to recall, the things we want to learn. >.<

But waiting? Ain’t wrong.

Take all the time you WANT. Always.

Also I just noticed you said Aloha and my grandma who was more of a mother than grandma was Native Hawaiian so mahalo e hoa :).

 

[arfie]

I only enjoy the company of very few humans, mostly animals or trees. Heck even the dirt makes for better company sometimes. If you don't mind me asking, how do you fight the urges?

i don't fight the urges. seems to me that the harder i fight, the meaner the urges get. i use the very grounding tools you mention here to bring myself back to center so that i move the urges to the back burner while i do what needs doing, even if it involves those gnasty human critters. dirt is among my actual companions during my isolating breaks. turning the compost is great therapy to ground me before i have to deal with things like taxes, domestic squabbles, et al.

my grandma who was more of a mother than grandma

i wish i could pick your heart and brain on this score. i am approaching the 6th anniversary of the traffic accident which left my 3 grandchildren orphans, then 6, 3 and 8 months. i miss being a grandma. i feel like i have been demoted to, "mom." it be a boiling, toiling, troubling psycho cauldron.

lana no ka hoola ana maanei. hope healing happens here.

 

[RyanBernadsky]

i don't fight the urges. seems to me that the harder i fight, the meaner the urges get. i use the very grounding tools you mention here to bring myself back to center so that i move the urges to the back burner while i do what needs doing, even if it involves those gnasty human critters. dirt is among my actual companions during my isolating breaks. turning the compost is great therapy to ground me before i have to deal with things like taxes, domestic squabbles, et al.

i wish i could pick your heart and brain on this score. i am approaching the 6th anniversary of the traffic accident which left my 3 grandchildren orphans, then 6, 3 and 8 months. i miss being a grandma. i feel like i have been demoted to, "mom." it be a boiling, toiling, troubling psycho cauldron.

lana no ka hoola ana maanei. hope healing happens here.

I am sorry to hear that and I'd imagine with ptsd it makes things harder... my grandma and yours situations were different. My mom (who I have a trauma bond with that im trying to break) did in a sense "raise" me. But my grandma was the one who actually loved me and treated me like a human. We and my brothers used to visit every weekend I was at least 4 (as far back as I can remember) until I was about 9ish, where my mom stopped us from seeing anyone. Once I reached about 17 I got back in contact with my grandma and we talked every night. So she didnt really raise me in a normal sense, she just gave me love and helped me feel human, unlike others in my family. If that makes sense, im not good at explaining things.

 

[arfie]

my grandma and yours situations were different.

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" ~leo tolstoy
of course we are different. still, i find that shaking the proverbial trees for answers is worth the effort. ya just never know which tree the right nut will fall out of.

If that makes sense, im not good at explaining things.

i opine that you did a most excellent job of explaining. thank you.

I'd imagine with ptsd it makes things harder...

that's a tough measure for the comparison. there are levels on which i think the ptsd might have made the shock easier. abnormal circumstances feel more normal because of the ptsd. my perfect-on-paper husband struggles with anything as abnormal as a burp in a bored meeting. or is that a board meeting?

 

[S800]

Well hello there. Welcome.

Also lived in a deeply unsafe area for a very long time. Even without the baggage I had before being dumped there, it 1000% sealed my fate as a fringe antisocial weirdo. XD

It's a rough road from there to recovery, one I'm still on and will likely be on forever. But it is ABSOLUTELY worth it when you start running into people that actually speak YOUR language, and not whatever the social norm is.

 

[Susan Jane]

I like that idea, and there is something I can apply that too. I already feel the shame of it and the fear.. I've never felt such fear before. Yesterday I thought about going to a place to help overcome, but I feel that fear and along with anger. Then the migraines kick in, hopefully soon.

I hoped to nail the shit on the head and started working to fix it . I learned I have to go through the shame, intolerable fear and depression. I so understand… the fear I felt from March-June was something I can’t describe and I isolated myself. I called 3 friends just to hear their voices and beg them not to let me die alone on the streets. I spend most of my days in bed or on the sofa… I could hardly live my apartment. I lost 4 kilos. It was effin’ rough…

Take your time… I made the mistake of working too much and pushing it away or overdoing it and it bit me in the ass.