New To Ssa, From Ptsd Forum

[Kintsugi]

Hey, I'm new to here but came from the PTSD forum.

It's a little bit scarier being here. Dealing with PTSD is dealing with trauma, but it's coming at it from a very clinical angle I guess, or more clinical.

I think this may be why sexual abuse survivor groups are off-putting to me. It's so much more intimidating to focus on what actually happened to get me to get to PTSD.

I am a victim of long-term sibling sexual abuse, which included abuse from several other boys.
Also a victim of rape/a sexually and otherwise abusive relationship.
Then there were one-time instances, which seem comparatively, well, let's try to stay away from ranking abuse.

Nice to meet all of you.

 

[cherryblossom]

Hello

Welcome to the forum. :wave:Take your time here, there's no rush. but you are welcome to post when you are ready.

You've already made the first and often hardest step - your first post - well done :thumbsup:

 

[Nyx]

Welcome. I get where you're coming from, I felt the same way at first. But I have come to rely on this forum and it has helped me a great deal. Hope it helps you too.

 

[Kintsugi]

Admittedly, confessing the way that my body have been appropriated and brutalized in a very mixed forum is sometimes odd, especially when there are much older vets... no offense, the response is just different. I have a friend who was a sniper in Iraq. He always tells me that our problems are on a different plane. I agree in some ways that the differences sometimes inhibit complete empathy. Now I'm rambling?

 

[cherryblossom]

Now I'm rambling?

A bit :laughing: Only kidding!
But I know what you mean - hence this forum. A place where people can speak about sexual violence, not just PTSD.

 

[Powder]

Child sexual abuse is a newer addition to PTSD as a major and common cause, so yes, there is that division of what they thought of as combat PTSD and abuse PTSD. The major underlying feature, however, is human agency toward deliberately acting in a harmful, threatening, or dangerous manner toward another human in a way that does lasting psychological harm, intentional or not, to the person/people. I think that there needs to be a look at the potential for human evil as one thing, no matter how it gets played out or how institutions have failed to protect the victims. Different trauma may lead to different coping mechanisms and different faces of PTSD, but the damage to the brain and the person runs along the same nerve paths, the same features of PTSD are also present. The older vet needs to learn to acknowledge that you don't have to be shot at to have been traumatized.

I am far more traumatized by the child sex abuse than having had guns pointed at me by drunks and seeing bodies without faces lying on the shoulder of rotundas in foreign places I was forced to go to live. It's not the type of trauma, it's the trauma that did the most damage and started the PTSD. All other trauma is just traumatic, not causative.

You are so welcome here, and your story shows your truth, which I validate. You're wise to be working so hard on this now. Very smart.

I'm hoping to share my journey as much as possible and in a way that is most helpful or just there for you all here.

XOXO Muse

 

[WonderingWhy]

Welcome!:wave:

 

[KAT]

Hi:)