Though it's the first time something has made SENSE to me!!
I think I have been suffering from PTSD for a very long time. A few things that stick out that could have been the origins:
My parents divorced when I was 8. My mother was having her own problems with her self-esteem, depression and prescription drugs. My parents had a bad relationship. I remember seeing them physically fighting. My brother was only 3 and had a REALLY hard time with my dad leaving. My mom pretty much concentrated on him, because I was her "good girl" who was "strong" and "always ok". When I think about all my "abandonment" issues, I know this doesn't only have to do with my dad who physically went away but also with my mother who was emotionally away.
When I was 10, I was molested in the park near our house by a stranger. No pentration, just touching me where he shouldn't have. He tricked me you see... I was playing tennis with myself - there was a practise wall and I use to go down to the courts and just practise - He was watching and then said something to me like "you know a lot of people lose their tennis balls in the bushes". Me being 10 and naiive, took his bait and followed him in the bushes to look for balls... I don't remember EXACTLY what happened then, except him touching between my legs and feeling VERY scared. Apparently I told my mother only a few days later (I remember telling my friend Carla THAT day, running up to her, hugging her and her shying away from me, not knowing what to do), we called the police, I gave a description and then I wasn't allowed to go to the park on my own anymore. That's it. I did not tell my dad what happened until I was 30 (I'm 38). I did not even realise I told my mother - after a huge outburst a couple of weeks ago and directly my anger towards her, the incident came up and she told me what happened.
I know it was around then that I started feeling ugly and dirty and very wierd about my body.
I became sexually active at 13, in fact I got pregnant the first "real" time I had sex (the first time it wasn't successful, let's say), I did not tell my mother, I told my Aunt who took me to get an abortion. I am sure however my Aunt told her eventually, but to this day, I never have said a word. I associated sex with male attention which obviously meant I was "good" and "loved" even though they were all talking about me behind my back. I got pregnant again at 16 and I was on the pill. Another abortion but my parents knew this time - I didn't WANT the abortion, but my father (ever so present in my life... NOT) insisted and sent me the money for it (funny, he'd never help me with college or anything else like that).
I joined the military when I was 17. I wasn't in for long. There were THREE separate incidences of sexual assualt, one in bootcamp. Nothing was ever done to help me. No one would come forward as a witness. My reports were pretty much ignored. I ended up going AWOL over the third one - it was my own Chief "performing" the assault on me to make sure he understood exactly what happened the second time. (I turned myself in and eventually got out of the Military - honorable discharge, for "severe personality disorder" )
I have had STD's, multiple partners - girls and boys- gotten in with the drug crowd (no heavy-heavy drugs), done all sorts of things, for attention and "love" / "acceptance". I have hardly ever been on my own, alone, no relationship. I have been married twice. Just recently (and I mean RECENTLY) I figured out that I have a pattern... I "hook" my relationships in with sex and after approx. 2 years everything BLOCKS. The walls go up. I feel sick, anxious, angry, freaked out and I don't want to be intimate anymore. Generally speaking I run away from my relationships because I can't handle dealing with what's happening... easier to start the process over again with someone else. Also, since I always think I'm not "good enough" the person I am with is going to leave me... then they do, or I do and that proves that I don't deserve to have a decent relationship and I'll always be abandoned.
Another thing... probably for the last year or two I have been feeling incredibly GUILTY about the abortions. I feel like God is punishing me now that I'm older and I finally know I WANT to have children. My partner, whom I am also desperately trying to NOT walk away from (already have the sex barriers though), has had a vasectomy (he has two kids already), had it reversed for ME and it was not successful. I took this as a personal sign that I did not DESERVE to have kids and I was being punished. This overwhelms me on a fairly daily basis.
I apologise for this being so long - this is the first time I've been able to really piece everything together - I am seeing a therapist, she mentioned PTSD to me the FIRST time I was there - that there is a correlation between the molestation/assualts and freaking out after a certain period in a relationship.
I am really, really hoping that someone out there can say "YES!! This is SO PTSD!" that someone knows how I feel, that someone understand the anger the freak-outs, the panic, the anxiety, the desire to NEVER leave the house, yet at the same time the desire to GET A LIFE! I so want to be normal!!!
Thank you for reading.
I think I have been suffering from PTSD for a very long time. A few things that stick out that could have been the origins:
My parents divorced when I was 8. My mother was having her own problems with her self-esteem, depression and prescription drugs. My parents had a bad relationship. I remember seeing them physically fighting. My brother was only 3 and had a REALLY hard time with my dad leaving. My mom pretty much concentrated on him, because I was her "good girl" who was "strong" and "always ok". When I think about all my "abandonment" issues, I know this doesn't only have to do with my dad who physically went away but also with my mother who was emotionally away.
When I was 10, I was molested in the park near our house by a stranger. No pentration, just touching me where he shouldn't have. He tricked me you see... I was playing tennis with myself - there was a practise wall and I use to go down to the courts and just practise - He was watching and then said something to me like "you know a lot of people lose their tennis balls in the bushes". Me being 10 and naiive, took his bait and followed him in the bushes to look for balls... I don't remember EXACTLY what happened then, except him touching between my legs and feeling VERY scared. Apparently I told my mother only a few days later (I remember telling my friend Carla THAT day, running up to her, hugging her and her shying away from me, not knowing what to do), we called the police, I gave a description and then I wasn't allowed to go to the park on my own anymore. That's it. I did not tell my dad what happened until I was 30 (I'm 38). I did not even realise I told my mother - after a huge outburst a couple of weeks ago and directly my anger towards her, the incident came up and she told me what happened.
I know it was around then that I started feeling ugly and dirty and very wierd about my body.
I became sexually active at 13, in fact I got pregnant the first "real" time I had sex (the first time it wasn't successful, let's say), I did not tell my mother, I told my Aunt who took me to get an abortion. I am sure however my Aunt told her eventually, but to this day, I never have said a word. I associated sex with male attention which obviously meant I was "good" and "loved" even though they were all talking about me behind my back. I got pregnant again at 16 and I was on the pill. Another abortion but my parents knew this time - I didn't WANT the abortion, but my father (ever so present in my life... NOT) insisted and sent me the money for it (funny, he'd never help me with college or anything else like that).
I joined the military when I was 17. I wasn't in for long. There were THREE separate incidences of sexual assualt, one in bootcamp. Nothing was ever done to help me. No one would come forward as a witness. My reports were pretty much ignored. I ended up going AWOL over the third one - it was my own Chief "performing" the assault on me to make sure he understood exactly what happened the second time. (I turned myself in and eventually got out of the Military - honorable discharge, for "severe personality disorder" )
I have had STD's, multiple partners - girls and boys- gotten in with the drug crowd (no heavy-heavy drugs), done all sorts of things, for attention and "love" / "acceptance". I have hardly ever been on my own, alone, no relationship. I have been married twice. Just recently (and I mean RECENTLY) I figured out that I have a pattern... I "hook" my relationships in with sex and after approx. 2 years everything BLOCKS. The walls go up. I feel sick, anxious, angry, freaked out and I don't want to be intimate anymore. Generally speaking I run away from my relationships because I can't handle dealing with what's happening... easier to start the process over again with someone else. Also, since I always think I'm not "good enough" the person I am with is going to leave me... then they do, or I do and that proves that I don't deserve to have a decent relationship and I'll always be abandoned.
Another thing... probably for the last year or two I have been feeling incredibly GUILTY about the abortions. I feel like God is punishing me now that I'm older and I finally know I WANT to have children. My partner, whom I am also desperately trying to NOT walk away from (already have the sex barriers though), has had a vasectomy (he has two kids already), had it reversed for ME and it was not successful. I took this as a personal sign that I did not DESERVE to have kids and I was being punished. This overwhelms me on a fairly daily basis.
I apologise for this being so long - this is the first time I've been able to really piece everything together - I am seeing a therapist, she mentioned PTSD to me the FIRST time I was there - that there is a correlation between the molestation/assualts and freaking out after a certain period in a relationship.
I am really, really hoping that someone out there can say "YES!! This is SO PTSD!" that someone knows how I feel, that someone understand the anger the freak-outs, the panic, the anxiety, the desire to NEVER leave the house, yet at the same time the desire to GET A LIFE! I so want to be normal!!!
Thank you for reading.
