Hi I'm new here. My name is Erik, as might be fairly obvious. I have a rather long and complicated history partially just because I've survived to live twice as long as I was ever expecting to, but also because I suffered multiple and protracted trauma as a young child, and I happen to be queer in more ways than one, and it seems likely that I am on the autism spectrum, only undiagnosed. Who was screening kids for Autism in the 60s? Yeah. Nobody, really.
I am 48 years old and have been in therapy most of my adult life and have collected a long string of diagnoses. The latest have been Major Depression Severe Recurrent with Psychotic Features, PTSD, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder; I would be diagnosed with Complex PTSD if the diagnosis existed yet (I think my professionals think that "PTSD" is a more comprehensible diagnosis than "DES-NOS"--I am applying for disability in the US right now and unfortunately diagnoses are a bit political in this process). I am also differentially diagnosed as being on the Autism spectrum, but right now I cannot afford to pay a specialist for an adult screening. All of the free/assisted programs here only work with children.
We suspect I am on the Autism spectrum for a number of reasons, but those are not really the issue I came here to talk about but that those features of my personality seem to have intensified the effects of the traumas I experienced when I was small. I was molested by my older brother over the course of one summer when we were left home alone because both parents were working; he was supposed to be old enough and responsible enough to deal with anything that might come up. Ha. Then the following summer, at age 12, I was raped by a stranger while playing alone at the beach near my Grandmother's house.
I should probably mention that I grew up female, or female-assigned as we in the transgender community often word it, and so these things happened to me while I "was" a girl. I transitioned to male-presenting in 1997 when I was 35. Not that it matters that much, but girls are more likely to be molested than boys and having been socialized as a girl had a lot to do with why I never told anyone about either the molestation or the rape until I was grown up.
Prior to and alongside all of this, I was very badly emotionally and spiritually abused by my parents and the church they attended--unwittingly, in their eyes, since they thought they were acting in my best interests in trying to "save" me, but being told from age 7 that I was going to burn forever in the Lake of Fire for the sin of existing did a number on me. Because I was extremely introverted (possibly autistic), I was unwilling to "walk the aisle" and be "saved" at our church until I was more or less coerced into doing it when I was 13. That in itself was a traumatic event to end a long obsession with whether I was going to hell and whether I was going to be "left behind" when my family disappeared in the Rapture: I was taught that it was going to happen very soon and very unexpectedly. I had a panic attack anytime I was home alone and they were the slightest bit late coming in.
So, that's the shortest I could get my story so far. I had a very bad depressive crash in the winter of 97-98 and have spent the last 12 years fighting to recover from that. It was the worst one I have experienced thus far and the one that earned me the "with Psychotic Features" rider. I have talked to my therapist many times about the things that happened to me, but large parts of my being have been absent until relatively recently, and so the recitations have occurred in a somewhat dissociated state. I'm not particularly well-integrated, and aspects of my personality fled in the crash and some of them have taken all this time to return. I'm not sure I am done with trying to welcome old parts of myself back, but I think that I might have experienced the last return about three months ago. I can explain this in more detail if anyone is interested.
I am hoping to meet some other PTSD sufferers here and I would be very interested if anyone else here is on the spectrum and how you see that affecting the severity of your PTSD. As I mentioned, I am extremely introverted and have always been behind the curve in social development. I have some sensory issues as well, and I think that all of this may have intensified my reactions to what happened to me.
In any case, I am trying to figure out just how I am going to live the rest of my life. I am hoping that maybe participating here would be useful in that.
Thanks for reading.
Erik
I am 48 years old and have been in therapy most of my adult life and have collected a long string of diagnoses. The latest have been Major Depression Severe Recurrent with Psychotic Features, PTSD, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder; I would be diagnosed with Complex PTSD if the diagnosis existed yet (I think my professionals think that "PTSD" is a more comprehensible diagnosis than "DES-NOS"--I am applying for disability in the US right now and unfortunately diagnoses are a bit political in this process). I am also differentially diagnosed as being on the Autism spectrum, but right now I cannot afford to pay a specialist for an adult screening. All of the free/assisted programs here only work with children.
We suspect I am on the Autism spectrum for a number of reasons, but those are not really the issue I came here to talk about but that those features of my personality seem to have intensified the effects of the traumas I experienced when I was small. I was molested by my older brother over the course of one summer when we were left home alone because both parents were working; he was supposed to be old enough and responsible enough to deal with anything that might come up. Ha. Then the following summer, at age 12, I was raped by a stranger while playing alone at the beach near my Grandmother's house.
I should probably mention that I grew up female, or female-assigned as we in the transgender community often word it, and so these things happened to me while I "was" a girl. I transitioned to male-presenting in 1997 when I was 35. Not that it matters that much, but girls are more likely to be molested than boys and having been socialized as a girl had a lot to do with why I never told anyone about either the molestation or the rape until I was grown up.
Prior to and alongside all of this, I was very badly emotionally and spiritually abused by my parents and the church they attended--unwittingly, in their eyes, since they thought they were acting in my best interests in trying to "save" me, but being told from age 7 that I was going to burn forever in the Lake of Fire for the sin of existing did a number on me. Because I was extremely introverted (possibly autistic), I was unwilling to "walk the aisle" and be "saved" at our church until I was more or less coerced into doing it when I was 13. That in itself was a traumatic event to end a long obsession with whether I was going to hell and whether I was going to be "left behind" when my family disappeared in the Rapture: I was taught that it was going to happen very soon and very unexpectedly. I had a panic attack anytime I was home alone and they were the slightest bit late coming in.
So, that's the shortest I could get my story so far. I had a very bad depressive crash in the winter of 97-98 and have spent the last 12 years fighting to recover from that. It was the worst one I have experienced thus far and the one that earned me the "with Psychotic Features" rider. I have talked to my therapist many times about the things that happened to me, but large parts of my being have been absent until relatively recently, and so the recitations have occurred in a somewhat dissociated state. I'm not particularly well-integrated, and aspects of my personality fled in the crash and some of them have taken all this time to return. I'm not sure I am done with trying to welcome old parts of myself back, but I think that I might have experienced the last return about three months ago. I can explain this in more detail if anyone is interested.
I am hoping to meet some other PTSD sufferers here and I would be very interested if anyone else here is on the spectrum and how you see that affecting the severity of your PTSD. As I mentioned, I am extremely introverted and have always been behind the curve in social development. I have some sensory issues as well, and I think that all of this may have intensified my reactions to what happened to me.
In any case, I am trying to figure out just how I am going to live the rest of my life. I am hoping that maybe participating here would be useful in that.
Thanks for reading.
Erik
