Now VS. Then... PTSD VS. Non PTSD Days

[becvan]

This thread was hard for me to read. The trauma started when I was a baby. I've never been untraumatised. I haven't really accepted that fully yet despitr working on this for the past 5 years. Maybe it's easier to not know what I'm missing, but it's hard to accept that I'll never know what I'm missing, that I've never had any part of my life free from terror and anxiety.

I know that's not the point of the thread, but these emotions got stirred up by reading this thread and I didn't want to bottle it up.

No matter our situation, it will have both it's good and bad points. I also have had this lifelong and don't have that whole "before ptsd" thing.

However, what I do know is that I can give myself a life without terror and trauma. And so can you. It just takes work (and lot's of it!!) You may not be able to turn back the clock and give your child-self that but you certainly can give your adult self that!

I was quite surprised to see this thread resurrected! I'm glad it's still helping some! :)

bec

 

[disenchanted]

I avoided this post b/c I didn't understand the title PTSD days vs non-PTSD days. I kept asking myself, what is a non-PTSD day? All my days are PTSD. Perhaps this is b/c I've had it some 33 years ad it is so ingrained in who I am I can't imagine myself without it. I have good days. But they aren't non-PTSD days. Their good days despite PTSD.

Cat

 

[fin]

disenchanted/Cat, this thread is trying to address those feelings that arise that people can get stuck into re-mourning, over and over, that loss of self before PTSD. I myself have never known anything other either. But whether we have or not, we can't dwell on what we could have been, or how things may have turned out. That thinking can keep turning back in on us. it is good that you are embracing your good days. We need to accept ourselves and acknowledge that this is something that we can and do live with. It is no less painful because we didnt have a "pre" or because we did.

 

[freya]

However, what I do know is that I can give myself a life without terror and trauma. And so can you. It just takes work (and lot's of it!!) You may not be able to turn back the clock and give your child-self that but you certainly can give your adult self that!

I'm wondering about this a little. In absolute sense I feel something inside me say that it's not true in an absolute sense.... 'I can give myself a life without terror and trauma'. There's things that happen that we can't control. We can only control our response to them. I think...

Still I think I understand that you probably mean to say that we have a choice to work on ourselves and remove ourselves from, or avoid, many situations we were not able to avoid before or when we were a child.

Freya

 

[Tinyflame]

I sometimes feel that the inner terror and trauma will always be a part of me. However, I am hoping to work on the basis of the confidence and support of others to learn how to keep the terror (past and present) minimal, and better yet to face it and carry on. -Hopefully get braver, and also learn healthier ways to cope, and make better decisions all-around. But I think the whole problem with PTSD and terror is that it will always be there for me, it has left an indelible mark.

 

[Mina]

I've been giving this thread a lot of thought lately.

I knew life without PTSD for 30 years, as mine was brought about by a single event. Yes, some things in my upbringing may have made the soil more fertile for PTSD, but up until I got bitten, those seeds were not planted and growing. At this time last year, I did not have PTSD.

that loss of self before PTSD

This is part of what I've been working on lately. I am grieving the loss of myself as I was before all this shit. There are a lot of things about myself that I miss. For example...and yes, these are just a few of the differences...I was very dependable, was always there for my friends, a risk-taker (not crazy PTSD risks, lol), learned easily, had a great memory, and a strong sense of humor. Now, I wouldn't tell anyone to count on me, most of the time I don't pick up my phone, I often have trouble learning new things, my memory is nowhere near as sharp and I have to write everything down, and my sense of humor is practically nil.

Honestly, if I could go back to pre-PTSD, would I? Absof***inglutely.

Don't get me wrong - that doesn't mean some good things haven't come out of me getting PTSD. I'm definitely more self-aware and insightful, and have dealt with old stuff that had laid under the surface for years. Those are all good things. However, I'd still trade them to go back to me the way I was. I think when you've had something like PTSD your whole life or most of it, you don't have a distinct prior self to measure against...and thus, no particular characteristics to grieve.

That doesn't mean I haven't accepted that I have PTSD, because I have. However, I'm just now mourning the loss of my pre-PTSD identity, as I've finally made enough progress to begin thinking about things like that. T and I discussed it today; she feels it's a normal grieving process. I believe I'll move on from it before too long, but for now, hell yeah, I would go back. (Hopefully at some point I can say that no, I wouldn't, but not yet).

 

[Seychelle]

I think when you've had something like PTSD your whole life or most of it, you don't have a distinct prior self to measure against...and thus, no particular characteristics to grieve.

The trauma started very young for me but I still grieve for missing out on having any untraumatised years. I get reminded of it many times each day. I grieve all of the characteristics and knowing that I will likely never experience them. And I look back at childhood and wonder what it would have been like to have had a couple of fun times, without the overlay of terror and self-hatred. I look back at my twenties and wish that I'd been able to live, instead of being crippled by physical and mental illness. I'm in my thirties and I look at my friends having kids and doing all this stuff which is way too overwhelming for me. The pain of the grief is gradually subsiding as I work through it, but underneath it all is a scream of 'I missed out!'.

 

[Mina]

Please understand that I meant no offense, Seychelle, nor did I mean that those who've never known a PTSD-free existence don't grieve over what was missed out on. What I was trying to get at is, it's grieving the loss of actual self vs. potential self. I think either is extremely difficult. People who don't have a PTSD-free point of reference have "how I could have been" vs. those who do having "how I used to be." And for me, one of the most frustrating things is internally knowing how I was, and how I am now. To put it in school terms (which is the most apt analogy I can think of), it's as if I was on a gifted scale before, and am now on a special-needs scale. The marked difference is what ticks me off so much.

 

[Dylan]

I very much relate to your post Seychelle, and also to your analogy, Mina.

My trauma began when I was 4-5 years old, and since my personality had scarcely begun to form, I don't have much of a "before" experience. I had always envied those who do because I felt like if I just had an idea, an experience of myself and a way of being that was not based on, nor created by, trapped helplessness and constant fear, I’d know what I was shooting for. After reading posts by those who do have a “before” I see that it carries with it its own unique pain and stumbling blocks.

I do have a distinct “before” memory. I must’ve been about three and I was in our backyard. It was a deep, long yard, left weedy and brambly. We lived in the south, so it was green and wild and, to me, so much my secret queendom. I was being called in to the house and I remember distinctly the feeling/sense of just being. I didn’t respond right away (maybe I was still in that testing/individuating phase *smile*). I knew I would – I would soon answer, go in to eat dinner, be with everyone. But for right then, I withheld myself, just for me, watching – watching out of my OWN eyes, being my OWN self. I was unafraid. My thoughts weren’t in chronically frantic flight; I wasn’t tense and agitated and helpless, constantly looking for a way to escape. I was secure and calm and…such a very different person, even though in just the beginning stages of one.

I cherish and hold that memory. It’s the only evidence I have that I was not born this way; it is not my fault (my family took the route of denial and so my symptoms really had to be some shameful fault of my own). But that memory tells me something different and so I thank god for it. Because of it, I know that it took intervention – violent and unrelenting – to create the child, and later the adult, that I became: broken and watchful, full of shame and self-loathing and despair.

From one who has almost no “before”, my grief is seeing some parallel me that I watch, living in the distance, but can never get over there into that life. I see so much of what I missed. It’s also hard to hold those abstract and nebulous goals – goals like being present, breathing in a relaxed way, not systematically tensing and clenching my muscles in that frozen “trapped but can’t run” state, trying to learn the difference between healthy solitude and shamed isolation. I guess it is a handicap – what others breeze through and do mostly unconsciously, I do painstakingly, self-consciously, with great earnestness and anxiety. It explains, I think, the psychic fatigue that so many of us seem to have.

I think it’s important to grieve the losses. To pretend that tremendous loss hasn’t occurred is simply pain avoidance under the guise of courage. Although, in my experience there are two dangers: one is trying to speedboat over the waves, the other is to sink like an anchor. I, myself, am an equal opportunity maladapter and have tried both skimming and sinking. Skimming, I become more callous, more arrogant, imperious and harsh. Sinking, I become more depressed, more hopeless/helpless and wait, drowning, for the rescue that never did – and never will – come (unfortunately, their seems to be, like language, some developmental window: being rescued from without can only work as a child; now my rescue must come from within). It seems that the only way I heal, and hopefully achieve some sort of transcendence, is to just, well ….”keep swimming”.

-Dylan

 

[Dylan]

Because my original post wasn't long enough :rolleyes:, I decided I needed to add a post script: I do believe that, as people heal, they ultimately accept the loss or change - even leave it behind. Part of that grief, I believe, is honoring who they were - or might have been - and out of the ashes of grief can come new hope, new passion, new dreams. Each person's journey is unique, and we can all only go at our own pace.

 

[midi]

As somebody coming from an extremely physically and mentally abusive background, I do indeed long for that potential, not what was. Due to an unhealthy gestation period (malnutrition), I was born with a physical defect and that lead to a mild disability, surgery, therapy, etc... combined with a physically and mentally abusive home life and many close calls, well.... flee or flight turns into automated maladaptive behaviours.

I think many stories of hardship exist to comfort and teach us that we can't control what is out of our hands--like what family we are born into, or natural disasters or random acts of violence or events of war... I see from my own experiences and reading about others here, that accepting present limitations and working with what's left is one of the major obstacles we face.

 

[Seychelle]

Mina, no offence taken. I've only just realised that your sentence was ambiguous and could have been read two ways.

Because my original post wasn't long enough :rolleyes:, I decided I needed to add a post script: I do believe that, as people heal, they ultimately accept the loss or change - even leave it behind. Part of that grief, I believe, is honoring who they were - or might have been - and out of the ashes of grief can come new hope, new passion, new dreams. Each person's journey is unique, and we can all only go at our own pace.

I really relate to both of your posts, Dylan. I think the grieving process needs to be honoured. I reacted badly to a response to my first post in this thread, in part I think because the grieving didn't seem to be acknowledged as a valid response. Grief doesn't last forever, but it does need to be worked through. I have 35 years to mourn.

The skimming or sinking analogies make sense. I think I tend to sink, but try to only submerge for a little while before coming back to the surface to breathe.

I have no trauma-free memories, the abuse started when I was a baby. But I have an impression of one, positive memory from childhood. A babysitter gave me a hug and gave me a piece of chocolate. I think I was around 3. I really treasure that memory. There was *someone* who was kind to me, if only for a moment.