Undiagnosed Ocd/depression/anxiety Sufferer, Maybe Ptsd

[The Paris Wife]

Hi all,

In one way I hope I belong here while in another way I hope I don't (no offense to anyone). I have been treated for OCD, depression and anxiety using medication with some success but every single time I have a very stressful experience I immediately fall back to obsessional thinking and reliving the past.

I experience severe shame about some of my behaviours as a teen and young woman and cannot understand why I behaved this way. I am now the mother of 3 children whom I love with all my heart and have a really understanding and supportive husband but I cannot get past the past. I wonder if I may have PTSD because of my childhood experiences and that all the rest is as a result of same.

Brief synopsis.
1) Eldest child, sensitive, went to school at 4 and was terrified of the "big boys". My best friend frequently withdrew her friendship if I didn't comply with her wishes and/or threatened me with her big brothers. Her big brothers and friends terrified me, I can remember running away from them. Anyhow they probably left the school by the time I was 5 or 6 but she continued to rule the roost and I was frequently outcast in favour of another girl when I was somehow displeasing her. I was also called Teachers Pet and just generally pushed around by her yet she was my best friend :-

2) I'm the eldest of 4 kids and so early on I was expected to be out helping my dad on the farm as eventually was my brother (almost 3 years younger). Both of us remember the stress of helping him, he was very angry and impatient with us and if you didn't do something right or move fast enough he thumped you.

I remember we used to see him coming and run. I also remember getting the strap (his belt) when I was about 3 for talking during church, sitting on the stairs rubbing the backs of my legs. I remember wishing for him to die, I remember loving the days he was away because I could relax. I remember the last time he hit me when I was about 14, he hit me so hard I chipped my top two teeth and I swore at him, I said "yeah hit me, go on, that solves everything", he never hit me again.

He stopped hitting my brother around the same age when my brother squared up to him. He never hit my 2 younger sisters much as he could afford to have employees then and was more chilled out. He wasn't all bad and I'm sure he was the product of his own upbringing. However I had and still have a very strained relationship with him, my brother refuses to talk about it and my younger sisters don't remember it.

3) I was sent to boarding school where I suffered some minor bullying and left there after 4 years with the 4th year being absolutely miserable. Looking back I think I was depressed and ran away from the problem. I moved to day school and things seemed a bit better until my parents announced they were moving around 300miles away and as my brother and I were in exam years we would stay behind with a friend. I HATED moving and I HATED that they left us behind with a friend of my mums, the friend had 2 little girls aged like 5 and 3. I knew her but not that well and we were left there while our parents went away with our 2 younger sisters.

I behaved so badly, I screamed down the phone at my mum, I hated the new location. I was miserable, so miserable. I honestly think that this traumatised me more than I realised and I felt so lonely and unloved. I met my first serious boyfriend in April of that year and I think he sort of saved me from me. I was really happy with him for 2.5 years.

4) My parents were controlling, I spent summers working on the farm as they wouldn't allow me to get a job as they paid me for working on the farm but never gave me the money. They used it for college which is ok but I think it meant I was very immature and stupid for a long time. I had problems with money for a long time into my 20's, I often almost gave it away i.e. I was clueless and just spent it.

5)I acted out sexually in different ways in my teens and early 20's I'm ashamed to say, this is an area where I feel most shame and my OCD centres around this theme. I also drank a lot, partied a lot, took some drugs and managed to make it through 2 degrees without really remembering much about it all. I genuinely believe that the excessive drinking etc. was masking my depression etc. I had been diagnosed with depression in college at 21 but my mum just got annoyed with me and told me to pull myself together. I seem to have had boundary issues, lack of appropriate sexual behaviour. God I am so ashamed.

So that is me, I feel so awful and I can't stop beating myself up and saying I am an awful person. I know that this is OCD behaviour in some ways but one psych did suggest PTSD. I hope none of what I have written upsets anyone and I welcome feedback.

 

[Phenioxrising]

Paris Wife. I know the Serenity prayer God, please help me to accept the things I can not change and change what can be. ...Probably not exact but you can get the pitcure. Your not awful, you did those things as a way of acting out for the way others have treated you in the past. Induceing self-harm, thinking thats what you deserve. You can't change the past, but theirs still hope for the future. Find your self-worth and learn to accept the way you are. Don't define yourself, Express yourself.

 

[The Paris Wife]

Thank you but acceptance is something I find incredibly difficult to do. I fear I harmed others by my behaviour and that simply attacks the very core of who I thought I was. My ERP treatment has helped me somewhat but everytime I fall off the wagon I feel nothing but disgust and horror at myself and my actions. I thought I was a good person at least and now it seems as though that was me lying to myself. I'm trying acceptance I am but today it is so hard. I see my psychiatrist next week and will talk to her then about the possibility of PTSD. Thanks for your reply.

 

[Phenioxrising]

Hope your therapy goes well, I understand the hurt. it may go one step forward and two steps back for awile. But we are survivors, that deserve a better road ahead. Think I'm leaveing that person I once was behind and am searching for a better life that you deserve.

 

[Girl3]

You are seeking a diagnosis maybe, and support definitely.

No one here can give you a diagnosis nor should they. A brief synopsis isn't sufficient for that and only a qualified diagnostician, most likely a psychiatrist, would be able to talk with you over time and develop a working diagnosis. Knowing what went awry, how your upbringing affected you, what it left you doing/thinking/acting won't be a quick journey. I am still discovering how my childhood created me, created the 3 of me, and teasing out how I am supposed to integrate all of these things into a person that I can love and respect despite the ill-conceived portions of my life. It took me decades to get a proper diagnosis - which is why I say you need someone qualified.

Find a psychiatrist or psychologist with credentials in PTSD and Borderline Personality Disorder. There are elements that overlap in these two entities and sometimes they are entwined in the same person. But the 'cure' (and I use that term loosely) is different for each. With a proper diagnosis/diagnoses, the work of healing can be focused and thus more profitable to the patient. I know - I spent more than a year with a wonderfully supportive therapist who had no idea what was wrong with me, she just knew that I was mentally/emotionally dying. But it wasn't until she sent me to a hard-nosed, rather unsympathetic psychiatrist who adeptly diagnosed me.

Once I had a proper name for my misery I took matters into my own hands and sought the psychiatrist and experimental work that has helped me more than all the anti-depressants I've ever taken.

One doesn't have to be phsycially abandoned by one's family to have been abandoned. Many of us here were raised by our own insane childhood experiences without any steady parenting. The home atmosphere may or may not have been known to the community. Some of us were asked to walk out of the house and act like nothing had happened, that our lives were normal and fine, when in fact Dickens himself might have been appalled.

So you can find support here without a doubt. Your childhood wasn't conducive to being a normal happy child and so you grew into an angry, troubled adolescent which led you to adult experiences that incised more pain on your soul/psyche. Choosing badly, acting in ways that as adults shame us now is part of why many of us are here. Learning to live with our own self-destruction without destroying ourselves again is a worthy goal.

I hope you find what you need and learn to love yourself fully, the bad and the good. Love yourself as you do your children: in all fullness, criticizing only that which can be fixed, and guiding yourself and your own children to those choices that are good. I wish you love and the strength to heal.

 

[Lucycat]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

Hello and welcome to the forum. :)

 

[KP the nut]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

 

[The Paris Wife]

Hi and thank you for all the welcomes :-)

 

[Whitneys story]

Hi and Welcome to the PTSD Forum. Others have posted some excellent thoughts.

There is a lot of information on the Home page that gives a base of understanding. As you might realize you are not alone and I find this a very safe place!

:) I wish you success on your journey, Whitney