Ptsd And Finding A Mate

[CreativJ]

Cherryblossom,
I think you made complete sense in what you said. I also believe that you can find someone who has compassion for a person regardless of their issues, with the patience to go through it with you if they love you. This person has to love themselves and know to set boundaries for themselves, have an understanding of PTSD and your symptoms. I am one to believe that we are all worthy of love, its just that matter of loving ourselves enough to accept the love and to give it back. I also think that you are very correct about not becoming too co-dependent on others, which could be my issue when I have worth issues, so I wish you well and as long as you have set your boundaries of what you can deal with in relationships, I tell all to take those baby steps to go there if they want it. It's part of the journey, part of the healing process and part of learning how much we can truly cope with. We are all a work in progress.

 

[cherryblossom]

I also believe that you can find someone who has compassion for a person regardless of their issues, with the patience to go through it with you if they love you. This person has to love themselves and know to set boundaries for themselves, have an understanding of PTSD and your symptoms.

I do agree with the above statement. For me, I still feel too vulnerable to begin that search, because I'm afraid of being hurt along the way. Baby steps is right. Working on me first, before I'm ready and strong enough to let anyone else in. Thanks Creative.

 

[CreativJ]

I do agree with the above statement. For me, I still feel too vulnerable to begin that search, because I'm afraid of being hurt along the way. Baby steps is right. Working on me first, before I'm ready and strong enough to let anyone else in.

Cherryblossom, you know what's best and definitely have set your boundaries and standards, and I say good for you!

 

[OKRADLAK]

It can be a minefield. Personally, I am not ready. It is such a powder keg, always ready to go off.

I tend to get stressed because I still feel like an alien dating humans. I have to fake to be human, get tired of someone always trying to pull me back to a place to which I have been long dead------ always having someone being the caretaker.

I also fear my unpredictable side. Sometimes under stress, I can do things I would otherwise not do and it is scary to have to explain to someone else. So if I were with a loving person and have a flashback and end up doing something that is not like me at all, I would be mortified. They get confused and then you get insecure- "Why do they want this?" It is too much for me right now.

I am working VERY hard on my recovery with a very good therapist and have to focus on that right now. I do not date and yes, I am lonely, but I am not ready.

 

[eagle6764]

I have never been good at communicating with women but now that I could really use a true companion my skills are non-existent and the lonliness is for me the most damaging factor in dealing with the ptsd. Having nobody - no friends or family to lean on makes me hold it all in and not confront my ptsd issues -whatever they are. That's why I sought out this site.

 

[OKRADLAK]

Eagle, I hope that you find support here. I have. It is a place where many very kind and very deep souls support each other. A lot of us are bone crushingly lonely. It's very hard to have PTSD but I am glad you are here. I hope you find it helpful!

 

[eagle6764]

Thanks for that - it is good to know I'm not the only one who feels the way I do. I've never met another person who has ptsd and I'm only beginning to accept that I have it myself. Bone crushingly lonely just about sums it up for me. Like I said, good to not be alone.

 

[mamachick]

You are not alone. I am new too but there is always so much support here. Amazing that I can get bashed by sisters and feel compassion here. I am lonely too but no the time is wrong. My self esteem is low and it would not be good. I just hope someday I am ready

 

[eagle6764]

I hope so too brat, I doubt it will happen for me and to be honest I wouldn't even know where to start. I don't trust anybody. Its scary that the real world is such an intimidating place but it's good to have somewhere to start examining all this stuff as you said.

 

[OKRADLAK]

I think another complication is that PTSD changes us. I can only speak for me but it has turned me into an animal. So when I meet someone, I act human. I can pull it off. I look clean and speak well. I can be animated and the sad part is I still like people so I engage and make eye contact.

Then I can't keep it up. If they come over on a bad day and see the unholy disaster........they gasp and say, "I know this is not you."

Well it is now, pal.

They cannot square the circle. What I was and what I am are so different. Wading through a sea of trash because 2 bad weeks in a row prevents me from picking up after myself, let alone even NOTICING IT!!! Well, it can be at times like I am homeless living in a home.

It was NOT me but it is now. No one can take that.

The ones who do stay for a while try to fix it. They come in and throw stuff out and maybe stuff I wanted was in there . They talk down to me like I am a child, the try to control it which is a big huge laugh. This PTSD is so much bigger than them, than anyone!!

So I get mad at them.

"Why did you throw THAT out?!"
"It is a trigger,"
"No, that is NOT a trigger. I needed that!"
"It will remind you...."

And if I lose control, it is totally different than a human being.Sometimes it is even beyond rage. It is not about throwing tables, it is about getting out of a box. The things I say would make a maximum security death row guard cringe and the things like totally blocking out their presence like they are not there..........staring while they talk....crying because I am trying to hear them and I can't and they are like "What is wrong?" Me: "Nothing!" Yeah right.

Who wants that??

No one can love me this way and I DO NOT blame them. I could not do it, either. So I try to stay in therapy and only see people on good days and hope that the good days will one day outweigh the bad days.

I keep going in hopes that a human being will really emerge, one I do not have to fake, one that was the kind, gentle person I used to be.

 

[eagle6764]

I don't see my family anymore but when I did my siblings would always ask me why I wouldn't let go of things done to me by my father and ask me why I couldn't leave it in the past and I would say that I couldn't because it hadn't even been acknowledged let alone dealt with. I stopped going on about it because it was never going to be resolved and I haven't seen them since. As you say okradlak - people expect you to be as accepting of things as you once were or to pretend things never happened. On the rare occasions that I see people they tell me that I need to do this and that I need to do that and when I explain to them that I actually physically can't and this it is emotionally too much they just don't get it and don't believe me.

I hope that you get in touch with the kind caring person you used to be and wish you all good luck with that.

 

[LaurenRose]

I appreciate and agree with everyone who has posted in this thread. I "blew" out of life in 2006, leaving my husband, my son, my job and my country. I was in a space where "if this is all life has to offer, I don't want it." I gave this Universe one more chance to show me that things could not only be different, but to give me direction in how I could make myself different. Very shortly after I became involved with a friend. Nine months later I had to leave the relationship as it was one wounded soul existing with another wounded soul. I made a commitment with myself that I would not become involved with a man for one year in order to get right with myself. The year went by and I made a commitment with myself to wait one year in order to get right with myself. Then I discovered what the problem was, I have PTSD. I am now working with my professionals and now with you - my peer support to continue to ferret out my distorted beliefs and values and embrace the purity of soul I believe I will find underneath. Laughs, the "believe" bit kind of comes and goes and I fortify it with "others have made it out the other side." It can be devastatingly tough though.

I too experience that unbelievable loneliness. That connection to someone who can share life with me intimately and completely but in an interdependent not a co-dependent way. The attributes of my future mate are critical to my being able to fully share and engage on a soul level. I am fairly clear on what those attributes are, emotionally honesty, compassion and empathy - oh yeah, and patience lol, these are but a few. When I apply those attributes to my own self, I realize that there is still work to be done. I absolutely don't have an expectation of myself that I will be "healed" or fully one with myself before I get to enter into a new relationship, but I do think it is important for me to be able to be emotionally honest, with myself and thereby with him.

I am striving to shift the "pain of loneliness" to the "glory of solitude" but not at the expense of having a life partner. If I can more toward the "glory of solitude", then interdependence will be the genesis of a healthy relationship. Me being comfortable being me with all my warts and baggage.

That being said, when I do get to the place where I feel like I am able to identify, express and experience my feelings (and I am on my way), I think - hmmmm, yes I am as I recognize that there are pockets of time when I know this to be true, at least I think I do. *sighs* it really is a conundrum isn't it. When I reach that space, I too will be longing for a partner and that longing will be challenging to manage until he comes. Thank you Cactus_Jack for beginning this thread. It has made me go "hmmmm" in my own life.

My heart goes out to all of us and my hope for us is that we will continue to grow, to heal, to know ourselves deeper.