Kate in the Desert
New Here
Hi, there fellow sufferers and carers alike.
My shrink (whom I can't see again because of a change in insurance plans) says I have Complex PTSD, thanks to multiple, neverending psychological trauma, and she told me I will NEVER get better unless I separate from my husband. Which I am about to do; my flight back home to my family is scheduled this coming August 6th.
I'm physically disabled because of secondary lymphedema (in both legs and torso). This condition came about gradually after having had two separate and very traumatic accidents separated by two decades, each of which required multiple orthopedic surgeries and a total of four bone grafts. All the damage from the physical traumas of the accident, from the many surgeries (and surgical complications), along with the massive amounts of ensuing scar tissue finally overwhelmed my lymphatic system.
Doctors in Europe are much more knowledgeable about secondary lymphedema (in contrast to "primary," which means you were born with a defective lymphatic system) than in the USA. I am, sad to say, much more knowledgeable about this condition than any doctor I have yet to meet. I had to be.
Long story, short, I have MASSIVE "white coat syndrome" (panic created by doctors and other providers who inadvertently made my condition WORSE), as well as other medical-provider caused disasters, including at the hands of previous shrinks in earlier decades.
That's not the worst of it. While still physically able-bodied, I married a man I "thought" was emotionally healthy, and moved across the country with him so that we could help his terminally ill mother.
After her death, I discovered his secret drinking. I told him that I loved him, but that if he didn't get help with his alcoholism, I would move back where my extended family lives, and that I would NOT divorce him because I love him very much and want him to get well, but I would stay in touch to see whether he would seek help. He immediately went to AA; I went to Al-Anon. He stopped drinking, and I didn't move back to the East Coast to my family. Yay!, I think at the time.
However -- then came the second traumatic accident which shattered the one remaining uninjured leg. More multiple operations, hoping each one would be the last. Then finally, relief that my bones healed. Ah, but not so fast! Before I can seek work again, I discover I have lymphedema, which requires a special daily massage to move the stagnant lymph fluid, which eventually my husband learned how to do.
Another "however" -- once I landed at home as a shut-in, first in a hospital bed, then in a wheelchair, then a walker, then a cane, still unable to work -- suddenly my husband becomes, uh, gradually, but ultimately over the years, extremely emotionally abusive. Not the overt kind, where an abuser screams at you and beats you up, but rather the "covert" kind where it's a malignant neglect, belittling, trivialization, icy coldness, days-long refusal to talk to me, refusal to express physical affection or make love, etc. This worsened so gradually but inexorably, that I became, for lack of a better word, "brainwashed." I have no friends, no social life here, I depend upon him utterly to get out of the house. After more than a decade -- was it 13 years? I dunno, I can't think anymore -- I realized that I had/have something akin to Stockholm Syndrome. I finally overcame the utter shame of it, reached out for help, broke down and told first my sister (with whom I'm close), and now that my brain is disintegrating, I told other family members.
Long story short, I've been a "captive" at home with a man for approx. 13 years who I finally came to learn was abused severely by both parents when he was a toddler. He gets flashbacks, somatic pains. Turns out, that he is deathly afraid of emotional intimacy, and is mostly emotionally numb. HIs reactions were completely unpredictable through the years, which I know now is a recipe to create "learned helplessness" in me. Recently he started drinking again. I can't drive. I depend on him to leave the house AT ALL. The heat in the Southwest is very, very bad for lymphedema, so I can't take the public transportation, which sucks anyway. The heat can kill me in short order, no joke.
When my husband is intoxicated, I can't bear to have him put his hands on my body to give me the daily lymphatic massage I desperately need. Why? Because I'm flashing back on the date rape that happened long, long before I met him (we married when I was 40, first marriage for me), and every other memory of attempted sexual assault and physical boundary violation which ever happened to me in over five decades of my life.
He doesn't beat me, but I am about to move back with my family on August 6th. He agrees this is good, because he knows my mind is going, and recognizes that I can never heal unless there is a separation.
My sister is flying out this coming Sunday, July 24th. She will help me get organized, because I am dissociating like crazy, can't think in a straight line to save my soul, get multiple panic attacks daily, etc. Luckily, she learned how to do the daily massage I need!
Major grief complication: not only am I separating from my husband, whom I still love, especially since I know he is "broken" because of early childhood abuse, but I have to leave behind my one and only "best friend," Tandy, the 14-year old pupster whom I raised and trained when I was not yet physically disabled. She has congestive heart failure which is still in a relatively early stage in its ultimately terminal course. [As an aside: In an unfortunate coincidence, CHF is what killed my husband's mother.]
I know in the part of me which is still sane, that I am not personally "killing" my dog, whom I love *almost* more than life itself; but it sure as hell feels that way. I break down uncontrollably and sob and sometimes wail at the thought (translated instantaneously into big-time somatic trouble) at the thought (knowledge?) that I will never, ever see her again once I board the flight home. This feels like it's killing me.
I'm happy I stumbled across this forum, and I plan to use this site, and participate when I can, including after I am back with my family in August.
I'm sorry if this is too long, or if this intro is "too much information," or if it turns out that I am in reality less coherent than I hope I am. (I have a migraine now.) Please let me know if I've confused the heck out of you all. I have a migraine now.
Can't say how often I can read and respond.
My shrink (whom I can't see again because of a change in insurance plans) says I have Complex PTSD, thanks to multiple, neverending psychological trauma, and she told me I will NEVER get better unless I separate from my husband. Which I am about to do; my flight back home to my family is scheduled this coming August 6th.
I'm physically disabled because of secondary lymphedema (in both legs and torso). This condition came about gradually after having had two separate and very traumatic accidents separated by two decades, each of which required multiple orthopedic surgeries and a total of four bone grafts. All the damage from the physical traumas of the accident, from the many surgeries (and surgical complications), along with the massive amounts of ensuing scar tissue finally overwhelmed my lymphatic system.
Doctors in Europe are much more knowledgeable about secondary lymphedema (in contrast to "primary," which means you were born with a defective lymphatic system) than in the USA. I am, sad to say, much more knowledgeable about this condition than any doctor I have yet to meet. I had to be.
Long story, short, I have MASSIVE "white coat syndrome" (panic created by doctors and other providers who inadvertently made my condition WORSE), as well as other medical-provider caused disasters, including at the hands of previous shrinks in earlier decades.
That's not the worst of it. While still physically able-bodied, I married a man I "thought" was emotionally healthy, and moved across the country with him so that we could help his terminally ill mother.
After her death, I discovered his secret drinking. I told him that I loved him, but that if he didn't get help with his alcoholism, I would move back where my extended family lives, and that I would NOT divorce him because I love him very much and want him to get well, but I would stay in touch to see whether he would seek help. He immediately went to AA; I went to Al-Anon. He stopped drinking, and I didn't move back to the East Coast to my family. Yay!, I think at the time.
However -- then came the second traumatic accident which shattered the one remaining uninjured leg. More multiple operations, hoping each one would be the last. Then finally, relief that my bones healed. Ah, but not so fast! Before I can seek work again, I discover I have lymphedema, which requires a special daily massage to move the stagnant lymph fluid, which eventually my husband learned how to do.
Another "however" -- once I landed at home as a shut-in, first in a hospital bed, then in a wheelchair, then a walker, then a cane, still unable to work -- suddenly my husband becomes, uh, gradually, but ultimately over the years, extremely emotionally abusive. Not the overt kind, where an abuser screams at you and beats you up, but rather the "covert" kind where it's a malignant neglect, belittling, trivialization, icy coldness, days-long refusal to talk to me, refusal to express physical affection or make love, etc. This worsened so gradually but inexorably, that I became, for lack of a better word, "brainwashed." I have no friends, no social life here, I depend upon him utterly to get out of the house. After more than a decade -- was it 13 years? I dunno, I can't think anymore -- I realized that I had/have something akin to Stockholm Syndrome. I finally overcame the utter shame of it, reached out for help, broke down and told first my sister (with whom I'm close), and now that my brain is disintegrating, I told other family members.
Long story short, I've been a "captive" at home with a man for approx. 13 years who I finally came to learn was abused severely by both parents when he was a toddler. He gets flashbacks, somatic pains. Turns out, that he is deathly afraid of emotional intimacy, and is mostly emotionally numb. HIs reactions were completely unpredictable through the years, which I know now is a recipe to create "learned helplessness" in me. Recently he started drinking again. I can't drive. I depend on him to leave the house AT ALL. The heat in the Southwest is very, very bad for lymphedema, so I can't take the public transportation, which sucks anyway. The heat can kill me in short order, no joke.
When my husband is intoxicated, I can't bear to have him put his hands on my body to give me the daily lymphatic massage I desperately need. Why? Because I'm flashing back on the date rape that happened long, long before I met him (we married when I was 40, first marriage for me), and every other memory of attempted sexual assault and physical boundary violation which ever happened to me in over five decades of my life.
He doesn't beat me, but I am about to move back with my family on August 6th. He agrees this is good, because he knows my mind is going, and recognizes that I can never heal unless there is a separation.
My sister is flying out this coming Sunday, July 24th. She will help me get organized, because I am dissociating like crazy, can't think in a straight line to save my soul, get multiple panic attacks daily, etc. Luckily, she learned how to do the daily massage I need!
Major grief complication: not only am I separating from my husband, whom I still love, especially since I know he is "broken" because of early childhood abuse, but I have to leave behind my one and only "best friend," Tandy, the 14-year old pupster whom I raised and trained when I was not yet physically disabled. She has congestive heart failure which is still in a relatively early stage in its ultimately terminal course. [As an aside: In an unfortunate coincidence, CHF is what killed my husband's mother.]
I know in the part of me which is still sane, that I am not personally "killing" my dog, whom I love *almost* more than life itself; but it sure as hell feels that way. I break down uncontrollably and sob and sometimes wail at the thought (translated instantaneously into big-time somatic trouble) at the thought (knowledge?) that I will never, ever see her again once I board the flight home. This feels like it's killing me.
I'm happy I stumbled across this forum, and I plan to use this site, and participate when I can, including after I am back with my family in August.
I'm sorry if this is too long, or if this intro is "too much information," or if it turns out that I am in reality less coherent than I hope I am. (I have a migraine now.) Please let me know if I've confused the heck out of you all. I have a migraine now.
Can't say how often I can read and respond.
