unraveling
New Here
Hello,
I was diagnosed with PTSD after just a few sessions with my therapist, in the fall of 2010. I experienced and witnessed all kinds of madness growing up. The physical and psychological abuse are indelibly etched into my brain. All indicators point to sexual abuse, most of which I suspect I have blocked. I have glimmers of memories, a LOT of facts that point that direction, and some telling dreams. Some of those dreams are recurring nightmares I had as a child (both of which, according to my therapist, are classic dream of sexual abuse survivors), in addition to one dream I've had since starting therapy that is very telling.
My parent divorced in my tween years, and beng the oldest of three, I was given the task of protecting my younger sisters from my sociopathic father (a term used by my therapist) during forced visitations. When my father was awarded joint custody, my mother had a nervous breakdown, and we completed the switching of roles. I became the caregiver for my sisters, and in many ways for my mother as well (my therapist uses the term "emotional incest" in reference to my mother). I grew up poor, and worked hard in high school to earn the kind of grades that would earn me scholarships to attend college. Yet when I left home, my mother viewed me as abandoning her. She convinced my sisters that I had abandoned the family, and that I was just like my father. After a decade or so of the love-hate cycle with my mother and both sisters (very familiar to those of you who may know someone with BPD), I was eventually disowned by my mother and one of my sisters. The other sister never officially disowned me, but behaves in the same fashion.
I finished college, started a teaching career, earned my master's degree, and have been teaching for eighteen years. I married eight years ago, and have an amazing son. I started therapy about a year and a half ago, after growing tired of depression, and numbness tempered by periods of agonizing, debilitating psychological pain. I've only begun to dredge the issues of my past, and I find myself experiencing more and more anxiety, and at times, panic attacks (crushing pressure in my chest, shortness of breath, fatalistic thinking cycles). They seem to be getting more and more frequent, and I am worried about having some kind of breakdown myself, and ending up in a psych ward somewhere (I spent a week in a psych ward after a suicide attempt in high school, my second of three attempts, with other spells of ideation).
How can I keep pressing forward in the midst of great fear about unraveling completely?
I was diagnosed with PTSD after just a few sessions with my therapist, in the fall of 2010. I experienced and witnessed all kinds of madness growing up. The physical and psychological abuse are indelibly etched into my brain. All indicators point to sexual abuse, most of which I suspect I have blocked. I have glimmers of memories, a LOT of facts that point that direction, and some telling dreams. Some of those dreams are recurring nightmares I had as a child (both of which, according to my therapist, are classic dream of sexual abuse survivors), in addition to one dream I've had since starting therapy that is very telling.
My parent divorced in my tween years, and beng the oldest of three, I was given the task of protecting my younger sisters from my sociopathic father (a term used by my therapist) during forced visitations. When my father was awarded joint custody, my mother had a nervous breakdown, and we completed the switching of roles. I became the caregiver for my sisters, and in many ways for my mother as well (my therapist uses the term "emotional incest" in reference to my mother). I grew up poor, and worked hard in high school to earn the kind of grades that would earn me scholarships to attend college. Yet when I left home, my mother viewed me as abandoning her. She convinced my sisters that I had abandoned the family, and that I was just like my father. After a decade or so of the love-hate cycle with my mother and both sisters (very familiar to those of you who may know someone with BPD), I was eventually disowned by my mother and one of my sisters. The other sister never officially disowned me, but behaves in the same fashion.
I finished college, started a teaching career, earned my master's degree, and have been teaching for eighteen years. I married eight years ago, and have an amazing son. I started therapy about a year and a half ago, after growing tired of depression, and numbness tempered by periods of agonizing, debilitating psychological pain. I've only begun to dredge the issues of my past, and I find myself experiencing more and more anxiety, and at times, panic attacks (crushing pressure in my chest, shortness of breath, fatalistic thinking cycles). They seem to be getting more and more frequent, and I am worried about having some kind of breakdown myself, and ending up in a psych ward somewhere (I spent a week in a psych ward after a suicide attempt in high school, my second of three attempts, with other spells of ideation).
How can I keep pressing forward in the midst of great fear about unraveling completely?
