I just wrote a big long post, and hit backspace and it deleted it all, so I will attempt to re-write it, even though I feel like chunking my laptop out the window right now :mad:
I went to a psychologist, she said I had a big fat case of PTSD (thats her words exactly). She said and did and implied somethings that made me uncomfortable with her, or maybe I'm just uncomfortable talking to anyone, and my lack of comfort made me seek things about her I didn't like....I really dont know. The point is, I didn't go back for the second appointment, even though I know I really need professional help.
I'm a survivor of prolonged physical/sexual/verbal/ and religious (although that feels wrong to say, I know now it was) abuse. My dad was a vietnam war vet who never recieved help for his PTSD (and perhaps other mental illnesses, its hard to say what all was or is wrong with him). He was physically and verbally abusive and threatened his life, my moms, and ours (my brothers and I's) lifes several times before I was 5. I remember that all very well. When he finally left us for good, it was the chirstmas of my 8th birthday, and my mom was battling a terminal illness, but didn't know it at the time. She went in and because they didn't see anything she was put on anti-depressants which made her worse. My dad, even though he left us, would come back when we'd go to school, literally when we'd get on the bus, he'd drive up to the house, and threaten her, saying if she ever divorced him he'd kill her and bury her in the woods, one of his favorite threats. We lived far away from everyone, and as I said, he had threatened us all many times, it seemed plausible that he'd do it one day. So my mom, eventually, took my brothers and I and moved in with some folks she met on the internet, more or less she ran away. She met a guy online at about the same time. Ended up moving several times, when she finally got a place of her own, within 6 mo's she lost it and we were homeless. My brothers were sent back to live dad although really they lived with my grandparents and would only come to live with dad after a couple years. I refused to go, because I was terrified of my dad, and being that I thot that's where we were living (with dad) I couldn't do it, I was terrified of him. So I begged and pleaded to be with my mom, even though we didn't have any place to stay. She let me. Then thats when this guy she met on the internet comes in to play. Lucky us, he turns out to be a pedophile and online predator. He abused me, and various other people and children, sexually, physically, mentally, and (again I hate saying it but i know its true) religiously or spiritually however you want to call it, this went on for me from the time I was 10 until I was 18, at which time my mom had him forcibly removed from the place we were staying. We moved around a lot after my dad left, and there was no constant in my life BUT abuse, it varied in kinds of abuse, but it was all abuse. My entire life I had to hide this perv's "lifestyle" as my mom him and his goonies put it, he was into bdsm and so therefor it was ok to beat and sexually humiliate people, make them your slaves. Anyways, there were a lot of people, and I had to cover for them, telling those who saw them (the few that saw in passing as I wasn't allowed to have friends) that they were family or friends of the family that were "having a rough time". Ofcourse we moved around so much that I didn't have to lie long or defend the lies often as, we'd only be in one place for about a year or so before we moved again. from one slum to another.
I've been out on my own for almost 2 years now. I didn't move out of my moms until I was 20, and something about being there with her, even though she had him removed when I was 18, kept me in denial of it all. She always turned a blind eye to what happened to me, my mom, so I think it kind of wore off on me too. Like if it wasn't important enough for her to pay attention to than it wasn't important enough for me to either. When she had him removed, it was for what he had done to her, there was no mention of what he did to me, and anytime I brought something up that he did, things he had done in front of her no less, she said she didn't remember (not calling me a liar, but not accepting the truth either). Anyways, it wasn't until I moved away, into my own place that it hit me. I immediately became an alcoholic, but I didn't see it like that. I was 20 going on 21, I thought it was acceptable to drink like I was, which was everyday after work all evening till I passed out. I eventually, somepoint after turning 21, said I should stop, afraid I'd end up an alcoholic like my dad. When I did, it really hit the fan. I thought I was insane, that I had totally lost my mind. And I googled all kinds of mental illnesses trying to figure out what was wrong with me, and eventually stumbled on a adult survivor of child abuse site. A lot of info, couple of forums, so i try to "fix it" on my own, and things continued to landslide downhill and out of my control. I was having panic attacks and flashbacks but I didn't really know thats what it was. I didn't know what it was. I eventually made an appointment with a psychologist, the one I previously mentioned, who said I have PTSD and now I can't seem to get myself to go back.
I feel like eveything I do, I have to fight myself to do it. I've been reading on PTSD since I got the diagnosis, and, its all pretty confusing really. I guess most of it applies to people that were in one time truamatic incidents, where my whole life was "traumatic" although I still have a hard time saying that. Again, probably because it was made out to be "not a big deal" at my house, with my mom atleast, when it *was* a big, huge deal. I've never had a "zest for life", never had friends, never had hobbies, have always been emotionally distant (for lack of better way to put it). I used to cut myself, self harm, and I stopped doing that when I started "losing myself". I've read some on dissassociation, and it all sounds a whole lot like me, a lot of the sympotoms are the same, but I'm not a dr, so would need to see another one and talk to her (as it has to be a "she" for me to be able to talk about it at all) before I would really know if I had any kind of dissassociative disorder of sorts.
AND thats the thing, I need to go back to a Dr. but now feel I can't. The one I went to first I owe money to, I am consequently going through bankruptcy now also, and so I dont think or wouldn't feel right anyways, about going to another dr. When I went they tried to send me to rehab to which kind of flipped me out a bit, even though, I know I need it, not because I'm addicted to any one particular thing (other than tobacco as far as real chemical addictions go) but because I never really learned how to cope or communicate or whatever it is normal people do when they hit hard times. The only thing I've ever known to do, since I was 12, was drink or do drugs to make myself not feel so bad, didn't necessarily make it feel better, but not *as* bad. Anyways it scared me, because rehab threatens to take away the only thing that made me not hurt so much all these years. That change-resistant part of me, hates the thought of losing that, but the other part of me, is horrified by the thought that i'd be this way forever.
Basically it feels like what little was left of this torn tattered world of mine has blown up to even tinier unrecognizable pieces, and I dont know what to do. I can't remember much of what happened really, for my whole life, its just little bits and pieces of bad memories, not even all of those memories either, just bits and pieces of bits and pieces. So I can't even go back through and try and "deal with" those issues and how it all made me feel, because I dont really know a whole lot about it myself. I don't remember. I remember say the begining of the fight, but not the end, or the end but not the between. Or I just remember how I felt and nothing else asides from that. Its all really confusing, hard to explain.
I've not been able to talk to my family, my grandparents, my dad (i have anxiety attacks just trying to leave him a voicemail) anyone of the very few people I've known in my life. The one friend I had, and my fiancee, I'm withdrawing from but I dont know how to stop from doing it. I dont have a life, I never have, I dont have a personality either unless you count self destructive behaviors as "personality traits". I am very protective and self sacrficing for the ones I love, but asides from that there's no "me" to speak of, no sense of identity, no likes or dislikes really, other than my hate for the abuser, and how wrong people seem to be.
I know, if I were to talk (which I dont do often) that I would be, or am, a depressing person to be around. How I managed to have the one friend I have and my fiancee still blows my mind. They swear im a great person but I dont trust them. They both swear they'll "lend me their ears" if I need to talk but I feel like their lying, I beileve that they want to be there for me, but they dont really want to "know" about it. Part of me says its not their burden to bear anyways, and I dont want to tell them because they'll look at me different. Not that they wouldn't like me for it, but that I'd appear dirtier to them I guess. But then I try to talk to a Dr., an unbiased 3rd party, and I had such high expectations for that because I've also been real protective over my mom, so I dont want the 2 people that know me, and her, to look at her badly, so I thought "*finally* here's my chance to say the truth" and I lie. I couldnt come out with the whole story for one, and i wasnt honest about how I feel, or about the pieces of this that REALLY scares me, and I don't know why, if I'm afraid they'll take me away or something? I dont know, but the one time I tried, I failed horribly at saying what I really wanted to say, what I meant. Now I'm trying to get back, to atleast A Dr. if not the same Dr. and (money issues aside) can't figure out how to do it.
I feel like I've been pushin as hard as I can push for months now, and have only produced very little change, and its become disheartening. I'm at the end of the proverbial rope. I'm tired of being tired, of fighting all the time, I just dont know what else to do. I have to fight *myself* tooth and nail to do anything. I swear its like there's an evil me, waiting to undermine any "good" thing I do for myself.
It took me 4 months to work up enough courage to tell my man I thot I was having some issues with my past and that I was trying to deal with it. It took me another 4 mo to work up the courage to go see a dr and let my man know that I was going to go get professional help over it. I am worried that no matter how much I want to change, that it may never happen, or take too long.
There's got to be others out there that have made it through what I'm going through now? Maybe some advice? Regardless, thanks for listening to me.
I went to a psychologist, she said I had a big fat case of PTSD (thats her words exactly). She said and did and implied somethings that made me uncomfortable with her, or maybe I'm just uncomfortable talking to anyone, and my lack of comfort made me seek things about her I didn't like....I really dont know. The point is, I didn't go back for the second appointment, even though I know I really need professional help.
I'm a survivor of prolonged physical/sexual/verbal/ and religious (although that feels wrong to say, I know now it was) abuse. My dad was a vietnam war vet who never recieved help for his PTSD (and perhaps other mental illnesses, its hard to say what all was or is wrong with him). He was physically and verbally abusive and threatened his life, my moms, and ours (my brothers and I's) lifes several times before I was 5. I remember that all very well. When he finally left us for good, it was the chirstmas of my 8th birthday, and my mom was battling a terminal illness, but didn't know it at the time. She went in and because they didn't see anything she was put on anti-depressants which made her worse. My dad, even though he left us, would come back when we'd go to school, literally when we'd get on the bus, he'd drive up to the house, and threaten her, saying if she ever divorced him he'd kill her and bury her in the woods, one of his favorite threats. We lived far away from everyone, and as I said, he had threatened us all many times, it seemed plausible that he'd do it one day. So my mom, eventually, took my brothers and I and moved in with some folks she met on the internet, more or less she ran away. She met a guy online at about the same time. Ended up moving several times, when she finally got a place of her own, within 6 mo's she lost it and we were homeless. My brothers were sent back to live dad although really they lived with my grandparents and would only come to live with dad after a couple years. I refused to go, because I was terrified of my dad, and being that I thot that's where we were living (with dad) I couldn't do it, I was terrified of him. So I begged and pleaded to be with my mom, even though we didn't have any place to stay. She let me. Then thats when this guy she met on the internet comes in to play. Lucky us, he turns out to be a pedophile and online predator. He abused me, and various other people and children, sexually, physically, mentally, and (again I hate saying it but i know its true) religiously or spiritually however you want to call it, this went on for me from the time I was 10 until I was 18, at which time my mom had him forcibly removed from the place we were staying. We moved around a lot after my dad left, and there was no constant in my life BUT abuse, it varied in kinds of abuse, but it was all abuse. My entire life I had to hide this perv's "lifestyle" as my mom him and his goonies put it, he was into bdsm and so therefor it was ok to beat and sexually humiliate people, make them your slaves. Anyways, there were a lot of people, and I had to cover for them, telling those who saw them (the few that saw in passing as I wasn't allowed to have friends) that they were family or friends of the family that were "having a rough time". Ofcourse we moved around so much that I didn't have to lie long or defend the lies often as, we'd only be in one place for about a year or so before we moved again. from one slum to another.
I've been out on my own for almost 2 years now. I didn't move out of my moms until I was 20, and something about being there with her, even though she had him removed when I was 18, kept me in denial of it all. She always turned a blind eye to what happened to me, my mom, so I think it kind of wore off on me too. Like if it wasn't important enough for her to pay attention to than it wasn't important enough for me to either. When she had him removed, it was for what he had done to her, there was no mention of what he did to me, and anytime I brought something up that he did, things he had done in front of her no less, she said she didn't remember (not calling me a liar, but not accepting the truth either). Anyways, it wasn't until I moved away, into my own place that it hit me. I immediately became an alcoholic, but I didn't see it like that. I was 20 going on 21, I thought it was acceptable to drink like I was, which was everyday after work all evening till I passed out. I eventually, somepoint after turning 21, said I should stop, afraid I'd end up an alcoholic like my dad. When I did, it really hit the fan. I thought I was insane, that I had totally lost my mind. And I googled all kinds of mental illnesses trying to figure out what was wrong with me, and eventually stumbled on a adult survivor of child abuse site. A lot of info, couple of forums, so i try to "fix it" on my own, and things continued to landslide downhill and out of my control. I was having panic attacks and flashbacks but I didn't really know thats what it was. I didn't know what it was. I eventually made an appointment with a psychologist, the one I previously mentioned, who said I have PTSD and now I can't seem to get myself to go back.
I feel like eveything I do, I have to fight myself to do it. I've been reading on PTSD since I got the diagnosis, and, its all pretty confusing really. I guess most of it applies to people that were in one time truamatic incidents, where my whole life was "traumatic" although I still have a hard time saying that. Again, probably because it was made out to be "not a big deal" at my house, with my mom atleast, when it *was* a big, huge deal. I've never had a "zest for life", never had friends, never had hobbies, have always been emotionally distant (for lack of better way to put it). I used to cut myself, self harm, and I stopped doing that when I started "losing myself". I've read some on dissassociation, and it all sounds a whole lot like me, a lot of the sympotoms are the same, but I'm not a dr, so would need to see another one and talk to her (as it has to be a "she" for me to be able to talk about it at all) before I would really know if I had any kind of dissassociative disorder of sorts.
AND thats the thing, I need to go back to a Dr. but now feel I can't. The one I went to first I owe money to, I am consequently going through bankruptcy now also, and so I dont think or wouldn't feel right anyways, about going to another dr. When I went they tried to send me to rehab to which kind of flipped me out a bit, even though, I know I need it, not because I'm addicted to any one particular thing (other than tobacco as far as real chemical addictions go) but because I never really learned how to cope or communicate or whatever it is normal people do when they hit hard times. The only thing I've ever known to do, since I was 12, was drink or do drugs to make myself not feel so bad, didn't necessarily make it feel better, but not *as* bad. Anyways it scared me, because rehab threatens to take away the only thing that made me not hurt so much all these years. That change-resistant part of me, hates the thought of losing that, but the other part of me, is horrified by the thought that i'd be this way forever.
Basically it feels like what little was left of this torn tattered world of mine has blown up to even tinier unrecognizable pieces, and I dont know what to do. I can't remember much of what happened really, for my whole life, its just little bits and pieces of bad memories, not even all of those memories either, just bits and pieces of bits and pieces. So I can't even go back through and try and "deal with" those issues and how it all made me feel, because I dont really know a whole lot about it myself. I don't remember. I remember say the begining of the fight, but not the end, or the end but not the between. Or I just remember how I felt and nothing else asides from that. Its all really confusing, hard to explain.
I've not been able to talk to my family, my grandparents, my dad (i have anxiety attacks just trying to leave him a voicemail) anyone of the very few people I've known in my life. The one friend I had, and my fiancee, I'm withdrawing from but I dont know how to stop from doing it. I dont have a life, I never have, I dont have a personality either unless you count self destructive behaviors as "personality traits". I am very protective and self sacrficing for the ones I love, but asides from that there's no "me" to speak of, no sense of identity, no likes or dislikes really, other than my hate for the abuser, and how wrong people seem to be.
I know, if I were to talk (which I dont do often) that I would be, or am, a depressing person to be around. How I managed to have the one friend I have and my fiancee still blows my mind. They swear im a great person but I dont trust them. They both swear they'll "lend me their ears" if I need to talk but I feel like their lying, I beileve that they want to be there for me, but they dont really want to "know" about it. Part of me says its not their burden to bear anyways, and I dont want to tell them because they'll look at me different. Not that they wouldn't like me for it, but that I'd appear dirtier to them I guess. But then I try to talk to a Dr., an unbiased 3rd party, and I had such high expectations for that because I've also been real protective over my mom, so I dont want the 2 people that know me, and her, to look at her badly, so I thought "*finally* here's my chance to say the truth" and I lie. I couldnt come out with the whole story for one, and i wasnt honest about how I feel, or about the pieces of this that REALLY scares me, and I don't know why, if I'm afraid they'll take me away or something? I dont know, but the one time I tried, I failed horribly at saying what I really wanted to say, what I meant. Now I'm trying to get back, to atleast A Dr. if not the same Dr. and (money issues aside) can't figure out how to do it.
I feel like I've been pushin as hard as I can push for months now, and have only produced very little change, and its become disheartening. I'm at the end of the proverbial rope. I'm tired of being tired, of fighting all the time, I just dont know what else to do. I have to fight *myself* tooth and nail to do anything. I swear its like there's an evil me, waiting to undermine any "good" thing I do for myself.
It took me 4 months to work up enough courage to tell my man I thot I was having some issues with my past and that I was trying to deal with it. It took me another 4 mo to work up the courage to go see a dr and let my man know that I was going to go get professional help over it. I am worried that no matter how much I want to change, that it may never happen, or take too long.
There's got to be others out there that have made it through what I'm going through now? Maybe some advice? Regardless, thanks for listening to me.
