I've just registered with the forum (last night), and have been going back and forth with myself about posting something for the last few hours. Starting, then stopping and going back to reading the stories of others...
Now I'm taking the plunge (assuming I actually finish typing this and hit the button to submit it, of course). If I do finish, warning, this will be loooong... get yourself a cup of tea if you plan on reading it, because my life is a bit complicated.
**Having now written it, looking back, think less essay, more novella :)
PTSD is not a new thing to my life. My husband is ex-British Army, though I met him a couple of years after he left, and has combat related PTSD as a result of his service, mainly during the Gulf War. He was injured a couple of times, the worst was being blown up when he was in the Gulf, being airlifted out, and waking up in Germany. Thankfully he was intact physically, but his injuries ended his career.
The bulk of his symptoms are actually caused by things he did, or things he saw, rather than things that were done to him, though, such as operations that he co-ordinated or took part in, where people on the other side were killed or severely injured, or the aftermath of attacks. I can't share those here, partly because it's not fair to write publicly about things that are that private to him and didn't involve me directly, and partly because I only know about some of them, and not that much about the ones I am aware of. He doesn't often share these things, although he's much more open than he used to be. That said, when in a certain mood he sometimes comments that he's killed more men than anybody he knows.
His symptoms didn't really start to cause damage or problems within his life until his grandfather died. Then things started to go downhill. Eventually, a friend who was training in psychotherapy had a chat with him, and told him to go and see his doctor and tell him about everything he'd talked about. He did, and was put onto a fast-track that our local NHS has for former military personnel. Obviously, things always get worse before they get better, but things got very, very black at that point. He didn't have the best therapists at first - one in particular tried to use EMDR on him, and botched it badly, leaving him repeatedly flooding for days on end, and messing him up for the next couple of years or so.
His employer at the time couldn't have been less helpful, or more harmful. (American company with fluffy caring image that couldn't be farther from the truth of how it treats it's staff.) They sent him to an occupational health nurse, whose whole philosophy was basically that all sick notes are false, and doctors giving them out are colluding in the lie. She "assessed" him for PTSD and determined that he had never experienced anything that could be considered traumatic. She hadn't asked him about his military service, and stopped him from telling her. That messed him up even more. He became more or less a suicidal basket case for a short time after that, unable to process much at all. He was signed off from work by his doctor (and if it was a lie, it's one I was incredibly grateful for). His boss at one point said to him "if you'd had your arm blown off, I might believe you", which was just a really helpful thing to say to someone whose flashbacks included seeing body parts.
That was our worst time - there was a *lot* of fallout from those two instances - he was shut down emotionally for a while, apart from when he was flooding. He'd get violent (which I didn't just take, I stood up to him, and eventually worked out that the way to deal with it was to challenge him to hit me, which cleared the red mist **NB I don't recommend anybody else tries that - it was what worked with him, and I'd lost it myself when I said it the first time - it ended in diffusion rather than me getting punched, it could easily have backfired on me**).
The heartbreaking thing for me was that when he did get violent, it wasn't anger in his eyes, it was sheer terror and pain, because he just couldn't cope with what he was feeling.
Eventually, he found a therapist who helped him, and he started to climb out of the fog. He still has relapses - at the moment he's in the middle of a pretty bad one, which is part of what prompted me to sign up here - but he's climbed a mountain compared to where he was a few short years ago, and I'm indescribably proud of him, and proud to be his wife.
And then there's me.
Hub has been telling me for a while now that things aren't right with me, and that I should go and talk to somebody about whatever's up. I'd been having some mood swings, and shouting at people, to the point where some people are apparently scared of me – also, I've been known to shut down when working (as in stop altogether), have concentration and distraction problems sometimes, and trying to avoid people is a big thing with me.
He thought it was down to the effect he'd had on me. I had considered myself that I may have secondary trauma, because in reading everything about PTSD I could get my hands on in order to help hub, a lot of symptoms seemed far too familiar about myself, and my own reactions to things. But I put off doing anything about it, possibly because I was [am] scared.
Anyway, earlier this year I had some financial problems, due to a couple of non-paying clients (I'm self employed), and it caused a lot of stress. It all came to a head when I came to the end of a college course I was doing, and had to present final exhibitions. I was absolutely terrified, because I didn't think my work was good enough, or that I was good enough (as it turned out I got a high merit for it, but...). It had never been part of the plan that hub would be there for the first night, because it clashed with something else he had to do, but I went into complete meltdown over the fact that he wasn't going to be there (that it had all been arranged months in advance, and I was asking him to change everything at 24 hours notice was irrelevant, of course). The night before the opening, I went through the whole house, collecting all the painkillers with the idea of an overdose. I don't think I'd really have done anything, even if I had found enough pills, but the idea was there.
Hub found out when we had a big row, and I let it slip, and he made an appointment for the doctor for me straight away. And bullied me into it, basically.
When I went into see the doctor, I had the thought that maybe I had depression because of the financial stuff. He looked at my records, and noted that I'd been to see somebody a few years ago with depressive symptoms (I had, but rationalised myself out of getting help – I do that lots). He then started asking me about how long I'd felt depressed, and I flippantly commented that I'd been messed up since I was a kid. I should explain here that I had agoraphobia & panic attacks as a teenager, and more or less left school at 13, because I refused to go.
At that point, he started asking me about what I meant, and I found myself telling him about everything. And he told me that he thought I had severe PTSD, possibly with detachment / dissociative issues (because I don't really get upset when I talk about what happened, it's like I'm telling a story, and I can't remember bits of it) and put me on the waiting list to see the psych team for the area (still on it), and in the meantime said he wants regular check ins with me. I went out to hub, who was waiting for me in reception, and told him, in a slightly stunned, dazed way.
The stuff I told the doctor is pretty normal to me, it's just stuff that happened to me / was done to me, though I can now see that it, and my reactions to it, may qualify me for PTSD.
I may lose my coherency and get a bit jumbled and un-chronological in this next bit – some of this stuff I've barely told anybody before... some of it I haven't thought about in years, till recently... some of it I think about every day, whether I want to or not, but never talk about.
My mother was 14 when I was born. She was a ward of court, and if it weren't for the fact that the court took so long to decide on what to do about the pregnancy that she was too far gone to have an abortion, I'd have been terminated. I know so, because when I was a small child, she told me, while telling me that she wished they had got rid of me, and that it was my fault she was fat and couldn't have any fun like a girl her age was meant to. She told me that, probably every day for over a decade. I didn't know what an abortion was when she started telling me. She also told me she wished I was dead. I didn't know what dead was either.
At the same time, the abuse started. From my Mam. Nothing sexual, but violence. A lot of that merges together, and my memories of my childhood are vague, and a bit mushed up, with flashes here and there, , like images on a cinefilm - some idyllic, some hell on earth. But initially it was just hitting and shoving. I do remember always being covered in bruises, but nobody ever picking up on what was going on, because I was a clutz anyway (still am), and everybody just assumed I'd fallen over or bashed myself when playing. I also remember that whenever she'd hit me, she'd be extra nice afterwards.
Anyway, fast forward to when I was 10, I was at a local fairground with a friend, and there was an accident on a ride. I don't remember anything other than standing next to the ride, arguing with my friend about whether to go on it or not (I didn't want to, she did), and then being at home, refusing to talk. I know from having looked it up since that it was quite horrific, and that it was a girl about my age that was killed. I have no idea what we saw, if anything. This is what I think may have originally caused me to have PTSD, then compounded by other things, although I have yet to confirm this.
I've had nightmares that I can't remember pretty much ever since, though off and on. Six months later (ish), I refused to go to school for the first time, and stopped going out. I gradually got worse and worse, till I turned a corner. Just as I was starting to get better, and was back in school full time, my Dad died suddenly, of a brain haemorrhage. A month later, a teacher (RE) told me that because he didn't believe in God, Dad was “burning in an everlasting hell”. I ran home, and never went back to school, apart from exams. For a long while, I didn't go out at all.
After Dad died, things got much worse between me and my Mam. As I'd got bigger, the violence had already got worse, but this was another step on – being pushed downstairs, bounced off walls, dragged by my hair, having a knife held against my throat (again, don't really remember this, but get flashes).
When I was 16, I came home from an exam early, and found my mother beating my Nana (with whom we lived, and who was the one who more or less brought me up – also the only person never to have hit me (Dad didn't abuse me, in the terms of the day, but he did belt me as punishment once or twice)). I stopped my mother. She was locked out of the house the next day. It wasn't my decision, but I had to tell her. Haven't seen her since (22 years). All of that I remember (I think).
Fast forward a year, Nana broke her hip and was a bit unwell. One day I'd just taken her a cup of tea, and she - just – died. Fine one minute and gone the next. I've avoided phones since that day, because I've always wondered what would have happened if I called an ambulance instead of panicking and calling my uncle. I've always thought that her death and the aftermath may have had a long lasting bad effect on me (I blacked out at the funeral).
Then there was assorted other rubbish that may or may not have affected me – I slept rough a few times when I ran away to avoid my Mam (don't really remember that); my first memory of my Grandad collapsing (he was dying of cancer) in a petrol station (just a bloody image that flashes when I let my guard down); I got evicted twice (once my fault, once not, though I now suspect both down to this); an uncle attempted to molest me when my Nana was in hospital (I was 16, and beyond him fumbling at me and groping me a bit, nothing actually happened, but still, eurgh); a relative accused me of murdering my Nana; my pet rabbits died from the cold because I'd had to move into a place where they couldn't be indoors (relatively minor, I know, but I've always blamed myself, and can't get rid of the thought of how scared they must have been - this is actually my most frequent invasive thought)...
So anyway, if you've managed to get to the end of this, that's me. I class it as ironic that I apparently have PTSD, given hub. A friend reckons that if I've had it all along, that's why I understand how he feels when he's going through stuff, and don't (often) hold it against him.
And yes, I am pretty detached writing this, it is as though I'm writing about somebody else (the bit about me), and I am rationalising. Like I said, I do that a lot.
That said, being a sufferer, rather than a carer / supporter in the PTSD realm, is a very new idea to me. I'm not sure it was something I was actually prepared for, despite the familiarity I had with symptom lists. The whole treatment thing petrifies me. I think partly because of what hub went through, and partly because I had some pretty horrid treatment situations myself in the past, when I wouldn't go to school, that set me back repeatedly. I function now, more or less, and it terrifies me that somebody poking about in my head may stop that being the case. But... avoidance and all that. Maybe it's that I was so young when I stopped being "normal" that I just don't know what that means.
I am going to go through with treatment, because I promised hub - and it'd be nice to not be terrified of using the phone, or to be extremely hypervigilant and jumpy any more, but truth be told, I find the prospect far scarier than just living with things, and dealing (or not) with the symptoms as they come up, as I have been for nearly 20 years (that's not counting the 10 or so when I barely existed).
Shutting up now – sorry for silly length.
Now I'm taking the plunge (assuming I actually finish typing this and hit the button to submit it, of course). If I do finish, warning, this will be loooong... get yourself a cup of tea if you plan on reading it, because my life is a bit complicated.
**Having now written it, looking back, think less essay, more novella :)
PTSD is not a new thing to my life. My husband is ex-British Army, though I met him a couple of years after he left, and has combat related PTSD as a result of his service, mainly during the Gulf War. He was injured a couple of times, the worst was being blown up when he was in the Gulf, being airlifted out, and waking up in Germany. Thankfully he was intact physically, but his injuries ended his career.
The bulk of his symptoms are actually caused by things he did, or things he saw, rather than things that were done to him, though, such as operations that he co-ordinated or took part in, where people on the other side were killed or severely injured, or the aftermath of attacks. I can't share those here, partly because it's not fair to write publicly about things that are that private to him and didn't involve me directly, and partly because I only know about some of them, and not that much about the ones I am aware of. He doesn't often share these things, although he's much more open than he used to be. That said, when in a certain mood he sometimes comments that he's killed more men than anybody he knows.
His symptoms didn't really start to cause damage or problems within his life until his grandfather died. Then things started to go downhill. Eventually, a friend who was training in psychotherapy had a chat with him, and told him to go and see his doctor and tell him about everything he'd talked about. He did, and was put onto a fast-track that our local NHS has for former military personnel. Obviously, things always get worse before they get better, but things got very, very black at that point. He didn't have the best therapists at first - one in particular tried to use EMDR on him, and botched it badly, leaving him repeatedly flooding for days on end, and messing him up for the next couple of years or so.
His employer at the time couldn't have been less helpful, or more harmful. (American company with fluffy caring image that couldn't be farther from the truth of how it treats it's staff.) They sent him to an occupational health nurse, whose whole philosophy was basically that all sick notes are false, and doctors giving them out are colluding in the lie. She "assessed" him for PTSD and determined that he had never experienced anything that could be considered traumatic. She hadn't asked him about his military service, and stopped him from telling her. That messed him up even more. He became more or less a suicidal basket case for a short time after that, unable to process much at all. He was signed off from work by his doctor (and if it was a lie, it's one I was incredibly grateful for). His boss at one point said to him "if you'd had your arm blown off, I might believe you", which was just a really helpful thing to say to someone whose flashbacks included seeing body parts.
That was our worst time - there was a *lot* of fallout from those two instances - he was shut down emotionally for a while, apart from when he was flooding. He'd get violent (which I didn't just take, I stood up to him, and eventually worked out that the way to deal with it was to challenge him to hit me, which cleared the red mist **NB I don't recommend anybody else tries that - it was what worked with him, and I'd lost it myself when I said it the first time - it ended in diffusion rather than me getting punched, it could easily have backfired on me**).
The heartbreaking thing for me was that when he did get violent, it wasn't anger in his eyes, it was sheer terror and pain, because he just couldn't cope with what he was feeling.
Eventually, he found a therapist who helped him, and he started to climb out of the fog. He still has relapses - at the moment he's in the middle of a pretty bad one, which is part of what prompted me to sign up here - but he's climbed a mountain compared to where he was a few short years ago, and I'm indescribably proud of him, and proud to be his wife.
And then there's me.
Hub has been telling me for a while now that things aren't right with me, and that I should go and talk to somebody about whatever's up. I'd been having some mood swings, and shouting at people, to the point where some people are apparently scared of me – also, I've been known to shut down when working (as in stop altogether), have concentration and distraction problems sometimes, and trying to avoid people is a big thing with me.
He thought it was down to the effect he'd had on me. I had considered myself that I may have secondary trauma, because in reading everything about PTSD I could get my hands on in order to help hub, a lot of symptoms seemed far too familiar about myself, and my own reactions to things. But I put off doing anything about it, possibly because I was [am] scared.
Anyway, earlier this year I had some financial problems, due to a couple of non-paying clients (I'm self employed), and it caused a lot of stress. It all came to a head when I came to the end of a college course I was doing, and had to present final exhibitions. I was absolutely terrified, because I didn't think my work was good enough, or that I was good enough (as it turned out I got a high merit for it, but...). It had never been part of the plan that hub would be there for the first night, because it clashed with something else he had to do, but I went into complete meltdown over the fact that he wasn't going to be there (that it had all been arranged months in advance, and I was asking him to change everything at 24 hours notice was irrelevant, of course). The night before the opening, I went through the whole house, collecting all the painkillers with the idea of an overdose. I don't think I'd really have done anything, even if I had found enough pills, but the idea was there.
Hub found out when we had a big row, and I let it slip, and he made an appointment for the doctor for me straight away. And bullied me into it, basically.
When I went into see the doctor, I had the thought that maybe I had depression because of the financial stuff. He looked at my records, and noted that I'd been to see somebody a few years ago with depressive symptoms (I had, but rationalised myself out of getting help – I do that lots). He then started asking me about how long I'd felt depressed, and I flippantly commented that I'd been messed up since I was a kid. I should explain here that I had agoraphobia & panic attacks as a teenager, and more or less left school at 13, because I refused to go.
At that point, he started asking me about what I meant, and I found myself telling him about everything. And he told me that he thought I had severe PTSD, possibly with detachment / dissociative issues (because I don't really get upset when I talk about what happened, it's like I'm telling a story, and I can't remember bits of it) and put me on the waiting list to see the psych team for the area (still on it), and in the meantime said he wants regular check ins with me. I went out to hub, who was waiting for me in reception, and told him, in a slightly stunned, dazed way.
The stuff I told the doctor is pretty normal to me, it's just stuff that happened to me / was done to me, though I can now see that it, and my reactions to it, may qualify me for PTSD.
I may lose my coherency and get a bit jumbled and un-chronological in this next bit – some of this stuff I've barely told anybody before... some of it I haven't thought about in years, till recently... some of it I think about every day, whether I want to or not, but never talk about.
My mother was 14 when I was born. She was a ward of court, and if it weren't for the fact that the court took so long to decide on what to do about the pregnancy that she was too far gone to have an abortion, I'd have been terminated. I know so, because when I was a small child, she told me, while telling me that she wished they had got rid of me, and that it was my fault she was fat and couldn't have any fun like a girl her age was meant to. She told me that, probably every day for over a decade. I didn't know what an abortion was when she started telling me. She also told me she wished I was dead. I didn't know what dead was either.
At the same time, the abuse started. From my Mam. Nothing sexual, but violence. A lot of that merges together, and my memories of my childhood are vague, and a bit mushed up, with flashes here and there, , like images on a cinefilm - some idyllic, some hell on earth. But initially it was just hitting and shoving. I do remember always being covered in bruises, but nobody ever picking up on what was going on, because I was a clutz anyway (still am), and everybody just assumed I'd fallen over or bashed myself when playing. I also remember that whenever she'd hit me, she'd be extra nice afterwards.
Anyway, fast forward to when I was 10, I was at a local fairground with a friend, and there was an accident on a ride. I don't remember anything other than standing next to the ride, arguing with my friend about whether to go on it or not (I didn't want to, she did), and then being at home, refusing to talk. I know from having looked it up since that it was quite horrific, and that it was a girl about my age that was killed. I have no idea what we saw, if anything. This is what I think may have originally caused me to have PTSD, then compounded by other things, although I have yet to confirm this.
I've had nightmares that I can't remember pretty much ever since, though off and on. Six months later (ish), I refused to go to school for the first time, and stopped going out. I gradually got worse and worse, till I turned a corner. Just as I was starting to get better, and was back in school full time, my Dad died suddenly, of a brain haemorrhage. A month later, a teacher (RE) told me that because he didn't believe in God, Dad was “burning in an everlasting hell”. I ran home, and never went back to school, apart from exams. For a long while, I didn't go out at all.
After Dad died, things got much worse between me and my Mam. As I'd got bigger, the violence had already got worse, but this was another step on – being pushed downstairs, bounced off walls, dragged by my hair, having a knife held against my throat (again, don't really remember this, but get flashes).
When I was 16, I came home from an exam early, and found my mother beating my Nana (with whom we lived, and who was the one who more or less brought me up – also the only person never to have hit me (Dad didn't abuse me, in the terms of the day, but he did belt me as punishment once or twice)). I stopped my mother. She was locked out of the house the next day. It wasn't my decision, but I had to tell her. Haven't seen her since (22 years). All of that I remember (I think).
Fast forward a year, Nana broke her hip and was a bit unwell. One day I'd just taken her a cup of tea, and she - just – died. Fine one minute and gone the next. I've avoided phones since that day, because I've always wondered what would have happened if I called an ambulance instead of panicking and calling my uncle. I've always thought that her death and the aftermath may have had a long lasting bad effect on me (I blacked out at the funeral).
Then there was assorted other rubbish that may or may not have affected me – I slept rough a few times when I ran away to avoid my Mam (don't really remember that); my first memory of my Grandad collapsing (he was dying of cancer) in a petrol station (just a bloody image that flashes when I let my guard down); I got evicted twice (once my fault, once not, though I now suspect both down to this); an uncle attempted to molest me when my Nana was in hospital (I was 16, and beyond him fumbling at me and groping me a bit, nothing actually happened, but still, eurgh); a relative accused me of murdering my Nana; my pet rabbits died from the cold because I'd had to move into a place where they couldn't be indoors (relatively minor, I know, but I've always blamed myself, and can't get rid of the thought of how scared they must have been - this is actually my most frequent invasive thought)...
So anyway, if you've managed to get to the end of this, that's me. I class it as ironic that I apparently have PTSD, given hub. A friend reckons that if I've had it all along, that's why I understand how he feels when he's going through stuff, and don't (often) hold it against him.
And yes, I am pretty detached writing this, it is as though I'm writing about somebody else (the bit about me), and I am rationalising. Like I said, I do that a lot.
That said, being a sufferer, rather than a carer / supporter in the PTSD realm, is a very new idea to me. I'm not sure it was something I was actually prepared for, despite the familiarity I had with symptom lists. The whole treatment thing petrifies me. I think partly because of what hub went through, and partly because I had some pretty horrid treatment situations myself in the past, when I wouldn't go to school, that set me back repeatedly. I function now, more or less, and it terrifies me that somebody poking about in my head may stop that being the case. But... avoidance and all that. Maybe it's that I was so young when I stopped being "normal" that I just don't know what that means.
I am going to go through with treatment, because I promised hub - and it'd be nice to not be terrified of using the phone, or to be extremely hypervigilant and jumpy any more, but truth be told, I find the prospect far scarier than just living with things, and dealing (or not) with the symptoms as they come up, as I have been for nearly 20 years (that's not counting the 10 or so when I barely existed).
Shutting up now – sorry for silly length.
