PreciousChild
Platinum Member
Hello. This feels good to have a forum to safely show myself in a way I can't do at work or with my friends and child. In many ways, I haven't let my traumatic past hold me back. I am relatively successful in terms of my career, and I believe I am a good mother, though I've had to work towards that. I did, however, marry someone who was traumatized himself, and who targeted his anger and anxiety solely on me. We divorced 7 years ago.
I have some friends and get along with people very well, but very few ever get to know about my past. I have also been unsuccessful dating - nothing dramatic, but I know that I have walls there, and I need to address it. I've been going to therapy off and on for 20 years, which has helped me immensely over the years. None has dealt with trauma in particular, and I am not officially diagnosed with that disorder. But in reading Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, I'm certain that is my primary characteristic.
My success in work and my social adaptation I think almost makes people not believe I need any sort of special help or support. What people don't realize is how hard I've worked to overcome some of the most debilitating aspects of my ptsd. There were times that I was so "off", people avoided me like the plague. Right now, what I struggle with is figuring out how to even think about being happy, connecting with others, and figuring out how to fill the void left from a childhood full of trauma and not much else. I'm still not recovered. I go through periods of intense re-experiencing, and it is simply torture. But I'm recovered enough that those periods are not highly frequent, and I have enough distance not to completely buy into its reality.
My father was highly punitive and my mother highly passive. My mother hated me intensely growing up. At one point, when I was feeling suicidal, she basically told me that I better succeed because I would continue to be a nuisance if I became vegetative (I had a cup fill of pills in front of me). The single thing that defines me most I think was when my parents left me in the house alone all night when I was about 3 years old. I was told that I was chewing my food disrespectfully at dinner. That caused my father to gather up my mother, brother, and sister, and take them to grandmother's. My father was at a neighbors house and could hear me crying all night until I fell asleep. That's what I think I re-experience when I go through my episodes. I feel intensely alone, afraid, and I feel deeply mad at myself for doing something to cause such a reaction.
I have some friends and get along with people very well, but very few ever get to know about my past. I have also been unsuccessful dating - nothing dramatic, but I know that I have walls there, and I need to address it. I've been going to therapy off and on for 20 years, which has helped me immensely over the years. None has dealt with trauma in particular, and I am not officially diagnosed with that disorder. But in reading Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, I'm certain that is my primary characteristic.
My success in work and my social adaptation I think almost makes people not believe I need any sort of special help or support. What people don't realize is how hard I've worked to overcome some of the most debilitating aspects of my ptsd. There were times that I was so "off", people avoided me like the plague. Right now, what I struggle with is figuring out how to even think about being happy, connecting with others, and figuring out how to fill the void left from a childhood full of trauma and not much else. I'm still not recovered. I go through periods of intense re-experiencing, and it is simply torture. But I'm recovered enough that those periods are not highly frequent, and I have enough distance not to completely buy into its reality.
My father was highly punitive and my mother highly passive. My mother hated me intensely growing up. At one point, when I was feeling suicidal, she basically told me that I better succeed because I would continue to be a nuisance if I became vegetative (I had a cup fill of pills in front of me). The single thing that defines me most I think was when my parents left me in the house alone all night when I was about 3 years old. I was told that I was chewing my food disrespectfully at dinner. That caused my father to gather up my mother, brother, and sister, and take them to grandmother's. My father was at a neighbors house and could hear me crying all night until I fell asleep. That's what I think I re-experience when I go through my episodes. I feel intensely alone, afraid, and I feel deeply mad at myself for doing something to cause such a reaction.
