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Sufferer Trying to find healing after years of running from myself…

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TML

New Here
Hello to all who read this.👋This is my first time being a part of a PTSD group. I’ve been in therapy for two years for C-PTSD. I was abused as a child by a neighbor from when I was 5 until age 9. I kept it secret for 30 years & held tightly onto the shame with all of my might.

I spent years destroying myself with drugs, not really clear as to why I wanted to destroy myself. I suppressed the memories of the abuse. Looking back, idk what I was thinking about it. I feel like part of me was vaguely aware of the abuse (but severely minimized it) but the other part of me wasn’t aware of it at all. I had so much shame inside but didn’t identify where it came from. I felt like I’d been born with it.

After I stopped destroying myself with drugs, I went into therapy & began coming to terms with the fact that the abuse happened & most of all, how deeply it affected me. I’ve now been in therapy for two years. I’ve done some EMDR & parts work. I’m trying to fix the part of my brain that got broken all of those years ago. The part that’s stuck in time…the part that causes me to feel incredible shame & that blames myself & only myself.

I’ve made some progress over these past few years. I’ve begun to feel anger towards my abuser for the first time (instead of just toward myself). At times it feels like uncontrollable rage. But this to me, is progress, because it shows me that my brain is rewiring itself & putting pieces together that hadn’t been put together before.

I wanted to join this group to connect with others who have similar issues, hear others’ stories & give & get support. Mostly, I just want to not feel so alone anymore. I look forward to interacting with & getting to know others in this group!
 
hello tml. welcome to the forum. congratulations on your courage in seeking your healing path. destroying ourselves, be it with drugs, overwork, isolation or whatever, destroying ourselves is the path of least resistance. it is far easier than confronting our inner demons such as self-blame, guilt, anger, etcetera, etceteri. personally, i destroyed myself with overwork in between rounds of self-sabotage and inter-continental flight. in the self-sabotage phases, i often fled to foreign countries where i had a built in excuse for nobody understanding me. but, alas, wherever i went, there i was. . .

you are most definitely not alone with the illogic of this disorder. the confusion is a bit easier to bear with a little help from friends.

welcome aboard. i hope you find stabilizing companionship here.
 
Hi there. Thanks so much for sharing your story. I relate in that I suppressed the reason for my CPTSD for many years and only recently started allowing anger vs self destruction. It was also amazing to hear you’ve found therapy that’s been helpful. I just restarted myself and again, appreciate your sharing/connecting. ❤️💫
 
Hello to all who read this.👋This is my first time being a part of a PTSD group. I’ve been in therapy for two years for C-PTSD. I was abused as a child by a neighbor from when I was 5 until age 9. I kept it secret for 30 years & held tightly onto the shame with all of my might.

I spent years destroying myself with drugs, not really clear as to why I wanted to destroy myself. I suppressed the memories of the abuse. Looking back, idk what I was thinking about it. I feel like part of me was vaguely aware of the abuse (but severely minimized it) but the other part of me wasn’t aware of it at all. I had so much shame inside but didn’t identify where it came from. I felt like I’d been born with it.

After I stopped destroying myself with drugs, I went into therapy & began coming to terms with the fact that the abuse happened & most of all, how deeply it affected me. I’ve now been in therapy for two years. I’ve done some EMDR & parts work. I’m trying to fix the part of my brain that got broken all of those years ago. The part that’s stuck in time…the part that causes me to feel incredible shame & that blames myself & only myself.

I’ve made some progress over these past few years. I’ve begun to feel anger towards my abuser for the first time (instead of just toward myself). At times it feels like uncontrollable rage. But this to me, is progress, because it shows me that my brain is rewiring itself & putting pieces together that hadn’t been put together before.

I wanted to join this group to connect with others who have similar issues, hear others’ stories & give & get support. Mostly, I just want to not feel so alone anymore. I look forward to interacting with & getting to know others in this group!
Welcome to the forum.
My story is similar to yours. When I was six, an 14 year old neighbor raped me. We lived in the country near a small town, so I had to ride the school bus w/ him for three years. Then we moved.

I never had a problem with drugs per se, but it was close.

I had dissociative amnesia for 15 years, until age 21 when it came back like being hit with a hammer. About that, I prefer the term "dissociative amnesia" to anything like "suppression". During trauma, the parts of the brain that record normal memory are shut off so that the parts that control fight, flight, or freeze can see to it the organism survives. So memory isn't suppressed, its not recorded in the first place except as fragments, body memories, and so on.

Look forward to your presence on the forum.
 
I got cptsd from my church. Seems stupid but I trusted so much that I didn't even recognize it as abuse at the time, so denied the ptsd for 7 miserable years. I'm in therapy and making progress but I still feel so much pain and anxiety. I used to be super social and genuinely loved people but now I stay at home alone all the time. I can't work and even shopping can be stressful. Any human contact is frightening as I never know how I'll act or if I'll freak out. I can't relate anymore and experienced complete dissociation. I can't feel love anymore, not even for my kids. Just numbness or fear.
Now that I've admitted to myself what had happened, I'm starting to see improvement and heal but the pain of reliving it all has me so depressed and exhausted. I want my old life back so badly, but I know things will never be the same and that's heartbreaking. I've had to walk away from people who I dearly loved, and goals I had worked on for years. I've decided that since I was completely destroyed, I'm going to rebuild myself from the ground up. New friends and goals, plus a different attitude. I will take care of myself instead of punishing myself for something I had no control over.
 
Hello to all who read this.👋This is my first time being a part of a PTSD group. I’ve been in therapy for two years for C-PTSD. I was abused as a child by a neighbor from when I was 5 until age 9. I kept it secret for 30 years & held tightly onto the shame with all of my might.

I spent years destroying myself with drugs, not really clear as to why I wanted to destroy myself. I suppressed the memories of the abuse. Looking back, idk what I was thinking about it. I feel like part of me was vaguely aware of the abuse (but severely minimized it) but the other part of me wasn’t aware of it at all. I had so much shame inside but didn’t identify where it came from. I felt like I’d been born with it.

After I stopped destroying myself with drugs, I went into therapy & began coming to terms with the fact that the abuse happened & most of all, how deeply it affected me. I’ve now been in therapy for two years. I’ve done some EMDR & parts work. I’m trying to fix the part of my brain that got broken all of those years ago. The part that’s stuck in time…the part that causes me to feel incredible shame & that blames myself & only myself.

I’ve made some progress over these past few years. I’ve begun to feel anger towards my abuser for the first time (instead of just toward myself). At times it feels like uncontrollable rage. But this to me, is progress, because it shows me that my brain is rewiring itself & putting pieces together that hadn’t been put together before.

I wanted to join this group to connect with others who have similar issues, hear others’ stories & give & get support. Mostly, I just want to not feel so alone anymore. I look forward to interacting with & getting to know others in this group!
Hi TML,
This is also my first time in an online group for (c)ptsd. I have had a similar trauma, being abused by my grandad from a very early age until I'm not even sure when! It's all so fragmented and confusing and I have just been in therapy for 2 weeks so feeling super vulnerable about potential horrific memories resurfacing!
I used drink and drugs from 13-44 but have managed 18 months clean and sober 😊
Thank you for speaking out and giving me courage to say hi, I hope we both find some comfort and support on here.
 
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