What Were You Like Before Ptsd?

[p-no]

The question in the threads list had me want to read on... It's giving me food for thought really.

For me there is no "before" and "after"; "after" was always "before" the next one - and I wonder if there was a "before" in the sense of: during my mother's pregnancy. Today I am glad I never asked her about this. Some things are better left unsaid.

Sometimes, really, I think that I'm "lucky" not having a "before". I never really "lost" anything, although, I am fully aware, "I've lost it all". Have been exchanging e-mails with another woman with PTSD and we both agreed that we didn't know why people were talking about "second chances" since we didn't have a first one. Oddly, I am saying this not with a lot of sadness, but mostly with a sense of regret, knowing I "should" feel sad about this and maybe desperate and other things. But I only know from what others have told me what I could have had. Since I didn't, I don't miss it. Don't get me wrong. I do miss a "normal" life, "normal" "love", "normal" "social" "life", etc. But at the same time I have all that; it's just that it is my understanding of all this, all those terms in quotation marks.

Often in therapy sessions it happens that I say something and in an instant my therapist gets tears in her eyes. That makes me angry because it is then that I see and more importantly feel how bad what I have had to live through must be. My not having had that first chance also protects me from fully realizing all the loss and hurt; I have nothing to compare. And therefore, what I wish and hope for, my "normals" are not "normal normal" but my exaggerated versions (either for the better or for the worse) of the two.

Just lately I learned of someone who was put through terrible trauma himself as a child of about 10. He seems to have had a "before". He knows what he lost. He would have an answer to this question. And, in my view and perception, this "before" makes him incredibly hopeless, sad and mostly very angry. (And I totally understand.)

Sometimes I am glad I have no "before". Sometimes I still hope I will have an "after". I do not think this is possible in my case, and most of the times that really is okay. I have lived almost 40 years the way I am and my life has been, and I have had very many good things, "good" in my definition at least. Little things, but big as such.

Again, this is my reality. To me, this post is not incredibly sad but just real - a bit sad, some regret - but also gratefulness for many things and some people.

 

[OKRADLAK]

Frozen- You had to ask!! :D Wow----- this is a powerful question. I notice that not many of us are jumping to answer in a straight forward way. Kind of like asking a person with Alzheimers to remember dancing happy on their wedding day. Did I really? Was that really me?

I can't even begin to answer. In order to answer, there are too many questions and too many emotions that get in the way.

But you get the prize in my book for the most poignant, jolting question! :)

 

[Innordinate]

I don't think there's a worse PTSD or a better one.

I think it sucks the same amount of shit for everyone.

I don't have a 'before pstd' self to look back at and wonder. I don't have memories from any slightly normal life to miss. I think if you do you're f*cking lucky. I do wonder what I would've been like instead. There's no way to know for sure so I just imagine I'd be richer than Bill Gates and smarter than Stephen Hawking and nicer than Mother Theresa. 'Cause what the f*ck.. while I'm in fantasy land why not neh?

I don't think that makes my ptsd worse or better.

The stronger you are the faster you get yourself off your ass and get your ptsd under control.

Just IMHO.

 

[Helliepig]

. Kind of like asking a person with Alzheimers to remember dancing happy on their wedding day. Did I really? Was that really me?

That is very much what it was like, a really good analogy, searching in blocked and inaccessible parts of the brain for what was real. (I have a vague theory that alzheimers is in someway linked to the traumatised splitting of the brain anyway)

I have never had a "before" PTSD as I was abused as a baby. But I had a really good time when i was a teenager because all my stuff was pushed down, I had a great group of friends, was popular, involved and living the life I wanted. That stopped abruptly when I went to uni, my defences penetrated and wiped out overnight. Then years later the "full" force of PTSD hit me after an abusive marriage when I moved down another gear.

I look at my qualities - I miss those days when I felt alive, although occasionally now I see bits of me coming back to life. A huge capacity for excitement, fun, adventure, people. That part of me has been shut down for so long. In the interim I have developed wisdom by having to manually learn all those things about life other people are taught as children. I am very strong: I wouldn't have survived what I did and certainly wouldn't have survived the painful journey of therapy had I not been. I have been told other people would have been a drug addict to cope with this.

I had my drive to prove that I wasn't faulty and crazy because deep down I knew I wasn't. That quest for the truth has been my drug.

The pain at realising the "real" you hasn't really lived in 30 years is astonishingly painful.

 

[OKRADLAK]

That quest for the truth has been my drug.

This is great. The quest for Truth has been your drug! Have you come closer to finding it?

 

[Deleted member 12723]

There was a before for me. I was a complete fake and did not know it. When I was diagnosed I felt like life picked me up by the ankles and emptied out every part of me that I once knew and there was nothing left. I had a major identity crises that took years to resolve. I was completely exhausted and drained. I was angry and did not know why.

Now who I am at least is real, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I am all real. I know who I am and I know who I am not. Very thought provoking question.

 

[frozen]

PRIM-NO, What a thought provoking and interesting twist on this question!!

I do need to correct myself and change the wording on the "worse" part...I didn't mean it at all that anyone's PTSD was lesser in anyway, maybe saying it is harder for those who have not had it their whole lives, that there is so much we have lost that aggrivates the PTSD to become worse.

Anyone who "gets it" and can expalin it better than me, please feel free!

 

[frozen]

I have to laugh at myself for writing the "thought provking" line..guess it's always a good idea to read the entire post above you!! :rolleyes:

 

[Meadowsweet]

I havn't had full blown ptsd my whole life, but I have had a cycle of abuse and reacting to it. I spent most of my teen and young adult years taking illegal drugs. I spent the next period of life being numb and trying to be 'good' and do everything 'right'. Then I realised my error in that and started trying to be myself again, and myself found more abuse.

That was the last straw and I convinced myself that it's something in the way I am that attracts abuse, and I had the power to prevent it. That might be the case. But I just became hyper-vigilant, distrusting, refused any hugs or superficial pleasentries and eventually just isolated myself, because people were just setting off my symptoms here there and everywhere.

I don't think in any of that there is a strong person and my independence is based on fear. But I think to the outside world my ptsd symptoms looked like I was strong. I think I'm stronger inside, just to keep trying.

 

[Anna]

Before PTSD I was very quiet and shy. I was also introverted. I always studied hard. Due to my upbringing I did not value myself and hated myself intensly. I was a loner and found it very hard to make friends.

After the trauma I rebelled. Became a wild child. Swore, was loud but also highly self destructive with an immense anger. I hated everyone and everything, including myself. I drank, engaged in unprotected sex and was generally very unresponsible.

When I got my trauma under control I became quiet again and reserved. I still feel anger but I have more self confidence then I did before. I am responsible and have it under control. I still feel the wild child inside but it can be subdued.

I agree, those who are on a high horse fall harder. For me, the fall changed my completly. However, my horse was very small so to speak.

 

[Philippa]

Before PTSD, I had big plans, to travel the world, and do so many things. I was outgoing at school, but then could also be quiet after school finished, and I spent a lot of time being quiet and observing. I think I went into my introverted self, and spent some time there, and liked it there as it felt like I have more depth when I am expressing my introverted side.

I loved life, and was my own best friend and I was not very ambitious in the way people are in society, but I had a lot of ambition to develop myself into the person I wanted to be, and to be myself, despite being made to feel like myself was not someone I was allowed to be.

Before PTSD I was independent in a real way, and loved everyone, and trusted too much. Now it feels like my independence is strained, and I have been learning to let people support me, which has been a huge learning curve for me, as I like to be as self-reliant as possible. I used to want to meet every person in the world...and now I only think there are some people worth meeting, and the rest of the world...they are background, scenery that I ignore mostly.

I used to listen to strangers problems...literally, strangers would cross the street to dump their life story on me, because I had some sort of beacon flashing that said "Tell me your problems...I listen". I had to learn how to place boundaries around this so they didn't take all my energy and leave me feeling sapped and dumped on.

I was pretty ignorant of a lot of things really. I did have a healthy self-esteem though, and I was right into personal development, and metaphysics etc. I was into Zen and mindfullness, yoga and meditation (I still meditate regularly), and I loved taking drugs for a while in my late teens early twenties.

 

[Jen93]

Oh gosh. :( This thing's going to make me cry.

I was happy, excited, a total chatterbox, hyper, completely free. I liked to make people laugh, I was completely confident with who I was and I had a really healthy image of self esteem.

All that deteriorated after nearly 3 years of abuse during my preteen years (11-14.) Worst time to EVER have a huge personality change. I started noticing I was different, I felt completely broken, I couldn't see anything good in life; I think the worst in stuff, I am EXTREMELY suspicious of people who are nice to me- I always think "What's their motive? What are they getting out of it?" And I am really really REALLY quiet around people that don't include my friends and/or parents/brother.

Seriously; I'm really working on getting back the personality I had when I was ten- it comes out on the internet, and it comes out with one of my friends EVERY TIME, but other than that... It's like I don't even know who I am anymore.