Welcome to the forum, Furley. It sounds like your boyfriend is supportive if he even can listen and let you talk and validate you. Without knowing more, I'm going to share my philosophy of PTSD Relationships for what it's worth. I hope it helps you find hope to get where you want to be.
The feeling of being "so close, yet so far away" is PTSD as a sense of "nobody understands me!." The same stuff that makes PTSD happen makes feeling totally isolated happen inside you. You have to resist it in many ways. It is good you are talking to someone.
This forum as you use it will essentially provide you with what you are wanting from him right now because people here have been living with PTSD and know what it's like. We care because we can relate.
I am convinced that humans need to relate to other humans to heal anything damaged in relationships. This is most true when the trauma is from a significant relationship (for me parents). My trauma is most healed in my relationship with my husband. On February 2nd, We will celebrate 20 years as a couple! I'm living proof that a child who is abused by both parents can grow up to be loved. This is all I ever wanted, and it was not easy for me to accept love. I pushed my husband's love away many times. We met when we were only 17 and really quite naive. I did not know I had PTSD until I was 21. He never left my side, even though he did not know, like your boyfriend, what to say in the beginning.
Good relationships begin the healing of what was bad before. I had 21 years living in proximity to by abusers, so I have 20 years of living with an awesome supporter. In a year, my life will be in balance for the first time ever.
Trust and safety were not given me, and I had no idea what trust felt like until I had been with my husband for 10 years! On the 10 year mark, I felt trust in my body for the 1st time. It was an amazing feeling that didn't last long. I am still in pursuit of feeling it more often. In our first years together, I pushed him away a lot, when I felt as you do, shattered, alone in pain.
Some experts claim Relationships of all kinds happen in 3 Basic steps:
1. Establishing Safety: Seeing if this person is safe to approach and trustworthy so far; (they also do this to you)
2. Communication: verbal and body language; getting close. You share your story (they do this also) in stages of intimacy;
3. Bonding: When a level of trust is achieved mutually, and certain brain chemicals release, like Oxytocin, and more...bonding occurs. This is also when you feel good being around that person. You learn more about yourself, and it feels good. You feel good emotions like trust, love, and caring about someone other than yourself.
I never had bonding with my parents like I needed. Bonding takes 1-2 working first. This is hard after trauma.
I think what you crave is #3, bonding; we need that to feel good. But, You have to not skip #1-2. This is very important. Most of us who have never had a healthy relationship are not used to all the steps working as they should have (and we worry we'll never find our way into the love and good feelings we deep down deserve). People with child trauma often accidentally skip #1 and move onto #2, communication with people who they haven't fully checked out for safety. I believe the ability to check for safety is a huge skill set that was never learned as a child forced to work with unsafe people.
Sometimes, #2 is skipped also. You want the bonding to happen like magic, overlooking the investment process that lays the foundation toward a good, healthy bonding happening as it really should for a sustainable working relationship.
Just remember to work on SAFETY, daily. Then, #2 will start to grow in you. You'll mess up at first and feel bad about saying stuff or blurting. You'll learn.
Talking is good. You should not rush into sharing your trauma with someone if you don't know them really, really deeply first to be worthy of confiding in.
With PTSD feeling safe (physically/emotionally) is #1, always.
Just work with that for now. Safety. See if your boyfriend makes you feel safe. If not, what else do you need to do? Collect anything that builds your overall sense of being safe. Guard that and keep it in place.
I agree that at this stage someone with experience who you can trust to help you with guidance, a trauma therapist, would help kickstart the rest.
