I'm not military, I lived thru abuse

Posted , 5 users are following.

Since I was 8 years old I suffered from anxiety and depression issues that came from a life of abuse until I was 16 when I finally had the voice to make it stop. Only in the last year have I realized that I very well could also be suffering from PTSD because those 8 years of my childhood never fully going away. I constantly have a relapse of regret for asking for help, because it ruined it my family and even though it was never my fault I feel at blame for not just handling it myself. I can never forget about it because the abuser is still part of my life and has their own relaspe and calls me for advice on how to not kill themselves and blubbering like an idiot about how sorry they are. I've learned to stop saying "It's okay" and instead I yell for the person to leave me alone and to drop the subject because it's not helping me one bit. 

I haven't seen a therapist since I was 17 and he was a joke(I was always scared to bring up my childhood so instead we talked about the parents constantly fighting and bringing guns up to their own heads). He actually yelled at me that all I ever do is come to him with my problems and I never tell him anything good in my life. And that this was the reason why I had no friends was because all I ever do is complain about my own problems. Because of him I'm not interested in seeing a therapist again without interviewing them myself first (but the cost to see someone is a bit high. not to mention they always require multiple phone calls to different insurance agencies, and phone calls give me bad anxiety, so you can imagine how much progress I've managed). So I've usually had to problem solve my own stuff. 

In the last year I've kinda ruined any progress I made in recovering from depression (if recover is even the right word). I've become more politically active in aiding against child abuse and sexual assult, which is that constant reminder I don't like and brings on the flash backs and paranoia. I've started converting my own diet lifestyle to a more vegan sense because everything I ate made my guilty for killing an animal. I'm overwhelmed with how bad things have gotten globally and its so difficult to stay positive when there's constant negativity from friends and family about why I'm wrong to care about other people. I was raised in a catholic home and taught that all life should matter, to treat others the way I would want to be treated. I now consider myself somewhere between nihilist and buddist only because I believe all life is equal and that our purpose is to make the world better for others, but I also so desprately hope that with death comes nothingness. 

My head is constantly screaming nonsense. Reminders of why I should feel guilty. Either reminders of how I ruined my mother's life, or how the clothes I'm wearing has the blood of a child sewn in them, or how the food I ate is either tainted with animal suffering or the suffering of underpaid workers, or how some people have no food at all. Or I'm constantly thinking about how people are being abused, murdered, bullied, crying, depressed, or harmed and I'm doing nothing to help them; which brings in the guilt for not saving everyone. 

And trust me, I know, my feelings are irrational. Theres no logical reason on why I should feel the way I do. For why I think the way I do. I know. I've been my own therapist after all and brought myself out of my own rock bottom plenty of times before. I always place logic over emotions just so I can function and get out of bed. But I then remember that I'm only distracting myself. I'm never actually fixing the problem. I'm just applying bandaids to a wound that I don't know how to fix and it's just insane to think that one more distraction will make anything better, because it doesn't. And then I wonder what's the point of trying. I'm only one person, alive in this one moment, on this one floating rock, among a trillion upon trillion other people, moments, and rocks. So why should just one person matter? If it weren't for the people in my life who I couldn't bare to hurt, whom I could never imagine pushing this feeling onto them... I just don't know. 

Reading about my sickness doesn't make me feel better. I only ever hear statistics about the high suicide rates and how my only hope is a therapist (which I either can't afford or can't get the courage to make those phone calls). It doesn't help. Nothing really helps. Drinking is temporary. Sleeping is temporary. I don't even bother with harsh drugs because I know theyre only temporary. I just want things fixed. Or even just the bare minimum, I want to know that people like me don't kill themselves and are actually able to make a difference in this world. Because I'm not going to get over the pain and suffering thats happening around me. I want to help stop it. It's just so overwhelming, especially with the loudness that is my anxiety, my depression, my BS.

2 likes, 11 replies

11 Replies

  • Posted

    If I was your therapist, I would accept you as you are. I would take everything you dsay extremely seriously. I would never criticise you. I would never raise my voicve to you. I would never mock you or scorn you. I would know that what happened to you was not your fault, that a lot (A LOT) of very bad things were done to you by others and that you were an innocent child, that it was not your fault. I would be on your side, not on the side of a brutal , ignorant, child abusive society. Would that help?
    • Posted

      I wish you were my therapist then Jack. I truly need help with all of this. For years and years, I managed fine until this past decade as an adult taking care of my wicked mother, her husband and my special sister (the only sane and awesome of all of us kids, lol). It seems like that last whole 12 years with them did me in completely. I am attempting therapy for the first time next week and I'm scared to death that he nor anyone else will ever be able to understand or get me. How can they really when they weren't there through any of these long horrible times? Idk, but I'm willing to give it a try. We'll go from there. I hope he is how YOU said that you are. I pray.. I pray. Thanks!
  • Posted

    Dear drbeancat,

    I'm sad to read your post - you are not alone.

    I would say you have Complex-PTSD, me too - I have found Pete Walkers book; 'Complex PTSD from Surviving to Thriving' most helpful.

    It explains beautifully how a childhood trauma impacts your adult life and more importantly WHY.

    Why do you Fight, Flight, Freeze or Fawn? These adaptations are because you were a 'child' and had limited ways of dealing with horror.

    These learned behaviours were helpful then, they kept us alive but they are now unhelpful to our adult selves.

    When I have worn out my copy I will be buying another and no I have no connection with this man.

    Also check out Stefan Molyneux at youtube.

    I wish you all the best

    S

    • Posted

      Thank you so much for this reference! I'm going to buy it as soon I can. Anything that will help make sense of things for me will be wonderful because I can identify weird traits, and I have a basic knowledge and understanding of anxiety and stress but I don't know how to deal with it when it's an inner demon. I have family who have gone thru the same thing as I did and they're above 55 years old now, except they've done nothing with their lives and are un happy and angry people and I just hope that who they are and our similar childhoods aren't a connection. It's difficult when you feel alone. So this is amazing news to know that there's something else that could actually help me.
    • Posted

      Thank you very much for the book recommendation. I can't seem to talk to anyone about the many things that I'm dealing with inside. I seriously can't explain them to anyone verbally and in any way that would make sense or without clamping up because of the emotion and frustration of it all. I'm having many many issues and my issues stem from ongoing abuse from childhood and as an adult until four years ago. I'm very intelligent, I just never knew I had to protect myself emotionally/mentally from my own mother. Anyways, I think this will be a big help or will make it worse with making me see more things that I'm having problems with that I haven't even realized. Anyways, it is worth a shot. I can always stop reading it if necessary. As you can tell, I'm all over the place. Thank you. smile
    • Posted

      Many of us suffer from an inability to link our feelings to words. We tend to be frightened of these overwhelming feelings and quite naturally try to put them aside, avoid them, because they hurt. Does that make sense to you?
    • Posted

      Could you explain the flight, fright, freeze, or fawn more? I'm still trying to rationalize some of my PTSD and why I do some of the things that i do.
  • Posted

    I can say I know what you are going through. I have complex - PTSD do to all the childhood abuse that I went through from the time I was 3 until I was 17. I have pulled away from everyone for the most part because I can't take another person hurting me. I family doesn't understand the feelings that I deal with. My mother tells me that I need to deal with it and that it is life. I try to say busy so that my mind doesn't get to me. Sadly it doesn't always work. I also went through abuse with my ex husband it wasn't the same a what I went through as a kid. The only thing is with the abuse that he add to my life. I acted like it wasn't there. The stress from all of it caused me to have a very bad seizure that landed me in the neuro ICU with an intubation tube. I was there for a week. I went in on a Monday and left on a Sunday but I only remember the last two days because I was unconscious for the other days. I still have to deal with them to this day. I have lost a lot from all of this. This all has happened within the last two years with my ex husband. Now my C - PTSD has gotten to the point I question life but I fight. I don't sleep much and I am having to live with my mom for the time being. It may be hard for me right now but I can tell you that there are good therapist out there that can help you. I had one that helped me with it when I was a kid to the point I had it all under control until now. So don't give up
  • Posted

    I so feel your pain... and just about everything you described. My brain is constantly bargaining with itself, the anxiety about so many, many things sends me swirling.. spinning into an uncontrollable panic attack or anxiety attack.. I don't know which is which. I just know it's bad. I really just don't want to go through this life anymore. I'm so emotionally and mentally exhausted complicated with extreme fatigue from this chronic pain from all different areas in my body thanks to having severe spinal deformities with scoloios and then you add ankylosing spondylitis to that which fuses the spine and causes havoc with other joints and organs, i.e., lungs, heart, kidneys, ribs, shoulders, heels, hips, pelvis, sporadic ligaments and tendons, si joints and more for many other people but those are my most critical afflictions from the disease. I'm over it.. I'm done. My heart wishes it could all be different, my mind says otherwise, my soul is crushed and my spirt broken. I'm at the edge and I'm just waiting for the right moment.
  • Posted

    I re-read your post over and over because I'm just drawn to it.. I so relate to it. I'm so sorry that you have gone through so so so so so much in your life. I wish that no one had to ever endure these continuous horrible situations and events. It's not fair, it's not right. I don't know how to stop it for others. I wish I could. I too can't stand for children or other people to be harmed.. it brings me to such anger and sadness. Just as your post makes me feel for you. Damn those people that surrounded you. They should have protected you!! RRRRgggh. I hope that you can bring yourself to try and see someone. YOU are worth it!! I also wish that I could see this stuff for myself. Someone should have protected me, even as an adult.. I should have protected myself from my own mother and not given in to the "maybe now that she is older, she might have changed" as well as, "you should always care for your family" and "I still need to protect my special sister who is still with her" crap that I gave myself for so very long. I should feel like I'm still valuable and I'm still worth it to go through trying to get help, but in the condition mentally and physically I'm in now, I don't feel like I'm or it's worth it. I feel it is too late for me. I'm still here because my wife has Frontotemporal degeneration - a brain degeneration disease that causes early onset dementia and I know that her family will just institutionalize her and be mean to her even in these early stages when she still has many good days, but also I run into the realization that if we weren't together, I wouldn't have so many triggers for my ptsd. So many many triggers in these past 5 yrs.. I didn't have so many before her. I'm stuck. We love each other. She doesn't understand the ptsd.. she knows that is a huge problem but doesn't get that there are things she can avoid.. little things that throw huge triggers for me. I don't know.

    Anyways, I hope you will see that you are not alone. I'm screwed up too and don't know what to do either. It's not our fault! It really isn't! But, I just can't catch a break.. I need a REAL break to be able to rest. I haven't had a real break in 17 years (12 from taking care of my mother and them straight to finding Tracy who started having hard symptoms of this FTD within 2 months of my moving out here to OK to be with her) and five years since then. I need to rest without running for a couple of weeks. To just be with myself and just be without having to go anywhere at all. Just be. I know, I am aching to be heard... to be understood and to understand others as well. But, I find no matter how much I talk, it will not change or solve anything. So, I'm just going to quit now and wish YOU and all of the others here well.

    • Posted

      You're a beautiful soul. And I don't know how I should feel about hearing from you. If I should be relieved that I'm not alone and someone truly gets what I'm going through as a fighters point of view (still struggling). Or if I should feel sad that someone as loving and caring as you has dealt with things as well to know and live the pain. It's bitter sweet and I'm crying haha

      And yes, I should have been protected. I agree with that more than anything. And i agree that you should have been as well. And our abusers should have been protected too. Because there is no such thing as bad people, just bad actions. And had they been protected nothing would have happened to make them the choices they had made. But sometimes it's almost impossible to be protected from within your own home when your own protectors are in the wrong. But least we can do is protect others and offer them a safe space. Much as you're doing for your loved on.

      But we'll make it through this all. For what purpose, I don't know. But we're all here for each other nonetheless and someday we'll get that rest. We damn well deserve it that's for sure.

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