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
Jack-Rainbow drbeancat
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ComplicatedChic Jack-Rainbow
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s03900 drbeancat
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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
drbeancat s03900
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ComplicatedChic s03900
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Jack-Rainbow ComplicatedChic
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SilentHill s03900
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Lilly95598 drbeancat
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ComplicatedChic drbeancat
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ComplicatedChic drbeancat
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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.
drbeancat ComplicatedChic
Posted
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.