****TW: Suicide - sexual and emotional abuse - alcohol abuse - self-harm mentions****
Hi everyone.
This is my first post on this board after a few weeks of reading and I'm so glad to have found it, as it has explained and made sense of a lot of things.
I thought it was about time I started to contribute, especially as I am about to start therapy for the first time in my life, and I think setting everything down in words on here first may help me to communicate the trauma and effects on me when the time comes to do that. I also want to contribute to other posts and support and help others where possible.
First of all I would like to thank the kind people who have spent time and effort in setting up and running this site, and also to all the people who have contributed with their experiences and advice, I feel that without you the road to recovery could have been much harder than it already is.
I started to write everything down (history of trauma, C-PTSD symptoms and feelings) and without even trying I'm at 2000 words plus!
So I may start a recovery journal where I can start getting it all out.
But without going into too much detail and after reading this site it's now clear to me that childhood wasn't "normal" as I assumed as the time, and that my mother in particular had narcissistic traits. My father took his own life when I was 12, and was replaced with an emotionally unstable and abusive stepfather. This led to self-harm, alcohol abuse from age 14 or so to numb the pain and risky behaviours to feel something, anything else. Unfortunately, as I'm sure many of you will know, this can become a vicious circle and these ways of "coping" led to further problems including sexual abuse aged 14/15 from a neighbour. After finally standing up to him and threatening to go to the police the neighbour also took his own life. There is more but I will leave that for another time.
Through all this there was no support or apologies, no recognition that a little boy was left to deal with all this on his own and turn out ok. However I became very good at pretending everything was ok and have been burying everything for almost two decades.
I am married with 3 children with ages ranging from 8-16, and have always tried my best to be a good husband and father, trying to break the cycle of abuse that can easily transferred from parent to child. I also hold down a stressful job where I have to manage up to 20 people. Sometimes I wonder how I've done all this, but recently I'm starting to see signs of everything tumbling down and I have realised that I could not bury the past forever.
Just one small example of this was recently while at a friend's house with no warning whatsoever in front of everyone I had a flashback and the fear simply roared up inside me. Shaking and with tears in my eyes I excused myself and locked myself in the bathroom and sat with my back to the door rocking back and forth and the tears felt like they would never stop. These kind of episodes are getting more and more frequent, and that made me finally start to talk about some of these issues with my wife and to start to seek some professional help. I also de-personalise frequently and my wife says "that my eyes change from alive to dead" with no warning.
Then one day I was googling my symptoms and while looking at personality disorders that didn't quite feel right I stumbled across the mention of C-PTSD and it was a lightbulb moment. It really helped to put a name to what I was going through and even better to stumble upon a whole community of people who were talking about it and offering support. Since finding this site, I have been to my GP and was fully open and honest and agreed that it was highly likely that I had PTSD (they don't use the C-PTSD term in the UK yet!). I have been referred on the NHS but there is a 7 month waiting list, so I am about to start getting treatment with a private therapist who has been highly recommended.
I hope to be an active member and will no doubt have plenty of questions about the healing process along the way.
I look forward to talking with you all.
Thanks
S
Hi everyone.
This is my first post on this board after a few weeks of reading and I'm so glad to have found it, as it has explained and made sense of a lot of things.
I thought it was about time I started to contribute, especially as I am about to start therapy for the first time in my life, and I think setting everything down in words on here first may help me to communicate the trauma and effects on me when the time comes to do that. I also want to contribute to other posts and support and help others where possible.
First of all I would like to thank the kind people who have spent time and effort in setting up and running this site, and also to all the people who have contributed with their experiences and advice, I feel that without you the road to recovery could have been much harder than it already is.
I started to write everything down (history of trauma, C-PTSD symptoms and feelings) and without even trying I'm at 2000 words plus!
So I may start a recovery journal where I can start getting it all out.But without going into too much detail and after reading this site it's now clear to me that childhood wasn't "normal" as I assumed as the time, and that my mother in particular had narcissistic traits. My father took his own life when I was 12, and was replaced with an emotionally unstable and abusive stepfather. This led to self-harm, alcohol abuse from age 14 or so to numb the pain and risky behaviours to feel something, anything else. Unfortunately, as I'm sure many of you will know, this can become a vicious circle and these ways of "coping" led to further problems including sexual abuse aged 14/15 from a neighbour. After finally standing up to him and threatening to go to the police the neighbour also took his own life. There is more but I will leave that for another time.
Through all this there was no support or apologies, no recognition that a little boy was left to deal with all this on his own and turn out ok. However I became very good at pretending everything was ok and have been burying everything for almost two decades.
I am married with 3 children with ages ranging from 8-16, and have always tried my best to be a good husband and father, trying to break the cycle of abuse that can easily transferred from parent to child. I also hold down a stressful job where I have to manage up to 20 people. Sometimes I wonder how I've done all this, but recently I'm starting to see signs of everything tumbling down and I have realised that I could not bury the past forever.
Just one small example of this was recently while at a friend's house with no warning whatsoever in front of everyone I had a flashback and the fear simply roared up inside me. Shaking and with tears in my eyes I excused myself and locked myself in the bathroom and sat with my back to the door rocking back and forth and the tears felt like they would never stop. These kind of episodes are getting more and more frequent, and that made me finally start to talk about some of these issues with my wife and to start to seek some professional help. I also de-personalise frequently and my wife says "that my eyes change from alive to dead" with no warning.
Then one day I was googling my symptoms and while looking at personality disorders that didn't quite feel right I stumbled across the mention of C-PTSD and it was a lightbulb moment. It really helped to put a name to what I was going through and even better to stumble upon a whole community of people who were talking about it and offering support. Since finding this site, I have been to my GP and was fully open and honest and agreed that it was highly likely that I had PTSD (they don't use the C-PTSD term in the UK yet!). I have been referred on the NHS but there is a 7 month waiting list, so I am about to start getting treatment with a private therapist who has been highly recommended.
I hope to be an active member and will no doubt have plenty of questions about the healing process along the way.
I look forward to talking with you all.
Thanks
S