I have found that my own story, why I am traumatized, is just too long and complicated to tell well. I have tried to get help and it takes such a long time for the therapist to even wrap their head around my life that sometimes I never even make it to the helping part. I've actually quit therapy and resorted to telling my story in multiple volumes of journals. I've written 100 pages already and I may need to get a second book.
There has been so much, and it feels impossible to fully capture with snippets and summaries. And so providers and friends often never fully get why I am the way I am and I never get advice that is useful and I often get misunderstood as being someone opposite of who I really am. I feel completely unable to communicate my needs to others. My husband knows the most of the story, likely all of it, and he's the first to stay around long enough to hear the whole thing, and even sometimes then he still gets frustrated and shuts down. He wants me to be okay as much as I do.
I feel like I've been to so much therapy I outgrew it. I could be a therapist at this point. I even subscribe to a therapist professional magazine because regular self help articles and books are too simplistic for me. I look in scientific journals now when I want to know about some new psychology topic or therapy method. And still I am broken. I am really furious that my parents raised me to be the worst kind of person, the kind of person who has a personality that nobody wants to help.
It's almost as if trauma causes the victim to create even more trauma for themselves, and then it becomes very easy to be like "that person isn't traumatized, they just suck as a human being."
Anybody else have this problem? Feel this way? Relate?
I relate. Abuse from my narcissist mother started the day I was born, and throughout my youth took many forms that were so strange, covert and hard to describe that I have had trouble understanding that they actually happened. Then as a teenager I went to live with my father and at first I thought things were so much saner and healthier, but it turned out to just be different kinds of traumatising dysfunction. With many years of heavily self-led therapy with a variety of people behind me, I am refining the narrative into something that I feel tells enough of it to allow both myself and other people to begin to understand the depth of it, and how pervasive and inescapable it is in my life. It will never be possible to process or provide all the details and all the context, so the trick is to figure out what I can present/process and how without feeling like I'm being unfair to myself by:
1. Minimising my experiences because I'm ashamed/it's just too painful to be so exposed/I can't handle it and am driven to escape into self-destructive and retraumatising behaviours;
2. Exaggerating those experiences out of fear that people won't understand how damaging it was, because so much of it doesn't sound "that bad" on the surface, or;
3. Normalising them into something that is related but not truthful, that will be easier for people to believe or understand was "that bad". As a childhood victim of constant gaslighting, truthfulness is extremely important to me. So, I am working on the art of how to tell/process the important parts of the truth without getting caught up in all the details of circumstances, contexts, specific gestures that were made or words that were said, etc. It's no small trick, I'll tell you, but, slowly I'm getting there. Don't give up.
:yeahthat:
QuoteI am refining the narrative into something that I feel tells enough of it to allow both myself and other people to begin to understand the depth of it, and how pervasive and inescapable it is in my life. It will never be possible to process or provide all the details and all the context, so the trick is to figure out what I can present/process and how without feeling like I'm being unfair to myself ..... so I am working on the art of how to tell/process the important parts of the truth without getting caught up in all the details of circumstances, contexts, specific gestures that were made or words that were said, etc. It's no small trick
Well said Bach :thumbup:
I have attempted getting this communicated through poetry/creative-writing.
I have found, conversationally, I lose people pretty quickly... they tend to have no schema in which to fit what I am describing.
With covert NCP mothers, abuse is so ingrained in the daily interactions... and each interaction is just short of overt abuse (see "covert")... you cannot sufficiently convey this to the "normal" people who never personally experienced this type of abuse.
Quote from: RiverRabbit on August 29, 2019, 06:36:18 PM
...With covert NCP mothers, abuse is so ingrained in the daily interactions... and each interaction is just short of overt abuse (see "covert")... you cannot sufficiently convey this to the "normal" people who never personally experienced this type of abuse.
Yes, I think you're right, RiverRabbit. It's all such slippery stuff, like how I crave physical affection from people I love because it can be so incredibly comforting and I've never had enough of it, but I'm also afraid of it because a lot of the physical contact I did get from my mother was in the form either of vague and grudging minor gestures, or showy insincere displays. I remember her once grabbing me and dancing me around and then kissing me a bunch of times on my face, and being absolutely terrified because I didn't know what it meant. How can you expect someone with less damaging parenting to understand that? Or expect someone with a generous spirit and a decently healthy sense of humour to understand differences in tone between affectionate teasing and cruel jokes, and what those differences in tone can do to a child? How can you tell things like that to someone who believes that child abuse means conventional physical violence or at least visible physical neglect and obvious verbal cruelty, and expect them to even believe any of it and not think YOU are the crazy one? That stuff only scratches the surface, and it is the
easier stuff to fathom.
Yeah, I can relate for sure. A big part of why I haven't really told anyone about having CPTSD is the followup. I don't want to sit and explain everything, but if I don't, I feel like I'm not being fair to myself. A couple of T I have talked to tried to couldn't really handle me telling them multiple things. I'm trying to get to a place where I'm more open about it all, but it is difficult.
I don't know if this is helpful, but I sometimes tell people: "On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 = 'raised by angels' and 10 = 'raised by Satan' — the abuse events of my childhood are maybe about a 6. They were bad, but there's so many people out there who've been through worse. If you use the scale to measure how confusing my childhood was, though — that was a 10. Or maybe a 4000. Nothing about my childhood made any sense, and I had to figure it out alone, and it means my basic understanding of the world is not-quite-right in more ways than I even realize."
Quote from: Otillie on August 30, 2019, 08:21:04 AM
I don't know if this is helpful, but I sometimes tell people: "On a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 = 'raised by angels' and 10 = 'raised by Satan' — the abuse events of my childhood are maybe about a 6. They were bad, but there's so many people out there who've been through worse. If you use the scale to measure how confusing my childhood was, though — that was a 10. Or maybe a 4000. Nothing about my childhood made any sense, and I had to figure it out alone, and it means my basic understanding of the world is not-quite-right in more ways than I even realize."
YES! This perfectly sums up something that I've been trying to put my finger on for years. Thank you! :applause:
Love the scale idea Otillie :)
Two things that might help untangle what is a complex background to some extent.
First, I developed CPTSD because of parents who suffered from NPD, but were very covert in how they behaved. Trying to explain this kind of stealth abuse was just so hard :stars: BUT then I landed at our sister site Out of the FOG (https://outofthefog.website/), and I learned the language to name the NPD behaviours I was subjected to. It made all the difference in the world ;D I was finally able to talk about what I'd been through, to understand I wasn't crazy or overly sensitive, and now I recognize the behavior easily and clearly. :cheer:
Second, we do have some information sheets and CPTSD history/ symptom tracking forms (https://www.outofthestorm.website/downloads) that may be of help when talking to a professional or family/friends.
Thank you Kizzie. There is a lot of good stuff here and at outofthefog. I really need to utilize my resources more.
My CPTSD developed in adulthood, over 8 years. I know - more or less - what, where, why and how everything went down. But, I still struggle to understand exactly when it became a problem for me; when it developed into CPTSD.
When I try and explain it to people they generally become quite agitated and have a lot of 'ádvice' to offer me. I usually just say that I have CPTSD and leave it at that.
Hi Rebelsue
Oh how I can relate to this. I struggled with my story for over fifty years. I felt so alone, so different. Any amount and type of words just never met the mark. In later years I never talked about it or if the issues ever came up I used to down play things as i didn't have to attempt to give my story the attention it deserved. I always felt exhausted before i even got started and i always felt that it didn't take too long before my audience got bored. What i had to tell couldn't be covered in just a few words.
After I was diagnosed with CPTSD I did a lot of research about the symptoms and i could relate to everything that was written. I felt real... a whole person. But i needed to tell my story... the diagnosis was the catalyst to my writing my story. I took three and a half years to write my story... which i called 'Condemned to a Life not Your Own'.
Can any of you relate to these words?
Silverspoon
Like LTLTR my cptsd is adult onset.
I struggle to explain things, even to myself.
I think I had PTSD from pretty extreme trauma prior to experiencing the situation which caused the cptsd.
People dont understand at all, they can understand that the obvious extreme trauma would have been damaging but sort of get hung up on that and so miss the complexity of the later stuff I was trapped in.
I've seen that in health professionals too, the overall picture gets missed.
I get told that I seem ok, people just dont understand that the trauma has become internalised somehow, not sure I understand it myself. I used to 'act out' with the PTSD which was obvious.
Telling the story and working out what happened and the effect it had seems important, even if it's only working on the narrative in your head and not sharing it with anyone else.
If your own story makes no sense to you then it's so hard to explain it to others.
I suspect I was more obviously unwell with the PTSD, people dont seem to pick up on my cptsd much, if at all.
And the depressive disorder? I only use that when I need to explain sudden episodes of drastic weight loss.....
The 1-10 scale is interesting, the events which led to PTSD score higher but the later stealth abuse has had a more profound effect on me I think, somehow more damaging even if the symptoms are not obvious to others.
Your share resonates with me most definitely. I've recently started neurofeedback. I can confidently say it's changing my life for the better. Neurofeedback doesn't require any story telling or even belief that it works. The premise is that all brains are not alike. There are biological differences of which some carry a diagnoses. When speaking to trauma, the brain is injured and altered by traumas. Those suffering from or managing CPTSD have experienced traumas in childhood and perhaps well into later ages. The brain autonomously manages, survives the trauma using strategies that result in CPTSD. In doing this, some parts of the brain are never developed or are highly over developed. When we experience the symptoms of CPTSD or PTSD, Anxiety, Panic Disorder, OCD and so on, the part of the brain that is responsible for flight or fight is highly developed, overly developed. The parts of our brain that help regulate or is responsible for executive thinking is not developed or under developed. Using an QEEG Brain Scan a map of the brain is generated. This scan measures 50-55 parts of the brain. The scan reveals what parts of the brain are not working at optimal levels as well as what parts are responsible for your symptoms. With neurofeedback you can train the parts of the brain that are under developed or weren't developed at all. Like a muscle these parts of the brain start to grow in function so much so that the overly developed parts of the brain can take a back seat bringing your brain back into balance. Some people report being cured of CPTSD or PTSD entirely. My doctor explained that she would never use the word cure however she would say, your quality of life will drastically improve for the better.
An example, pre-neurofeedback you walk into a room with 20 triggers (could be identifiable triggers or subconscious triggers), you have an experience. After neurofeedback you walk into the same room, same triggers and you aren't bothered by the triggers. I can attest to experiencing this result myself. It's kinda unbelievable to me in some way still. I'm still processing the benefits. I can also share that I've had neurofeedback after spending 5 days and nights in complete terror, not able to eat, suspicious thoughts, believing on some level I may have come to the end and after one powerful session, these symptoms diminished greatly. I was able to eat, the panic stopped, I could sleep and the suspicious thoughts were no longer present. I'm able to leave my house still anticipating anxiety and there is very little to be found. It's not gone although lessoned to a manageable place.
Hope this share is helpful!
Dear burningmonk
Thankyou so much for your post, you explain this strategy very well.
Silverspoon
I completely relate to this and appreciate the responses.
This is part of the reason I don't write much online, because I just feel too overwhelmed and maybe still too unclear and confused myself about the complexity and insidious subtlety of all the damaging, mind/self-undermining elements of my life - all the components that have melded together to disable me so significantly.
This year I started attending a little group for memoir writing. Most of us are really there to try and process our lives and not necessarily overly focused on the end result or publishing. We recently had a class where we were trying to narrow in on a theme to help us focus our work and I was really struggling. I had read out a couple of pieces in previous months which gave others some insight, but in this more specific focus and feedback class I verbally provided a further range of examples of cruelty and weird abuse, in the context of a life of apparent privilege. Everyone was silent and looked quite shocked. Their responses were both validating and unsettling at the same time. The woman taking the class, who is now fully diagnosed and compensated for PTSD after workplace bullying, ended up spending some extra one-on-one time with me and said she had initially had no idea how complex my story was and she now understood why I was so overwhelmed by it. Not that there has ever been any pressure to produce anything, it's actually a really supportive and respectful little group.
Anyway, this is something I've been contemplating a lot, lately, partly because I've moved to a new area and slowly starting to become more socially active and I struggle to know the best ways to introduce myself and answer things as I get to know people better. But also because I want to get more feedback from more informed people to help reflect back to me what it is I've been through. I have been wondering it OOTF would be a better place to start describing some elements of my FOO's behaviour...... I would love to have more labels and terms of reference to help give some shape to what I've been dealing with so that I can no longer be 'wrestling ghosts', as I put it.
Otillie's distinction between more tangible abuse and what is just profoundly confusing mind-messing is a really helpful one for me. Though others of you have described things so well, too. It is comforting to feel less alone in the craziness and confusion of it all.
(edited to add - some of my coping mechanisms and presentation style from my parents' 'culture' (for want of a better term) mean that I can appear more together and functional than I am. I think this has made it more difficult to get adequate support because not only have I been unable to adequately explain my history and my experience, but my attempts to do so have been easily dismissed and minimised. As well as having people tune-out or think what I'm saying is too much because there are so many components, so again it seems to be easier for people to simplify and dismiss things. SOOO grateful for my current T. Finally found someone I can slowly unravel my story with who validates that what I'm saying is significant. But yeah - definitely makes getting support harder.)
I can fully relate to this. My childhood was completely dysfunctional. I got into a bad relationship as a very young teen with an adult that started my sexual dysfunction and triggered memories of abuse as a young child by family members. I moved into another relationship with another adult (my mom was recently widowed and payed no attention to me) who stalked me and made me feel like I was crazy. I ended up pregnant and forced into marriage with him. He is an alcoholic/addict with personality disorder. He does not allow me to work, have friends, see family, etc...I have learned tools recently like grey rock method and detachment and boundaries that are helping me heal. When I have told my story to a therapist, I think they cannot believe me. Like all the pieces and parts of my story are just too much. But it is all real. And I hate telling people because I think they cannot believe it. It sounds like a bad b movie or some novel that is written out of order.
I even laugh sometimes when things start coming up in my mind....I know that is how I compartmentalize these memories. I wont try therapy again because it just triggers me more than ever. I prefer to come to these boards and see that I am not alone in my struggles and that other people are out there walking around thinking the things that I am thinking....
I think or at least hope as more of us come together here and in other groups we will develop the language to convey the complexity of the relational trauma we endured. :yes:
Before I knew what I was dealing with I landed at our sister site Out of the FOG and it was the language that helped me to finally understand and talk about what I had gone through - covert NPD behaviour -- which is absolutely crazy making and messes with your mind and heart. Having the words/ terms and a tribe of others who understood was so affirming and in fact life saving.
One term I would like to see used more is "relational trauma survivor" when referring to people who developed Complex PTSD as a result of ongoing exposure to abuse/neglect. Currently there isn't a term used to identify us a distinct group. Much like PTSD tends to be affiliated with military and first responders, IMO we need to become known as relational trauma survivors who suffer from Relational Trauma Response which is less stigmatizing and pathologizing and will make it clearer that: a) our trauma was inflicted by others; and b) we responded in a normal way to extreme stress and threats to the self.
Quotesome of my coping mechanisms and presentation style from my parents' 'culture' (for want of a better term) mean that I can appear more together and functional than I am. I think this has made it more difficult to get adequate support because not only have I been unable to adequately explain my history and my experience, but my attempts to do so have been easily dismissed and minimised
I think this is a tremendous difficulty. So many of us survived by keeping up appearances, and we're really good at it. I think most people will never really know the struggles we go though, because we look like we're okay (sometimes at least). On top of this, with the long and complicated history, its not a simple thing to explain, so we often may not.
Its two things really working against us, and I wish there was some way to counter them. I'd love to hear any ideas if anyone has them.
As many of the responses here hint, it is difficult to relate some, if not most, of our traumas which themselves often grow out of complex patterns to start with (e.g. parents' own trauma history, religious/spiritual abuse, vocational settings, etc.).
It's frustrating to want understanding, try in the best way we know how to explain, and feel flat and defeated afterward when it becomes obvious that we're all alone, yet again.
This has come close to the edge for me; where I no longer expect to find much understanding from others by way of them truly 'getting it'. So often it ends up with a bunch of sympathy in hopes nothing more will be said. I ran across a quote from Barbara Sher that I rather like in this regard: "It's time to stop being judged and stop judging yourself, and actually live the life you've wanted all along." Still a huge challenge, though, as the judgements became so internalized.
I like the 'relational trauma' description, as it seems to travel closer to the core cause of what appears to many as stemming from some internal flaw of the trauma teller's personality -- you know, the 'blame the victim' mentality. That sort of reaction then feeds the already miserable feelings of guilt, which can then become a raging internal blaze that only seems to justify the notion that see, it's our own fault we're like this.
Perhaps being perfectly understood defies the odds anyway. Still, I'd gladly settle for some partial understanding to lessen the pain of being so alone. It becomes normal to feel that way, but it just doesn't feel right either.
Well said woodsgnome.
Silverspoon
@Silverspoon Thank you. I hope it's helpful.
I think it would be helpful to try to categorize you traumas by their source / the person who caused them. I recently started seeing a new therapist on-campus and presented him with a lengthy document concisely listing all the traumatic experiences in my life, in chronological order.
When i read those posts, I am saddened, not because of everyone's experience, but because of my own experience. i remember using escapism to escape my trauma daily,What I used was always withdrawing and shut myself up in my room, listen to music, read books for hours (during winter) and in the summer, I would just hop on my bike and go for a bike ride, of course maniacally, Every day I would try to surpass my max speed on my bike. Later on in life I came to a realization that the bike ride was my way of hastening my mental blank because when I became older, i continue that practice but I would go to the gym to exercise after a bad day at work or a very stressful day at work. And I would cycle for half an hour, and lift weights for an hour. then I would feel better.
Anyway, i can understand what everyone go through as I also went through the same, Absent father, even though he was there, domineering Mother which I often experienced verbal anger and emotional outburst. and my growing up always afraid and trying my best to stay the "dutiful son" and keeping my emotion calm and my face stone-faced so that I will not experience more anger.
Anyway, Eventually I did finally manage to see a therapist, and she explained what I went through and subconsciously I would do things that was my own way of trying to set boundaries... IE: riding my bike for hours and hours, or keeping myself isolated and reading books, or in my older time of life, moving farther away from my FOO.
Anyway, just know that you aren't the only one who suffer, or has a lot to say that sometimes others can't understand. We are all the same or has similar stories to experience, and probably provide some support or a shoulder to lend for a hug.
S