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(trigger warning) Samantha, It sounds like you don't want to face the truth of your family and your past, which is very reasonable. It's very easy to say that things have stopped, that it was all a long time ago, and try to go on as if it didn't happen -  that's you trying to save yourself from the heartbreak you've already faced, and I did the same for a while. Sometimes in the short term running away from that betrayal and abandonment and lack of love can help, but it will hurt you in the long run. Feeling depressed and lonely and like you will take anyone (including your parents, your abusive boyfriend) over facing it is actually a symptom of that very abuse and manipulation - these people make us dependent on them by taking our own strength, and so we keep going back to them for support, when really they are what's taking it away. Some people say you should just 'forgive and forget', but those people are either ignorant or heartless if they apply it to a situation like this. Because honestly you just can't. If you stop feeling anger at your parents for their abuse, that anger doesn't go away - it turns on you. If you never accept how your parents failed you, how they failed in their responsibilities to care for and protect you and deal with their own issues, how they didn't care as much as you did, if you never speak your truth to your parents (rather than just wondering why your dad never recognized how abusive he was) and feel your anger at them, then you'll either hate yourself or be depressed or both. Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but I'd say that depression, that stuff you're running from in your mind, is that same anger at your parents that you don't want to feel. You'd rather put it behind you and forgive them, you'd rather take all the pain (self-sacrificially) on yourself, because a part of you still adores them and wants loving parents. But the fault never lay with you. A book I think you'll find helpful is "Toxic Parents" by Susan Forward - it discusses different types of past abuse but also gives you ways to move forward and heal yourself and deal with your emotions. I hope some of this is helpful.

(trigger warning) Woodsgnome, though there are many reasons for self-hatred, something that I've learned is that a big reason people who've been abused can be hard on themselves is that they're angry at their abuser but turn it on themselves. It's the same anger. And abused child (if this is your situation) starts out adoring their parents and wanting to forgive them, and it's easier to blame yourself than to accept that your parents aren't the people you thought they were or wanted them to be, and that they never loved you as much as you love them. Blame can be a very important part of healing, if we're talking about child/parent abuse, because an abusive parent did fail in their responsibilities and deserve blame (though many people would say (awful) things like don't blame people for your problems), and more importantly, because if you never blame your abuser or feel angry at your abuser, then that's where self-hate or depression comes from. You can't escape the anger and grief, but you can choose to turn it on yourself rather than accept the devastating truth that your abuser didn't care as much as you did. I believe the only way you can get rid of self-hating thoughts (and self-doubting ones) is to release your anger at the proper target and speak your truth, not just to find peace in other ways in your life. If it's relevant, a book I found really helpful for these ideas was "Toxic Parents" by Susan Forward.

Lapis Lazuli (and maybe Writetolife), this may not be what you want to hear, but when you're parents aren't supportive of your feelings, you really should stop going to them about them. Parents have a responsibility to care for their children, both physically (food, shelter) and emotionally (be supportive and loving), but many parents can't provide the latter. They are failing in their responsibility to you, and you shouldn't have to face that, but some people (myself included) do. To keep going for support to someone who only makes you feel worse can make you weaker rather than stronger. I think a really important thing to learn is how to support yourself, how to be compassionate of your own suffering (which no one understands better than you), and how to know when it's better to be alone than go to someone who doesn't respect your feelings. Of course you support, but wishing alone doesn't change your parents, unfortunately. Other options if you want to talk about your feelings to someone and get support from them is talk to your sister or friends (if applicable), talk to a school guidance counsellor or therapist, or talk to an (anonymous) distress/help line.

Lapis Lazuli - I don't think your issue is really your younger sister, and I'd be careful not to let your resentment build toward her, because maybe you could be close otherwise. I would guess that that resentment is redirected from your parents. I think (and I may be wrong) that your sister being born only accentuated a situation that was already there - that you weren't being respected or payed enough attention. Your mother still seems to treat you that way, by threatening you with abandonment and dismissing your problems (like your dad). The important thing is to know that you and your problems aren't just how your parents think they are, and often depression is repressed anger - perhaps you never let yourself be angry at how poorly your parents have and are treating you, so you blamed yourself instead of them, and now feel worthless/unloved/hopeless/depressed.

So I just made a bunch of leaps and guesses, but I did so because I thought it might be helpful to think about this critically, and really assess how deeply hurt you might be. I hope some of this is helpful. Don't give up.

I really do think it can be healthy. If you stopped having conversations with yourself what would happen? My guess is you'd feel lonely and you wouldn't sort through your feelings as they come up during the day. How is that better? It's not surprising that you have trouble speaking to real people, and while you're learning how, I think it's still more important to speak than not. At least you're being more honest with yourself and not hiding from your feelings (even if you're hiding from other people/rejection) as many people in your situation would.

I really believe escapism can be healthy too - it was certainly my main survival tool till I got out of my parents house. The reason people get addictions and get addicted to drugs is they need an escape from their life, they need to have something good to hold on to amidst the bad. While this means that people with PTSD are more prone to (harmful) addictions, it also means that choosing good addictions is really important, and being aware of the feelings and needs behind your choices. Reading and writing both worked as (non-drug and non harmful) escapes for me growing up. I remember sometimes when I couldn't handle things I'd just pick up a book and know I'd feel better later (though obviously, without solving anything, but I was too young then to be able to do anything). So if daydreaming or watching TV or reading books works for you to make your life a little easier, then go for it - even if you're actively working on improving your situation and healing (which you may not be able to do if you live with your abuser), it's still good to have breaks from the stress, even just as an act of self-compassion and self-care. In a way, those people you talk to are just yourself, they're images that you are making to help yourself, and in a sense that's really loving, from yourself to you. You're trying to help yourself when no one else is, and you know what you want (to speak, to interact with people) and you're trying to give it to yourself in the meantime, which seems really compassionate/caring.

I've found blame a very important and useful tool. I don't mean blaming the innocent dog here, who was just a trigger, but blaming the person from your past who made you "overreact". One of the reasons PTSD people can have explosions of anger is because they have a whole lot of anger (and grief) inside of them and they never directed it at the person who actually hurt them. Learning to be angry and to blame the person who hurt you (though people like them would tell you blame is bad and isn't taking responsibility for your own problems) can be very therapeutic and help you to not be angry at other people/things that aren't really the source of the anger.

Another thing I read recently, which makes a lot of sense to me, is to try to pay attention - and even encourage yourself - to be mildly angry. Notice when you're just irritated or frustrated, and if you pay attention to why, address the feelings, and understand where they're coming from, then your anger won't build until it explodes for "no" reason. Anger can be very useful - it helps us to stick up for ourselves and recognize setbacks and recognize when things need to change. So not being afraid of anger, and be willing to be angry at reasonable things in a controlled way can actually (counter-intuitively) help you not be angry by releasing it in the right way at the real provocations.

Anger is a really tricky point with PTSD people, because often they get angry all the time, their anger pouring out at other things rather than the person who hurt them, or they're afraid of anger and of becoming like their abuser and never stick up for themselves. But hope this is helpful.

A few things.

I don't think "what you deserve" is even a relevant issue - that sound like your abuser talking. What does anyone deserve? What's that even mean? Who has the authority to decide? (and if you were about to answer your abuser, then think about that). The important thing is to recognize a problem and take actions to change it, and if you're still trapped with your abuser and don't think you can leave, then at its most fundamental level, that means having compassion for yourself. And having compassion for yourself step 1 is believing your own feelings. If you believe the lies told to you, that this isn't abuse, that you're overreacting, that it's your fault etc, then it doesn't matter what your friends say - you won't listen.

If you're still living with your abuser (I'm interpreting "FOO" as abuser but I don't know what that stands for) and you aren't in physical danger or you have the ability to leave, then I wouldn't be afraid of increasing the conflict between you. Avoiding conflict in that situation generally only harms you, but if you think that's really dangerous or you're under 18 etc then of course you need to prioritize surviving over thriving, and keep the confrontations for later. Something else that can help though is spending more time with other people who aren't linked to your abuser, like if it's your parents then someone outside of your family. I find the more time you spend with other (sane) people the more you realize and remember that your abuser's the crazy one and not you. You are NOT making this up (I mean really, who does that?) and should not feel guilty about being upset about it.

Something I find really helpful for learning assertiveness and remembering not to doubt yourself is to think about someone else being in your situation. Either a) imagine your own kid someday being in your situation, and how you'd deal with it and what you'd say (and consequently, realize how badly your parent actually is), or b) imagine a child or someone your age telling you that they're going through what you're going through. What would you say to them? Would you be angry at their abuser? I'm sure you wouldn't tell that abused kid that they're probably making it all up. This can be a helpful starting point or exercise. (You can do this in writing too.)

This summer I wrote confrontation letters to my parents telling them that they were abusive. I didn't and don't expect much change, but for the first time in my life I spoke my truth and the truth of my childhood to them after so much pressure to stay silent, and that was important as an act of self-respect. (If it's relevant, the book Toxic Parents by Susan Forward is absolutely amazing.) Right before I sent the emails I panicked and was like 'what am I doing? this won't help anyway! it was all in the past anyway...' etc, but then I imagined my eight year old self in front of me and what she went through and I thought - if this was someone else, some other abused kid, I would be so angry and so ready to tell off their parents so that I could help them and protect them and stand up to their parents in a way that they couldn't since they're a kid. So how could I not do it to my own, just because it's myself? How could I do that to myself, short-change myself, treat myself in that way?

...so hopefully something there is helpful. It's quite different if you live with your abuser. I for one would rather be homeless then ever go back, because escaping that prison was the highlight of my life. And to live with crazy people either requires you to go a bit crazy, or to repress your emotions or explode, and I am now cheerfully cultivating sanity.

Yayy! You're like me! (Maybe that's not actually a good thing but I find it exciting)

I absolutely have conversations with myself all the time and have used escaping into my imagination as a coping mechanism since early childhood. Stopping, as you tried to, isn't necessarily a good thing because I think it's a healthy coping mechanism. It helps take you away from reality for a short period of time (which can be good) but also helps you process your thoughts and feelings, and also, I would add personally, helps combat loneliness. I find I do this more the more isolated I am, and I find most people don't do it (at all or as much) because I've just lived a way more isolated life than most people have, even those with PTSD. I've always been on my own and growing up there was no one to talk to but myself, so I talked to myself. I'm impressed actually (I bet you haven't gotten that reaction!) that you're able to completely fabricate imaginary friends. I've tried and it's beyond me. What I do is modify people I already know, particularly teachers and people who were old enough to be (half-imaginary) parents, and then talk to them. Occasionally I have more real conversations too - like I'll imagine talking to my therapist or my supervisor about something we might actually talk about. I often have these conversations aloud like you do, and have definitely been caught doing so a few times, to my embarrassment. I've also had the longer imaginings you talk of. (I've always used the word "imaginings" for this growing up rather than "daydreams" because it's so much more active.) This morning was a particularly bad case where I started one when I was half asleep and imagined my cat getting killed and it was awful and I was crying for two hours (but then it had the good/comforting element that someone cared in the dream). Often they're quite negative overall/from the outside but they usually make me feel strong or loved. They help me cope with emotional flashbacks or difficult emotions coming up during my day, though I wouldn't say they are flashbacks in and of themselves. It's definitely escapism, but escapism can be healthy, particularly in tandem with therapy.

Everyone talks to themselves to a degree - that's normal, though the frequency and aloud-aspect might not be, but in my case I think it's really just a symptom of isolation (like stranded-on-a-deserted-island-syndrome) and the fact that I raised myself and always went to myself for comfort/encouragement/compassion/companionship. I think talking to myself (imagining someone) aloud about things really helps me think through them and form opinions, and the only danger I've found is sometimes confusing the dream-person with the real one (like feeling like we're closer than we are). Many of my conversations are ones I would never actually have with the person in question, they're just an image to talk to, and talking aloud can be very therapeutic (especially if you rarely have real people to talk to).

I also became a fantasy writer, so that worked out

I would suggest "Coping with Trauma" by Jon Allen, if you haven't read it. It's a long read and I'm still working through it myself, but it's definitely not just focused on childhood, and talks about how abusive childhoods often lead to a string of abusive relationships/other traumatic situations later. But I think the groundwork is laid in childhood, so even if you don't want to go there now or don't think it's as important that at some point you'll probably need to. The book is more theoretical/clinical/deep-thought-eske rather than case-study based  but it's good to read slowly for long term healing.

I think it's really common for people who've been abused to be afraid of anger or unable to be angry, because they don't want to be like their abuser. When I was a preteen I went through years of an anger phase where I would just explode and lose control completely and still no one would listen, and it was terrifying. From there I realized that behind anger is pain, and so removed anger entirely from my life basically. I didn't think it was ever a good thing, and that it was just denial for pain. It took a couple years of another abusive relationship for me to learn to be angry again - I finally was angry at him for hurting me and never making up for it, despite how hard I tried. So little by little over the last few years I've been learning how to be angry again, and I feel much better. A book that might help you think about this is "Coping with Trauma" by Jon Allen. In it he says something I really agree with: that anger is adaptive and very important for not letting others hold you back, and for self-respect. He also says that by cultivating anger and by paying attention to your anger at the milder end (irritation, frustration) that's actually the best way to avoid uncontrollable, powerful and violent bursts of anger (the other common situation for PTSD people). This makes a lot of sense to me. Anger is really important - it shows you your values, and reveals when something isn't right and needs to be changed. But having been there, I wholly understand why you might be afraid of your own anger or unable to feel angry at all (the latter is probably a repressed version of the former). It's safer not to feel, safer not to express you pain (or has been for me and probably most of you), and terrifying to do anything that you think might turn you into your abuser. The problem with the latter idea is that abused people without therapy often fall into one of two camps: they become angry abusers themselves, or they become those who are so afraid of anger that they let themselves be abused, and don't stand up for the people and the issues they care about. But in any situation of abuse and betrayal and abandonment, I think there is a huge amount of both grief and anger, and both are important to healing.

So I understand and empathize, but there is hope with time, healing, therapy, self-awareness and self-compassion. Hope this helps.

Exactly, yes. Emotional flashback only, nightmares very cryptic but solidly grounded in real life experiences when I started to examine things.

If you need a diagnosis for specific purpose (school, employment) then it might be good to keep searching for the right doctor or else help educate the current doctor. If a diagnosis of ptsd is sufficient to get an official diagnosis for accommodations wouldn't it hurt to just leave it at that?

Great, it's good to know other people are the same. I think I'll look for another psychiatrist then. I didn't get a diagnosis - not sure if that's what you meant? She just sent me away, told me I don't have PTSD (and didn't suggest any alternatives) even though she said I had everything but the specific memory flashbacks. I don't really need the diagnosis exactly, but I thought it might be helpful in the future if I need to show/tell people and it's also validating (which is maybe not the reason I should want it).

I think this is really common. In my case, I never cried because every day of my childhood I had very good reason to cry, and if I didn't learn to stop, I would have cried constantly. I also didn't cry because that would be an emotion my abusers (parents) could have taken advantage of to hurt me more. Maybe it wasn't safe for you to cry in the past, so you don't now. Or maybe it just wasn't helpful - maybe nothing good ever came of it.

I've learned to cry now, but it took 6 months of therapy. Then for like two months I cried all the time at the smallest thing (trigger), because like you said there were just so many reasons to cry. Now I'm much more balanced (13 months of therapy) and still cry easily about things that remind me of my past, but often only for a moment, and I feel better now. My roommate/best friend joked that I was "repressed sad" before. I don't think it's something to worry about in itself, but rather something that will sort itself out over time if you keep going to therapy. I think you need to start feeling that it's safe to cry, that it's not a weakness, that no one will think less of you for it, that it's not a failure, that you aren't a failure...etc before it'll start working again.

Maybe this isn't the best advice right now, but in the future I would recommend reading up on assertiveness. It can be a weak point for PTSD people. I too can have trouble saying no to people because I don't want to be mean (and hurt people as I was hurt), but saying 'no' isn't mean - it can actually be kind, because it doesn't lead to misunderstandings.

Your fears of being wrong, not believed, to blame, being (seen as) a bad person, and making him angrier are all related to your initial abuser and not this guy, which might help to think about. I'd call the police and tell him off. There's absolutely no reason you wouldn't be believed - no one knows/trusts/likes this guy and you have texts to prove what he said. Being seen as a bad person is also a fear that someone else gave you, because you're not a bad person, end of story. Fear of angering him, beyond if you're actually frightened of him attacking you, might actually be a feeling of other-people's-happiness-matters-more-than-mine coming through, which seems to be the same reason you initially said yes to him, even though you weren't interested. And given your PTSD and your past (which I can only guess at), saying 'yes' that one time was very reasonable as an action to a) keep you safe from people and their anger and b) not hurt people as you were hurt. So this problem has everything to do with him and nothing to do with you - he could have picked anyone and the situation would be the same. I'm just offering this analysis/insight in the hopes that thinking through this practically might help you to see that HE'S the crazy one (and whoever hurt you is probably crazy too), and NOT you.

Good luck! Hope that helps. Don't doubt yourself or dismiss his mistreatment of you. And good job telling him to leave you alone!

Ha, thanks for the sympathy. It just seems normal to me. Sometimes grounding works I guess, but that can make it worse by making me face my life (maybe that makes it sound worse than it is?). I basically escape into my imagination and that works as a coping mechanism, because I make these daydreams have happy endings, and they can make me feel strong or loved. I've done that all my life (I probably started having PTSD when I was 6-10). I've been working more recently to try to determine what caused them though and think back so I can work on more long-term solutions. Therapy is helpful.

Awesome! Great, I want a diagnosis. She said I had all the symptoms but because my nightmares and flashbacks weren't of specific memories and were just of being attacked basically (I frequently have dreams of people trying to kill me) that she couldn't diagnose me with PTSD. But if you're the same it must just be a difference in opinion.

Thanks for you reply

I imagine that the reason you feel anxious at the possibility of borderline personality disorder is because as someone with PTSD who's dealt with narcissists (as I have), one of the things you're fighting is the idea that you just made everything up and are crazy, rather than the people who hurt you. One of the reasons this idea is so hard to shake off is because the people who abuse us often tell us this lie too, and generally well-meaning people in society have an unfortunate tendency to echo them, by telling us things like we're "overreacting" (which I don't believe is ever true).

Of course you withdrew from other people. That's seems very sensible, under the circumstances, in the short term at least. If you're afraid of people abandoning or hurting you, it's a natural reaction to want to abandon them first. And I've been gaslighted a bit too, and I'm sure that's increasing your anxiety about all of this (being crazy, having people turn against you).

If you're really concerned about how your ex-husband is lying about you, you could try writing a short email to the people in question. It might be hard, and I'd recommend many drafts, but just because he's saying these lies doesn't mean those people believe them, so if they're good to you and you like them, don't give up on them without an explanation.

I want to be more helpful than I can be, maybe. Definitely talk to your husband about your concerns; I'm sure he won't leave you because of your ex's lies. If you're worried you'll doubt yourself and your memories because of your ex's gaslighting, it might help to write down the facts and bring them with you to court. Just remember that as someone going into a fight against someone who "will stop at nothing to destroy me", that means you're very brave. Remember yourself and what you've been through, and remember that your ex doesn't hold any more power than you do.