Topics

I have a LiveJournal but I always felt weird posting funny posting there since LJ is how I found out my ex-girlfriend was cheating on me...I never was able to do a paper journal since my thoughts outpaced how fast I was able to handwrite them down. I've been a member here for a few weeks now and I've found it immensely helpful being around other people that are in similar positions as I am so here goes.

My wife's father had an operation to have kidney cancer removed. I've kept my C-PTSD under wraps for pretty much our entire 13 year relationship (four years married), we've been together since I was about 19, and I've been trained to suffer in silence by my parents well before I met her. I'm sure that's quite common. But since the summer keeping it inside has been unbearable. I see a psychiatrist and a therapist for another mental health diagnosis that I've had for about ten years and I've always known on some level that I've had PTSD as well...the symptoms have been there since I was four. But now that I've been diagnosed my wife acts like she can't be bothered to support me with this; or worse, since I hid it so well for so long, when I read between the lines, it's like she thinks I'm faking. She was minimally supportive of the bipolar disorder but with the C-PTSD whenever I tell her I'm having a flashback or anything like that she looks at me like I'm lying to her. The shame of having this illness is bad enough, but to be accused of faking it? That's more than I can take.  So I'm back to faking a happy disposition, especially since her father is sick. He's going to be ok, thank God, but I'm stuck feeling intense shame that I'm faking this dreadful illness, and especially when her father is sick. This is all on top of the shame I feel from having this illness in the first place, the shame that I'm sure you're all familiar with.

Now all the signs point to this being real. My doctor says so. My therapist says so. I know I'm not faking. I wake up with a flashback every day, and get multiple ones to follow throughout the day, both visual and emotional. I get horrible nights' sleep most days during the week because of nightmares. The abuse my father put me through from the time I was a toddler until the time I was 23 and moved out was all too real. But the way my wife dismisses all of this just hurts so much. I have a hard time feeling close to and trusting people anyway, including her, but this is just pushing me further and further away. Honestly, no, I don't trust her to look after my emotional well being. No, I don't trust her enough to share my problems with her. And after being together thirteen years, I think that's really sad.

Perhaps when things are more stable with her father we can try couples therapy but for now I'm back to suffering in silence...after the judgement that was put on me when I started to let it out for the week after I was diagnosed I can't put myself through that again. Aside from this place and seeing my therapist (only once every two weeks) I have nowhere else. So to those who have read this far, thank you so much.

Tonight I took my daughter across the street to my in-laws' for dinner while my wife was at work. She's two-and-a-half and we've been having problems with her discipline when it comes to eating dinner...she plays with her food, chews it up and spits it out, etc and all the usual stuff that two-year-olds do. My wife and I make empty threats like taking away her TV and play time after dinner, putting her to bed early dinner, and all that, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Tonight she flat out refused to eat the dinner that her Pop-Pop made her. She chewed some up and spit it on the floor and I kept warning her that if she continued, I'd take her back home and put her right to bed at 6:30. She chose to throw her dinner on the floor and I decided that I was tired of all the empty threats. I very calmly cleaned her up, apologized to my in-laws, and explained to her that she would be going to be early tonight and that nothing would change my mind. She of course threw a fit, but calmed down by the time she went home. As I changed her into her jammies, I asked her if she could think about what she did as she laid in her crib tonight and to please try to make better decisions tomorrow. She said "I'll try harder, Daddy. I love you". So I left her in her crib 20 minutes ago.

So on paper everything went well. But my messed up mind is in the middle of an EF...if that were me and my father, the verbal tirade that would have ensued would have made Full Metal Jacket seem like a Disney movie. I just can't believe that I can't even (calmly) discipline my own daughter without having a flashback. There's the doubt too...was I too harsh? Did I act rashly? I am I following in my father's abusive footsteps? I want to tell myself no to all of these questions, but the emotional flashback clouds my judgement.

Please forgive my rant, I'm still coming down from this.

So I flew out to Toronto for my cousin's wedding and this particular symptom seems to be on display. Everyone keeps constantly asking me, "What's the matter?" or "Are you ok?" or "Is something wrong?" when in fact I'm just as withdrawn at these things, and during life in general, as I always am. I just can never seem to make enough of a connection to almost anyone enough to feel close to them, even close enough to carry on a meaningful conversation. It doesn't even matter that I'm still a student when the rest of my cousins and their friends have all since graduated and moved on. It's not that at all. I just somehow feel different from everyone else, like I don't belong, like I'll be asked to leave eventually, even though I know with my family that won't be the case. And this is not just restricted to my family. This feeling "cut off" has gone back as long as I can remember and has affected what few relationships I have had.

And this is different then my fear of trust and my ability to form a connection with someone that way, this comes from something deep within myself that says to me "You're different. That's just the way it is". And so during the rehearsal dinner last night and I'm sure during the reception dinner tonight, I'll find a quiet spot where I can watch the action from a safe vantage point. I'm thrilled for my cousin and his new wife, I just wish that I could feel the same connection to my family and friends that they all do with each other.

Has anyone else every felt like this?

I wasn't sure where to post this since my C-PTSD was absolutely caused by my abusive childhood but back in 2010 I was sexually assaulted by a (as of this week) former gay friend. My wife (girlfriend at the time) and I were at his house when his boyfriend was away on business and she decided to leave to spend the night at another friend's house as the evening got late. My friend seemed lonely so I decided to stay over. I took my psych meds (which knock me out) with the intent of sleeping on the couch but in my hazy state he somehow coerced me into sleeping in the bed with him. I came to some time later and he had been doing things to me for God knows how long. I freaked out and ran away, even though I was in no shape to drive, and went to my wife and her friend, and somehow was able to tell them what happened.

I can't explain how dirty and violated I felt. In my mind I felt (and still often feel) that I was somehow responsible, that I caused it, that there were plenty of warning signs that were there that I chose to Ignore, that even though I was doped up on my meds I should have been able to be fight him off, and that I got what was coming to me. I was so ashamed. I was seeing a male therapist at the time and I couldn't even bring it up to him because of the shame. And the worst part is that I went back to this friend a few months later because the group of us was supposed to go on a big vacation together, and I would have felt guilty and responsible if this would have ruined the vacation. Crazy, I know. So I lived with it. I kept telling myself "He didn't mean it", or "You know how he gets when he's drunk", or "He was just lonely that night" and the memory eventually got repressed. It got hidden so deep that when I flashed back to it I had no idea what was going on.

I wrote him off about a year ago when the memories started coming back to me until  few months ago when he texted me out of the blue. Again, I started to justify what he did. " He didn't mean it". "Maybe it was my fault". "Maybe I wanted it to happen". But now that the C-PTSD has gotten to the point where I can barely manage my day, I just don't need this. The memory of what actually happened is perfectly clear. The shame is back. I flash back to this as much as I flash back to what happened with my father.

Our "friendship" is so superficial and exists solely over text anyway that I won't miss much by cutting him out, and I definitely won't miss the trigger every time he texts me. So I blocked his calls, texts, and emails. If I were I stronger person I might have explained to him why I did this, but I just can't. I don't think I owe him that anyway. Maybe one day I'll have the strength the explain myself to him, I don't know.

I just couldn't believe how someone could look at somebody already so damaged and do something like what he did. And I also can't believe it took me almost eight years to realize that this person needs to be permanently excised from my life. And yes, I may have taken the easy way out by simply blocking him, but there's a small sense of empowerment there from having done so.

After all these years and now finally receiving my diagnosis, it's all starting to make perfect sense. I apologize for the long post, and for any triggers within. This is my story.

My earliest memories, literally my earliest memories from the age of three, involve my father's abuse. I was in my grandmother's room, painting on my art easel, when somehow I felt compelled to climb under it. It collapsed on top of me, and I couldn't get the weight of it off of me. My father came running into the room to see what happened and I remember screaming, "Please don't hit me, please don't hit me!"

Now he never actually hit me, but he threatened it quite a bit and threatened to kill me just as often. He used profane words that I had never heard of when I was three or four years old but became more than familiar to me over the years.

This became commonplace...the constant screaming, cursing, name-calling, and persistent threats of violence and death over the stupidest things. Like when I was seven and he bought me bunk beds, but the first night I was too scared to sleep in the top bunk for fear of falling out...my father took this as a grievous insult and for the next week, instead of calling me by my name, called me "liar" instead ("Good morning, liar", "Hey liar, what do you want for lunch?") But especially with school. If I came home with anything less than a B, or God forbid, a C...I was thrown into in my room and locked in there for hours without food or drink, and called stupid and worthless, and told that I would never amount to anything through the door. My mother wasn't above her own brand of abuse when it came to school, either. When I was 16 and my 1320 SAT results came in (not bad, if you ask me), she threw the envelope at me and screamed, "Well I guess we can forget about Princeton now, can't we??" And then she ignored me for days. To this day I get a daily flashback at the sound of the mail truck: I instantly flash back to that scared kid, waiting for the mail so he can intercept the report card that might have a C on it.

And speaking of my mother, each of the countless times my father raised his abusive voice to me, I looked to her to come to my aid or at least calm him down. She never did. The abandonment I felt as a small child in distress being ignored by his mother haunts me still.

I developed serious trust issues. At 19, I found it in me to trust a girl I met and decided to become her boyfriend. Three months later, I found out she cheated on me and all that trust that I had built up was destroyed in an instant. I was depressed for months. I started to wonder if I had a problem and went to my parents, looking to tell them that I wanted to see somebody about my fragile mental state. They told me that I was weak, just being dramatic, and that I should get my lazy * out of bed and be a productive member of society. They told me that being diagnosed and taking medication would ruin any chance I would ever have of ever finding a job or being in a relationship.

So I never found help until I was depressed again in 2008, and checked myself into a motel with the intent of killing myself. I called a hotline at the last minute and was taken to a psychiatric hospital for a week. During the family meeting with my psychiatrist, my father's abuse continued. He screamed at me about everything that he could think of so hard that I thought they would lock him up too. And so I finally started taking medication for depression because it was obvious I needed to.

I eventually moved out and married my longtime girlfriend about four years ago, and somehow, by some miracle, I managed to forgive my father. Since my mother's death, he's been really lonely and needing companionship, and he felt the need to ask my and my brother's permission to date again. Seeing him vulnerable like that I think was a big part in it. I still don't really trust him, but on the surface, we get along.

But all the issues are there. I've had C-PTSD related issues since early childhood and they aren't going away anytime soon. I have at least three flashbacks a day. I don't feel close to hardly anyone, and I very often even have a hard time feeling close to my own wife. I'm feel like I'm perpetually in a state of extreme anxiety. I just received the diagnosis recently though I've suspected I've had this for a long time. I'm grateful that I've been diagnosed because that means that now I can finally start doing something about it. I can't live like this anymore.

To those of you who read this far, thank you for sticking with me!

Does anyone else feel this way? It starts as intense feelings of shame, especially for me about having the condition in the first place and the stress that it's placed on my wife and what few close relationships I do have, and then it escalates from there. If I'm out in public it gets way out of control, especially if I'm in school around people completing the same degree as me that presumably have it way more together than I do and are not struggling the way that I am. I get this strong sensation being around them that they can see right through me and see me for what in my head I feel I am: pathetic, damaged, unworthy etc, and the shame turns into an intense feeling of humiliation. I was wondering if anyone has had an EF take a similar turn.

Hello everyone, I thought I'd introduce myself. I've been struggling with C-PTSD in some form or another since early childhood, though I haven't been diagnosed until recently. I just began exploring these issues with my wonderful therapist over the past few weeks, and although I know it will be worth it in the long run, it's been * to dredge up memories that have been blocked for all these years. I swear, the time that we have been working on this, and the months leading up to it, have been a mess of flashback after flashback, trigger after trigger. I've never felt so damaged; sometimes I truly feel like I won't survive. Digging up these old memories has triggered shame and humiliation like I've never felt before...like I said, I know this will all be worth it, but right now it's even harder than normal to function.

The only positive is that this just reinforces what I swore to myself the day my two-year-old daughter was born: that she will never know the pain of having to live with an abusive father.

Anyway, thanks for listening to me ramble, and I look forward to getting to know you!