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October 5, 2015

Dear Dad -

On today, my birthday, I am giving myself the gift of setting myself free from family relationships that serve no good purpose for me.  This past August, I was diagnosed with complex post traumatic stress disorder. (CPTSD)  This is a type of PTSD suffered by people who survived abusive childhoods.  I've actually suffered from CPTSD for over 30 years, but it's only in the past few months that I've finally had a name to put to what is wrong with me and why taking antidepressants and such has never really helped much except in a temporary, cursory way.

We can debate endlessly whether or not I was beaten or merely "spanked" or "disciplined" as a child.  The physical abuse I suffered was really a small part of what has damaged my psyche.  Far greater was the emotional abuse - at 7 and 8 years old, being made to sit for days, sometimes weeks on end on a chair in the middle of my room to contemplate how I could be a better person, usually for some minor infraction like forgetting to change the empty toilet roll in the bathroom or forgetting a fork at a place setting when setting the table.  Being passed to my mom and then my grandmother like some hot potato, a horrible burden no one wants.  Being told that it was wished that I could be sent away to a foster home.   Being convinced by the behavior and words of the adults who were supposed to care for me and love me that I was a terrible person not worthy of care or love.  So much of my life, I've struggled with self-esteem, not believing that I deserve nice things or that I deserve people to treat me with respect or kindness.  It's affected so much of my life - I've put up with bad bosses, bad relationships because I never learned that I deserve better.  No more.

Since becoming a young adult, I've maintained a limited relationship of fake normalcy with you.  We hug awkwardly when we see each other in person.  We say, "I love you," at the end of phone calls, but I don't really mean it.  I suspect you don't either.  I just say it on rote because those are the words one is supposed to say.  As a young adult, I think I agreed to this because I held onto the fantasy that someday I would be accepted, some day I would get the unconditional love that was missing when I was a child, and somehow getting that love would make me a whole person again.  And as I've grown older and realized that no amount of pretend love from the outside will ever heal me.  For me, healing is just going to come from hard work that I will need to do myself.  Now, I just continue with the fake relationships because it's what one does.  It didn't occur to me, until my therapist pointed it out to me, that I have a choice.  A choice not to have a relationship with people who have hurt me grievously and with whom continuing contact causes me ongoing stress.  Because it does.  Every time birthdays and holidays roll around, I am seized with dread and anxiety at what should be a happy time because I know I'll be expected to speak to all the people who hurt me so much when I was young, and pretend like I don't remember all of that or like it doesn't matter now.  Except that it does.

So, with this letter, I am letting you know I want no further contact with you.  No visits, no calls, no voicemails, no emails, no letters or cards or gifts.  Anything that is sent will not be read or listened to.   I want to move on and be free of the ties that bind me to that emotionally malnourished past.   

Sincerely,
G

I had a really upsetting confrontation with my husband on Friday. I had my appointment with my therapist right after work.  In my therapy session, we dug pretty deep into some pretty painful stuff and the thoughts were still churning around when I got home.  My husband asked how my session was and I gave him the brief recap, which was fine.  We ate dinner and then he went to the kitchen to do the dishes and some tears from the painful stuff that was stirred up earlier in my therapy session started flowing.  Pretty soon I was sobbing quite heavily.  My husband came out and didn't even acknowledge my tears.  He just asked if our pet rabbit had had his medicine.   And when I shook my head no, he just went about getting the medicine, completely ignoring my emotional state.

I went upstairs to the bedroom, sobbing harder and harder.  And sitting there on my bed, I realized that I was shifting from tears of grieving about the stuff I had discussed with my T earlier in the day to an EF of how it felt when my grandmother (whose house I lived at from ages 9 to 17) used to ignore my pain and suffering, first when she knew I was being molested by her husband and did nothing to help stop it, and all through my high school years, when I now realize I was already starting to manifest symptoms of CPTSD and spent a lot of time crying, raging, wanting to hurt myself, and begging to be taken to therapy and she just shrugged and said she didn't know what I was talking about.  So, armed with this new self-awareness that part of what was making me so sad was feeling that my emotional needs weren't being met right now, in the present, in a very big step for me, I went back downstairs.  I asked my husband why he was ignoring the fact that I was obviously in a lot of pain.  I told him it hurt me that he didn't even ask what was wrong or if he could help or if I could use a hug. 

He got very defensive (crossed arms, keeping his laptop between me and him at all times) and pointed out that the previous week I had told him he can't just fix my problem. (This had been in response to my telling him I was feeling very isolated and lonely, but then telling him I felt bullied when his response to that was to march me in front of the computer and watch while I signed up for a class I had been considering taking, his rationale being that you can't sit there and feel sorry for yourself for being lonely if you aren't actively trying to do something about it.)  And so, I told him that yes, in the sense that there's no magic wand he can wave and instantly make my sadness go away forever, that's true, but that doesn't mean I don't need any emotional support when I'm going through this process of coming to terms with my CPTSD.  He says he finds it too frustrating that he's not allowed to try to "fix" me in the way that he knows how, but instead is just supposed to indulge me in letting me cry and feel bad.  He doesn't want to be part of the latter.  And he even asked me if I should stop going to therapy since, in his eyes, it just seems to be making me more upset.  I did get him to agree that next time I'm crying like that, he'll at least ask if I need a hug or if I need to just be left alone to cry it out.  But his tone seemed very grudging and condescending to me.  And he didn't give me a hug that evening, which was all I wanted.

I know it's hard to live with a person who is often sad and crying a lot, especially if you've never experienced depression or anything similar to have a point of reference.  And I know he didn't sign up for this, but I didn't either.  And I'd like to think I'd be more supportive if our roles were reversed.  Is it too much to ask?

How do others of you deal with feelings of frustration about feeling like half your life (or more) has been wasted not being a complete, well person?  One of the things that frustrates me the most about my cPTSD is that I now at 43, only have half a life left, give or take.  I've wasted a full half of a life being broken, not living up to my potential, hindered by things that were beyond my control, but because I didn't get help sooner, so much time is gone.  At this point I'll never be a rock star or a professional dancer or a famous artist. I'll never even get the chance to try in a meaningful way.   I'll never have kids.  I'm stuck in a dead end job I hate because I didn't have the courage to try for something more; I didn't believe I was worth more.   I've wasted half my life and so many doors of opportunity are forever closed.  And I hate those Pollyanna types who tell you it's never too late.  I know people who say things like that mean well and are trying to put a positive spin on things, but really, there are things it is truly too late for, and pretending otherwise is a bit delusional.  I can't go back to school to pursue a different career now, unless I want to incur $60,000+  in debt that I'll likely never be able to pay off.  I can't be young and beautiful and have the world at my feet again.  I can't go back in a time machine and make different choices about friendships and relationships that have impacted my life for the worse over the years and have a do-over so that I can maybe put myself on a better path.  I can only pick up the tattered remains of what is left of my life and try to cobble something decent together out of it.  And I can put on my fake smile and tell myself the lie that these leftover bits of life are satisfying, are good enough.  But it will never be as good as a whole life lived fully, secure in love, fearless, confident - all those things I never got to be.   I just can't make these thoughts sit right in my head and my therapist hasn't really said anything useful in this regard except the generic platitude "things will get better."

[shocked]

Isn't introducing yourself to strangers the worst?  Even with the anonymity of the Internet, I am finding this daunting.

I am 43 years old and have recently been diagnosed with complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  This diagnosis is both exhilarating and terrifying.  It's exhilarating to have a name for what I've been going through my whole life.  It's comforting to know that I'm not crazy and that I'm not someone with depression or bipolar disorder who has simply failed at treatment.  Rather, I've just been misdiagnosed all of these years, and there's still hope that things can get better with proper treatment.  However, it is terrifying to know what a long road I have ahead of me for recovery.   It's also scary to know that part of my treatment is going to involve reliving the most horrible parts of the first 17 years of my life.  But I'm nothing if not determined.

I guess I'm what you could call a high-functioning cPTSD sufferer.  I'm successful in my job, I go out with friends, I laugh and smile when appropriate, have a reputation for being amusing and fun to be around.  I also don't sleep very well, have horrible anxiety dreams when I do sleep, and sometimes weep uncontrollably in the shower or when I'm home alone.  The few close friends I've shared my diagnosis with have been shocked, shocked to know that there is something so terribly wrong with me because I seem so together to their eyes.  But after 40 odd years of faking being fine, I'm beginning to fray a bit at the edges and I'm tiring of having to hide the terrified little girl who still lives inside me.  So, I'm seeking help, both of the professional sort, and through this online group of people who might understand.  I also am keeping a Tumblr journal of my journey, which you can search by the same name as this post, if interested.  Trigger warning about the Tumblr - I haven't posted anything too graphic so far, but may do in the future, and I swear a bit in some of my posts.

"I fake it so real, I am beyond fake," Hole, "Doll Parts," Live Through This