Menu

Show posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Show posts Menu

Messages - TooUnfazed

#1
I'm new to the forum and I'm glad I found it. At the age of 60, I'm still working through the pain of childhood trauma that caused what had been diagnosed as PTSD at one time. That diagnosis came 32 years ago when I responded "inappropriately" to the threat of domestic violence from my then husband. I'm not sure how a person with PTSD can respond inappropriately to abuse in the middle of a flashback, but there it was. 

I managed my life by controlling my contact with people and preventing the recurrence of any chance at a relationship. I raised my children and maintained a career before falling apart around the age of 55. At that point, I could no longer deal with the major depression and lack of focus and concentration I experienced. But therapists only wanted to focus on the depression and avoided the underlying issue of dealing with the trauma and PTSD. Their focus was strictly on cognitive behavioral therapy. Like goals and plans were the only way to get over my issues.

Today I discovered information about Complex PTSD and hope to take this information back to them, and then actually work dealing with what happened to me and my siblings while we were growing up. It wasn't pretty, but we were expected to pretend that it was normal. That there was nothing wrong with going to school with the marks of an electrical cord or wire coat hanger beating from the tops of our heads to the bottoms of our feet. That there was nothing unusual about being woken up regularly by our mother choking us awake and screaming obscenities in our faces. Behind backhanded out of the blue for her enjoyment. In my case, having my glasses taken away in a public place so I couldn't see, then being abandoned there. No wonder I tried to run away at the age of five. When I was ten I made it out of the state--briefly. In the 1960's nobody intervened. I thought all this was normal until she threw my brother's tiny toddler out of the back door, then threatened to kill my own children.

Finally, I had the conviction to leave her presence and never darken her door again. I divorced my mother. I should have done it when I was 16 but kept listening to my father defend her actions. In any case, I still cry over what might have been and what I lost. I really want to be able to stop crying before I die.