Messages

Welcome, Onward upward.  How wonderful that you are so motivated to seek healing for the sake of your daughter. 

Your description of your mom reminds me a lot of my own mother, so you certainly have my sympathy!  It really is a long hard road dealing with that kind of thing.  We are here together on this site to provide support and compassion for each other as we each try to journey toward healing.

All the best to you.   

A very close friend, who knows but does not share my story, likes to put it this way:  we meet two kinds of people, those who've been to * and back and those who haven't, and those of us who have can often spot others like us.  She reminds me occasionally that there are other sources of distress that I might try to understand.

Stillhere, what your friend says is really interesting.  Does she mention any of the other sources of distress that she might be thinking of?

This possibility of being able to connect with people with different sources of distress is something that has occurred to me.  I have thought it might involve sort of offering a sympathetic willingness to just listen without cringing.   It's usually people who have been to * and back who are able to do that.

Ranting is a good thing.  This is a good place to rant, actually.  Lots of people to understand and empathize.

My personal opinion is that what we do call "healing" can be very painful indeed.  But I am not sure that it is a process that can be suppressed at will.  And even if possible, suppression IMO is at least as painful and without the possibility of progress.

Sometimes the protector needs protecting.  I hope this experience will strengthen your bond with your loved ones.  My deepest sympathies.

I have to agree with all of you.  I am mostly a hermit because of this.  So this site is such a relief.  It doesn't cure the problem in my life, but it does offer a bit of relief from the isolation.

In real life, I hang out with dogs, and trees. 

Dear Lost, I do know that it is not your fault.  Sometimes the timing of these things is so bad that somehow it seems it should have been done in a better way, but that's just not possible usually.  The swelling of emerging events, the sudden thrusting of memories and old pain, that is just not the sort of thing that is easily controlled. 

The world is full of these kinds of secrets and they emerge when they are ready to.  I am so sorry you have to go through so much pain.  And it is also very sad that your loved ones have secret pain, too.  But it certainly is not your fault in any way.

You deserve peace and safety, and I hope you will find your way through this before too long.  All the best to you on your journey.   

Indigo, I am so sorry I missed the point of your message!  I do know what it is to need to "get away" in a not-all-alone kind of way.  You don't deserve to be dealing with all this chaos and all these triggers and all the unhelpful people.  You deserve peace and safety and comfort and respect and love.

Sometimes it just feels like there is nowhere to turn, nowhere to go, no one who can give the kind of help that is needed.  Please give yourself the big hugs that some of us here would like to give you.  And please keep reminding your self that there are people in the world who believe wholeheartedly that you deserve peace and safety and comfort and respect and love. 

Please stay in touch as you deal with this upheaval in your life.  Big hugs 

Hi McKyla27, and welcome.  I am a female Navy veteran twice your age.  I am extremely glad that the VA has given you 100% disability, because you certainly deserve it!  Though my own cptsd-causing experiences pre-dated my seven years in the Navy, afterwards when the cptsd caught up with me and rendered me unable to support myself, the VA took very good care of me for quite a while.  I hope you will have a similarly supportive experience with the VA.

I have heard many stories like yours during my time in female-vet support groups.  Many many  stories.  I met a number of female veterans who were completely disabled, in all sorts of ways, by their "fellow" military personnel.  I could go on and on.  And I myself encountered a great deal of overt animosity during my own years in the Navy, back in the 70s.  I remember being quite intimidated by it.

I am so sorry you were so horribly denied your chance at a  military career.  But I hope you will find here on the OOTS the kind of sympathy and support and compassion that you so deserve.  The cruelty wreaked on you in your young adulthood is very similar to the cruelty many of us here received as children among family members who also should have had our best interests at heart.

So please do not be discouraged by all our talk of childhoods.  With a bit of tweaking in your mind, it should still all mostly fit what you have survived.

All the best to you in your journey toward recovery.  Big hugs!   

Hi arpy1, how brave you are with this inner child work.  My own experience is that it can be quite overwhelming at times, though ultimately rewarding to grieve out some of the buried pain.

I hope you can keep your exploration going at a slow enough pace so that you can avoid being too overwhelmed.  Sometimes it is tempting to try to do it all at once and get it over with, but my own experience is that rushing into so much old stuff all at once can be just too much to cope with.

So I hope you can take good care of yourself along the way.  All the best to you on this heroic journey of yours!   

Though I haven't traveled much the last few years, I have in the past traveled alone, in this country and in others.  When going to other countries, I would do a lot of reading in advance about where I was going.  There should be a lot of information online and in books about wherever you might want to go. 

Armed with information, it is possible to plan a trip that is probably as safe as staying at home.  (And everywhere I went was a whole lot safer than the life I had survived as a child at "home" !!)

Happy travels to you!

Dear Indigo, I wonder can you find a safe-but-affordable temporary lodging there?  In the past, I have checked into a motel for a day or two when I just needed seclusion from other people.  I was able to find some modest chain motels along a well-traveled road where no one was curious about a single woman who stayed to herself.  Then I would lock the door, get under the bedcovers, and just become a vegetable for a while.

       

You go, Widdiful !   

Welcome, katzy!   I am so glad you found this site.  I am sorry you are in so much pain. 

The story of your upbringing is very sad.  I am another person who was raised as the scapegoat of the family, another person often unable to support herself in the world despite being well-educated.  Looking back, it seems to me that I was just too full of the fear and shame inculcated in me by my family to ever function at all.

So I feel great empathy for you as I read your story.  When a person is raised like that, it is perfectly logical to be afraid of people, all people.  Isolation is almost inevitable.  Every interaction with another person feels like a struggle for survival.  The fear and shame emanating from me "invited" others to abuse me, it seemed.

I have seen many posts on this site from people who were severely scapegoated as children and have been off-balance ever since.  So I encourage you to read around this site, read the stories of others of us who are struggling in a similar way.  I do hope it will help you feel less alone in the world.  You have a lot in common with other people here.  Like you, we are trying to reduce the pain and increase the sense of safety in our lives.  We are here to share support and information with each other, to show each other the compassion we never encountered as children.

Like many others on this site, I highly recommend Pete Walker's book "CPTSD: From Surviving to Thriving."  Pete himself has CPTSD, has a lot of experience with people like us, and shares a lot of information in a most compassionate manner.

All the best to you in your journey, katzy.  Big hugs to you   

arpy1:
"it feels so good to know i'm not on my own anymore with this whole thing. i hope you won't mind if i come back to this with you as i go through the ict... i have an uncomfortable feeling i might need all the support i can get...."

I think, though I hesitate to say it out loud, that that is why we are all here---to give and receive support as we go through this stuff again and again and again.   And again.

My therapist says I will eventually understand, at a deep down level, that I can be in pain and still be lovable.  I wish that for you, too.   

here's to more bruise free nights of brewing

That has a nice ring to it, arpy1.  And I like to think of it in a metaphorical way as well, because I wake up often emotionally bruised from a  night of brewing.   

VeryFoggy, that is very interesting!  (But I do hope you have moved the nightstand.)  That is a new wrinkle on brain activity.  It looks like your brain is wrestling with some complicated stuff.