PTSD help / AA

[paul72]

Papa Coca wrote a few things in another thread that I had been thinking a lot about... (thanks Papa!)

.......were great places for me to feel like I am not alone as a male with CPTSD. They didn't offer much solution, but they helped me to validate that there are other men out there dealing with what I deal with..... I was once asked to leave a PTSD conference because I wasn't a veteran. I've been shamed and humiliated by my veteran friends for having a trauma disorder without having "gone to war and seeing what they saw."

"When I was in AA, while getting off the booze, they used to say "We strive for improvement each day, not perfection". I stole the saying because it helps me feel like, even if there's no real cure for PTSD, at least I can continue to improve each year, and that is a-okay with me. Everyone has problems, and by relentlessly seeking more and more solutions, I'm learning to play the hand I was dealt. The little collection of mini-cures that move me forward each year can be from a basket of various things, like EMDR, diet or exercise, good therapy, reading the right books, watching the right movies...anything that helps me further my understanding of how I came to be this messy little mess of tangled up wires in my brain. This seek and you shall find technique works well for me. So I live by it."

Background..
in my city there is just one PTSD support group, and it is led by a former firefighter. It is ONLY for first responders, so I am not welcome. (and thats ok)
But there are so many benefits to like Papa said, not feeling alone.
Just like in this forum, what a benefit to hear that... it's THE game changer in my opinion.
I spent years searching online for one person even (i'd given up on a group) who would understand what I've been through.. and here I have found it. ( )

I guess my question is ...
Would a support group for PTSD/CPTSD look similar to an AA meeting? Please forgive my ignorance.
I only know what I've seen on TV to be quite honest.. [opportunities for people to share and listen and support] ....but it would seem to have the same benefits of here such as:
providing a place to open up freely, having others with similar issues... hearing ideas, etc.
I guess the trick would be having it mediated properly I assume.

Anyway.. maybe a random question but I was thinking about what similarities there would be between both types of support groups.

I know 4-5 men with PTSD .. we don't really talk.. .but I guess my mind is heading towards seeing if any of them would be interested in getting together occasionally.
This of course scares the crap out of me ( i've never been good at friendships) ... but I see them and I see myself
It would definitely be something out of character for me.. but hey, that's how I am trying to do things now
It's not pressing.. still waiting for my wife's health to improve.... but looking towards the fall perhaps if all goes well.

Thanks

[Papa Coco]

Hi Phil

It's probably best that you aren't allowed in the First Responder's group in your area, because a group of people with that shared background could trigger some serious negative flashbacks for you. My former friend, a Desert Storm survivor, put me into a weeklong trauma-drama the day he said, "My friends and I don't respect people like you who claim to have PTSD but didn't see what we saw." That immediately sent me into a serious and fast moving downward spiral into bad, bad depression. And he was a *ing FRIEND! (Not after that. He crossed a line I couldn't deal with. Our friendship ended that day).  It was the same shame my ugly family and nasty Christian school used to put me through, proving every way they could that I was too weak and too emotional and too kind and too obedient...and that I didn't belong with "normal people". If I were in a support group, trying to compare my childhood abuse with guys who've killed, I would just go quiet with shame and dissociate.

I don't know how to find a PTSD support group in my city, but a gender specific support group would matter to me. Race and sexual orientation would not, but gender absolutely does. Most people I've met with PTSD eventually admit to also having lifelong, delicately complicated sexual anxieties they don't always know how to handle--often gender specific, depending on who abused them and how they were abused as boys versus how they were abused as girls. Talking about male sexuality/confidence issues in a room with women staring at me would be impossible.

I actually thought AA was a genius setup. The history is that about a hundred years ago, Bill W couldn't stop drinking and he figured out that if he could just talk to other people with the same problem, he could find the strength to go one more day. I feel like with CPTSD, that would be a similar advantage. I get a lot of help from being able to share on this forum, and I know I'd really like a chance to get into a support group for civilian men so I could get deeper into the real interpersonal issues I deal with around sexual complexity and gender-specific anxieties.

[Papa Coco]

Actually, Phil,  The biggest challenge either of us would have of starting a local support group of our own in our own respective cities would simply be logistics. How do you find 5 guys who want to talk openly about CPTSD? And how do you find a safe meeting place that's private?  I've actually started three support groups in my past life, and it was only frightening at first. As soon as we all got into the room and introduced ourselves to each other, the experience became completely comfortable. We all knew that we all wanted to be there with each other, so fear went right out the window in the first few minutes of the first meeting. I am not any sort of professional. All these groups were like AA, run by survivors for survivors. It was the 1980s so we, as a culture, were very used to leaving the house and socializing most days. So a support group was pretty easy to organize back then. There was no internet back then, so we socialized instead.

Here's my backstory: In 1989 my wife and I became Volunteer Sexual Assault Victim Advocates for our county's Sexual Assault Hotline. Back then, I was 29 and filled with vim and vigor. I was struggling to deal with my own childhood sexual abuse and becoming a helper to others made me feel like everything I'd gone through was not for nothing. Helping others helped me help myself. We answered the crisis line, and we were on 24 hour call to all our local hospitals and law enforcement agencies. I was able to gather the names of about a half-dozen men who'd been molested as boys, and who wanted to talk about it with other survivors. So I started a weekly support group for Adult Male Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse.  The support group lasted for nearly a year before we dwindled down to only two members and decided to call it quits. I admit it was a very helpful event, and you now have me thinking about wondering if there's a way that I could use my experiences from 30 years ago to start a CPTSD support group now. Sadly, I don't have a connection to other men here. In 1989, the Sexual Assault hotline brought these 6 men to me. They were obviously willing to talk about it, which is why they'd called the hotline in the first place. But today, I don't have a hotline to draw members from. I'm a retired old man, sitting in my home office, pretty isolated from the world, with no way to find enough non-military men who'd be willing to commit to meeting someplace private where we can talk openly once a week.

But my point is you say you feel some fear around starting a group of your own, but just remember, if the other men want to be there too, then everyone WANTS to be there so there is really nothing to be worried about. In fact, on day one, probably all 5 guys will be biting their nails in nerves until the moment where introductions break the ice for everyone.

I'd personally like to keep this topic alive for a few days to see if folks have suggestions or ideas popping up from it. I'd LOVE a support group just for men like me. AA worked well for me, this could work too.

[paul72]

Wow thank you Papa Coco
I truly appreciate your thoughts and experience here. 

[Papa Coco]

I apologize, Phil. I've been couped up too long. I hope I didn't go overboard yesterday.    You mentioned you'd like to find or start yourself a CPTSD group in your city and I got all manic thinking I should start one in my own city. Sometimes I do great things. Other times I get excited and tell myself I'm going to do great things, only to wake up the next morning and ask, "Whoa, did I really say that?" I can still get excitable like a child at times.  Yesterday I went off on a big, huge tangent. For that I apologize.

I want to re address your actual question from the original post. You asked: "Anyway.. maybe a random question but I was thinking about what similarities there would be between both types of support groups."

I think the similarities between a CPTSD support group and an AA meeting would be mostly around the freedom to talk about yourself to others without a professional in the room driving the agenda, and that the start time needs to be rigid, but you can stay as long as you want to let the meeting end when it ends.

The differences would be things like how the AA groups follow a national charter. They have to maintain an agenda that adheres to that charter. Your CPTSD group would have no such agenda to follow. Also, AA groups have an open-door policy, meaning it doesn't matter who shows up every night, the meeting is always the same format. AA groups encourage anonymity, while in a CPTSD group, you need to build interpersonal trust. Hopefully, as the CPTSD group progresses through time, members begin to build trust bonds between themselves. The members don't have to become friends outside of the meeting, but they do need to develop bonds while in the meeting. That takes time. Telling a group of strangers in AA that you are grateful to be sober is different than being a man whose been tormented by past trauma since childhood needing to learn to trust and open up to other men to talk about how afraid he is that he's not being the best husband he can be at home. Trust is built out of the commitment each member gives that he'll attend every week and not "flake out" on the group.

You'd want just enough structure to turn a group of guys into a functioning and safe place to bare your soul. The structure would be to have a leader, which is just someone agreeing to always be there, and to handle logistics and locations, and to remind the members occasionally to maintain a bond of discretion (what's said in the room stays in the room, stuff like that). Having no leader at all, would probably cause the group to fizzle out after only a few weeks.

The structure of the meeting doesn't need to be much more than just "try to be on time, try to attend every week, and be kind to each other".

When I ran the Adult Male Survivor's group, I just opened each meeting with a thank you for attending, and then if no one jumped in with a topic, I'd ask if anyone had anything they wanted to talk about. If they did, great. If they didn't, then I'd bring up a topic of my own just to get them talking. From there, these men all wanted to be there, so we never had a quiet meeting.

These guys were being heard for the first times in their lives and felt grateful to have each other to bounce thoughts off of.

As the leader, I just gave them the sense of confidence that I would always attend every meeting, I'd always be the first one there, I'd always be sure we had a place to meet, and I'd occasionally remind the group that we were all promising to keep what's said in the room private.

So AA meetings are a bit more structured, but are open-forum, and open attendance. Interpersonal trust is not the main concern in AA. Interpersonal trust IS the main concern in CPTSD survivors. I would suggest a CPTSD group meeting be less structured, but more solid and discreet. Members need to commit to showing up every week, being compassionate with words and interactions, and committing to what's said in the room stays in the room.

Other than that, it would really just be a group of guys getting together and talking about stuff they can't talk about anywhere else.