New to the group

[Pieter]

Hi my name is Pieter and I have just joined this group to learn more about what I'm going through. I was recently diagnosed with PTSD but I now believe it is actually CPTSD after my girlfriend found more information on the subject. I have expirenced on going trauma from an early age after my parents split up when I was ten. My mother was alcoholic and mentally abusive towards me and my younger sister. This continued in varying degrees until her death at the age of fifty nine five years ago. What follows is an over view of some of the experiences I'm coming to terms with. At fourteen one of my best friends died suddenly from a brain haemoragh after a game of tennis. When seventeen my girlfriend was killed in a car accident in the same month another friend was also hit by a car and killed. By the age of twenty I had witnessed the deaths of eight people from heart attacks,overdoses and car accidents along with several other friends had died. At age twenty three I was imprisoned for five years for drug trafficking offenses and spent three years in high security prisons in Britain. The same year of my release my step grandmother died in July in the family home where I was staying. My step brother who had been suicidal and was also living with us finally succeed in taking his life in the November. I was the last person to see him alive. This was followed at the end of November by the suicide of his cousin who I was friendly with. A year later another one of my best friends a geology professor died again I was the last person to speak to him. A year after this I was imprisoned in Ecuador for twelve years for drug trafficking. Here I spent ten years in some of the most dangerous prisons in south America. I witnessed murders in every which way possible, many of my friends were killed some in front of me by the gangs who controlled the prison. I myself was injured in one gun battle of which there were many. Probably three or four a week with between three and five murders a week on average. In the sixth year of imprisonment my mother , auntie and cousin all died within two months of one another. A Colombian girlfriend was murdered in Quito the capital of Ecuador and I witnessed torture by both the gangs and the authorities. I am lucky to be alive today. I was finally released in august this year 2015. Two months prior to my release one my best friends was murdered in Spain who I was really looking forward to seeing.  My life seems to have just been one long trauma at times. My friends even nicknamed me grim Pieter after the grim reaper because of the amount of people who have died around me. Thankfully I have a family who are supporting me and a very loving girlfriend who is helping me immensly in my recovery. I am now starting to understand myself better and what led to some of my actions that have cost me and those around me so dearly. This is just the begining of the process of recovery but at least i am now on the right track.

[Dyess]

Wow Pieter that's some history, a horrible one at that. Glad you have decided to get help with recovery and get on the right track. You have a lot of time to make up with people you care about. Welcome to the forum and I hope you can find some threads that help you through this. There's a lot of experience expressed here in the posts. Post any questions you may have and maybe someone who has experienced this can help you out. Welcome to the forum.

[Pieter]

Thanks for your reply Trace. I am still awaiting some sort of councilling through the let's talk service on the NHS but it is taking along time to happen. I really feel like I am cursed as being the bringer of death as wherever I go people seem to die. The weekend just gone I visited aa very dear friend whom I haven't seen in ten years and who's father has been ill for many year's but just kept on hanging in there. The night I arrived we are sat around talking about how he is ill and my friend said that the family kind of wished he would pass on as his quality of life was so bad with alzemhas disease and he was suffering a lot. The very next morning we receive a phone call saying that he had died in the night quite possibly at the time we were discussing him. Things like this just keep happening and do sometimes wonder if in some wierd way it is linked to me as the frequency at which these things happen is just not normal. I know this doesn't make sense but it has reached the point where I'm avoiding the people I love as I don't want anything to happen to them. I just can't see away through all of this to a point where I will have been able to come to terms with everything. What sort of things do you all do to deal with this form of trauma. Any tips or recommendations would really be appreciated. Thanks.

[Dyess]

I in no way think you are responsible for the death. Though I do think once the person has been let go from family members, to have a peaceful exit out that people do pass on. Him staying alive was only causing him more pain as well as the family, he is at rest now. Unless you pull the trigger or do something to cause the death of someone you are not responsible. Odd things happen to good people, who are no where near death, and I have to look at it that it was their time to leave. This doesn't mean it doesn't hurt and that they are not missed, but it really is out of our control. You may be drawn to people near the end of life for a reason. Maybe you are there to comfort them in some way before they leave. That would be an honor instead of a curse to be chosen to try to make that persons life happy, or complete, before they ascended to a higher energy. In every bad situation try to find something positive about it, sometimes it's hard, but if you will open your heart and mind you will find it.

[tired]

I could ask you the same question my therapist asked me many times.  How did you survive-in other words why are you not much worse off. I'm not always the nicest person but I'm not horrible and I'm not a heroin addict on the street which would be understandable .  How did we maintain our sanity enough to be here on the Internet in a healthy healing online group where our motive is to be better.  Why do some people become criminals after those experiences.

Your life with all its trauma sounds unique and you might want to think of how you can turn that into something that can help others.  I wouldn't know how to help someone who has witnessed suicide because I never had that experience but you have and you can. Maybe not now because you're not strong enough yet I don't know. But worth thinking about.

[Pieter]

Thanks for both your replies, good sound advice. I totally agree that I need to use all these experiences in order to help others. I am currently writing an essay for a friend who is a professor in criminology which will be published next year. From this I hope to able to start becoming more involved in helping others at the same addressing my problems. I feel it would be a waste of a lot valuable experience with which I can help others if I merely try to bury it all and not çonfront the issues at hand and make a negative into a positive. Thanks once again.

[Dyess]

Good job and I think you are moving in the right direction. Keep up the good work.

[Pieter]

Hey there everybody thought I'd stick a post up as things have spiralled quite a lot. On a positive note I finished my article discussing prison reform in Ecuador which I'm pleased about. The bad is today my girlfriend who I have known since school finally said she can't take anymore of my depressive state of mind which is by no means constant. We have only been together for the three months since my release and there have been beautiful times but also difficult as she has a lot of responsibilities and I to some extent with my history place her in a awkward position as she can't introduce me to friends and in a limited way with the family.. She herself has been through a lot of trauma and has more or less found her way out of it. Therefore to have to deal with  y trauma now is just too much, I am heart broken as I have loved this girl from the first time I saw her. She also feels very strongly but this  cloud that hangs over my head is just too heavy. I just don't know what too do. It feels like this will never be resolved or diminished  and I'm finding it difficult to see any light at the end of what seems like a never ending tunnel. I feel more lonely than ever now, more rejected because of this problem I have and hopeless. Will this ever end?

[eva]

how are you Pieter?

[NatureGirl]

Pieter, I hope you are managing atm. You are so resilient and strong to have even survived what has happened to you. You  have so much grief and trauma to process, I'm not surprised you struggle. Be kind to yourself.One thing to maybe think about is that you are on a healing journey and it's your journey.  I don't mean that you are alone as there are many guides to support you, but perhaps having a fulltime relationship with another person is not a priority. If you let your girlfriend go with light and love, then that can be a powerful step towards loving yourself, getting to know yourself.  you can concentrate fully on you and your needs. That seems to be a common experience for survivors on this forum.

I've been alone for many years and only now can I see that an intimate relationship with another is possible in the future. I don't want to bring this luggage with me. I'm tired. Time to put it down and travel lightly on.

With love and my best wishes for your journey

[Kizzie]

I am so sorry to hear about your girlfriend Pieter