When do things get easier

[lyricalliv13]

I haven't written in a while but I really need someone who's experienced something similar to help me, because I don't know how much more of this I can handle without just dissolving. I know it sounds dramatic but it hurts and I can't stand it anymore, I'm done.

I told my dad what he wanted to hear and what I wanted to believe, which is that everything is a choice and I have to stop self sabotaging and make better decisions. I was a mess. I had this big blow up in front of them, where I just lashed out and threw things and there was this rage in me... I don't want to be like my mother but if I keep doing those things that's what I am. I'm abusive. Seventeen or not that's what I am and I would honestly rather be hit head on by a firetruck.

My dad thinks I've gotten better but I'm still depressed and miserable. I can't bring myself to message my friends back, I'm trying to clean my room but I just want to cry it out or find answers or something instead. I try to cry and nothing comes out. The other day a door slammed and the first thought was Mom. Things are probably just getting worse because I've talked to her recently and opened up to her and told her everything. I wasn't angry. I wasn't toxic. I just told her how I felt, and told her how much it hurt and that I didn't want to cut her out of my life. And she left it on read and I have so many mixed feelings. I want to cry and scream and lose my * but I need to do it correctly, where no one else gets hurt. I don't know why this is so intense. I'm just tired of feeling this. Maybe this is PMS but these feelings can last for months so I don't even know anymore.

I'm supposed to be doing a trauma narrative with my therapist and I haven't written a single word down. I don't want to think about it but I know I have to. My appointments keep getting pushed back so I'm not about to do it and then sit with it for weeks on end, so partly I'm just waiting until the day before I see her and partly I just don't even want to touch this stuff. I don't know, I don't know anymore. Has anyone gotten through this? Does ANYONE'S past bs ever get easier?

[sanmagic7]

hang tough, lyrically.  it does get better.  unfortunately, it often gets worse first.  reaching out here is a good sign, i think - it's self-care, because you're looking for answers, allowing yourself to be real, and asking for help.  we're here to support you thru this terrible time.  i think most of us have been thru times like this.  i know i have.  you're not alone.

writing a trauma narrative can be extremely difficult, and maybe you're just not ready to do it yet.   there's nothing wrong with that.  you can't do therapy wrong.  what you've described here, and your difficulty in writing about what's happened to you may be what will be helpful for you to bring up with your therapist.

if we aren't able to complete a therapeutic 'assignment', there's a reason for it, and it's not that you're being rebellious or crazy or dramatic or anything like that.  something is holding you back, and that can be a good subject for discussion with your therapist.   you might be able to discover some answers for yourself with their help.  plus, it will help them understand better what you're dealing with, both in your home and in your mind.

these times of turbulence come and go, and they're awful to experience.  as you continue to do what you need to do to heal, you'll find that they come less often, last for shorter periods of time, and are easier to manage.  be patient with yourself, take care of yourself as best you can.  i hope you continue to let us encourage and support you as much as we can, too.

i also hope your next session is helpful to you.  at your age, 17, right? you're also dealing with hormones and such, and that can wreak havoc with your mind and body.  you'll have disruptions at that age even without the added burden of past trauma.  be easy with you.  sending love and a hug filled with calm and peace.

[Libby183]

Lyricalliv,  I am so sorry that you are going through such a tough time. I can sort of remember being seventeen and I can remember much more easily how difficult a time it was for my daughter.

You mention PMS,  which could be a factor.  I read quite recently that PMS intensifies the emotional aspects of cptsd.  I relate very much to that,  as does my daughter.  Perhaps it might be worth talking to a doctor about this, as hormone medication may be an idea. Just a thought.

I would also like to say that I think your level of self-awareness is amazing.  At such a young age, to recognise that you are in danger of acting and indeed, becoming like your mother, is incredible.  Don't beat yourself up about losing it with your parents.  All that rage had built up inside you and needed to come out.  I didn't do this until my forties,  but it was the start of my healing. Wish I had done it sooner. You have acknowledged your rage and your desire not to become abusive yourself.  It sounds as if the rage was only directed at your parents and will probably stay directed at them, if my experience is anything to go on. 

I think you have taken important first steps.  San magic has good advice about therapy and I would just like to add, learn all you can about this awful disorder,  look after yourself and things will get better.

Wishing you every strength to cope with this.

Libby

[lyricalliv13]

Lyricalliv,  I am so sorry that you are going through such a tough time. I can sort of remember being seventeen and I can remember much more easily how difficult a time it was for my daughter.

You mention PMS,  which could be a factor.  I read quite recently that PMS intensifies the emotional aspects of cptsd.  I relate very much to that,  as does my daughter.  Perhaps it might be worth talking to a doctor about this, as hormone medication may be an idea. Just a thought.

I would also like to say that I think your level of self-awareness is amazing.  At such a young age, to recognise that you are in danger of acting and indeed, becoming like your mother, is incredible.  Don't beat yourself up about losing it with your parents.  All that rage had built up inside you and needed to come out.  I didn't do this until my forties,  but it was the start of my healing. Wish I had done it sooner. You have acknowledged your rage and your desire not to become abusive yourself.  It sounds as if the rage was only directed at your parents and will probably stay directed at them, if my experience is anything to go on. 

I think you have taken important first steps.  San magic has good advice about therapy and I would just like to add, learn all you can about this awful disorder,  look after yourself and things will get better.

Wishing you every strength to cope with this.

Libby

I haven't actually been "officially" diagnosed yet, but I know I have flashbacks. Doors will slam and the first thing I think back to is Mom. I don't think it's always been that clear, but now that I know why that sound can make me tense it's like there's a word attached to it now which is somewhat helpful but weird.

And the thing about the self awareness... I have to be. It's a tightrope to walk because if I go too far and crucify myself for the things I've done I spiral back into depression and that fuels the fire that probably explains that night. But if I'm not vigilant enough I'm terrified I'll slip up and be that crazy person I was that night again. People keep telling me it's just learned behavior, but that doesn't excuse it and every time I say this I feel better. Every time I say that it's MY RESPONSIBILITY I'm giving myself control over my behavior and that gives me the power to change it so I never ever do it again. After what my mother did to me, I don't want to be anything like her. So I have to find the way to hold myself accountable and not hurt myself over it, because I've learned that beating myself up just paralyzes me and then I don't change my behavior.

But to be honest, I'm terrified. It's easy to say this, and it's easy to talk like I have everything under control, but I'm terrified. I'm terrified I won't feel better, that I'll always be angry, and that one day I'm going to snap just like I did that day and repeat that cycle. I just have to keep working. I can't give up, because if I do I'm giving myself permission to be like that again. I'm scared of being like her and like I used to be, so I won't. I'll do everything I can not to be. 

[Laura90]

Oh Lyricalliv,

My heart reaches across to you, it really does.

The anger and rage I totally understand how it leaves us. I suffer from it badly and end up having blow ups too, especially in front of my therapist.

I think the worst part of it is that what often that horrible yuckiness will leave us with, is a sense that 'we' are the abuser, 'we' are the evil one, it's inside of us, it's us that is the lunatic.

These thoughts and awful identity we then experience is the fear that the above could be true, because it feels so consuming. So then we do all we can to shut it away, do all in our power to suppress this experience we can't explain, and bottom line; wish wasn't there.

And that can make daily existence exhausting, scary, unreal and leave us deppressed.

I would like to say that this is all completely normal for complex trauma survivors. We are the traumatised, never the traumatisers. Scary emotions often were never soothed or explained in our early development, so when we experience a yucky scary overwhelming experience within us, we put a label on our selves that somehing bad lives within us, when in fact, it is a perfectly normal human emotion everyone has on this planet.

The rage outbursts might come out for a time while you're working through your trauma. My therapist yesterday gave me a h/w of simply noticing when things feel alien within side of yourself. Alien as in a yucky, daunting, scary identity within you that you can't put a finger on, but you know you're experiencing it in that moment. If you can, try skills to not suppress it, but rather just notice, and tell yourself,

"it's ok, the fact that this feels so alien is evidence that this is not an identity of me, but a symptom of my traumatised experiences".

Massive strength you have for writing about this here Lyricalliv.

Massive hope and compassion flowing your way from me,
Laura

[sanmagic7]

the fact that you're terrified of being in such a state of rage shows, to my mind, that you are on a positive path for yourself.  if this were how you were and didn't question it would be a sign toward the other direction.  sending you strength of purpose enfolded in a warm, caring hug, and love. 

i hope writing here is helping.  if so, please continue.  we want to be here for you.

[Erebor]

And the thing about the self awareness... I have to be. It's a tightrope to walk because if I go too far and crucify myself for the things I've done I spiral back into depression and that fuels the fire that probably explains that night.

To me that sounds like you might be experiencing what Pete Walker describes as the 'inner critic'. I've learned since reading his book 'CPTSD: From Surviving to Thriving' (one that many of us here have found deeply useful in understanding ourselves and learning tools to recover) that my downward spiral of mercilessly self-attacking thoughts of how terrible I am, how ashamed I should be, how much I'm failing etc all stem from this aspect of CPTSD. If I don't thought-stop the critic then in my mind everything just seems to get worse and worse, very depressing.  Pete talks about us identifying with the critic and losing objectivity regarding ourselves and the things it has to say.

On a different note, I'm not sure how best to put this but I think emotions - not matter how unpleasant they might feel or be - are valid and deserving of respect, even if they're not pleasant ones. Even if they're not 'nice' emotions, self-acceptance is a big part of recovery and part of that involves giving ourselves permission to 'own', understand, and have our feelings (not the same thing as acting them out abusively). Anger has it's place as our protective/defensive emotion and if it's been bottled up and not felt then it makes sense that it can then spill out uncontrollably.

For myself I'm trying to accept and validate my own anger, because otherwise I'm up against myself. Accepting and validating it isn't the same as giving myself permission to behave abusively, both because I don't want to be abusive and because angering directly at the people who caused my anger to exist doesn't seem to heal anything - for anyone.  But I need to come alongside myself and accept my rage as a valid response to what I suffered, or I'm my own enemy and the anger won't diminish.

Best wishes for finding your way through this, and as the others have said - hang on in there, you can get through it.  Maybe giving yourself a safe space to rage in would be helpful? I know that recently helped me not to explode at the people I cared about. Maybe you'd find Pete Walker's stuff helpful too - he's actually written a couple of good guest posts on the OOTS blog recently, so that would be one way of getting a feel for some of his writing without having to get your hands on a book first.