trying this again

[thatsnotmyname]

Hello all. This is my second time trying to post - third time really. I immediately took down what I wrote yesterday because I felt like such a poser. Tried again today and somehow lost all the text - so I'm at it a third time. I've been looking for a support group for a long time, and now that I've found one, I'm not sure what to write. Yesterday I wrote several paragraphs about how I got here. And by "here" I mean my trauma.

We all have stories, and I've been waiting to tell mine for so long, it has always felt so important to get out. But I hesitate and think to myself; "Yeah, but Who cares?"

Since then, I've done a good deal of healing, that those stories don't seem to matter anymore. Because that's not who I am anymore. As Suleika Jaouad puts it, I am somewhere between "no longer and not yet". It's grey and fuzzy here and often times I don't know where to turn or what to do. Lost is a good way to describe this journey of recovery I've been on the last 4 years. Lost because I was not given a map on how to navigate this world and the people who were responsible for teaching me were lost themselves. I have spent most of my life not being "me" because of the trauma that happened to me. Not being 'me' so I could survive. But I'm "No Longer" there and "Not Yet" where I want to be. Hence the name "thatsnotmyname". I want to know who I am and what I want.

Like most survivors of CPTSD, mine started in childhood. I was born to elderly parents in a very traditional, very catholic hispanic household to two people who were emotionally disconnected and struggling with PTSD themselves. My mother lost a son to adoption - something my dad forced her to do. My dad was a WWII veteran with severe combat PTSD and an alcoholic. He was my primary caregiver. They did the best they could.  They were 42 and 52 when I was born. I am 51 years old now. I lost my dad when I was 23, my mom is 94. I was unplanned and unwanted. Our household was a minefield of pain and resentment that no one would deal with or talk about. I learned to people please to try to earn love that never came. I learned to do as I was told and lay low to avoid the anger I never understood, but became the norm. I learned to ignore and quiet my emotions. I got so good at it I eventually failed to recognize them at all.

Due to their age and onset of physical disabilities, I always felt a burden. I married young to get out of the house and wound up in an emotionally abusive and neglectful marriage for 15 years. Towards the end of the marriage he began sexually abusing me. I felt so empty and hollow I could have been a hologram. I was suicidal and depressed. I have two daughters I don't remember raising, but I know they are what kept me going and kept me alive. Then he got arrested. And I found my way out of a catastrophe of a life. Something in me woke up and I got out, as if someone opened an escape hatch and said "here's your chance. go." It never occurred to me that I could leave because I was unhappy. That I deserved to be happy.

I eventually remarried. My second husband was an incredible alcoholic when we met who was also a police officer with a bad case of PTSD. Our relationship should not have worked. But it did. After a hellish year as police chief, my husband's drinking got out of control and I had to call first responders before he killed himself. This move ended his career, and for a a time, our marriage. I left. I was not going to compromise my happiness again. If he was going to keep drinking, I couldn't be part of his life. He committed himself to treatment for alcoholism and PTSD and the therapy he endured was rough as he navigated emotions he had shut down for years. Things got intense between us and it was difficult to support him at times. We have worked through a lot of that, and during the course of his recovery, a lot of my old traumas surfaced and started to rear their ugly heads.

In 2018 I broke hard and committed myself to an inpatient acute treatment center because I could not be trusted to keep myself safe at home. I spent a career working in corrections and seeing and dealing with traumatized people on a daily basis. I never saw it in myself. I didn't realize how bad I was until I took the Minnesota assessment and was confronted with the maladaptive coping mechanisms, reckless behavior and suicidal tendencies I had developed as a way to survive. I quit my job and started therapy full time starting with groups and 1x1s. In 2019 it got too expensive to live in CO and we moved to Kentucky. I had been in therapy barely a year. The timing sucked and it was the most difficult decision I had to make. The transition has been difficult and having no support - not like I had good family or friend support before - but I am in totally foreign territory now. The move sucked dry what was left of our savings. New fears have surfaced. I have finally found a therapist and have been working on tackling my problems head on again.

It sucks. It hurts. I've confronted my toxicity and working on the manipulative behavior I see in myself. This is the hardest part of this work. Confronting those parts of yourself that kept you alive, but can also hurt the ones you love. My husband has been my biggest and only supporter in all this. He's held me together when I have felt like breaking, and he is usually  the one to take the brunt of my misplaced anger. I've been with my husband nearly 14 years, and I still push him away and sabotage our relationship. In my more lucid moments when I'm not super emotional and in my head, I realize I do this, and I don't know why I can't stop. It's hard to hold yourself accountable without resorting to shaming and criticizing yourself. And that inner critic is a mean son of a gun. (I Have to pause here to say I am a PROLIFIC SWEARER, but I understand the trigger aspect very well and will respect that rule - but there is much stronger language I would prefer to use here) And mine can be mean and nasty. I've lived on a steady diet of self loathing for most of my life. Self love is difficult to grasp let alone practice and master when you feel like you don't deserve love at all. When it was never modeled for you. Or given to you. It's hard to conjure out of thin air something as abstract as a positive feeling toward yourself. Grounding helps. Mindfulness helps. Finding my gratitude helps. BUt some days it doesn't.

Today was one of those days. One of those days where I hate everyone and everything. I want to push everyone away from me because it feels safer to be alone. The days you have to claw your way through just to get to your pillow and you're trying to ignore that nagging desire to just throw in the towel.  It's days like today that I need support. And my husband has taken enough of my anger projections that I'm afraid he is going to give up and leave. It's needing that support and realizing you have no one to go to, and getting pissed off because once again I have to take care of this trauma-mess that happened to me that I did not create. I didn't create it, but I have to fix it. That's why Im here. Because I can't do this by myself. And I need help. And I want to be better. I want to live better. And do right by those I love. And learn to trust. And while I'm strong, and I've made it this far, I need more help if I am going to continue this healing journey. And I hope to find that here.

AND. We get up another day and we keep moving forward. Right?

I like to write. It's always helped. I started journaling and mind dumping and word vomiting as a way to cope with the dissolution of my first marriage. Wrote this couple of years ago - but it still feels accurate

"some days it feels like I'm floating.
Just above the pain
and I know I must swim and kick
so I don't get sucked down into that vortex and drown
...and I know I have a bit of hurricane in my blood"

[rainydiary]

I appreciate you sharing this post. 

[Kizzie]

Hello and a warm welcome to OOTS That'snotmyname   

I must say you are very articulate about all that you have lived through (and I'm so sorry you had to endure all that). I say that because most times when members arrive here they can't get much out or it's a mish mosh until they can get it sorted. 

You are in good company here and I hope you find the support, information and whatever else you need/want from being part of this community.



BY the way I loved the quote from Suleika Jaouad - I am somewhere between "no longer and not yet".

[thatsnotmyname]

Thank you for the welcome. I've had several years to reflect on and process what happened to me, I've really worked at therapy for 4 years, I (try to) pull no punches with myself, and I'm relentless in my quest to heal. I also write a lot. Writing has been huge in helping me put towards what this has been like. I hope I can give support as well as learn to receive help and support. 🌟

[Bach]

thatsnotmyname, thank you for sharing this.  Welcome to the forum  This is a good place. 

I’m also a prolific swearer, but I feel that it has actually been good for me to have to be a little more carefully descriptive with my feelings here.

[woodsgnome]

Thank you for sharing about your great perseverance. You've climbed across some pretty steep odds in arriving among friends. Friends who are willing to listen, which is so important in a world that can sometimes feel anything but welcoming.

May your experiences here lift some of your spirits up to find new light as you continue to explore new ways to turn your life towards the peace you deserve to have.

[Papa Coco]

Thatsonotmyname,

Welcome to this community. And thanks for sharing your story with such well-written detail. It's obvious you like to write. You're good at it.  I'm glad you felt safe enough to post this one because you're right, we all have stories, and we all want to be heard. Especially when we spent our entire childhoods, and probably all the years between then and today feeling unheard, unvalidated.

I felt a tug in the heart when you said you'd immediately taken down the post before this one. I've done that so many times. I can safely say I've deleted more words than I've posted on this site. I often worry I've gone too far. No one on this forum has ever been unsupportive of me, so my fears of posting TMI are all from the traumas of my past. It's trauma that makes me write, and trauma that makes me delete. I'm chronically afraid of writing too much. I'm 62 now. I've lived through a lot of criticism from family, church, and peers. It's the ghosts of my past that still swirl around in my brain making me always afraid I've said too much. Deleting is safe. Posting is risky. But risk is where the healing happens, so if I have to write a post a dozen times before I hit the Post button, so be it. That's the process I have to go through to deal with my insecurities.

I saw a lot in your post that I can resonate with. Like your need to write. Me too! Almost obsessively. I write for two reasons. 1) I have a deep need to be heard. I was raised in an abusive Catholic school, behind elder siblings who were thieves, liars and sociopaths, so by the time I came along later in life, my WWII vet dad and traumatized anxiety ridden mom had already come to believe that all children are liars and thieves, so nothing I said was ever believed. Today, writing has given me a voice to speak to people who do believe me. So, I find myself obsessively unable to stop writing. I'm finally being heard!  Reason 2) I have a favorite quote from author Flannery O'Connor: "I write to discover what I know." I've discovered that people like you and I, who like to write, learn from our own words. The more we write and edit to make sure our words make sense and have value, the more we untangle the mess in our own minds. Words are powerful, even when we hear ourselves speak or write them.

Again, thank you for sharing your powerful story. I hope to see more in the future. I joined this forum almost a year ago, and so far, the people here have been consistently compassionate and informative. I feel pretty safe here. I learn from my own writing, and I learn from reading what others write also.  So, I hope you keep writing here.

[Not Alone]

Thank you for your courage in sharing some of your experience. A warm welcome to you, Thatsnotmyname.

[Hope67]

Hi Thatisnotmyname,
Wishing you a warm Welcome here.
Hope