Hi, All (Possible Trigger Warning)

Started by Milarepa, October 10, 2014, 09:07:38 AM

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Milarepa

Hi Everyone,

I'm a multi-ethnic cis woman in my early thirties. I live in a large, liberal West Coast city. I'm newly married, but not ready to have kids until I get myself to a more stable place emotionally. My husband and I are non-monogamous and have long-term significant secondary partners. Our relationships are stable and loving; though a recent flare up of my condition has made things difficult for us. I am concerned deeply for my husband's well-being in the midst of all of this trauma and I want to make sure that I'm not leaning too hard on him and that he's getting the help and support that he needs.

As for me: I used to be really terrified that I had Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and that this somehow made me irredeemable. There have been points in my life where I fit many of the criteria for BPD; but some aspects of the diagnosis never seemed to fit. In my years in the mental health system, I've been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) + Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Bipolar II, and Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDNOS); but it wasn't until about a year ago when I first heard the term Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (ironically, from the therapist who diagnosed me with PDNOS) that I found a cluster of symptoms that felt like it really fit me.

There's nothing wrong with me, there's something wrong with what happened to me.

What happened to me, in brief was a hellish triangle of emotional abuse that went on my entire childhood. My mom engaged in an unstable pattern of explosive anger and overprotective hovering. My dad remarried after my parents' divorce and tried to shoehorn me into his shiny new (and totally white) family. He was always so angry at me for being difficult and not fitting in. He also never respected my boundaries, including my physical boundaries. There was a lot of unwanted physical contact, though none of it was expressly sexual. He also had a habit of barging into my room when I was naked and sleeping because he wanted me to wake up and play with my much younger half siblings. At school, I was the target of bullies who never faced consequences for their behavior. It was a school for "gifted" children and my parents took a big ego boost from that, so they didn't pull me out no matter how bad things got. They nurtured my gifts while stealing my joy by making my performance all about their own egos. They slaughtered my soul; they skinned it alive and left it for dead.

My parents' family histories are littered with abuse. Dad's father was a functioning drunk and a bully. His mom was a pushover and super clingy. Mom's mom beat her and her siblings with the buckle end of the belt every day. Her dad left when she was 5. Her stepfather raped my auntie, tried to kill my uncle, and threw all three kids into a bathtub filled with bleach on the regular to "wash the spic off of them." They were beaten if they ever spoke Spanish at home and they soon all forgot how to speak it at all.

I recently went through a trauma that triggered all of my childhood *; mom, dad, bullies, boundaries, explosive tempers, all of it. The people who put me through this are members of the same tightly knit community of freaks and weirdos that my husband and I are; so in many ways, there is no escape from this situation either.

I am struggling so desperately to keep my head above water, to not alienate my friends with how unstable I'm feeling right now, and to get the help I need so that this story can have a happier ending than the last one.

It's nice to know that I'm not alone out here.

In Solidarity,
Milarepa

Rain

 :bighug: and Welcome, Milarepa.

You got the biggest point of all, what happened to you does not define you, even if perhaps you may not who YOU truly are yet.

You went through h-e-l-l.   The breeding ground of CPTSD.

I wish I could scoop you up and away for about a year away from the community that may be reinforcing of an abusive past.

Welcome to the forum, and you are not alone.   I am fairly new here myself, but I have found people warm and friendly, and there is always something to learn from everyone on this Journey of healing.

Many of us here have read, and use Pete Walker's CPTSD: Surviving to Thriving book, and also many of his articles at www.pete-walker.com as a roadmap for healing.

I look forward to reading your posts, Milarepa.   Please read Kizzie's Welcome topic.

:hug:

spryte

Milarepa - Hello! And welcome to the forum!

I would like to suggest that perhaps a "trigger warning" might be appropriate for your subject heading as you've shared some details about your past which could be triggering for some. (I kinda had to skip that paragraph) But, thank you for sharing so openly with us!

We have somethings in common in being in non-monogamous relationships and that BPD fear.

My boyfriend and I don't have long term secondaries as of yet.

My mom is uBPD and I recently had a psychiatrist try to diagnose me with it as well...(of course feeding into my biggest fear) and then using my resulting breakdown in her office against me to feed the diagnosis. I've read enough since then to know that many of the resultant traumatic behaviors (which I now know to be within the constellation of c-ptsd symptoms) mimic BPD. 

It's so hard when the ghosts of the past come back to haunt us, and start to interfere with our present relationships. I hope that you find the help that you want, and that you find our little piece of the internet informative and supportive! I've only been here for a week or so and have found so many great conversations with people! There are a lot of people here who are super courageous and working really really hard to find "normalcy" again, despite never having known what that was in the first place.

:bighug:
Welcome!

schrödinger's cat

Hi Milarepa and BeHea1thy, pleased to meet you. I hope you'll find this forum helpful, I know I did.

Kizzie

Hi Milarepa  and welcome to OOTS!   You have found your way to the right place from the sounds of it, which is good (you will have some support and access to lots of information), and not so good (you suffer from CPTSD which is difficult to deal with we know). A lot of people are misdiagnosed with BPD by the way because there is a lot of overlap and not all T's are aware of/accept CPTSD.  But if you found it fits better than BPD then you are probably correct, you are the expert on you afterall.

I just want to let you know that I added the words (Warning - Possible Trigger) to the title of your post because we try to do so here when we think something might be a little too graphic or intense for members to read.  It's a judgement call as to what exactly that is, but if in doubt we add it. If you have a look through our Member Guidelines it explains a bit more there.

You mentioned a recent trauma that dredged everything up - if there is no escaping the circle involved are there ways you can disengage and bring the stress down perhaps? Do you see a therapist at all? 

Milarepa

Quote from: spryte on October 10, 2014, 11:57:05 AM

I would like to suggest that perhaps a "trigger warning" might be appropriate for your subject heading as you've shared some details about your past which could be triggering for some. (I kinda had to skip that paragraph) But, thank you for sharing so openly with us!

We have somethings in common in being in non-monogamous relationships and that BPD fear.

My boyfriend and I don't have long term secondaries as of yet.

My mom is uBPD and I recently had a psychiatrist try to diagnose me with it as well...(of course feeding into my biggest fear) and then using my resulting breakdown in her office against me to feed the diagnosis. I've read enough since then to know that many of the resultant traumatic behaviors (which I now know to be within the constellation of c-ptsd symptoms) mimic BPD. 


SO sorry about the trigger warning thing. I wrote that post at 2 in the morning and I was feeling a little raw.  ??? I will stop and think more carefully next time.

I totally lost it with my former therapist over text message when I found out about her diagnosis. She had never even discussed it with me, she just put it on my insurance paperwork; and this was after I told her about my "BPD fear" (as you put it so well). I think she was just kind of a mediocre therapist and didn't understand the impact she was having on me; but she totally used my freakout against me to back up her diagnosis. It still kind of makes me sick to my stomach.

Quote from: Kizzie on October 10, 2014, 06:40:53 PM
I just want to let you know that I added the words (Warning - Possible Trigger) to the title of your post because we try to do so here when we think something might be a little too graphic or intense for members to read.  It's a judgement call as to what exactly that is, but if in doubt we add it. If you have a look through our Member Guidelines it explains a bit more there.

You mentioned a recent trauma that dredged everything up - if there is no escaping the circle involved are there ways you can disengage and bring the stress down perhaps? Do you see a therapist at all? 

Thanks for adding that trigger warning! As I mentioned to spryte, I was pretty raw when I wrote the post and wasn't thinking clearly. I really appreciate you doing that.

As for the recent trauma, I'm not sure how well I can escape this circle. As I mentioned, I'm non-monogamous. The people who did the most recent re-traumatizing / triggering behavior (former housemates) are within just a few degrees of poly separation from my husband and I. Our friends are really reluctant to "take sides," which really means that they just don't want to entertain the cognitive dissonance that would occur if they thought seriously about our former housemates' behavior. It's a pretty invalidating experience to have people tell you that there are two sides to every story when someone was being abusive towards you.

That said, my reaction to the situation is out of all proportion to the severity of the crime; it's because I'm having so much of my prior trauma so deeply triggered right now. The more I'm able to acknowledge and own that, the more support I'm getting from my community; which seems promising.

These folks fulfill the functions of family, tribe, religious group, and more for me. I sort of dove headlong into this community when I found it. I never really had friends who understood my deeply freaky nature before this. While I still have outside friendships and relationships; I've never found a place I felt that I belong so much as I do here. I'm trying to figure out how to navigate this situation without destroying my well-being in the process.

Quote from: schrödinger's cat on October 10, 2014, 03:58:43 PM
Hi Milarepa and BeHea1thy, pleased to meet you. I hope you'll find this forum helpful, I know I did.

:wave:

Quote from: BeHea1thy on October 10, 2014, 03:44:58 PM
Hello and welcome Milarepa, you are the person who joined immediately before I did. One phrase of your post fairly lept off the screen, They nurtured my gifts while stealing my joy. My wish is for you, me and everyone here is to reclaim our joy.

:yeahthat:

Quote from: bheart on October 10, 2014, 12:21:14 PM
Hi Milarepa,   :wave:

Welcome to the forum.  You are definitely not alone.

:wave:

Quote from: Rain on October 10, 2014, 11:34:41 AM
:bighug: and Welcome, Milarepa.

You got the biggest point of all, what happened to you does not define you, even if perhaps you may not who YOU truly are yet.

You went through h-e-l-l.   The breeding ground of CPTSD.

I wish I could scoop you up and away for about a year away from the community that may be reinforcing of an abusive past.

Welcome to the forum, and you are not alone.   I am fairly new here myself, but I have found people warm and friendly, and there is always something to learn from everyone on this Journey of healing.

Many of us here have read, and use Pete Walker's CPTSD: Surviving to Thriving book, and also many of his articles at www.pete-walker.com as a roadmap for healing.

I look forward to reading your posts, Milarepa.   Please read Kizzie's Welcome topic.

:hug:

Thanks! I appreciate the warm welcome from all of you.  :yourock:

Kizzie

#6
It's a pretty invalidating experience to have people tell you that there are two sides to every story when someone was being abusive towards you.

That said, my reaction to the situation is out of all proportion to the severity of the crime; it's because I'm having so much of my prior trauma so deeply triggered right now. The more I'm able to acknowledge and own that, the more support I'm getting from my community; which seems promising.

These folks fulfill the functions of family, tribe, religious group, and more for me. I sort of dove headlong into this community when I found it. I never really had friends who understood my deeply freaky nature before this. While I still have outside friendships and relationships; I've never found a place I felt that I belong so much as I do here. I'm trying to figure out how to navigate this situation without destroying my well-being in the process.


Actually it sounds like you are dealing with the situation quite well given the complexity of your relationships and your CPTSD. It took me forever to figure out that I was dragging out layers of trauma from the past into current situations and overreacting so that's a huge step right there and you know that you were invalidated but perhaps not to the extent that you felt it. You also accept that there is and will be some difficulty navigating through all this  because of the nature of your relationships which I'm sure involves a fairly steep learning curve or maybe more a case of learn as you go. And you have a wonderful tribe where you feel you belong even if there's a learning curve attached!  And now you have an online tribe - that's a lot of steps out of the storm Milarepa  :applause: