Hardest part to recovering

[Annegirl]

For me the hardest part to recovering is that I am very isolated in this discovery. I have one brother who lives 5 hrs away and he believes me that I am stressed because I told him I have a facial tic.
I have many symptoms and feel like staying in bed all day everyday for weeks and months without getting up for anything but I force myself to not think about how I feel. I have 4 children who need me and the last thing I want for them is to become a basket case like my mother was and spend months away getting therapy. ( she got the wrong therapy, as she is NPD and never showed anyone her true feelings and actions, just got therapists to back her up against us for even more control on me)
My husband is telling me to stop believing I have cptsd and it will go away.
Well I wonder all the years I was depressed and suicidal and angry and I didn't know I had this but I still had the symptoms.
He pushes me almost every day to use the money I'm using for therapy to buy new clothes or buy a coffee table for the house, anything and everything except for what I feel I need.
I already doubt myself in everything and this makes me doubt myself to the point I feel like giving up.
I am starting to want to tell people what I have been diagnosed with but I fear mockery and that I'm just feeling sorry for myself and I need to get over it. Which I do need to get over it.
He tells me to stop writing on here so much.
The only time he doesn't complain about something I'm doing is during ( you know what) and when I'm cleaning up the house, the rest of the time I feel his disapproving glances, and listen to his disapproving talk, but I'm exaggerating, a lot of the time he doesn't say anything and we talk about stuff that he is interested in. And also stuff I'm interested in except this topic.
He talks to people a lot but he has never told them what I'm going through and this makes me feel isolated, I can't bring myself to talk about it to anyone.

[Kizzie]

Hi AnneGirl - It's really difficult when you don't have your partner's support.  I attend a face to face support group so that I can talk openly with real live people about what I'm experiencing.  No-one there tells me to just get over it as they get it. 

Is there maybe a group in your area you could attend? - I don't know if you're in or near a city centre but it's something to think about and maybe look into.  Being a member of these online forums is a big step out of isolation, building in some face-to-face support is another. It helps us to keep going when we have support and encouragement. That feeling you're having of wanting to talk to other people is an important one, don't push it down.  That's the part of you that needs and deserves attention speaking to you.

[Annegirl]

Thank you for your response Kizzie, I appreciate it. No I cant go to groups because there aren't any around here, Im in a rural area. All the groups are for indigenous people here, unfortunately im not indigenous.

I am glad I can talk to my therapist 1 hr a fortnight though. I just feel that if my husband started talking about why he's upset with me having sessions to his friends and not just to me all the time I know his friends will tell him I need it and he will stop having goes at me.

So that's why Im thinking of telling some people we know but it will be so stupid me telling them I have cptsd, I mean where do you start?
They'll probably just look at me and say OK you're spending too much time at home, you need to get out and stop being on you own with the kids so much, you must have cabin fever.

And if my husband is there he'll just say omg, here we go, she doesn't have anything its all her imagination!" and then ill be so embarrassed.

[globetrotter]

Hey, Anniegirl:
This may be a stretch, but would your husband be willing to go to a few sessions with you? This sounds like a scenario where it would help to have your therapist's support in helping him understand what it all means. Perhaps she/he can help you with his lack of understanding - have you talked about it?
Please do keep in mind that your health has to come first.

[Annegirl]

Thank you globetrotter,
I will ask him, but she offered a few times to do a session just with him but he said "no way"
But that is a good idea, I will ask him.

[Annegirl]

I almost asked him yesterday, but I don't dare to ask him. I'll feel embarrassed and like he's going to mock me, I'll try and ask him today again.

[pam]

Hi Annegirl

Shane on your husband. IDK why he wants to deny your feelings and diagnosis like that. It's not a defect to have CPTSD. There's nothing wrong with it. As a matter of fact (I see it as) something that was done to us. So please don't be embarassed! You are being strong by wanting to talk about it and also by going to therapy. I suspect your husband might have some of his own emotions just below the surface and maybe seeing you cope with some of your past and feelings might make him uncomfortable. BUT, you should still do what ever you want to do! Maybe he will come around later. And I do think it's a good idea to tell some people you know irl too.

[Annegirl]

Thank you Pam,
Your validation really helps me. I think it makes it harder for him and me because I have succumbed to accepting it but in my heart I just want to get over it and be done with this. My mother even though she was apparently NPD but now I'm wondering if she had the fight form of cptsd was seeing therapists living in their houses for 10 years. While I was at home looking after my 13 yr younger than me brother doing all the stuff in the house to keep my siblings relatively stable and my father fed and happy.
All my mother talked to us about was her past and all the terrible things that happened to her, although I do not talk to my own children about my past negative elements I have talked to my husband about them and try to not in front of the children, if I do I don't go into detail.
Now he's telling me and I'm feeling like it as well that I'm just like my own mother. Dwelling in the past and talking about my problems. I feel guilty that I am doing what she did and I feel like I'm just a loser and a wimp.

[Badmemories]

The hardest part for me in recovery is sticking with it. I work on in for a while and become overwhelmed and then just give up!  even though I have given up at times I still think that some of the layers are still peeled away.
For instance the times I was molested sexually by various people NPD dad, other people who just toke advantage of my childhood, and could tell I'd been abused before. I used to feel guilty, shame etc. My therapist had me go through my thoughts and remember each one. (f I had forgot it all because MY inner child go healed, unlike forgetting it because it was to painfull to remember.

Maybe it is pain that is the hardest point of recovery.  bringing up the painfull things in my childhood. Reading OOTF has helped with that in a way, just reading other people's story reminds me of things. I think that also validates that I am not alone. That I am not to blame for all the crazymaking.

Then making the decision on what to do with the situation I am in at the moment. I am in a emotionally abusive relationship and I seem to not be able to make a decision to leave. So changes are also fearful for me.

Anyway MY matra now is keep on keeping on! I am reading and reading and trying to process things.. and thinking about things. Not like I sometimes do but (ruminating) but trying to process it, and work through it.

[Kizzie]

keep on keeping on! - I like it BadMemories.  Mine is "Onward!" lol.

[globetrotter]

Mine is seeing progress. Is anything really happening? Hrm.

[pam]

Annegirl,

You aren't "dwelling in the past." I hate that phrase--People have said that to me when really what i was doing was trying to talk/express my feelings from the past so I could finish grieving or heal in some way, or, get some understanding from the other person, (which usually didn't happen btw). I believe Dwelling in the past is a phrase some insentive person made up to try to shut us up. IDK if someone actually said that to you, or if your inner critic is trying to make you feel bad about what you're doing, but there's nothing wrong with talking about all that stuff. You said yourself you don't burden your children with it (like maybe your mother did) so you are not like her. Try not to compare yourself to her too much. I know i have seen common things between me and my NPD fahter, and it freaks me out for a minute--"OMG, am i really like him and don't know it?"  But no, we aren't like them. First of all, we worry about it, they don't actually care, lol. On the other hand I have found being able to understand why someone is the way they are has led to insights and relief of my suffering too. Sometimes. It can help in seeing that things weren't all your fault or that you didn't do anything wrong, etc. 

[pam]

My saying is, (instead of 50 Cent's 'Get Rich Or Die Trying") it's "Get Better Or Die Trying!" 

[Kizzie]

Yah that's it Pam, good one 

[schrödinger's cat]

Hi Anniegirl,

"dwelling in the past", that tag that got pinned on me, too. (Sorry if my English is weird. I'm a foreigner.) I've always assumed that I'd be fine if only I could "snap out of it" and "live in the present" and "move on". I know it's nonsense. Say someone got into a traffic accident, and now their leg's still hurting and they can't walk. Say the whole problem they have IS that there's so much pain and they just can't walk too far: sooner or later, their leg just seizes up. Would anyone seriously tell them to simply "move on" and "not focus on their leg so much"? Of course they're focussing on their leg. They're doing it because they want to move on. And I know this. But it's still something that keeps on popping up in my head.

I keep on getting this mental image of a drama queen doing it to get attention. That isn't a helpful mental image to have, if you've got PTSD. It's pretty toxic, in fact. So I keep on trying to come up with better mental images.

Say your house has wooden support struts, and at one time in the past, someone's taken a hacksaw to them. What's worse, now there are termites, too. And some visitor tells you: "Oh, honey, if only you'd stop thinking about those weird chewing noises coming from the walls, you'd be just fine."

Here's a link I found helpful: http://www.counselingcenter.illinois.edu/self-help-brochures/relationship-problems/emotional-abuse/. The thing is, I've been emotionally abused especially when I had problems. So now, whenever I'm having problems, I'm giving myself knee-jerk "advice", I'm minimizing, I'm trivializing...

[Edited because it was way too long. Sorry.]