Long term, aging with discovery and recovery (Trigger Warning)

[Magnet]

Here's the background. My history was one of childhood trauma due to parental and sibling abuse. My father was physically abusive (he died in 1992.) My mother is one of the kindest people you could meet. Huge contrast.

One of my earliest memories was when I was around 3 and at that time my father violently spanked my two siblings and me (a total of four of us later) by pulling over on the side of the highway and giving us all a bare butt spanking with cars whizzing by. His spankings were violent enough to cause a learned response where each time he spanked us, our bladders would void. He was out of control and that time it was a heavy spanking, one I received because I knew what my older siblings arguing would lead to - my crime was to open my mouth to tell them to stop. I was terrified of him. That this was the earliest memory and I was trying to prevent him from reacting with my comment to my siblings, the violence was already well known to me. The worst it got was when he choked me when I was 16. 

I include my siblings in the abuse because my father had a problem with my obvious gay nature. He told my older brother to hit me to toughen me up. This my brother told me when we were in our twenties. I didn't know why he would hit me out of the blue before he told me that. It was all very confusing. Additionally my older sister eventually became a heroin addict and at 18 developed schizophrenia.

By 1985 I was was in therapy. I was treated for panic attacks and generalized anxiety disorder for three years, but the healing of therapy seemed limited and I left when I saw no further gains.

Death has been a big factor in my adult C-PTSD. It hit a zenith when my partner of 16 years had heart failure in 2003. I watched the paramedics work on him and then they took him to the hospital. By the time I got there he was still alive but unconscious. For the next three days in the ICU I fought for his life, but he was finally diagnosed with minimal brain activity due to the loss of oxygen. For the next two weeks after that, in hospice, I fought for his right to die against family members who were just finding out he was gay (even after living with the same man for 16 years?!?!) We had all the legal frameworks set up in advance, thankfully.

It was during this time I went to a doctor to get a note to allow me time off work to attend to hospice. My partner and I weren't married so my employer didn't allow my time off without a doctor's note. The doctor diagnosed me with "temporary ptsd." I was forced to take time off for a mental health diagnosis. Keep in mind this was in 2003 and PTSD was just surfacing on the public's consciousness.

I now see the more updated term here of C-PTSD.  It's not so easily to pinpoint a traumatic cause when so many factors have built the problem. I'm glad it's getting its recognition.

So there's the background and here's the issue. I will turn 59 this year. Though my C-PTSD does continue to cause problems, I do not want to go back into therapy again. It seems more like a life long challenge I'm stuck with at this point. C-PTSD gives me a new twist on it (though I used to just tell myself all the problems I've seen were related to PTSD before hearing about C-PTSD, and all about anxiety before hearing about PTSD, and all about growing up with abuse before hearing about anxiety.)

Though I did move on and I have found a wonderful person (we married in 2013), I know the residual remains. I tend to keep most people at arm's length. I'm friendly, affable, publicly adept, but I want no one to come to my home (my sanctuary of sorts) and I tend to have only a few trusted friends at a time. I don't feel the outside world is a safe place, but I can travel great distances and feel right at home once I get there. I still get anxious, but I have very few panic attacks now.

I've come to peace with the fact that I will always have some edgy anxiety issues burbling in the background. It seems like it's in its place now and I'm tired of dealing with it. I know it's not "ideal living" with this problem still in my psyche, but I feel at this point in my life there is only so much I can do. I feel like I've reached the better balance, and I'm wary of letting any change come to that.

So I want some brutal honesty. Brutal honesty seems to be something I trust more than kind words. Maybe because brutal is what I knew growing up. What do you think is up here? What would you suggest I try? Does age become a factor in how C-PTSD is treated?  Do I bother with fighting for improvements, or do I spend my energy for the rest of my life living with what's what?

[radical]

What an amazing story, Magnet,

I've wondered too, if there is a date after which trying to change is futile, if the grooves in the mind worn by pain have become too deep, and the best we can hope for is to find a way to live with it.

It could be self-delusion but I feel things are finally shifting, and it's late in life for me. It doesn't feel like the vicious circles are endless loops.

What feels like it is making a difference is:
-Staying in my body, trusting and seeing where things lead - feeling the pain, feeling lost, not knowing, but trying not to try and escape, as much as is humanly possible.
-I recognise and like my tribe of sensitive, hurt people.  There is something special about the people who didn't find a way out via believing in the external crazy and finding a way to make it work for them.  We here have a deep value.  I see it in the people who share.  I know it.
-Trusting my self, validating my experience, stopping myself from identifying with any external identity from the superficial mode of 'winners and losers', whether that identity is good or bad, approving or disapproving.
-Consciously finding true words I can tell myself, words that are kind and loving.  It started really small, but I'm building a kind of vocabulary of self-compassion.
-Doing everything I can to put myself in my body, finding the movements and sensations that soothe.  People talk about the "inner child" and I wonder if for me, that is my body. I'm finding ways to soothe my pain through movement, and breath, and unlocking.  For me that begins in the body.  Doing these kinds of exercsies with others can connect me with them in a way that words can't seem to. 

I feel the only way through a lifetime of grief that has become stuck is to find ways to go with it, I feel that it is a bit like learning to surf the waves, to experience "riding" experience, a kind of mastery, without becoming a master.

I don't know if this makes any sense to you, but I believe in us.

I don't know if it is worth risking the good things you have for something better.  I agree there is risk involved.  We can't know where change will lead.

[Magnet]

Thank you, radical, for your beautiful post.  I see a lot of hope and love behind it.  It's particularly helpful to see how you can live with it on some level, as long as you continue to deal with it in some way.

[Three Roses]

Hi Magnet, welcome!

Having a hard time with language right now but I want to encourage you that there is a lot of hope for healing, no matter what age you are. (I'm 60.)

Thanks for joining!

[Candid]

Do I bother with fighting for improvements, or do I spend my energy for the rest of my life living with what's what?

Are they the only two options -- fighting or expending energy? Both sound exhausting. I'm thinking more along the lines of positive self-talk: Thinking how much better off we are now than in the FOG; looking at what we've been able to achieve, despite everything; acknowledging what's right about our lives and what improvements we've already made; feeling optimistic that things will continue to get better.

And no, I'm not a walking advertisement for any of that. I do, however, believe my lack of energy is because I'm fighting (the Now) and spending energy (on endless rumination how to get out of this). I'm aiming to roll with the punches, and be patient. :sigh:

Radical, I too thank you for your post. You are very wise.

I've wondered too, if there is a date after which trying to change is futile, if the grooves in the mind worn by pain have become too deep, and the best we can hope for is to find a way to live with it.

I think so. I can't even imagine feeling good in the future; I can only remember that it's sometimes been better in the past.

I feel the only way through a lifetime of grief that has become stuck is to find ways to go with it,

This is gold. I still believe the first step is 'radical' self-acceptance. Isolating myself is okay. Not working is okay. Weight gain is okay. Smoking and drinking too much coffee is okay. It has to be okay to be me. Pushing ourselves to do better keeps us paralysed. Accepting ourselves exactly as we are -- and, incidentally, as we should have been accepted by our abusegivers -- gives us a chance of changing our personas from victim to victor.

Step two has to be radical self-love. I wonder what that might feel like?

[sanmagic7]

hey, magnet, and welcome,

i'll be 70 this year.  i'm going thru a lot of physical issues due to being traumatized and this is where my energy is focused right now.  i've put in a lot of hard work since i discovered the c-ptsd beast, battling it as hard as i've battled to be me all my life. 

the battles have taken their toll.  i do finally feel like i'm the me i've always known was inside, so the battles to maintain that seem smaller and use less energy than before.  now i'm girding my loins for the physical battles, whatever they may entail, which is my new focus. 

as far as my psyche goes, i believe that as long as i stay connected here, i will continue to learn and heal.  it will be more of a path of continuing self-compassion, recognizing my emotions and accepting them as they are, and accepting all parts of me as i am.  i am ready in case something comes up that i hadn't dealt with, and i will be open to that.  so, no, i won't shut the door on continuing recovery.  i will now take it a little easier on myself, tho.  best to you with this, and on your own journey. 

[Magnet]

 

I appreciate that everyone has a unique journey and I learn a lot from reading (listening) to these stories.
Thank you all for your responses. I'll keep checking.