What is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a term for certain psychological consequences of exposure to, or confrontation with, stressful experiences that the person experiences as h...
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Complex and Prolonged PTSD
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Ok, I don't know if there's much about this, at all.
It's something a therapist three years ago mentioned to me... It's either the symptoms of a very weird human being, and some have been there all my life - or it's the symptoms of PTSD.... Some stuff happened when I was 7, and when I say 'stuff', I mean, I am not exactly sure what they were. I know, in words what it really is, but, as time has gone, the thing that actually happened changed the way I think about the world, resulting in me beginning to believe that there wasn't that much wrong to begin with.... Now I am left confused. I suffer from the classic symptoms, moreso than when I actually looked up Asperger's syndrome which is something my mother thinks I have. i don't live with her right now, but she seems to be some kind of constant voice in the back of my head. It's almost as if, I have to "ask" my parents before I do anything. It's not verbally in my mind, but it's something that is apart of me. How could I have Asperger traits as my therapist said, if she doesn't know my whole story - and also have complex PTSD at the same time. I know someone else with PTSD who was incorrectly diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, but she took loads of drugs, tried to burn down someones' house and sleeps around. I don't really do anything at all, how the hell could I have PTSD??? I know it affects everyone differently, but all I did at 15 was to drink and take pot, now I am a recluse in my flat, and I have no interest in the living, I don't feel that many emotions for people anymore - it's more up and down, and more of a concept.... I had three weeks of complete dry emptiness, it was pretty horrific. i was thinking about ending it. I don't see the world like other people see it. I see most things as pretty pointless, even eating, sleeping.... I get horrible or lonely dreams where i can 'feel' the isolation even in my dreams. I had a dream recently about actually lying down in my bed, in the dark, and my arms had faces on them but they were all me, and they started screaming like a wild baby or something and said 'you are going to die, I want to die!' - I was like, what the hell, when I woke up but it was a really isolating dream.... I have got so many dreams, some of them disturbing of a particular nature, which has made me question my morals and I am too scared to seek any "professional" help as i've been down that road and i am not ill.... My reality is ill but I am not ill, there is a difference, and there is no way I could get out of it without little notes being written about me that could affect my future. I don't want that. As I don't even know what's wrong, there is no wat a doctor could know what is wrong.... I have been distant from people most of my life, and I grew up on a farm until i was 15. I never went to school until 14, and all I really knew was one friend and my brothers and sister-mum etc. I then left home at 15 to a childrens' home because of the relationships that were crumbling at home, and the arguements, i ended up staying there for a year and experimenting with pot and drink for the first time and being in a world so totally bizarre and extreme to me. But I coped with it ok, despite getting a taste of the streets. It was a culture shock though. After that I've moved around about 12 times now, and I am in my own flat that is funded by social services even though I am technically not with them anymore. i am very alone, and have no friends, apart from one "friend" who lives in the area but I don't see relationships the same as other people. It's one of the hardest milestones for me. I can't even trust people when I walk out of my door, I feel as if I am being stalked, in real life or when I am on the net - i don't trust things, but I think I trust too much. Funny huh. I know that there is a thin line between my home and homelessness where if anything went wrong I'd have to sign the homeless register as my ex social worker said.... Reality is finally kicking into me and I see how delicate my situation is - the support worker I am working with a couple of times a week is going to leave me in 6 months time, I am going to move to a council flat again, in another area I don't know, and this time i will be fully alone... Day to day i am struggling, even though I go to college and I've just got a job, those things are not real to me - my imaginary world was real to me but now both worlds' have merged and I am lost in this limbo dream world that feels as if it's coming from inside my head. Everything feels hostile and unreal and I am just waiting to die. I don't know what else to do. I don't even feel pleasure like other poeple, so how the hell can I survive in this world???? The thing is, to PUSH yourself, which I have done only a little bit, and by myself (job, college), - you need to have some respect for yourself. I can LIVE with myself, as in, survive myself, but I don't see the point in carrying on a life that has only responsiblity for itself, and if that life doesn't feel intimacy like other people or fears it, how can you move on? I can't even go to the pub with anyone without shitting myself that I'm gonna get raped. That's not normal, even to my ex friend who's been assualted, she said I was paranoid. I hated her for it, as I have a keener gut instinct, but maybe she is right.... The thing is, i have no "normal" template with which to go on, so how can a 19 year old girl in this situation sort all this crap out alone when i don't even know where to start, why I should start, and how... I don't feel love, I don't... I don't believe in all that stuff and I actually oppose to good experiences - "good" things make me feel sick in the stomach. I have small pleasures in life like music, and writing, and watching TV and smoking and I am VERY grateful that I am alive still and not on the streets or anything, which I nearly was when I was in a B&B a year ago. But that gratefulness is dwindling, and I am wondering why i should live on in a world that has no boundaries other than the law.... How can i open myself up to a guy if he hurts me and I never trust again even more? How can I attempt to make friends when I don't even like people or understand them anymore, and know that TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE, you can't keep wasting time. My life is wasting itself away and I am afraid that everything I nkow now will be gone - I don't want to lose things but I've already lost everything but myself.... I am sorry that this post was horrendously long, but I need some insight into stuff.... Again, sorry. Posted on 10/29/09, 12:10 pm |
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Oh Hon, You are just in a dark tunnel right now. There is light at the end of it. You really should try to find another therapist. Not all therapist are the same. Just as your friend was misdiagnosed, you may have been too. You may be really surprised how many of us really relate to what you're saying. Sometimes I get totally bummed out at the thought of eating. I don't know how many times I've said "I wish we didn't need food to survive", or "I wish we didn't have to sleep" or at other times "wish I could sleep". I think seeing the world differently is true for alot us here, at least for me. It sounds like you have much to be proud of yourself for. Going to school and holding down a job is difficult by itself. Being able to do that while you are feeling like you do is a great accomplishment. I think you are alot stronger than you give yourself credit for. A good therapist can help you understand why you see the world as you do. It's not easy! Usually it gets worse before it gets better. I've had a set back this week, but therapy has been bringing me to a point that I believe one day, I will do more than just exist. I believe you will to. Hugs... 
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Hey.... Jay is right... it's a dark tunnel and a long one, but I'm proof that there is light at the end and it's not usually a train coming.
CPTSD *is* different from PTSD.... it's similar in symptoms, not so much so in effect on brain chemistry, but definitely in some of the very ways you describe. You describe disassociation of emotions... not feeling what seems to be the right feeling to have, or not understanding a feeling you;d heard described that you have never felt. I was that way about unconditional Love.... I had not ever experienced it to my memory... so when I did feel it for the first time a few years ago, I had absolutely no clue what it was or where it came from. I was completely blindsided and confused by it. Then there were the feelings at come with that and my situation, that weren't right... didn't fit the moment... more confusion, and had to add Masking into the list of symptoms (of which I was, and still am in many ways a master.... I can make even the best read me with the exact emotion and personality I want them to see). You need to see a PTSD specialist and get a real diagnosis. it may not be PTSD or CPTSD.... but it sure sounds like it to me, and a specialist would know for sure.... and trust me, most non-specialists will miss it or treat it incorrectly, doing more harm than good. In my never humble opinion, D.
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"... the thing that actually happened changed the way I think about the world, resulting in me beginning to believe that there wasn't that much wrong to begin with.... Now I am left confused."
I wanted to add that this is one of the key things that separate CPTSD from "typical" PTSD. The feeling that the traumas we experienced and the results are somehow "normal", that they are something that everyone goes through. People with PTSD (usually) can remember "normal" and know what it is they are trying to get back to. CPTSD can't. I had a friend ask me once, and I paraphrased the question and my answer in one of the two poems I've written in my life, "What exists when you lose reality?"... my answer was another question: "What if reality only exists in our imagination?". in a later part of the poem, one stanza reads: "Do you know what can be torn away? What can be stolen from one so young that it is buried forever? Do you know that things can be so lost and discarded as so much rubbish, as to never have existed? Do you know what it’s like to NOT understand? To NOT feel what is EXPECTED to be felt? To SETTLE for what can?" I actually wrote this shortly before I was diagnosed with PTSD, and allowing my specialist PDoc to read the entire poem, and this stanza in particular, led to her asking the questions that lead to her refining my diagnosis to CPTSD. The point is, that I was feeling things at the time that were completely alien to me. I was flashing and triggering like crazy, and didn't even realize it or what those things were. it was "Normal". It's been part of my life from such an early age (2 years old) and lasted so long (almost 20 years) that I didn't know any different. I thought everyone lived like that. I thought everyone had holes in their memory, that they all spent their lives waiting for the other shoe to drop. I didn't know from Disassociation, Hyper-vigilance, or my arse. I still have days where I'm not sure if it wasn't "Normal" to fear coming home because I might find my Mom dead, or worse... alive and bleeding from her slit wrists or her head in the oven and the house filled with gas.... to try to protect my Sister from the trauma of repeated episodes of Mom being dragged from the house fighting and screaming against her "captors" as they took her to a mental institution or another. Many of us are right there in the tunnel beside you Giger, looking for a flashlight, and considering something as brief as a muzzle flash. Together we can find it and the way out. Please let us know how you're doing. Remember than hanging IN there is far, far better than hanging FROM there. I know... I've seen it and made her survive it in spite of herself. D.
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