Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
Find support with others who have gone through a traumatic experience. Whether you have chronic or acute PTSD, we are here for you.
Hi I am a male survivor of childhood sexual trauma, and recently I was sexually assaulted by someone I was involved with. Ummm, I am really struggling with myself, more on the recent trauma than I struggled with on the childhood stuff. I have been dissociating and I am really starting to wonder if I have gone completely crazy... I was hurt physically during the recent assault, and the physical reminders are part of what hurts so bad. I am seeing a wonderful therapist, who gives me great suggestions on how to cope, but the assault was just 3 weeks ago and I am so messed up from it. My therapist asked me to visualize a safe, happy place and he was shocked when I said the desert, and that the most beautiful thing to me was a blooming cactus. He brought me a cactus and an aloe plant and I am supposed to look at it at night to visualize the desert. I also have a worry stone that distracts me from intrusive thoughts and I am supposed to suck on a mint when I feel myself starting to slip. All these ideas have worked about as well as one can hope them to work 3 weeks in; it's about 50% of the time. My only issue with therapy right now is that I am running out of money to see this guy and I have only seen him 5 times. I hope I dont have to quit therapy because I can't afford it but... It is not pretty at the moment. The psychiatrist put me on 20 mg of Lexapro, but I am still super anxious and depressed. Life does not seem very enjoyable. My puppy helps but I am so anxious. I go to college 5 days a week so I am kept busy, but I hurt my foot and had to have surgery so I am laid up at home currently and the assault just plays and replays in my head. Logically I know it is not my fault but it is so easy to blame myself, especially because o my past... I don't know... Just had to get that off my chest...
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88FIn 1969 we decided to get married without a big wedding. Most of our friends and family liked large over the top for the time kind of weddings and I did not. First, I didn't see why spending so much money for one day when we have the rest of our lives to live. I have never regretted not having a big formal wedding. Another issue is not liking all the attention. Also, we have gone to big...
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We're all troubled.WSo, to remind ourselves we're not at rock bottom (this is a reverse optimism thing I learned as a kid):We are not living on the island of Krakatoa when the volcano goes boom!Yeah, okay, that sucks.***Toay in 1942, Pierre Laval announced that the way to free France was for Germany to win WW2. Pierre did not win a lot of friends. When the war ended, quite quickly he was tried...
In my own strictly personals, by the time I am dissociating, I let go of the worry about whether or not I am going crazy. I have arrived. Dealing with ugly, hard facts is never easier, but letting them be hard facts simplifies things for me. For me. Each to his/her own. . . The healing roads are long and winding.
It took me allot of years to learn how to use therapy tools effectively, but . . . I seem to be spending less and less time ricocheting around Crazy Land as I continue to practice the ones which work for me. I simply leave the ones which don't work for me.
My avi is my current support dog. No, she hasn't cured my symptoms, but she is second to none on nagging me through my psychotic episodes. She nags like a REAL bitch. Sometimes her nags are as gentle as a hopeful tail wag or a wet-nosed nudge to wake me from a nightmare.
I guess I am rambling, again. I do that allot. . . Works in progress. . .
Again, welcome, Danny. I hope you will pull up a chair and sit a spell.
Share when and as you want. We're here:-)
I had thought I was for so many years and had suffered in isolation. When my therapist got me to go back to my elementary school's town abroad for exposure therapy in 2009, finding out I wasn't the only one really changed things for the better for me. I also found out how one of the five of us was coping now as an adult, and I found out that our military advisor perpetrator had gotten caught when he came back to the USA. US justice convicted him and put him in prison, and there he was killed by another inmate. I didn't know any of that until my exposure therapy trip in 2009, and it gave me closure.
It took so long for all of that healing to happen that it makes me all the more sorry that you were assaulted yet again recently. I'm glad to see how well you've handled your most recently assault as well as you have, to be honest. You're accepting your Lexapro and your therapist's help, you're staying functional going to college 5 days a week. That's a lot. I lost a full scholarship once because I was unable to do that. Congrats for not isolating. You're using the worry stone so you don't do that, and using a mint for that, too. That's really great. That sort of thing helps me, too. When intrusive thoughts come when I'm trying to teach at my job as an instructor I have a lozenge in my pocket and take it out to suck on so I can concentrate and go on leading class.
I had a disadvantage in my recovery in that I come from a very homophobic family. It attacked me for being a male sexual assault survivor even though it's not the same thing. My mom rejected me completely so my dad punched me in the face after 3 days of raging ina rejection fit he staged against me about it at a Christmas visit I had to him, so I had to break off contact. That was hard, especially since I'm straight, but that was not the issue. It made me empathetic to gay people and what they go through, and in return gay and straight people I talked to about my family gave me support. I came here and found the support I needed.
I hope support here gets you through, too. For a long time I just got support at first, it seemed, but then I found I was giving support, too, just by saying to the next person "you're not alone." That right there has a lot of power for daily strength.
Scott