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.
Does anybody have experience with that feeling that comes with PTSD from the shame of surviving abuse? That feeling that you're never good enough? That you have to be driven to be better all the time?
I should explain, I guess, that my childhood abuser was a bipolar father who refused treatment and became, for a time, a fringe religious fanatic leader until his own church threw him out for his psychotic, violent antics. Which he never acknowledged. But I was raised with constant verbal abuse daily about how I was unworthy. I was beaten bloody (literally) on a regular basis as a kid as punishment for being supposedly worthless.
My mother was twisted sexually from a very repressed upbringing in the religious fringe world. She would have me get beatings from my crazy dad claiming to him I'd had "impure thoughts," so she was no builder of self-confidence, either.
** TRIGGER ALERT**
Example: The night I came home from starring in the high school play I got a beating at home from both parents for the so-called sin of pride. I had to kiss a girl on stage in the play, too, so my severely sexually repressed mother egged my already jealous and angry father on to give me a real beating. She made up false accusations that the girl and I were secretly having sex (I was a virgin in high school until college).
I swear I didn't do anything but play my part well in that play that night, and my father broke my nose for it in a psychotic rage. So, shall we say, I did not grow up in an environment that built self esteem. That's just one example. Every major positive milestone in a kid's life was scarred somehow by violence and psychotic spite from one or the other of my abusive parents. Until I ran away from home at age 17, finally, to safety.
As an adult, then, there's been this drive to prove I am actually worth while. It's been a good thing for me in some ways in my life. It's made me strive to rise above my miserable childhood and get a good education. To be a good person, which I've done. And I was careful not to be a parent at all so at least I wouldn't be like them.
But now that I'm older, I'm getting to the point of thinking it's ok to stop proving myself over and over. To say, "I do not want what I have not got." Kind of like that Zen Buddhist idea of acceptance.
Anybody else know what I mean about that hidden driven feeling that comes from PTSD? It can get old. I think I can do without it more as I get better in managing my anxiety from PTSD and have some more peace. What do you all think?
I should explain, I guess, that my childhood abuser was a bipolar father who refused treatment and became, for a time, a fringe religious fanatic leader until his own church threw him out for his psychotic, violent antics. Which he never acknowledged. But I was raised with constant verbal abuse daily about how I was unworthy. I was beaten bloody (literally) on a regular basis as a kid as punishment for being supposedly worthless.
My mother was twisted sexually from a very repressed upbringing in the religious fringe world. She would have me get beatings from my crazy dad claiming to him I'd had "impure thoughts," so she was no builder of self-confidence, either.
** TRIGGER ALERT**
Example: The night I came home from starring in the high school play I got a beating at home from both parents for the so-called sin of pride. I had to kiss a girl on stage in the play, too, so my severely sexually repressed mother egged my already jealous and angry father on to give me a real beating. She made up false accusations that the girl and I were secretly having sex (I was a virgin in high school until college).
I swear I didn't do anything but play my part well in that play that night, and my father broke my nose for it in a psychotic rage. So, shall we say, I did not grow up in an environment that built self esteem. That's just one example. Every major positive milestone in a kid's life was scarred somehow by violence and psychotic spite from one or the other of my abusive parents. Until I ran away from home at age 17, finally, to safety.
As an adult, then, there's been this drive to prove I am actually worth while. It's been a good thing for me in some ways in my life. It's made me strive to rise above my miserable childhood and get a good education. To be a good person, which I've done. And I was careful not to be a parent at all so at least I wouldn't be like them.
But now that I'm older, I'm getting to the point of thinking it's ok to stop proving myself over and over. To say, "I do not want what I have not got." Kind of like that Zen Buddhist idea of acceptance.
Anybody else know what I mean about that hidden driven feeling that comes from PTSD? It can get old. I think I can do without it more as I get better in managing my anxiety from PTSD and have some more peace. What do you all think?
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
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First, I hope everyone is doing well, and continuing to fight that good fight! Keep up the great work on yourselves; I'm rooting for all of you!So, I started doing therapy at the beginning of the year, when I was in my most depressed state, but with my therapist, I made big changes and steps in the right direction. But, over a month ago, she couldn't take my insurance anymore, and I had to stop...
I am in my forties, and precisely this evening I was thinking "I'm already going on 50, and I still act like I have to (a) prove myself about my capabilities and good qualities and (b) consistently having to tell myself about my good qualities and capabilities.
So yes, I do know that need you talk about. I too went to college, and I am an overachiever. Letting go of all that trauma of feeling that I have to do something all the time to better something about me or about my life, all that is what I'm starting to deal with.
I found that I have spent a great deal of my life not enjoying what I have accomplished, but always looking for ways to "improve" more.
Will say from the outset, I know we are not here to say who's upbringing was worse than who else's, but my history doesn't even broach what you guys are talking about.
Still, as the designated rational person in each and every relationship (I keep it sane while people around me flip out), it has finally occured to me over recent years that I hold myself to a way higher standard than I hold anyone around me. This does two things: it lets others ride, possibly doing less well than they might, and it leaves me exhausted.
It may just be age, but I'm feeling more like the Cathy Bates character in Fried Green Tomatoes (bordering on mindblowing frustration, alternating with resigned exhaustion) than the Jessica Tandy character (the toned down version of a gal who has lived with some real verve). I'd way rather be Jessica (or Idgy Threadgood), and I'm not sure I have enough insurance to pull off the Cathy Bates role anyways. Something's gotta give.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXZs3mjGlQU
So I do need to have a better plan.
People can't underestimate how those kind of events instruct us to keep trying (or perhpas, do less well than we could, so we don't show other people up) well into adulthood.
It's good we can see it. Understanding how this came to be is a step toward moving ourselves away from feeling driven.
Or, to redirect the "drive" to fulfilling our own purpose. That's good too.
I may have to re-watch "Good Will Hunting" today. It speaks my own story well, with much artistic licence, naturally.
At 15 i was sent to live with my very oldest sister and i asked to go back to school on my own and i did..
Then this is waht fucked all up again.I was sent to live with another sister going college..This sister was emotionally BRUTAL she had been all her life towards me.I did not have the physical abuse but her emotional cruelty and my father's was brutal.....So needless to say i dropped everything, school, gymnastics and tried to commit suicide when that did not worked i took off with 100 bucks to NYC and never went back with my family.....Or back to school either..
And my experience with her and her college friends was so BAD.I got sexually abused again by her much older college friends too....nothing triggers me more than college campuses and groups of college kids.I tried to go back to scholl and one day at the campus and i never went back.
I've been told i am self-educated and my curiosity is there i just refuse to go to a campus..
And yeah i feel like i have to prove to people myself to people all the time.As they usually assume i'm stupid if i have no education.
But this is an interesting topic because there are other ways that i have been driven by my PTSD in an unconscious way....
I have move from place to place and done things out of my PTSD subconscious reasons.
I was watching this show on TV and it was about a guy (real life) who one day just left his family and went to live in the desert by himself eluding everyone.
It called the atte of the cops in Arizona as we was seen on and off and people thought it was weird.The cops thought he was possibly dangerous or a terrorist so he was hunted down.
I knew as i was watching the show PTSD! and at the end of the show when they were about to finally catch him he shot himself.
Found that he had been a soldier from another country just acting out his PTSD...
That is why i think self-analysis is very important PTSD has me here in Florida wondering why did i come here out of the blue?
And I still feel inadequate.
In High School I had the lead in the musicals Sophomore, Junior, and Senior year and was recruited by Sarah Lawrence College (performing arts school). For someone coming from a village of 500 people in rural Ohio that's kind of a big deal. Of course I didn't go...
In Junior High I won an Environmental Science Award at the Regional Science fair (nerd alert!) and went to State.
In grade school I was in the gifted program, won awards for creative writing, and was asked to skip 2 grades, which of course, my mother refused...because...
confidence and accomplishment was reserved only for my mother.
And on the occasion I did accomplish something, which I did, she would take full credit for it, because I could have never done it without her superior mothering skills. Did I mention she's a narcissist?
Anyway, it's left me with zero ability to genuinely feel proud about any of my achievements. I cognitively know I did something good, and should feel proud of myself, but I honestly experience the accomplishment as hollow.
I've even become overweight because I can't deal with how my mother gets her narcissistic supply "fix" off people complimenting my looks (I've modeled a bit in the past), and the real kicker is that she still gets something out if me being chubby and feeling ugly...she gets to watch me fail, which is like heroin to her. Win or lose, I lose, she wins.
I could go on...
I was never good enough for my folks either, my sister was always much more academic than me. Though, I dont think that was nearly as damaging for me as now in college having to beg and plead for so many things (I always feel like Oliver Twist "please sir may I stay in school?") and since I am mostly put into these situations by my father and he is okay with me having to live this way..well to me that hurts a whole lot more.
I think I do go back and forth from extremes of either very confident or completely vanquished. The more I think about it the more this is true.
A happy middle area would be nice.
I can totally relate. I constantly feel like I need to earn my place in this world. I can recite quantifiable facts about myself - even if they may seem positive - but as far as accepting subjective statements like "you are good", "you are a good ____________", "you are a nice person," "you deserve to be cared for/loved/helped/blessed/etc." - I just can't stand them. I feel so HORRIBLE all the time. I feel like I am the worst person in the entire world. People try to pull out logic against that, but I swear that it's how I feel inside. I'm not trying to exaggerate or be overly dramatic or whatnot. I am just speaking what is true in my mind.
I constantly feel like I have to do better so I don't "get what's coming to me". If I do well at work, I'm not doing well enough in school. If I do well at both, I'm not being a good enough friend. Even if I am surrounded by friends, I don't feel like it could possibly have anything to do with me, but is just because of the kind of people they are. I just struggle all the time. I don't know if it gets better. I try to spend as little time as possible thinking about myself because it just never leads to any place good.
Anyways, I am wishing you well in all you do & hope that you are able to find that deep peace & freedom you seem to be seeking.
gigi
51%, absolutely, I went into theology from my thinking about being a good person, and what a good person was. I was wise enough to do it after I was 40 years old and had been through 15 years of therapy. So that's why I chose the one on one ministry of the chaplaincy, where I could put my own counseling to work. Rather than be up on the altar performing at a church, which I see as such a good thing for some. But I've seen it be a trap for others who never do face their issues of self worth. They wind up trying to just get by on the adulation of the congregation.
Sometimes they end up going farther when that doesn't work, and have an ethical problem becoming involved with a member of their own congregation, craving approval. I'm referring to a friend and colleague in the ministry who fell from grace like that. So it was better for me to enter the ministry after 40 and having some issues clear.
I was amazed by how many of us have overachieved in education and/or played the role of the rational individual in an irrational family system, like guayaba said. There are advantages to that. It made me a good ER chaplain to be able to be so able to be rational in the midst of chaos. But it gets old to be stuck in that role in intimate relationships.
Thanks for letting me know the feeling is validated among us by common experience. And also that my current old geezer feeling of wanting to rest on my laurels is ok, too. I'm planning to have a very lazy weekend. :-)
I have issues but I never talk about it because no one seem to care.