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?
i went through abuse too and this is how i see it now
you have been powerless, and you are good enough and no need for proof over and over, you are worth
take care and be well
It was that feeling of never being good enough in combination with the need to protect my bipolar mother, I started, from the very early age, to hide whatever bad happened to me.
I do not think the feeling comes from the PTSD, though. It was always there although I was not aware of it before. But my entire life I was driven by the feeling of worthlessness. It was not until the PTSD I started to understand this..
It's happening in my life, and I give this site a lot of the credit. I can stop here, think about PTSD in my life daily, and then go about all kinds of other business for the rest of my day. That's where I'm losing that "drive" I mentioned in starting this thread, but it's ok now, you know? I'm getting to where I'm good with it. I wish that for all who want it here, too. Blessings.