Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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Hi, my name is nellie, and I am doing really well these days. I'm happy with peace of mind a lot of the time. I'm a walking miracle on how it used to be, and put that down to intensive therapy and some psych meds.
Anyway, back in 1986 i first landed in a drug and alcohol detox (age 27) in a severely traumatised state. Withdrawals were hideous, coming off copious amounts of alcohol and xanax.
I was still at that stage hoping for family support. No one visited, and then i went to a shocking drug and alcohol rehab for 5 months.
After being extremely bullied there - the system encouraged it - I was fully extremely traumatised and quite psychotic.
For the next 10 years I was in and out of psych hospital, sober. Early on, I'd still hoped for some support from my brothers and sister, but it just wasn't there. They ignored me for a decade or so, and pretended nothing was happening.
This was devastating to me - more so as I got better, and realised what had been missing.
So, I've had lots of deep pain when I think about it. I've had some contact with one brother A. over the last 10 years, never of course talking about what I was going through or went through. The contact is quite superficial.
finally, in January, I attempted to address the lack of support. I talked about it with A., that I felt a lot of pain from it - he admitted he 'could have been more brotherly'.
Still, it's now October, and I still get pain from my lack of family, and from the superficial contact I do have with A..
i don't know what to do. I want to let go of the pain - I'm not sure how to? A. wants me to come visit soon, he's friendly. I feel I need to say more about the complete lack of support.
But maybe I don't need to say any more. Maybe I just need to do something inward?
I probably need to try and understand him better, after all he came from the same f''''cked up family as myself. Growing up, there was a profound lack of communication.
I would like to hear from anyone who can relate. I would love to hear how others have come to terms with their lack of family. thanks.
Anyway, back in 1986 i first landed in a drug and alcohol detox (age 27) in a severely traumatised state. Withdrawals were hideous, coming off copious amounts of alcohol and xanax.
I was still at that stage hoping for family support. No one visited, and then i went to a shocking drug and alcohol rehab for 5 months.
After being extremely bullied there - the system encouraged it - I was fully extremely traumatised and quite psychotic.
For the next 10 years I was in and out of psych hospital, sober. Early on, I'd still hoped for some support from my brothers and sister, but it just wasn't there. They ignored me for a decade or so, and pretended nothing was happening.
This was devastating to me - more so as I got better, and realised what had been missing.
So, I've had lots of deep pain when I think about it. I've had some contact with one brother A. over the last 10 years, never of course talking about what I was going through or went through. The contact is quite superficial.
finally, in January, I attempted to address the lack of support. I talked about it with A., that I felt a lot of pain from it - he admitted he 'could have been more brotherly'.
Still, it's now October, and I still get pain from my lack of family, and from the superficial contact I do have with A..
i don't know what to do. I want to let go of the pain - I'm not sure how to? A. wants me to come visit soon, he's friendly. I feel I need to say more about the complete lack of support.
But maybe I don't need to say any more. Maybe I just need to do something inward?
I probably need to try and understand him better, after all he came from the same f''''cked up family as myself. Growing up, there was a profound lack of communication.
I would like to hear from anyone who can relate. I would love to hear how others have come to terms with their lack of family. thanks.
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My day...today...misplaced my debit card...didn't realize it until I got to the register after shopping to a full cart. Used a different debit card and pulled apart everything looking for missing debit card before I left parking lot. Got home, dropped keys. So now I have a missing debit card, missing keys. A full cartload to unload and put away. I got everything put away.Dumped purse for a...
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I don't really know how to label this but I having a rough week and I can't say it's one thing.... I have a lot on my plate which is nothing new and I try to cope in many positive ways and do but I still have my moments.My kids more so my daughters talk to me about everything which I know it's cause of comfort and we are close.... however I really struggle with the venting about their dad which...
My contact with my large and pervasive-like-parasites Dad's family? E-mailing now and then with one of his siblings. That's it. All the old notions of family loyalty and being horrible for "abandoning" them and so on? Guilt, stress, horror show. But... Am I happier overall? Yep.
I have a loving hubby, a few BFFs going back literally 30 years now (oh I'm feeling old), and my PTSD DS family, my DS Fibro board friends, those who like me for me, not because DNA "said so".
Grieve for the could-have-would-have-what-ifs, Nellie. THat's all I can do, and all any therapist has yet suggested is possible. Grieve for the loss of possibilities. For the void. We're here. Several of us have similar experiences with unsupportive family, and wanting some sort of resolution or healing.
And since I'm realizing how wonderfully long fu*ked-up families can continue to f*ck up a life.... It may be your brother can't cope with more than superficial contact because of his own experiences?
Gentle support, Nellie. You are not alone.
For some of us it means just no family contact. If your family was the scene of the abuse, no contact brings a lot of peace and resolution. Then you create your own family of choice from your support group friends.
It means grieving the loss of family, but there's a gain there in closure and moving on for yourself.
I noticed you felt the rehab you went to encouraged bullying. Wow, that must have been rough. I've been talking to other support group friends about that lately, and it happened to them, too.
Sometimes we still have the pain even after talking, but A can't undo the past. He can only change today forward.
I had a similar conversation with a sibling, He thought he was doing the best he could by backing away and not antagonizing the mother unit. He could not have stopped her then,only self sustained at the time.
When you say lack of support, think about the real age of the both of you at the time.
Did either of you have the ways and means or even strength to change the situation(s)? Would you have let him at that time change your habits? Would you have changed them on your own at that time?
27 is a point of change for many. I know there is a reason for this being an axis point. We seem to evaluate where we are at that age by looking at where we will be in the future of that age doubled. (54-60)
He saw you getting help and trying over and over again, not giving up...until the now you have reached. Though seeing and knowing how to support someone is a learned characteristic, the same as empathy compassion and industry...they are done by trial an error and transference of yourself into the shoes of another... And doing any of that is harder if a person is caught in a coping mode with their own life.
I hear you examining your own thought process on this, which is good. It means you know there is a complication that you have to sort.
This is an area I usually stay away from so here goes a TW if for no one but myself...
Would you close the door and never contact A again?
Would you wish on A your pain of this, your life?
Would you want that as justice?
Could you live with it if he couldn't live with the above?
These answers are all about you and your perceptions of what is important to you.
I have lost too many to various reasons without thanking them for the help they did give. Not all meant something in the moment but I am here because of the cumulative effect of those small helps I was given.
My answer to all the above questions is NO. But I don't have the opportunity to start again with any of them...not in this life.
Support while you sort. He is extending his hand now, will you? Gentle hugs of hope.
J.
Ps. prudence says keep an out handy if it gets to be too much. Planned time outs and excursions to things that feed your soul on the trip.
At 22 (1976), I was introduced to the concept of, "Healing as an orphan." It grew into a ritualized and since discredited "Therapy Funeral" stating that my best chance of healing was leave my birth family out of my therapy efforts, entirely. The clan mostly just let me go. Family estrangement is the only solid family tradition my birth family has. As the 5th of 11, I am not sure all of them even know I am gone yet. Every so often, one of the sibs and/or their adult offspring show up to tell me how I should run my life to their benefit, but they mostly leave me be.
Nearly 40 years later, I still feel what I call, "The Phantom Limb Syndrome." I have other names for it, as well, but I feel like phantom limb syndrome because it describes it so well. However diseased the limb which was amputated, the body remembers it is supposed to be there and feels it, even in its absence, however long the absence. I can live a long, healthy life with only one leg to stand on, but I would regrow the limb, if I could. I.F. . .
One of my sibs committed suicide in 1982. 8 of the remaining 9 are still living the family cycle. The exception sounds kinda like your "Brother A." My "Sis A" is as damaged as I am. She only has so much to give and most of that is invested in keeping her own life as functional as possible. We have become partners in healing. TV ideals we ain't, but learning how to love one another, warts and all, while sharing our honest pain and joining hands in healing hopes continues to be one of the most profound experiences in my healing journey. It is not about being perfect. It is about working it out.
Strictly my personal experience. . .
Gentle support while you sort your own, nellie. Congratulations on your progress. It is good to hear that it be good things which keep you away.
In my opinion, you have every right and reason to feel as let down as you do. I know that for much of my life I was struggling too much to have been there for my siblings, but I do feel regret about it in retrospect. I hope that you will be able to have a dialogue with your brother. Say what you have to say, but also listen. This is the best way for you to open up to a better relationship going forward. I hope you will find out that your brother is able to be a caring person and not a selfish creature who absorbed false lessons from the family about your value and purpose in life.
In crappy families, a lot of times each person becomes sealed inside their own world, struggling to survive. I hope that you and your brother coming out of that isolation to connect with each other will prove to be healing and helpful for you.
anyway, that's what I intend to do. Let go, and take my relationship with my brother A. from here on in. he did come from a very dysfunctional home, and absorbed denial as a way to cope.
cheers, Nellie.