Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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Even if my healing is miraculous, I will never trust, never risk being betrayed at all costs.
The damage betrayal did to me was profound and immediate, my male ego never quite recovered from the lies, manipulation and coldness.
Of course my abusive childhood, made me extremely vulnerable to be used and impossible for me to endure.
All of my abuse that haunts me now happened before I was 20, starting at age five, when I was helpless and ending in such a horrific public betrayal in college.
In my head, I do not want to be the betrayed or ridiculed , ever, ever, ever, ever again.
In fact, I do not want to be me.
It has changed my whole outlook and value, or should I say life has lost its value for me.
How do you replace value and worth when it is destroyed.
How do you make it ok for me to Trust?
I have went to a decade of therapy, practiced on my own, meditated for at least 10,000 hours, read everything on trauma, neuroscience, ptsd, therapy and war I could devour.
For five years I spent 8 to 10 hours a day devoted to healing.
I trust less now after facing my fears and improving.
Yea, I know, just distract myself or let the past go.
Really!
Can we ever rewire what was hard wired as abuse in childhood.
I do not think so.
I think psychology tries to act like they have answers for serious abused kids, cures.
I think they have hard enough issues trying to help those heal with regular PTSD.
How do look at therapy and healing?
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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...
Not
Manifest in kids who were seriously abused
We
Do
Not trust because our caregivers abused us
On top of that I was beat every Thursday at supper for puking Lima beans
Yes I was forced fed and beaten with a home made paddle with holes drilled in it to hurt more every Thursday
That was for shits and giggles
My fathers intent was to let me know he did not need a reason to brutalize me
Let me tell you trust does not manifest after all of that
That was just childhood
Just do not trust beyond a certain point
I do not trust where I can be betrayed
Sex has been ample
Intimacy stopped with horrendous betrayal after a abusive childhood
My fears will not let me hold hands
Hug
Or have intimacy
I have never trusted a woman since I was 19
At 69 I doubt if it is estoteric for me
Mine was emblazoned on my soul
I find it impossible to even think this is up for discussion in my life
My experience is not like yours
What works for you does not work for me
But your sarcasm does not sit well with me
Take a shot and I will return your volley
I question if I am a trustworthy person. I wonder if anyone is trustworth*less*. For me? The more personal the trust ----- a friend, a spouse, a DNA-family member, a colleague, a teacher, etc. ---- the deeper the pain. The more severe the betrayal in our perception, the harder to trust again. That's my take, and not a statement on anyone else's experiences or healing process or survival mechanism.
So... Trust... no matter how deeply I trust, it's never without a shred of wariness, I suspect.
Peace.
We are codependent if abused in childhood
We crave approval but do not trust the people we sacrifice to gain approval from
A very confusing sentiment for us
For me
I never attached to either parent or another adult my whole childhood
So my childhood was void of trusting any adult
Betrayal destroyed what little trust that was left
How do we navigate life like this
Not well at times for me
In PTSD recovery in general, I find it useful to think in terms of a spectrum of functionality rather than binary terms like normal/abnormal. I bring the same to the topic of trust. If someone doesn't trust, it's their choice. The question is, how does it affect their functioning in the world?
If it impairs function in something they have a deep desire to accomplish, then it's an obstacle. If not, it's no obstacle to functioning, then. Thinking in these terms lessens the emphasis on judging, whether in terms of judging others re trust or it's about trusting ourselves.
I see the insight
Spectrum
That means your fear
Of trusting is
Mild enough to allow you to make cognitive choices
Maybe some of us are impacted at a much deeper
Primal fear impairs function
Also
Ptsd impairs function
It’s is irrational by definition so judgment rarely is involved in my ability to trust
You
Can judge me as not judging correctly but I would challenge that assessment
How
Many seriously abused kids trust themselves
How many are codependent and never trust anyone
Have you seen the adverse children experiment
Detailing how childhood abuse has permanent damage
Alcoholism addiction cancer diabetes early death and mental illness are endure at much greater numbers
So people are dying from trauma and suffering by their choices
It is epidemic but how does that for on your spectrum
22 soldiers commit suicide everyday for last three
Years
Some recently in the parking lot
How do you
Explain these people
They not make right judgments or spectrum
To pull on the chain of an activated Ptsd person by explaining trust as a cognitive solution is the craziest thing I have heard
If we could talk to Ptsd and it worked
We would all be healed
Last time I checked reality is the opposite
How you think trust is a judgment
I just have no experience with that
You sense danger that is not thought
Abuse as a child kind of blocks the natural trust a brain develops under normal conditions
Our brains were programmed under abuse and fear and trust was absent
I had to survive
Trust has nothing to do with my childhood
I needed to navigate the imminent danger in my childhood
My father
Self assurance
Self respect
Safety
Trust were not part of my chikdhood
Forgiveness
That along with trust is extremely hard for me
As a child raised by a violent narcissist we think we are not worthy even to be alive at times in our life
The narcissistic parent steals our autonomy and we grow to believe the criticism the abusive parent throws at us everyday of childhood
For me I had no autonomous self developed enough to be able to trust
My father told what I would be at five, how I would feel and what was important to me
Any failures to achieve his goals were met with physical and emotional abuse
Self trust had no where to build no time or support to develop
I have no clue how to trust myself even now
No real self is what kids of narcissistic parent ends up with
My father threatened abandonment along with severe beatings for minor or made up offenses
I was beat every Thursday because I would puke the Lima beans
My dad would beat me til he got tired with a special paddle he drilled hole in
To think I even knew I was an individual after childhood would be incorrect
I marvel at how others can trust, have value in relationships or find comfort in a crowd
It comes down to safety and fear
Trust does not develop in that ostrich dish
It's like a tattoo that cant be quite removed. It left a scar on my heart. I had my heart broken by the person I turned it over too and since then it's been like a switch got flipped. I wish I could give you more advice. The only thing I can think is, maybe we just take more risks and we get hurt more...bit pretty soon it wears on you.