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.
I've been divorced twice, sad to say. I got through both without abuse or infidelity on my part by living up to the lessons I learned from a dysfunctional, violent family of origin, though. So neither of my own wedding anniversaries triggers my PTSD.
The wedding anniversary that triggers me is that on August 26th of my parents, who are gone and from whom I had to be estranged for my own safety during my adult life. It's a hard thing to feel that the union that gave birth to you was also the union of two monsters. I grew as an adult in safety and therapy to see my parents as just people who were mentally ill and refused treatment though they knew better.
But when I was a kid and they were beating me bloody in blackout rages they later honestly did not remember, they were real monsters to me. The flashbacks from monsters stomping around my home like a couple of Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaurs when I was a kid return now to me as an adult every August 26th. They beat each other like monsters then, too. My dad put my mom in the hospital with a beating once. I've written here before about what happened next. When he took us kids to see her there she took him down by the scrotum right there in the ER in front of doctors and nurses and continued the fight for round two. Monsters that shamed us kids in front of them all.
So theirs is a wedding anniversary that brings life's biggest paradox to the forefront for me every year. That if my monster parents hadn't gotten married, I would never have existed. I can't regret my own existence, then. However, a union that loaded with monstrous violence is hard to celebrate.
Since I don't have flashbacks on my own two wedding anniversaries even though they led to divorce, I've proven to myself that I'm able to to process stuff in my own life that was under my own control. But stuff from before that, stuff beyond my control like stuff from my monster family of origin stays with me and haunts me.
Anybody else find trauma and recovery can be like that? That recovery from stuff from your own adult life is never easy but it's attainable, while recovery from your childhood is what is harder?
-
Hey All...I hope that you have a lovely, peaceful beginning of your weekI have a bunch of chores that need doing but may put them off til tomorrow and just hang out with my landlord/roomie todayWhat about you?...Anything special going on?Have a great day and take good care of you!!..Xo
-
Once again I've had a fever today. I'm not going to the hospital because that's a huge waste of time but I did schedule a dr appointment for Wednesday afternoon.
It was supposed to be some sort of surprise.
My mother's response...4-5 hours of telling me how much of a mistake that she'd made marrying my father.
And that was the only time that I ever got them an anniversary present.
I'm sorry that you were so badly hurt...… Reading the letters my father sent from WW2 was a real gift to me...
I saw the young man in them before the rage.... Just a kid and a pretty loving young guy from what I've read
It was a real gift to me however I still go back and forth with feelings of anger and hurt even now...…
Another hug and a blessing.....xo
Gentlest of hugs <3
And I left that family of origin when I was 16. Only went back four or five times.
Every time I went there, I would shake uncontrollably. Those two humans scared me so much, as to what they were capable of doing and saying.
I was about 5 years old when they married. But I don't remember much of that day. I can experience many memories of what it was like when I see a couple together with children, noticing how different it was for me. Still happens to me to this day. So perhaps it is as simpsonik stated that that kind of trauma is hard-wired into our brains. and that I had no control then over what happened. Just a witness and a victim as you were.
Hope that this anniversary passes quickly for you. Be kind and good to yourself muji. ☼
Steadying support while you ride out your anniversary syndrome, Muji.
FWIW:
You just reminded me that my 38th wedding anniversary is tomorrow. I just sent Hubby back to the city without even remembering to mention it. Sigh. . . Oh well. . . Don't know if he forgot or just decided not to mention it. No matter. Traditional romance is not our strong suit. Never has been. We are both pretty convinced our marriage has lasted far beyond the world-wide average because we aren't afraid to customize.
Like was said here, it helps to bear in mind childhood memories are hard wired into us in our childhood development years, whereas adult memories are not. And so we can shed the adult ones more than we can shed the ones from when we were children.
Now to screw up the courage to go back to that job of mine...One thing at a time, right? And only a couple of years more ahead to retirement, when that will end so I can have my 2nd happier childhood in old age.
I would say before therapy I still had a childlike way of handling all stress and trauma. As an adult up until my early 30's I took on everything as my fault, rapes, domestic violence and my kids molestation. I didnt even know none of it was my fault or that I didnt deserve it.
I knew I didnt want that stuff to happen but my inner voice couldnt separate fault and not wanting it. It's been a difficult 5-7 years of forgiving myself and then to accepting my role of innocents in it.
Losing my dad has been the worst I've been through these last years and I even took that fault on myself until the therapist showed me otherwise. Being the family scapegoat hasn't come without its damages but I must say it's getting easier to process stuff a lot faster than it was in the past.