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 recently been learning about childhood abuse and PTSD.
For years I half-believed friends and family who told me I was mentally ill. Then I got some counseling and found out that I was actually healthy mentally, that the emotional chaos in my life is something people go through when they are subject to stress they can't handle.
Then some buried childhood memories began surfacing...a brutal and abusive father who beat the family dog so severely at times she had to stay in the basement because she could not climb the stairs...a mother who stayed drunk most of the time and never gave me affection...traumatic abuse by a sister who terrorized me when I was very young by sneaking into my room late at night, disguising her voice, and threatening me in the dark. No one believed that little boy who said there was a dark figure who terrorized him late at night.
At school I got beat up a lot because I was weak and sickly and who knows why else. As I moved up to sixth through eighth grade, I became the favorite target of a psychopath who endlessly tormented me. Within a year after graduation, he wound up in a federal penitentiary after he got caught kidnapping and torturing little boys. I remember he used to stab me a lot with sharp things and leave deep puncture wounds.
I had more trauma as a young adult, just when I was getting out of the bad stuff and starting to have a life. I wound up having a psychotic break where I kept thinking I had died and gone into Hell and demons were tormenting me. I had severe flashbacks for years and years after that. For a long time I had to sleep on the floor in my clothes because getting undressed and sleeping in a raised bed made me feel too vulnerable.
I still get flashbacks of that Hell fantasy, even though it was decades ago that I had the psychotic break. I remember that during the break I was sleeping outside in parks and places like that because I was afraid of being indoors at night. Everyone thought I was on drugs, but in truth I wasn't.
Now I'm trying to live on a limited income, raising my own food in a little garden, battling my health problems, and trying to still the wild emotions that plague me...trying to understand it all.
For years I half-believed friends and family who told me I was mentally ill. Then I got some counseling and found out that I was actually healthy mentally, that the emotional chaos in my life is something people go through when they are subject to stress they can't handle.
Then some buried childhood memories began surfacing...a brutal and abusive father who beat the family dog so severely at times she had to stay in the basement because she could not climb the stairs...a mother who stayed drunk most of the time and never gave me affection...traumatic abuse by a sister who terrorized me when I was very young by sneaking into my room late at night, disguising her voice, and threatening me in the dark. No one believed that little boy who said there was a dark figure who terrorized him late at night.
At school I got beat up a lot because I was weak and sickly and who knows why else. As I moved up to sixth through eighth grade, I became the favorite target of a psychopath who endlessly tormented me. Within a year after graduation, he wound up in a federal penitentiary after he got caught kidnapping and torturing little boys. I remember he used to stab me a lot with sharp things and leave deep puncture wounds.
I had more trauma as a young adult, just when I was getting out of the bad stuff and starting to have a life. I wound up having a psychotic break where I kept thinking I had died and gone into Hell and demons were tormenting me. I had severe flashbacks for years and years after that. For a long time I had to sleep on the floor in my clothes because getting undressed and sleeping in a raised bed made me feel too vulnerable.
I still get flashbacks of that Hell fantasy, even though it was decades ago that I had the psychotic break. I remember that during the break I was sleeping outside in parks and places like that because I was afraid of being indoors at night. Everyone thought I was on drugs, but in truth I wasn't.
Now I'm trying to live on a limited income, raising my own food in a little garden, battling my health problems, and trying to still the wild emotions that plague me...trying to understand it all.
Lately I've been getting these feelings like nothing matters because I'm going to die soon, or a feeling like I have to have my vehicle ready to go and my keys where I can find them in case I have to suddenly make a run for it. Can't think of what I might have to run from.
I'm just now starting to understand that these feelings can come from PTSD.
"The worst thing to call someone is crazy. It's dismissive. "
"People are not crazy. They are strong people. Maybe their environment is a little sick."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xciBw1ktGbM
I know just what Dave is talking about. I remember a friend telling me one day about the rumors he was hearing about me. That friend was the only person who had the loyalty to tell me what was going on, why people were treating me like I was contagious or something.
He said he'd heard I was a heroin addict who had stolen a lot of valuable art works from rich people in the area. What???!!!
I gave up trying to fight it after a while, I just tried to start a new life in another part of the State. There really isn't any way to defend yourself from rumor and innuendo. I lost a career I'd spent eight years of academic study preparing for. That bad rep kept following me everywhere.
Once you fall from grace, people won't give you a break. Junkie, psycho, thief...you can't just erase labels like those. It doesn't matter that there is no truth whatsoever to them. Once you're convicted in the court of public opinion, there is no court of appeal you can take your case to.
My psychosis is of extreme attack. When I'm ill, there's a tormenting higher power out to get me, and anyone who comes within 20 feet of me is invading and attacking. Plus, at the time i am severely disturbed, and agitated. and anxious. I feel very disintegrated.
My psychologist was asking me all about it once, and I said 'what does it sound like?' and he said 'it sounds like gross abuse between the ages of 18 months and 4 years.'
so, I feel like I can relate to you, you're not alone. take care.
Based on my reading that I've done, and what mental health counselors have told me, I think that we do not have mental illness in the sense that schizophrenics and bipolar people have an illness. We are essentially just ordinary people who have had the misfortune to have experienced extraordinary events in our lives. We responded to those events in the same way that anyone would have done.
I don't mean to say that I look down on people with conditions like schizophrenia, but I think we have a better chance of coping with our symptoms and recovering than they do, since our problems come from the outside, not the inside.
Does this make sense?
Understand that we live in an evil world and that there are sadistic people out there and that they are very adept at disguising themselves. (My mother was one of them and no one, including my sisters would believe me.) You have to protect yourself. Not trying to scare you, these are the facts as I have learned them in my life. I want you to become good at protecting yourself. Learn how to find good people, this is the most difficult thing too. It is an art. I want to congratulate you for reaching out. You have come to a good place. Sometimes you will have to throw some advice away. You still have to discern, even here. Praying you find much comfort here. Love Katherine
I often wonder what my life would have been like if I had not been so relentlessly abused as I was growing up. Little kids need adults to defend and protect them so they have a decent chance at life, they can't free themselves from abusers if there is no one there to speak for them. No child should have to live in fear in their home or in their school.
I tried my whole life to "move on" and I kept having feelings of worthlessness and thoughts of death. Some things can't be buried and forgotten or they just continue to haunt us.