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.
My soon to be ex husband was so in my head that a year after leaving him I still google facts I should be confident of - like the fact that a scholar I respect greatly because of one of his last works is dead, or that raisins are made from grapes. I constantly googled things he told me were false and proved him wrong but still carried the harsh titles he gave me of stupid or crazy. Sometimes he changed his story to say that I had just proved him right or told me I was reading an opinion of someone with an agenda to prove - of course they’d say that for x reasons...it’s no wonder I still waver on the truth of who he was. I don’t trust any of my thoughts anymore
Yeah, raisins...grapes. Oh, he's one of those types of people.
Yeah, I've run into a few of them (including my mother). There's no winning. Logic only brings out the mean in them.
The sad thing, is that we're all wrong about a million things. I don't know anything about aerospace engineering, but I'm sure glad that there are people who do know something. I was showing my son how to adjust the cabinets, and we lost a specialty screw. He was at that frustrated/angry point where he propped up the door, went to his room and laid DOWN.
I don't know all about screws...but I do know that we weren't going to find a spare in the tool box. So I was showing him how to look up replacement hinges on the internet.
Raising a son, any child, but especially a son these days...is hard. At 19, he doesn't want to be "taught" by his mother anymore...even when he knows I'm right...especially when he knows I'm right.
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Anyway, you might look up GasLighting. My mother could have taught grad courses. I found this video on youtube.
https://www.dailystrength.org/journals/format-change-iv
The most triggering part of it was how the daughter was labeled "defiant". I grew up and have lived my whole life with that label....and yet...people I've worked with and my kids...tell me that it's not what they think about when they think of me.
But...disagreeing about the grape thing...yeah, that's enough to get me labeled as an "intelectual", "she thinks that she's better than everyone",
They set me up....just to knock me down. I get so tired of it. Hurts when people I cared about would listen, and agree (oh those awful atheists so intelectual), and just crush me.
I just wish that people would look for healing, and allow others to be different, and not lose it over a grape/raisin.
***I once threw prunes in the trash because I didn't want to hurt someone's feelings OR get labeled as a know-it-all. Throwing away that $2 dollar package...was worth every single bit of happiness that it bought me from not having to deal with the issue.***
Sorry if I made my reply more about me than about you. I have weird triggers. This is actually one of them. It's maybe stupid, but I've got my daughter's elephant Shiny to sleep with. She's great at understanding this stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf8BT3wbZSo
Short version: we all got PTSD from service as a missionary family in a war zone. I, though, was the only family member who came back to the States and got therapy for it. They refused, fearing it would cost them their ordination as missionaries. They didn't admit that was why, though, they made up the idea that I was the only one war had "driven crazy."
30 years later they're serving in another war zone as missionaries, still refusing help, and their behavior gets them fired. Fired by their local church in South America, fired by their missions board, and deported by the local South American police. Ironically, the career in ministry they'd tried to protect by refusing help was lost to them precisely because they refused to get help.
Like I said, it took 30 years, but it turned out I got help and they didn't and that played out the way that always will. Stick to your truth, Marah, as much as it comes under assault. You're the one getting help, and we're here to support you.