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.
Hello, I am new to the group. Not sure if I am supposed to introduce myself first or if I can just jump in and ask for some advise that I need so I'll kind do both here and try to keep it short.
I was diagnosed with PTSD about 10 years ago. At the time, I was in really bad shape. I went to a therapist and she caused a severe panic attack on the first visit, the worst I had ever had. I never went back. A couple months later, life was really really bad and a friend of mine asked me to try some phone sessions with her husband who was a therapist that specializes in trauma (they lived 3 states away, thus the phone). He never once asked about what had happened to me. We just discussed my symptoms and he would teach me coping techniques. Everything got better within a few months. My only remaining problem was the nightmares, but I was not remembering them, just waking up feeling scared or sad or whatever. That I could live with.
So, many years later, my husband leaves me for another woman and I become a single mom to 3 kids. It takes a long time to trust a man and almost 2 years after the divorce, I met the guy who is now (or was until a couple days ago) my boyfriend. This guy makes me feel so safe and loved. We accidentally got pregnant and this last february, I lost the baby at 16 weeks. Gave birth in the shower after 2 days of labor. I held the baby who was only 3 inches long in my hands. He was not alive and never would be. It was a horrible experience. My boyfriend did not care at all that the baby died and ridiculed me for crying and wanting to be held.
Then I started to remember my nightmares. People dying right in front of me, all night long, every night. I started having panic attacks and wanting to completely withdraw from everyone. I just want to go be in a dark cave all by myself. Then she came back, that horrible devil who wants to be my protector. She screams insults and threats, she tears me down and everyone around me. But, I still have the knowledge from the therapy.
I know I can stop her if I act as soon as I start to feel the lead ball in my stomach. But my boyfriend won't let me. I try to walk away, but he sees I am freaking out and he takes it personally and gets defensive. He wants to have a confrontation and I want to go to a quiet place and breathe my demons away. He will tell me I am being childish when I try to walk away. I ask to change the subject and he thinks I am trying to ditch my accountability in whatever the issue is, but really I just need to keep her from coming out and destroying everything.
So now she comes out a lot. She hates him and I think she hates me too. She spews awful and vulgar hate towards both of us. He thinks I'm crazy. I know I'm not, I just need the space to push her back down. He cannot understand that. He tells me I need to get over it. He says things like "emotional pain only lasts 12 minutes, the rest is self imposed" and "you are letting the people that hurt you as a child control your life now, just let it go" I have told him I have PTSD and asked that he at least read up a little bit about it on the internet. He will not. He says that I just need to get control of myself, that it is my choice and he is not going to accept me choosing to act this way.
So this weekend, she came out once again. Of course, there was no reason for her to come out, I was in no danger. He started to see the signs that she was coming, so he got upset and wanted to have a confrontation. I tried to walk away. I told him I needed to go calm down. I pleaded to just let me go, not to punish me for trying to cope with my PTSD. He told me I was acting like a child, that was all she needed to hear. Instantly, she was out in full force. It was so humiliating, so horrible. After she destroyed my heart she went back to her quiet place and I left his house and went back home.
Now he forgives me, and he says he is sorry. I love him and I miss him. He makes me feel safe. I can sleep at night with him and cannot when he is not here. I can eat with him and cannot without him. I don't know why, but as long as she does not come out, he helps me feel whole and balanced. When she does come out, he helps to push me into the abyss.
Do I just never talk to him again? Grieve this relationship and be alone until I feel well again? Do I try to make it work, try to find a way to keep her from coming out even with his desire to confront? Either way seems like a disaster to me. What would you do?
I was diagnosed with PTSD about 10 years ago. At the time, I was in really bad shape. I went to a therapist and she caused a severe panic attack on the first visit, the worst I had ever had. I never went back. A couple months later, life was really really bad and a friend of mine asked me to try some phone sessions with her husband who was a therapist that specializes in trauma (they lived 3 states away, thus the phone). He never once asked about what had happened to me. We just discussed my symptoms and he would teach me coping techniques. Everything got better within a few months. My only remaining problem was the nightmares, but I was not remembering them, just waking up feeling scared or sad or whatever. That I could live with.
So, many years later, my husband leaves me for another woman and I become a single mom to 3 kids. It takes a long time to trust a man and almost 2 years after the divorce, I met the guy who is now (or was until a couple days ago) my boyfriend. This guy makes me feel so safe and loved. We accidentally got pregnant and this last february, I lost the baby at 16 weeks. Gave birth in the shower after 2 days of labor. I held the baby who was only 3 inches long in my hands. He was not alive and never would be. It was a horrible experience. My boyfriend did not care at all that the baby died and ridiculed me for crying and wanting to be held.
Then I started to remember my nightmares. People dying right in front of me, all night long, every night. I started having panic attacks and wanting to completely withdraw from everyone. I just want to go be in a dark cave all by myself. Then she came back, that horrible devil who wants to be my protector. She screams insults and threats, she tears me down and everyone around me. But, I still have the knowledge from the therapy.
I know I can stop her if I act as soon as I start to feel the lead ball in my stomach. But my boyfriend won't let me. I try to walk away, but he sees I am freaking out and he takes it personally and gets defensive. He wants to have a confrontation and I want to go to a quiet place and breathe my demons away. He will tell me I am being childish when I try to walk away. I ask to change the subject and he thinks I am trying to ditch my accountability in whatever the issue is, but really I just need to keep her from coming out and destroying everything.
So now she comes out a lot. She hates him and I think she hates me too. She spews awful and vulgar hate towards both of us. He thinks I'm crazy. I know I'm not, I just need the space to push her back down. He cannot understand that. He tells me I need to get over it. He says things like "emotional pain only lasts 12 minutes, the rest is self imposed" and "you are letting the people that hurt you as a child control your life now, just let it go" I have told him I have PTSD and asked that he at least read up a little bit about it on the internet. He will not. He says that I just need to get control of myself, that it is my choice and he is not going to accept me choosing to act this way.
So this weekend, she came out once again. Of course, there was no reason for her to come out, I was in no danger. He started to see the signs that she was coming, so he got upset and wanted to have a confrontation. I tried to walk away. I told him I needed to go calm down. I pleaded to just let me go, not to punish me for trying to cope with my PTSD. He told me I was acting like a child, that was all she needed to hear. Instantly, she was out in full force. It was so humiliating, so horrible. After she destroyed my heart she went back to her quiet place and I left his house and went back home.
Now he forgives me, and he says he is sorry. I love him and I miss him. He makes me feel safe. I can sleep at night with him and cannot when he is not here. I can eat with him and cannot without him. I don't know why, but as long as she does not come out, he helps me feel whole and balanced. When she does come out, he helps to push me into the abyss.
Do I just never talk to him again? Grieve this relationship and be alone until I feel well again? Do I try to make it work, try to find a way to keep her from coming out even with his desire to confront? Either way seems like a disaster to me. What would you do?
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Lately I've been feeling scared and full of anxiety. I recently found a lump under my nipple. I hurt my back too. I'm in the process of moving. I'm run down. Everything is hard
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Just wanted to give a thank you to Mid, Arfie, Malibumark, Greeneyes, Mlro, Girlincalif, and Suncloudjd! You all always have such helpful tips and advice, but I always forget to write on my posts when I see you post, lol. I would lose my head if it wasn't attached to my body, lol. Thank you all so much! I'm starting to use my AI app as a sounding board again. I used to use it as that before...
Please just consider:
Just parts have my hackles up...big parts.
He thinks by his confronting he will win..a test of wills? Ptsd gathers strength from this confrontational energy.
The heartless response of the loss of your baby. I lost 5 , all second trimester, bordering the third. The baby was real to you. He may have not had that butterfly in the belly connection, but it was also his child. My husband, John, grieved as much as I did, losing his children, watching me in labor, knowing the outcome.
Because we are hurt people, we sometimes can attach to people that feed us just enough of what we need to hook us. My first husband, made me not trust John, for a long time, 15 years, before I understood he would always put me first.
He met me under fire, and knew what baggage I carried, through it took five years for most of it to come out.
I am not seeing this in what you describe. I'm seeing things were great while you were perfect, not so when you are in pain. Compassion not shining through.
I hope this make sense.
Jewells
So... Who is "she?" "She" seems to be the primary focus of your post, but I am not finding reference to who "she" is. Did I miss something?
The golden, loving intentions of my loved ones are often obstacles in my own PTSD healing. Amnesia is among my own symptoms and emerging memories are fragile and unpredictable, at best. That is only one of too many examples. I take it one incident at a time. I think of it as working several jigsaw puzzles jumbled into a single bag with no accurate pictures to work from. Just gotta take it piece by piece and keep on sorting.
Welcome aboard. May you find healing companionship here.
i think that someone who intentionally causes you pain over and over again cannot possibly love you or be healthy for you.
i mean, it's your choice to be with a person or not. but sometimes i think women especially compromise ourselves and our value because we are made to feel that we have done wrong things too and therefore we deserve bad treatment. just because you are not a perfect person does not mean that you deserve anything bad. you have ptsd. what's his excuse?
i would not live with a person who does not acknowledge my pain and try to help rather than procure more pain.
take care of you.
only you care about you as much as you.
i hope you see yourself as valuable enough to
deserve and demand the very best.
As for "she" I guess I could have been more explicit. I used to call it panic attacks, but it is not quite that because I have them too and this is so much more. It has all the same things as a panic attack, sweaty palms, tunnel vision, accelerated heart rate, shaking, unreasonable fear, etc. But added to it is rage, deep uncontrollable rage. It is like another person in there comes out and controls me. I scream and cry and say very mean things about myself or the person I am directing it at. I have become violent, I have hit my boyfriend. I have screamed in his face horrible insults and cussed him out. I never gets this far with anyone else, I walk away and sit and breathe until I am in control gain, then will re-confront the situation level headed and sane. With my boyfriend, this does not work because he will not let me leave and will even follow me if I try to walk away in spite of his demands to stay and act like an adult.
PTSD is tough. Relationships are tough. I try to avoid working the two at the same time. When my husband and I were in a similar place, I would disappear into my therapy program as soon as possible. My program included days in the desert where I could vent that rage without danger of hurting anyone. I put my therapy ahead of the relationship because every shred of evidence in my case file indicates I cannot make intelligent relationship choices while my PTSD is raging. After the storm passed I would go back and talk it over with my husband.
We still go through phases, but it has gotten allot better with 33 years of practice. It is not about being perfect. It is about working it out.
Im really, really sorry you are in this situation. That sounds horrible.
I had to totally delete my response and rewrite it because I want to say this kinder. You deserve nothing but kindness. This guy of yours, though, his actions really put up a lot of red flags for me that make me angry for you.
He sounds abusive.
The way he talks to you and tries to squash whatever intense emotion comes out of you, so violently. The way he tries to rationalize a reason why your intense feelings shouldn't exist. And tries to put you down to make it go away, calling you childish. While at the same time, cant even stop to take in the fact that he lost those children, too.
Only someone with no understanding of real human emotions would act that way. Someone cruel.
Ive been with narcissistic abusers like this person you are describing. Any way to cut me down and make me feel like by trying to deal with my problems I was crazy, or irrational, he would do. I would also be fed lines trying to tell me this is not how emotions work. Just like that "12 minute emotional pain" line you were fed. It was all him trying to rationalize to himself why what was right in front of him wasn't real, or valid. He was mean, really mean. But had no acknowledgement of it. How could he really, if he doesn't get it? But I had to suffer for it, a lot.
I had to run to get out of there, because that isn't what love is. That wasn't safe.
This 'she' you mention, Im a little unclear about but you do describe this part of you as having some roots in being protective. So even if it doesnt turn out well, the idea in her is to protect you, right?
You say this guy makes you feel safe, but... If you were really safe, why would the part of you rooted in protecting be coming out so much more with his actions?
Just a thought...
Please keep letting us know whats happening and how you are. You dont have to go through this alone.
BTW like others here. If "She" has a protective feel, but angry. You need to listen "She" is getting exasperated at the situation. Your needs are hers, so if you ignore or quell them, you will pay harder in the long run. "She" is telling you, you have to listen for your well being.
A Black Knight's armor is just as shiny, as a White Knight's.
One other person in my life has had this effect on me, she was a therapist, it was my first and only visit with her. She started by asking about my childhood. I told her I was not ready to talk about it, that I felt insecure because we had just met. She pressed and pressed. Asked poignant and invasive questions. I went in to the worst place I had ever been emotionally. How can some people do this? Why can't I just say "screw this" and walk away?