Complex PTSD as Result of Severe Bullying

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The thing about dealing with severe verbal abuse is that there isn't much in the way of evidence, and you really can't prove how bad it was, or prove how much the abuser knew about what they were doing. Abusers tend to be excellent liars.

i think this can all be so confusing--i mean for the person who is abused in general. the abusers just seem to do their best to blame the abusee anyway and make it seem like their fault.

i had a lot of difficulty getting some forms of violence validated---was raped by someone i knew, and the therapist said accusatorily, "why didn't you cry out?" that was painful. but once i did validate it for myself--by reading books on rape mainly---the confusion went away.

what's really scary to me is when i make a social faux pas, say, or say something inappropriate, and the reaction to this is SO HUGE. i experience it as bullying, because often someone is raging/name-calling/etc. for reasons that might mystify me in the moment. then when i realize my error, i feel doubly guilty and to blame.

That therapist should be shot.
Sorry.. but seriously, that therapist should not be in practice.

seconded. unprofessional and a seriously stupid question.

that is why my family is seeing a parenting evaluator who is a forensic psychologist to piece things together for court. otherwise, trying to explain it to a judge? tried it, and the ex who doesn't think twice about lying always turns it back on me, so I end up looking crazy instead of like the hypervigilent abuse victim I actually am. (my hypervigilence is justified, too, even if the anxiety makes me feel sick for days on end sometimes).

Tape recorder. Or even better a hidden camera.

This would have been the stuff of spy movies a few decades ago. Nowadays you can get a HD camcorder at your local electronics retailer.

Some cell phones have a sound recorded built in. Your computer has one for sure... just hook up a microphone (it might alredy have a microphone actually). Etc....

Gather evidence, then slam them hard.

Responding to violence with ever escalating violence is not a solution.

(just a quick check-in):

agreed.

(don't worry. i don't mean it literally.)

i think i inadvertently killed this thread, but would like to post this somewhere. (am proud!) went to website of the center where that "therapy" incident happened--years ago, but still has some effect. i wrote a complaint.

Congrats!!



How about "that therapist should be raped"? Ok, I don't mean that literally as in like someone should do it, but perhaps I do mean that people who haven't been through the experience shouldn't be attempting to provide counseling on it.. In some kinds of counseling I guess it can be helpful to explain things to someone who doesn't already understand, but this isn't one of those cases. Someone who has been raped needs to talk to someone who will understand. Period.

agreed. there were other issues too. many of my AS traits led to a dx of schizotypal pd. (superficially similar in terms of social challenges, tendency to stim, low eye contact, limited facial expressions, etc. AS was not yet part of the diagnostic scenery.)

since i was "schizotypal," i was occasionally "delusional." it was a struggle--to say the least--to have any of my perceptions of past abuse validated.

it occurs to me that therapist assumed i was "imagining" things about what happened. (this was a rape by a "lover"--violent power play--and life-threatening.) i think she believed i wasn't quite reporting things as they happened.

i was indeed reporting things as they happened. for all my "quirks," i'm (terrifyingly) reality-based.

i was proud of filling out that complaint for about--oh, an eye-blink's worth of time. but really---the whole "therapy center" was a mess. condescending bull@#$$ all around. that complaint will be dumped--written by a "crazy person" whose perceptions are not to be trusted.

you're right overall---if i remember correctly---you had doubts about the whole therapy-for-people-with-AS process. i'm really beginning to think i agree.

southwestforests, have you read "into the darklands" by Nigel Latta? He is an experienced clinical / forensic psychologist and has worked with many people (usually convicted prisoners, i think), some of whom would fit into the scenario you described.

In Latta's words, even with the psychological pain and s**t people have suffered from over time, they still have free will and can still choose their actions - including walking away and calming down.

I have the PTSD symptoms listed. I also find the sound of knives being sharpened frightening, have trouble sleeping, and more. only been happening since a bully at school attacked me with a knife.


on the positive side, sometimes PTSD resolves itself after a few months. sometimes.

Intensive psychotherapy can help reduce the symptoms, by focusing on coming to accept the intense, scary emotions involved, and desensitisation.

As a friend of a rape survivor I think that "therapist" needs a swift kick in the face. Ugh, I HATE that "blame the victim" crap. My friend has mental health problems (along with physical disabillity) caused by brain damage from Shaken Baby Syndrome and there are plenty of people that blamed her for getting raped because she was a "flirty attention whore that made bad choices".

that's pretty extreme. amazing that still goes on.

it seems so resistant to change. and additional labels are often not helpful. one of the frustrating things about having a label of mental illness is that all of one's behaviors and perceptions become suspect.

attach a label: greater invisibility. everything you say or do is seen through a certain lens.

sometimes i really wish they'd throw that DSM-IV out the window and start over. true--medications can be helpful in terms of the more severe disorders, such as schizophrenia; can also be helpful in terms of anxiety/depression. but the rest of it? not so sure.

i often believe that both rape and bullying are the society's "unofficial" (unspoken/hidden) way of making sure people tow a certain line. they're will-breaking and enforce both stereotypes and social conformity through a certain passivity-making.

i also thing the general label-happiness of much of the mental health system (not all--but most) is another subtle form of bullying. toe a certain line--behaviorally, or even in some cases, intellectually--or the labels suddenly abound. the most truly crazy-making thing is that this is done under the guise of "help" or "kindness."

i'm amazed at how together you people sound.

i'll be honest and candid in how i see things. from my experiences in life i have come to the conclusion many times that the universe and world is evil and furthermore, evil people tend to rule and be the majority in power or have power of some sort. it is just what i have seen or experienced it seems all my life. i always witnessed good (religion has nothing to do with it) or innocent people being bullied, hurt or exploited. i'm just amazed at how much pain was just a major part of my life from the time i was born to now while for others it's minimal or manageable or 'normal' ups and downs, not constant degradation, outcast, negative stigma etc that is so deeply hurtful.

the most scariest but insightful part i noticed was a pattern that was no coincidence in my life or in society. i've been through all the channels as far as counseling, pills etc. the only answers that made even a modicum of sense to me were from spiritual or metaphysical explanations. a counselor told me that evolved souls here will be brutalized and hated (ironic that it's the evil people who have hijacked that as well to pass themselves off like imposters as being good and righteous). i've noticed this pattern again and again. it seems many times i noticed as if i was surrounded by lower lifeforms who had no soul or by scum (again, nothing to do with outward socioeconomics and labels of society). i'm talking about what's real about people and what they really are inside, some good and some bad. i noticed far more mediocre bad to bad.

society in so many ways is a microcosm/macrocosm of that film 'a streetcar named desire' as far as blanche's innocence and inherent light being so out of place in the world. i'm still so amazed that the collective conscious (which i hope evolves) was so extremely unevolved or different compared to mine which made me wonder not why i was always so different from others usually but why i was naturally more humane than most others. there was a definite difference in that regard between me and most others and others having the commonality as well of being similar.

it has the effect of giving one the feeling of having been born in the wrong world or out of place like twilight zone. this is further confirmed by having the rare experience of meeting those of the same type as you or another 'soul' tribe person and realizing it to be so rare( it's like finding another light in a dim or dark world) whereas others find thier likeness everywhere, they can take it for granted and they're comfortable.

Ditto! Even with an AS diagnosis I potentaly have PTSD from bullies.

I find it amazing that the majority of people in this thread are unaware of the connection between PTSD/RAD and HFA/AS.

They are symptomatically almost identical, people with AS are often misdiagnosed as PTSD/RAD (depending on the age of the person) and vice versa. This partly why alot of people don't get help or get the wrong help cause although the symptoms are the same, the treatment is very different.

What also doesn't help is the fact that AS and PTSD often end up being comorbid in alot of people as Aspies (due to their difficulties socially) often end up being victimized (such as by bullies like in this thread) repeatedly and therefore traumatised.

I am actually writing a series of papers on this exact thing for Uni at the moment, it's already a popular theory but I think I've found even more connections than have already been published. I guess we'll see. My paper also entertains a theory that Autism as a whole is related to trauma in the womb or very shortly after birth or during birth causing trauma symptoms to be hardwired into a childs brain "causing" Autism (example, truama causes children to introvert, Autistic children are presumably born introverted)...it's more complex than that, but that's the gist.