(C-)PTSD Thread

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I don’t think he actually cares about him since he goes months without seeing him. My son is not attached to him at all. We’d both be better off if he didn’t come. Usually, when he comes over, he’s under the influence of something.

I wish he didn’t see him. I think he’s more interested in seeing me.

Last edited by TwilightPrincess on 14 May 2023, 7:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Are you afraid to say no, for obvious reasons?

Yeah, I’m worried about repercussions. At least I’m living with my parents right now. That helps.

Your brother needs to take him out.

Literally.

I was afraid to look out my window. I was afraid that it would still be there even though the garbage truck had come and gone at 7:30 precisely, as it did every morning.

The night before, under the cover of darkness, I had fought and struggled to drag it down the stairs, through my living room, and out the front door. I dragged it across the lawn to the curb where, resigned to its fate, it toppled on the grass with a satisfying thud. Triumphant and liberated, I went back inside. The house felt like it had been cleansed. Maybe I would be able to hang family photos on the walls again.

I hesitantly stood in front of my window as the morning sun poured in around the slats of my blinds leaving a striped pattern on the floor.

What if they didn't take items that large or what if they couldn't take it today for some other inexplicable reason?

I had wanted to do something dramatic like burn it, but I couldn't do that on my street. If I lived on the street up the hill, there'd be no problem, but then I'd still need to get rid of the parts that wouldn't burn - purified by fire but cumbersome nonetheless.

My fingers shook as I parted the blinds and peeked through them.

It was gone. All that remained was the impression it had made on the grass - an impression that gradually faded over the course of the day until it seemed as though it had never been there at all.

Relief. More than relief. I felt like I could breathe in my own house. I rolled up the blinds and opened the window, basking in the sunlight.

Until I could afford another mattress, I'd be sleeping on the floor. And I didn't mind one bit.

I did the same when I trashed my antique, walnut four-poster bed.

I spent hours disassembling it in a fury, afraid I'd miss the truck.
It took so much longer than I thought.
I hauled sections down the stairs one at a time.
Ran outside in bare feet on wet grass (something I do NOT do).
I was still in my PJs and school kids were passing on their way to school.

Normally I would have put it out a day or two ahead.
Pickers would have loved it.
It was worth serious money and I could have sold it too.

It just needed to be gone.

I can't remember if I kept the mattress or not, but I doubt it.

After everything, I can still say that my life is better and has been better than how I thought it would be when I was a kid, so that's something. Sometimes I like to play the Glad Game, like Pollyanna.

Anxiety. Panic attacks. Insomnia. 2:00 in the morning. Too afraid to get out of bed because the demons might get me. I'd heard a fresh batch of demon stories in church that morning and from my family in the evening. The stories didn't bother me so much in the day, but it was always a problem at night. If only I had been afraid of something like monsters in a normal family, everything would've been okay. My parents would've told me that monsters weren't real. Being a sensitive kid, I desperately needed to hear that. Instead, they told me that the monsters demons were very real. I needed to trust in God, pray, and be good. The problem is that they always told me I was bad, and I believed it. It just seemed to be an unchangeable part of my nature.

I'd pray for hours but the terror never went away. I went through a long phase where I could only fall asleep listening to a cassette of a man reading the JW publication: My Book of Bible Stories. I thought that, like prayer, it would keep the demons away. The man had a soothing voice which would lull me to sleep. Maybe demons have better taste in reading material. Who knows.

I wasn't only afraid of demons although that fear hounded me and interfered with my sleep well into my 20's. My religion taught that before Armageddon arrived, when God and his angels would destroy everyone except JWs, there'd be a Great Tribulation. All the governments would turn against JWs. (I know. ) They'd throw them in jail, persecute them, and even torture them in an attempt to get them to reject God. At church, they shared gruesome stories of persecution from the Holocaust (where a couple thousand JWs among the millions of Jews died in concentration camps) up until the time of this narrative. They'd share grotesque stories of things that happened, and then state that the Great Tribulation would be even worse. Persecution and torture gradually began to haunt both my waking hours and dreams.

I remember reading my little Bible and being comforted by 1 Corinthians 10:13 which says: "No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it." Since I couldn't bear the thought of torture, I thought this meant that God would keep it from happening to me. I asked my mom if my view was correct.

She said, "The scripture means that God will give you strength so you can endure whatever happens. You won't be pushed to the point where you'll reject him if you have faith."

s**t. Between the demon stories and tales of persecution, I already wanted to reject God completely. He sounded like a real as*hole.

My 9 year old brain:
I don't like you or even believe in you. Blasphemy. Demons. Persecution. Despair. Annihilation from fire balls raining down from the sky. Death - that part doesn't sound so bad. I just hope it'll be quick... I can't breathe. Pacing, pacing, pacing.

All in all, I've been pretty lucky. There's been no demon attacks or extensive physical torture. As of the time of this writing, I've not been anhilated by fireballs, either. Life is Beautiful.

I took the next semester off. My life briefly spun out of control. I was in and out of the hospital for a couple months. My downward spiral lead to more trauma since that's when I met the person who would later become my husband. I was lost, alone, and so, so vulnerable. Due to my overall ignorance about anything outside of old books AND my religious upbringing which encouraged guilt, shame, and victim-blaming, I blamed myself for what happened and didn't report it even though the nurses talked me into having a rape kit done when I was in the hospital. The doctor who did the examination was so kind he made me cry. Today, I'm baffled by the fact that I blamed myself. It reminds me of a quote from Women Talking which I mentioned in this thread about a month ago:

What happened was horrific. It was easily the most traumatic event of my life - an event that marked a before and after. It's how I lost my virginity.

Anyway, the sorry-excuse-for-a-human-being was graduating in the spring, so maybe everything would be back to normal when I returned in the fall, I thought. Maybe the nightmare would end.

He graduated, but he wasn't really gone. He was the best athlete my college ever had which isn't saying much, but it was enough for his poster to be up in various hallways and for his picture to show up periodically on my college's website when I logged in to check my student email. I'll never forget the shock the first time his picture came up on the library computer screen when I wasn't at all expecting it. (What is this? A Lifetime movie?) After that, I squinted and would click on the appropriate icon as quickly as possible.

I managed to avoid the posters and the section of campus where the dorms were housed although I still felt their ominous presence - a constant presence that loomed heavily on my soul. I typically scurried up a couple floors and down long corridors to avoid a poster in the hallway on the main floor, but there were others. My backpack, full of books including Riverside Shakespeare, was quite heavy, but I found the detour worth it. I avoided talking to people because they'd wonder what the hell I was doing. In general, I strived to be invisible. I didn't even like to look at myself in the mirror anymore.

Other than a couple nurses in the hospital, I told just one person (not even my family). I didn't know that her boyfriend belonged to the same fraternity He did or that they were good friends. Soon I heard people talking behind my back because He was popular, well-liked, and handsome. I was an average-looking no one. Why would anyone believe me? On one occasion, when I entered my Victorian Literature classroom, a small group of students were seated in the back talking. One of them said: "I just don't get it. Why do you think she's making something like this up?"

"Maybe she's doing it for the attention."

Outside of the hospital, I told one f*****g person.

They saw me and lowered their voices to a whisper while giving me a look of disdain. I took my usual seat at the front of the classroom and fought back by giving insightful, well-thought-out comments, earning praise from my favorite professor who would later make me her TA. Maybe people would believe me if I proved myself academically. I won an award in that class for critical writing later that semester.

I didn't talk to or make friends with any other students the rest of my college career (3 semesters). I threw myself into academics, won awards, and, along with 10 other students in my graduating class, graduated summa cum laude. Reading was and has always been an escape. It was also my way of fighting back even when the rest of my selfhood was lost - some of it irrevocably.

I grimaced as I slowly sat down in the cushioned chair next to the window in my room. The grey, evening mist swirled in the parking lot and around the drab houses and bare trees across from the hospital. I contemplated the ominous sound the doors had made when they locked behind me upon my arrival at 3AM two days before. No way out. Trapped.

A fellow inmate patient I was on friendly terms with came into my room. Let's call her Melissa. She knew I had been through stuff, but she didn't know exactly what or with whom. Her baggy, grey sweatshirt concealed the stitched and bandaged wounds on her arm that she had inflicted upon herself, earning her a place among the hopeless, desperate, unhinged souls that were temporarily calling this God-forsaken spot home. "Abandon all hope ye who enter here" should have been stenciled on the wall above the industrial doors instead of "Live, Laugh, Love." I considered commenting on this oversight to staff, but I decided against it.

Melissa stood next to my chair, peering out the window or gazing at our grey reflection in the thick, unbreakable glass; I'm not sure which.

In a low voice, she said: "My mom is sneaking me in some Xanax tomorrow when she comes to visit. Do you want some?"

"N-n-no. No, thank you."

"Okay, no pressure. I just thought I'd ask." She glided silently back to her room.

s**t.

As the twilight faded into blackness, I got into the bed closest to the window (the other one in my room was, as yet, vacant) and stared at the ceiling. Other patients were socializing in the common area, watching TV or putting a puzzle together. Someone flipped out and had to be "escorted" to the padded room. It was just a typical moment of time in a place like this. I didn't want to be around other people, but I didn't want to be in my head, either.

A rosy-cheeked, unnaturally cheerful nurse came in and sat on the adjacent bed. It was time for my "one-on-one." Twice a day, patients' assigned nurses talked to them privately for 15 minutes, asking them things like: "How do you feel on a scale of 1-10?" and "Do you have any thoughts of harming yourself or others?" After we finished this choreographed song and dance number, I said: "There's something I need to tell you."

As I talked, her red face got even redder, resembling an almost-ripe-tomato. She thanked me and quickly left. I heard her call a staff meeting.

A little while later, I saw them leave the nurses' alcove and head toward Melissa's room.

Detached phrases floated in the air: I want to switch rooms...The bed is softer in her room...I hate my mattress...I'm going to kill her...

Fun times.

I'm watching episode 2 of Shiny Happy People on Amazon. JFC, this is like my life apart from being expected to have a bajillion kids. It's all there: the physical abuse, the sh***y homeschool education, the domestic violence.

Umbrella of Authority:

1 Corinthians 11:

Patriarchal as*holes.

Speaking of her marriage in the episode, a woman says: "On my wedding night, I was raped three times and after that found out I was pregnant. Why is marriage like this? Is this like this for everybody? Is love supposed to hurt this much? I didn't have any idea what was normal or natural. I'd had no sex education."

Bloody Hell.

I call for this thread to be made into a sticky

Sounds appropriate.

That might have been her name. It was Melissa, Melinda, Belinda. Something like that.

A stickied thread on trauma in The Haven would probably be a good idea.

This resonates with me:

“You call yourself a free spirit, a wild thing, and you’re terrified somebody’s gonna stick you in a cage--well, baby you’re already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it’s not bounded in the West by Tulip, Texas, or on the East by Somaliland--it’s wherever you go, because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.” - Breakfast at Tiffany's

I had a look at the quiz Isabella posted out of curiosity. (Yes, I am aware it's not a diagnosis tool, I just wondered what the questions might be). Personally I found myself saying no to most of the questions.

Whilst I have had traumatic experiences in childhood, I think for the most part it doesn't affect me. Although, to an extent it does sometimes in the form of phobias and disassociation.