First of all I will try to fill you in on some background. I am in my late 40's and apparently have been suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for about half of my life. It started with an abusive marriage when I was 18 years old. The man I was married to was my same age but years ahead of me in the manipulation and abuse of others department. We married and had 4 children together when I was finally released from that hell by him cheating on me repeatedly. I didn't know it, of course, only suspected but in great manipulator style he made me think that any and every problem in our marriage was mine. My fault for trusting him when my instincts were screaming at me. In the end he decided to "confess" all of his sins in the space of one night. Which rocked me to my core, let me tell you. I have never gotten over the deceit and betrayal....not to mention the fact that I was married to someone whom I didn't know at all. It was like he had another life. And lest you think, as some tend to do in these situations, that the sex must have been non-existent or bad.....we had sex every other day, at least, for 12 years and then some. The sex was the best he ever had (this is a quote from him, not me). What he wanted was something that no one could give him. He didn't love himself and when you don't love yourself you can't love anyone else. He was looking for something that he has never found to this day.
Anyway, the marriage was fraught with mental, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. Why did I put up with it? That is the million dollar question. Most of all it was because I was young and naive. I believed in sticking it out, plus we had children to consider. I tried and tried to make it work, but there is no way to work out something like this. My ex-husband was sadistic and he derived some kind of pleasure from making me suffer. His oldest brother once told me that he wished that he weren't related to him because he always treated people close to him like crap, but treated everyone else really nice. I know that most people who knew him thought he was funny (he was), charming (he was), and nice (he really wasn't). He was cruel to those closest to him. That of course meant his family of which I was now a part of. I will talk more about this and perhaps more specifics later as we go along this journey together.
Another trauma that fell under the PTSD banner was the sudden death of my mother. She died with no warning, in bed, while taking a nap because she wasn't feeling well. I had just seen her a few weeks earlier when she had come to visit with my dad. She had only just turned 58 years old. Very young to die. It was totally unexpected and threw me into a very deep and serious depression. I am an only child so my mom and I were particularly close. I didn't think I would ever be OK again. By that time I was already divorced and caring for 4 kids by myself. I was working a part-time job and could barely go to work, then I would come home and go to bed. My poor kids didn't know what to do. No one around me knew what to do. My boyfriend at the time couldn't understand why I wasn't over it after about 6 weeks. Not that he didn't care, he just didn't understand. He kept thinking, "well she's in a better place"....meanwhile I am just missing her and not knowing how I could live without my mom. She was my closest friend. So the boyfriend and I broke up, he broke up with me because I "wasn't the woman he had fallen in love with". Of course I wasn't, a loss like that changes you. He has since come to regret that assessment and we eventually got back together for awhile. More on all of this later I'm sure...
So the last trip on the trauma wagon is the suicide of my father 4 years after my mother died. I don't think there needs to be a lot of explanation here right now about this as I know it will come up later.
The reason why I am now getting help....which by the way I did try to get before, just the wrong therapists at the wrong time or something like that. The reason is that I had taken on a job at a call center in a bank. Now I am really good at talking to people and normally I have no problem with it. The job is a VERY stressful one whether you suffer from PTSD or not, but it is particularly bad if you are a PTSD sufferer. I found that I DO have a problem with people calling me every name in the book and there is nothing I can do about it. It pulls me back and reminds me of my marriage when I was powerless to do anything. I begin shaking and feeling like I'm going to die, in other words I have a panic attack. These types of calls are what my therapist calls a trigger. The call center is full of triggers and I may not ever be able to go back. Oh yeah I'm on disability right now. I am trying to get as much therapy as I can before I go back to work, wherever that may be. Just trying to find the money to live and keep up my insurance. Whew!
So for the moment I am going to leave you with this summary of what traumas caused my PTSD and I hope that you will join me as I go through my therapy with it's highs and lows. There is hope for all of us who are suffering. I have a therapist now that I think really gets me and is already helping me to understand a lot. I would like to share this with you, my readers, wherever you are. I hope I have some at some point. I hope that you will also share this with others who suffer or have someone close to them who is suffering from this paralyzing condition.
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