Here is a snippet from my journal entry I wrote today. I'm wondering if anyone can relate to this, and what, if anything has helped resolve it.
QuoteI really feel like it is not okay for me to have any sort of PTSD. There is probably a lot more to it than I realize. I don't know why I have such a cognitive dissonance about this. I know what I've been through, I know the affect it has had on me, I know how I struggle with the symptoms every day, and have for many years. What I don't know, is how to make peace with this fact.
In other words, as title says: How do you make peace with having a PTSD diagnosis?
I try to focus on the opportunity the diagnosis gives me to understand why I suffer, and learn better ways to deal with my difficulties so that I can be less unhappy in the future.
Any diagnosis, in the end is merely a pointer with some general info associated with the particular category. It might indicate an overall pattern, but the details are within and for each person to consider how and what to do with the info.
At least that's my view of these labels. I used to also cringe at some of the descriptions but I've learned since they're more like temporary and imperfect ways of trying to make sense of what otherwise can feel so senseless.
While any diagnosis can be helpful, it's not necessarily a destination that dooms one to what's described; because we can work to change how we fit into the descriptions and/or change our reactions and attitudes towards them. Either way, the labels are only starting points containing a few common features that could be factors in what's going on.
My ptsd diagnosis led me eventually here, to this forum, where I discovered cptsd and the difference between it and ptsd. Cptsd is a better, more accurate fit for me. This forum has answered questions I carried for decades. I've found validation and, for the first time in my life, a community of people who are like me and who understand why I'm different.
For me, it helps to know that there's a reason why I am the way I am. Knowing that it's a normal reaction to abnormal circumstances.
:yeahthat:
Thanks for the replies everyone. There certainly has been good come out of it for me. I have the opportunity to interact with all of you here. I have learned a lot, been encouraged and inspired, and have done some significant healing.
Maybe I didn't word it too well though. It's not the being diagnosed part I'm so much concerned about, but what it means to actually have CPTSD. It feels like I've been cheated out of so much in life; like I have been hijacked and my life has been taken over. I feel so weak being affected by all these symptoms... and if there was one thing I was never allowed to be, it was to be weak. Most of my life I couldn't eat properly or sleep through the night. I just want it to all go away, and for everything to be okay.
Everything you point out is so true -- perhaps the saddest part is that none of the past events can be reversed.
I share that sense of loss and then some; a few years ago I even did a little visualization where I left all that old senseless pain in what I call the graveyard of lost illusions. I know I can't go back there, and it makes me sad not to be able to reverse the memories that haunt me - yet I'm still here, wandering along and trying to find a way forward. Sometimes it feels like progress; other time I feel like a failure. Still there's been enough tiny steps forward to keep me on the new path.
A path we're sharing. Here's the deal -- you survived! The weakness you fear is only that -- a fear; because having survived indicates that weakness was only a chapter in that old story.
Regardless of what others say or think, you survived :thumbup: and are trying hard to make sense of what seems so senseless. Some can call it weakness if they want, but to have survived puts at least that fear aside.
:hug:
QuoteIt feels like I've been cheated out of so much in life; like I have been hijacked and my life has been taken over.... I just want it to all go away, and for everything to be okay.
Me too Jazzy
:grouphug:
Quote from: Kizzie on August 28, 2019, 03:32:05 PM
QuoteIt feels like I've been cheated out of so much in life; like I have been hijacked and my life has been taken over.... I just want it to all go away, and for everything to be okay.
Me too Jazzy
Me too pretty often. I get sick of constantly having to work on myself just in order to manage daily life. So, yes, please just go away, cptsd.
Quote from: Blueberry on August 28, 2019, 10:18:12 PM
Quote from: Kizzie on August 28, 2019, 03:32:05 PM
QuoteIt feels like I've been cheated out of so much in life; like I have been hijacked and my life has been taken over.... I just want it to all go away, and for everything to be okay.
Me too Jazzy
Me too pretty often. I get sick of constantly having to work on myself just in order to manage daily life. So, yes, please just go away, cptsd.
Isn't that the worst? Everything is so much harder than it should be. I always thought that was because I was lazy and useless, but now I have come to understand that because I constantly battle all the stuff that is going on in my brain that my abusers put there that I barely even know about, I have to work as hard to do the basics of life as my husband has to work at his job. I get angry at the unfairness of that, especially when I think about the creative talents I have that I will never get to develop or exploit because there's just not enough energy for anything but basic survival.
I feel weak very often, too. Most of my energy goes into working on myself, just to manage the basics. As some of you have said, I'm fed up with this. I want it to go away, to be happy.
But, as I read this thread I realize that it helps me so much at the moment that I am not alone in this. It makes it easier for me to accept my condition.
And then I am so angry at all the unfairness. When they take so much away from you and then tell you that you're not allowed to be weak.
Besides, I would like to find another word for weak in my life. A word that holds in it the survival but also the frailty and the struggle. I don't know one, I'm still looking.
Maybe it will be a sentence.
It may feel weak to me from time to time, to feel like I'm struggling so much, but struggling doesn't make me weak - it makes me a fighter. 💪
Cool!
I'm glad some good came out of this. Let us know if you find the right word!
Quote from: Bach on August 29, 2019, 02:46:47 PM
Everything is so much harder than it should be.
:yeahthat:
QuoteLet us know if you find the right word!
I'll do that!
I've been thinking about a word in German, and it's translation into English is "marked" ("gezeichnet"). I don't know if I translated it properly. It's a word I don't disclose lightly, but I want to share it anyway. There's a lot of hurt in that word for me, and thats why it feels right.
In essence, I mean that it's in the same corner with post traumatic.
Still, it's not the final say.
I think that the word or sentence could be a different one for everyone. That's what you want to express about yourself. And I guess mine will change over time.
With my word, I want to say "look at me, look what you've done!". Maybe you want to say something different, like "I'm not weak".
These are just thoughts.
Quote from: Three Roses on August 29, 2019, 07:39:02 PM
It may feel weak to me from time to time, to feel like I'm struggling so much, but struggling doesn't make me weak - it makes me a fighter. 💪
:cheer: :cheer: :cheer: from one where the fight has gone out. But it will come back.
Thanks for sharing Anjulie. I'm not too sure how the translation would go, I know there can be a lot of extra/hidden meaning in a word, but I like your explanation. I think you are right that we all have our own, based on where we are in our healing journey.
For some reason, the posts on this thread have made me look at having PTSD in a different way. I've always felt weak because the symptoms have been overwhelming for the most part, but after reading all this, I got the mental image of a boxer. It might be easier to hurt a boxer when he is already in a fight, but I wouldn't dare call that boxer weak. He is regularly fighting and training; endangering himself, while building up physical qualities like strength, speed, and stamina. Of course the boxer would be in better physical shape than most people would, and able to withstand a lot more punishment (when not busy fighting someone else).
Not sure if that makes sense, and I feel a bit pretentious for saying it, but I think mentally we are like boxers and CPTSD is our regular opponent.
I like the image of a boxer very much, jazzy. I'm glad that your image of yourself could change :hug:
Wow, I really love your boxer analogy! We are fighters, in the ring with cptsd, bobbing and weaving, striking when there's an opening, fists up for protection while we wait for the next opportunity to knock cptsd down another notch and take another step forward into our healing. Love it! Thanks! :cheer: :wave: