I've finally found the name for what I've been trying to diagnose for 23 years - I've been misdiagnosed, misinformed and chased for 20+ years(I realized I needed to do something because something wasn't right with my behavior and I needed help) through all sorts of programs.
I'm grateful to have found support here, and grateful that at my bottom in early December, I had some strength to reach out to a dozen or so friends and let them know I was having a mental and emotional crisis. I underestimated how much people loved me, even those who I hadn't spoken with for 10 or 15 years.
My Mom was likely CPTSD as well; she was a good human who loved me, but the combination of her inability to show affection, to nurture me and my other siblings, plus inviting a Catholic priest who was a serial pedophile into our home and let him take me on 3 separate trips, one of which I left a hotel room somewhere between Ohio and New Jersey with a couple quarters in my pocket and not having enough change to call home to my parents because I was afraid. Even if called them, I don't know if they could have found me.
Fortunately, I spoke up when I came home, and many children in the city I grew up were spared of a pedophile ring that was ultimately exposed.
The dynamics of a tumultuous upbringing with no affection, no return love and a Dad who didn't step in let to me being reckless, even though I maintained a cover on the outside as a high functioning athlete and student and friend, albeit one to get black out drunk and vandalize homes and cars and other immature behavior.
In 1999, I started therapy due to my marriage engagement breaking off - I went to the local library looking for help for some of my reckless behavior, and I came upon the 12 steps and other programs. Members of the fellowship appreciated my 4th step inventory, but politely told me they didn't think I was the same as them.
I tried and tried to be accepted into recovery communities, but something always didn't feel right; this was especially difficult to process considering I was being told I had to surrender and that everyone thinks they are "terminally unique".
It wasn't until this year when I learned that "freeze" and "fawn" existed in addition to "fight" and "flight".
Everything clicked for me this Summer, yet the financial consequences tied to reckless spending in my business and "fawning" and advocating for my Mom who passed in October all have come to a head in the last 30 days or so, leaving me completely shut down.
Fortunately, a few friends saved me and I've been able to reconnect with a psychiatrist's office who had my files from years ago. Even more of a blessing, he connected me with his NP to ensure continuity of care, and I'm in my first 30 days of a prescription.
The medication has given me just enough space to use the tools I've worked so hard to learn over the last 20+ years.
I'm in the process of filing bankruptcy, live in a trailer with my dog, am likely being laid off tomorrow at work in less than 90 days after closing my business after 12 years, and looking for any work I can get just to cover my rent, trailer and truck plus food for me and my dog for the next few months.
Yet now knowing truly what has eluded me for so long makes me feel extremely free on the inside.
With my Mom passing, removing the stress of my business and the likely discharge of the majority of the debt I've accumulated while I was in an emotional "freeze" for 3 or 4 years, plus the reckless spending, huge burdens have been lifted.
Yet with all that stripped away, I'm feeling now the same fear and desperation and despondency and confusion and bewilderment I felt in that parking lot at the pay phone with not enough quarters to call my parents and not knowing where I was to be picked up, realizing that the only way I'd get back home was to go back in the hotel room with a predator pedophile.
As repetitive and triggering as this and other flashbacks have been and new ones I'm discovering, I remind myself that I'm an adult now(Robert), who's taking over the work that Fun Bobby(the reckless wild one) was trying to fulfill in protection of Little Bobby. Fun Bobby never meant wrong, but his behavior(s) were merely defense mechanisms to protect Little Bobby from having to feel fear and rejection and shame.
Now we're all on the same team. Fun Bobby doesn't have to do what he's not capable of, and he trusts Robert that he'll take care of the adult stuff and we'll both take care of Little Bobby.
I'm grateful to have found support here, and grateful that at my bottom in early December, I had some strength to reach out to a dozen or so friends and let them know I was having a mental and emotional crisis. I underestimated how much people loved me, even those who I hadn't spoken with for 10 or 15 years.
My Mom was likely CPTSD as well; she was a good human who loved me, but the combination of her inability to show affection, to nurture me and my other siblings, plus inviting a Catholic priest who was a serial pedophile into our home and let him take me on 3 separate trips, one of which I left a hotel room somewhere between Ohio and New Jersey with a couple quarters in my pocket and not having enough change to call home to my parents because I was afraid. Even if called them, I don't know if they could have found me.
Fortunately, I spoke up when I came home, and many children in the city I grew up were spared of a pedophile ring that was ultimately exposed.
The dynamics of a tumultuous upbringing with no affection, no return love and a Dad who didn't step in let to me being reckless, even though I maintained a cover on the outside as a high functioning athlete and student and friend, albeit one to get black out drunk and vandalize homes and cars and other immature behavior.
In 1999, I started therapy due to my marriage engagement breaking off - I went to the local library looking for help for some of my reckless behavior, and I came upon the 12 steps and other programs. Members of the fellowship appreciated my 4th step inventory, but politely told me they didn't think I was the same as them.
I tried and tried to be accepted into recovery communities, but something always didn't feel right; this was especially difficult to process considering I was being told I had to surrender and that everyone thinks they are "terminally unique".
It wasn't until this year when I learned that "freeze" and "fawn" existed in addition to "fight" and "flight".
Everything clicked for me this Summer, yet the financial consequences tied to reckless spending in my business and "fawning" and advocating for my Mom who passed in October all have come to a head in the last 30 days or so, leaving me completely shut down.
Fortunately, a few friends saved me and I've been able to reconnect with a psychiatrist's office who had my files from years ago. Even more of a blessing, he connected me with his NP to ensure continuity of care, and I'm in my first 30 days of a prescription.
The medication has given me just enough space to use the tools I've worked so hard to learn over the last 20+ years.
I'm in the process of filing bankruptcy, live in a trailer with my dog, am likely being laid off tomorrow at work in less than 90 days after closing my business after 12 years, and looking for any work I can get just to cover my rent, trailer and truck plus food for me and my dog for the next few months.
Yet now knowing truly what has eluded me for so long makes me feel extremely free on the inside.
With my Mom passing, removing the stress of my business and the likely discharge of the majority of the debt I've accumulated while I was in an emotional "freeze" for 3 or 4 years, plus the reckless spending, huge burdens have been lifted.
Yet with all that stripped away, I'm feeling now the same fear and desperation and despondency and confusion and bewilderment I felt in that parking lot at the pay phone with not enough quarters to call my parents and not knowing where I was to be picked up, realizing that the only way I'd get back home was to go back in the hotel room with a predator pedophile.
As repetitive and triggering as this and other flashbacks have been and new ones I'm discovering, I remind myself that I'm an adult now(Robert), who's taking over the work that Fun Bobby(the reckless wild one) was trying to fulfill in protection of Little Bobby. Fun Bobby never meant wrong, but his behavior(s) were merely defense mechanisms to protect Little Bobby from having to feel fear and rejection and shame.
Now we're all on the same team. Fun Bobby doesn't have to do what he's not capable of, and he trusts Robert that he'll take care of the adult stuff and we'll both take care of Little Bobby.