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Messages - flowerofthewoods

#1
Sexual Abuse / Something that's been on my mind
May 09, 2016, 08:17:59 PM
This has been on my mind for awhile now, so I want to just get it out.

When I was was a little kid, I very abruptly developed severe incontinence and had some X-rays done that showed my muscles were too weak to close all the way. My mom told me that it was because I had held it in too long instead of going to the bathroom when I needed to, and put me on a pee schedule. I never fully recovered, just got it fixed to a manageable level.

I took a drama class in middle school, and the teacher told me that the way I portrayed anger was very masculine. I have a number of behavioral quirks that are very masculine that other women don't seem to share or understand.

The first time that I put in a tampon, I panicked so badly that I nearly fainted, and had to spend time lying on the bathroom floor with my feet propped up on the side of the bathtub. I've never been able to use tampons.

As a teenager, I found the idea of sex to be repulsive and frightening and was very asexual until I met my husband. The first time we had sex was a lot more painful than I expected, and I bled a lot more than I expected. Currently, while I want to be able to want sex, my body won't cooperate. I can find something to be very mentally arousing, but have no physical response. On the flip side, I can feel very turned off, and my body will show entirely different signs. I also find orgasims to be very frightening, and prefer to avoid them.

I have absolutely NO memories of ever being sexually abused. I do have an older cousin who has been caught sending sexually explicit messages to 12 and 13 year old girls over the past few years, and our two families had spent a lot of time together during the right time frame. He also has a bizarre fixation with me that seems to keep going even though I've cut off all contact with him and most of my extended family for years now, so honestly it's not that hard to imagine that he did do something to me when I was little.

I don't want to start jumping to conclusions and making accusations, especially since I don't have any memories about it, but I've always felt like there was something that was abnormal about me, and sexual abuse might be the explanation. If so, how would I know and where would I even begin with addressing it?
#2
Personally, I've found that loving my children in the way that I wish my parents had loved me has been enormously healing in a lot of ways. I'm not perfect, and I have plenty of days where I feel on edge and need to spend time alone, but there are moments when I wrap my babies up in a blanket and hold them close to sooth their crying, and I can feel my own inner child taking comfort from it as well.
#3
General Discussion / Re: New
May 05, 2016, 10:08:42 PM
Last year my religious leader did set something up so that our church would cover part of the costs, but I don't think that the therapist I saw understood PTSD at all because he kept making little comments about how I shouldn't have any problems anymore. It made me feel awful, which made me feel guilty about wasting the church's money, so I quit. The GP I saw before that wanted to put me on anti-depressants and have that be the end of it, and didn't offer any referrals. I feel like I get stereotyped and dismissed a lot, so it would probably end up being long and expensive journey just trying to find a therapist who actually works with me.

It really doesn't help with feeling alienated from society.
#4
I half think that our bathroom is cursed at this point. Most recently, we hired someone to paint it, and immediately after she started her health tanked and she's had to spend a lot of time at the hospital getting tests done. She's been so distracted that she's made a number of mistakes that needed to be fixed, so she's been working on it for a month now. The other painters in the area are totally booked, unreliable, or taking time off to mourn the sudden death of a family member, so we can't hire anyone else. Stuff like this has been happening from the start with every single step (plumbing, electricity, drywall).

It's my third baby (a boy, and my older two are girls). I had them all close together, so this last pregnancy was really rough on me physically.  I had a friend that was helping out a little bit, but last week completely out of nowhere she told me that she was moving out of state in two days, so now she's suddenly gone and I'm feeling abandoned. I had a major meltdown and haven't yet recovered, even though a couple other women in the neighborhood have offered their support. I feel guilty for not being able to let go and move on.
#5
Background: I was homeless during 2011-12. Last year my husband started renovating our bathroom, and had just about everything go wrong with the project. We've been living without a bathroom for 10 months, and it's still ongoing. We have a three month old baby, so I had to go through most of the pregnancy and recovery without a bathroom.

Over the past ten months I've had numerous crying spells, and gotten into a lot of fights with my husband over the bathroom. Yesterday was especially bad after a storm had knocked out our power, and I felt like my soul was rotting away from being crushed by too much all at once.

When I have these spells, I get irrationally angry at everything. I look at Facebook and hate all my friends for having happy and productive lives. Yesterday I told my husband that, "Living with PTSD is like battling cancer only no one cares." I want to withdraw from my friends, leave my religion, and give up on everything, because no one will ever understand me.

When I was homeless, my extended family told me that I deserved it for not just getting a job, and I was even told that I should get a mortgage to solve all my problems. They really didn't understand how difficult my position was and refused to offer any help. I really hated them and haven't had anything to do with them since, but now when I'm triggered I hate everyone I know. I worry about damaging the friendships that I've built over the past year since moving here, because the bathroom is one big trigger that won't be resolved for at least another month.
#6
General Discussion / Re: New
April 29, 2016, 08:26:02 PM
It's incredibly hard to process through trauma when I'm not even sure when it started, and there were multiple long term circumstances going on at the same time. At this point, the fact that I'm traumatized is traumatizing.
#7
General Discussion / New
April 29, 2016, 06:37:26 PM
I'm new here, and honestly not at all familiar with how forums work. Please be patient with me while I figure this out.

I found out about CPTSD a few days ago. I've known for a couple of years that I have some form of PTSD, but something about it just didn't seem right, didn't seem to accurately describe the degree of traumatization that I've gone through. Last night was really awful and once again proved to me that I can't manage this alone, but I can't afford therapy right now and absolutely no one I know could possibly understand what this is like. I don't know if I can expect anything out of this forum, but it's got to be better than slitting my wrists, right?

I'm sorry, I usually try to be optimistic and not so much of a downer, but I feel so dejected right now. Last night proved that all of my best efforts haven't gotten me very far.