complex PTSD is er... complex

[JamesG]

last few days have been a real roller coaster. NO triggers, just me and my memories in close quarter combat. But it IS progress. I had a very good session with my counsellor on monday, digging into the realisation that I was traumatised throughout my childhood by my brother's domination of the house and set up to find optimism intimacy and lightheartedness a deep challenge all my life.

I'm squaring that away now I think, even the realisation that my mother's affection crossed a few lines I cannot quite explain. It wasn't sexual, but it wasn't not sexual either. I'd kept the lid on that one a long time, even tho it had happened even in her 80s. Hands had to be moved. I cannot explain that. It's a definite factor in what happened but exactly how, I can't tell. I'm wary of false memories but I am certain of at least 8 incidents where I thought it was not motherly.

But overall the PTSD road is huegly complicated, it;s just layer after layer of an onion that can grow back a skin after you remove it. It's huge effort because you have to fix a broken car with a broken toolkit and you are so untrusting of everyone in your life that you dare not ask for help.

Today I crashed for 2 hours at lunch and awoke in a full on emotional flashback, remembering begging my partner, who I had loved to death, to go to the doctors because I caught her throwing up blood. She's changed into someone I didn't recognise, swearing at me and telling me to leave the house if I didn't shut up and I'd stopped at the bottom of the stairs, caught between the need to confront and the realization that I was not going to make any headway. I'd stood there for 30 mins in the dark, too confused and traumatised to cry. Part of me is still there, one foot up on the first stair, going neither up or down.

I have friends who watch soap operas or read worthy literature about crisis and emotion who I cannot explain that to. They can't go near me right now, and it makes me so angry. My only good friends now are those who have been through pain because I can't relate to the wanna be polyannas who have these lead umbrellas above their heads and smiles they've seen on air freshener adverts.

Real people care, real people hurt.

[Blueberry]

I'm sorry that memories are coming up and you're feeling as if you're on a roller-coaster.  that you can see progress in spite of everything though.

Standing with you, because some of what you write is familiar to me too.

And yeah, complex PTSD is, well, complex.

[JamesG]

it's a pig, but it is NOTHING compared to what caused it, we must never forget that.

[achilles]

I'm sorry you've been having a rough day.  I know how gripping the emotional flashbacks can be.  It sounds like you're doing a good job of working through the memories even though they make you uncomfortable.  It takes strength to face them.  I wish I could offer more support.

[JamesG]

thanks Achilles