Hi Rob,

Welcome aboard mate, and glad you found us. Yep, we all suffer the same thing, same symptoms, same effects, same; just a different way in which we got to PTSD.

Mate, glad you hit upon a support group and are going to give it a shot. Face to face can do so much more than just online, hence why people need to ensure they maintain / commence counselling to get that face to face interaction whilst dealing with trauma.

Rob, I am with Carp, in that I think what needs to be focused first is your self esteem. Your low self esteem is a direct reflection of your life, and the way life has treated you more to the point. When you think your getting up, someone beats you down. Nothing worse than a family member doing that too you.

People look at self esteem and think, "my god, how am I going to improve that", where in fact self esteem is much easier than that to comprehend, just harder to implement and manage. Self esteem is a direct reflection of a persons confidence. If you improve a persons confidence, you will automatically improve their self esteem. There is already some good information within the Interpersonal Skills forum on self esteem.

I look forward to chatting with you more Rob...