PTSD As a Result of Childhood Abuse

[No-Twitch-Tabitha]

After all this time
To believe in Jesus
After all those drugs
I thought I was Him
After all my lying
And a-crying
And my suffering
I ain't good enough
I ain't clean enough
To be Him

"The Sound of Sinners", The Clash

I was molested as a little girl by an uncle, 2 male cousins, and a female cousin from about the age of 6 until 9 - separate events, but the same outcome.
I was also verbally and emotionally abused by my mother. My father was in the USAF and away most of the time. Even when he was home with the family, Mom was the dominant one. My mother died when I was 20, but I continue to sabotage myself with her messages. I was glad when she died; there are times when I feel like I didn't have one. My father, well, I love him, but he and I are distant. He has End-Stage Renal disease and I can't help but worry about him quite a bit.

Officially, I began manifesting the symptoms of PTSD after Memorial Day this year. Over the holiday, I attended a family picnic and came face-to-face with one of the bastards who abused me. Imagine my surprise.

However, when I think back, it could have started much earlier than that. I began having problems with Depression at 11yo and by the time I was 13 I was suicidal and I spent my adolescent years attempting to off myself. At 20yo, I snapped out of it...the suicidal tendencies, that is. I still don't have much of a will to live. There are times when I feel like I'm just waiting to die.
And yes, I take medication - Cymbalta - which treats me biologically, but emotions are another story. :wall:

I took myself to the local behavioral health center on 7/20/06 for an evaluation as the fallout from what happened over Memorial Day began really affecting my behavior, work, etc. There I was diagnosed with PTSD with "anxiety issues". I hate crowds, I don't like being around other people very much...I'm just not a big fan of people in general. Even before everything, I was a pretty self-contained, lonesome child who was very sensitive (I'm still highly sensitive). Now I'm a self-contained adult. I startle very easily, and I hate being tickled. I don't mind contact, but only with people I know very well.

I feel generally worthless and, well, defiled. I don't feel clean. It's not an obsession (I don't bathe 15 times a day or constantly wash my hands or anything) but it's a general feeling. I don't feel like the world is safe and I'm hypervigilant. I don't trust very easily, and I hate showing anything that's going on in my head. I feel disconnected at times and I am quite avoidant.

That's all I have to say for now.

[kimG]

Welcome to the forum, Tabitha. You've found a place where you're understood; most of us have been through things similar to you.

Stick around and (I think) you'll find this place is an easy one to visit. Rant, rave, scream, kick, yell, get angry, let it out...we're all here for you!

[Farmer]

Hello Tabitha

It's nice to meet you. I hear you about growing with it, the self dout and solitude and trust stuff. It's hard in adolesance let alone having PTSD missing with you. There is a lot of good info here and some very understanding, noligable people to( I'm still a rookie at figuring this out )
But anyway nice to meet you.

[Nam]

Welcome Tabitha. We are glad to have you. You are one tough lady and I congratulate you on being as well as you are. Keep going, keep fighting, and fill yourself with knowledge and tools to fight. You can do it.

[reallydown]

Hi Tabitha, welcome to the forum :)

[Boo-Damphir]

Hi Tabitha!
Boy am I glad to see you here :thumbs-up

[Merlin]

Hi Tabitha,

We appear to have a couple of things in common, I can relate to being very easily startled and hypervigilant... it's very debilitating for me at times, is it the same for you?

I'm new to the forum as well. I'm glad I found your thread....

Take care

Merlin

[anthony]

Welcome Tabitha... very pleased to have your here and talking.

[YoungAndAngry]

Hi Tabitha and welcome!

[purdyamos]

Hi Tabitha! The sensations and self-image you describe at the end are bewildering until you realise other people get it too. You'll feel perfectly normal here! I hope the forums can help you like they have the rest of us.

[anthony]

Tabitha, what you are experiencing is all very normal for someone who has been put through what you have. You are the victim, and its ok to accept that. You have been violated in one of the human souls most indecent ways, molestation as a minor, at a point when your not as capable to defend yourself as one generally is as an adult.

To have family members do such an act is pretty much the lowest form of humanity, because these are the very people who's role it is to guide us and protect us into adulthood. There are some seriously sick individuals upon this planet, no doubt about that.

I have no doubt that coming face to face with an offender on the holidays is what through you over the edge, because it would have stimulated ever single event and emotion pretty much well, all the way back to your early childhood.

You need to know, your not alone, help is available, and providing you want to help yourself, there is a far better side to PTSD than where your at now.

[No-Twitch-Tabitha]

Seeing that asswipe brought it all on. I started really dealing with my childhood abuse (as opposed to shoving it back) in the last few years, so I'd been having the nightmares, but everything went into overdrive after the picnic. I feel haunted and I am afraid to sleep. The sleeplessness is what drove me to seek help.

What makes me angrier than what I went through is the disbelief and blaming that occurs when you tell other family members and even authorities. It angers and sickens me that the offenders have more rights than the victims in our society. It feels like society really doesn't value children (especially female children).

[anthony]

You are absolutey correct, and society itself has issues all of its own, and the only way society will change is if people like us, voice our opinions, otherwise society thinks everything is just rosy and it continues along.

The law is made for criminals IMHO, and that is the way it has always been. If your a good person, make a mistake, the law crucifies you, but if you go and rape or kill someone, they give you a couple years behind bars with good behaviour, and if you continually repeat, then they go even more leanient upon you. The law sucks and needs a good overall.

[carpediem2006]

Hi there

All of this stuff is normal, the responses, how you feel...how is anyone supposed to feel when faced with the person that did that to them...
Your reactions are not strange, and are the same for most of us, regardless of the baloney you can hear from many others (whose worst memory is not getting the right Barbie at Christmas or something similar)

Be aware at the same times of the side effects that some people experience from Cymbalta, we all react differently to medications like that, if you are not sure ask your doc next time, especially if you notice anything at all you think is worse than before. The other thing with some medications, is the withdrawal if they are reduced.

The other thing you may need to do, whether here or with your doc is get this out of your system, and not all pent up inside, even if that is through a private mail to one other person, a helpline, letters or conversations with your doc. Whatever is working for you. Once out in the open somewhere (with one or two others) you might then want to focus more on how you are now. We cannot change the past, but until we have openly discussed it somewhere freely, I do not think that we deal with it either.

Good to see you here, if nothing else you will realise that what is happening is a completely normal response to what noone should ever experience.