 The indepth Shayce
Sorry, when I originally posted the other day, I barely had the time to simply post more than a hello. Now that I have the time, I'd like to take the time.
For me, PTSD is one of those things that I never had in my language until recently when someone in the hospital laid it at my feet.
It seems there are layers and layers to this disorder, and I am sure I am not the first to think so, its hard to think about. I hear once I get it out and heard, that it might be easier to heal.
When I was in fourth grade, (I am 32 now, so that was ages ago for me) my best friend asked me to spend the night. No big deal, her house was a 2 minute walk down the sidewalk. Her stepfather answered the door, in a bathrobe that was all but undone. I quickly averted my eyes and asked for my friend. When I asked her about it she said something along the lines of don't mind him, he's just a perv, he does stuff like that all the time. My friend was a couple of years older than me, so I trusted she was right and we had a good night doing girl stuff. I am sketchy on the time line from here, since we were friends for a couple of years before I moved. The things I do remember was him having us sit on his lap while we skimmed through playboy magazines and telling us that one day we would look like these women, but to enjoy the beauty we had now. There was another time (around Halloween) where he said we should have our own dress up party, and he painted our girl bits with body paint to look like kittens, and added licorice whiskers. I don't think I need to elaborate from there what happened. Another weekend he decided that someone "Older and Wiser" needed to teach us just what our fingers were for. Then we were to practice on each other, so he could grade us.
I'm sure there is more, as more and more becomes clear all the time. I stifled that for years before I told my parents. I did not want to get into any kind of trouble, and thats the way he made it sound if I had told. So several years, and a move across country, I finally told them. They were angry at the man, and upset that they let me go over there so often. For many years, and many broken relationships (mostly due to the fact I would not let me get physical with me.) I had forgotten about this. Until recently.
Several years later, I was living with a man that I thought I was going to marry. His mother was dating a man that I guess I will call J for convenience sake. J lived with his daughter and her husband. All of us had gone out to dinner one night, and having a great time. Some of us more than others. We decided to take the party back to J's house where the drinks would be cheaper. My boyfriend and his mother did not want to go, so they went home, with the plan for me to sleep off my drunk on the couch and get picked up in the morning. After J's daughter and husband went to bed, J declared his love for me, and also his plan to not let me go home. I was flabbergasted and told him it was unacceptable. This is the day of the BBS's. and he had sent emails to my boyfriend and his mother saying how unhappy with my life I was, and how I wasn't coming home. My decision was final and not to contact me. This went on for several days. My boyfriends mother was out of town on business at this point. My boyfriend was semi-spineless and accepted the emails at face value, as they were sent from my account.(J made me log into them, and then he changed the passwords). The windows were nailed shut, and all of the doors had deadbolts that locked inside and out with keys. All the phones were removed from the house, as well as the modem from the computer. Then one day, his daughters husband told me he had feelings for me too. Could it get much worse? This actually turned out to be a good thing for me, as J left his keys on the table one day and they got into a fistfight over it. I grabbed the keys, locked them in to fight it out, threw the keys into the sewer drain and ran like never before. I found a place where I would be safe and called my boyfriend to come get me. It was an awkward homecoming, but it worked out for several years. Then we parted ways, when my best friend accidentally revealed that the two of them slept together.
Then there was this instance at work a few years ago where I was robbed at gun point. Not so much that the guy had a gun, but he had a gun pointed at the back of my head. The girl working with me at the time started to tell the guy no, and to get the hell out of here. I made her sit down and shut up, since the guy started getting more and more agitated. I work in the cash office at a grocery store. The grocery store has more money on hand than you would think, and my boss was lazy and had us all trained to follow her lead, so we had A LOT of cash on hand. So, this guy has a gun pressed into my head as I am desperately trying to fill his bag fast enough. Thats when he realized that he was locked into the cash office, and had to have a key to get out, this did not help his attitude much. He finally got out, we realized that our panic buttons were never really attached to anything, and didn't help us AT ALL. In stead of me breaking down and panicking, I stayed at work another 5 hours counting down our cash office with store officials to find out what was missing, talking with police, and cleaning up. I went home, and took a sleeping pill, woke up and went to work the next day like nothing had happened. I just couldn't process it. I never did.
About five months ago, I had a baby. The greatest thing that could have happened to me and my husband. The pregnancy was great up until the 8th month, when extreme swelling and high blood pressure took over, and took away that 9th month away from me. A regular check up turned into an emergency induction that I was not ready for. Thankfully we were both healthy. I didn't get to see him before they whisked him away to the nicu, and I had to stay in bed for at least 24 hours due to the medication they used to bring my blood pressure down. To stay away from my son the first 24 hours of his life was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life. I had other delivery problems, that I don't remember happening, as I have never had to be so drugged up in my life. The placenta apparently would not budge, and was minutes away from a hysterectomy and/or death. They kept me drugged due to the pain and so I wouldn't try to tear the walls down to get to my baby. Now he is the joy and light of my life. If not for my son and husband, I may not be here today.
I have never gotten so much off of my chest at once. It feels good, but it is hard. I'm sure I am not the first person to say so. Thanks for listening if you got this far!  |
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