Hello Everybody,

I decided since this is offered to go ahead and take advantage of being able to share some of my struggles with other folks with PTSD. I am thankful to have the freedom and technology to do this. I will say ahead of time, I've got alot of yuk in this brain of mine. If at anytime you get ta feeling overwhelmed at my junk, take good care of yourself and feel free to share your stuff with me too. Not that I'm a super or anything like that but I just think it'll be comforting to connect with other folks like myself.

Recently, I'll start there, I been having trouble because of spending alot more time with my mom. I love her so much but she can be so triggering. She completely denies that dad was sexually abusive to me and would probably keel over dead if she knew that I perceived her as having been verbally sexually abusive. She is a very devoted Christian and a real sweet lady but came from a life of sexual abuse herself and doesn't really understand those things called, "Appropriate Boundaries!" The following are some examples of how she used to say weird sexual things that really made me uncomfortable:

• When I was just a little kid my mom was talking to me about her second husband and his experiences in the Korean War. I would like to forget this but unfortunately can't. She told me that he told her that during the war when the guys were out cold and hungry alot of women got raped. She then told me that he said one time he saw these guys rape a lady then cut her breasts off and eat them. I'm really sorry to be so graphic but this sh*t really freakin haunts me!
• Mom always says that if she had known she would have done something to stop my half brother from molesting me and my little sister. But when I was 5 and tried to tell her she threatened to spank me and told me I didn't know what I was talking about. I don't know why this particular situation sits in my head so strong and I never forgot it but anyway, My bro told me that if I'd go upstairs and play nasty with him he'd take me to the pool. I feel some shame about this because even though I was a little tike I knew he meant NASTY and didn't really mind. When I got upstairs he had a little more in mind. He tied me up, gaged my mouth, blind folded me, took my undies off and began to try to fully rape me (I was 5). My other brother came just in time to stop him. I was blind folded so I'll never really know if my other brother had fun with me before the fight. All I remember is feeling a body part on my pri*ate area and warm yukky stuff falling on me. I hate this. I know it was then and this is know but everytime this stuff pops in my head and my body responds in ways in which I have no control I feel like a disgusting person. I hate my own body. It betrays me!!!!!!!!!! I love my dear husband with all my heart. He is my handsome best friend. I want to feel good about being with him but its like my body only wants to respond when something is disgusting or perverted. I am very blessed by God that this has not affected my love and physical affection toward my kids. It just causes me to feel mascocistis. Perhaps that is why I used to allow my first husband to hit me, pull my hair, and slam me down on things. I remember thinking on several occasions, please just finish your fun and kill me, choke me, beat my head in, do something! I want to die but don't have the guts to do it myself.

GOTTA go now. Can't do any more. This is harder than I ever thought it could be but I have to do it. I can't hold it in any more. If I do I'm surely going to fester!

LUV to ALL
Marilyn :eek: :crybaby:

Gosh, its me again. Since this is a diary thing I guess I'm kinda gonna use it like that. Feelin a little overwhelmed right now. Not at anything I've read cause there's nothin I haven't read, heard, saw, or experienced. Well except for the Devil and/or Davie Jones Locker! I'm hoping I can leave my physical symptoms here right now. I feel sick to my stomach, I have a head ache, I'm exhausted, and I still havn't cooked dinner yet or helped my son read and do his homa work or started on the big fat pile of unsorted dirty laundry I have seemingly volcanizing in my laundry room! Why on earth does my silly brain waste so much energy popping up things from childhood and the past when I've got so much to do right now. This is just freakin inconvenient! I'm kind of banging my head right now because staying busy is how I turn off my don't want to feel it, remember it, deal with it or experience it button on my brain's CPU chip! Stupid brain!

I shouldn't do this because if anybody really actually reads my written verbal diareah, of which I'm sure is a bit too much info!, They might be a fearin' to even acknowledge they tackled reading it. I'm sorry. I'm apolojizing to who ever is patient enough to have read this. I'm doing so because I know what my hidden motive was behind saying it. When in all actuality I should just be honest and up front and just say what's on my heart. If anyone has been kind and brave enough to read my junk, when ya catch a moment amid this vast, fast pased, busy, global community, write me a line and just say, "yo, I hear ya, and you are a survivor!" What I was going to share is a secret only God, my sweetie, and my therapist knows, but I feel so stupid, I have to somehow know I'm not some kind of freak! I am so sorry for saying this. I'm probably being a boundary idiot but as of late I've again been having urges to use my hobbie knife to put scratches on my arm underneath my watch. No one can see it but it still makes me feel really rediculous. Its like a drug. It hurts for a few moments and really draws my attention away from my unwanted brain activity. There! I said it! Now that I feel completely rediculous, I'm going to go cook my family some dinner. Man! I'm such an egocentric ditts to actually say all this stuff. Ouch Marilyn! Be nice! That hurt! Little fight back self talk there.
Later,
LOVE to ALL
Marilyn

It makes sense to me that this incident sticks in your head....you tried to get help to deal with what was happening. Your mom, who is supposed to protect you, didn't, and in fact made you feel like you had done wrong. I had something similar happen when I tried to tell and it still haunts me, having my mother choose not to protect me.

I know where you're coming from with the self-harm, too. I am trying really hard to let that bit of old coping go. I find that when I am cutting, I am able to avoid the feelings altogether. And the only way to get over this PTSD is to feel the feelings, all the way.

Hang in there.

Hello kers,

Thank you for taking time to read my stuff and for understanding. I am glad i've found this place. I want to get better, grow, heal, and know peace. Lofty desires I guess but that's what I want. I am glad to be acquainted with you. And you hang in there too fellow survivor! And about the cutting, thanks for sharing that with me. Sometimes I feel alot of shame over that. Its not really that I want to feel good about that, but I want to feel good about me. Knowing a fellow survivor has struggled with the same problem (although I'm sorry you've had that struggle too) helps me not feel so alone and rediculous! Take care...
Marilyn

Its 2:30 A.M. and I'm a PTSDin'!!! I was sleeping and my sweetie got up to go wee wee. When he russled the coveres to get back in bed I was little again, I saw the ROOM, the darkness, and I was so scared. He woke me up, bless his poor sweet heart. The man can't even go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without his wife freakin out! He's a trooper though! I'll give his that. He turned the light on, got me awake good. I'm OK now. I want to cry but just don't have the ability. My head's spacey and I'm numbing out. "This is Major Tom to ground control! I'm floating in a most peculiar way... Here I am sitting in my tin can far above the world. Planet earth is blue and there's nothing I can do!" (David Boey)
I'm going to go back to sleep now if I can. I think I'll go sleep in the recliner in the kiving room so I can be in a sitting up position. I'm less venerable that way.
Later...

Hi Marilyn,

There's a lot in here that I think I can comment on, and I will come back to do that when my head is more coherent itself...

But I wanted to drop by and say hello fellow survivor and add a couple of comments now. You're 'admission' (which I think really goes without saying and is not some kind of 'alterior motive', rather a rightful need), well done for saying how you really feel. Sometimes it's scary admitting things like just wanting to feel less alone and not a 'freak' (which you are not). I want the same. I hear ya darlin', and you are a survivor. And still surviving through the aftermath....

I am also someone who understands well about self-harm. It is under control now (touch wood) but I most definitely understand the urge and need. It is hard NOT doing it, because it means sitting through 'it'. I have found, and still find that hard, but once I sat through it a few times it broke the habitual reaction to go and self-harm, it's now something I have to think carefully about if I really want to do it. There is hope... when you are ready and in the right place, you can start to test what you can tolerate emotionally, and the self-harm urges will eventually reduce.

Your PTSD seems fast-paced at the moment, which must be difficult. Hang in there....

Lisa.

Its late afternoon. I feel a little better, well alot better than last night. But I'm very fatigued today. Alot of stuff on my mind just life stress related. Trying to stay functional for my family but just feel like sleeping. Then I have a dickens of a time gettin' to sleep at night. Well, gotta go.
Love to all
Marilyn

A Poem by me: Marilyn AKA Pseudonym (Seasons Malloney)

No one knows me in those quiet hours,
When I feel unclean and my joy sours.
Like a turtle in my shell with my sharpened toes pressed inward,
I am careful not to move or fear and pain are my reward.
My heart struggles with longing inside me.
I desire warm protection and acceptance that is free.
An infection takes my heart by storm.
Toxic shame begins to form.
The past is now a secret place
That puts itself in my soul’s space.
I pine for a parent to fill the hole
That grows like madness in my soul.
I wish someone would hear my plea
And teach me how to rescue me.
I wish someone could help me see.
The ugly person is not me.

Another poem by Me, Marilyn AKA Pseudonym (Seasons Malloney)

When solemn silence invades the night
And darkness hides the daytime light
My eyes are open to the pain
Of salient dreams my brain’s disdain.
Events from my life form like glaciers of ice.
They fall from the past to present precise.
I can feel and hear them happening now
Like the haunting swish of a willow’s bough.
A large angry hand grabs my face.
Fingernails make a bloody place.
The sting of a fence vine swings with force.
It hits my bear back like a whip on a horse.
A chilling warm breath parts the hair on my head.
The touch that I long for makes me feel dead.
I am struggling because there is no place to go.
Pain grips my heart and seems all I know.
It pulses like madness through my mind.
It makes my eyes reality blind.
But I’ll hold on even though I feel weak.
I’ll not give up on the self that I seek.
Carry me back home mother dear,
Where I lived in constant fear,
Where happy birds sang their flippant song,
Where secrets forgotten still hide the wrong.
On the surface it seems there is peace and still.
But my tormented soul hides a broken will.
The ache inside my broadened mind
May seize me to leave my life behind.
Where is the self that I should see?
Who is the person I should be?
It seems that joy can’t hold together.
Are comfort and peace gone forever?
Can you hear my lonely plea?
Jesus! Please rescue me!
All I ask is for some peace.
I plea to have my strength increase.
So I can feel my own embrace
And know my mind is a safe place.

WOW! I just realized how really goofy my thread title sounds! I should have called it, "The Marilyn Diary"

Well, Its the middle of the night and since I slept most of the day like a bum, I'm wide awake now. DANG IT!!!!! Its 12:30 AM here in hill billy ville. I think my anger is wanting to come out in sarcasm. It does that alot. Its usually directed at myself because I don't care if I hurt myself. It feels a whole lot more safe to do that. I don't want to hurt other people. I'm a person with PTSD. That would make me a JERK with PTSD! May be I should give each of my weird states of being a name. I could be a regular Sybel. Except that would get very confusing after a while. I'm confused enough all ready. Well, I'm going to quit being Marilyn the motor mouth and try to go to sleep.

Captain's Log, Star Date 2006, Space Cadette Marilyn signing off!
Love to all!
Marilyn

I don't know if I'm doing the right thing or not. This hurts really bad and I feel a bit venerable. But here goes.

* When I was six, my oldest half brother was involved in the satanist church. He said that was the reason he did what he did. One day he took me by the arm, didn't say a word, and lead me up stairs to the window at the top of the staircase. He instructed me to lean over a stool he had placed in front of the window. He removed my underware and began to slowly rape me. When I screamed with pain he covered my mouth and nose with his hand and I couldn't breath. All I remember is it was over quick and he couldn't look at me after. He had a picture of a naked lady on the floor by the stool I was leaning over. I was very scared even though he didn't go very far and it didn't hurt that bad. I lied to mom and told her I fell on my tricycle. The memory of this incident did not come back to me until I was 36 years old. I had to go back to the old house we lived in at the time to see if my memory was just a sick trick of my brain. When I got to the house in Kansas, it was exactly like I remember it being when we lived there. It was for sale so I called the owner and ask if I could go in. As I walked through the old house my whole body began to shake. I thought I was going to pass out. I managed to make my way upstairs and there it was. The window, the corner, chipped paint and faided wall paper. This helped me to realize I wasn't just a freak with a twisted brain. My memory was real. I really loved my big bubby. It was real hard on me because he just dissapeared after that. He reappeared when my family moved to another town in MO. It is so hard for me because the people that hurt me are the people I love. My bubby is in prison now. He stabbed a man to death with a hunting knife. He's been in prison for 14 years now. He's very sick with cancer. I've never went to see him because it hurts so bad to see him a prisoner. I wanted him to have a good life. I normal life with a wife, kids, job, and nice home. He will never have that. He used to carry me to school on his shoulders everyday and when he picked me up, if he had money, he'd stop by the convenience store and buy me candy. He used to tell me to be a good girl and do good in school. He would say that he was proud of me for being such a cute and smart little sister. I'm crying now but I have to keep going. I can't hold this in any more. He used to tell me really funny stories to make me laugh. He called me his little "Eskimo Arab". He once told me that he walked all the way across the African desert carrying his camel on his back. Appearently the cammel had fainted from lack of water. His silly story always made me laugh. He told me if I didn't eat my spinich and peas I would be scrawny and weak and wouldn't be able to carry my camel across the desert.
I have to go now. I'll write more later.