This place has been on my mind for a while. Since my last flashback about a month ago. I came here, read all the required reading, and made cyber person. I feel strange.
My existance is that of a shut in, if i go out it's with others, when I take out my dog I feel vunerable. So much so, I bring a lit ciggarette and a pen (I have a small dog). For the most part, I sit, watch idiotic TV, my husband takes care of me completely, and I'm applauded for doing the most minute things. And I've reached a point where that praise feels good.
I had to change from one EMDR therapist to another just recently, due to the reality she could take me no further in my therapy. The last session I had to pay for, she was pulling up some spam joke she receive from another patient and waisted 20 minutes of my time. I only get 22 visits a year! She won't continue on pat one EMDR session, but we have time for this?! I was stuck in the dark and deserted again. I had to wait from January intil March to see a new therapist with this specialty, and now I have to drive 45 minutes there and back. It's great gass prices are so cheap.
So, okay... maybe the ciggarette is not just for defense. If i feel panic out in the dark with my dog and i can rationally see there is no threat, i will burn myself. I am also a self mutilator. I started back in 1997. I was on lunch break and for no sane reason I can explain, I took the knife part of a keychain and cut my fore-arm. It's my worst scar, among an ocean of others.
Because I have been so long outside any kind of socialization, i suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder. My new therapist says i have no censor button, since I'm typing here, I'm hoping to be able to say the right things, but honestly, just yesterday my husband yelled at me for saying something on the phone I guess was way wrong. Example of my infamous slip ups: My husband's Christmas party, talking to his boss/Owner of the business, I say, "Yes, the bonus checks this year were great, but my husband thought the check would be bigger." I wasn't being sarcastic or humerous in any way. My husband and I talked about it like a week earlier, and that was his opinion, and we joked about it. I pulled another nasty Mulligan later on in the evening that made a whole table go sour and buckle in on itsself. In highschool and throughout life I was always blessed with friends of all kinds, all parents loved me, teachers... college was harder to matriculate in for me, and this is what I'm reduced to. Being laughed at by cashier and the bagger because of something i said ("it was the way you said it..." I had to leave I was going to lose contol). A part of me also is type 2 bi-Polar, OCD, and panic/anxiety disorder. one big bag o' suck. But the I got the upside in esthetics (my husband makes me feel beautiful and special all the time and worthy of being alive sometimes. Love at first sight for me. I told my mother the night I met him he was the man I would marry at age 16. Through every horror, end of the world, truly psychotic moments, he has stayed with me and beside me through it all, and at 34, has never shirked or studdered in any way, and he's my best friend, too. He's my other asset.
I just turned fourteen, and was walking home from a girlfriend's house. She and her sisters walked me half way, noticing a guy walking ahead, but just briefly, and i go on my way from one well lit road to another. Before the turn, I pass a very blond haired man, shorter than me. I say hi as I pass him, as was my nature, and kept walking. Right before the turn, he asked what time it was from behind me. I had a large faced pink watch I just got for Christmas, so I looked down and yelled out behind to him the time. I still felt safe. Kids get to enjoy that feeling of invincibility.
My girlfriend and I worked out a while ago that if didn't call her 10 minutes after my curfew, she would call my house (this is 1987, no cell phones) to see if I got home okay. I was generally a good kid, and I followed my curfew.
Turning the corner onto the sidewalk of a very busy 6 lane boulevard to the left of me, and on my right and almost home I was passing an open field of grass with street lights when the the feeling came over me. I'm walking and now I'm watching the shadows: mine and his. Okay, so now the panic is starting to become palatable, thick. I only have to pass the the drive in entrance and exit, the small patch of woods at the top of my street and book it down said street 100 yards to my house. I needed a reason to run pass the woods after I got past the exit of the drive in, just in case I was not really in danger, I was being stupid, and running for no reason. I looked at my watch. It said ten after 9pm. I said "oh shit" and started running. He blitzed me into the woods, his hand pressed over my eyes asked me "Do you want to live or die?"
For an hour and a half he degraded and shamed me, psychologically tortured me in those woods, and toward the end, he told me he'd have to kill me because he said I'd seed his face. My save is sketchy. Somehow my brother was there holding one arm and the unsub has the other. My brother was cut on the arm, a neighbor boy said he heard a scream, his mother told my mother later that year that he still couldn'tsleep without the light on. I don't remember screaming. I don't remeber police in the woods, I remember like 3 big police vehicles down near my house. I remember running down my road with my brother's jacket covering my bare top, jeans inside out and in disaray, for some reason everything in my vision is upside down and i get to my parents and their eyes were so black they were horrified. I kep screaming he was gonna murder me he was gonna murder me
There were intense investigations all over my brand new high school, my name all over the place, which made friends uncomfortable, and foes happy to spread gossip, they showed me a photo line up and i didn't know i had the option not to choose one. I knew him from his voice. I didn't know how to talk to the cops like that, to stand up, to tell them their business...I was just a kid. They had a match for the clothing and a friend's brother and mother (saw him running back the way we walked to an apt building across the street from them)
After I chose the picture of a cop (I didn't know better, I just picked the blondest hair. I really thought I had to choose one of those pictures in front of me), the detective put me in his car, told me I went into the woods willingly with an old boyfriend, and since my father was so protective of me, when I got caught, i yelled rape rape. Such utter I so wish i could really cuss right now. I wasn't even technically penetrated, so I don't even know what to call what happened to me. The incident, the thing, the event. I took a psychological profiling class to figure out my attacker. I still lack the venacular after all these years.
I wasn't always affected. I had the best time until I was 20. Then I had a nervous breakdown. that's when the psych meds started. At 17, I started work in a pharmacy as a cashier. In 2 years I was trained as a technician. That pharmacy created a Pharmacy support person of the Month Award based soley on my work perfomance and positive customer input to corperate. Three months later, I was made Head Technician in charge of schedules for techs and cashiers, as well as a myriad of other duties. I stayed with them until the small chain sold out when I turned 20. What I think I'm saying here is even though I have many diagnoses, my hope is that others that are still reading won't think me intellectually diminished. I may be lacking in some areas, but just as PTSD has a stereotype, I know BiPolar and OCD and self mutilation do too. I come here to try my hand with socializing. I may be clumsy, so please bear with me. I hope it will be worth it.

I'm not sure if PTSD has a stereo type or not but it really does not matter. Here, we say things like Hey, good job today. Hey guys, I went outside and walked the block. You are so incredibly lucky to have THE man in your life. Be good to him. There are a lot of us going thru this crap alone. Here we share thoughts, but more importantly our accomplishments! I was clumby at first to and at times I still am. Just participate and share and support. That what this is all about Welcome!!!!! HERC

Thanks for your input! Every day I thank God I was blessed with a partner who has come through it all with me. Through hospitalizations and Intensive Outpatient Therapy(IOP), I noticed I was a minority at visiting hours. I count my blessings often! I also have my mom as a strong supporter, even though sometimes she shorts the sheets, so to speak.
I applaude everyone who is able to find the way through the dark without a hand to hold. I think sometimes if it weren't made so easy for me, if I had to walk alone, that I would be better now for it. I am enabled, and I allow it to a certain point.
I'm not implying one is beter than the other, I go from depending on one person to another (my father, my husband), and I'm not being taught to depend on myself. I wonder if I didn't have a person, would all those therapists teach me to depend on myself?

Tiana, Through almost 10 years of dealing with this mess I feel I have learned one big lesson. Now I don't know if you are a religious person or if you have a higher power in yhour life, but I do. I firmly believe that people, places and things are placed in my path for a reason. To support when needed. To teach when unknowing. What ever I need at the time. Don't try to figure out this part of life now. Use the tools, whatever they may be, that you have now. They are there for a reason. Relax and allow the process to work-- I promise in time it will. You will deal with your deamons. They don't completely go away but you do gain control of them and life will smile I hope I help you HERC

Thank you, Herc. I do have religion, and you're right. I feel as though I'm trying to rush through the process. Your words hold wisdom for me. Thank you again for your encouraging sentiment. It means a lot to hear from someone else who 's been there.

Such a shame the police came to that conclusion.How awful. I read your other post in my welcome thread and I'm glad (for want of a better phrase as I wwish these feelings upon nobody), it comforts that I'm not alone as paranoid looney in this world. What you put about shouting menacing things out around the house whilst checking rooms, this made me chuckle as I do it, then often feel silly afterwards!). Pretending to be on my cell/mobile phone sasying things like "ahhh so you'll be round in two minutes?/great,your outside?" etc etc when theres no one on the line is another.

I think I'm going to be giving the relaxation techniques I've read up a go for sure. Without sounding patronizing and like an obligatory response to your post, I think you really are lucky to have such a great guy in your life to understand how you feel and take care of you,thats ace. :)

Take care,

C

x

I've done the cell phone thing too! lol
Thanks for the laugh about that, because I also feel like a stooge when I've gone through my posturing. I even do it in the car when I get back in it if I go to the store. I make myself feel like I've failed some bravery test. Knowing I'm not the only one makes me feel like I can have a sense of humor about it.:loopy: (I doubt the behavior will stop), but at least I'll be able to at least giggle about it instead of shaming myself every time.
Also, I love the smiley emoticons!

Thank you ~CQ~! Much appreciated :biggrin:

Welcome to the forum Tiana.

thanks, pandora

Welcome to the forum, Tiana. The Ladies all said it first, you've got a great support system in place already, having an understanding mate. My little girls Mom is bipolar and I went through alot of classes about understanding and living with a bipolar person. The most important thing I learned that I can pass on is the need to stay on meds if you're doing good. A high percentage of people start feeling good and decide they are cured and don't need medication any more, the next thing they know, they're kicking off the effects of the Haldol after having a psychotic break.
I'm an isolation expert too, there's alot of us hanging out here, cuz we just don't wanna go out. I think you'll find more similarities here, than differences.
WarHippy1%