[Kätzchen]

Originally Posted by Apocalipstic

PTSD, the gift that keeps in giving.

I'm looking at it as a gift because it is forcing me to take better care of the me inside, to make sure she feels safe.

We never know when it is going to kick in, blindside, trigger.

In the most unexpected moment, we can freeze, "over-react", jump, withdraw.

I can identify with this, Apocalipstic, because growing up in a day to day events of on-going abuse (emotional, physical, sexual etc) and experiencing sets of similar events over my lifetime has placed an incredible burden on me to develop the skills and language and boundaries/barriers to keep this type of abuse from having any place in my life. When I began therapy last year, it was the mass social acceptance on part of the majority of people in America that brought forth the placement of a perpetrator of epic magnitude to be elected to an executive office, that person clearly should not be in, nor should that type of culture be an acceptable culture in our American society, yet it is -- sadly. Once that perpetrator was elected to office, it sent me into massive panic attacks and spiraling into a full blown case of PTSD, which I only learned recently, is classified as Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD).

Originally Posted by Apocalipstic

One of the things that most helps me is the love of pets. They never question me, or tell me I should chill or that I am being ridiculous. They love me no matter what.

They know when I am upset. They lick my tears away.

This is absolutely my experience with pets too. For years now, I always wondered by dogs would lie down on top of my feet and schlick my feet to their hearts' content or why my cat Petunia intuitively knows I am cycling through a stressful event that affects me in deep physiological ways (escalated blood pressure, racing heart beats, cold sweat, migraines that impair my eyesight and ability to think, etc). Animals are so incredibly intuitive and they know more about our own physiological events, moreso than we do, I think.

Originally Posted by Apocalipstic

I am finding that there are people and things that trigger me, and to be able to fuction and go to work every day and do the things I need to do to take care of me, I have to avoid many of those things and people.

I want to please everyone, I do. I want everyone to know the truth, my truth, but most people can't handle it...they just look at me aghast if I am so inapropriate as to answer in truth to their prying questions...or they don't believe me, even if they were near and knew all along.

I think when they know they did nothing to help it makes it easier for them to sleep at night if they rewrite history for themselves.

Peace is fixing my vaccume cleaner on a Saturday alone with no loud noises, yelling, pressure. I never expected this.

I appreciate your personal experience which you have articulated in ways that I totally understand because it's nearly the same experience I have. Recently, about two weeks ago or so, my therapist asked why I basically had only a few close friends (of many years) that I could even talk to about such things. I explained to her that many of my close friends, outside my immediate family, never had an inkling of the type of things I have endured over my life time and that even when I gave a glimpse of the types of things I have endured, there were a couple of friends who could not even grasp the magnitude of having to live with acts of abuse or violence committed against me, by members of family or those whom I was in a relationship with in romantic type ways. I told my therapist that at appropriate times, with certain clients in my clientele (hairdressing), that there were times I could share a personal experience with them, so they'd know that I knew what it was like to be violated, abused, etc., and not have any way to extricate myself from them in immediate ways. In some cases, I could remove myself from those prior situations, but growing up, when you're the kid who is being violated, there wasn't a way or remedy to help me be removed from the on-going perpetual emotional, physical or sexual assault committed against me. But I can relate to your experience when you say that ''people look at you aghast as if I am so inappropriate as to answer in truth to their prying questions." My sister-in-law, when I first began to share about the long-held secrets of my immediate family abuses and misrepresentation of who my family is (because they do an awful lot of facework, keeping up their social face, so people won't know about their dreadful secretive, ghastly, behavioral issues which they keep well hidden from public view) could not believe my family was capable of such egregious behavior. In fact, for the longest time, I could tell she would never be able to grasp the depth of abuse I've endured by the types of comments she'd have in response to what I would share with her. The past two years she has demonstrated to me that she better understands what I've been through, but at the same time, in my own opinion, I feel that people who have never endured traumatic experiences of any magnitude have a really hard time understanding how such things can even happen. In my sister-in-laws case, her inability to grasp the level of abuse I've endured was not entirely out of sheer ignorance, but sort of like what some people do when they hear about such things -- turn a blind eye on what they hear or see? I'm grateful that my sister-in-law has the capacity to learn and accept what has happened to me, but as a survivor I can't help but think of all the emotional burdens survivors of abuse carry by not only trying to make sure these types of situations or events of abuse are not kept from public knowledge but also so we can not be held prisoner by the events themselves.

I hate it that as survivors, we end up with more emotional types of labor to endure (sharing our accounts with those in our lives) and yet for all the ways we disclose our lives in support groups or with therapists, perpetrators still never pay the price for what they've done to us.

Originally Posted by Apocalipstic

One more thing.

My therapist told me that predators can tell if a person has a past of abuse and they are drawn to us.

Stay safe.

I agree with this, completely, due to my own life long experiences. I recently told my therapist that I feel like there's some invisible target on my back that is some sign to perpetrators, abusers or any type, where they seek us out and are drawn toward us. In fact, I'm grateful for that 'moth to flame' type of effect because once that begins to happen, I can shore up my boundaries to keep people of that type of disturbing mentality and behavioral issues from having any place in my life.

Thanks for all your posts, Apocalipstic…. naming and sharing about experiences helps survivors in so many ways.