TheByzantine,

Thank you for the information, I haven't read this one. And the odd thing I see in the characteristics is the fact that before I was diagnosed with complex PTSD,
I was aware of how certain interactions with others and experiences could be distorted. And one of my pet peeves so to speak was to put things in check to make every effort that I was NOT distorting the experiences of abuse and inflictions caused to me. And I actually was made worse by often saying, oh, this cannot be, only to find out that it truely was real, leaving me very perplexed and even frightened.

So while I do see the worst case scenario now, I make every effort to not fall into a state of mind that goes along with that worst case scenario. And, I was extremely disturbed when the worst case scenario did present itself after all. In fact often I didn't even go to the point of seeing or thinking the worst case scenario, instead the reality of how bad things were just came out and shocked me and truely effected me in a very bad way psychologically.

As far as Blaming goes, I try very hard to stand back and make every effort to not go to a place where I begin to think that I am being personally attacked somehow. And I have constantly made efforts to identify and deal with the problem. And if anyone were to follow my trail and read my posts to others, who actually do complain and fall short of identifying the problems and ways of dealing with the problems, anyone can see that I am very capable of breaking things down and finding a resolve.

And this is where I am often sooo Misunderstood. Even by therapists who have read the material about victims of PTSD and get confused because they think I must be distorting, when I am not. And this is the maze that I am constantly pushing through that makes my condition worse. I am broken down to a person who stores messages on my answering machine, and I often want to record interactions with people somehow because I do hear the reality, its not a distortion. And I have gone and collected my medical history so that I can have it proving how wrong people are when they go the route of accusing me of distorting the truth.

BUT, I can see how, if a victim of Complex PTSD is constantly denied and only accused of distortion, it can cause an insanity situation in the brain.

So many situations in my past have nothing to do with distortion, they are REAL and are situations where people that harmed me want to make it seem like I AM CRAZY SOMEHOW. And the reality is that I actually don't see how bad it really is and then when I do finally see it, that is when the real TRAUMA occurs in my brain. The feeling of being TRAPPED becomes overwhelming and extremely disturbing. AND, I can PROVE the realities verses any possible distortion that could have come from me.

Time after time I have been told that I should be a therapist, and that I have the capacity to look back to a root that others cannot seem to see. And my brain is exhausted NOT FROM DISTORTION but by STANDING UP AND TRYING TO REVEAL THE TRUTH. Yes, I have been told that I am extremely intelligent and very capable in so many ways, but I often hit so many walls as so many simply will not see a reality that is truely there. I am frightened by the FACTS and the REALITY that TAKE SO MUCH EFFORT TO EXPOSE.

I can see how a person with my condition can fall by the wayside in dispair and finally give into seeing everything distorted because of the many different situations that came at them that truely were so unexpected. And I can understand that fear of revealing an injury in the past by the fact that it may not be VALIDATED, leaving the victim so much worse off and rendered imcompetant even by THEMSELVES.

Someone who has PTSD that is complex does isolate because they are often sent messages of, "I don't believe you, you must be crazy". What is considered a blaming mode and a lack of identifying ways to deal with problems is not the reality a person with PTSD has. The reality is the victim of PTSD does actually many times try to make efforts to deal but the efforts are met with so much denial and even more abuse, that the victim then retreats fearing that the brain will simply shut down or present modes of steps that tell the victim, anxiety:waring something is bad, More Deeper Anxiety:warning it is getting closer to a bad situation: and finally A SHUT DOWN: the brain saying that the situation is so bad I am not capable of the reality I am to face and I will stop trying to protect from futher damage.

Someone who has Complex PTSD has a heightened awareness that is not a distortion, but it in fact REAL and because the brain now recognizes the signs,
it shuts down for protection.

There is a fine line in PTSD and this is something that is very misunderstood not only by professionals but by those the have the disorder. And the brain becomes more and more damaged or sensitive and fine tuned in areas where a normal brain cannot understand.

Now, I will use my Lawsuite as an example:
When I had the damage happen I was not prepared for the amount of damage that was presented to me as the result of my neighbors negligence. I kept seeing more and more and more damage that was beyond anything I could have ever imagined. As that situation presented itself I didn't even have time to truely process it, because I had to keep addressing more damage, much like being in a mindset where all the emotionalities of the reality had to be put on hold until the situation settled to a point where a real evaluation including an emotional response could occur.

When that began to happen with me, it was too much and I went into a shock because the emotions were too extreme and I truely did not want to address the reality, it was beyond my comprehension. And my answer after so many days, day after day that turned into a few months, I could not get up, could not function and felt that I truely could not even live through the reality. So, I said some words that put me in a psychward that made my psychological condition even worse. I tried very hard to utter what I really needed but no one listened and I was further tramatized by being put in a room with no heat and surrounded by people that were very ill and I truely could not get any rest, I was constantly disturbed every 15 minutes and each time I was disturbed I was shocked out of my efforts to rest my brain and find some way of finding some peace and quiet. I have to say IT WAS SO BAD, SO TERRIBLE, SO INCREDIBLY INHUMANE.

I was held in this place way too long and became a prisoner of a strange insanity on top of my already troubled exhausted mental condition. And no one came to visit me but my sister who sat across from me BLAMING ME AND TELLING ME TO TAKE THE PILLS, FOLLOW THE ORDERS, AND I BETTER GET WITH THE PROGRAM OR I WOULD NEVER GET OUT AND I WOULD LOSE EVERYTHING, MY MARRIAGE, MY FARM, EVEN MY DAUGHTER. How incredibly awful is that? And I could not have dreamed that up, not in my wildest dreams.

After I finally got out of that place I tried to get counceling on the outside and the statement I heard was, YOU SHOULD HAVE NEVER GONE TO THAT PLACE IT WAS WRONG FOR YOU TO BE PUT THERE. But the problem was that I DID GO THERE, I DID EXPERIENCE IT AND IT REALLY HURT ME. And just sitting across from a therapist or psychiatrist that stated these facts DID NOT HELP ME AT ALL.

But there was no rest, no time to grieve given to me. I had to come home to the farm and do chores and see the damage DAY, AFTER DAY AFTER DAY, and I am still doing that now. It was a four year aniversity on July 8th this year. FOUR YEARS OF HELL!

It took all my strength to continue to sort through the damage and slowly figure out the timeline of damage and what it all meant, I HONESTLY DONT KNOW HOW I DID IT. And I came up with a time line and how it all happened and when it all started and it was so hard to see. I could see the pattern every Sunday and Monday night while I slept my animals were being crippled, frightened and ruined. And I could not understand why those specific days. I watched the neighbors schedule and tryed to figure it out somehow. My original attorney I had obtained just put down a possible date as I was at that point still in the midst of just trying to address the damages, this was before the psychward. I wasn't till after when I struggled to sort through the possible way this all occured by tracking the veterinary visits.

Then while I was out feeding trying to understand it all, my neighbor appeared and he was angry. He said, "WHAT IS THIS ABOUT ALL THIS HAPPINING SOMETIME IN MARCH?" "I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT FENCE WAS DOWN AND NOT WORKING THE BEGINNING OF MAY". Oh, God, if I only had a tape recorder with me, but I never expected him to just pop up like that. All that I had done, all that effort I made to figure out the time line and what is real, can be traced the very beginning "IT ALL STARTED THE BEGINNING OF MAY".

So when we talk about distorting the truth? I was not distorting anything I was, even though in such a difficult state of mind, making every effort to see the reality and find ways to put my emotions aside. And on that day all the work that I had done was VALIDATED BY THE MAN THAT WAS INDEED NEGLIGENT AND KNEW EXACTLY WHEN HIS ELECTRIC UNDERGROUND ELECTRIC FENCE WENT DOWN AND WAS NOT WORKING. And I could not wrap my brain around the fact that all that time they KNEW that that dog was free and they saw it and they saw that every time they tried to fix the breach every weekend, they failed and they knew that because they saw the dog getting into my horses area. And so they kept it in until the next weekend fiddled with the fence and watched it happen again. THIS WENT ON FOR ALMOST THREE MONTHS UNTIL MY HUSBAND AND I CAME HOME AND WITNESSED THE WHOLE PROCESS TAKE PLACE THAT FINISHED WHATEVER WAS LEFT OF MY HORSES AND PONIES.

Now, how am I supposed to overcome that? There is absolutely nothing distorted about that. I methodically tried to see a reality, nothing more, and the reality was way more than anything I could have imagined.

All the times I tied to call the police and dog warden and the dog warden was out and the police knew it and no one came out. If they had come out when I asked they would have herd the man admit the dog was loose. It wasn't until the man talked to his insurance company when he suddenly denied EVERYTHING. He quickly installed a new fence and denied he did that too claiming his fence was working and had an alarm system, the old fence was replaced with a new one that has an alarm system. The police failed me, the dog warden failed me and I AM NOT DISTORING ANYTHING AT ALL.

And I havent even begun to talk here about my own attorney and his issues, issues that I COULD HAVE NEVER IMAGINED EITHER. A man that is battling age and memory loss and this is more, everything is more than any distortion I could possibly muster in my brain.

Catastrophizing? A habit of automatically assuming a "worst case scenario"? ASSUMING?
In my wildest dreams I could never just assume this whole scenario. Everything I have experienced and am experiencing now, has nothing to do with ASSUMING, I could not have imagined any of this in my wildest dreams. And as I read this information I cringe at the thought that anyone who would read this could actually use this against WHAT I KNOW IS REAL, AND IS THE TRUTH.

And all along, this is how others address me, UNTIL THEY FINALLY REALIZE I AM NOT JUST ASSUMING......IT IS REAL. I am truely crippled by this disorder, but not by assuming anything, and I can't even use this disorder to defend how crippled my brain has become. Trapped? Oh everywhere I look I do see it, but it is not asumption at all, and thats the reality, and it is truely hurting me even more. Can I see the areas of assumption that can be presented with PTSD? Yes I can, but that is NOT what I deal with. But my deep fear is that is WHAT I WILL BECOME.
AND I KNOW MY BRAIN IS TRYING SO HARD TO NOT LET THAT HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!!

Clouded perceptions? Oh there is nothing clouded in my perceptions. Oh, God, no, but I am very fearful that if I cannot be taken from this constant reality that is truely trapping me in ways I could have never assumed of imagined, my brain may eventually become a cloud by realities I am facing, its REAL and it is causing damage that I fear I may never be able to repair.

Learned Helplessness? Ok, how can a reality, something beyond any assumption be an imagined helplessness? But yes, I can see how that would present itself after looking in every direction to not see the end result be helplessness. But I can definitely see how, if I cannot be helped, believed and get beyond the reality, I will eventually become helpless, and I am trying very hard for that not to happen, with everything I have. I am at a line, I can see it, and I AM VERY AFRAID. AND THERE IS NOTHING IMAGINED, ASSUMED OR DISTOREDED ABOUT IT.

Open Eyes