I think so many victims think they just have to deal with these issues on their own.
I have to admitt that it is very hard to talk about and many truely just don't realize that it really does leave scars that we are often just not aware of. I had managed to find a way to get along with my sister for many years, I had thought we were even very close.

I just didn't expect how she was going to change when my mother was struggling with back surgery and my sister began her cursade on the dimencia kick. I did understand that this question can come up as parents age but my sister was just being Dr. Who and as soon as I didn't agree, that was it. And I will never forget the way my sister talked to me in the psychward, blaming everything on me. Oh she was so cold and told me if I didn't get my act together and follow the program with the drugs etc. I would just lose my family and my farm.

Never, ever, in my wildest dreams could I have imagined how my whole life would be effected by watching so much get distroyed. I realize now as I am learning about PTSD, that I walked the edge of it all my life. All that time I thought I was coping and finding my way, thinking that I had gotten past so much, and I did get past so many things. It just seems incredibly cruel that I would end up with this terrible disorder/damage called PTSD. I am glad that my daughter doesn't live with me right now, I can see how my struggles are so misunderstood, even by myself and it has placed me in such a vulnerable position. All I can think of is the many times I struggled with real illnesses, years of dealing with endometriosis and all that pain, and being injured in a colonoscopy, and almost dieing in my room because of a ruptured appendix that was infecting my body cavity. I complained and dealt and no one believed me until I got so bad that I had to have surgery. It is so bazaar to me because I am trying to again tell those around me that I am truely struggling and I truely need a break and get help and again no one seems to get it.

I think this is a cruel disorder/damage to have to struggle with, it is so incredibly cruel because it truely disables me beyond my control. And I am really trying but I am feeling more and more triggers that are like bullets that hit me out of no where completely disabling me. I find it extremely dibilitating and I can see that I truely have a very acute case of it. And as I am in this dark hole of this disorder I have days of feeling so helpless that I really have bad thoughts. And it is also hard because I was very strong in my life and extremely resourseful. So people look at me like I must be faking or overacting or something because they only saw that strong person.

I stayed with my husband, 31 years, raised a daughter and took every step to work at my marrige and raise my daughter through so much, holding so much in so that she could have so much. My daughter is gone and now I am with my husband who is trying but carries a residue from being an alcoholic that even though he stayed sober and went to meetings, his reactions towards me and his loud body language where I can see his anger and if he is not cutting me off in conversation, he does it with his body language. He shows everything he is thinking on his face and now for me those faces go back so many years, I struggle because he is very triggering. I don't want it to be that way, I DO love him and after all, he did stay sober, but he took years to grow up and he has worked hard. And he is close to my daughter, I sure did that well, but I suffered so she could have her daddy and I suffered more than I ever dreamed.

The damage created by my neighbor, leaving me with a loss of so much that I had worked for goes beyond anything I could have ever imagined. The bills, dealing with the aftermath, my family issues, every single day I am drowning. I have been trying to find a way to allow people around me to understand that it is just too much. And my lawyer?
I have not been able to deal with that at all right now. I don't see how my daughter is ever going to understand the depths of how I truely struggle. I try every single day to get up and work at all this mess and at the same time I am trying to express that I am clearly overwhelmed and I am so incredibly tired. My husband it trying to help in his own way and he doesn't get how hard it truely is for me. I am stuck between trying to talk about it and yet trying not to overwhelme him because I know that he could just fall apart too. And all of these feelings go way back to that child who struggled so, couldn't really tell, just too much chaos. I am trying one day at a time and I go outside and wander around my farm trying to do chores, and yet I see it all slipping away and I don't know where to gain strength to push through. I do try but the anxiety attacks are just crippling me, and I get exhausted. And I am at the point where I honestly don't think anyone is ever going to understand, even myself, how truely crippled this has made me.

And I am trying to tell my parents that I need help. But now they are old and I am back in that same position that I struggled with when I was so young, how awful is that? I truely need to have a break from all this aftermath, I keep trying to say that and no one hears me. Every single day for over four years has been so much struggle with no real release. I don't know how much more I will last, I just try every day to get through every day and pray.

Open Eyes