Your right ellimay, the one thing my therapist advised me to do is try to think about addressing the pony like a wave coming and going and to do my best to just know that the experience will eventually happen and then pull away like a wave would. I feel that is how I got through the experience which was so very challenging.

The most unsettling part of what I have is that I honestly thought I had coped through many different difficult events in my life, I honestly thought I had made peace with these events and grew past them. I had no idea that this psychological condition could be so difficult and confusing. It presents a big burst to a psychological bubble. I hate how it seems to rule the mind causing confusion to the psychie as to wondering how it presented itself without my being conscious it was forming. Therefore it brings doubt about what more damage will occur without my consciously knowing it.

I didn't present this thread question right I can see that now. I can see how when I try to address one thing, many other questions are attached to it as well. This IS a part of the disorder, as I am learning.

I know that the situation I am in with the way the damage occured, the severity of it that was unimaginable to me, along with my neighbor admitting they knew about the broken containment system. The way they tease at saying it is my word against theirs while knowing they are at fault, is actually abuse. Yes I have the time line of animals presenting issues only on Monday and Tuesdays and I just could not understand what was different that presented those specific nights. It was hard to learn directly from the neighbor that for just about three months they were fiddling with the fence on the weekends and when they saw it was still not working and the dog was on my property, they then contained the dog until the following weekend.
So they knew before I could have known what was taking place. It wasn't until so much damage occured that they finally did the right thing, install a new containment system with alarms. And though I asked the police to come out, they would not come out and insisted I talk to the dog warden fully knowing she was out due to recovering from an injury. Had the police gone out as I asked they would have heard the neighbor admitt that they were aware the system was not working, they would have seen the system was down as the neighbord still had not replaced it yet.

I had conversations with my neighbor explaining tearfully there was a lot of damage and I was trying to addressing it, finding out what damage there was. I told him it was substancial and that he should submitt a claim to his insurance company. By the time the dog warden did go out, they had talked to their insurance company, installed a new system, then denied their system was broken and said I was just a crazy lady. However they did approach me unexpectedly and though they admitted that they knew, they basically said, it would be their word against mine and they were going to deny.

I did experience shock and exhaustion while addressing so many bad injuries. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't get the right help in the psychward, instead was further frightened and confused. I had diagnoses discussed that were inaccurate and I was told how much I was misunderstood and should have never been in that psychward. That is all I seem to learn, how I was misunderstood, mistreated, mistakes were made etc. Yes, I see it, so does my therapist. But the problem is that I lived it and it presented me with a terrible case of PTSD.

I had obtained an attorney before I ended up in the psychward. That attorney told me that none of my psychological duress could be part of my suit. When I got out of the psychward and was being treated in outpatient I was to discover that the attorney that took my case had her own issues, didn't file the case and left the firm she was a part of. I was still struggling psychologically but with the help of my husband obtained another attorney. He told me I could include my psychological reaction to the event. He got permission to get my records and during that time I went to my GP as the psychiatrist that I had seen told me that I seemed stable just taking the Klonopin and I could get that prescription from my GP. So when I went to my GP, my GP yelled at me and basically threw my records on my lap and expressed his great displeasure that he was expected to take over a patient with so many issues and he recited a list of things I never heard of.

Having my records in hand and feeling very confused I began to read an accounting of what I now know are diagnoses that were never discussed with me in any way. One thing I did see is a mention of childhood abuse that had not been addressed but could be an issue. My new attorney had received his copy of my records as well and he told me that my neighbor would be able to know everything in these records, including the sexual abuse I had mentioned. As much as I wanted to include the after care I was going to need and did experience, the fact that his negligence could allow him to know very private information about me, was beyond my comprehension.
It was equally hard for me that a male attorney that I didn't really know also got to see something very private as well. And the diagnoses that were considered were very incorrect, but could be used against me as well in every set of eyes that gazed upon these very private records.

I went into a psychward in shock, I didn't know that then, and they truely mistreated me. I was addressed by my family with such anger, blaming me, telling me I better get my act together, I was going to lose everything, and they were angry and shunning me. I didn't know what PTSD was, I didn't understand why I broke down.
That was supposed to be explained to me, and my family was supposed to be told what I was experiencing. That never happened, instead I was constantly blamed and treated so poorly.

I am in a spot where I, along with my therapist, am looking at so many errors, how I was so mistreated, misunderstood, and that it made me so much worse, deeper and deeper into this condition that I am addressing. Wow, it sure is an awful lot to process.

Having people say, sorry we didn't know doesn't make it better. Having people just assume that because the reality is now known cannot change the fact that for almost 3 years I suffered through being so mentally tossed around that I AM worse. I am not only suffering from a neglient neighbor, but from a total lack of anyone recognizing how that profoundly effected me psychologically. Even I did not understand why I broke down in exhaustion physically and mentally. Though I presented all the red flags, how could that be so overlooked is beyond my comprehension.

It has been over four years since my whole world changed. I have only just recently received help from a therapist to sit with my husband and explain the severe conditon that I am in and that I truely cannot be further treated so poorly for something I cannot help. My husband is struggling to understand my condition and often responds poorly as I express how difficult it is for me to opperate with this crippling condition, and it is very challenging and very real.

Along with this, I have an aging attorney that has made many mistakes himself. I am participating in a legal action that allows the opposing side to put off being held responsible for their negligence. I learned that the town could have been held responsible for not sending a police officer out to speak with my neighbor. My attorney didn't see that and it is beyond the two year limit for me to act on that.

The reality of the past four years of my life is beyond my comprehension. All I seem to hear is, woops sorry we made a mistake but its too late to fix, Just deal now.
The reality is that all of this has presented such a crippling conditon in my brain that is real. Yes, I am trying very hard to pick up so many pieces, it sure is hard. And the best I can muster is visiting one man who sees my reality once a week. It truely is not enough. I am overwhelmed with so much on my shoulders. Yes, I am trying to address one thing at a time. However it is so daunting trying to do so in my condition.

The best I can see about what I have is that because I am in various states of suffering from different kinds of mistakes and even negligence. It has presented a condition in my brain. I think that my brain, trying very hard to help me survive this is drawing on other events in my past that were tramatic and how I resolved or survived those events. I even was very upset and felt responsible that I did see that dog lose and even saw part of what it was doing but it just didn't register. Looking back there were signs that I didn't see, I had thought that after experiencing many events after finally getting my neighbor to contain their dogs, when a dog did get lose they would appologize and fix the tie one dog had to have because it didn't respect the electric fence.

I dealt with so much guilt and self punishment for not recognizing what was truely going on. But I have come to recognize that I had never seen a dog do what this dog was doing to my horses and ponies. Had I seen that kind of behavior in my past, my brain would have sent a message of what I was seeing in fragments. After seeing the whole pattern of what the dog had been actually doing with my husband also seeing it as well, that was the initial shock. At least I am recognizing that there is a lengthy process a victim goes through in self punishment as they look back on a tramatic event. Guilt, shame, and a constant list of questions arise about how a victim might have been somehow responsible for a trama takes place. It took me over four years to finally understand how to recognize that one fact. If the brain has never seen something, learned something, it is not going to put fragments together into a picture of prevention or recognition. Yes, I was concerned and experienced the result of a dog suddenly appearing spooking a horse while I was handling it, or suddenly appearing and spooking a horse while I was giving a lesson. However I had never considered this kind of event taking place, not the way I witnessed it occuring. And that is why many victims ruminate about bad events that were upsetting and presented a loss of somekind.

In fact, none of anything I experienced thus far, which is a lot, are experiences I ever witnessed, learned or had in my life knowledge where I could have the capacity to identify a prevention before suffering the result of something bad. It is in the definition of someone who suffers with PTSD symptoms that a victim searches for "someone, help, a guide for resolve". There is a deep need and yet a sense that that answer, person to take over and help, teach, resolve etc. is somehow unobtainable. And as that sense continues to present itself, the victim begins to isolate in a tremendous sense of personal inadequacy. Any form of addressing this individual with an assumption that they SHOULD have the capacity to RESOLVE, doesn't help the victim, all it does is PUSH THE VICTIM INTO FURTHER DESIRE OF ISOLATION AND SENSE OF INCAPACITY AND GUILT. There is a very dark psychological state that can take place as a result of NOT filling that deep need, there is so much shame and sense of incapacity and hopelessness that there is a strong desire to completely retreat. It is a very, very dangerous state of mind.

With everything I know, everything I have within, I am trying, but I am also saying, I NEED HELP. And as I am expressing this deep need, I have not truely been answered.


Open Eyes