Alisha, after I opened up and wrote so much in your thread, I felt later on that I was wrong and hijacked your thread. It is just that when you asked me, and given where I am right now, it just came out.

My therapist has told me the same as what you have said, it is very hard for him to help me move forward with the PTSD because of how in so many ways I am still "in the trauma".

When you ask about my husband, he has been sober for almost 24 years now and still goes to AA meetings and helps others get sober. The reason why he would not get out of bed is because he was overwhelmed by it all too. Actually, what should have taken place is my husband and daughter "and" me should have had grief counseling. The reason why I broke first is because for so many years "I" was the driving force that held everything together. I kept having to learn how to deal with so much by way of being supportive with my husband when it got so bad I could not longer deal with it and gave him the ultimatum of addressing it or our marriage would be over. The fact that he did get help and stopped drinking, well I stayed and supported that, but it was definitely not easy.
It is not easy because it goes from being all about them with their alcoholism, to all about them with their effort to get sober, so there is a lot of "being alone" for the partner and being patient while they are 'all about being sober" and hardly ever home because of having to get so much support for it for a while. The other thing I had to deal with is that after he had a few years under his belt of sobriety and getting help, he was struggling with the step that covers making amends for the wrongs he did. I did not know it, but he had cheated on me when he was an active alcoholic with more than one woman. The guilt from that was eating him up inside. For a while he was actually mean to me, and often put me down almost as though he needed to find fault with me, but he didn't realize how hard that was on me. It finally came out, not because he wanted it to, but because of how someone was manipulating him because they had known and knew I didn't know.

I finally put him in a position where I knew something was wrong, knew he did something by hints this person made to me on the phone. I gave him the option of him telling me or that I would go and see this person and piss them off so they would tell me everything. I was not ready to hear what finally came out, I would have bet my life that he would never cheat on me, he never even looked or showed any clue that he would ever cheat on me. When I married him, I knew he loved me more than I loved him, and I would have never guessed he would "ever" cheat on me. He never flirted with other women, or stared at them, there was no signs at all that he was anywhere near thinking of doing that. However, what I did not count on was that he would be pursued and give in. And I was also shocked by "who" pursued him too. I could only hear so much, and I had to walk away, I did not even know how to process it. I just told him to stay away, and I went home and ran the farm all by myself. I didn't even know "what" to tell my daughter. I was so angry not so much for myself, but because our child did not deserve this. To me, it is sacrilegious to do something like this where a child can get hurt. To the depths of me, the most important thing is the welfare of a child.

I did learn from a psychologist that my daughter was at an age that a divorce would really hurt her, and she would never get over that. And because of that, I did what was best for "her". I sought marriage counseling and in spite of how hurt and angry I was I made an effort to try to salvage the marriage. In marriage counseling, I learned from the marriage counselor that because of my husband's alcoholism, he only had the maturity level of around age 13 and that he had a lot of growing up to do. I also learned that he would push buttons to try to get me to mother him, and I could not give in and mother him. So basically, I had two children and "I" was the adult and yes, that is a lonely place to be. My husband did work hard, and the business I built up supplied an environment that was positive and productive and a pathway/environment to also growing and maturing. It was a lot of work for me to put that environment all together and build it all up the way I did. It really had so many "positive and productive" things about it.

So, when I stood there and saw it all wiped out, my daughter so distressed at losing her horse, me losing ones I loved, and my husband's pony that he loved and worked with now crippled, and finding him in the woods crying. I could not process all that, there was no way I could "just" fix it either. I tried to hang on and be strong, but it all just overwhelmed me I just could not function. It was like I had managed to stay strong and climb this very challenging mountain, but suddenly with this huge loss, all the footing underneath me on that mountain just gave way and I just fell. Unfortunately, when the rock breaks, people can respond to that in bad ways. That is what happened to me, and there was just no one there to help me, it was more like "how dare that rock break".

You are right, I needed to have a place where I could get away from that entire scenario so I could get physical rest because I was totally physically exhausted, but also have the right help to process it all too. The place that I was taken to was definitely the "wrong" place, it was literally like being taken to "One flew over the cuckoo's nest", it was that bad. I certainly did not need another environment that was hard to process, surrounded by people that were all messed up and on so many different medications constantly being asked how they are doing on their "new" medication, and seeing them not even knowing how to answer that question. And here they are wanting me on meds? The only medication I really needed was something to help me sleep and to actually be allowed to sleep. Well, that is not the place where that happens because in this place they come in your room and check on you every 15 minutes, and every time they did that they woke me up with a startle. Now that I understand trauma and post traumatic stress, that place was only traumatizing an already traumatized person. It doesn't matter how much I am now told it was the wrong place for me to go, because it doesn't change that it was where I went and I was worse when I left there then when I went in. I was also misdiagnosed there as I mentioned. My therapist now has told me that an effort is now being made to train these people that work in these places how to identify a trauma patient, because of how the system isn't a very good system, especially not for trauma patients.

When my husband finally agreed to allow me to come home, remember no one talked to him, he didn't know what a trauma patient was or what post traumatic stress was, he came to pick me up and on the drive home it was clear to me he was "very angry". During that ride home where the anger in him was obvious to me, I realized that somehow, in spite of how I was still exhausted and even more traumatized, that I had to find a way to shove that all aside and get back to addressing all the damaged animals and at least "faking" that old rock that I used to be.

I did go to an out patient psychologist that did not believe the value of the animals I lost. And she also misdiagnosed me. And at least the psychiatrist I saw after her noticed the red flags that I was expressing that said PATIENT HAS PTSD. Unfortunately he decided that because I could not get past the side effects of antidepressants, that maybe I had bipolar, but not manic bipolar. However, that is wrong, just because Rameron made me too nauseous I could not function and a different one made it so I was so sleepy I could not function, and Welbutrin made me feel like I had a boxing match going on in my brain and they also switched it to the generic that is known to not be the same chemicals and can create a bad reaction, none of that means I am bipolar. Especially when at one point years ago when I went through surgery for endometriosis and then was given an inplant of Lupron that ended up depleting me from having any estrogen that sent me into depression, I was treated with Zoloft and estrogen and I slowly got better once they restored the level of estrogen. I stopped taking the Zoloft because I didn't like the sexual side effects. Zoloft is known for the sexual side effects, and lets just say it is uncomfortable and there is no way to get a release because of how Zoloft affects the part of the brain where that ability to have that release takes place. That has nothing to do with bipolar, it's a known side effect for "anyone" .

This psychiatrist tried to talk me into trying all different kinds of drugs. I am so glad I did not because one of the drugs he tried to get me to take was taken off the market. The only drug I finally agreed to take, because I could not sleep due to night terrors, was Klonopin. However, this psychiatrist insisted this drug was not addictive. He insisted it was safe for me and non addictive because I did make it clear to him that I did not want anything that was addictive.

At this point the financial situation was getting bad, our table was just full of bills and we could no longer afford health insurance. I knew it was not fair to my husband to keep seeing the psychiatrist, that was costing even with insurance, and I never could afford to go back to see the psychologist, who I did not know had misdiagnosed me. Even though I was diagnosed with PTSD, I did not understand it would get worse, and I did not understand what PTSD really was, I only thought it meant "deep grief". And still no one talked to my family, who was clearly waiting for the rock to jump back up and fix everything again. What I did have was post traumatic stress.

When my husband "crashed" he was exhausted too, remember, no one talked to him so he really did not understand what was wrong with me. So from his POV, he was there too, tending to the injured, seeing his favorite pony that he took out and worked with that was his third job and really what paid for our insurance, damaged. And he had the unfortunate task of having to dig a hole and bury one very loved pony that died in spite of our efforts, because we both did try to save her, it was also too much for him too. So he actually got what I had needed, a chance to just retreat and sleep. And while he did that I paid the bills with the money I got from finally selling a horse that I managed to get
well again. However, that sale was not really a gain, because I had spent so much on the effort to get him healed, to which is also part of the debt that I am still paying on.

I know that I should be able to get justice for what my neighbors dog did. Unfortunately, that was messed up by the lawyer we had that was not handling my case right, but was also declining mentally with dementia. When it comes to a lawsuit like this, the victim has the burden of proof. Even though both me and my husband witnessed it, that is not enough, what I really needed is to have pictures of it, have it on video, and that is what I constantly see in my mind, oh how I wish I could plug that in and have it play. It is so much harder than people realize to get justice. I will never get anywhere near what I lost either.

I don't really know what to do about my farm and still being next to these creepy people. There is no way I could sell this farm and replace what I have either. If you saw my farm you would understand. I honestly do not know what to do when it comes to the animals I have left either. I still love what I do, but I have not been able to go back in to the riding ring and do lessons and have people come here like I used to. I tend to get too emotional when I go into that riding ring.

When I said I had PTS at first, what happened is that I went through all the stages where a person goes from having post traumatic stress, to developing the full blown post traumatic stress disorder. I wanted to get better, but I just kept getting worse, developing depression, withdrawing more, avoiding more and usually after a major trauma, a professional will talk to the family about looking for the warning signs that a family member is getting worse. That did not happen for me, no one even told me about these signs.

I kept getting worse and trying to fight it, and when I did try to have people over, and my daughter was trying to help with that and work with what I had left, believe it or not another neighbor who was also a policeman, had his electric underground containment system fail too. He kept failing to fix it too, and his dog was starting to come down my driveway, and because my horses and ponies are now terrified of dogs, it was dangerous to have young riders on them. I kept calling the dog warden who kept telling me she talked to him and he fixed the problem, and he didn't. Luckily this time I had one of these riders take a picture of the dog coming down my driveway and I had to go and talk to the police chief. Unfortunately, having to do that and because it took so long to again get that finally resolved, that severely triggered me and made me worse. When my neighbor's dog did so much damage, I could not get the police to come out and the dog warden was out sick for two weeks. When they finally did come out my neighbor had fixed his fence and denied it had been malfunctioning. So I am not happy with the police either.

Anyway, with this new dog situation, and people coming out, and then my daughter went on a vacation and I was left alone, with people coming out and I had to be in the ring more, I did not do well at all. Also at the same time my neighbor who's dog did all that damage was getting intrusive again. I put up a no trespassing sign and he decided he didn't like it and tore it down. I called the police out and they talked to him and he admitted tearing it down because he didn't like it. I wanted to press charges but the police would only give him a warning.

Well, I broke down again, and this time I tried to reach out for help again. I found a man who was supposed to specialize in treating PTSD. He agreed to work with me on a sliding scale too. He seemed really nice at first, and gave me long sessions too. But he tended to shake a lot, get the shivers. He finally told me that he is a recovering heroine addict,
was on a special medication for it, was living at his office, and going through a divorce. Needless to say, that was too strange and triggered me and I honestly do not even know if this man even has the right credentials. So I never went back to see this therapist.

It took me about four years, as I mentioned, to find a good therapist. Bad therapy? Oh, I know all about bad therapy.

Well, Alisha, see this is turning into a novel, and in a thread that is supposed to be yours. I am realizing that there is so much that I have not even talked about here either. My life has been very hard, and the only one that knows how hard is the therapist I have now. My therapist tells me that he doesn't know how I managed to do what I did with all the
bad things that happened to me.

I wish I could put pictures here of the animals I had, what I did with them, how amazingly beautiful my daughter's show horse was too. Well, I don't know how to do that, and I also do not know who might see it all, figure out who I am, and I don't need that.

I appreciate that you were willing to listen and have been so kind.

OE