Hi

A few years ago I saw myself as having PTSD. Then after a while I realised I'm not getting over it and its very intense - the flashbacks. Also accompanied with this are horrible physiological and emotional states that make you feel you're in hell! So I then heard about complex-PTSD and basically self-diagnosed myself as meeting the criteria (even though not addressed in the DSMV). Later, my current T affirmed my self-diagnosis.

I have also discovered and come to the conclusion that I was sexually abused on a regular occurrence as a child. I believe due to the multiple sexual abuses explains why it is taking me so long to recover. I've also had numerous flashbacks of being verbally abused.

Its a belief in society that sexual abuse is committed by strangers, in my childhood I heard the phrase 'stranger-danger'. But unfortunately, in most cases, the perpetrator is known to the child. The same in my case. My sexual abuse isn't the normal story of how it usually happens. I'm a man and was sexually abused by women in my family when I was a boy. Society points to men as the common perpetrator, but people forget that women can be perpetrators too! The thing is I've been working through a lot of flashbacks of sexual abuse by these women. It just goes on and on and on. Not to mention the detrimental impact it has had on my sexuality. I think if I was gay it would be a lot easier to engage in adult intimacy. But I'm not gay so I have to confront the evils done to my sexuality in order to function sexually with a woman.

I have had a lot of 'ah ha' moments the last four years. I can make sense of everything now as I look back on my life - the low self-esteem, the emptiness within, no identity or vision for the future. I have been lost most of my life and not to mention the major depression I had for over a decade! This all makes sense now. I'm connecting the dots between the childhood sexual abuse at age 12 & 14 and the impact it has had on my adulthood. I'm still dealing with immense guilt and shame and still find it hard to understand it was not my fault.

I'm middle-aged now and I've had amnesia of the abuse all my adult life. I only started recovering memories five years ago. I'm told this is normal because I'm in a safe place and my brain wasn't ready to deal with the traumas hidden within earlier. I find as I work through the traumas and the associated hell that accompanies it, I become more clearer in the mind and more functional as an adult. But it seems this will take a long time to do. I guess what is now happening is healing from the nightmare.

So after giving you a small insight into my life, can anybody else relate to my story? How do you cope with complex-PTSD? Do you find its never-ending? Has anyone been confronted with multiple experiences of abuse by one perpetrator like me? Has anyone 'come through' and are now healed?

I hope to get replies. Thanks

PH