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#1
Jan 04, 2017, 12:16 PM
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Any suggestions on how family and spouses supports a person with CPTSD? Any tips for people in new relationships?
__________________
 "Caught in the Quiet" |
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#2
Jan 04, 2017, 02:06 PM
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Well Trace, I have not yet found a book written for individuals who are family members that need to learn how to understand and support someone who struggles with PTSD or Complex PTSD. As I have personally experienced myself, it's hard to even find a therapist that understands how to provide therapy for a trauma patient. As you have stated in another thread, there is a huge need to clone Pete Walker type therapists. I myself have had to have therapy for bad therapy that only traumatized me more than I had already been traumatized.
One of the challenges that a trauma patient struggles with though is not actually knowing themselves what they need that would help them. It often depends on what stage the individual is experiencing, there "are' stages of PTSD. It can go from "I don't want to talk about it", to "I need to talk about it". Human beings are designed to thrive in spite of and each human being develops their own way of thriving too. It's very much like building your own house where on a subconscious level you know where everything is so you don't have to stop and think about where everything is constantly. Human beings prefer finding how to "predict" even if that human being faces some big challenges in their life. Human beings learn by "doing" too, and once a human being learns to do certain things it becomes part of their own "house design" where they can actually do a lot automatically without having to think about each part of whatever they are doing. A person can get past several traumas too, especially if they learn how to manage whatever it is to where they can "predict" and develop a way to work around whatever it is. However, a major trauma can most definitely reek havoc in anyone and cause a major disturbance in "how they had built their own house". The average individual can't understand what this challenge means, often the response offered is "well just or don't allow", and as you know, that can most definitely be a trigger because someone stuggling can't seem to "just like they used to" and that is a big part of the challenge itself. What you experienced was especially traumatic ((Trace)), I actually thought of you because just the other day I happened to see a documentary on HBO about alcoholism and what that challenge actually means and what the individual who is an alcoholic experiences in how long term alcoholism changes the brain. What happened to you with your father is not about him being selfish or not loving you, but because of his disease and the level of damage it had done that he could not handle anymore. http://video.foxnews.com/v/525402327...#sp=show-clips When someone experiences a family member or loved on that is challenged, it's hard and can also leave deep hurts that can really go way back to early childhood challenges. Last edited by Open Eyes; Jan 04, 2017 at 02:24 PM. |
 Trace14
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 Trace14
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#3
Jan 04, 2017, 10:17 PM
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My extobe wife supported me when we were dating she was very empathetic so I opened up the vault of triggers and when we were married she started in right away doing them seeing how they affected me she now had control of me.
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| Open Eyes
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#4
Jan 04, 2017, 10:45 PM
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Quote:
My son is very empathetic, his wife, who has Complex Truama, will share things with him but she isn't very nice to him. Once, after she had a rage, she bought him a gift and then later destroyed the gift after giving it to him. She constantly tells him how she isn't attracted to him and wants him to leave her. He keeps tenderly assuring her he wants to stay together, that he loves her, and she tells him she's looking for a place to move out on her own. I'm crushed by her doing this to him. The one suffering from CTSD tends to be an abuser. She isn't ready to ask for help. She isn't in the first phase of safe/stability. I have met to talk with her a couple of times. I just don't know how often I could call her or meet with her. Once a week, every 3-4 days? |
| Open Eyes
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#5
Jan 05, 2017, 04:38 PM
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My husband has been supportive by just being there and listening to me. He can empathize coming from an abusive childhood and other relationships himself. He stays with me and gets help if I need it.
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| Trace14
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#6
Jan 05, 2017, 06:25 PM
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Are you also a therapist? Is your husband's wife comfortable talking to you? |
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#7
Jan 05, 2017, 10:10 PM
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I am not a therapist but she is somewhat comfortable talking with me. |
| Open Eyes
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| Open Eyes
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#8
Jan 06, 2017, 12:23 AM
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My fiance holds me lightly, so I don't feel trapped, and just says over and over, "It's okay, baby. You're safe. You're with me, it's Jay. You're safe," whenever I'm having a nightmare/flashback. He's never aggressive with me, know my triggers and does everything he can to avoid them.
__________________
"Give him his freedom and he'll remember his humanity." |
| Open Eyes, Trace14
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#9
Jan 06, 2017, 05:13 AM
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Quote:
__________________
"Caught in the Quiet" |
| Open Eyes
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#10
Jan 06, 2017, 12:37 PM
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I love that! How would you explain a trigger to someone you care about? I hope that isn't too invasive of a question, I'm desperate to help. |
| Open Eyes
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#11
Jan 06, 2017, 06:49 PM
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Don't know if I really answered your question fully here. If you need more specific information go ahead and ask.
__________________
"Give him his freedom and he'll remember his humanity." |
| Trace14
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#12
Jan 06, 2017, 10:34 PM
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double post
Last edited by babkababy; Jan 06, 2017 at 11:25 PM. |
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#13
Jan 06, 2017, 10:58 PM
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What you wrote above that I bolded, is the reason I sought out a support forum. Are you saying that trying to convince him to leave is a trigger? What can Jay say or do to soothe that? You would never leave him right? My son does not want to leave his wife, who is a complex trauma survivor. She has gone from insisting he leave her over the course of a year, to I'm leaving you, just you wait and see. He is not allowed to say anything soothing to her or she rages at him. She has been in this mode of leaving for over a month now, I'm not sure how long. They are expecting to move into a permanent home this month. She says that when they move, she's not moving in with him, that she has found another place. She wants to live alone. She's asking him about their furniture and what does he want? He thinks that she may be making a deal with someone for a place to stay and selling a little product from home. That sounds funny but it's a global company. She's unable to hold down a job. Someone has to make her food, and she is very picky or she won't eat and lay in bed depressed for days. Any suggestions for helping her feel more comfortable? |
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#14
Jan 06, 2017, 11:11 PM
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When I tell him to leave, it's not a trigger. It more of a byproduct of my symptoms. I'm 100% convinced I'm no good and that he'll leave me eventually, so I need to act before that. Obviously, this isn't actually the case and I will never leave him, but it doesn't change that thought that comes into my head periodically when my symptoms are bad.
Honestly, I don't know what your son can really do in this case. She's convinced and sticking to it. All he can do is tell her he loves her and if she needs time, it's okay. He can tell her that he'll wait for her. Thing is, she really needs to get some help if she has these violent rages. It's not fair to him.
__________________
"Give him his freedom and he'll remember his humanity." |
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#15
Jan 06, 2017, 11:44 PM
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You sound much more level headed and reasonable than my dil. I can even understand the feelings that Jay may leave you. My father abandoned my family and I when I was 3 years old. That feeling lingers...I can be the most happy content woman in the world and still have the need to check my husband's cell phone just to make sure I wasn't right and he would cheat on me. I've woken with nightmares, wanting to slug him because in my dreams he cheated on me. He's never cheated on me. He's not going to leave me either. We've been married going on 29 years! We were high school sweet hearts. The man has already gone through the really bad times with me and he's not going to leave me. It doesn't matter how much I weigh or what my hair looks like, he's not going. I told him the other day, wouldn't it be a shame if he passed away and then I finally said to myself, "He was never going to leave me and I wasted all that energy on that? It wasn't him, it is the trauma of my dad leaving us. If he, my father, my most trusted man, left me, than I'm not good enough to stay for. That's the lie. I choose not to believe the lie although the trauma has been a bugger my entire life. |
| MtnTime2896, Open Eyes
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#16
Jan 07, 2017, 12:06 PM
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Fear of abandonment can defintely be a part of Complex PTSD. A deep desire for a rescuer is part of the challenge too. Wanting "justice" is very much a part of that too because when someone is held accountable for "harming or invading" the sense of safety and empowerment is felt.
When an individual struggles with "complex" PTSD what that means is instead of one major trauma that can cause PTSD, an individual has experienced several traumas that began in childhood. One of the things that human beings do and at a surprisingly young age is "shunning". Even other primates do this. Actually, a good example of this is in the Snow Monkeys where a certain group is considered privilaged and another group is expected to honor that. Often with Complex PTSD, an individual has faced traumatic shunning and banning. That is a kind of group abandonment. If I just consider this kind of experience and look back on my own past? I experienced and witnessed a lot of this and from a very early age where it frightened and confused me. When a child is abandoned at a young age that child is incapable of understanding that and often what "most" children begin to feel is it's "their fault" and that they were not loved enough. Sometimes a child can actually be told that when their basic nurturing needs are not met and a parent expresses anger at that need that the child is not worthy of having these needs met. babkababy, at 3 you were too young to know your father abandoned you, but what you imprinted from that is how your mother stressed about it. She taught you fear of abandonment. What you struggle with in your own marriage is that same fear that you learned to feel when you were very young. When you observe your dil, she is actually showing you a lot of the damage she suffered too, and the reason she is saying she wants to leave is what she wants is to avoid the pain of possibly being abandoned. Also, she is rejecting your son's efforts to comfort her because it feels so alien to her and instead of being able to feel "safe" and loved, she feels discomfort on a level she doesn't know how to articulate. You talk about how she can show compassion to her older brother and not your husband? That is showing you what she does know how to do and her world is about "trauma companionship or trauma bonding". When children grow up in dysfunction they thrive "in dysfunction", it's what they know. You have talked about how her sister rages, how she rages, and the older brother probably raged too and turned to drugs in an effort to gain comfort or to not feel. Well, that is the world she has learned to thrive in, NOT the world your husband wants to give her. Unfortunately, what often happens is a woman will end up in an abusive relationship because that is what felt "normal/familiar" to the woman. Men can struggle this way as well. If you think about yourself growing up without your father included in your family environment, you did get married but all these years you feared what happened to your mother might happen to you. That deep fear can last a lifetime. I wonder if part of how your son chose this woman was connected in how you may have unknowingly sent that message of fear to him. Maybe he saw you fearful and saw his father try to help you with that fear and he also grew to recognize that can be a challenge. My own father was abandoned by his mother when he was around 12. Both him and his sister were abandoned by their mother and they never knew what happened to their mother for many years. When I was growing up what I noticed about my parent's relationship is that my father was often critical towards my mother. At one point my older brother heard my father telling a friend that it's important to marry a woman who loves you more than you love her, that way they don't leave you. I also saw my mother make a big effort to get dressed up and she would look beautiful, yet my father ALWAYS found a way to criticize her or to point out a stain or something wrong. We wondered WHY he never looked at her and said, "wow hun you look great". Honestly? I think what he wanted to do is keep her self esteem low because if he did that she would remain fearful and not think of leaving him. He also demanded she let him know where she was going and when she would be home. And that is most definitely attached to how his mother left one day and never came home. But, that is not something he really recognized himself. What you are dealing with in your dil is confusing and it's understandable you don't know how to help her. Unfortunately, she is rejecting "normal caring" and even has shown you that she can't even identify the normal cues when it comes to nurturing her own child. Sadly, that is probably the way she was raised herself. In a situation like this, it's important to understand how this can affect a young child. Think about your own deep void that you have struggled with your entire life. Well, with your dil, it's a lot worse. Often "rage" can come out when normal "love and nurturing" has been deprived. Sadly, her sister is also like this, and her brother probably was too. Back in the 60's they did an experiment with a baby monkey where the monkey only had a wire thing that was cold as a mother, no fur or anything nurturing. This baby monkey was also isolated so that it had no warm nurturing presence. Then when it got old enough they put it in a cage with a group of normal monkeys and this monkey was terrified and would not go near the other monkeys. This monkey could NOT assimilate into normal and they ended up having to put this monkey back in the cage with it's fake wire mother alone. I remember watching that like I saw it just yesterday, and watching that did upset me a lot because there is a lot of information to that experiment. When I got ponies to do what I did with them I made it a point to observe their temperment. It's especially helpful if one can observe them in a group. When I brought them home sometimes I began to see they were very aggressive with their food/hay. I always separated them and they could see each other. Often even when they were separated where no one could steal their food, they still got angry and protected their food as if it was a problem. It would take a very long time, often a couple of years for them to finally overcome that challenge. If they were too aggressive, they would not fit into my program. Human beings have these behaviors too. Often dysfunctional patterns also revolve around food. Your daughter in law is also exhibiting this problem too. She struggles to make a decision about if it's even ok to eat. The structure she functions best in is lack of structure. YES, it's very sad too. |
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