Core Issues/Trauma

I believe that adult children of abusive or violent emotionally disturbed parents are left with deep emotional scars in their psyche. I have been told in the past that I cannot heal these on my own. I don't believe I need to be in therapy the rest of my life and my wallet agrees! Positive affirmations are good, as is having spiritual faith etc. But I believe that there has to be alternatives to dealing with childhood trauma as an adult other than constant therapy and pills. I don't understand why I can't break the cycle of building myself up and tearing myself down. One day I'm hopeful the next despondent. I don't believe I have a bipolar personality what I believe is that I was damaged as a child. The love, bonding, nurturing and support was absent in my life. The opposite of all of those things were so predominant - it was all I knew. I just wish I could let it all go. There are times I am so resentful for all the possibilities that were taken from me. Yet, there are times when I am so grateful for every little detail in my life - including my suffering.

They say life is just a circle, and I believe it to be true, but sometimes I just want to get off of the merry-go-round for a while. I hope that someday I can achieve my true potential in this life - but if I am unable to heal these core issues, this "core trauma" what then>?< I suppose then I am just destined for a life of loneliness and depression.

J

It's terrible what you went through as a child.

Just because medication is the answer for me doesn't mean it is for you.

Do you go to church regularly?
If not, maybe that is something you could try!

"what then>?< I suppose then I am just destined for a life of loneliness and depression."
i don't think you are destined for loneliness and depression due to these core traumas. there are positive solutions to help you and these deep seated feelings i believe can be resolved. it's how much are you willing to help yourself with the aide of therapy. your way doesn't seem to be giving you positive results.
may i ask why you refuse therapy? to be honest with you i couldn't have achieved the life i have now without help. i dropped my prideful ways and said i need help with all this! it worked for me. today i am happy, joyous and free! before life seemed all doom and gloom. i felt helpless and hopeless. i was the smiling clown that was crying on the inside for many, many years. can you identify with this?
hope these comments will help you.

Omy goodness - can I identify....

I have some serious thinking to do. Very serious.

and you're right if I could have done it I would have long ago. I have new Drs. now and the "therapy" I'm getting is not for psychiatric issues. I'm not sure if I could get my new insurance co to pay for a "pre-existing" condition? I feel so all alone sometimes, I don't know exactly what to do anymore or where to turn. I keep reading and trying to educate myself and

you know what - I'm gonna stop right there, I can't make excuses - perhaps it is only that I am afraid to go deeper. I do need help and I can't do this alone anymore.

I don't want to die this way - that's my biggest fear is that I will die without knowing real joy. You got me sobbing...I think it really may be time for me to start doing some ground work to re-establish some "T" time.

J

Bless you

Best of luck!!!!

I was so glad to read your post. It expresses exactly how I am feeling. I know and have accepted the issues that my parents had and how they couldn't do better, based on their own childhood issues. That they did the best they could. The lonliness and lack of belonging (being wanted...we wanted a boy...no one talked to me...touched me [said, "I love you" or affectionate hugs/kisses]), emotionally unavailable family members, and a emotionally and verbally explosive mother (scarrrrry, scaring no caring).
I sought love in sexually distructive ways trying to get someone to want to be around me, accept me (that's the only thing boys want from you...message) that has left me feeling shamed, unworthy, abandonment issues, trust problems, etc. Now at 53, I totally isolate and have no one to talk to, no friends and financially scared (hard to work and be around people). I build up business, finances and then knock it down...I'm always living on the edge (with 3-4 great (non-stressed)financial periods a year.
I have not been able to work a full-time job for more than a few months. I don't feel like trying again. I have a degree and so very, very many skills. Poor job record and fear of authority figures. PTSD triggers and involuntary actions/reactions...I'm afraid of myself...don't want to hurt or embarrass myself anymore. It is getting more and more too painful to continue trying to exist, afraid it will all fall down, taking all my energy (tired all the time) to keep trying to pay bills, food/gas, etc. Just existing, no having joy or fun. Feeling good means I'm inside, with food and bills paid. I am fat due to medication and eating to calm nausea caused by meds. I have stopped meds...can't get fatter....my misery has been compounded by the weight gain and high blood pressure!!! I tried to go to a therapist 2 weeks ago and felt unsafe, judged, brought up issues that I had to walk out and suffer from (session up, 1 hour, good-bye). I'd rather keep them buried and not be judged. I have always been hyper-vigilant and unable to deal with criticism (even if it's constructive) and being critiqued. This is my main problem with working full-time (FEAR of not being good enough, doing the right thing, getting fired and not knowing why or being able to keep it from happening). I have had over 47 jobs and I am only 53 (I kid you not, sometimes working 2-3 places at the same time to make ends meet). I am tired. Yet, I am still hopeful that there could be a happy ending. I kind of know there will be another time of abundance, it's a cycle. So, I am trudging and waiting for the next 'let up'....so I can relax, feel safe for a awhile. I don't commit suicide because I really do know that I have and continue to be sustained by something greater than myself...especially since I keep doing myself in. These are two things I content myself in doing well, 1) not killing myself and 2)not drinking. Self-hatred is hard. No one else has ever wanted me around.
Even though both of my parents are dead now, I still cringe and suffer.
I am scared and joyless, yet in gratitude (better than some other people's lives and situations). The paradox is confusing.

Thanks for your posting. Mixed emotions. No one else to talk to. No one else wants to hear how I really feel. People only want to hear good things.

One of the biggest things for me was finding a trained trauma therapist who could help me work through the trauma. I still have a ton of issues and maladaptive coping issues, but I'm a lot better than I was when I first started seeing her, and I do have moments when I feel at peace with myself. I've found doing EMDR with her has worked wonders with her on processing the trauma.

It is possible to heal - it just takes a lot of time and energy.

I just wish T wasn't so expensive, but then again & figure my mental health is worth a lot to me.

Good luck.

--splitimage

I think anyone saying you have to be in therapy for the whole rest of your life probably has a vested interest in saying so. The goal of therapy should be to teach you skills you can then apply outside therapy, not to keep you coming back week after week for the rest of your life!

A lot of people with PTSD find CBT or DBT therapy helpful, since it helps recognize and change destructive thinking patterns. But that isn't a lifetime commitment, and if you can't afford therapy the techniques can be learned from books and applied on your own as well.

There are also lots of alternative therapies that some people find helpful with PTSD, such as EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and herbal therapies (these should be applied by someone with training in herbal medicine because they can be nearly as potent, and thus dangerous, as traditional drug therapies).

Then there are the basics of taking care of yourself--eating enough healthy foods, drinking enough water, exercising regularly, and getting enough sleep. These help everyone, no matter what their diagnosis or what other treatments they're using. Particularly with exercise, if you can do it for an hour every day (yes this is more than traditional sources recommend) it can release enough endorphins to be as effective as a chemical anti-depressant for many people, without the side-effects.

I think when people talk about recovery from prolonged trauma, they're really talking about learning to cope well enough to have a fairly normal life. Some of that pain will always be there, but I believe it's possible to learn enough coping skills to have it under control and not interfering with your daily life. You can certainly have lots of joyful moments and happiness! I really believe that.

VoidofCourse and Melita, I hope you will both start searching for whatever techniques--traditional, alternative, or both--will be most helpful for you. I can't really tell you what to do because different things work for different people, but I don't believe any of us have to stay on the PTSD roller coaster forever.

(((((hugs))))) to both of you.

I don't know if this will help, but I found in my own life that my PTSD had an acute phase at onset that lasted about three years. During that time I was in therapy weekly specifically for the PTSD. The therapist told me that about 2/3rds of all PTSD clients do recover but it can take anywhere from one to five years. After that, it's kind of like having a bad knee. It will flare now and then but you know what it is and do what you need to do to take care of yourself.

I found this to be accurate in my own case. The acute phase was pure misery and felt like it would never end. Flashbacks and nightmares were debilitating and seemed to make life impossible, but with weekly therapy it slowly got better. The flashbacks got farther and farther apart and now, 15 years later, I rarely have them, and when I do have them I tend to recognize it after an initial period of confusion and that in itself helps--just knowing I'm reacting to something old and telling myself I can handle it better now, it's not the same as then.

The bad thing, as several of you say here, is it's so expensive and it's a long haul. But the thing is, it's one of the more treatable mental illnesses so it's worth pushing to get the therapy and pushing to get through the therapy. I know it's not easy, especially in this economy and with insurance companies being so---well, you know.

All the best to all of you. Healing IS possible for most, it's just not nearly fast enough.

I am in mind today, hardly able to talk or do. not all days are like this. I am 60.
In my life last 10 yrs I have done much inner work and more recently, meditation.
A traumatic event 5 mos ago triggered an avalanche of all the trauma I have gone through since childhood. now I understand due to life of many traumas - and having this trapped deep emotion, well I never knew,until now, this was my biggest block to maintaining a state of presence and inner joy.

I am not able to work at this time. My outer world sort of crumbled and I am not sure how to put it back together again, but a glimmer of hope, of light still in my awareness. And my focus has turned to healing and finding the joy that does exist inside all of us, even when we do not see it.

The post by VoidOfCourse I relate to on deeper levels, as well as some of the replies. Thank all of you for sharing. Here, in this forum, a place to feel less isolated. Grateful.

Someone that cares deeply, that witnessed this recent trauma, that I rarely talk to, gifted to me working with an energy healer, an intuitive psychotherapist whose focus is healing energy using non traditional methods.
We do not dive into my past traumas nor even the recent one...however she recommended to me Belleruth Naparstek, author and therapist.
I am reading Invisible Heroes- Survivors of Trauma and How they Heal.
Belleruth Naparstek.

So, I share this womans name here, to anyone reading my post...perhaps it will mean something significant to you, a path to follow, just planting a seed.

In gratitude for all of you here, love and light to us all, Kashia

j, you can know real joy and be free of this bondage imposed on you as a child. it will take time but i'm glad you are willing to take the risk of getting help. that takes courage! my T once told me how brave i was. i didn't feel brave at all..very low self image, if at all. he said, you've decided to delve deeper within yourself, get through this, and come out on the other side free of these experiences that have so deeply scarred you. my experience getting help enabled me to have a life-a good life at that. i so wish the same for you. you deserve a good life filled with joyful things. i am hopeful for you. you are braver and more courageous than you realize taking this step. if you don't feel the connection with a T, move on to another one. it is important it is a good match for you. it's important you feel safe.
hope you will keep us posted on your progress.

I have PTSD and have had some success with therapy aimed at PTSD, but now I do DBT on myself and it really appeals to me and helps.

I definitely can identify with voidofcourse and Melita... and splitimage, I'm in the preparation stage of starting EMDR... I was going to suggest it as a therapy option before I read your post.
I am so very hopeful that the EMDR will be helpful for me. I wish some hope for you as well. The only other thing that has restored some of my hope is the law of attraction or "The Secret" The way this works is imagining that your life is already the way you want it.

There are many different kinds of therapy and there are books (including workbooks) out there on them that you could try if you can't afford a therapist right now. I saw a PTSD specialist psychologist for awhile and still sometimes talk with her. She did EMDR on me, like some mentioned. We did other kinds of therapy, too, and I find Dialectical Behavior Therapy the most useful, and I have had to do that all on my own. I can't afford a DBT program.

Medications also really help me, but maybe you don't need them, like you said. I'm also bipolar and get pretty crazy off my medication.