[texas strawberry]

I'm new to this and ive needed this for so long. Ok here I go opening up.
Over the last few years I have noticed that My very positive, very social, and very organized personality was slowly being replaced with new odd feelings of worry and guilt for the unknown. This started shortly after I left my abusive alcoholic husband of 13 years. with no money and no family this was a very traumatic experience for myself and especially my 4 children. I was hiding the abuse the best I could from the children. he provided very well for the family and I was a stay at home super mom. Old fears and anxietys from my childhood started so consume my life.OK so I'm going to skip details about my long ongoing life of abuse and torment from birth on. just know that when I started to have children I blocked all the pain and memories so that I could be the best mom I could for them. I had become a very strong positive young woman that could overcome any obstical with grace. So the PTSD was starting to create fears and worrys about anything and everything. Then it started to affect my job because all I wanted to do was stay at my home with my children.i could be with them and protect them. slowly depression came along because of the struggles the anxiety was causing, then paranoia, and social avoidance. after moving 5 times in 3 years and several failed relationships, I have no self worth, I have become carless, I have memory lapses, and all I want to do is take sleeping pills and stay inside my home, fearing what will come next. well a few weeks ago my children were removed by cps. I left my 11 year old son with aspbergers at home alone for the day. a neighbor I had been having problems with saw him riding his bike and my car gone. as I was arriving home I was arrested and all my children were removed. the other 3 are all teenagers. they took the one reason I kept going. they are my life. and now they were taken. I'm all alone, scared, and have started hearing things and memory loss is a normal thing now. I trust no one. I don't know what has become of me

[Open Eyes]

((texas strawberry)),

I am sorry you went through so much and it took such a toll on you that you are struggling with PTSD now.

"I don't know what has become of me" is something people struggling with PTSD utter a lot. It is also normal to PTSD to want to "isolate" and begin to "avoid" anything that can be a reminder of a "trauma" or even a long time relationship that was "abusive".

What you need to do for yourself is "reach out for help" now and find a therapist that specializes in PTSD. I understand that can be hard, you don't trust or think you can be helped and you are confused, but you have to "make yourself" reach out for help. You need to get into therapy so you have someone who can help you slowly get yourself functioning better, understanding yourself better, and that you have support for it.

You may need some help with medications to help you stabilize while you work all of your confusion out in therapy. You "can" do better with help, you cannot hide and just think this will go away, you do need help.

(((Hugs)))
OE

[texas strawberry]

thank you for ur words. I'm trying to do the right thing. it's so hard knowing what to do but letting my mind control me and just avoiding it. it's like I have another person paralyzingly and controlling me.

[Open Eyes]

(((texas strawberry)))

YES, that is exactly what PTSD feels like and the challenge it presents to people who suffer from it. I have that same challenge myself, and it is frustrating for me to talk to others who do not experience it first hand, they toss back comments like "Its your brain you should be "in control" of it, and this leaves me angry, frustrated, lonely, and wanting to "isolate" too. However, if you take the time to develop the right kind of "support system" where you are around people that "do" understand it and also are challenged with it too and are trying to work through it, you will "not" be so alone with it. You will then have a path to actually "healing" and you will begin to slowly "reclaim" more control over it, verses just "hiding out" they way you are doing now.

What you need to do (and I know this is difficult) is you need to take steps to find a therapist that helps you feel "safe" and that will "listen to you" as you slowly put into words the way you are struggling and are now at a point were you feel so challenged you don't even want to get out of bed or what you have now that is your "safety zone".

The other thing you need to do is get involved in a DBT group so you can learn "new tools" to use instead of the tools that you have used in the past that never helped you and you were just "abused and misunderstood" even more.

I "believe" you, I believe that you loved your children, that they meant the world to you, and that even though you tried so hard, you got so bad that you just could not function and take care of them, "Not your fault".

There are many that struggle with PTSD and get "progressively worse" only to get to a point where they can barely function and they don't understand it, feel like they have a "separate" part of themselves they cannot seem to "control somehow" and reach the point where you are now too. YES, THAT IS ALSO WHAT HAPPENED TO ME TOO. I honestly did not understand PTSD and even though I was diagnosed with it, I didn't even understand that it was going to get even "worse". And for me, my family was "mean" to me, they were uninformed and because of their "anger and poor treatment towards me" I got even worse.

It is "crucial" for you to reach out for help and find your way to working consistently with a therapist that "does understand it" and helps you feel "safe" with them, and that is very "important". And, as I have mentioned, as you slowly work on developing a "support system" which can also include coming here to the PTSD PC Forum for support, you can get on the "path to slowly healing". It is important to know, THIS WILL TAKE TIME and you need to become "patient with self, no matter what".

You are not "really alone" either, there are others that struggle too, and understand this "feeling like you have another person in you that is paralyzing you and controlling you". I have that too, it is "part of the disorder called PTSD", not your fault, and I cannot stress enough how important it is to "get help" and create a support system for yourself, and make a decision that "you do deserve this" too.

You can also get the book written by Judith Herman called "Trauma and Recovery" that discusses the stages of healing.

You have to be "patient" though as you reach out until you find the right "fit" with a therapist too. It took me time to find that and I did find a therapist that works with me on a sliding scale and charges me "less" so I can stay in therapy.

The other thing you need to do is read about PTSD too, so that you can understand it better and realize that there are things you can do to help yourself learn things that are helpful in controlling it better too.

(((Hugs)))
OE