[precaryous]

Oh my god, I am hurting!
I have had childhood issues. I have searched for help and have been re victimized as an adult.

For years and years I was in therapy asking. "What is wrong with me? I am socially inept. I have difficulty relating to other people. I feel alien. I feel like I am a different species of human being...." I thought it was immaturity, DID, maybe something organic like Asberger's.

Yesterday a T suggested I may have Complex PTSD. I was thinking, yeah, sure, PTSD for the stuff that happened to me as an adult.

But then I googled ComplexPTSD. I bawled reading through the symptoms. I bawled reading symptom, "A sense of being completely different from other human beings.." That's me!

I bawled realizing what's wrong with me is not like an organic brain disease that just happened to me. I cried imagining that my terrible painful disability was done *to* me.

I am in so much pain!

[HazelGirl]

I am so sorry. I don't really have words to fix it, but I am listening.

It can be helped, and you can work towards a normal life. But that doesn't change the grief and pain from realizing that all your suffering throughout your life was due to the evil of others, I know.

[unaluna]

You may be different from everybody else, but you're the same as the rest of us

[Freewilled]

I can relate but I think it's awesome that you can cry for your pain I mean, I'm sorry for all you've had to endure but I can't connect to those feelings. I think that's a really good thing. I hope your T can help you as you work through your pain

[precaryous]

Thank you for listening to me.
HG, It's ok that you can't fix it.

Hankster, thank you for helping me feel included.

I had to put myself to bed last evening because I was too overwhelmed.

I don't see T again until July 3. I need to distract myself until I'm calmer.

The positive is that I have answers about what's been wrong with me.

HazelGirl, what is the treatment?

Pre

[HazelGirl]

Originally Posted by precaryous

Thank you for listening to me.
HG, It's ok that you can't fix it.

Hankster, thank you for helping me feel included.

I had to put myself to bed last evening because I was too overwhelmed.

I don't see T again until July 3. I need to distract myself until I'm calmer.

The positive is that I have answers about what's been wrong with me.

HazelGirl, what is the treatment?

Pre

There are many treatments. EMDR is the most talked about currently, but you can also do CBT, exposure therapy, and so many others. The thing is, you have to be committed to the process. You can't start and then stop because it will make it worse (it will drag everything up, and if you quit in the middle, you're stuck with all this junk that you spent your life trying to push down and hide from). With complex PTSD, it can take years of therapy to regain a sense of normal. It isn't a "quick fix", but you can be helped.

[JustShakey]

I can relate to that whole alien from a different planet feeling. I thought I had Asperger's for a while too and I gave up on myself, thinking this is just the way I am.
It's no fun, but I still feel better knowing that I can change, even if it feels impossible at times.

[precaryous]

Originally Posted by Freewilled

I can relate but I think it's awesome that you can cry for your pain I mean, I'm sorry for all you've had to endure but I can't connect to those feelings. I think that's a really good thing. I hope your T can help you as you work through your pain

Thank you, Freewilled. The tears are from recognizing myself as I read the symptoms after all my life not knowing what is causing me so much pain, weirdness and disability. Then I cried when I realized my PTSD wasn't just from being horribly exploited as an adult...it was from sustained inexscapable injury clear back to childhood.

It's like, that's who I *am*..,that little girl. I'm just in a grandmother's body. Its like I was left behind on State Street, Hanna Avenue and Brunswick Avenue. And I'm also here. I cry for her ...for me. It's difficult to explain. No words.

I am so messed up.

But my parents loved me.

[precaryous]

Originally Posted by JustShakey

I can relate to that whole alien from a different planet feeling. I thought I had Asperger's for a while too and I gave up on myself, thinking this is just the way I am.
It's no fun, but I still feel better knowing that I can change, even if it feels impossible at times.

That's how I was dealing with it...this is just the way I am. I try to blend in social situations. Other than that, I stay to myself.

Right now I don't feel I can change but I need to wait until T is back to hear her plan.

[precaryous]

I'm better today. I'm numb. I went swimming. The water was relaxing. Just numb.

[precaryous]

I forgot. I called and left a message for my T. I should have called and left a message yesterday (Friday). Now she's gone until July 3.

[Parley]

Precaryous~ do you feel more stress because of the diagnosis?

[precaryous]

Originally Posted by Parley

Precaryous~ do you feel more stress because of the diagnosis?

TRIGGER WARNING----
Yes.
There's a lot of feelings floating around.

If this is the right diagnosis, I'm angry that it has taken this long of me saying, " I feel like an alien. I feel like a different species of human being. I feel there is definitely something wrong with..." for someone to tell me what is wrong.

For the longest time I felt that I just must have been born with something wrong with my brain..I am grieving because now it looks like I was born a normal, whole little girl ...and people shattered her.

I feel all split up..that the little girl I was at different ages are all crying to be picked up. That they were left..lost..pushed away...their pain misunderstood or ignored and now they need consoled because we now understand why they are crying.

I feel grief and anger that's hard to describe...but mostly grief.

I flashback to the ten year old who was terrified and beaten with the collar of her dead dog until she thought to herself, "I'm not going to let this hurt anymore." Then found herself popped out of her body and observing the scene from the ceiling, no longer in pain.

I think I'm having flashbacks.
So, yes.

I'm sorry you are hurting so badly.

[JaneC]

Originally Posted by HazelGirl

You can't start and then stop because it will make it worse (it will drag everything up, and if you quit in the middle, you're stuck with all this junk that you spent your life trying to push down and hide from). With complex PTSD, it can take years of therapy to regain a sense of normal. It isn't a "quick fix", but you can be helped.

Ugh, this...... makes me sad. I want it 'fixed' now. But of course it is going to take as long as it takes, which right now feels interminable!

Precaryus, I really feel for you.I am there too. Although now, 16 months into therapy, I still feel there is a long road ahead as T and I are only beginning to make a plan to work on the trauma.

This is hard work, but please know I'm here walking my path like you. Sending you kind supportive thoughts