I'm gonna try make this quick before I recede back into myself. I think,
like most all people here, I have a history of mental health problems.
Namely I go through bouts of depression & anxiety- sometimes it isn't so
bad, other times its terrible. I'...
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I'm gonna try make this quick before I recede back into myself. I think,
like most all people here, I have a history of mental health problems.
Namely I go through bouts of depression & anxiety- sometimes it isn't so
bad, other times its terrible. I'm in that terrible place right now. Now
I like actively seeking to understand and resolve myself. I fought my
problems whilst I was school fairly actively: I joined the public
speaking team, I saw counsellors, I made a concerned effort to connect
with people & maintain friendships and I opened my feelings to them. It
worked pretty well. But now I'm out of school and working a lot of those
safeguards have been removed, and although it could be worse, I'm still
struggling. And I think I've found the prime mover for a lot of my
problems. My older brother is 4 years older than me and from the ages of
12-16 I was victim of what I think is abuse. Despite being mildly
bullied at school, home wasn't a particularly pleasant place for me. My
brother and I were always fighting and I feel his actions were
unjustified. I have blurry memories of instances of physical and
emotional abuse. I remember him tackling me through dry wall once. I
remember him hurting me with a pencil. I remember him throwing a salt
shaker that narrowly missed me. I remember regular physical fights that
left me in tears and my ears ringing, and when I hid in my room he'd
sing and laugh at me, taunting me and, afterwards, he'd nonchalantly
watch TV, and I'd be stuck in my room for hours because I didn't want
the confrontation. To be fair he gave a lot of my family a tough time
(even now we physically fight- yes he lives with us still). We couldn't
sit near each other at the dinner table. He lived with my grandparents
at one point. I used to have dreams of me fighting him, but every time
he felt nothing, like my hands were made of nothing. There's so much
else that I can remember, and so much else I feel I've forgotten. I've
traced a lot of my current-day issues to him, and now there's nothing
more I want to do than to hurt him the way he's hurt me, but even so the
idea makes me want to cry, and I tremor and get scared. Any form of
confrontation with him amplifies these reactions. My depression and
anxiety is getting worse, and I know how bad it can get. Is it safe to
assume that my childhood experiences with my brother are the reason, or
at least, a partial reason for this? What should I do?
PTSD for Medical and First Responders
