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PTSD and trauma

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A_Tech PTSD for Medical and First Responders
  • replies: 276

Hi, Well obviously this my situation. I was hoping to find others here that might have a similar background to chat with, it can be so hard to talk about this stuff with non-med people (and I mean no disrespect, it's just often graffic or upsetting t... View more

Hi, Well obviously this my situation. I was hoping to find others here that might have a similar background to chat with, it can be so hard to talk about this stuff with non-med people (and I mean no disrespect, it's just often graffic or upsetting to others). Im a 40 year old female that has spent the last 10years in the State Trauma Hospital as an Anaesthetic Technician. My PTSD was brought about after years of exposure to shocking traumas, deaths, and no support from management. I would love to hear from anyone that has a similar story, or just wants to chat. Cheers

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tired_14 Shame, disgust, guilt and self-loathing
  • replies: 2

I have been living with C-PTSD, Depression, Anxiety, OCD and an ED since I was a child. Every time I feel like I have taken a step...I find myself hitting rock bottom again. I just feel so incredibly disgusted in myself from the many many years of ch... View more

I have been living with C-PTSD, Depression, Anxiety, OCD and an ED since I was a child. Every time I feel like I have taken a step...I find myself hitting rock bottom again. I just feel so incredibly disgusted in myself from the many many years of childhood and adulthood SA from my family. I hate myself and feel so ashamed....I can't help but feel like this is what is holding me back. Stopping me from learning to live rather than just existing. How do I do it? How do I move on from the guilt, disgust, hatred, shame and self-loathing?

DIDbloke Guilt after trauma
  • replies: 2

Hi All I experienced sexual abuse as a 5 and 6 yo. At the time I was obviously not able to understand what and why this was happening to me. I twisted it all around in my immature mind and thought it was my fault, perhaps I had been naughty or bad or... View more

Hi All I experienced sexual abuse as a 5 and 6 yo. At the time I was obviously not able to understand what and why this was happening to me. I twisted it all around in my immature mind and thought it was my fault, perhaps I had been naughty or bad or something. I also (for reasons I don’t understand) thought that if I had been a girl, this would not have been happening to me, so it was my fault for being a boy. Even though I realised years later that I was a victim the guilt lodged on my subconscious or unconscious mind and is still there undiminished. The combination of this guilt, DID and PTSD, have left me with very low self esteem and a subconscious drive to punish myself physically, mentally and in other ways. Are there others with guilt from childhood abuse and how do you handle it?

Echtis I don't think I'll ever recover
  • replies: 2

I experienced a wide variety of sexual and emotional abuse as a child and teenager. My sexual abuse occured between the ages of 12-17 and I believe it fundamentally broke something in me. I'm seeing someone, and I stayed over at their place, and I wo... View more

I experienced a wide variety of sexual and emotional abuse as a child and teenager. My sexual abuse occured between the ages of 12-17 and I believe it fundamentally broke something in me. I'm seeing someone, and I stayed over at their place, and I woke up to them cuddling me. I had a breakdown right then and there. I haven't had sex since I was 17, with my abuser, and still to this day the idea of it scares and disgusts me. I want to make my gf happy, and I know she wants to do this stuff, but I don't know how to overcome this. It really just makes me hate myself, I'm afraid, she asked if I'm a virgin and that's why I'm nervous/afraid. This stuff is too difficult to talk about and I don't think anyone believes me when I do, so I said I couldn't explain and she wouldn't believe me, which was bad on my part. Either way, I'm hopeless. 24 year old male and I start shaking if someone puts their hand on my leg. It's just over.

Horse18 Dating a girl with PTSD
  • replies: 2

Hi everyone, I’ve currently been in a long distance relationship (250km’s) with a girl for the last 4 months who’s a paramedic and has had an extremely difficult year. Both of her parents died within 2 months of each other at the start of the year an... View more

Hi everyone, I’ve currently been in a long distance relationship (250km’s) with a girl for the last 4 months who’s a paramedic and has had an extremely difficult year. Both of her parents died within 2 months of each other at the start of the year and because of her job and a few other things she was on compo when we met (diagnosed with PTSD) Everything was going great in our relationship, we fell deeply in love, would text each other constantly through the day and night, chat on the phone when we could and spend time with each other at every opportunity but in the last 2 or 3 weeks she has really pulled away from me, I’ve tried talking to her about it and she says that she does this when her PTSD/anxiety is really bad, she pulls away from loved ones and isolates. I really want to be there for her but the distance and withdrawal makes it really hard.she does text me every day and we chat on the phone about 2 or 3 times a week but I just don’t know what to do.any advice would be greatly appreciated as I truly love this girl with all my heart and it’s killing me that she is going through this without me.she is seeing a psychiatrist and a psychologist and a GP about it but is there anything I can do to help her?thanks in advance.

Loligiggles I'm only getting worse, need to find somewhere I can work on my triggers
  • replies: 4

Hi. I've reached a crisis point in regards to my ptsd and despite what people are telling me, I'm still getting worse and worse. I keep on trying to find anything that can help me work through my triggers but I can't. There's no group meetings, no co... View more

Hi. I've reached a crisis point in regards to my ptsd and despite what people are telling me, I'm still getting worse and worse. I keep on trying to find anything that can help me work through my triggers but I can't. There's no group meetings, no controlled environments, nothing over than just telling a person that this thing happened and that "you're making improvements" which, I'm not, I still can't tell people no and can't tell people what I think without fear of violent physical or verbal retaliation. I can't even stand up for myself, because I go into shut down when I need to act. I'm in constant pain as well and even my hobbies, which cost money, aren't doing anything anymore and it's impacting my savings.

Healing heart Domestic violence
  • replies: 1

It’s been a long ongoing situation with workplace not understanding the situation, privacy issues, loss of job and moving. They situation seems to now be repeating itself again with immediate job loss due to domestic violence and lack of available se... View more

It’s been a long ongoing situation with workplace not understanding the situation, privacy issues, loss of job and moving. They situation seems to now be repeating itself again with immediate job loss due to domestic violence and lack of available services I was on this forum some time ago and have now returned. Im in ongoing domestic violence situation. Its difficult. I have found this forum again. Ive recently lost my job and find myself out of work over Christmas time. There is little jobs available and I’m applying for jobs starting over Christmas. I have necessities covered.

Leona_Maree sexual assault trauma & advise
  • replies: 5

Hey everyone! At the start of this year I flew back to my country town for a week before my next uni semester, to stay with one of my old high school friends. My ex boyfriend was one of his roommates, but we were on good terms & keen to catch up. On ... View more

Hey everyone! At the start of this year I flew back to my country town for a week before my next uni semester, to stay with one of my old high school friends. My ex boyfriend was one of his roommates, but we were on good terms & keen to catch up. On the last night I blacked out due to an OD at some point when my ex & I were talking. I don't remember a lot but I remember enough to know that I was molested. I hate myself for not doing anything or going to the hospital or police straight away, but I just shut down completely and wanted to pretend it didn't happen. I know I need to seek professional help, but when I spoke to my psych about it she told me that I was responsible for putting myself in that situation. Though I logically don't agree with her, emotionally I haven't been as strong. I keep thinking I'm alright and I can move on but I feel so much guilt and shame and disgust in myself. My current boyfriend knows and it took a lot to stop him from going after my ex. I've started to lose close friends because of the fallout of the assault. My ex is a very influential and charismatic guy in my home town, and he's been busy damaging my reputation back home, in order to save his. There's no evidence to go to the police. I knew in the morning that it wasn't an option considering the serious conservative corruption in my town - no rape claims are ever investigated. I just would really appreciate some advice on how I can emotionally heal from this. It's effecting me in ways I could never imagine. I'm not sure how to explain all this but I'm definitely just not feeling great in myself to a pretty concerning extent. My boyfriend has been really incredible during this and so supportive & understanding - so please know he's done everything right! I had been dealing with drug addiction issues for a while at that point and if I had just not taken it so far that night I could have fought him off. Thank you for those who read this & reply :))

lennon11 Obsessive thoughts about trauma: Over 10 years of severe abuse from a parent
  • replies: 32

Hi all, new here to the forum. Over the past couple of months, I've had memories resurfacing about physical, sexual and emotional trauma that I experienced from my father for over 10 years while growing up. He had substance abuse problems and untreat... View more

Hi all, new here to the forum. Over the past couple of months, I've had memories resurfacing about physical, sexual and emotional trauma that I experienced from my father for over 10 years while growing up. He had substance abuse problems and untreated mental illness which influenced the situation, as well. Now I'm at a place where I'm basically thinking about the memories all the time. There are so many things that I am feeling and trying to piece together. I am also trying to make sense of why these things happened - what frame of mind he was in and such. These obsessive and intrusive memories are basically starting to take over my life, specifically influencing my focus with work and school. And it is all very isolating...I don't think anyone in my life would understand what happened or what I am going through now (nor should I expect them to). No one in my family knows what happened. I've told my partner and a couple of friends that I've been through abuse but haven't gone into much detail, basically for fear of overwhelming them. I've talked with a counselor a couple times but didn't find it completely helpful as it focused more about logistics of taking care of myself in general - I normally have a healthy lifestyle so that's not what I'm struggling with, it's the obsessive thoughts. And for reference, I've been on meds for bipolar for a while and have meds to spot treat anxiety, which generally work well. But these symptoms have been worse lately, as the ptsd has been worse. Normally I wouldn't feel the need to talk about these things, but lately the trauma has been taking up most of my thoughts and attention. It can be difficult to not feel able to express what I'm really thinking and feeling to the people in my life. I have tried to spend time sitting with these thoughts to process and feel. Obviously there is a lot that happened and my mind is trying to make sense of it all. But I can't just sit and think about it all of the time. My coping lately has basically just been to distract myself. As soon as I stop focusing on something, then the traumatic memories tend to come back. Just looking to see if anyone has similar experiences with obsessive/intrusive Ptsd thoughts. What do you do to handle them? Do you talk about your trauma with the people in your life? Thanks very much.

PsychedelicFur Frequent Dreams about the older man who tried to take advantage of me when I was 15/16
  • replies: 1

Hello there, A bit of a background story - when I was 15 or 16 years of age my family and I befriended a much older man, at our volunteer work. Over a matter of months and a couple of years him and I grew enormously close. He was 68 years of age at t... View more

Hello there, A bit of a background story - when I was 15 or 16 years of age my family and I befriended a much older man, at our volunteer work. Over a matter of months and a couple of years him and I grew enormously close. He was 68 years of age at the time and we both got along 'so well' because we were both passionate about 1960s and 1970s music. At first, it was just a friendship. Although, as time progressed, he started grooming me. I grew up in quite an emotionally unavailable household. I am now estranged from my psychologically abusive Mother. And he built that trust with my parents, as he built a 'friendship' with all of us. I was starved from affection, protection, love and security.. when I was younger. I felt very ignored at times and I felt like my feelings/emotions did not matter. So, I began to really enjoy the attention and affection he gave me. He would call me pet names. He would say he loved me- I love you. And eventually he created a secret email address, that his Wife wasn't aware of, so we could privately communicate with each other. He would pick me up from school and while no sexual relations did occur.. he and I became quite close, physically and emotionally. He would constantly tell me how beautiful I was. And I thought he was charming and I liked the attention and 'love'. Realizing this now, I am trying to come to terms that THIS MAN was exploiting me at such a vulnerable and impressionable age. I am getting nightmares still, at 20 years old now. It's deeply traumatic and upsetting. Luckily, I am safe now and nothing like this is happening to me anymore. It is just still affecting me. And I avoid going back to the location of the volunteer work because it brings back some traumatic memories of what happened when I was much younger. I wanted and yearned for protection, love and genuine friendship. ALL HE WANTED TO DO WAS EXPLOIT ME! Luckily, when I was almost 17 I CUT ALL CONTACT WITH HIM. Blocking his phone number and email addresses. I started to realize that it wasn't a healthy connection. And now I am COMPLETELY NO contact with him, thankfully. I DETEST HIM. I AM SO ANGRY THAT HE WAS GROOMING ME. I HAVE SO MUCH ETERNALISED FRUSTRATION AND SADNESS. It's too much sometimes. I am trying to move forward but how can I when I keep getting dreams about him?

Living57 When I should be enjoying my life its full of things I want to forget
  • replies: 2

Ive struggled since Rememberance Day, I tried to remember the people, but my mind kept drifting back to my nightmare, its now three years on and fight as I might I can't stop remembering, I feel asif I'm cracked and shattered inside and out and can't... View more

Ive struggled since Rememberance Day, I tried to remember the people, but my mind kept drifting back to my nightmare, its now three years on and fight as I might I can't stop remembering, I feel asif I'm cracked and shattered inside and out and can't be fixed. At my age I had thought life would be wonderful, so nice, anything but the nightmare I endure on a daily basis. Three years on and I still lay in bed, wishing I could do anything but think, wishing and hoping for a night without flashbacks and nightmares, wishing I could 'get over it' or 'move on' as so many people tell me I should. Wishing it was not endless rounds of medical appointments trying to end the horrors.I am as tired now as i was when it happened, mentally, physically and emotionally.And no matter what I take or how I try or what I listen to, my mind just won’t shut off.All the things I didn't do, all the events of that night, replayed over and over in my mind, analyzing and overthinking. I cry until I feel like i have no tears left, but they keep coming, I wish it wasn’t like this, because i hate these times when I want to sleep..But I just can’t.I've tried all the tricks and still my mind fights with my overthinking.Wondering what would have happened if I had reacted differently. And anger and frustration leads to more tears, and all I want to do is stop the thinking, stop the crying and have a night of sleep, just one night.But its a small victory I'm here at all, and that will have to do, as i keep trying to deal with the night terrors and the constant daily reminders and the feeling I will never ever get peace of mind.