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PTSD and trauma

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A_Tech PTSD for Medical and First Responders
  • replies: 273

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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allmakessense Just found out my mum is a narcissist after 35 years
  • replies: 7

I feel like it was obvious that she was a narcissist, but it never is. It all makes sense now. But the making sense part is the hardest part. I feel sad, I feel alone, I feel like an orphan... When I realised the one person that was meant to love and... View more

I feel like it was obvious that she was a narcissist, but it never is. It all makes sense now. But the making sense part is the hardest part. I feel sad, I feel alone, I feel like an orphan... When I realised the one person that was meant to love and care for me didn't, it hits me so very hard. Not only did she make me worthless, unloved and uncared for, for some reason - realising that all now - makes it so much harder. It's like all the pain she caused me over the years has just come at me full force now. It's not as if I didn't feel it at the time, but I thought I had to win her love (and it's not very often that I was able to do that). I thought working it all out might've been a 'freeing' feeling but it's heavy. Can anyone else share how they coped when the first realised their parent/s were narcissists. I am seeing a psychologist already and will be seeing them again soon, and they are well aware of this. But today I just felt like reaching out, as it's not easy.

HopefulMum Relationships and CPTSD
  • replies: 2

Hi friends.Just wondering how you all navigate relationships with CPTSD. I struggle with feelings of abandonment and not feeling significant enough.This can be so triggering, especially in my marriage and as a Mum of 3.I guess what I want to know is.... View more

Hi friends.Just wondering how you all navigate relationships with CPTSD. I struggle with feelings of abandonment and not feeling significant enough.This can be so triggering, especially in my marriage and as a Mum of 3.I guess what I want to know is.. when something triggers us, is it healthy for the relationship for us to address the issue, try fix it and set a boundary around how we need to be treated in future? Or do we just do the work on our own reactions to the situation and say nothing? I have so many boundaries I am trying to set after 12 years of not speaking up, but I am met with anger, yelling and zero understanding of where I'm coming from, and am made to feel like I am the problem.This causes me to spiral into a depression and gives me feelings of hopelessness.Thank you for any help you can give.

Keeeks84 Reoccuring PTSD??
  • replies: 7

Hi all, In 2015 i was living in a ground floor apartment. This particular night i had taken a sleeping tablet as I had been struggling to sleep at that time. I was woken up at 2am to the balcony glass doors being smashed in my bedroom.A young man had... View more

Hi all, In 2015 i was living in a ground floor apartment. This particular night i had taken a sleeping tablet as I had been struggling to sleep at that time. I was woken up at 2am to the balcony glass doors being smashed in my bedroom.A young man had thrown a huge concrete paver through my window and it bounced off my bed. It was lucky i was sleeping on the other side. He came in and was screaming at me. I was screaming back. The event happened in only about 5 minutes but was obviously terrifying. Alot happened and ended with 7 police coming through my bedroom and pinning the guy to the floor. He was on ICE. The police were patrolling and heard my screams (lucky I'm loud).Anyway, i had really bad PTSD for a long time after that. Scared of my own shadow. I thought I had been ok for the past 5 years or so. However, my PTSD has been triggered. There have been a few murders around my local area recently. There's also a guy at work who i find terrifying. He has a stalkerish vibe. He would constantly message me after hours and stares at me alot. It freaks me out. All of this has really triggered me. I freak out walking through the basement of my unit block to go to my car.I didn't order Uber eats the other night knowing I'd have to go downstairs in the dark to meet the driver. I don't like to walk to and from places alone.Any tips on how to heal from this would be greatly appreciated.Kate

G33MA Help please
  • replies: 1

I am really sorry to bother you I know people need this more than I do but I was wondering if I could have some help please. I’m so tired. I have bipolar, PTSD, chronic adjustment disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, generalised anxiety, social a... View more

I am really sorry to bother you I know people need this more than I do but I was wondering if I could have some help please. I’m so tired. I have bipolar, PTSD, chronic adjustment disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, generalised anxiety, social anxiety, mild Tourette’s, recent trauma & autism. I find studying relaxing & I like nothing better than being on my own. I work full time & have my own routines and rituals that help me feel better. I was raised by an extremely abusive mother (physically & emotionally) as well as a dad I adored. My grandmother and I were really close and my mother hated this so I was belted after each visit for one reason or another. She was very open with how much she didn’t like me & that I was odd. She would repeat phrases telling me people didn’t like me. . By the time I was 12 I had anorexia. I completed 2 university degrees & was married at 25. Had my beautiful son at 26. This is when the abuse started & I did everything I could to make sure I protected my son from it. My life was threatened repeatedly & he had a knife stuck in a post just outside the back door to remind me of what would happen if I disobeyed him. He finally left me for someone else so I was able to escape the marriage. There was then 9 years in court to try and stop my son going. He had already told me he didn’t want our son as he wasn’t a girl but continued with court. My son hated his father because of the abuse. 6 years after this marriage ended I met someone else who was the physical opposite of my 1st husband. He was also an abusive alcoholic who had 3 teenage children who would steal from me, take drugs and trash the house. . These behaviours ignored by their father and left for me to deal with - even looking for ice addict when they ran away (many times). I financially not only lost everything but was over $60000 in debt when he left me for someone else. growing up we saw mum threaten dad with a knife on 2 occasions. She would threaten to kill us many times. Through my marriage my mother refused to speak to me because I had disobeyed her & got married. Last year my dad died. I moved in with her to help her. My companion dog was run over and killed in her yard. I have a new dog, am terrified of losing her.. My nephew lives here. He lies, won’t help and won’t pay board. Tonight I had a massive fight with mum because of something she said but she denies it, instead rang my sister and cried to my sister so now I am dirt. I don’t know what to do.

shanan93 Anxiety disorders and triggers.
  • replies: 1

How to deal with triggers, conflict and spiraling in thoughts and to access for any anxiety disorders.

How to deal with triggers, conflict and spiraling in thoughts and to access for any anxiety disorders.

eagle72 Mum of sexually abused daughter trying to cope
  • replies: 14

hello....well, my daughter when she was two told me in hospital that her dad hurt her...i was giving birth to her brother. That was the day my world changed course! Fast forward a few years in court....and he got supervised visits. Yes, thats it. I u... View more

hello....well, my daughter when she was two told me in hospital that her dad hurt her...i was giving birth to her brother. That was the day my world changed course! Fast forward a few years in court....and he got supervised visits. Yes, thats it. I used to drop her off and she would scream at me she didnt want to go...i said you have too, the courts said. I REGRET these words...and decision for the rest of my life!!!!! My beautiful daughter is now 14yrs old, and now....lives with him. I am not coping with this. Atleast when she was with me and her brother, i felt i could protect her...now.... i feel she has no one. My question to any victim of sexual abuse or mum of a child who has been abused.....Why does she hate me? Im not stupid...ofcourse the dropping her off to the sicko when she obviously had been hurt by him confused her little mind....but i was only doing what the COURTS demanded. I hate courts. they fail our innocent children. I try everyday to text her....tell her how much i love her and miss her....she gives one word replies days later.. when she does visit she is angry all the time with me...this behaviour happened about a year before she left. and if anyone is wondering, no, i do not bring the abuse up. When it happened i told myself he has taken her body, but not her soul. i thought that would be enough to get us through this....but it wasnt. Im so sad. But that i can try to deal with. But....why and how can she live with him. She is always angry .....is he still abusing her??

Macme Is this Gaslighting
  • replies: 12

I was involved in industry reform of a specific industry that was very very politically volatile. The process required me to go through a role change which included a mental change from a unionist oriented role to a role that was more in tune with co... View more

I was involved in industry reform of a specific industry that was very very politically volatile. The process required me to go through a role change which included a mental change from a unionist oriented role to a role that was more in tune with corporate ideology. I carried some of the union values across the line into corporate psychological territory. Some people were very unhappy about my outlook and decided to force me through a process of ideology reshaping, or aligning my mind to their ideology. Some of the tactics used to destabilise me included the use of electronic monitoring techniques. 1 example of one of the tactics is as follows:- I purchased a new Honda line trimmer and then the next day I had a call from a telesales operator, who was trying to sell new tiled roofs. The fellow prattled for minutes then I went to end the call and then the fellow thanked me for my time and said he had to go anyway because he was going to buy a new Honda line trimmer, which of course is exactly what I had done the day before. Another example is after making calls about oversees holiday to a specific destination, and 2 females joined the queue behind me and raised and projected their voices toward me and started saying things that had a high degree of familiaritie to the calls I had made about the holiday. These types of situations are only a couple of a range of tactics that are used. I have used the expression of phone tapping and also covert psychological destabilisation. I have recently heard of a situation called gaslighting. My query is, Could the above described situations be described as "GASLIGHTING"

Centaured Centaureds story. TW
  • replies: 262

I feel like writing down some of my story might help me ease some of the pain in my head right now. Ive been on beyond blue for a while now and had a few different threads but haven't shared much of my story, or the reasons why I have developed DID. ... View more

I feel like writing down some of my story might help me ease some of the pain in my head right now. Ive been on beyond blue for a while now and had a few different threads but haven't shared much of my story, or the reasons why I have developed DID. Be mindful this post mentions different types of abuse. On the outside my childhood looked normal. I had a mum, a dad, a brother, and some extended family. And although we weren't well off, my parents still owned their home and we had food on the table.But behind closed things were falling apart. It starts at just 5. My dad was diagnosed with a serious brain tumour. It mainly effected his emotions and his body's ability to regulate itself. He was very sick, spent over 6 months in treatment. The drs got rid of his tumour but he was never the same, with serious brain damage and vision impaired. My mum became physically abusive not being able manage, or lock us up for days. I don't know what was worse. At 5 I also had a big operation in my abdomen and with things going on at home began my struggle with eating and thus I later developed an eating disorder but that is only a side note. In the years following I had issues with my grandfather, he was always touchy but I vague memories of this slowly getting worse. Then at 8-9 I was the product of incest. My brother would touch me, but in the later period this left to much more and rape. The next year my family moved states and I got away from grandfather and my brothers abuse stopped. I would withdraw into fantasy and began to dissociate a lot. Then High School came around and was difficult with very few friends and bullying and avoidance. My mum had an affair when I was 13 and then left my dad. Forcing me and my brother to live week with her week with dad. It was very destabilizing. Later on in school I became increasingly withdrawn, and began to self harm. My weight at this point was getting very low. By the end of high school my weight was critical and I made my first attempt. Ive spent the next 11 years in and out of hospital, institutions, in various therapies, seen so many different professionals, struggling to come to the conclusion that I am not not what has happened to me

hawaiian_robot Struggling with workplace SA on top of everything else
  • replies: 2

Hey all, so I had been going through life with C-PTSD, but a workplace incident about 5 years ago - nothing physical happened, but the idea of a man much much bigger than me saying he was going to get me drunk and you can guess the rest, in front of ... View more

Hey all, so I had been going through life with C-PTSD, but a workplace incident about 5 years ago - nothing physical happened, but the idea of a man much much bigger than me saying he was going to get me drunk and you can guess the rest, in front of everyone on the site - just keeps coming back to me. I've apparently left it too late for workers comp or whatever, the law firm I spoke to didn't really offer any other suggestions past that. in a bit of a meltdown at the moment, I also had a pretty bad episode when I saw a photo of the then opposition leader (now PM) at the town airport where this worksite was. basically quit that job immediately, was on a decent packet too. struggled through working at a school again for a year and basically been out of a significant income since then. really feeling backed into a corner and no way of getting out

Blackberry_rose This will rip you apart, and who knows what it will leave afterwards
  • replies: 2

I read something today, it said "This will rip you apart, and who knows what will be left afterwards." I use to love remembering and reading quotes, they would help me express my words in ways I couldn't put together. My inner turmoil often resembles... View more

I read something today, it said "This will rip you apart, and who knows what will be left afterwards." I use to love remembering and reading quotes, they would help me express my words in ways I couldn't put together. My inner turmoil often resembles a high-speed train derailing at neck-brakeing speeds, causing chaos and fear. However, as I find myself sinking to unfamiliar depths, I no longer recognize the person staring back at me. It's disorienting because I no longer care, which is unusual for me. In the past, I would have taken action, seeking solace in reading, writing, and engaging in activities that nourish my soul.. As I gaze into my own eyes, a sense of disorientation washes over me, unlike anything I've experienced before. The weight of being lost engulfs me, but this time it's different as I'm screaming inside to find myself. Today, I stumbled upon a quote that pierced through my soul, awakening me to a harsh reality. Its words hiss at me, warning that they will tear me apart, leaving behind an uncertain aftermath. These words refuse to fade away, unlike the rest of the thoughts that have plagued me this year. I find myself questioning why they resonate with me so deeply, why they refuse to release their grip on my mind. I'm constantly disconnected from reality, engaged in a daily struggle to comprehend my triggers and navigate through relentless mood swings. It's become clear that I've been tearing myself apart since the very moment I began to focus on myself, a journey that I never truly started.