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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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NoHope8 Missing my children
  • replies: 1

Its been 7.5 years....long, long, traumatic years without my children. My ex husband and my old friend...his partner one day didn't return them. By the time I had spent and sold everything I owned to try and see them...yes, apparently they may do thi... View more

Its been 7.5 years....long, long, traumatic years without my children. My ex husband and my old friend...his partner one day didn't return them. By the time I had spent and sold everything I owned to try and see them...yes, apparently they may do this...police were no help...just inflamed the situation....by that time it ws many many months and my once loving little angels were 'terrified' and scared of me and didn't want to know me. It's alienation...i am reconciled with that and don't blame them for rejecting me...but it doesn't stop my sadness and devastation of it all. I get flashbacks daily of all sorts of things....despite me being a nice person and law abiding...i have been arrested twice (Seriously...you wouldn't believe it could happen based on no evidence of anything, just phone calls made by my old 'friend')...I have lost any money I had...furniture , everything sold, nearly lived in my car with my dogs twice over 5 moves in 2 years...I had to keep downsizing to more affordable places...I didn't have very many options...my self esteem is shot...I'm trying to do uni at my older age and my 20 year old self (that failed uni) is screaming loser constantly....so 2 essays are due and I have to deal with the actual process as well as calming my inner guard that wants to protect me from more failure...in my job I often have people that get upset...that happened this morning...I did a favour and said I wouold train someone...I didn't want to..and I ask for too little money...anyway...she got upset over a family thing...so I gave her coffee and a chat and then she wanted to train after...so I have given up my morning when I desperately need to get my uni work done now....and I am emotionally spent comforting her...I am being selfish now...shes a lovely person , but she has her daughters...i don't... I miss them so much...what are they doing? What do they look like... I social media stalk everyday...but they rarely ever post any photos...The ones they do have comments...all from people I once knew...some who sympathise with me...some who even said they would find more pictures for me and share them...they never have. I am so so sad...I just constantly feel like crying....I keep a brave face for everyone else...no one wants to hear about my stuff...I don't blame them...there is nothing that can be done ...., but I am so tired and exhausted of listening to everyone's stuff...it always leaaves me very flat and unable to focus on...my assignments...argh! sorry

mogwai129 Probably the most pathetic person you will ever read about.
  • replies: 18

Hey, I hope everyone is doing well. I'm a 27 year old "man" and I've never had a job, never lived on my own, never had a girlfriend or so much as held hands with anyone in my life. As you can see, the title was not hyperbole. My parents split up when... View more

Hey, I hope everyone is doing well. I'm a 27 year old "man" and I've never had a job, never lived on my own, never had a girlfriend or so much as held hands with anyone in my life. As you can see, the title was not hyperbole. My parents split up when I was around 7 or 8, Dad moved away and I haven't seen him much since then. Around 2 years later Mum got a boyfriend, he seemed nice but he was also an angry drunk. Around the time I started High School it got a lot worse. He'd be drinking before I even left for school in the morning, and by the time I got home he was always in a really bad mood. He started getting violent with us and I was always scared, it was like walking on egg shells for years trying not to set him off. I can remember him yelling and physically abusing us, then 15 minutes later he would be crying, saying he loved us and he'd "never hurt us". I started waking up most nights to loud arguments, sometimes I had panic attacks listening to him. We called the police several times but there was never much they could do. Over this time I put on a lot of weight, people bullied me at school for being fat and ugly and I didn't really have friends. I used to love school and I wanted to do well, but my grades went downhill. By the end I never wanted to go and I was always so tired, I barely even passed. Shortly after I finished school, Mum's boyfriend physically assaulted me. This was the final straw and he finally left us, but we didn't have the money to get my teeth fixed. I was so embarrassed and ashamed I stopped looking after myself completely, I just wanted to hide away and never be seen again. ... And that's basically what I did. It's almost 10 years later and like a useless child I still let Mum support me. I've been trying to apply to jobs for years and I just can't, I basically have a breakdown just trying to figure out what to put on my blank resume, I have tears in my eyes just thinking about it. I know how pathetic it sounds but I can't explain it, anxiety just cripples me. I lost weight but I actually feel worse about how I look now, I'm so ugly and scrawny. I'm too scared to even ask for help, I have a lump in my throat just posting here. Worst of all is knowing I've wasted what should've been the best time of my life, the regret is so painful. I don't know what to do. I just want to be normal.

MelancholyPineapple First time poster & abuse survivor.
  • replies: 12

My younger sister has always been the bossy one and the one aware of her mental health and proactive in doing something to take care of herself. Her latest is telling me I have PTSD and demanding that I see a doctor and get help. I'd never really tho... View more

My younger sister has always been the bossy one and the one aware of her mental health and proactive in doing something to take care of herself. Her latest is telling me I have PTSD and demanding that I see a doctor and get help. I'd never really thought about this before but doing some research I have found myself here. I was physically, mentally and sexually abused for 14 years of my childhood. My home life was not great, my "safe" person (my Grandma) passed away when I was 16 and I was offered no grief counselling and to this day I struggle to attend funerals and grieve for friends and family. I was an alcoholic but have been sober for 20 plus years. I cry a lot, I have anxiety (not formally diagnosed), I have the most bizarre and vivid dreams most nights which cause lack of sleep, I have a couple of triggers that really upset me, I like to be in control of things, I hate asking for help from anyone and will struggle on and do things for myself, I prefer to stay at home and avoid as many social things that I can, I push people away, I only have a few close friends. A big issue for me is that I comfort eat, which was fine when I was younger and could burn it off easily but now I'm overweight. Part of me hates how big I am and part of me likes it as it's a big "up you" to my mother who constantly told me I was fat and had to lose weight when I was a child/teen. I've spoken to a counselor in the past but all I really did was sit and cry for the entire session as I struggled to articulate how I was feeling. I feel like maybe I do have PTSD but it's not something I know much about and wonder how to bring this up with my gp. It's nice to have read some other people's posts and know that I am not alone. Not sure what I'm really looking for here, maybe just validation that this is something I can see my doctor about and not just something I'm making up in my head. Thanks

PleaseHelp23903 TW: rape
  • replies: 2

Um.. I dont really know how to start this.. I'm 17, grade 11 doing pretty well academically and have two casual jobs. My family is a little confusing but they're all trying to support me. My mum is a lunatic but she's getting help. Her husband is kin... View more

Um.. I dont really know how to start this.. I'm 17, grade 11 doing pretty well academically and have two casual jobs. My family is a little confusing but they're all trying to support me. My mum is a lunatic but she's getting help. Her husband is kind but tough and I struggle with accepting him as family. My dad and step mum are loving but they don't fully understand whats going on, they try tho. Over the years mums had 5 husbands and 484359873452554098509 boyfriends. From the ages of 8 till I was 12, 4 of them raped and sexually assaulted me. I have sleep paralysis about it now, have since February last year. When my girlfriend and I get sexual if she touches certain places even accidentally I get scared and start crying and shaking and freaking out and.. i don't know how to cope anymore,, I've told my step mum about it, my girlfriend and my ex who went through and is still going through the same thing but nothing helps.. I'm on meds for the sleep paralysis but it doesn't do anything..

Freya20 Is This Workplace Bullying?
  • replies: 1

Hi All, I feel like I can't think straight about the current situation I am in, so wanted to get some inbiased opinions or event hear about similar situations regarding workplace bullying. I work for a small company. My boss has a difficult character... View more

Hi All, I feel like I can't think straight about the current situation I am in, so wanted to get some inbiased opinions or event hear about similar situations regarding workplace bullying. I work for a small company. My boss has a difficult character. His friends have asked me how I can stand working for him, he has had complaints against him from other companies in our coworking space, and is often rude and difficult to deal with. He has every sign of narcissistic personality disorder, inclluding treating people like objects, lacking empathy, having a gradiose opinion of himself and so on. HOWEVER, I am conscious this doesn't mean I have a case for workplace bullying based on his character alone. When I joined this business I was his first employee and there were no processes in place. It was chaos, to the point where he even missed out on paying me once because he had no system in place to track this. He hired a friend of over 20 years who has a background in communication and business processes. He also hired a personal friend of his to be a consultant (I am also a consultant) and a payroll manager. Fastforward to a couple of years later and a business that had no processes has multiple processes rolled out every month. They are difficult to keep track of and even though a lot of training and documentation occurs for the sake of these processes, they often change and are very hard to navigate through. We had an incident earlier this year where he was angry at me for forgetting to do several of these processes, raised his voice at me in front of other staff and other companies, and then proceeded to gossip about me openly in front of my colleague. I told him I had an appointment and was leaving for the day but would see him tomorrow. He blocked my access to emails and clients and said he thought I had resigned, though I never said I resigned in any way. The next day he was still angry, borderline explosive, and I told him I wouldn't discuss any issues without a witness present. He yelled at me until he was read in the face about how angry I make him and how little he trusts me. I finally had to say "I feel bullied" to get him to give me personal space and stop yelling.

Tom R My friend Frank - this is what I call shame (Trigger warning: Sexual Abuse)
  • replies: 2

Franks is a funny kind of name to me, and I'm sorry to those of you who are indeed named Frank, or have significant people in your lives named Frank - I really don't wish to cause offense or upset. Some years ago I started referring to shame in my li... View more

Franks is a funny kind of name to me, and I'm sorry to those of you who are indeed named Frank, or have significant people in your lives named Frank - I really don't wish to cause offense or upset. Some years ago I started referring to shame in my life as Frank. I've known shame for many, many years and at times it has almost crippled me. It's been important for me to learn to distinguish in a number of ways. Firstly, shame is not mine, it was given to me (or more appropriately forced upon me) by others. And secondly, feeling ashamed is very different from feeling or being shamed. Feeling ashamed results from having done something wrong or hurtful, whereas being shamed (and the feelings that go with such) are most often the result of someone else's words or treatment toward you that conveys a message of insufficiency or of not being enough. And so, Frank and I go way back, in fact, I've known Frank for most of my life. That's when it all began. He came in to my life when I was around 3 or 4 in the throes of sexual abuse. I was shamed by two adult men who were sexually abusing me, and mocking me. This introduction to Frank is one of my earliest memories, and I can still the images so very clearly. Frank has been in my life ever since and has prevented me from doing some of the things that I would have liked to have done and from fully living as freely as I would prefer to. Over the years, I've learnt to tune out Frank's words, or shut him up, but sometimes he is still really loud. Growing up i the late 70s and 80s, I learnt that there were ways to be a man, and the more of a man you were, the better. So, along with sexual prowess and winning the ladies, sporting proficiency, an interest in cars, masculine bravado and machismo, one also had to be well endowed in the underpants department. I was none of those things, quite opposite to those, I was gentle, tactile, artistic, expressive, loathed sports, and not all all well endowed where it seemed to matter most. And I was (am) gay to make it worse. If their was a caste in high school, I was an untouchable. And just in case I wasn't sure of where I stood in the order of things, I got my head flushed in the toilet regularly enough to help me remember. Frank is an old aged man now and is growing frail, but he's still around. Sometimes I have conversations with Frank and other times I'm like "Yeah, I can hear you Frank, but can you shut up?" Do you get me?

michael2614 Recovery from bad stress and depression
  • replies: 3

I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Michael and the last two years have been hell. My physical and mental health have suffered and I only realised this this week. Not eating and sleeping for hours. I separated from my violent partner, I had... View more

I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Michael and the last two years have been hell. My physical and mental health have suffered and I only realised this this week. Not eating and sleeping for hours. I separated from my violent partner, I had a heart attack in the middle of the fires and my best friend died. I was going to move back to the UK but covid fixed that. I have had my niece that has mental health issues living with me. My family just use me and no one checks in on my. I became broken and I feel this had to happen for me to heal and develop the life I want. My childhood involved physical abuse and years of sexual abuse. Luckily we came from money so that was always ok. Dad would always say he buys us everything and I told him I just want love. Not trips overseas and Rolex watches. I was also a victom of the London nail bomber. Lots of trauma to work through but most of all looking after me. Not everyone but me.

Mick_P Hi New person with a different story
  • replies: 4

Hello My name is Michael and I am 56 and came on to this forum to partly get my story out and also to get some pointers. I do not have a formal diagnosis yet but I want to get one. I lived and worked in the Middle East for many years and got laid off... View more

Hello My name is Michael and I am 56 and came on to this forum to partly get my story out and also to get some pointers. I do not have a formal diagnosis yet but I want to get one. I lived and worked in the Middle East for many years and got laid off over there in 2016. I started a business over there so that my son could finish school where he was but the business did not work and one thing led to another and I ended up in Jail over there in a very small room with 12 other guys because i owed money. I ended up starting to get flashbacks because I blocked things out of my mind and I also ended up developing acute symptoms of claustrophobia and was crying a lot.. Ended up in hospital in the prison system being treated by a Psychiatrist while there. I was released from prison and had to settle legal matters before we could return to Australia which we did in January I found a job and worked for a company for a while but unfortunately I was not at my best I felt exhausted and a combination of that and the company problems with Covid meant that I did not survive there. I have been on job seeker and earning as much income as I can dipped into my super etc to survive. I have a wife and son dependent on me and try as I might I cannot persuade them to go to centrelink to register. They are angry with me and at one level I cant blame them I am a HR practitioner and trainer talking to people about work every day but not got anything permanent over the line yet. I still get flashbacks of both the prison experience and the lead up to it, It is a year on September 22 since the prison experience happened. The marriage is over and its best that we live apart. Just need to find the means to acheive that . I have been getting flashbacks, depression i feel like I am in a fog as well as some anxiety I need to deal with this for my own sake and my families sake. For those who have been through it is this possibly PTSD and should I talk to a mental health professional about it Thanks any views appreciated

Hummble Feeling Alone
  • replies: 5

Hi, The end of this month will make three years since I had a miscarriage. I lost my little baby when I was 23 years old. I went in for an ultrasound on the 30th of August 2017 and I was told the bleeding was normal and everything was going to be oka... View more

Hi, The end of this month will make three years since I had a miscarriage. I lost my little baby when I was 23 years old. I went in for an ultrasound on the 30th of August 2017 and I was told the bleeding was normal and everything was going to be okay. The next day, it wasn't. My partner didn't want to have the baby but as soon as I saw the heartbeat I knew, I knew I needed this child. I have never felt so lost, ever since that day I feel like a part of me is still missing. I tried to end my life 2 years ago and I went into a mental health ward. I was diagnosed with PTSD. I used to and still do have flashbacks and the feeling of when the miscarriage happened. Even though I am in a loving relationship with my partner, I can't talk to him about it. I just feel like he doesn't want to talk about it. I haven't told any of my friends. I have this feeling every day of being incomplete and in a way empty but not fully empty. I have this need to be a mother, its a feeling i cannot describe but my partner doesn't want children.

Bendemic Loss of a loved one
  • replies: 3

On Saturday I found my best friend dead in his bedroom. He had some sort of fit and died in the room right next to mine. I didn’t discover him until the afternoon but had been home all day not realising he was there... My body still trembles 6 days l... View more

On Saturday I found my best friend dead in his bedroom. He had some sort of fit and died in the room right next to mine. I didn’t discover him until the afternoon but had been home all day not realising he was there... My body still trembles 6 days later. I’m experiencing ongoing anxiety for the first time. There are so many levels of guilt, anger and sadness and I just don’t know how to process it and move forward. It’s left such a void as he was someone I saw and spoke with everyday, someone I’ve been the most vulnerable with, and someone who I truly loved. I know it’s going to take time but I’m worried that the grief will swallow me. I once cherished my alone time but now it fills me with dread. When I’m with people I’ll have moments where Ill forget what had happened, then I’ll catch myself and feel guilty that I had a moment of normality. Something will happen and my first thought is I need to tell him but ...I can’t anymore. I had to move out of the house we lived in and I’m staying at my parents place, a place that use to be my home but now feels strange and unfamiliar. I just feel lost. I don’t know what to do.. sorry if this is word vomit.