Complex PTSD from numerous incidents

[Wren]

I went to see my mental health nurse today. It's a fortnightly arrangement. Today I showed him a statement I'd written for the redress scheme. I couldn't tell him in words what was done to me at age 16, that was more humiliating and shameful than the sexual assaults, rape, harrassment and threats of rape.

I suffer nightmares weekly, sometimes multiple nightmares a night.

He read a certain part of my statement and then said, this is terrible, I won't read anymore. He was supportive, we discussed why I feel so powerless, so angry, and scared all the time.

Starting from age 11, I was molested by a teacher for five years, bullied by students from the age of 4, the bullying turned into physical assaults and what one police detective termed as torture, I was sexually assaulted by a friend's boyfriend at age 13, 16, and raped at age 20. I never got to feel safe or heal from the first initial trauma before suffering trauma, sexual assaults on multiple occasions. Now I'm almost 45 and I still suffer really bad flashbacks. 

[Sophie_M]

Hi Wren,  

Thank you for having the courage to share on the forums. We’re so sorry to hear you’re going through it right now.  It sounds like you’re dealing with a lot, and we can imagine how hard that would be to deal with. We're glad you were able to talk to your mental health nurse, it's a big step to disclose what you've been through but we hope by sharing you feel more supported and less like you have to hold these experiences inside.

We wanted to offer some extra support resources that you might find helpful, you may have heard of these before. You can talk to Blue Knot about this on 1300 657 380, every day between 9am-5pm (AEST). Their counsellors work with people who have experienced complex trauma. They also have some resources on their website which could be useful to visit, particularly the pages on Survivors Self Care.  

You can also talk to the lovely Beyond Blue counsellors about this at any time on 1300 22 4636, or via our webchat. It may be an option to reach out if you've had a nightmare or have a flashback, just to feel a little more grounded. 

Thank you again for your courage and strength in sharing your story, it's an amazing effort to speak out and we hope you know that you are not alone in these feelings. Please be kind to yourself and know we are always here to listen.

Kind regards,  

Sophie M 

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Wren,

I am so sorry for everything you have been through. It is very hard living with the flashbacks and nightmares. I don't know if it will help but a therapist who specialises in Complex PTSD, Pete Walker, has a website that includes 13 steps for handling flashbacks. If you google "Pete Walker Psychotherapy" it should be the first thing that comes up. There is a link to the 13 steps in a column on the left. It may help, at least a little.

I have experienced flashbacks and nightmares too, but I think you've had a tougher time than me. I think the biggest struggle can be feeling safe and finding ways to get at least a bit of a feeling of safety. Is there anything you enjoy that brings you some peace? I am helped a lot by going to certain places in nature I connect with such as a favourite rocky hill by the ocean.

Take care and sending you best wishes,

ER

[Wren]

• Thankyou Eagle Ray for your thoughtful reply. I too suffer severe nightmares.  I go through cycles where I have a reprieve of maybe a few days to a week or more of being nightmare free and then, bam I'm having nightmares every night, sometimes multiple nightmares in one night. I hate it, and I wake up biting my tongue, my body shaking hard. I suffer from obstructive sleep apnea now, and I'm starting to wonder if the shaking and tongue biting are seizures. I have not had a decent night's sleep since I was eleven years old. My flashbacks got so bad, I thought I was going crazy. I told a few drs. One of them out in a mental health report saying I was suffering from delusions and hearing voices. I told them I was having visual and auditory flash backs, they called them hallucinations, I told them I was well enough to know that what I was experiencing was not real. Some drs just didn't get it, and it's humiliating explaining about being a victim of multiple sexual assaults and rape by various different people, not connected to each other. That's what I found the hardest to deal with, how could it happen more than once, by multiple different people.    Thanks for your reply, I appreciate it.

[Wren]

Thankyou Sophie, for replying. I appreciate your kindness. I admit the nightmares are really bad, very violent ones of late and I'm not sleeping well. So I found this website and decided to join. 

Jen

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Wren,

It can be really hard with doctors sometimes, especially if they are not trauma-informed. I understand what you are saying about the difference between hallucinations and flashbacks. I once had hallucinations in relation to a strong pain medication. That was a completely different thing from the flashbacks I've experienced. You are absolutely right that some doctors don't get it and I totally understand the humiliation of having to explain what you've been through to multiple people. I am wondering if it may help to write things down sometimes and hand it to them rather than having to verbally explain, just as you provided a written statement for the redress scheme. I find I can get quite stressed trying to explain such things verbally. Recently I had to ask my GP if he could write a report for the Disability Support Pension. I actually wrote out a history about myself and handed that to him instead. I also had a written report from my psychologist that I gave him. I wasn't sure how he was going to take the information, but he did incorporate it and it has given him more of a sense of me than I could probably explain verbally. I wonder if you explain your flashbacks in writing you can even say, "these are not hallucinations". Another option might be seeing if your mental health nurse can support you in conveying what is actually happening for you. I'm not sure of his role but perhaps he could write something in support of you in terms of explaining what you are experiencing.

I really understand about the feelings of fear and powerlessness. I have carried those things all my life. If I'm going through a bad patch I've found The Blue Knot Foundation quite good to talk to as their focus is on safety and stabilisation and they understand complex trauma. I am just a bit older than you at 49. In the last couple of years my flashbacks got worse and I was having really intense, frequent nightmares. Eventually I realised hormone factors were making it worse due to perimenopause and I'm now seeing a hormone specialist GP. I am on hormone medication now and it has had to be tweaked a bit, but now the balance is better the flashbacks and nightmares are way less. In fact I'm not really getting the full-blown intense nightmares now. I don't know if hormones may be impacting the intensity of your experiences too but I just thought I'd mention it in case it is relevant. I know you've been experiencing these things since a child.

I just completed reading the autobiography of Peter Levine who has worked as a specialist practitioner, teacher and researcher in trauma treatment for decades. He is in his 80s now. He went through a violent rape when he was 12 and he had numerous other stresses and traumas in his childhood, so he understands what trauma is in the body. I have done some of his treatment approach with my psychologist called Somatic Experiencing. It is a gently titrated approach that helps survivors of trauma to gradually be able to release the trauma trapped in the body and re-establish the balance in the nervous system that was disrupted by the trauma. I have read his books In An Unspoken Voice and Trauma & Memory and I have found his approach helpful. Just as a trigger warning, he does write about traumatic experiences in these books to explain his approach just as he does in his autobiography. It may or may not resonate with you but I just thought I'd mention it in case it is helpful. Also, to do an approach like this you definitely need to work with the right practitioner who is a good fit for you as being able to feel safe and comfortable with the person you are working with is so important.

Take care and happy to chat if it helps. Have a lovely weekend,

ER

[Wren]

Hi Eagle Ray. Thanks for the reply. My mental health nurse, he works off the Gestalt therapy practice, so he keeps reiterating to me that the trauma is not in my head, it lives beneath the skin, he did show me a short video on Peter Levine, which we watched in a session , plus a video on yoga breathing. He also constantly talks about 'little Jennifer ' the child I was. I still get uncomfortable with the idea of that because he talks about having compassion for little Jennifer, and lots of times the only emotions I have for that child, it's anger and confusion. My therapist once asked me how I felt about 'little Jennifer ' and my reaction was explosive, 'I fucken hate that kid' I replied to him.  I'm still confused about whether I really do or don't. I do know that memories of me as a child, especially the bullying, and molestation and sexual abuse makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. I was raised a strict Catholic, where being anything but a celibate heterosexual person was frowned upon. I've only just started identifying as Non-binary, and maybe that is because I was abused, except the earliest memories I have of not wanting to be a girl but not wanting to be a boy either is age 4 to 6 years old. Never really understood it though, just knew that at age 11 I didn't feel safe being female.

I struggle verbally to tell therapists sometimes about what happened or what I'm feeling, I use art, poetry and writing to convey or tell therapists what is going on in my head. 

Wren

RED KALEIDOSCOPE

A red kaleidoscope of confusion

Swirls beneath paper thin eyelids

Trapping her tears

Until taut white knuckles

Sip on the agony of liquid terror

Eyes of tempered coal

Full of uncertain naivety

Reflect the autumn sun

Setting her wild hair aflame

Alone in a sea of prepubescence

Her fierce internal struggle

The war against obedience

Amplified, beckons to him

Her xylophone bones

Radiate with panic

Heralding the Woodman’s approach

Trembling under the blinding

Of his sparkling façade

Outside the prison of her mind

Steel blue clouds

Hold back the impending

Booming roll of thunder

Dousing the struggling fire

In her eyes of coal

Her wild hair

Pales in the autumn light

The brush of him

His first breach

Of illicit contact

Binds her to him

For eternity

The wild haired girl

Grieves the loss of innocence

She cuts the kill switch

On her emotions

Under the scent of him

The red kaleidoscope

Swallows her inner screams

Crashing into the white noise

That smothers her innocence

Wren Jennings April 2023

© May '23     

 Like (2) 

Comment - What did you think? 

 1   

Imprisoned

IMPRISONED

Moonlight shines through the bars

Freedom beckons from afar

I bash my head against the wall

My voice breaks through prison bars

Pleading to the moon and stars

I bash my head against the wall

Fearing no-one heard my call

I pound against the prison door

Lift up my head, and scream some more

The loudness echoing off the walls

The loneliest answer to my calls

I scream until my throat is raw

And pound against the prison door

Hoping someone will heed my call

I bang until sweat drips from my brow

My hopes are dashed against the floor

As I pound until my fists are raw

My screams escape

Through prison bars

As freedom beckons

From afar

I scream and pound

Til my knuckles bust

Until my voice

Has turned to dust

I pound until the wall turns red

And wake up screaming in my

bed.

Wren Jennings

© Mar '21     

Read more →

 Like (6) 

Comment - What did you think? 

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Wren,

Your poems are extremely powerful, moving and affecting. You have an incredible gift for expressing your inner world. You have so much depth and sensitivity. I am really emotionally moved reading them. I think when a person has been abused there can be a kind of locked down energy and that energy needs to be expressed and come out somehow, and it feels that your writing is doing some of this. A few days ago I bought some drawing paper and materials as I have been feeling the need to get out some of my inner expression non-verbally, especially what is there in my inner child. I still haven't started drawing yet but I will soon.

I understand what you mean about the self-hatred. I have felt that hatred towards my inner child. I felt both my parents wanted to hate me out of existence as a child so I couldn't really form the view of myself as someone who was loveable. What is finally starting to happen for me is the pattern is starting to shift, and that has only really happened just recently in my late 40s. So I am now starting to protect the inner child. If someone else was cruel or insensitive to me I would immediately start to attack myself, thinking I deserved it. That can still initially happen, but now if someone is unkind I start to see what is happening from a self-protective part of myself. I then go in to comfort the inner child and quite fiercely protect her. I feel a bit like a lioness now protecting her cubs. So I think it can shift but I understand how incredibly challenging that can be. I am so glad you have the support of your mental health nurse. I imagine he is trying to support you to activate that self-care and self-protection instinct. It is important just to go gently and not feel under pressure but just see what emerges in time. I think gradually with enough care and support you can start to feel some protectiveness and love for your inner child.

It is really understandable you not feeling safe identifying as female aged 11. It is only about a year ago it occurred to me my mother may have been non-binary. Her mother was very abusive to her, emotionally, verbally and physically. I had always thought my mum didn't identify with the feminine because her relationship with her mother was so fraught. But then it occurred to me she may have been non-binary as well, but I don't know if her childhood trauma contributed to that. For most of my childhood she only bought non-feminine clothing for me so I was dressed pretty much the same as my brother. She also cut my hair short as well. People often thought I was a boy and my mum would not correct them. I remember feeling shame because I knew I was a girl. So in my case I wanted to be able to be more a girl, but that seemed inaccessible and not allowed. It was around the age of 11 my mum finally allowed me to have a few slightly more feminine clothing items but I could tell it was awkward and discomforting for her to do that. It is challenging figuring out how we form gender identity and whether trauma plays a role in that. I still don't know the answers to these things, but I am glad there is more of a space today for people identifying as non-binary. It is pretty clear that human gender identity goes way beyond the binary definition that has prevailed for so long.

Another person here on the BB forum told me about the YouTube channel of a guy named Rocky Kanaka. The channel is called Sitting With Dogs. He goes into this place where dogs have been left or abandoned and sits with them to slowly gain their trust. He is so gentle with them and sensitive to their trauma. I have found this healing to watch and he even mentioned that he's had some feedback from viewers that they find it healing for themselves. It is seeing the dogs slowly release their fear and begin to trust that I find so helpful. I just thought I would mention it in case it's helpful (it may depend on how you feel about dogs). I find it is often easier to care for something external to me than for myself, but actually seeing these dogs start to feel safe seems to work to help me feel safer and more self-caring because it is kind of non-direct, seeing it happen in another living creature.

Thank you again for sharing your moving poetry 🙏

ER

[Wren]

Hi Eagle Ray, it's good that you got yourself some art supplies. I find some times when I'm talking to my mental health nurse and I get agitated or nervous, I ask for paper and pen, or I bring my own. Even if it's just scribble, I use my pen. A lot of the time it's in dark blue or red, bold sharp lines. Lots of times I draw eyes, it's cathartic. When you have the time just grab your paper and pencils or pastels and scribble away. I also found a website called All poetry, you can post your poems there and get responses.

Wren

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Wren, Thank you for the encouragement. I can feel I am going to start my drawing very soon. It may be a way I can communicate some things to my psychologist too. It is definitely sometimes an easier way than speaking in words. Thank you for letting me know about the poetry website.

Cheers,

ER