Complex PTSD

[Mara56]

Hi, I'm new to this. I have complex PTSD as a result of multiple traumas including childhood sexual abuse, physical, mental & emotional abuse. My father was a violent alcoholic, mother psychologically disturbed, I was raped at 19, my first husband narcissistic, highly manipulative, controlling, possessive, emotionally, mentally abusive, controlled finances, also an alcoholic and eventually threatened violence. Second husband had depression and I believe PTSD. I carried the relationship emotionally and financially until it took a toll on my mental health. I've seen many counsellors over the years, some caused more damage because despite me telling them about my history they never connected that I had PTSD. Finally found a psychologist I could work with and after several years I got to an ok place, where I could coexist with the flashbacks without them overwhelming me. Then my son died, I worked so hard to give my children a happy, healthy childhood, losing my precious boy has devastated me in ways I can never adequately express. 6 years later I met another man, for most part a good man and things were ok until I started having problems with my health. I've had multiple surgeries, too many to count. The last surgery, was horrific. The treatment I received in hospital triggered so much stuff from my past. When I've dealt with trauma in the past, I have had the benefit of compartmentalisation, as a result of what happened to me in hospital, I seem to have lost the ability to compartmentalise. The past 16 months have been a nightmare. My anxiety is through the roof, and the lows have been frightening at times. I have gone back to regular sessions. But as I've dealt with most of my past, except for my father, I have blocked out a lot of my memories around him. I am starting to wonder whether I need to just accept that this is me, I have complex PTSD and that anxiety, flashbacks, depression, insomnia are all part of it. But when I think that there is nothing I can do to change it.......... I go to a very dark place. I have told very few people in my life that I have PTSD and only a handful of people know about my past. I am conscious it's a lot for people to get their heads around. I'm hoping to connect with other people with PTSD, I feel very alone in it sometimes and I'm interested to hear how other people manage their PTSD. Many thanks

[Mara56]

Dear Em,

You are so right about the boulder juggling. Have to admit I'm tired of juggling ATM.

Re: the pancreas my background is in an affiliated health area. I studied anatomy & physiology for 5 and a half years so I have a bit of an idea of what it could be. I had pancreatitis 12 yrs ago thanks to the dodgy GP I was seeing at the time. He wouldn't listen to me. It's a long story but I had gall stones that were left there too long which caused the pancreatitis. I tried to tell the GP something was wrong & it was affecting my hormones but he kept putting everything down to me grieving my son. One of the many reasons I don't like telling GPs about my MH. Long story short I ended up in an emergency situation, I could have died. Needless to say I changed GPs. Pancreatitis can lead to cysts on the pancreas. I will have to have further investigations because cysts on the pancreas can become cancer. Cancer of the pancreas is one of the worst you can get & I don't know of anyone surviving it. If after the tests I have to have done it comes back as benign then for the rest of my life I will have to have it monitored which will mean MRIs and endoscopies. Given I have massive panic attacks just going to the GP not sure how I'm going to go with having to have these tests regularly. I had a panic attack having an MRI on my knees and I didn't have to go into the tunnel for that. The GP has given me a sedative to take if the specialist decides the MRI is the way to go.

I think I've reached apathy, I just don't care anymore. I'm so over everything. I've always been a really positive person and looked for the bright side of everything, struggling to do that ATM.

Your right we have overcome so much to get to here. I survived all that trauma I'll survive this too.

Definitely going to go to weekly sessions. My GP yesterday was very concerned for me. I just broke down at the thought of more medical stuff. She said "are you still seeing your psych?" I reassured her I was. I am fortunate to have a good team of professionals around me.

We are definitely walking parallel paths. I will talk more on your thread.

Thank you for your ongoing love and support.

Much love

Mara

[Mara56]

Also not thinking worse case scenarios re: the pancreas. However, they need to do the investigations to make sure it's not cancer. Just another thing to add to the scales which tipped well and truly weeks ago.

[ecomama]

Dear Mara

GPs haven't had a good track record diagnosing pancreas issues with 4 of my friends. I just don't know how they can miss such terrible pain for so long and then misdiagnosing it all as "back pain". I think they're too busy.

It all seems too much sometimes.

I hope you can get somewhere with all the tests coming up. I also hope your psych can give you some techniques for going through them too.

I'm so glad you're going to weekly appts with the psych.

I also hope the issue ISN'T with your pancreas.

Love EM

[Mara56]

Dear Em,

So right GPs don't have a good track record diagnosing pancreas issues. That said, I know body really well & the GP who missed the pancreatitis was dismissive & didn't listen to me. My GP and Gastro-Enterologist this time did listen it's just that the symptoms I was having could have been linked to several health conditions. My Gastro has been searching for nearly 10 months to work it out. TBH I had started to think that the issues I was having were due to the stress I've been under. The Specialist will do further investigation. I've reached a point emotionally where I'm going there is nothing I can do about it. It will be a few weeks before I know one way or the other what it is. I have an appt with the specialist in 2 weeks time. I'm sure if there were alarm bells ringing she would ring me before then. The thing that is stressing me is the fact that it will have to be monitored regularly. My PTSD goes through the roof when I think of an MRI. That said, I'm not going there. I have enough on my plate ATM. I will cross that bridge when I get to it. I think some EMDR around the medical stuff is what I need to do next.

So looking forward to my appt with the psych tomorrow. Disappointed that this medical stuff has come up because I booked this appt months ago specifically to focus on R. My psych is taking a weeks leave next week so I'm going to have to spend some time tomorrow talking about the medical stuff but I'll put a time limit on it because I need to talk about my boy. I only realised today that I booked this appt at the exact time I found out he had collapsed. It wasn't intentional but subconsciously maybe I did it.

Unfortunately it is my pancreas. It's just whether it's a cyst or more serious. If it's a cyst it has to be monitored because pancreatic cysts can become cancerous. It is what it is, nothing I can do about it. I'll deal with it when I need to.

Well Em, I may not be back on line now till next week. Tomorrow I have my grandson, then I'm spending tomorrow evening with my son and his family. Sat is a full day. Sun is R's anniversary. We are minding the granddog for the weekend as my son and his family are going camping. I'll finish on a lovely conversation my son had with his eldest. My Grandson was worried about who was going to look after their dog. My son told him it's ok he's staying at Nanna's house. Grandson replied "oh that's good, it's fun at Nanna's house and Nanna always has lots of treats" Love that little man.

Love

Mara

[ecomama]

Dearest Mara

Yes indeed you have an intense and full few days coming up. We are prepared. Today was an incredibly beautiful day here. I hope that's how the weather is for your ferry trip for R.

Your dinner together will be very special. It's beautiful that you are coming together at this time.

I'll be sending Mama energy to you for your sorrow and healing. You might be able to see the smoke from your ferry ride! wherever that is, I hope it's smooth sailing.

Ofcourse Nanna's house has lots of treats! My Granddoggy loves Nana's too! lol. That will be a lovely distraction. Animals just KNOW and we can feel their compassion and love when we hug them. Get LOTS of hugs in Nanna.

Yes I can only try to understand a GPs difficulty at diagnosing pancreas issues. My friends had been diagnosed as having 'bad backs' mainly for up to a decade. The thing about pancreatitis in Louise Hay's book is interesting... "Rejection. Anger and frustration because life seems to have lost its sweetness".

Yours hasn't. You have sweet family, grandoggy and ofcourse DH.

My Prayers for your healing are constant Mara.

Lots of Love EM

[blueraven]

hi, so good to see complex ptsd mentioned here, it's gaining more traction now. when i was diagnosed 6 years ago i could barely find anything on it. i was constantly suicidal. so thankful to connect to others here. i have already started healing from it. and i noticed the phone counsellors on beyond blue are a lot more aware of trauma too. i talked to a man on the phone the other day just about difficulty with self care and casually mentioned that i was healing from some stuff, i didn't even have to explain it to him, he got it and was such a generous kind soul, i was holding back tears speaking to him. i wish the entire psychological world was trauma informed, i've had such bad experiences with so-called "mental health professionals". i don't know how people can be so ignorant of it, what do you think happens to kids behind closed doors that they end up killing themselves? i'm finally living safely, but it took me years to find the right treatment and people who treat me the right way! anyway, glad to see it being discussed here and wish you all the best in your healing journeys. ❤️

[ecomama]

Hi blueraven and welcome to the forums.

I'll speak on behalf of Mara as she is taking time for the Anniversary of her son's passing, as you may have read in previous posts. Mara probably won't be back on the forums for a while.

I'm glad you've joined the forums and I am very interested in your journey and progress with your mental health.

I encourage you to begin your own thread so that others can support you in a more individualized way.

Take care and hope to see you come back to the forums.
EM

[Mara56]

Hi Blueraven,

Sorry it's taken me a couple of days to reply. Em is right in saying that I was taking some time off from the forums.

Firstly I just want to say welcome. These forums are a safe place and I'm glad that you have found support here and through the phone lines.

I'm sorry to hear that you had some bad experiences in relation to previous therapy. I agree with you, there does need to be more training and knowledge in psychological circles. I also had terrible experiences early on in my therapy. In fact the first place I had therapy traumatised me further and as a result made subsequent therapy that much harder. I have huge trust issues, and that experience just damaged what little trust I had left. Thankfully I now see an excellent psychologist. He has extensive experience dealing with trauma and trains counsellors and other professionals. I am so glad I found him. By the by, it was me who worked out I had PTSD. I was doing study, and coincidentally had several clients with PTSD. As part of the research for the course I was doing, I started looking at PTSD. As I worked myself through the research all these dots were connecting. I went to the psychologist I was seeing at the time and I asked "do I have PTSD?" She replied "I believe so. And in my opinion it is Complex PTSD due to multiple severe trauma." It would have been so helpful to have known this years earlier. I can't tell you how man therapists I had seen up to that point and no one picked it. It was so infuriating at the time.

It is baffling to me that no one realised earlier. I've always been honest in terms of the trauma I've experienced. I had an extremely traumatic childhood. I've experienced every possible form of abuse and yet no one picked up that I might have PTSD. Thankfully I'm on the right track now.

I am glad your living safely now and that you are getting the right treatment. Also pleased to hear that you are healing.

I support Em in her encouragement in relation to you starting your own thread. That said, please feel free to join the conversation on my thread any time you want. I'm am always interested to hear about other people's journeys. And am also glad to offer support in any way I can.

Take care

Mara

[Mara56]

Dear Em,

So much has happened since we last spoke. I am beyond furious in relation to DH. I don't even know where to start. I ask very little of him, one thing I did ask is that we have last weekend off from home opens. I just wanted to focus on R, is that too much to ask? Real estate agent contacted Sat arvo he wanted to bring a couple through this morning at 11am. We're minding my son's dog. Dog sheds enough fur to knit a dog. He drools & drips water everywhere when drinks. I only agreed to have dog because I knew we weren't having a home open. I wanted to put couple off till tomorrow. DH gives me the petulant, accusatory look I get whenever I want to do something he doesn't. DH is a people pleaser, totally unassertive except when it comes to me. He wouldn't speak to agent so I had to. Anyway managed to get it pushed back till this arvo but what that meant is that Sat arvo I was cleaning, Sunday after I came back from very long day at site where I scatter R's ashes I cleaned some more. Then up early this morning to do final clean. DH tells me that unless they offer a certain amount he's not looking at it, I suggest he tells the agent out of fairness to him so he doesn't waste his or our time. DH tells me he's not doing that, he doesn't care how long it takes to sell apparently we're in the box seat! So your wife being suicidal for several months now isn't important, getting the figure he wants is, even though 3 months ago he was prepared to accept an offer $20k less that the current offer that is subject to sale. There were so many things this weekend were I thought you're not listening to me. So angry with him ATM.

Fri night was lovely with my son. GS gave me so many hugs. Such a beautiful boy. Yesterday was very emotional. I usually find comfort going to the site. He had worked there, so I can see his face every where. Yesterday those memories were so painful. So many tears. I miss him so much. How can someone so exceptional be gone?

Pysch was awesome on Fri. Mind he doesn't trust me. Lol. GP had given me a sedative to take when I have the MRI. Pysch wouldn't let me leave till I promised to give the meds to DH for safe keeping. It is baffling to me that given I'm giving DH meds because I haven't been safe, that he hasn't realised the toll selling the house is taking on me on top of everything else. So furious with him.

Thank you for your prayers and ongoing support. I'm so glad to have so many people around me who do love and support me.

Love

Mara

[ecomama]

WELCOME BACK My dear sweet long suffering friend!

Long suffering as in husbands lol.

Dear God. What on earth?

Mara as you know DHs behavior is not on. It's not healthy for you and not supportive of you in such an extremely trying time. THE MOST trying of times since your boy's passing.

Even I KNOW this time each year is especially challenging for you and understandably so. But then again empathy is a strong characteristic of mine and YOURS.

You would NEVER dream of doing this to him. Sometimes forming the story of how trying the time is, can be expressed from his perspective, I'm sure you've done this already.

If he doesn't get it after doing all that, IDK what would help at all. I seriously don't. I have a few marriages under my belt (lol) so I'm NOT quite the person to give you ANY good advice about relationships issues!

I'm fan fairy tastic at getting out of ugly marriages, you can trust me on that.

I know you're not asking about divorce lol, but I also know that this experience right now of DH would cut very deep indeed.

OUR Smoking Ceremony was beautiful. Calm, barely a breath in the sky that night here, so the smoke drifted in great swathes upwards. We added rosemary and sage to the smoke for healing.

Another one tomorrow night, we've chosen a different spot in the garden for this one.

Tonight is calm too. The MOON Mara was almost human. Reflecting in streams on the water to our home.

I Pray for calm, healing energies of all of our wise ancestors and people who have come before us.

LOVE EM