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Hi this is my first post and I would really appreciate some advice please.
I knew things were not right from the start but he gave me excuses for his actions and just kept telling myself if I gave him enough support we could get through this. However things all of a sudden started becoming my fault and a few years into the relationship I find myself at the doctors getting diagnosed with mental health problems. I truly felt that he was right and I was a basket case (as he kept telling me). I started acting in ways that I had never acted before and everything about me seemed to be slowly dissolving away. I stopped my hobbies because I was told they were depressing or they were not worth while. I lost my friends because I constantly had their faults pointed out to me and was told that they were not good for my mental health problems. I spent over a decade in therapy and on different medications. I was constantly told that I was a horrible person who didn’t care about anyone’s feelings and the guilt and shame would just eat me up inside. He would use my diagnosis against me saying I was abusing him and I used to sit on the floor crying begging for his forgiveness. However with support I managed to leave him a few years ago. But now I feel completely different. I do have some of the psychological problems associated with being in a domestic abusive relationship but the key elements that they gave me my original diagnosis for has gone away. I am going to talk to my therapist about this but what I am struggling with is how many years of my life I’ve lived with doing therapy and meds over something I don’t think I ever had! My family and his family blame me for ruining the relationship due to my mental health. He’s played such a victim to everybody. I felt he police and children’s services took his side over mine because he had all the proof he needed to show I was crazy. The diagnosis follows me around everywhere. I don’t feel like I can come back from it. It affects my jobs, my children, if I don’t feel well they automatically take away my driving licence (even tho I’ve never crashed in the (Detail removed by moderator) years I’ve been driving). Has anyone else been made to feel that there was something really wrong with them and then they realised it wasn’t true? -
Your story absolutely mirrors mine. Decades of therapy and medication trying to sort a problem that was never mine. The medical profession (and him) blaming a miscarriage and hysterectomy when I was perfectly sane before I met him. I went from a sociable outgoing happy person to a shy broken person too scared to leave the home yet too scared to stay. Never knowing that the most evil person in my life was the one who I believed was loving and protecting me. All the time he was Gaslighting and trying to destroy my mental health. There are so many stories just like ours. Not one doctor or therapist in decades ever mentioned the words domestic abuse. It wasn’t until I found Women’s Aid that it all made sense. My advice is to get in touch with your local women’s aid. This nightmare was never your fault. Even after a conviction my ex still plays the victim. They are expert manipulators but I know one hundred percent that is was his behaviour that drove me to a breakdown. I know this now because when Women’s Aid explained his behaviour, and actually predicted his behaviour, it all made sense. It was never me with mental health problems. It was me with mental health injuries caused by his mental abuse, Gaslighting, lies. Never doubt yourself. No matter what anyone else says. You lived through that dysfunction. Sadly I’m left with PTSD but that’s nothing compared to trauma I endured while still with him. Good luck in your journey to recovery.
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Thank-you for replying. I’ve seen so many medical professionals since I got with him and nobody said anything about abuse to me too. I was told things like if I felt scared to sleep in the same bed as him then there’s something wrong with my sex drive and if I’m upset all the time it’s because I’ve got depression and if I’m nervous of going out with friends I must have anxiety. I went to therapy because he was telling me I was abusing him and that’s why he lashed out all the time, my therapist signed me off with BPD. Also I had to make sure my house was spotless for him so I cleaned from 7 in the morning till 11 at night every day, so I got signed off with OCD. I constantly felt physically ill and had keyhole surgery in my stomach, a camera down my throat, lots of scan and took beta blockers for migraines. But all of my attempts at getting a diagnosis come back clear, nobody could find anything wrong with me. So off I went home everytime and he would pay me on the head and say its a good job I’ve got him to look after me! He would sit and say do you remember when we did this…. and I never had a clue what he was talking about, but he just said I didn’t remember because of my mental health so I apologised and promised I’d try harder next time. I’ve been split up with him for years but it’s only just starting to dawn on me what was actually going on. Obviously I knew things were not right when I left him but I didn’t realise how bad it actually was.
After we split he kept stealing the children. The police and children’s services would not help me because he had PR and I believe he played on my mental health problems to them. I went through lots of doctors trying to get legal aid (Detail removed by moderator) but they all read my notes the looked at me like I was insane and refused to help. Finally I got a therapist who requested all of my medical notes and saw the pattern of behaviour I’d been going through but what really shocked me was he found notes from the very first counselling session I attended and it had been written in there the counsellor said I was being abused! This gave my therapist enough to apply for legal aid so I could see my kids again.
But it does make me wonder tho, if my counsellor had told me or my doctor I was being subjected to domestic abuse, could all of these diagnosis and treatments I’ve had been avoided?… -
I really appreciated these posts.
When similar things happened to me years ago, I thought I was the only person this was happening to.At some point along the line I had the instinct somewhere in amongst (Detail removed by moderator) to get a printout of my medical notes, which at the time cost 25 quid.
They were lengthy and I found entries where certain things had been recorded after phone calls made to my G.P. I realised from the dates that these were calls from my ex’s relatives, accusing me of certain behaviour even though I had not even seen them for some months.
The whole thing was quite clearly designed with the aim of having me committed to a psychiatric ward, I feel. If you look back in history this has often happened to women who have refused to go along with what men wanted.
In the end when I moved away from my ex with my child it was clear I could manage and that the mudslinging was untrue, but it was terrifying at the time.
Now, I still have some after effects of trauma which I struggle with, but I hesitate to call it post-traumatic as for women like us who still have to manage contact with our exes (I am no contact, but still need to do the drop offs and pick ups several times a year) and I don’t have anyone to do it for me, I think the description ‘post-traumatic’ is misleading as we are still having to deal with the trauma.
Does this make sense to anyone?
Nowadays I refer to myself as having a disability, I have come across a great deal of discrimination on this front and have tried to get as much info as possible from rethink mental illness. org. All best ftc.
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Post traumatic stress can come after a single incident. So don’t think you’re not suffering this because your contact is ongoing.
I had all sorts of invasive procedures, camera up my sinuses because I had a headache for two years. Beta blockers. Heart traces done. Overactive thyroid etc. I’m certain now it was because of the abuse. I also found a letter in my medical records sent from my therapist to my GP where he clearly states my ex is causing this. But he never told me this and my GP never mentioned the letter. I didn’t see it until years later. Years and years of abuse from him. Telling me I was the one with the mental problems. I was the one needing therapy. I would never get custody and would never see my son again. I cleaned for hours and hours to try and stop the abuse as he was also critical but it wouldn’t have mattered how clean my home was as this was just an excuse to abuse and the goal posts would regularly change. Good riddance to bad rubbish. -
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Thank-you you are really helping me feel like I’m not crazy after all. I don’t understand why doctors don’t look over our medical records properly or tell us significant things that are in them. I’m not saying all doctors are bad but it would help if there was some sort of guidelines they could follow to help recognise these patterns in their patients. I know what you mean ftc because I’m still suffering abuse because my ex asserts his PR over our children all the time and as much as he’s been told no contact (Detail removed by moderator) we still have to meet for handovers and he constantly phones me saying its an emergency with the kids when it’s not but I have to talk to him. So yes, the actual words post traumatic can be misleading but like kip said the damage has already been done. Maybe it should be called ‘PTSD with ongoing trauma’ instead. I do class myself as disabled at present. My body works but my brain struggles to tell it what to do. I get confused doing simple tasks like deciding what to wear and I have panic attacks whilst washing my pots because my sinks right Infront of my window and my brain is screaming he’s going to come down the road constantly. Also my intelligence seems worse I struggle answering some of my children’s questions and I find it hard to follow a conversation. Kip I hope things are better with your son, my ex took my girls away for a very long time and he used my mental health to justify his actions to the authorities, which they totally believed and wouldn’t help me. If I didn’t get the legal aid (Detail removed by moderator) I don’t know whether I would of seen them again or not. It has been hard having them back tho. It’s taken me a long time to start believing I can look after them on my own. I struggle with insomnia and memory problems but I refused to seek help off my ex and now I’m starting to do a good job I think. They eat proper meals, have clean clothes and I have time to play with them. It’s little things but years ago everyone was telling me I’d never be able to do it. Ex always tells them I’m crazy and not to listen to my house rules and things but they are starting to see now that I’m better than what he says. They know I forget things so they are constantly reminding me to try and help and they know I don’t sleep well so they help with housework and my oldest has started making me a coffee in the morning. They don’t need to do any of this but to see them trying their best and working with me rather than against me just makes feel so lucky to have them. I love them so much and I’m determined to prove I can be a good mum regardless of my health diagnosis. I’m going to prove my (Detail removed by moderator) ex wrong
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Also, kip I think you right about the similar symptoms of bpd and ptsd. I lost my job due to the bpd diagnosis and was told I’d never be able to work in that field again. I want to be reassessed and if it’s found the diagnosis was a result of something more like ptsd instead, I want to know what I can do about it. I loved my job and I was very good at it. Strangly enough my work involved some aspects of working with family’s involved in domestic abuse. Now I feel that I have this personal insight I feel I could do that job alot more beneficially to survivors. It all depends on what the medical professionals say tho
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Do not put all your faith in medical professionals. If your looking for a professional opinion then make sure that person is a specialist in trauma and domestic abuse. A lot of them have very little understanding of trauma and domestic abuse. You tell them what you are feeling. You research the symptoms. Trauma causes huge memory losses. I have chunks missing. Also, when we are in trauma part of our brain stops working, the rational part, and the fight, flight or freeze part takes over. It leaves little space for rational thinking and this lasts for quite a while. I call it head narrowing or headspace. It shrinks. So we appear forgetful or irrational. Any they use this to their advantage. The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk. It’s a good book to explain trauma.
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Thank-you kip. I like the term head narrowing. It seems to explain what I mean without the babble. I’m going to use that at my next appointment.
I think your right about medical professionals. I don’t really trust them as they turned there back on me. But my top therapist is really good it just takes about a year to get an appointment with him. He did say last time I saw him that alot of things didn’t make sense about my condition but due to my brain being fried I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. But your right. I will do my research and collect my evidence before I go. I don’t know how to find someone specific to trauma but the understanding of it does vary extreamly. Some services have been great at helping me but other services dismissed me without a second thought
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