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I know for years my mental health was blamed on post natal depression. Other victims have told me the same and now I know it’s typical for abuse to escalate after the birth of a child, I hope this isn’t still going on. I also spoke to a survivor recently who told me she was bi polar. But after talking to her about her symptoms, they were exactly like my PTSD yet she was medicated! It terrifies me that this might be more common than I thought?
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I was told recently that I probably have CPTSD. It came as a shock. I have been treated for severe eating disorders and severe depression and have spent the best part of my adult life on anti-gloom pills. One of my siblings is convinced that he has ADD. He looked up the symptoms and has become the living embodiment of it. The symptoms are broadly the same as for PTSD. He has drugs for ADD but they don’t work for him.
Psychiatric diagnosis is a guessing game still and the shrink can only go by what you tell them. I guess I could describe my life as one in the shadows. I used to have nightmares about missing trains. Now I have them about being trapped and running around like a headless chicken.
PTSD is certainly more common amongst women who have been abused. There are an awful lot of us who have come from complicated backgrounds.
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I think many people may have been misdiagnosed, because the effects of abuse weren’t fully recognised.
Maybe the victim didn’t disclose the full extent of the abuse at the time, or indeed may not even have understood it themselves; there is more understanding about the effects of abuse now, and CPTSD/ PTSD.
I know that PTSD can appear as BPD. I’ve heard of such cases.
I thought I had post-natal depression, but realise not that I was just reacting to his abuse. He upped his abuse at times that he was meant to be supportive.
I read somewhere that it’s somehow easier, or feels ‘safer’ for victims to blame themselves, or to think that they have some inbuilt mental or emotional weakness or illness, because it’s too horrifying to face the fact that they lived so closely to an abuser. The thought is too scary: as we feel safer to ourselves, so we blame ourselves to stop ourselves feeling violated from an outside force.
But if we can see that we are in fact stringet than our abuser, that they abused us simply because they are weak bullies, then we can face the fact that yes, we were vulnerable to an abuser, but we were and are stronger mrhem and the horrific reality does not need to destroy us.
I read an article the other day where the lady wrote that abuse happens TO us: it is not OF us. I think I will keep reminding myself of this. Of course, abuse does affect us physically, emotionally and mentally. Trauma gets stuck in our body, and it’s hard to overcome it. But I think if so can keep reminding myself that this abuse was done TO me- that it wasn’t my fault, wasn’t deserved or acceptable, and was done by an outside and alien force, then it will help mr to recover, as I’m not accepting blame or allowing it to become ‘who I am.’ I refuse to be defined by the abuse forever. I will keep on fighting to overcome its ravages. The abuse isn’t everything about me: I also have courage, strength, hope and morals. I am an ok person. I will overcome it, step by step.
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I think abuse is often so hard to articulate unless it is so grindingly obvious. The Freedom Programme is very good at giving behaviours a name, a way to describe what is happening. For years, I had no idea what was happening. I was drawn back in. I didn’t recognise the cycle and I thought/hoped that couples therapy might help. I didn’t see that the same things were happening again and again and again. It is also far easier to spot in other people’s relationships. I also wanted to believe my husband.
I have started to speak about things I have never mentioned before. That carpet is up to the ceiling with all the rubbish I’ve swept under it.
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I quite agree, Mad Dog.
Victims cannot articulate their experience to health professionals, because they themselves are in a confused state, compounded by the fact that these sick abusers try to make the victim feel they are at fault, or are exaggerating.
The amount of projection, gas lighting and denial that goes in is dreadful. Many outsiders fail to see what the abuser is doing to this victim, not just because many save it for behind closed doors, but as because abuse can be so covert, subtle and insidious.
The Pattern Changing course equipped me with the tools and language I needed to understand and deal with his abuse. It made it all crystal clear.
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I think this applies to our children too. There are many references on here to children with problems such as ADHD/ASD and although these are doagnosed carefully by a skilled team of professional (or should be!) I wonder how early experiences in an abusive household has shaped the children’s behaviour? A lot of us have children with severe anxiety issues/eating disorders/depression and though these are common in teens there is an association with “life events”. How many of us and our children own up to the abuse when meeting professionals? I didn’t. I sat in a ward with my child who was trying to end her life and denied it when asked directly. I “suspected that’s what we were living with” but couldn’t bring myself to say it. That realisation and acceptance came over the next 6 months when she was in a hospital miles from home with only weekly or twice weekly visits and occasional weekend leave.
We need to spread the word abuse is not a stigma. To help professionals to ask the right questions in the right way and to keep asking till we speak up or realise. I think in retrospect that’s what happened to me. Subtle changes of questioning phrases in meetings and therapy sessions, direct questions to my ex and his inability to show any support to our child’s recovery, or to support me in doing so. The light bulb slowly lit up. I still didn’t say it though.
We need to be careful not to label individuals and be hopeful in time that the emotional and behavioural problems our children have will improve once they are away from the stressful environment.
Serenity is right abuse doesn’t define us but seeking help for what is being done to us and our children may actually contribute to the development of stronger more resilient individuals.
I kind of wish I’d mot read this or written a reply but am not going to delete it. Balling my eyes out now! Tea and more snow clearing and think positive thoughts. I’m ok. She’s ok. In fact she’s getting better than me – if I behave in a way I would have with him she just says “why not mum? Dad’s not here. You can do it. Believe in yourself” Love her so much x*x -
I spoke to a professional mental health person recently about what questions to ask an abused person. I was quite shocked at his response. I told him there’s no point in asking how things are at home, because we will say ‘fine’ because in our world it is fine, probably because we haven’t been abused for a few weeks. It all becomes our normal. I told him he should be asking if we are scared to go home, if we are walking on eggshells, if we fear our partners. There’s a long way to go raising awareness.
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I’m ok KIP, honestly. “Stuff” going on this week with solicitor again so feeling a bit raw.
Tea by my side and decided to scrap the snow clearing and bake instead!
You’re right about the questions. But still it’s up to us to respond and as individuals experiencing it we do anything to block it and disbelieve it. In my case I sat and heard what people said but my fear of owning up to what was happening and then going back home to him was just too much. If someone had stuck a domestic abuse leaflet or given me this website I might posibly have acted sooner. Maybe not. We all need time to process what we experience before we can ask for help xx -
Yes you’re right it’s upto us to respond but the playing field was never even for me until women’s aid explained that he knew exactly what he was doing. It was deliberate. Once I had all that knowledge. That’s when it was over to me to process it. Knowledge Is Power and I intend to use that Power ✊️
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You are so right.
I remember very well that most times of my life I was unable to articulate the abuse.
I was just angry and this got misinterpreted. I was labeled to be an attention seeker, a hypochondriac, a liar, a badly behaved low class child, a difficult patient, to suffer from depression, …..Only since my last marriage I learned shiploads about abuse and I can now articulate about it and also ask people the right questions.
I have since torn the veil away from hidden abuse on several people and I have helped them. It all started with asking the right questions, not being afraid to dig deeper.I am glad I never fell for the medication the doctors tried to make me take. I had fights with medicals about me not taking their pills.
I kept a clear mind, refused to be put into a fog by medication, at least as clear as it can get after suffering a lifetime from abuse by different perpetrators. -
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Without my meds I would certainly be long dead by now! Prozac knocked the eating problem on the head and it was the first time in my life that I felt a bit more like a member of the human race instead of an unwanted alien. It was very clear that my eating was out of control, and again it was very clear that I was clinically depressed. A clinical psychologist said to me that he thought I had been abused. I didn’t know what he was talking about as there was no sex. My dad and his siblings may well suffer from PTSD. So many dreadful things happened to the family all at the same time. There are so many things we don’t talk about. When the terror starts early in life there is absolutely no way of making sense of it. It is what normality feels like.
I remember very clearly thinking that I was lucky. I had a roof over my head, food in my tum, a good school to go to and the terrible things that happen to people are on the news, and that is bad stuff. By the time I was 11 I had pretty much closed down completely. My poor mum must have been terrified. Of course she had no way of articulating what was happening at home.
I’m now middle aged, so the idea of having CPTSD is a shock. It sort of makes sense as the horror unfolds.
It is no longer to do with my original family other than how it led to my being raped and then meeting my husband and thinking he was normal. He told me so many times that he was normal and I wanted to believe him. His behaviour said otherwise. It is such a sinking feeling.
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I agree maddog, medication has it’s place – but it needs to be part of a bigger picture of support/therapy/intervention etc not just popping pills to numb the senses.
I firmly believe antidepressants stopped me killing myself. Nothing else was working and I’d prepared pretty well but then realised it wasn’t the answer for me. I’ve been on and off them a couple of times – currently off but I’d not turn them down if I felt I needed the stabilisation of mood they gave me again. -
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I weaned myself off my gloom pills a while ago. I was on the minimum dose, and I took less and less over several months. I found myself quite irritable on a regular basis without them. I wondered if this is how my husband felt all the time. I went back on them.At the moment I am on the maximum dose as well as all sorts of other things. It is extraordinary that I am able to feel anything at all.
I spoke to a friend about some of the things that had happened to me. She too has been raped and all along she has been told that it was her fault. I so recognise that feeling.
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I wonder how many are being treated for the symptoms while the cause is being ignored. I know that being away from my abuser, I feel I don’t need drugs. I feel I was never clinically depressed, never had a mental illness. I was reacting naturally to the mental injuries I was sustaining. Any contact with an abuser causes mental injuries and they take a long time to go, even after no contact. But for me, any contact at all is just another injury. Only once the fog has cleared can we really begin to address these injuries.
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Clinical depression is very physical. I just ended up as a thin dribbling wreck with racing thoughts and a slow motion mouth. I really really hope the rape cisis counselling is helpful. My mind is all over the place. My husband is doing nothing at all about selling the house. I feel trapped. Went to police again today. Round and round in circles.(detail removed by Moderator)
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Maddog I’ve given up on the police. It wasn’t until I spoke to the officer that was about (detail removed by Moderator) that I realised they do not even understand the laws they are meant to be upholding themselves. I read it on their own website that my harassment warning would show up on a Visa check and she still didn’t believe me. I am stuck with it on my file for life according to the chief constables aid unless by some miracle I could come into a lot of money and appeal it in the high Court. It’s preposterous that I have been made to feel like a criminal just for removing myself from an abusers grasp and his new girlfriend wound him up playing games with him to the point he blamed it all on me
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I remember being really low after the birth of my youngest.
About a week you’ve had a baby, you are asked to fill out a form describing your mood, etc. I suppose it’s meant to flag up post natal depression or emotional instability so that the medical professionals will be alerted- a kind of risk assessment, too, I suppose.
I was feeling quite down – I see now due to my ex’s unkindness at the time. So I was honest, and wrote down hir I felt.
I must have been on their radar as a possible concern, because when my GP did the home visit that GPS usually due after you’ve had a baby, this doctor ( who I never liked) rang my bell, burst into my house and denanded to know where the baby was, going upstairs to search without asking. It was also an unannounced visit.
Of course, she found my baby tucked up, clean and sleeping, as well cared for as possible: because the issue was never my parenting! I loved and cared for both my boys- it was my ex who was always the issue.
Yet the medical profession doesn’t look at that. They ask a new mother to fill out a firm and make her feel like a criminal if she is struggling. It was never considered that my partner might be the problem. And he was: he was the fly in the ointment that was threatening to ruin my experience of motherhood- children I thought I would never have due to fertility issues.
I will never forget the feeling of violation and being made to feel that I had done something badly wrong by that doctor’s visit.
Actually, she was a pretty unsupportive GP overall. I later left the practice and clubs a much nicer surgery.
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It’s so scary when we look back. Their first thoughts when we show signs of depression are will we harm our children. Not, what is actually causing her to feel that way. Well let’s look at the environment? We all need to shout loudly and raise awareness of these issues. I’m doing my best but it shows just how that incident affected you that you still remember it.
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