Unknown userMember
Feeling so sad, so lost
I'm just so sad right now, can't talk, it's even hard to type, but I decided I'd try to communicate how I'm feeling here 'cos there's no judgement here.
I've been doing a course for the PTSD and I thought it would be different from what it is, silly me for thinking that! I've done soooo much work on this over the years, and for a time most of the methods worked for a bit too.
In the beginning I didn't even know all the stuff I was going through wasn't my fault because I'd been told by so many people, in so many ways that it was. On the day of the rape, it was in my last year of senior high school, my mother told me it was my fault if it happened. IF? No police report, no medical exam (until I got really, really sick - another story there), no sympathy, no hugs, just total rejection and blame because of the shame they felt.
I can't write the story - tried and can't, deleted it - it's just too much in many ways.
Life continued with me putting others first. Many years later, when making confession as a last resort for some sort of forgiveness for what I thought was my fault, a priest told me he couldn't forgive me as I had committed a mortal sin for allowing myself to be raped and not dying to prevent it happening. I think I'm still in shock from that. My faith was a mainstay and it was taken away from me at a time of great need as a mortal sin means not able to take the sacraments. I didn't realise until recently how much that hurt me. I am no longer Catholic and have different beliefs now.
The psychiatrist I went to around the same time as the priest stuff told me "boys will be boys and it happened a long time ago, it's time you got over it". Yes, the person was known to me because they worked next door, but they were not a 'boy' he was a much older man. I can't understand them. It was a crime.
I'm trying so hard to work through, around, deal with this stuff and no matter what, I keep running into road blocks where I'm told in one way or another I'm wrong. I know doing the course thing means that the old stuff will be brought up, yet when I try to talk to the psychs about it, they don't get that I'm on total overload with no reserves left to cope.
I was hoping with this course 'cos it came so highly recommended (and it's actually really good for PTSD that has not taken a reinforced hold) would take things that step further with strategies for dealing with times when overload happens.
I have to retreat, cut off pretty much all contact with the outside world, except for flat mate, and for the most part I can do the necessary self care to survive like eat, drink water/ tea, take meds, etc simply because I know it's better to do it than not. I didn't/don't self harm, nor use substances (except maybe food at times) to cope as I need to be aware of surroundings to keep safe.
Due to reasons I am totally estranged from family and children and I've cut contact with supposed friends who couldn't be bothered repyling to emails or keeping in contact. I rarely ask for help, when I did, those people made fun of me 'not coping'. That made asking all the harder.
I used to think that being a nice person, being kind and considerate, helping others when you could would in turn come back to you somehow when you needed it, and while there have been times that has been true, I really need some help now and there's no one, just no one after so many people I have helped. That sounds so self focused, but I used to believe in fairness and it all seems such a lie.
I'm so sad, so lost, and feel so hopeless about the promised getting better. I don't expect this to magically go away, I would like some strategies besides what I already do daily to try to lift this horrible, horrible feeling.
