This started out a comment, but became a post. The time-wasting thing is weird...partly, I've had to learn to give myself some space to waste some time on having fun and stuff like that that I used to think I did not deserve. But the losing time thing was a real problem for me for a long time -- still is in some ways.
I used to be in this weird form of denial about it. I would have dissociative, losing time, flashbacky stuff happen all the time, but as long as I was the only one who witnessed it I could pretend it was not happening, or I was just faking or being "dramatic." Denial runs very deep in my family!
Anyway, eventually, I started losing time so others noticed and I had to make up stories to cover (should sound familiar to anyone who has or had an addiction that is trauma-related), but ultimately, it spilled over, or I finally decided I could trust my partner of many years and what had been my own private nightmare was all of a sudden shared. Instead of leaving me in disgust, she said "oh my this is terrible." She recognized what was going on with me as similar to what another set of trauma survivors (women who have suffered domestic violence) whom she was familiar with go through. This set us off on the slow process of learning almost from scratch what PTSD is. I thought she would leave if she discovered how "bad" and "crazy" I was inside my head, but instead, sharing what was going on, even though it kind of spilled over rather than being a conscious decision on my part, began the process of recovery for me.
My ability to trust others was so damaged by the various traumas I have alluded to in this blog that it was nine years into our relationship before I trusted her with what was going on inside me. I really thought I was to blame for it all, and that I was just crazy or defective, and I had been burned so many times on trust issues I was extremely wary. And I was fortunate to find someone who saw things for what they really were instead of just being freaked out and leaving.
I guess the moral of the story for me is that when I am "losing time" it is a good idea to run it by someone I trust. That is hard for me, because I used to trust people who had not earned it and I got burned all the time.
Showing posts with label isolation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label isolation. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Monday, December 08, 2008
toxic relationships
Well, this started as a response to a bunch of comments but turned int my first post in a while, so thanks to the anonymous poster who made the comments referenced below.
anonymous said:
It is a slippery and seductive slope though. Most traumatized people hold it in til it blows up, which I did, or find constructive ways of dealing with it, which is what I try to do now. But when things blew up, I hurt those around me, the closer and more supportive they were, the more so. I realized this and it was a major incentive to get better so that I would not continue to have the stuff come out sideways and hurt the ones I love and who love me. I can see though, that had I just felt entitled to what I was doing rather than being appalled at it, it would then be but a short drive to perp-dom. So I have understanding, but no tolerance or forgiveness for abusers.
I am grateful for being able to break the cycle in my own life but it has come at great cost. My tendency was to buy into the perpetrator's version of the story and see myself as defective or the source of whatever problems they blamed on me. I promised myself when I was a little kid that I would not do to my kids what was done to me. My latest greatest abuser played into all my fears and insecurities (and ignorance about boundaries!) and after I got totally screwed over, the person convinced me that I was the abusive one (I hesitate to even write this for fear that whoever reads it will side with my abuser too!) by invoking what I had recognized as lies a previous toxic person had accused me of.
The latest, greatest one knew my feelings and insecurities about this because I told her all about them. Rather than realizing "wow, what a sick person, trying to justify her abusive behavior by flinging that stuff at me," I thought "well that's twice in a row...maybe I'm as blind as my parents were to their abusive behavior and just cannot see it." As a result, I decided not to have kids, because I took my childhood promise to myself seriously, and until I could see how it was I was being abusive I would do what it took to make sure I didn't pass it on.
This was my backwards sense of boundaries, where I thought they were to keep me walled off from doing harm from others rather than to protect myself from toxic abusive people. Years later, the person admitted I had not been anything close to abusive and that she made it up to justify her actions, but by then it was too late to start a family and the harm had been done. Because a life of traumatic relationships with everyone from parents to siblings to strangers to lovers, my belief in myself and my own feelings was nil. This is perhaps the greatest thing I have recovered in getting better from PTSD, my trust in myself as a basically good human being. I had to learn what most people learn as children, how to tell what's mine from what's not, and that has made all the difference.
anonymous said:
My story was a string of "moderately traumatic" events that left me feeling constantly on edge, ready for betrayal or chaos at any moment, completely in physical and emotional pain for years.Yes, I know that feeling well, that there is no safe place, the world might give way under foot at any moment. Finding ways of being and places, even imaginary ones, that are safe has been a big part of recovery for me. EMDR, which I have been thinking of writing a post on for a very long time but haven't gotten around to it, was helpful in doing this. I started out with an imaginary safe place, but also learned to trust that loving and supportive network of friends, which has been a challenge, but also tremendously rewarding as far as recovering goes.
anonymous wrote:I think awareness is a crucial first step. All the toxic people who were in my life surely had their own unaddressed trauma issues, I know this for a fact. I think perpetrators of abuse are traumatized people who feel entitled to take out revenge for their trauma on the world around them. Its their way of dealing with it, but it creates more trauma, passing it along to new people. Most traumatized people won't turn into abusers, but I bet 99.9% of perpetrators come from traumatized backgrounds. Its important to reiterate that this is not a fait accompli.
The supportive, loving people I have new relationships with don't deserve to deal with my insecurities from the manipulative, destructive people in my toxic past.
It is a slippery and seductive slope though. Most traumatized people hold it in til it blows up, which I did, or find constructive ways of dealing with it, which is what I try to do now. But when things blew up, I hurt those around me, the closer and more supportive they were, the more so. I realized this and it was a major incentive to get better so that I would not continue to have the stuff come out sideways and hurt the ones I love and who love me. I can see though, that had I just felt entitled to what I was doing rather than being appalled at it, it would then be but a short drive to perp-dom. So I have understanding, but no tolerance or forgiveness for abusers.
I am grateful for being able to break the cycle in my own life but it has come at great cost. My tendency was to buy into the perpetrator's version of the story and see myself as defective or the source of whatever problems they blamed on me. I promised myself when I was a little kid that I would not do to my kids what was done to me. My latest greatest abuser played into all my fears and insecurities (and ignorance about boundaries!) and after I got totally screwed over, the person convinced me that I was the abusive one (I hesitate to even write this for fear that whoever reads it will side with my abuser too!) by invoking what I had recognized as lies a previous toxic person had accused me of.
The latest, greatest one knew my feelings and insecurities about this because I told her all about them. Rather than realizing "wow, what a sick person, trying to justify her abusive behavior by flinging that stuff at me," I thought "well that's twice in a row...maybe I'm as blind as my parents were to their abusive behavior and just cannot see it." As a result, I decided not to have kids, because I took my childhood promise to myself seriously, and until I could see how it was I was being abusive I would do what it took to make sure I didn't pass it on.
This was my backwards sense of boundaries, where I thought they were to keep me walled off from doing harm from others rather than to protect myself from toxic abusive people. Years later, the person admitted I had not been anything close to abusive and that she made it up to justify her actions, but by then it was too late to start a family and the harm had been done. Because a life of traumatic relationships with everyone from parents to siblings to strangers to lovers, my belief in myself and my own feelings was nil. This is perhaps the greatest thing I have recovered in getting better from PTSD, my trust in myself as a basically good human being. I had to learn what most people learn as children, how to tell what's mine from what's not, and that has made all the difference.
Monday, July 09, 2007
More on Type A & B addicts, 12 steps, and trauma
This was originally a response to some comments to "ptsd, AA, and different types of addicts" that grew too long, so it became a post. If you're curious, or want to try and convince me that my experience is wrong ;^), you can read more about my thoughts on PTSD and 12-step programs, the Christian basis of AA's "spirituality", and why I finally decided, after 17 years, to leave 12 step approaches, a difficult decision.
anonymous at 9:17 pm said:
Oh dear, the type A AAs have found us :)
Indeed, during the seventeen years I attended AA I did find some people who knew personally what PTSD was and they were a tremendous help. I also met a lot of crazy people who thought because their way of doing things wasn't working for me that I was doing something wrong...kind of like you are here.
If I remember right, and I do, the definition of insanity I learned in AA was "to keep repeating the same things over and expect different results." Working things through the aa way became exactly this form of insanity. At a certain point the aa way...steps, spirituality, constant meetings, the whole thing that I was doing with the best of them...just wasn't working, again and again, no matter how hard I tried or how close I hewed to the big book and the rooms.
Maybe I'll drink tomorrow. I saw plenty of twenty and thirty year AA-ers go out and drink too. I plan on staying clean and sober, as I value the life it has granted me immensely now that I have been able to stay clear of the craziness and harm I encountered in AA. If it works for you, well bless you, go forth....I probably would have sided with you the first 5, 10, or 15 years I was sober. I was wrong, and I humbly submit that you are too if you think AA is a one stop shop with the answers for everyone's recovery. Open yer mind a little, please.
the next anonymous said:
Just for clarity sake, that quote within the quote is from another commentator, not something I said, though I said something similar. I agree with the wife of the PTSD sufferer, and I am sure my own partner would too, as she endured a lot of agony in supporting me through the worst of my PTSD. I am forever grateful for that...It has taught me what love really is in many ways, so if you are truly supporting the recovery -- and recovery can happen -- of a PTSD-er, well then props to you! Its a huge task and takes a lot of love and understanding.
I was referring, and I think the commentator was too, to the sort of perverse tendency Type Bs have of trying to make amends to their perpetrators. In my case that included members of my family. They are the ones who are in denial, not me. And to live as they would have me would kill me, quite literally, and they would rather see that than see what they did. I just stay far away now, which is sad, but I have developed a wonderful family of choice and made a life for myself with room for all of who I am.
When I was in the worst stages of my addiction, and my recovery, I isolated like the commentator, and any pain I caused my perpetrators was probably from pangs of guilt more than anything else. I managed to keep everyone else away from me. I didn't have anyone because I didn't think I was worth anything to anyone, and created a self-fulfilling prophecy. When I stopped drinking and drugging, this left me real vulnerable to a particular type of misanthropic, often charlatan, type of person who can be found in or around any AA anywhere (I had home groups in four different cities over the years). Mind you, I'm not saying all AA is like that, just that all AA attracts such people, and they prey on people like I was. I've seen it many times and experienced it more than once before I wised up. These types took some people's lives to get what they wanted and almost got mine. Maybe someday I'll tell that story here, but I try to keep things general so more people can relate and also so as to remain anonymous myself.
Anyway, there was no wife or partner or significant other in my addiction because I thought I was too fucked up to be with anyone -- and I mostly was. Type Bs tend to blame themselves and take on the violence and anger of others as their own. This has ...ummm....negative effects on one's social skills and attractiveness to others. This is what I had to learn to reject and get angry at in order to get better, that the guilt and shame I felt were not mine, but belonged to others, and I would imagine that the commentator was trying to express something similar. I am sure if he or she had people in his or her life, they were affected as you say, but some of us clear everyone out for their own good to protect them from what awful people we have been taught by our perpetrators to believe that we are. Realizing that was a lie, and dumping the evil others had dumped on me in a safe and non-abusive way were key to getting to a place where I could let people in and have real relationships. I could have gone to AA for eternity and I would never have learned what I needed there.
anonymous at 9:17 pm said:
I believe that AA can help anyone to sobriety and a life worth living.
Oh dear, the type A AAs have found us :)
...There ARE AA members experienced with PTSD. Value your own recovery enough to seek them out.
Indeed, during the seventeen years I attended AA I did find some people who knew personally what PTSD was and they were a tremendous help. I also met a lot of crazy people who thought because their way of doing things wasn't working for me that I was doing something wrong...kind of like you are here.
If it were easy, EVERYONE would be sober and sane.a little condescension to help you endear yourself to us struggling misguided fools who don't do things your way....
... But sobriety and life are worth the effort. ...Find the people in AA who relate to who you are and where you've been. They are there.Translation for type Bs: You are doing it wrong if you are not doing it my (anonymous's) way -- oops, I mean, the AA way, and you're not sober or sane unless you go through AA. Thanks, but no thanks. Been there done that. That is what the post explains if you could see through the haze a bit. If you go by the slogans, I might suggest "live and let live" to the anonymous poster here...Things only got saner and better for me after I left AA. That seems to be threatening somehow, and of course the type A response is that I didn't do it right. Well excuse my French, but fuck that. I've now been sober over 22 years, the last five without AA. I got a lot out of AA and gave a lot back, but it became more harm than help, to the point that my worst days sober were as bad or worse than the low points of my addiction, which included homelessness, hallucinations, lot's of "lucky to have lived through that"s, and lots of drug induced emotional and physical injury, so I left. Mind you, I wouldn't trade those awfullest sober days in for the druggy ones -- I learned a lot of hard-bought things about people and --I can't think of anything else to call it...sickness just doesn't capture the true extent -- evil from the hard times of my sobriety.
If I remember right, and I do, the definition of insanity I learned in AA was "to keep repeating the same things over and expect different results." Working things through the aa way became exactly this form of insanity. At a certain point the aa way...steps, spirituality, constant meetings, the whole thing that I was doing with the best of them...just wasn't working, again and again, no matter how hard I tried or how close I hewed to the big book and the rooms.
Maybe I'll drink tomorrow. I saw plenty of twenty and thirty year AA-ers go out and drink too. I plan on staying clean and sober, as I value the life it has granted me immensely now that I have been able to stay clear of the craziness and harm I encountered in AA. If it works for you, well bless you, go forth....I probably would have sided with you the first 5, 10, or 15 years I was sober. I was wrong, and I humbly submit that you are too if you think AA is a one stop shop with the answers for everyone's recovery. Open yer mind a little, please.
the next anonymous said:
But to say that the person with PTSD is .."almost exclusively harming themselves..." is denial at its greatest. It takes courage to ask for help.
Just for clarity sake, that quote within the quote is from another commentator, not something I said, though I said something similar. I agree with the wife of the PTSD sufferer, and I am sure my own partner would too, as she endured a lot of agony in supporting me through the worst of my PTSD. I am forever grateful for that...It has taught me what love really is in many ways, so if you are truly supporting the recovery -- and recovery can happen -- of a PTSD-er, well then props to you! Its a huge task and takes a lot of love and understanding.
I was referring, and I think the commentator was too, to the sort of perverse tendency Type Bs have of trying to make amends to their perpetrators. In my case that included members of my family. They are the ones who are in denial, not me. And to live as they would have me would kill me, quite literally, and they would rather see that than see what they did. I just stay far away now, which is sad, but I have developed a wonderful family of choice and made a life for myself with room for all of who I am.
When I was in the worst stages of my addiction, and my recovery, I isolated like the commentator, and any pain I caused my perpetrators was probably from pangs of guilt more than anything else. I managed to keep everyone else away from me. I didn't have anyone because I didn't think I was worth anything to anyone, and created a self-fulfilling prophecy. When I stopped drinking and drugging, this left me real vulnerable to a particular type of misanthropic, often charlatan, type of person who can be found in or around any AA anywhere (I had home groups in four different cities over the years). Mind you, I'm not saying all AA is like that, just that all AA attracts such people, and they prey on people like I was. I've seen it many times and experienced it more than once before I wised up. These types took some people's lives to get what they wanted and almost got mine. Maybe someday I'll tell that story here, but I try to keep things general so more people can relate and also so as to remain anonymous myself.
Anyway, there was no wife or partner or significant other in my addiction because I thought I was too fucked up to be with anyone -- and I mostly was. Type Bs tend to blame themselves and take on the violence and anger of others as their own. This has ...ummm....negative effects on one's social skills and attractiveness to others. This is what I had to learn to reject and get angry at in order to get better, that the guilt and shame I felt were not mine, but belonged to others, and I would imagine that the commentator was trying to express something similar. I am sure if he or she had people in his or her life, they were affected as you say, but some of us clear everyone out for their own good to protect them from what awful people we have been taught by our perpetrators to believe that we are. Realizing that was a lie, and dumping the evil others had dumped on me in a safe and non-abusive way were key to getting to a place where I could let people in and have real relationships. I could have gone to AA for eternity and I would never have learned what I needed there.
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