Do I have PTSD??

[beacartoonheart]

I have been NC with my borderline mother for 4 years now. Going to the city I grew up in is hard. Visiting friends there gives me anxiety because I'm afraid that I will see her. I put in work refusals so that i don't have to go to that city on the off chance I bump into her. I'm not an anxious person but the thought of seeing her makes me feel unwell. I have dreams of her that are so real and so hard to get over. Dreams where she is screaming at me like she used to, dreams of her putting me down and odd creepy dreams of her trying to find me to ruin what little bit of me I have left. The other day I was in the back yard and I could have sworn I heard her screeching my name to the point my body froze. I'm pretty sure that in that moment i blacked out in fear. I was confused about where I was and how she could possibly be in my backyard not knowing where I lived. I had to find a way to talk myself down, tell myself to calm down and that it must have all been in my head. I have never had this happen to me before, I really thought she was in my backyard.... I'm scared. Has anyone else experienced this before? Am I losing my marbles??

[BettyGray]

beacartoonheart ~
I am so sorry you are going through this. We should not have to live in fear. Especially fear of our families. But, sadly, we do. It is always there, to varying degrees.

I can’t diagnose you, but I can share my experience. I was diagnosed with C-PTSD a few years ago, around the time I went NC with my entire FOO (around the same time as you). As I learned more about C-PTSD, it all began to make sense. Years of depression and anxiety and inexplicable, deep anger fit everything I learned about the disorder. I checked every box. In a way, it was a monumental relief. I thought I was going crazy- now I understood why.

The first 6 months to a year, I lived in debilitating fear that they would just show up at my house or my place of work. It was truly terrifying. I put extra locks on my door. Every car door that I heard shut close to my house sent me into a panic. It interfered with my life so much that I only felt safe if I was away from both. The feeling of being scared in my own home - MY safe space - angered me and at times rendered me unable to function for days on end.

Besides therapy (which I have been in and out of for 30 years) and medication (which I had been on and off of for the same amount of time), the book that helped me was “Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving: A Guide and Map for Recovering from Childhood Trauma” by Pete Walker.

I was off of meds when I went NC. I was at such a low point that suicide seemed like my only option - a way out. Getting back on medication saved my life. Honestly. That and support from my DH.

But before the meds started to work- I was extremely volatile, paranoid, full of rage. I was so easily triggered. And so much of it defied logic. I was increasingly forgetful. Especially when I got triggered- I couldn’t remember things that had happened just an hour before. I felt like huge chunks of my brain were just leaving me - I was terrified. Rapid heartbeat... sinking feeling in my stomach. I felt like all of the skin had been stripped off of my body and the slightest thing could send me spiraling down. I was so filled with rage that would come from seemingly nowhere- going from 1 to 10 in the blink of an eye. I was scary to DH - who wouldn’t be scared at that much rage coming at them? I  was exhausted. I was out of control. I felt like my brain had been hijacked - that it no longer belonged to me. That scared me the most.

Learning to manage C-PTSD was one of the hardest mountains I have climbed. And I don’t think I could have done it without help from medication. Through many, many screaming matches with DH that sometimes lasted for days, I was eventually able to determine what triggered me and how to talk myself down from a flashback. My wonderful therapist taught me how to bring myself back into my body...to calm myself... to avoid triggers as much as possible but also knowing they can come from out of nowhere. But how to be prepared when they did happen.

For me, the triggers happened so fast that I wasn’t aware I had been triggered until I was deep in flashback territory. Over time, it got easier to recognize and prevent flashbacks.

If you’re not in therapy, and can afford to go see someone, it can be immensely helpful. I just happened to luck into a T that specialized in C-PTSD. She had it too, so she understood. She showed me her methods of dealing with it. If you can find someone experienced in this disorder you can leapfrog past ones who don’t know as much and may not be helpful. Most cognitive behavioral therapies don’t work very well with PTSD because they focus on thinking and talking and not body trauma (not just physical harm, but psychological). Our bodies remember how we felt when traumatic experiences happened to us.

An important thing to realize about the disorder is that it has a strong physical component. Trauma is stored in the body, and isn’t something that logic/reason can help in the moment.
“The Body Keeps the Score” by  Dr. Bessel van der Kolk is another helpful book.

I hope this helps. Very few people can uunderstand  what this feels like.  Sadly, it is a road we must mostly travel alone. All those around us can do is learn about C-PTSD, educate themselves, be patient, and love us through it.

Learn your ACE score (Adverse Childhood Experiences). Read what you can find here on the forums and books, magazine articles, etc. There are helpful YouTube videos as well.

I haven’t been triggered in a long time, but when I sense something brewing, I can usually nip it in the bud.

[Bellie]

Liz1018 you have described perfectly how I am feeling right now. C-PTSD is now on my radar and I will be doing research into it. I have been NC for 3 years and my N-mother has just reentered my life as she is getting divorced. I have no control over my feelings at all it seems right now, I am triggered on a daily basis and I am scared that I don't know how to fix myself (again). Been there done that 3 years ago! What scares me the most is the extreme anger I am feeling and the sudden blow ups I have - going from 1-10 in a matter of seconds.Thank you for bringing the idea of PTSD to my awareness, it helps to know that I am not going crazy!
We are all very brave when we think about it. We have suffered extreme trauma in our lives and we recognize what we have to do to heal and we go for it, even knowing at the outset that it's going to be a long hard road. We should be proud of ourselves (hard as that sounds) because we are survivors!

[FogDawg]

This website offers the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) Quiz and gives a lot of information relating to what is likely based on the score: https://acestoohigh.com/got-your-ace-score/. Even a number that may seem low upon first glance is not, negating what many of us have heard - "You have nothing to be upset/depressed about." Any trauma is significant. From the linked website: "The field of epigenetics shows that we are born with a set of genes that can be turned on and off, depending on what's happening in our environment. If a child grows up with an overload of toxic stress, their stress-response genes are likely to be activated so that they are easily triggered by stressful situations that don't affect those who don't grow up with toxic stress." I would say that C-PTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder) is a possibility for many of us here, with it being brought on by years of abuse, as opposed to PTSD's single-incident cause.

[BettyGray]

“Any trauma is significant” - I wish more people understood this. Especially women- we have been programmed to avoid conflict and suppress our anger. My T said it isn’t uncommon for women of a certain age to not be able to hold the dam anymore. We are seeing this in our current world- Women, minorities, same sex couples are around the world are sick and tired of being told our trauma doesn’t matter/didn’t happen, or is us “overreacting.”

They do not get to dismissively decide that for us. And neither do our toxic families. So yeah, we get to a point when we realize we are not only stronger than we think, but have a choice. There are more of us than than them. And we are growing.

It sounds as though you have reached that point. When your physical body is beginning to break down from the stress, it is time to choose the great unknown rather than the unsafe known. Trust yourself and your body.

Bellie - something you wrote stuck with me: “...fix myself (again).” We do all seem to go through new traumas with our PDs. And we can also be retraumatized by the same people- which prevents us from healing properly.

I did a journal exercise not too long ago which helped me tremendously. I wrote a letter to my 18 year old self from my 28 year old self. Then I did from 38 to 28 - and 48 to 38. I remembered how I felt at that time - good and bad. Whatever I dreamed for myself, I have pretty much accomplished. The awful things seemed insurmountable at the time. I ended every paragraph with “But you will get through it.”

It made me realize just how many things I had pulled myself up from - out of the depths of despair, hopelessness and fear. Amazing. Very powerful.

It also made me realize that I did a lot of it all by myself. With only my will, intuition and thirst to understand how to fix it all. Our families can’t be fixed. But we can stop wasting our tears and energy and on them, and fix ourselves. Each time we fight and win we get stronger. It is so liberating.

Good luck to you who share this burden. There is always more to learn about ourselves. And opportunities to overcome the horrors of the past by reclaiming the days we have left here on earth.

[beacartoonheart]

I really appreciate all of your help. I will look into the c-ptsd possibilities. I will look into reading the books recommended.  I am so thankful to now have a path to research where as before my post, i felt like i was in some sort of limbo. I have not been to therapy but i have read multiple self help books related to bpd, i understand it as much as someone without it can but it is nice to know that there might be some books out there that can help me heal further and i really appreciate the recommendations. My anger issues have actually diminished since NC with my bpd mother, i have never been so calm and i have always been a calm person. The 0 to 100 has not happened in a while but i am very familiar with that loss of control.... I'm not sure if maybe i am in a different stage of healing or if maybe i am in the calm before the storm.

[BettyGray]

Bea,
So glad to hear that you are feeling better. I would say you are graduating into a new stage of healing. We have all been conditioned to put others' needs before our own. So to be able to focus on ourselves for any period of time, away from the chaos, feels a bit strange. But it is long overdue.

As for "calm before the storm," ...that way of thinking - being hyper-vigilant    - is also very deeply engrained. It most likely stems from a chaotic, traumatic upbringing where bad things happened with regularity. I know there was always some huge (often exacerbated by their dramatics and bad choices) crisis that pulled everyone into it. It was exhausting.

"Waiting for the other shoe to drop" is a dangerous mentality to carry around because if you're waiting for a disaster to happen, you're not in a healing headspace. So many of these behaviors and fears we adopted were not our choice. But we bore the consequences of others' destructive choices. Never knowing what will come next, and fearing that it will be awful, is a result of having no control for most of our lives.

That is why PTSD is so insidious- it is loss of control out of nowhere. Glad to hear you are not experiencing that 0 to100 right now. Having control of our own lives is a foreign concept to lots of us here. Learning to control our thoughts and fears is no easy mountain to climb. But learning to recognize negative and fearful thinking that repeats itself into recognizable patterns is the first step to detoxing from our destructive thoughts.

Wishing you well. You're strong and getting stronger every day.

[beacartoonheart]

Thank you Liz,
The calm before the storm has always been a familiar feeling for me. Even right now writing in these posts, part of me feels like this is not a safe place and that perhaps someone i know is pretending to be one of you, just to get info from me.... i know it sounds silly but it's hard to believe that strangers would really take the time to help me when my own bpd mother, someone who is supposed to care for me caused me so much pain. Anytime i feel just a tad happy, i'm standing there waiting for someone to take that "happy" away from me. I'm not sure that feeling will ever go away, i think it has become a defence mechanism. Anytime anyone tries to get to know me, the real me, i answer very limited questions and the ones i do answer are never personal ones but i always feel sick to my stomach after wondering what they will use that information for or why they would even care to know. I've been called a closed book in past relationships and i never really understood what it meant until now. So thank you for pointing that out, i clearly have a lot more work to do in terms of healing. I need to step beside my "i'm fine it's in the past" attitude and work a little harder to be a better version of myself.

[JustKat]

Hi beacartoonheart,

No, you're not losing your marbles. What you're experiencing is a normal reaction to the trauma you've been through.

I first starting having physical symptoms when I was 35 and was diagnosed with GAD. I had never heard of C-PTSD until I read about it on a forum like this one, so I asked my psychiatrist if I might also have that. She said yes, I probably do. When the anxiety first started it would worsen close to the holidays or any time I had to be near my mother. I eventually went NC. She passed away five years ago but I'm still triggered by Mother's Day, Christmas, or any event that makes me think of her. Like you, I also have scary dreams. The dreams are never based on something that actually happened, but are instead nightmares about her locking me in a closet, running me down with a car, doing something to harm me.

I'm able to manage it with medication and therapy, but I don't think it will ever go away completely. I've accepted that I can't erase 50 years of trauma, but I can at least make it better.

Do keep posting here as it's both comforting and validating to hear from others who have experienced the same things. I wish you all the best on your road to recovery.