HopeintheMess

Tag: PTSD

  • Trauma

    We talked in therapy last session about identifying triggering situations and slowly exposing myself to them. This is incredibly hard to think about. One of the things that I am slowly realizing is there are so many things that cause me to have intrusive thoughts, memories and flashbacks of M.  I do not want to deal with this but I know that if I do not it will only get worse.  PTSD makes it hard to engage with others because it can make people relive the most painful experiences over and over again.  How can you explain this to someone?  It is not exactly like your friends at the coffee shop want to hear about your nightmares the night before.   It is a hard fought battle that many are scared to share.
     
     
    When I try to fall asleep I can feel his arms reaching around me. He would say that the only way he could sleep was to do “play”.  I hate those words. The way he pulled me in toward him and gripped me showed me that I did not have the option of saying no.  The times I resisted he would show me that it was not good to fight.  I sometimes feel like I am watching my body walk around trying to cope in this world.  I wonder how these things could happen.   I can be ok with my weight and have good body image but feel so uncomfortable. I feel him on me. As soon as I lie down at night it feels like he is there. I am scared. I used to go to bed so early so I could be asleep when he came into the bedroom. He knew if I was pretending to be asleep. Something as simple as putting my head on my pillow brings up so many memories. Why did he have to hurt me? I feel like my skin is dirty. I feel like I need to cover up.
     
     
    Part of the exposure work involves doing the opposite of what triggers me. This involves changing sleep habits, sleeping in new pajamas, sleep hygiene, sleeping on a different side of the bed. It involves anything that can be new and different than what occurred with M. I am working on figuring those things out. Divorce is supposed to take the person out of your life. He is not out yet. He is still in my head, home, and nightmares. I got through really tough times with the eating disorder. I got through the divorce. I know I can get through this. It is painful to work through this but it is also painful to deal with the symptoms. My grandmother always said, “This to shall Pass”
     
     
     
     
     
     

  • Divorce final

    I am back to my blog! It has been a few years since posting! So much has happened in the past few years. I wanted to write about much of it over several posts. Most recently, I went through a divorce. The judge actually signed off on it February 5th of this year. This was such a long process. I left Matt September of 2014. This was a much needed separation. As I worked through getting healthy from the eating disorder he could not handle it. I went through a lot of abuse throughout the marriage. Mostly emotional and sexual. The abuse got much worse as I became a healthier person. I am now dealing with PTSD in the aftermath of the marriage and abuse. I am working on this with my therapist. I would love to say that everything with the eating disorder stuff stayed great throughout but the stress of the divorce has made some things difficult. I am working to get through the PTSD treatment and adjust to life as a single mom now. I now have to beautiful children. We have a wonderful life to look forward to!
    After a long separation, long court battle and many brutal attacks by him our divorce is officially final. I did not know how I would feel when it was actually over. The process was so incredibly exhausting both physically and emotionally. Everyone kept telling me that it would just be a big relief. As the final date was actually approaching and we had signed papers but were waiting on the judge to sign and file I felt a sense of nothingness. I do not know what to think. There is part of me that is sad. I look back at the the little girl dreaming of the perfect wedding, marriage, life and family of four. My parents have an amazing marriage and provided such an example of partnership, love, and family. That is all I knew. I felt so betrayed, devastated, lonely and hopeless when M started treating me the way he did. I wanted what I realized I was never going to get. I think I am more sad of the things I wanted out of marriage and thought we would have instead of the empty promises and hurt. Is it weird that this makes me more sad than the abuse I endured? I feel so very sad for the pain that I know the children will have for parents that separate. This ends their fairy tale too. I am relieved to be done. I feel like I can breathe. I am left feeling a sense of loss.