inner child

What to do when PTSD tells you that the entire world is unsafe?

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I don’t know what to do when PTSD tells me that the entire world is  unsafe.

Trust no one.  Trust no one.  Trust no one.

Everyone will let me down.  Nobody understands me.  It’s not safe to trust.  It’s not safe to open up.  The system is broken.  Nobody believes me.

Maybe it’s me.  Maybe I’m the common link.  Maybe I’m so deeply flawed that people are better off away from me.  Maybe I deserved to be abused.  Maybe I’m the real abuser.  Maybe I’m broken and selfish.  Maybe I am controlling.  Maybe I am incapable of loving someone.

PTSD lies a lot.

PTSD makes me push people away over tiny mistakes.  PTSD makes me feel like a small vulnerable child, when someone says one harsh word.  PTSD makes me freeze in a conflict or do anything to get out of it, even if that course of action doesn’t make long term sense.

PTSD at its root tells me that the world is unsafe.  PTSD tells me that I’m unsafe and that I’ll never be safe.

It also tells me that situations are either perfectly safe or completely unsafe and dangerous.

PTSD doesn’t find a middle ground easily.

I need to get safe and grounded before the middle ground reappears.

When I’m triggered it’s all or nothing.  All the fear.  All the self criticism.  Pushing people completely away.  Feeling hopeless and that nothing has meaning.

PTSD makes me feel like trust is completely destroyed when someone makes a mistake that hurts me.  PTSD tells me that person can no longer be trusted because they will only hurt me again.  PTSD tells me that I’m safer alone.  Or that others are safer away from me.

PTSD is not a realistic judge of anything.  It doesn’t accurately assess danger.  It doesn’t accurately assess me.  It doesn’t analyze situations clearly.  It doesn’t forgive.  It doesn’t forget.  It never forgets ANYTHING that makes me feel unsafe.  And it all gets tied together in a giant clump of tangled unsafe, danger.

On the other hand, PTSD tends to forget the good times, the moments of safety.  The moments of laughter.  The moments when life has so much meaning it hurts.  It forgets the perfect moments, or tells me they are worthless because they ended.

I’m not a perfectionist.  PTSD is a perfectionist.  I’m not a control freak.  PTSD is a control freak.   I’m not a judgmental person.  PTSD is judgmental.

PTSD changes me into a person I don’t even like.

I know people have limits and boundaries and are fallible.  I know I have limits and flaws.  I know that life has good times and bad.  I know that it’s important to be grateful and see the joy in little things.

I know.

But I don’t believe.  PTSD doesn’t let me believe.  PTSD doesn’t want to risk losing the good things, so it doesn’t want to get attached to them.  PTSD is always expecting the next crisis, the next drama, the next danger, the next heart break and the next pain.  PTSD is a child cowering in the corner waiting to be hit. PTSD doesn’t let me “just calm down” or “just smile.”

I’m always waiting to be abused again.  I’m always expecting to be hurt again.

Deep down inside I’m scared that I deserve it.  That I’m not a good person.

PTSD makes me believe that I’m not a good person and that I don’t deserve happiness and health.

PTSD makes me neglect my health, because “what’s the point anyways?”

PTSD tells me that nobody believes me.

PTSD is the combined voice of all the people who have abused and hurt me over the course of my life.  PTSD isn’t me.  It’s not my voice.  It’s not random and it’s not a character flaw.   It’s the cumulative result of years of gaslighting, emotional, physical and sexual violence.  It’s the result of a broken system, systemic/institutionalized abuse which did not validate my experiences.  It’s the result of the psychiatric system, the legal system, the police, child protection and violations of trust by people in authority.

PTSD is the reason I’ve spent more than half of my life not really caring about living (at best) or actively wanting to die (at worst).

Sometimes when I’m triggered it’s not just Ana (my angry teenager) who is on the scene.  It’s a much younger child, almost pre-verbal.  All that younger part wants is to be wrapped in warm quilts and be held.   She wants her hair stroked as she cries.  She wants to be cradled and rocked and shushed.  Gently and patiently, like a parent with an infant.   That part isn’t angry like Ana,  she’s just a deep well of unmet needs.  She just wants to be safe.  This inner child has been around a lot the past few weeks.

I just want to be safe.

But I’m an adult.  And I have to take care of my needs myself now.

Trusting my younger self.

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I’ve been reading through my journal from the first year of the relationship with my abusive ex-husband.  I’ve been reflecting on how I was gaslighted and how, in a way, I gaslighted myself.  I used the same coping techniques I did when I was abused at age 15. I found myself in another abusive relationship and I immediately began self harming, restricting food, and thinking about suicide.  As a distraction it worked, just as it had when I was a child.  I did what I needed to do to survive. I turned to creative (if self destructive) coping techniques that got me through very difficult situations.  But my inner self, my younger self did know something was wrong.  There was a part of me, healthy me, which was separate from “the voice” or “Ana.”  That part of me knew that my new relationship was deeply and integrally connected to my relapse and worsening psychiatric symptoms.  My wise younger inner self knew that I was in trouble, but she asked for help in ways that distracted and confused other people, even her own healthy self.

This is a concept that is often very difficult for those who have not survived abuse to understand.  It can be challenging to understand that the survivor will do whatever it takes to survive, even if those coping techniques may look like self destructive behaviours from the outside.  The survivor may feel she has limited or no options.  For various reasons she has been conditioned not to scream, tell, ask for help, run away, fight back etc…or maybe she tried those things and they didn’t work. So instead she turned to disassociation, self harm and eating disorders as a way to modulate and live with the abuse and all the symptoms of PTSD.

I was conditioned, maybe almost from birth, not to make a fuss.  I was conditioned, maybe almost from birth, to be a “good girl.”  I internalized this in a way that led me to blame myself for the abusive behaviours of others.  If I was being hurt it was because I wasn’t a “good girl” and if I wasn’t a “good girl,” then I must be a bad girl, maybe a very bad, shameful, dirty and disgusting girl.  Thus, Ana/”the voice” was born.  There was a part of me that split off and became self abusive and self critical.  A younger self, a part that never ages or matures.  A 15 year old frozen in time.

This is how I described “the voice” when I was 20 years old (ironically the description came right after mentioning intimacy with my ex):

February 21, 2001

“My body feels too big and uncomfortable right now.  I know it’s because I’ve been eating more normally and feeling hungry.  The sensation of hunger is not an easy one for me.  It is frightening. Like I feel afraid of losing control of myself. And yet I know that the E.D is out of control. It is a part of me that often deceives and betrays me. I know that in the end, though it feels comfortable, it cannot be trusted.  The voice which tells me not to eat, tells me to cut my skin, to smash my head against a wall, to step out in front of traffic all sorts of dangerous hurtful things.  It speaks to me in persuasive ways.  It is a part of me and yet foreign.  My ally and my enemy, my strength and my destruction. But after so many years it is the way I know.  A method of ridding myself of unwanted feelings”

When I was 20 I was able to recognize some of the signs of abusive behaviour in my ex. I was able to identify that I felt afraid.  But I didn’t draw the right conclusions from there. I blamed myself, I thought I needed to work on my depression, my recovery, get better at coping with anger etc.  My younger self tried to problem solve by changing herself, just as she had at age 15.  Just as she had for her entire life.

March 12, 2001  [written after being asked to swing dance with and dancing with a friend, a man I’d briefly dated]

“So the evening was going well until one crucial moment…asked me to dance.  I figured one dance wouldn’t hurt and I didn’t think [he] would mind…but [he] did get upset and left the room.  I followed after the song was over. [He] got angry at me saying that I couldn’t stand up for myself and say NO.  He totally misunderstood and overreacted.  I got terribly upset and started crying totally uncontrollably…I was so disappointed that my night was ruined.  I felt so much like hurting I became filled with intense suicidal thoughts. I hate feeling my independence threatened by a relationship. I want the freedom to choose who is in my life.  When [he] gets angry it just terrifies me and makes me want to hurt, with him is when I feel the strongest feelings”

My younger self clearly articulated that she felt uncomfortable with being controlled and with the jealous behaviour.  She clearly made a link between the angry jealous behaviour of her boyfriend and the suicidal and self harm impulses.  My younger self was wise on a deeper level, and yet she stayed with that man for 13 years.  It’s difficult to make sense of.  My adult self wants to travel back in time to that night, to go back to the dance with my friends, to tell him in no uncertain terms to F*#K OFF and leave me alone.  My adult self wants to protect that younger me, give her the strength to listen to her instincts and fight back rather than turning to a downward spiral of self destruction that would lead to 4 years in and out of psychiatric hospitals.

The next day, March 12, 2001 I was admitted to the hospital.  I wrote in my journal again, but made no link between the previous evening and my suicidal obsessive thoughts.  The self destruction worked as a distraction from his controlling behaviour.  The hospital was a place to get away from him.  The routine and the process of hospitalization was an escape.  I would feel safer in the hospital for a few hours or a few days, then I’d realize that the hospital wasn’t a solution and I’d want to be home.

I think what I really wanted was to be safe.  What I needed to be safe was to exit the abusive relationship in those early stages, when I still had the chance.

Because within a few short weeks I was already beginning to convince myself it was my depression and PTSD causing the issues in our relationship:

March 26, 2001

“The things that I thought were stable and unchanging have become uncomfortable. I can’t tell if it’s my depression pushing [him] away or actually me. It’s so hard to face that possibility. I want things between us to be simple again. I miss how easy we used to be together.  Now I feel distant from our relationship”

April 4, 2001

“I don’t feel as easy around [him] lately. Mind you I haven’t felt easy around anyone lately. I feel withdrawn, like I have built up the walls around me for protection from the storm.  But this is so ineffective because my storm is coming mainly from within. I don’t know how to protect myself from myself. I really am my own worst enemy”

Maybe I was never my own worst enemy.

Maybe the storm was never “mainly” from within.  Maybe I was confused and living with emotional abuse and gaslighting.  Maybe I bought into blaming myself as a coping technique, as a way to survive, and as a way to feel more in control of a scary situation.  I blamed myself and my mental illness rather than facing the reality that I was in an abusive relationship.  It was “easier” to seek help through psychiatry than it was to leave the relationship.

Looking back it all seems clear.  But my 20 year old self had less wisdom, less experience, less resources and less knowledge.  My 20 year old self did the best she could.  She did try to express herself, she just didn’t have the skills to listen to herself or to ask for the type of help she truly needed.  And those around her weren’t able to interpret her self destructive behaviours as, not a cry for attention or a manipulation, but a message.  A red flag waving, signalling that all was not well.  Help was needed, but psychiatry wasn’t the correct tool for the task.

Unfortunately, my younger self wouldn’t cross the threshold of a rape crisis centre for another 12 years.

Celebrating One Year of Hopeforsanity Blog!

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It’s been one year since I started writing this blog.  If you are a new reader I encourage you to go back and read the first few posts of this blog.  To all of you who are reading, following, liking, sharing and commenting: THANK YOU!  I’m writing this blog for the dual purpose of expressing myself and connecting with others who are struggling, letting them know they are not alone.  You are not alone.   Though this blog has dealt with graphic and dark topics, I aim for the overall message to be one of hope and resilience.

Twenty one years ago tomorrow (April 12, 1996) the entire course of my life changed.  I was 15 years old and I entered into an abusive relationship that altered my relationship to myself, my friends, my family and my body.  I went from a relatively happy, self assured, popular 15 year old girl, to an anorexic, withdrawn, self-hating, 16 year old young woman.

I believe Ana was born at this time.  It’s no coincidence that Ana is 15 years old.  Ana is my traumatized child self personified.   Ana is angry in ways my younger self could not be.  Ana is all the fear, shame, guilt and hopelessness personified into a rebellious teenager who only wants to hurt me and say a giant F U to the rules of the world.

Sometimes I wonder how my life would be different if I’d never dated X.  If I’d never tried to befriend him.  If I’d never believed that I could help him feel better about himself.

I also wonder how my life would have been different if I’d been taught as a child that it’s okay not to be “nice” to someone who is hurting you.  I wonder how my life would have been different if I’d been less concerned with being “perfect” and more concerned with protecting myself.  I wonder how my life would have been different if I’d realized that saving myself was even an option.  I was an easy target for perpetrators of abuse.  I played the role of rescuer, helper, caretaker and I never wanted to let anyone down or disappoint anyone.

People who don’t understand normal coping reactions to sexual violence have asked me:  Why didn’t you just scream?  Why didn’t you tell someone?  Why didn’t you push him and run away?

All I can say is that the answer is so complicated.  The answer lies in the social conditioning of some women living in a patriarchal, rape culture.  The answer lies in being taught to be “good” rather than to be true to oneself.  The answer lies in physiological responses which caused me to freeze and disassociate rather than fighting or fleeing.   Those physiological responses were not random, but were connected to the socialization of being a “good girl.”

My 15 year old self never would have considered screaming or fighting back.  Because she was ashamed, blamed herself and never wanted to make a scene.  My 15 year old self was confused and inexperienced and it took her a while to figure out that she didn’t like the sexual experiences that were being forced on her.  It took her a while to figure out that she wasn’t really choosing.  By the time she realized it wasn’t right, she was already coping by disassociating to lessen the impact of the abuse.  By the time she started firmly saying no, the pattern of abuse and the cycle of violence was already firmly established.   And because she was not naturally an assertive child and had not been taught to fight back in self defense, when her no wasn’t listened to, she began to shut down even further, withdraw further and develop other ingenious coping techniques such as anorexia, self harm and disassociating completely.

These reactions weren’t accidental.  They were conditioned from a young age.  Adults have to teach children to fight back.  Adults have to teach children that being nice can stop when someone crosses a boundary.  Adults have to teach children to fight like hell to escape a dangerous situation.  And even if a child learns all these things, it is still possible that in a violent situation freezing can be the only available option.   Many people being abused feel that fighting back would only result in further violence and physical injuries.

In my case, what kept me frozen was guilt and shame.  I thought I was doing something shameful by being sexual.  I thought that his family and my family would judge me.  I thought that my friends would judge me for neglecting them (as I was being socially isolated by the abuser).   Self blame kept me frozen and not fighting back.

Even as an adult, 21 years later, I still cope with conflict and stress by freezing or disassociating.  I’m still not skilled at saying no.  I also have difficulty saying yes or asking for what I need.

I think for a person who has experienced sexual violence it is difficult to say no.  Because in the abusive situation no was ignored and pushed past.  So staying silent feels less painful than having no not respected.  If I never really say no, I can’t be abused again.  It’s warped logic.  It is not productive or helpful, and it also prevents me from comfortably saying yes.

For someone whose boundaries have been consistently violated, setting boundaries can become a life long struggle.  A skill that must be learned or relearned gradually and with patience and self compassion.

Quite simply, I survived in abusive relationships for many years because I literally felt I had no other option.  I didn’t even feel like I deserved to be respected and I was gaslighted into believing the abuse was my own fault.

It’s never helpful to ask a survivor “Why didn’t  you just leave?”

Keep those thoughts to yourself.

They would have left if they could have.  And if they did leave, they are successful.  It doesn’t matter how long it took.  It took as long as it needed and not a moment longer.  Celebrate the reality, don’t question why it didn’t happen sooner.  “Why didn’t you just leave?” is a type of victim blaming statement.   If you don’t understand how someone could be trapped into an abusive relationship, educate yourself.  Don’t ask the survivor to educate you on their own painful lived experiences.  Survivors need to feel believed and validated, not questioned into justifying their existence.

Every year on April 12, I count another year of my life that has been impacted by sexual violence.  It is a grim reminder that for many survivors, myself including,  that the abuse was not “a long time ago” and we can’t “just get over it”  or “just move on.”  For people living with PTSD, time is a slippery beast.  Ana is still 15 years old.  Ana is me, she’s a part of me.  A part of me that never really grew up.  A part of me that needs parenting.

I’ve never parented a teenager before. I have no experience.  But I guess I’ll have to start somewhere.  And starting with acknowledging she is here, and she has unmet needs, is as good a place as any!

 

Meet Ana.

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These pictures are of a cartoon girl called Emily Strange.  If I could draw a comic book version of Ana, she would look something like Emily Strange.

Ana isn’t just my eating disorder personified.   Ana isn’t just a nickname for anorexia.  Ana is another part of me.  I experience Ana as an angry teenage girl.  She isn’t just me as a teenager.  She has long straight black hair and very pale white skin.  She has dark eyes which are usually downcast.   Her fists clench when she is angry.  She wears hoodies, dark clothes, army boots and skirts.  She is slim and looks like she could sneak around very easily, light on her feet and quiet.  She is filled with anger and yet she doesn’t take up much obvious space.   Ana is my inner child.  Ana is my alter ego.  Ana is my eating disorder.  Ana is self harm and suicidal thoughts.  Because Ana is a scared, teenage girl.

Ana is the part of me that doesn’t trust you.

Ana is the part of me that wants everything or nothing at all.  Complete loyalty, or no friendship.

Ana is the part of me that feels like nobody believes me.   Ana doesn’t feel heard and when she is angry, she hurts me rather than expressing herself assertively.

Ana acts out, but that’s because she’s  young.  She’s probably only 14 or 15 years old.  She doesn’t have life skills.  Her anger is a mask for fears she is too afraid to share.  Her prickly exterior is a mask hiding deep vulnerability and shame.

Ana feels worthless.  Ana feels helpless.  Ana feels like punishing me is the only solution to these feelings.

Ana acts like a complete spoiled, controlling brat, when she really wants to be rescued.   She makes unreasonable rules rather than admitting she is afraid.

Ana craves safety, yet acts like she does not need protection.

Ana blames herself for being abused.   Ana feels responsible and wants to protect me by keeping me alone.  Ana tries to push people away with self harm, suicidal thoughts and eating disorder behaviours.  Ana thinks if we are smaller and take up less space we will be safer.

Ana is me.  At least she is a part of me, but I don’t know how to make peace with her, forgive her, accept her and come to a truce.  I don’t know how to integrate her, so that we become just one adult person again.  I’m not sure how to soothe this angry child inside of me.  We lack compassion for each other and for our younger selves.

I hope one day I can truly feel that Ana deserves forgiveness for hurting me.  And that she can forgive me for not protecting her.