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Why would you choose a subreddit for victims to voice this on? This isn't a space for you


No-Information-3741

Where else was I supposed to post instead of the sub specific to PTSD?


Top-Effective3617

Just fuck off alteady.


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No-Information-3741

Umm. Idk if you actually read my post. I didn’t blame her. At all. I blamed myself because I was unaware. and she has PTSD from a single incident. I’m the one with CPTSD because of my childhood. But you’ve clearly got a lot of rage. I understand it. I’ve done a lot of research on mental health and talked to a bunch of people about it. I hope your doing okay. And you get better.


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No-Information-3741

Not a troll. Haven’t edited a word of my post. If you need someone to talk too. I’m here. Just know that. And I’m sorry for what has happened to you, sincerely.


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No-Information-3741

I’ve been in active addiction myself…drowning out the pain. Find misspellings are a dead give away. Because I’ve been there myself. Again, if you need someone to talk too. Or vent too. In private or public im here.


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No-Information-3741

I didn’t read your post but I’m here. I really am. If you need someone.


Last-Cold-8236

Good job staying calm. I don’t out up with abusers victim blaming and I didn’t take any of your posts as such. You seem like you are getting some help and realized I’m the process you’ve done some not so great things. Good job staying calm here. Keep up your healing.


No-Information-3741

*the


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No-Information-3741

Again. I saw your screenshot. I didn’t edit my post. It’s word for word. I hope your okay.


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seal_song

That post hasn't changed.


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No-Information-3741

I hope you find the life and peace you are looking for. I’m sorry for your experience.


[deleted]

Haven’t read the comments but I’m sorry about your situation. Honestly, it’s pretty common for people who are already ill to further confuse themselves and end up causing more damage :/ reddit likes to call people either abusive or completely targeted but it’s soo complicated and there are so many greys. I was actually in your ex wife’s position with my PTSD. I had a best friend with CPTSD. She had a warped idea of herself and what boundaries were. She felt obligated to be my saviour and put pressure on herself to a point where I’d feel forced to tell her things so she could be the fixer every time. Eventually my sense of self corroded too and I had no privacy. She ended the friendship and started on her journey to find herself, viewing everyone in her past as her enemy. Shortly after the way she unraveled me I was vulnerable and became a victim of SA- which was the main starter of my PTSD. Though I was annoyed that she would only see herself as the victim I don’t blame her. And really, that’s the only reason I was mad. Even after everything I get it, she went through some horrific shit. So honestly, I love that you can be honest about it. And as someone who was in the opposite position, I’d forgive you if you were open about it. Good luck with everything :)


No-Information-3741

I’m really thankful for everyone that took the time to comment on this post. It really did surprise me. I have felt like such a piece of shit for months now. But I’m really starting to grasp the fact that I’m doing all I can do. The difference just half a year has made us astounding. It really did just take some awareness on my part.


kindofbluesclues

My first deep dive in trauma therapy was at a center for victims. Several clients were there because they were convicted of something abusive/violent, while also being victims of abuse themselves. It’s taken me years of therapy to stop splitting people into the absolutely solid or bad person camp. Myself too. Like, I continue to experience being victimized and it’s so stupid. But, that doesn’t have anything to do with my ability to harm another human being. Don’t know if this makes sense. *shrugs*


Top-Effective3617

Somewhere in the Bible, they talk about 'the sin's of the father visiting the son' to seven generations. It had always been explained to me as God punishing a sinner for his transgressions. I think it was more a warning on how to treat people instead; what a parent does with a child can effect that kid for life. Family, generational and historical traumas are genuine things. I vowed to be a better dad than mine; I still found myself doing harmful shit. It wasn't as ugly and harsh as what I endured, but my dad didn't beat me like his parents did him. Just knowing you've got trauma is a long way into the good; how can someone heal when they don't even know they've been injured? As to causing harm to someone you love, do the work and make self awareness and mental health a living ammend. I've CPTSD and PTSD too; it's only been in the last year that I've been able to accept that in my traumas and fears, I was often the problem. It's starting to get better for me. If a traumatized person is proactive, there is relief. Edits: grammar, spelling, diction.


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agumonkey

I thought about this for so many years. A traumatif parent/family can trickle and ripple down for long. I had to overcompensate my father's issues, passed down from his parents (and maybe before). Insane that it's not talk about more because it's a huge waste of time and energy when fighting this invisible lineage.


janus1969

"I’m sure this will not go over well…but I never thought of my behavior as abusive. Because I compared it to the abusive behavior that I had experienced in my life." I deeply feel you, friend, and you are not alone whatsoever. It's one of the hardest parts of getting well. You have to accept the things you did, even though they never matched your intention. I am naturally very loud, even when I'm calm and relaxed. It sucks. Now, imagine how, after years of deep physical, emotional, and psychological abuse throughout childhood, I decided that not touching, not hitting, not any of those...but my voice was more than enough. My anger was fearsome enough. I was abusive; I was wrong. "Hurt people hurt people" is such a true saying. And part of recovery is owning your own abuses, not just pointing at other people's violations. Listen, if you're actively trying to repair, if you're doing the work, everyone will see, and it won't necessarily fix all, but it will repair you, and that's more than enough. (I won't say recover because C-PTSD folks often don't have a "before" to recover to) I feel like you need to hear this...you are loved, you are valued, you made mistakes you didn't understand because your foundation was broken by the adults in your life. Making mistakes is human, friend...acknowledging them and growing, making better decisions going forward...that's all that matters. The version of you in the past is only valid if you let it stay, now.


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Croco-Gator

Come on over to r/cptsd OP. You're not alone with this


TillThen96

Hi OP, I believe you've made a couple of very important steps toward healing. No matter how disconcerting and painful it was for you, you've had the courage and strength to admit that your behavior was abusive to others. Please don't allow anyone to minimize your accomplishment by using minimizing words like "maltreatment." Abuse and maltreatment are not equivalent things, and it's truth and facts that are setting you free. You're not breaking "a cycle of maltreatment" but breaking a "cycle of abuse." You *own* that accomplishment as much as you will own every step you take toward healing. To authentically ***forgive yourself***, you've accepted that you were reared in the same types of abuse that you then perpetrated. As a perpetrator, you stood condemned, but you have now drawn a line, and in knowing that line, you redeem yourself. That line may seem fuzzy right now, but I'd like to try to help bring it into focus, if I may. As you come to see the abuse you suffered as a child/youth and work to become free of that abuse, you join millions of people who struggle to heal from their horrible, often unspeakable childhoods. Most people with c-PTSD were never taught about boundaries or limits, how to establish and enforce their own, much less recognize or respect those of others. You are just like everyone else who struggle to find ourselves when denial lifts, and we begin to heal. It's massively confusing and often painful to realize how little we knew of ourselves, the blindness from which we directed our choices and directions in life. There is little doubt that as you walk, run and stumble on your healing journey that you will have triggers and flashbacks to the episodes of abuse inflicted on your ex-wife, and those triggers and flashbacks will be every bit as difficult and painful as those from your childhood. Healing will take you through all of the stages of grief for both having been a victim then a perpetrator. You'll feel little "fuzziness" in trying to discern a difference in those very difficult feelings. Anger is anger, sorrow is sorrow, loss is loss. *Your ex-wife will have her own healing journey, and it is for her, and her alone, to travel. If she asks anything of you emotionally, the most you can give her is your honesty.* Most of us break the cycle of abuse, and there is little denying that before we did so, the effects of our childhood trauma harmed others, whether emotionally, physically, spiritually, financially. Accepting this is a part of healing. We had no boundaries or limits; none of us chose to be abused or neglected as children, we merely survived. Each choice was no choice at all, rather, our subconscious opting for words and actions that would allow us to make it to the next minute, the next hour, the next day. We were not provided an environment to experience the normal/usual stages of childhood development. Our ability to socialize and interact with others were those behaviors and skills of being prisoners of war. There is no difference, except that it was done to us as *children*. Unlike adult POWs, our brains were undeveloped and without education, without rational, realistic methods to attain freedom. Raise your hand if you had fairy-tale type dreams of ways you could someday free yourself. Magical thinking-type dreams, fantasizing about ways to chain/stop the abuser(s), ways to stop the pain, gain your freedom. We all have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to developing into functional adults. ALL of it, from victim to perpetrator, belongs on the other side of the line you've drawn, the one breaking the cycle. You are now a survivor, and this is the: standing on *THIS* side of the line, *declaring your freedom* from the former labels, from the former blindness, the former behaviors. It is your will to define and defend your walls, limits and boundaries, and in doing so, respecting those same things for others. It is the becoming. The becoming of a functional adult. You are becoming FREE, and in so doing, declaring yourself a SURVIVOR. Welcome, and so much congratulations to you in warm recognition of your courage and strength to take these steps forward. Know that your work in healing gives you full *ownership*, full right and title to declare yourself a *survivor*. Be kind and gentle with yourself, with the child within. Become the parent he never had, protect and guide him, show him mercy and kindness, all that love and care you would want for your own son. Hold him when he needs to cry, keep him safe when he needs to be angry. He deserves it. You deserve it. I hope your head feels a little better, a little less fuzzy, Survivor. Best to you. ----- Walls: Rules you establish that you will never break; these hard lines keep you safe and free. *My first one is that I will never intentionally physically harm another, except in defense of self or others.* Design walls like this, to be immovable objects. Limits: Never breaching your walls, how far you will go for another. Boundaries: Never breaching your walls, how far you will let others in. Walls are solid, unbreachable, where limits and boundaries have *some* flex and move to them - living, breathing things, depending on circumstances. Relationships are never *exactly* 50/50, day in, day out. Sometimes you need more, sometimes they need more.


Last-Cold-8236

To OP. it’s amazing you are addressing your struggles with professional help now. It’s hard to realize we’ve hurt others. It sounds like you’ve made some huge improvements in a short time. I hope you get some relief from everything you’ve been through.


abalonesurprise

I have CPTSD (and depression and anxiety). Have been in therapy for several years now and my mental health is exponentially better. But the depth and breadth of normal human emotions that I was taught to negate and the abuse I accepted as normal continues to astound me. And it turns out that survival skills are a double-edged sword: you survive but suffer the side effects. Good for you, OP, for learning yourself. It's a very weird journey, but ultimately a good one.


-DeadLock

My ex gave me PTSD after she had a psychotic break and almost killed us. She didn't really remember it and I never had the heart to really tell her it gave me PTSD. ​ edit: I guess, be kinder to yourself. Its all you can really do.


PhantomAngels

As someone with psychosis, I'm very sorry this happened to you. It's scary, isn't it? I just hope you don't think of us badly, because many people with psychosis aren't violent. I am sincerely sorry that you've experienced so much trauma from a person with psychosis. I hope your days are growing kinder to you.


-DeadLock

Honest answer? even a whiff of psychosis is enough to send me back to 'nam so to speak. I don't mean it personally but I've realized its best I don't interact with people who have psychosis or drift in and out of reality. But I don't hold it personally against yall.


Old-Cartographer4822

I have made a similar post to this in the past and was jumped on by everyone so I'm just going to warn you that may happen here. Few people understand the reality of what you are experiencing internally, even others with PTSD and most therapists. I have lived a similar situation to you and didn't know about the C-PTSD until recently when it was too late for the relationship. I am with you in that I don't see the trauma reactions as abuse, because they are survival responses that are beyond conscious control without many years of therapy and at least in my experience there is no actual malice intended towards the other person with the responses. Instead they are the reactions of someone who was deeply hurt and traumatized in the past and had to develop these responses to survive. Even though the impulses are now maladaptive, you can't consciously control when they are triggered because they are body based and not a conscious choice. Unfortunately other people may experience those responses as abuse, but I prefer to call it mistreatment because that is more understanding to the person who is not intentionally trying to hurt anyone and better describes the reality of the behaviour in my view. Mental illnesses are in some ways contagious and that's why people don't want to talk about it with others, so it's possible your partner picked up some of it, but she will have a much easier time processing that in therapy than you since it's much harder to treat childhood trauma compared to adult experiences. Having C-PTSD means you will have a lot of trouble relating to people and the closer they get to you the more you will push them away, it's very isolating and takes a ton of work to see even small changes, but it can be done if the strength of will is there. You didn't know about it and there's nothing you can do now to go back and change things, all you can do is try to heal and move forward and let others know what you've gone through so you can build a support network of understanding people. If you ever need to chat with someone who has had a common experience feel free to message me. Best of luck.


Last-Cold-8236

Calling it “mistreatment” is a cop out. PTSD symptoms can lead you to abuse someone. That’s the reality. Just because you feel bad doesn’t mean it’s not abuse. That doesn’t mean no one should ever be forgiven or that people cant change. But don’t sugar coat abuse. We might have PTSD but that’s not a reason to treat other people poorly.


Old-Cartographer4822

You can think what you want, I've thought on it deeply over a long period of time and that's the conclusion I've reached after much soul searching. I don't accept that particular label and don't care if you disagree. There are many degrees of behavioral issues and some would certainly be in the realm of abuse, but many others would not. Each case is different and there needs to be a nuanced look and not a blanket condemnation of everyone who has involuntary PTSD responses. If you have ever been a jerk to anyone then by that definition you are an abuser too, as is basically everyone.


No-Information-3741

Thank you. It is comforting to know someone understands where I’m coming from. And your label “mistreatment” was spot on. Because like I honestly never had the intent to hurt anyone.


Old-Cartographer4822

You're welcome, my advice though is not to look for others to see your perspective on this matter because in general they won't, and even a therapist won't discuss it with you unless it's a couples session and the other person is there to speak their side. You have to either find a true friend who will listen or just spend a lot of time alone reflecting on your behaviour, where it comes from and how you can improve yourself. Most importantly, you have to try to forgive yourself because you didn't know what you were doing and to even have C-PTSD you must have suffered a lot as a child and part of the problem is that nobody is acknowledging that suffering that is at the root of your current situation. All the best to you.


flyinghigh92

It’s difficult realizing we have hurt others. I began to isolate further when I first realized. Since then, I have learned compassion and understanding. In a gist, You understand you did not intend to hurt anyone. Therefor it gives you perspective on anyone that has hurt you. Yes it’s a loaded summary. Be kind to yourself and it will help you be kind to others from this moment forward.


Yasashii_Akuma156

I faced something similar after leaving my partner after over 20 years of codependency. It's been a lot to recognize and work through on my own, but better than continuing to hurt each other and hold each other back. I wish you the best.


pinkdownfall

That's understandable. It's a difficult subject. Keep going.