Question:
Hi to you all, I just posted my first message to the group a few minutes ago and felt I might do well to introduce myself properly. I am a British 31 years old male, and of course, I have PTSD. I have had it basically for almost as long as I can remember. It is a really complex story, but I will try to explain as clearly as possible – obviously there is a lot more to it but this will be a start! 
It all began, probably, when I was just three years old. I had cunningly found my way to some pills and opened them. My mother feared I had swallowed some and rushed me to hospital, where I was stomach pumped. It must have been quite a violent experience because I had bright red hand marks all over my face when I emerged with a very angry nurse, and my mother to this day is haunted by the fact that she did not even recognise me. It is ridiculous as all they needed to do was give me a warm salt-water mix and my infant stomach would have thrown up. I was also subjected to many years of abuse by my very messed-up sadistic father, who was insanely jealous of the close bond I had with my mother (even before I was born!) Many fathers play wrestle with a four year old, but how many make sure that they cause pain, and hold the child in the pain for way too long? I was hardly conscious and already I was being punished for being another male, seen as a rival when all I wanted to be was a child. Then when I was eleven and on holiday in Malta, I learned to swim underwater. Something of an achievement since I had always feared being underwater. My father was apparently proud. He got into the pool and suggested I show him, swim towards him. I did and on reaching him, he grabbed my head like a coconut and just pushed down and down and down. I didn’t understand. I was freaked and confused. Always an obedient child to a fault, living in fear of the world really, I ended up thumping my father in a certain very sensitive area It worked, he let go and I found my way to the poolside, hauled myself up and then passed out. The amazing thing about this experience was that no-one around the pool did anything. I think they preferred not to get involved, or just went into shock and disbelief. Either way, I came to with my father leaning over me malevolently, projecting so much shame onto me that I just kept quiet about the whole experience. I was back at school a month later and very ill, with all the classic PTSD symptoms. I was off school for ages with Glandular Fever too, and the PTSD has been with me ever since. I was lucky that I had a mother who was really supportive, but unlucky in that she too was the victim of abuse and suffering a physical illness so the hierarchy had my father as king on top. Whatever she said could be torn apart by my father’s mischief, so we were both vulnerable. It was not until I was 25 that I had counselling and finally just mentioned what had happened in the pool all those years earlier. Somehow, I never lost the memory but I turned it into something really insignificant, like it was just this little thing. I think on some level I sought to hide it because I felt to blame somehow. I certainly felt shame. All the shame that my father should have felt, but didn’t. It was like an equation. He refused to carry it, so it moved to me instead. My counsellor made me retell the story and was horrified. My reaction was nervous laughter and then really clear, vivid imagery flashbacks of the whole thing, from start to finish. All the fear and confusion over the years suddenly had deeper meaning, all the illness too. It all added up as signals for help to a family that preferred to look the other way from me and my mother. Now 31, I have had to do a lot of growing and have just learned the real nature of what I have been battling all these years. It has been a mighty struggle. I have been suicidal on many occasions, in absolute floods of tears and frustration at myself. I have virtually all the problems associated with the illness, plus it has spilled into CFS too. I have good days and bad days. Some times I can be creative. I am very artistic, as a visit to my website will reveal. I find movies really help me relax and as I am not well enough to work, the internet and some humourous writing also help me get by. I guess I have a bit of a wacky sense of humour, but I can also be very serious and really tend to need to know people before I feel safe, men particularly. My relationships have always been affected, I think. There is an impulse for things to be either black or white, people either wonderful or threatening, with the result that I can reach a point and then if things are not working, are not mutually supportive, then I will seek to leave the relationship behind, retreat into a safer space. More than this I cannot think to say, except that I am really glad to have joined this group of like minds. I wish you all the very best and while I will probably post sporadically, I hope that I can contribute something over time. If you were patient enough to read this whole message, I thank you. BFN, Cary Charles, c…@charlesc.spamless.freeserve.co.uk (remove spamless. to mail me) Personal Website at http://www.charlesc.freeserve.co.uk/ Eurythmics’ 57 Winters Website at http://www.charlesc.freeserve.co.uk/57/index.html
Response:
>The amazing thing about this experience was that no-one around the pool did >anything. I think they preferred not to get involved, or just went into >shock and disbelief.
That’s the "secondary wounding" part you hear about in PTSD. When your faith in people who COULD/SHOULD do something, but Don’t or Won’t instead, it rocks your faith in humanity. My own experience colors my view on this, of course, but I think all the studies that stress the importance of "debreifing" after traumatic experiences goes a long way towards avoiding PTSD before it takes hold. You brought up a good point
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