Reasons or excuses?

All sorts of questions seem to be plaguing me at the moment.  The latest one is where do you draw the line when blaming current behaviours on past experiences?  What I mean is, how do you really know what is a character flaw and what is a result of what happened?

I find myself so often blaming my more negative traits on what I experienced as a child.  I behaved badly as a teenager because I was trying to block out what he did to me.  I hide behind a mask because I have low self-esteem, because he took that away from me and made me feel worthless.  I avoid friends and family when I’m low because I don’t want to drag them down, because I don’t feel worth their support, because he made me feel dirty.  I don’t face up to things because I have learned that it is safer to hide, because he taught me to hide and lie, because he did what he did to me and made me feel as though I was the one at fault.

The list just goes on and on and when I really think about it, I realise that every time I come across something within me that I do not like, I seem to find a way to blame it all on what he did to me.  And if I do enough research, I can find scholarly articles to back me up and medical papers to fit the bill.  But really, can I blame everything that is wrong in my life on something that happened so long ago?

A large part of me says ‘of course you can!’  He took an innocent child and did things to her that she had no way of understanding or comprehending.  That must have far reaching effects.  But there has got to be a limit surely? 

So how do I know the difference?  I just don’t know.  It is so frustrating and I realise now that I need to be so careful.  I can spend the rest of my life blaming everything on the abuse and maybe I am justified and correct.  But will that help me to improve and grow?  I am starting to think that maybe what I need to do is more than just try and focus on the positive.  Maybe I need to look at the negative stuff too and stop making excuses.  Even as I type this, there is an argument going on in my head.  After what I went through, I have an excuse!  But what if constantly using that excuse is holding me back?

So where the hell does that leave me?  I am just as confused as ever.  I know I need to take responsibility for my actions, decisions and behaviours, but it pisses me off that I must face this dilemma at all.  And can I survive if my excuses are taken away from me?  Will I be better or worse off?  The terrifying part is I won’t know until I decide one way or another.  And right now I really don’t feel brave enough.

Just be me?

Sometimes I get to wondering what would happen if I dropped all pretence, discarded all the masks and was just me.  Broken me.  Could people stand to be around me if they truly saw how I was feeling or even had an inkling of what I was thinking?

I know that thanks to the Hyperarousal, I often completely misinterpret what people say to me.  I hear the tone of voice, I can see the body language, but still I manage to completely twist things in my head.  Then I spend hours and even days, beating myself up, worrying about something that a part of me knows is purely imagined.

Let me try to explain Hyperarousal.  It is part of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).  It is possible to suffer from Hyperarousal without suffering PTSD, but the opposite is not true.  Symptoms are all because of the nervous system being in a constant state of activation.  The most obvious are the exaggerated startle reaction and irritability.  What isn’t so clear to see is the insomnia, reduced tolerance for pain, difficulty concentrating and constantly being ‘on guard’.  Then of course, depending on how well you know the sufferer, you may experience their irritability, panic and anxiety and the fatigue that makes it difficult for them to function.

All of this adds up to a waking nightmare.  Because of the enhanced awareness, everything that is said and done is over-analysed.  Picked over for hours on end, looking for the hidden meaning that will fit with the sufferers’ view of themselves. 

An example could be where someone says kindly, we are keeping an eye on you.  This statement most likely means that the person/people are aware that the sufferer is having a hard time and they are looking out for them.  To the person with Hyperarousal, that simple statement will be taken with a completely negative connotation.  Most likely a person with Hyperarousal would believe that people have noticed that they are not ‘normal’ and are ‘a burden to society’ and they are being monitored to find a way to get rid of them.

To the best of my knowledge there isn’t a cure.  All that can be done is for the victim to ensure that they take their medication as prescribed and to work on strategies to deal with their reactions.  There isn’t any way to stop jumping at shadows or to stop the panic.  But they can learn to deal with the fall out.  The best thing I ever learnt to do was to control my panic attacks without outside assistance.  Slowly I am also working on controlling the irritability, or at least warning people when I am on edge.  It’s all part of the journey and it doesn’t get easier.  But every little achievement means oh so much.

But I still wonder how people would react if I dropped all pretence, discarded all the masks and was just me……

Fair or not

After posting last night, I ended up going back to the beginning of my blog and reading through it.  Wow!  I did not expect the huge range of emotions as I went through my posts.  I felt pain, heartache, anger, embarrassment, shame, amazement, shock – the list just goes on and one.  One thing became very clear though.  I am very different to the person who started this blog.

Not all the changes are positive lately though.  I can see how strong and confident I felt whilst I was in Afghanistan and it is clear that I have gone backwards a bit since I came home.  It’s sad, but not totally unexpected.  With so much of my sense of self-worth depending on what I can do for others, it was inevitable that when I stopped working in a job that allowed me to serve some very deserving people that sense of my own value to humankind was going to be a lot lower.

But somehow, I am surviving and a lot of that is thanks to people around me.  Aghan let me feel useful, confident and fulfilled and I did bring some of that home with me.  Add that to the support I have received from friends (I wish I could say family too, but hey ho) and my involvement in activities that I love and I am still standing. 

But is that enough?  I don’t know whether I should just keep plodding along, doing my best to cope.  Every day is a challenge lately and although I have not reached that low point where I can’t go on, it is hard and I wonder whether it really is worth it.  Should I accept my life the way it is or should I try for more?  Is it even possible for me to ever get past this? 

Because yes, it is still a problem for me.  Every day, and I do mean every day, something comes along to disturb my equilibrium.  Sometimes it is a flashback, sometimes the anger surfaces.  Other times it is trying to deal with the way I react to things because of the PTSD and its associated issues.  There are times when I just want to curl up and cry and other times when I am bouncing off the walls, enjoying being happy, but knowing that it won’t last. 

And of course, that brings me back to something that I have debated for years – Regression Therapy.  If I sought help to recover the memories of what happened, would it destroy everything I have achieved or would it enable me to finally come to terms with it?  The most frustrating thing is that I won’t know unless I try.  Then if it goes wrong, there’s no turning back.  That’s what my mind zooms in on of course!  I don’t ever want to feel the way I did a few years ago.  I’m not sure I could survive it again.

No one can tell me what to do, no one can help me make the decision.  It is down to me and only me, which seems so unfair after everything.  Which is when the anger starts to bubble up again.  I must live with all this for the rest of my life, not knowing whether he even thinks about it for a second.  His absolute silence hurts almost as much as what he did to me in the first place.

Blogging again

Here I am again.  I am thinking about reviving my blog and posting regularly, but I know what I am like and so I have decided to just take it one post at a time.

I have realised that I need this blog.  Putting aside the selfless ‘I want it to help other people’, I have finally figured out that my blog helped me too.  It’s somewhere that I can let it all out and say the things that I could never actually say out loud.  I’m not afraid to say them as such.  It’s more about how people react.

It’s funny.  You’d think having people acting all sympathetic and offering their support would be nice.  And it is in a way.  But it is also difficult to accept.  On one level, I don’t feel that I deserve it.  Not that I don’t think I am worth it, though I suppose that is also another side of it.  But I just feel guilty that people are worrying about me when there are so many other things going on in the world that are a million times worse than anything I have ever experienced.  And I don’t want sympathy – it makes me feel as though I am broken.  The same goes for support.  That sounds like I cannot cope on my own.

What I do want, when I talk about what happened to me and how it has affected me, is understanding.  I want to share what it was and still is like so that people can have more of an idea of the impact that it has on someone’s life.  And not just the victim either.  Everyone around them has got to carry some part of the burden.  I hate to think of what I have put my boys through over the last ten years.  I can only imagine what my revelations did to my wider family, especially those closely related to him.  And I will always carry a level of guilt for that.  What happened to me was not my fault, but I do feel responsible for forcing them to share in the pain.

To some people who have never had the misfortune of knowing a victim of Child Sexual Abuse, it is probably quite a shock to realise how far reaching the effects are.  But it’s as I explained to someone today – I was nine years old when the abuse started and at that point, it was as though a part of me was frozen in time, never to grow up.  Inside me there is still that nine-year-old girl.  She hasn’t grown up and still sees the world through the same eyes, experiences all the same fears and perceives the world in the same way.  And she will always be there – there just isn’t any way to exorcise her or change her.  All I can do, is try to accept her as she is and find ways to deal with the things she cannot understand or cope with.

Scary, isn’t it?  But that is my life and that is part of why I need to start blogging again.  Maybe I can talk to her through these lines and help her through the terrors that are the adult world.  And maybe, yes, just maybe I can help someone – even if it is just myself.