Hello

Hello,

I have recently started to get treatment for what I beleived to be depression. I have been treated before for depression (about five years ago) and went through this with a counselor. I saw the psychiatrist a few times over the course of several month and was told I simply had major depressive disorder.

The cause of my depression (as I related it to the counselor) really involves a collection of memories from about age 3 yrs through 6 years old. My earliest memory of my father involves running from him as he chased me and cornered me in a bedroom with a belt in his hand and a look of hated on his face. He finally caught me and beat me to the ground with the belt (all the while my mother was on his back trying to get him to stop). My Grandmother yelled out to someone to fill the bath tub with cold water for the baby. This was done to prevent the welts from getting any worse.

After this memory I remember the night my mother tried to commit suicide (I was between 3 and 4 years old) and the smell of burning plastic always triggers this memory. I remember it was a party and all of the children were in one room "sleeping" while our parents drank and did what they were doing. There was a commotion and the next thing I remember I was in the car with my father (in roughly 1976) driving like a maniac to get to the hospital. I remember screaming for him to slow down and hiding in the floor board of the car. We hit a telephone pole that night and I remember the paramedics checking us out. I then remember seeing my mother strapped on a hospital guerney in restraints and screaming violently "I want my baby". The nurse took me and placed my on my mothers body and I cried and told her it would be alright.

There are several more like this that are equally if not more disturbing to me. With some of them I remember hte smell of strawberries in the morning or Honey Comb cereal, others involve a certain knife that my father used to hold to me and threaten my mother he would kill me if she did not do what he wanted.

I cannot forget it and I have no way of reconciling it because my parents are deceased. My mother killed herself 9 years ago adn my father (who I had not seen in nearly 17 years) died Christmas Eve 2007.

My new Psychiatrist heard the above recollections along with the fact that I avoid my family at most all cost and said it sounds to him like I have PTSD.

Hi, neonebula! It sounds like you have PTSD to me too. Smells often trigger a memory in people. I'm sorry you went through all that.
Do you get triggered very often? It helps to talk to someone when you do and you're welcome to post here.
You can still find some peace and a way to have a life even if you can't confront your father or talk to your mother about your childhood.

It defintely sounds like you do have PTSD hon, I suffer from it and smells trigger me a lot.... not all but the odd smell from time to time. The fact that you were abused and threatened is enough to cause it. Continue with your therapist, it will help to continue to talk about it, if you get diagnosed with PTSD there are a lot of coping methods you can do to help you.

Hang in there.

I appreciate the replies.

It is hard to understand how I feel because I don't really know how I feel. I get confused about how I feel versus how I need to feel in order to manage the stress and anxiety I feel. I am angry when I think about what happened to me at the hands of those that I trusted to keep me safe. I am sad too because I feel so much hatred for my father. I am angry because the extent of my relationship with him was entangled in his ability to use me as a pawn in a game if chicken with my mother. He hung me out of windows when I was an infant and threatened to drop me (from a second story into an alley in Detroit), I watched him when I was three do the same thing to my infant cousin (all the while screaming at him to please not drop her) because she would not stop crying. I remeber talking and reenacting this in my bed one night when I was maybe 4 with my teddy bears. I hate him so much for this and so many other things he did to me. I want to hurt him and let him feel the terror I feel every day of my life, but I can't.

(((((((((neonebula))))))))) Of course you hate your father and you want him to pay for what he did. Your mother should have protected you. Maybe putting all these thoughts on paper would be good, like writing them some letters. You don't have to dwell on it for ever, just let the feelings out.

So it is my fault because I have these memories and cannot rid myself of them? I have tried everything short of substance abuse and suicide to stop thinking about my childhood. With neither being a viable option I am left to try and sort this out. Telling me that I need to get over it and move on is not helpful however because if it were that easy I wouldn't need help at all.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that, it's just that some people are scared of trying to make sense of the past because they think that they'll get "stuck" and not be able to move on. I realise now that it's not the case for you, since you think of it all the time.
What I meant was that talking about it or writing about it won't last for ever and you'll be able to move on at some point, like I did. I was triggered all the time when I first started to deal with my past but I've found some peace now.
You can post here evey time you've been triggered and talk about your feelings. It will get easier to deal with them.

I have daily recollections of bits and pieces of things that happened. I have developed ways to block them (like thinking of a song and just repeating it over and over in my head until the memory is blocked) but depending on the other stressors in my life this and other coping mechanisms are becoming less effective.

neonebula wrote:I appreciate the replies.

It is hard to understand how I feel because I don't really know how I feel. I get confused about how I feel versus how I need to feel in order to manage the stress and anxiety I feel. I am angry when I think about what happened to me at the hands of those that I trusted to keep me safe. I am sad too because I feel so much hatred for my father. I am angry because the extent of my relationship with him was entangled in his ability to use me as a pawn in a game if chicken with my mother. He hung me out of windows when I was an infant and threatened to drop me (from a second story into an alley in Detroit), I watched him when I was three do the same thing to my infant cousin (all the while screaming at him to please not drop her) because she would not stop crying. I remeber talking and reenacting this in my bed one night when I was maybe 4 with my teddy bears. I hate him so much for this and so many other things he did to me. I want to hurt him and let him feel the terror I feel every day of my life, but I can't.

You know what hon, you have a right to feel all of those things, I did... I have felt so many emotions when first dealing with my stuff, and I know many other survivors who still feel the way that you do.

Also, the wanting to hurt the one that hurt you is something that is not an uncommon thing, I actually talked to someone today that feels how you do now. So you are not alone in this at all.

Try not block out bits and peices of the things that happened to you... Its' important not to do that as it is pushing back the healing process. We start to remember things when we are ready to slowly deal with them. I've blocked my stuff out, I know of things that occured but I can't remember them if that makes sense.

Did any of you ever think that you were not real? I told my old therapist (about 5 years ago) about waking up one morning and walking out into the living room thinking that I was not real. I was likely 4 years old. I remember feeling as if I was part of someone elses dream and saying it out loud to myself. I feel that way still sometimes. I see happy people and think that they are diluding themselves and that their joy is contrived because I strain to feel the same way.

I have a hard time having a normal emotional response to things that should make me happy. I really try hard to put on for people while not over compensating. Most of the time I guess I dont know how I feel and if I feel anything at all. The only emotions that are clear to me are fear, anxiety, panic, desperation, anger, and in all of this sadness lingers through the moments.

It is an odd place to be all the time. Not being sure how you feel.