Hi guys here’s my story
TW: brief mention of abuse and SI
Hi everyone. I am still trying to figure out if I’m even in the next steps. To provide some background, here is my story. Sorry about how long it is.
From the ages 5 to 13, I (F20) was abused physically and emotionally almost daily, with it becoming more of an occasional occurrence from 14-18. My brain has blocked off about 90% of my memories from 13 and before. My abusive father denies everything to this day, so that’s super helpful. My mom doesn’t bring it up. She condemns his actions but refuses to leave him. He was abusive way before I was born, so I don’t have any hope about her leaving him. Even though she’s told me that she will many times over the past few years. I’m almost no contact with my dad, but we’re at low contact for now.
The abuse sucked, but I thought it was normal. People told me it wasn’t, but I still hid my bruises. At 13, my mental health depleted severely, and I attempted. Between the ages of 13 and 16, I was admitted into an inpatient hospital 10+ times and completed 5 partial hospitalization programs. I also developed an eating disorder along the way. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety.
But I attempted again at 16, and my heart stopped in front of my mother. After being electrocuted or something, I was admitted to a hospital and then a residential treatment center. I was then diagnosed with bipolar II disorder, and my mother entered a religious psychosis. But the 3 months in the residential treatment center changed something in me. I recovered from my eating disorder, and I realized that I really wanted to live. I wanted to be happy. The weekly beach trips were healing. I was still on strong SSRIs and did not face my trauma at all in therapy, but I think that was helpful for me in that stage of my life.
When I came back home, things weren’t perfect. My father was still abusive, but I had friends to hang out with and third spaces to escape to. I began prioritizing my education and physical health, and I was diagnosed with CPTSD. I graduated high school with an associates degree and fled to a college across the country. I didn’t want to let my past get in the way of my success.
Then college happened. My depression kind of disappeared completely. I didn’t experience what I thought was hypomania anymore. A few months into my freshman year, I started seeing a new psychiatrist, and I was put on medication that completely hindered my ability to experience real human emotions. And I was taken off my anxiety meds. My anxiety was really difficult to deal with, but I was able to keep executively functioning, maintaining my hygiene, and keeping my grades up. I thought things were fine. I still didn’t face my trauma, and I would get randomly triggered into panic attacks by loud voices/noises. Both therapists that I saw during this period believed that I have CPTSD and anxiety, not bipolar disorder. I was not dealing with any depression.
About 1.5 years later, I was out of the country and ran out of my meds. After two days of being off the bipolar meds, I started feeling emotions. I felt like I was finally awake after living my life on autopilot. I met with my psychiatrist after I got home to share this, but he said that he no longer would be able to work with me and recommended a trauma-focused psychiatrist. I never followed up with that psychiatrist because she was only available online, and I wanted to meet with one in person.
But the next few months were rough for me. It was like I was feeling real emotions for the first time. I had never felt such strong feelings of joy, sadness, anger, or fear. One month after returning from out of the country, I fell very ill, and my anxiety became severe. It was like a positive feedback loop. My anxiety got to the point where I couldn’t leave my apartment. I was still enrolled in college as a full-time student, and I ended up failing one class that required in-person attendance. I reached out to my primary care physician, who temporarily prescribed me my old anxiety medication from when I was in high school. I was soon able to leave my apartment and participate in my community. I found a psychiatrist, who undiagnosed the bipolar disorder and started treating my anxiety. Now, my anxiety is much more manageable. But after I recovered from my illness, my mom’s mental health suddenly became significantly worse, and CPTSD crept up on me. I realized that in order to be happy, I would have to face my past that I had been ignoring for so long.
I had that realization 2 months ago. I’m still working though it all. I started seeing a trauma-focused therapist with the goal to tackle the harmful core beliefs that have fueled my ED, perfectionism, and anxiety. I have a decent self-image, but my father instilled in me the belief that I was born an idiot who is incapable of success. I know it cannot be true, and there is empirical evidence that shows otherwise. But it is extremely hard for my brain to believe it, and it triggers panic attacks every once in a while. I want to eventually do EMDR. This week, I set a strong boundary with my mom. I also had to set a boundary with my younger sibling who I was parentified to take care of (but that’s a whole other story).
I am not sure if I’m in the next steps yet, since I still have 13 years of memories mostly blocked off, and I’m just now starting trauma-focused therapy. But I have been medicated and in therapy for the past 7 years (not that the therapy worked), and I am incredibly driven/motivated to pursue my goals. I am very passionate about school and my career path, and I am quite happy and at peace when I am not thinking about my family. School is going well. I began dating my best friend a few months ago, and our relationship is very healthy with lots of open communication (it was a 2 year long slow burn lol).
But I recently watched Patrick Teahan’s video on the 5 childhood trauma personality types, and I deeply resonated with the “doer” personality type. I also have the tendency to intellectualize literally everything and avoid emotions as much as I can, which leads to emotional outbursts that confuse me. I’m also a workaholic when it comes to my job that’s in the field I want to be in. I’m going to try to unpack some of that with my therapist next week.
This was very long, so thank you for reading. Any support/advice is welcome. I’m hoping that I am in the right place. Everything is still pretty new to me, but I have had the mindset that I want to recover from my CPTSD and be happy for about 4 years. And not to sound inconsiderate, but it was unrelatable and honestly pretty saddening to read the posts in the CPTSD sub.