How I Came To Be This Way: the Ultra Short Version

So here's the deal with me.

I am far more interested in looking forward than back, but since I'm blogging about PTSD, I figure I should explain how I got here.

As a child, I suffered some physical and emotional abuse, and an unfortunate amount of sexual abuse. My parents are well-meaning, but my upbringing was a particularly stringent one, according to a specific religious denomination. Any deviation from the straight and narrow was viewed as incipient sin and handled severely. There was no room to just be hurting and maybe acting up because of this. My parents, as you probably expect, both had some childhood issues of their own.

As an adult, I married and had kids young. My divorce was messy, and scary and dangerous at points, though that's mostly all OK now. There was another significant trauma that happened shortly after my divorce, but was unrelated.

With all of this, I was hurting. I was having a very hard time keeping the basics of my life together. I had an eye-opening experience that made realize this sharply, and I had a few really scary flashback and serious, sudden, spacing-out episodes, one that nearly resulted in a freeway accident. I literally lost track of where I was (in my car, driving, on the freeway, in the pouring rain) for a few moments. And no, I was not using any substances, legal or otherwise. (We won't talk about coffee.) There were some really horrible nightmares and shaky, gut-clenching remembrances that I am almost certain were repressed memories starting to come back.

All of which brought me up short and sent me to a psychiatrist's office. I now take a couple of common antipressants. I am self-employed and have no medical insurance, though my kids do, and my psychiatrist presribes things that I can take relatively cheaply, buying wholesale and generic.

Because of my lack of insurance and my finances, I do not see my psychiatrist or anyone else for therapy, although I would like to. My psychiatrist is actually compassionate in this and works a visit schedule with me that takes my finances into account. I fortunately do not have any really serious mental health issues: I've never been suicidal or seriously out of control, and thank God I have never had any substance abuse issues. (Again, we won't talk about coffee!)

The medicine helps. I haven't had any more scary flashback episodes since I started taking it, and I am doing a better, if far from perfect, job of managing my life. I don't feel as numb as I used to. This is all good.

I do not and have not abused my children. My intense feelings about my own childhood, and supremely strong desire to do the best I can for my own kids, have kept me from that. I do not and have not used any form of spanking or corporal punishment. I try not even to yell at my kids, and most of the time I am successful. I provide reasonably well for them, although not as well as I would like. I spend time with them and listen to them and laugh with them. Most days I think I'm a pretty good mom, although if I was more emotionally present for myself I would probably also be more emotionally present for them.

This life is OK, but I want so much more. And somehow, I'm determined to figure my way through the mess in my own head so I can get there. To paraphrase from the Declaration, I want a life that is vibrant, liberty from the constricting parts of my past, and the ability within myself to truly pursue happiness.

Quote for today: Before we have children, we are, in fact, children ourselves, children of the culture. When we become parents, we become the culture. We become an adult in the eyes of the community. And as such, where we have once allowed authoritative knowledge to reside in others--in the expert, in our parents, in the state--we must now allow authority to take up residence within the self, within ourselves. --Peggy O'Mara