This is very hard for me to write. But i need to do it, to face it, so i can move on. It is so much easier to help someone else, than to do something for myself. At sixty-six, and retired, my mind has awakened symptoms that have returned to pledge me now, and multiple other times throughout my life.
From the time i was very young, and through my teens, i suffered mental, physical and sexual abuse. This should say it all regarding my mental state.. Some things i can not remember.. other things i forced myself to forget.. i still remember more than i want.. i went from one adoption home to another.. Rejected time after time.. i was beaten repeatedly while in these homes.. for things that their own children did. When i was finally adopted, i had tonsillitis and was suffering from malnutrition. i was told, that i was not adoptable because of my stuttering.. My childhood stuttering retunes when i become anxious…
My adoptive father was vicious, and demeaning to the point that many a night i did not eat, because i could not eat and listen to him tell me what a disappointment and failure i was to him. The only time he was happy with me, was when i was a Christian minister, it didn't last. Neither did Christianity.. for me…
Nothing i ever did was good enough.. never enough.. i could never measure up.. for them it was all unreachable.. Epicurus said, " Nothing is ever enough for a man for whom enough is too little."
My adoptive mother once picked up a wooden garden chair, and broke it over my back from behind. They only adopted me because all their friends and relatives had children.. They thought they were looked down on and that there was something wrong with them, because they did not have children in the 1950's… i used to fantasize, when i was seven or eight, that my brother would ride up on his harley, and take me away from it all.. i don't have any idea how i knew he would some day ride a hog.. he was a year and a half younger than me...
If i did anything they disapproved of i would get this line over and over again.. it was like a mantra.. (Look at all We have given you…Where would you be now if we hadn't adopted you?) i expected to be thrown out of the house at any misstep.. as a teen, i cut the backs of my hands to relieve the stress of living.. of being property.. rather than belonging to a family...
The only reason i go on is that i believe that if i opt out, i will have to do every thing over again in my next life.. and try to pass the test that is happening in this life again.. Why would i want to go through this hell again? Plus i can't cause that kind of pain to my wife and children...
i have a lot of blank areas in my memory that i can not see. Some memory loss i believe is because my un-conscious mind does not believe my conscious mind can handle it. When i do remember something, i try to share it with my therapy group.. but sometimes i can not. i am often screaming on the inside, and just a blank face on the outside.
Since i have retired (the last week of February), my startle response has gotten worse.. any loud (sharp) noise will make my heart jump.. i have unwanted memories, that return to haunt me, that I would rather have not remembered.
During my first marriage, i would wake up screaming several nights a week.. it was terrible for my first wife.. she never knew what would set me off.. Awakening after a nightmare i either feel emotionally numb, or my heart is going like a race horse.. i lose all interest in everything, and just sit on the end of the bed staring out the window, feeling trapped, looking, but not seeing.. from five minutes, to forty.. i just can't bring myself out and get going again.. other times i just sit there and cry….. my emotions are really over the top lately and i cry frequently… numbness to tears in seconds...
There have been many days i awakened feeling that i would not live to see another year, with not even a thought to the future, there is no future to see. i have to take medication to sleep, and stay asleep, or i just stare at the walls…
Some times for no reason, i will feel so distressed in a store, i have to leave because a feeling that the walls, the very air, is closing in on me… i get irritable and sometimes have outbursts of anger, and can not see the cause.
i am always in a state of what could be called hyper vigilance, always afraid something really bad is about to happen. i surround myself with edged weapons at home, and frequently carry a blade to protect myself from imagined events.. i used to carry guns, but i had to stop.. you can not walk a path of peace, and carry guns.. Sometimes the thought of perceived danger weighs so heavy, that i can not leave the house.. other times there is such a feeling of absolute hopelessness that i can not find what good i am at all, what value?…
i have always felt alienated and alone, in school i was pushed down stairs from behind because i was different.. i never fit in.. i searched for blood family all my life. i found them, but the feeling did not go away…
i have terrible feelings that i will be rejected by everyone, and have a lot of fear of being alone.. that no one really wants to be around me, or really know me… in 1949, my brother was taken away from me.. i never recovered, even after i found him 30 years later.. he was all i thought of all those years...
In February 2011 i had a seizure while driving to work.. i had to retire..
My sombre exterior puts people off.. i frighten them, some have even looked at me, crossed themselves and walked the other way.
My Doctor said i am suffering from PTSD.
