PTSD and Trauma recovery

[Dragonfly]

Originally Posted by HeartBreak Kid

In those moments when I am too weak to think, I turn to my books....I try to find inspiration on the pages, I look for my life in between the lines.....
A good friend wrote some great things before I even knew she existed..I cannot explain what it is that I am feeling but she can........

One way women have had of coping is to withdraw - to go into your own space, to be depressed. Instead of attacking and venting anger, you turn it inward, against yourself, so that you get to feeling really depressed: You're not good enough; you fucked up . . . You say all these bad things to yourself. It's like beating, self-abuse. You're beating on yourself with these words and these messages that there's something wrong with you, because you didn't complete this or that task; and look at you, you don't have a relationship; or, look at you, you messed up on your relationship......... it's a constant abuse of self, a violence against the self. Some days, it's easier to take than somebody else abusing you, so what you do is you jump in and abuse yourself, before somebody else can do it.

I had gotten so down on myself, I mixed pills with alcohol. I almost suicided. I came very close to dying. This crisis brought me to the realization that to kill yourself, that's the ultimate mutilation, the ultimate abuse.......
There was an abuser inside of me, who was trying to kill the victim inside of me.
~"On Changing Identity" © 1991, 2006 by Canéla A. Jaramillo~

I just wanted to thank you for this post. Some days, like today, a person really just needs to hear this coming from someone else... somewhere else... just so your soul knows beyond any doubt that you are not alone in the way you feel. To see proof that you aren't the only one who has to struggle not to do this to themselves.