I've had a rough life. I'd like to vent, but I also just do not know how to cope. I hope this is the right place to post.
I feel like my life has been one trauma after another. My father was very physically abusive to my mother and I. I have never developed that father daughter bond that I hear is so important. I also have PTSD from it, although that has improved :). At 15 I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. Just recently I have been diagnosed with OCD. I have tried so many medications throughout my life, but the side effects has been so terrible for me. I wish greatly that I could find a proper medication to help me.
My grandmother who helped raise me was very religious. I remember her taking me out on the corner of the street to hold up signs to protest certain things... Growing up I always felt dirty. Like god was disappointed in me. I grew up with the fire and brimstone Christianity, which was pretty hard on the self esteem (I am no long religious).
At 15 I was raped by my best friends brother. This boy started to tell the school he had slept with me. Instead of reporting it, I told everyone he was lying and making up stories. I knew that know one would believe the truth, and I just wanted it to go away. But my best friend didn't believe me when I said, "We never had sex." So she started to bully me. She stole my journal out of my locker and had another girl beat me up in the hallway.
The end of my junior year I left home. I had no place to go so I lived in my car or with boys. Taking showers in the school locker room or the gym. I would finish class and then go straight to work. I didn't get to go to prom, because I couldn't afford a dress or get time off. I feel cheated. I was so extremely poor my entire life I never got to do anything.
I enrolled in nursing school right after I graduated, because I wanted to do the "right thing in life". It was a crappy little community college, because even though I got good grades I still couldn't afford to go to a University. But still I was so excited. Unfortunately, nurses eat their young. I'm a perfect target. I'm short, shy and quiet. My nursing teacher singled me out. I got good grades, but she called me into her office one day and asked me if I had a learning disorder. She told me I could do better then B's and I should be ashamed of myself for not working harder. At the hospital she berated me so badly in front of one of my patients, the patient refused to let my teacher back in her room. In my last semester of nursing school I brought some complaints I had to the nursing director. The next day the director had a meeting with my class to discus the problems of the program. She told everyone that had problems with teachers or the school were pathetic and weak. She then brought my name up in front of the class. I broke down in front of everyone, but I held my ground and told her the problems were not with me.
A few months last after graduating I become one of the only women to pass boards on the first try :) But I feel completely cheated of the "college experience". Instead of hanging out with friends I was working and studying again. I was in a nursing home telling a family that their mother died at the age of 22.
I just wish I had more good memories between all the hardships. I've tried so hard to better myself and not be a victim by going to school and not falling into drugs to ease the pain. But I am so angry. A part of me feels like I'm just waiting for the next bad thing to happen to me in my life.
@sensibleCup5309 Hi there lovely, I'm Counsellor A.J, and I just came across this post of yours. First off, you have done an INCREDIBLE job of articulating yourself in this post. You are clear, intelligent, informative, engaging to the reader and authentic. You are incredibly skilled at articulating yourself/ expressing what you want to say.
Secondly, I want to express my heartfelt apologies for all the extreme hardships that you have suffered through, in your life. It's unbelievable. I have no words. It's that severe.
The fact that you are still here, is an absolute miracle and a huge credit to you, in my eyes.
I'm in awe of your persistence, hard work, perseverance, and determination for doing everything in your power at the seemingly never ending stream of trauma that you have been smashed with. I'd be clinically quite surprised if you didn't have PTSD from any aspect of all this, it makes all the sense in the world that you have it.
Are you in treatment currently or receiving any kind of professional support? You have had a life, a life that nobody-and I mean nobody, should have to endure. It's like you've been constantly struck a steam with never ending bad luck. But more than bad luck- this is heavy, incredibly heavy trauma we are speaking about.
As a professional, I am really worried about you receiving the right support. Your determination to survive this, brings tears to my eyes as I type this in my office behind my screen-and I am so, SO glad you are here, in this world, and on 7 Cups- to share your story, get support in chat rooms, with listeners, potentially with a therapist if you ever wanted to properly work through everything that's happened- I'm really glad you're here.
Your struggles will give you SO much empathy for the hardships of the human condition and other people's pain. Turning your struggles into strengths and blessing others (which you surely will) with your presence touching their lives, will be you, winning. You will come through triumphant. With the vibe I'm getting from you, it's guaranteed.
Instead of being a victim, you have chosen to be a survivor-and that is so very, very admirable.
Again, I can't stress enough, my concern for you receiving quality support to work with the issues that you have faced (and continue) to face as a result of all this trauma. Do you feel like you have enough support? Or,do you feel you need some extra? 7 Cups has a plethora of wonderful and talented Clinicians to choose from if you feel you need that extra professional support (if you don't already have it)
Keep on sharing and keep the lines of communication open. You deserve a full recovery and a happy, healthy, rewarding, fulfilling and enjoyable life. And I think it's really important that you feel HEARD- because (and please do correct me if I'm wrong) Your "voice" with these many traumas, has been either silenced, disbelieved, or invalidated. So I think that will be crucial for you.
Im sending all my compassion I have in my heart, to you. Never give up the battle, because a breakthrough could be just around the corner and you may not even know it. Keep on sharing- and please do seek as much support as you can get. You deserve high quality care, and much respect for everything you are, have suffered through, and continue to persist with.
Keep on keeping on,
-Counsellor A.J
From the wee Island called New Zealand
7 Cups Mental Health Clinician
:)
