Issue: Who can i talk to, and what can my next course of action be? I don't want to be medicated for this, i want to deal with my emotions.
Hey guys, I'm new to reddit and i needed to talk to a bunch of people about this predicament i'm in. There aren't that many people that i can confide with so I'm entrusting some random strangers on the internet. So ill spill the beans....
I self diagnosed myself as a PTSD patient this year because of some emotional trauma I've been experiencing. I used to smoke marijuana because it helps you forget a lot of memories. Well, ever since i quit, a lot of old memories have been resurfacing and they're causing great distress to my psyche. One of the withdrawal effects that i am currently experiencing is Nightmares. Now i can't seem to shake these nightmares off because they haunt me during the day. Ill give you guys the inside scoop. So back in 6th grade i wasn't the most studious child. I had ADHD and on top of that, i had dyslexia. On a side note, my parents think i self-diagnossed myself with Dyslexia, but i have a theory that i have this disorder. During my childhood i used to go to this facility that helped students with their academics. I can recall this building so vividly, it had a sign green and yellow sign, with glasses signed onto it that said "Private tutoring". As i digressed, all i could say is, english class was an extremely tough course to get through. I didn't do any of the homework because the work was very vigorous for me at the time so i would just act off in the middle of class. One day my teacher was concerned about me, so she had a little meeting with me in class discussing why i wasn't able to do my work. I told her it was vigorous, but she didn't believe me. My teacher, i forgot her name so ill give her the nickname hunchback, called my parents one day. That was the worst way she could've handled the situation. I have a bad situation at home because my parents grew up in India and they believe in physical discipline, when i say physical discipline, i mean beating their kids if they do anything wrong. So.... when i got home, i got yelled at and slapped in the face by my mom. She yelled at me and made me feel like i wasn't appreciated even though i have a learning disability that hindered my attempt at learning. I just wish my parents handled the whole situation with a different approach. This isn't the integral part of the story, but its one of the nightmares I'm having. Okay heres the main story: Well, here goes nothing, ill tell the whole world my story. Ever since the 8th grade, Ive never been the same. I remember sitting in my basement playing my Xbox 360 with my friends while looking at Facebook on my laptop. I was talking to my moms best friends daughter over Facebook until I heard some screaming coming from upstairs. I thought nothing of it until my moms friends daughter messaged me on Facebook asking me if my mother was okay. I ran upstairs as quickly as possible, with no hesitation. Then I witnessed the most disturbing thing a 13-year-old boy could ever see; basically one of the most horrific acts any human can portray onto another happened. My dad struck my mother, and fractured 3 of her ribs. I didnt know what to do at the time. I screamed at my father and told him to get out of the house, as I waited for my moms best friend to come over. While I waited, my cousin, Rishi Seth, called me and told me too bring my mom some water to calm her down. He also told me to remain calm in this situation. He told me I handled the situation very well and that I'm good at following instructions. My mother then started going crazy. She had epilepsy ever since she was a little girl, and they are all caused by stress. She had 3 seizures, one after the other. This was the most horrific experience in my life, and I can never live past it. Before this all happened I used to be the type of kid that brought joy into everyones life. I used to walk around school, talking with enthusiasm, making friends with everyone. I would speak my mind to everyone. I even had two girlfriends that year, before all the fighting. I used to talk so much that my parents would tell me to shut up, and that you speak too much.
So now whenever i talk to my fellow human beings, i don't let them get too close to me because i guess I'm afraid of what they'll think of me.... That year during school, i went mute. I didn't talk to anyone the rest of the year except for my best friend, whom i consider a brother, Louis. He knows all my insecurities, and one of them is to not trust anyone. If i can't trust my parents, how can i trust anyone else? I go to work and this girl is always nudging me to talk, but i never want to talk because i don't trust her. I want to trust her but i feel as if ill get hurt again. Am i being a whiny little "Girl", or in my case, is being afraid justifiable? I REALLY want to learn how to trust people again because I'm a 19 year old man in his sophomore year of college with no friends. I have no social life and i hang out with a bunch of pot smoking losers whom i can't confide in. I work at a gym and my coworkers think I'm weird because i don't talk. I don't even have the audacity to text people back because i feel like I'm a burden on them. I need to move on with this traumatic event and move on with my life.
Hello Just2Brown,
I have to admit that your problems is beyond my hands. My hands are too short to reach it, so I'm afraid I can't be the one you really needed.
But remember, you are not alone.
Me, myself, has a traumatic event that is hard to live past it, and yes, I have trust issues and don't really have much friends. Back at my home is not very well too, so I can understand even if only a bit about your feelings.
The first thing I want to say is to talk to a psychologist (since they are not a psychiatrist; NOT someone who gives you medicines etc.) as a start. I know it is hard for you to trust me, but all I'm gonna say is a REAL psychologist is the best you can talk to. You really can consider them as your close friend. And they will never disturb your privacy, trust me. You'll understand once you get to them. You really need to consider this.
If you don't want to, perhaps my experience could make you feel better, I hope.
The first thing is to block all of bad thoughts. When I reach 10th grade, all of my friends are new to me. I do think about what will they think about me if they know the true me, but I try to don't care about it anymore. So I have friends now. And it is not really bad as you could think about opening yourself again.
Try to have new friend, new society. The good society. Your gym could work, I guess. Try to be open with them, not so open to talk about your worries yet, but open enough to be your friend. It will make you feel better to know that someone do cares about you.
And try to be open with yourself. What do you actually want your life to be? I'm sure you know that yourself, and little by little you will find out how to make your life as you wanted to.
If you need someone who listen, we all are here for you. And please, consider to talk to a psychologist. They won't harm you. And believe that no one would think bad about it.
I hope everything gets well for you. Keep having a day!
Hello Just2Brown,
It's completely normal for someone in your situation to have difficulty building trust with others. I would say to give yourself an awful lot of slack right now as you just stopped self-medicating and are only beginning to really process these memories and experiences.
As someone who has gone through a traumatic event that completely wrecked my faith in humanity, I can tell you its okay to take as much time as you need around this. You say you're a sophomore in college - what if you sought out counseling through your school to help support you in processing all of this? In the meantime take the small steps of making small talk or telling small pieces of your story to friends to see who can be trusted with them. What you went through is a big deal and you deserve to have people in your life who can support you.
That said, its okay to be the "weirdo" who doesn't talk for a while. When I processed my stuff I was 21 and barely talked to anyone for about 6 months. What I went through was a big deal and I needed that time to figure things out for myself and just get up the courage to interact with other humans again. What you went through was also a big deal and you can take as much, or as little, time as you need to. Now I still have some trust issues, but I also have some close friends who know my story and more less-close friends who don't really know but who I still enjoy hanging out with. It takes time and work and it doesn't make you "whiny" to still be bothered by something so terrifying. It doesn't make you a burden to answer a text message or tell someone that you're having a hard time.
If you want to talk more here I, and many others, are more than willing to listen. But you deserve, and need, so much more than the support of internet strangers. I hope you find someone you can reach out to in the real world too.
PS: You didn't ask this, but I know how much Nightmares suck. I found it helped me a lot to have a soothing nighttime routine (a favorite blanket and stuffed animal for me, not very adult or manly I know) as well as a solid morning routine (delicious coffee!)to shake loose as much as possible any lingering awfulness. It's also another good reason to see a psychologist because if those nightmares are at all PTSD-related they have some medication that can really cut down on them and it makes a world of difference.
Here is something I have used that helped me feel better about situations I didn't think were solvable. I wrote a list of all the big things causing me to feel stressed, afraid, scared, etc. Then the second and last step was to write the ideal solution to each of these problems, assuming there were no limitations as to what I could do (no time, money, or resource limits). The relief just doing these two steps, without even actually implementing any of them them was tremendous. Anyway that's my input.
