Equine Therapy: Happy Trails to You!



Prince and I, Circa 1941

Bob Dylan said it right:  "The times they are a changin'"  Along with society's changing times in general, changes are coming into my personal life.  I'm about to relocate to Chehalis, Washington, and with this relocation will come huge changes in my therapy and in other aspects of my life.  Why the relocation?

My main reasons for relocating are that once again I find myself being priced out of my housing--the rent goes up, and my income remains static--and I want to return to a more rural area.  I have applied for HUD housing, the kind that keeps my rent at 30% of my income.  I have lived in this sort of housing three times, and I swore I would never live in this housing again, but as somebody said, "desperate times require desperate measures . . ."  My present apartment and my previous apartment were classed as "affordable housing."  The problem with "affordable housing" is that it gives no protection from unaffordable rent increases.  Oh, there is a ceiling on the rents, but the ceiling changes to accommodate the rent increases, so the so-called ceiling is no protection at all for those of us who are living on the financial edge.

I've reached a point in therapy where I can make a transition.  My work with Ego State Therapy prepared me well for EMDR, and the work I have done in EMDR has helped me deactivate the trauma energy accumulated from the most devastating of the childhood traumas.  Yes, EMDR does what it is cracked up to do!  I can certainly vouch for that.  My therapist and I plan to go full steam to do as much EMDR work as possible so that when I leave, I will have rendered a lot of the trauma energy harmless--inasmuch as possible, at any rate.  So what is the next step?  The answer to this question is complex; however, I will attempt to answer it clearly.

A couple of weeks ago, I read a very depressing article by Allan N. Schore, PhD, a member of the faculty at UCLA and a prominent name in the area of infant attachment.  Here is a link to his article: http://www.francinelapides.com/docs-mar-2008/Schore-5.pdf  After I read this article, I asked myself, "Why am I working so hard in therapy?  According to this article, healing is a hopeless prospect for me!"  Of course, I had overlooked the fact that already I have experienced some healing in that I have alleviated my PTSD symptoms and have processed and reduced the effects of some of my childhood traumas.  When I told my therapist how much of a downer Dr. Schore's article seemed, her immediate response was to say, "I don't understand why he didn't tell the other side of the issue.  He described the damages in his first book, and then in his second book, the companion book, he described the process of healing the damage."  Wow!  By the time I left my therapist's office, I was once more my optimistic self, and I even had a copy of Dr. Schore's Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self to take home and read.  I have not read the book yet--reading it is going to be a challenge for me because I have no background in the field of brain science--but the title alone is enough to justify my optimism.

"Affect Regulation":  What does this term mean?  Very roughly, it has to do with the interaction between an infant and its caregiver and the effect of the interaction upon the infant's ability to regulate its emotions.  This, of course, is a simplistic description of an extremely complex process, but it's the best I can do at this point.  I have not had a chance to Google the term extensively, but if you are curious, you can do that.  If the interaction between infant and caregiver has not been consistent and "good enough," then the infant must somehow deal with its needs and emotions on its own.  The problem is that our brains are not wired to do this solo--we are wired to interact with other humans.  When we, as babies, must do alone what we are wired to do with another human, we run the risk of "getting it wrong."  And as you know, when we lay a flawed foundation and then attempt to build upon this flawed foundation, the whole structure can eventually fall down around our ears. 

As it happens, I am one of millions of adults whose mothers believed that touching babies and responding to their cries between feedings would produce "spoiled" tyrants.  Mothers who believed this and who did not respond to their babies denied their babies the interaction which the babies were naturally wired to expect.  Like many other adults raised by mothers who followed this policy, I have struggled all my life to keep my "structure" from falling down around my ears.  Now that my life is nearing an end, I'm beginning to understand why this struggle has taken so much time and energy, time and energy I could have used in other, more productive and creative ways.  In other words, my caregiver did not interact with me in a way that enabled me to build a solid psychic foundation. 

My recent awakening to the fact that I was cheated of this crucial interaction could cause my state of mind to take a real nosedive; however, I must be, as the song from South Pacific states, a "cockeyed optimist" because I don't do nosedives that easily.  And when I do nosedive, I seem to pull out of it when I find the slightest grain of hope or inspiration.  Granted, I spent the first few weeks of my life in a sterile hospital nursery waiting for my mother to recover from her kidney ailment so she could take me home.  Not much interaction with a caregiver there!  And then when we did go home, there still was not much mother-baby "mirroring" because I was on a strict four-hour feeding schedule with no interaction between times.  Very typical of the times--the era from 1900 through 1945.  As I said, there are millions of people running around who survived the same type of infancy I survived--unfortunately, some infants did not survive, victims of the "failure to thrive" syndrome.  So now that I am aware of this deficit within my psyche, what can I do about it?  This leads me to the next step in my therapy, the prospect of participating in equine therapy. 

What is equine therapy?  Here is a link to a site that answers this question: 
http://humanequinealliance.org/the-heal-model/  In short, equine therapy is psychotherapy that involves interacting with horses.  As I stated at the beginning of this article, I am hoping to relocate to Chehalis, Washington, and just outside Chehalis is the therapy ranch discussed on the web site attached to the link.  My present therapist, a clinical psychologist, is as excited about the possibility of my participating in equine therapy as I am.  We both see this therapy as a good next step because the work with horses will give me a chance to do some repair work on the foundation of my psyche, the affect regulation work that I did not have the chance to do when I was an infant. 

Of course, even though I have spoken with Leigh Shambo, the person who runs the therapy ranch, and have been given the go-ahead, I still have to be sure of the funding.  However, my insurance may pay for this.  If it does, then I'm in--as soon as I relocate.  I'm excited about this opportunity!  And as Leigh Shambo says, horse therapy is not only beneficial--it's just plain fun!  And I'm up for that! 

As I stated at the beginning of this post, the times are changing, and my life is changing.  Transitions are hard--what an understatement that is!  But the challenge of a transition can be energizing.  We'll see how this transition goes.  Here is a quote by Andy Warhol that pretty much says it all:  They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.  I need to remember these words!

 

In Response to My Readers: Parenting, Marriage, and Complex PTSD



The Icon I am working on now:  Virgin of Tenderness
A Work in Progress

June 26, 2013

Today I'd like to respond to two search terms that have popped up on my stat page recently:  1. Complex PTSD and marriage, and 2. Complex PTSD and parenting.

1.  Complex PTSD and marriage--
I am assuming here that the person who typed this term into the search engine and landed on my blog site was asking the question, "Can a marital relationship bring about C-PTSD?"  In other words, can a bad marriage cause C-PTSD?  I'll do my best to reply.  In the process of replying to this question, I may also address the question, "If a spouse has C-PTSD when he or she enters a marriage, will that affect the marital relationship adversely?"  Please bear in mind that I am not a mental health professional; I am, however, a survivor of child abuse and, later, of spousal abuse.  I use my own learning derived from experience and from reading and discussing to answer these questions. 

When I was married in 1961, I had no idea I had C-PTSD, and I had no idea that my spouse possibly had the same disorder.  What I knew was this:  I had a hard time trusting people; I also felt that if I didn't marry at that time, nobody else would ever want me.  Why did I have a hard time trusting?  Why did I feel totally worthless and as if nobody would ever want to marry me?  I couldn't answer those questions.  I simply knew how I felt.  I was twenty-two years old, fresh out of college, and I knew I felt as if I didn't fit into society, but I was not sure why.  Much, much later and after twenty years of domestic violence, I began to understand. 

Now, over fifty years after I married, I feel I can attempt to reply to the first question.  Here goes:  Research literature in the field of domestic violence, PTSD, and C-PTSD in general points to the tendency for people who have endured abuse in their childhood and have not healed to go into a marriage that will repeat the abuse.  The abuse in marriage may not, of course, be exactly the same as the childhood abuse, but it may resemble the childhood abuse in some ways.  For example, a woman who has been abused by her parents and/or other significant people during her childhood and who has not had help to overcome the effects of this abuse may marry a man who has personality characteristics that are similar to her abusers' personality characteristics.  Her decision may not be a conscious decision, of course, but at some level she feels "comfortable" with the man because he is "familiar" to her. 

In my case, my father would fly into rages and be physically and verbally violent towards me.  This was how he controlled me. Unawares, I married a man who showed the same behaviors.  Somehow, after we were married, he picked up on the fact that when he raged at me, he could, just as my father had done, frighten me into submission.  After our separation, my husband admitted that his rages were not really about his anger so much as his desire to control me.  He also admitted that if I had not put a stop to the dynamics in our household, one of us would eventually have been dead--and he would not have been the corpse!

My marriage lasted for twenty years because I put up with the physical, emotional, and sexual abuse my husband dished out; I thought our kids needed a father and a mother. Besides, I was used to being abused!  Why would my marriage be different in that respect from my childhood?  After I reported my husband to the police and filed for divorce, I realized that perhaps it would have been better for the kids if I had not hung in for all those years.  Now I am convinced of this.  However, now it's too late to undo the situation.  All I can do is be supportive of my adult kids and try to fix myself--which I am doing.  Yes, a bad marriage can add to the burden of C-PTSD.  If the marriage lasts long enough, I suppose that the prolonged violence and the abuse involved in a typical domestic violence situation could even cause C-PTSD in a person who did not have the disorder going into the marriage.  All I can say with any authority, however, is that I entered my marriage with C-PTSD, and the traumatic events I experienced in my marriage exacerbated my C-PTSD.  Presently, I'm working hard to heal the damages, and the sexual abuse and emotional abuse I experienced during those twenty years have made my healing more difficult. 

In examining the issue of whether or not the presence of C-PTSD would affect the marital relationship adversely, I can only guess that it would.  I say that because now that I understand more about the dynamics of my childhood and my marriage, and now that I realize I am not worthless, I feel confident that if my self esteem had been "normal" and if I had recognized my husband's bullying for the manipulative ploy that it was, I would have left my marriage early on.  I'm sure that no woman with a healthy ego would have tolerated my former husband's behavior.  She certainly would not have allowed her children to be subjected to my former husband's behavior!  But if one or both parties in a marriage come into the relationship with C-PTSD, the chances are excellent that sooner or later the marriage will deteriorate into a violent mess, which is what happened in my marriage.  All parties, including the perpetrator, suffer, and if the process is not stopped, somebody dies. 

2.  Complex PTSD and parenting--

Building upon what I said in the first reply, I would have been a much better parent if I had not had the burden of C-PTSD and if I had not been trying to raise kids in a domestic violence situation.  Their lives and mine would have been entirely different.  I know this for a fact because after I turned my husband over to the police in 1981, I became a single parent and raised my daughter for five more years.  While the five years were not easy, they were good in some respects, and for once, I felt as if I could be a parent without living in fear of my former husband.  My daughter, too, learned to live without the ever-present shadow of her father.  The situation was beneficial for both of us!  Both of us lived with C-PTSD, but at least we were away from the domestic violence of the past.  Here are just a few of the changes we experienced:

1.  When my daughter and I lived together without my former husband, she and I could interact without having to deal with his rages and temper tantrums.  There was no "third party" to interfere with our communication and our attempt to negotiate life together.

2.  I was able to discipline my daughter with love and reason, and neither of us lived in fear of my former husband's physical violence or sexually abusive behavior.

3.  I helped my daughter get into a summer work program, and she earned the money to buy a horse.  My former husband would not allow her to have a horse because he told her that she would never take care of it.  By participating in the federally-funded work program, my daughter learned how to work and also how to apply for work and be interviewed.  She not only bought a horse, but she took care of the horse and learned to ride, a skill that made her happy and helped her feel good about herself.

We both lived with the burden of our C-PTSD, but we were free from the horrors of a life lived in a domestic violence situation.  As I stated, these were not easy years.  My daughter was trying to heal, and so was I.  But the two of us were free to develop a relationship.  We had not been able to do that as long as we feared my former husband. 

I've addressed the matter of "C-PTSD and parenting" as well as I can.  It's not a simple matter to address.  I feel that the presence of C-PTSD in one or both parents can lead to the development of a domestic violence situation if the parents don't get help to heal themselves.  Also, if people don't get help, they often don't have the insight into their own situations necessary to see the warning signs of impending disaster.  I was in that position.  If only I had seen the warnings and had understood the implications of the warnings.  But I was blind.  I didn't see the horror until I stumbled over it.  Then I put an end to the whole disastrous mess, but by then, the damage had been done.  Over thirty years later, my kids and I are still dealing with it. 

As I have said so many times in posting to this blog:  If you have C-PTSD, you need competent professional help so you can heal.  To get some idea as to the healing process, please click on "Healing . . . " in my topics list.  I wish you all the best in your efforts to heal.  I pray that by sharing my experience, I can save somebody some grief. 

Saturday, June 15th, 2013: A Response to Your Searches




My latest icon, finished on May 22nd:  What do you suppose he is thinking?

Dear Readers,
When I looked today at the search terms that have brought you my site recently, I found three that I would like to address:  1. Is PTSD permanent?  2.  gentle c-ptsd  3.  healing setbacks.  I'll do my best to address these in this post.  

1.  Is PTSD permanent?

This is a complicated question to answer, and I'm not a trained professional, but I will do my best to respond by relying on my personal experience and what I have learned over the years.

First, there is what might be called "straightforward PTSD," and this is the sort of problem that a person might have after a one-time traumatic, violent event.  Or it may be the type of thing that might result from events during combat.  I have had no experience with combat-induced PTSD, and all I can discuss is PTSD as it relates to abuse. 

If a woman who otherwise has had few traumatic experiences in her life is raped one time, that person may develop PTSD due to the traumatic effect of the rape.  If this is the case, then she has a good chance of healing completely IF she immediately gets the appropriate therapy.  If she does not get the right help, she may continue having the symptoms of PTSD--flashbacks, nightmares, dissociative episodes, etc.  If she gets effective help, however, she will be able to remember the event but not have the symptoms of PTSD.  The incident will be a bad memory, but it won't render her dysfunctional.  In other words, the PTSD will not be permanent, most likely.

If a woman who has been abused repeatedly throughout her childhood and then as an adult is raped, if she has been kidnapped and held hostage for a period of time, if she has been a member of a cult, or if she has been involved long-term in a domestic violence situation, then chances are she has developed Complex PTSD.  IF she gets appropriate treatment, she can heal.  But successful treatment for a person who has C-PTSD takes far longer than successful treatment for a person who has had a one-time traumatic event. 

Can healing be permanent for a person who has had C-PTSD?  My answer--I'm not sure.  I am now going through the final part of my own treatment, the EMDR, and I am not sure how permanent my healing will be.  Time and just plain living will give me the answer to that, I suspect.  However, I can say that for about a year, now, I have not had flashbacks, and I have not dissociated to any degree.  I seem to see life more clearly now than I have ever seen life, and so far my symptoms have not returned. 

I anticipate being in therapy for maybe six more months.  I plan to go as far as I can with EMDR and then get whatever help I need in adjusting to my new way of seeing the world.  If I experience symptoms after leaving therapy, I believe I will be able to deal with them on my own, probably by working on my own with my ego states.  It was the work I did organizing and bringing peace to my ego states that helped alleviate the PTSD symptoms, after all, and there is no reason why I cannot use the therapy on my own should the symptoms recur.  My therapist has assured me, also, that if I need to consult with her via Skype, we can do that, for I plan to relocate when I'm finished with therapy.  I'm moving to a more rural area where I can see horses and cows rather than concrete.  I'll let you know what happens!

2.  Gentle c-ptsd

I'm not 100% sure what the person who typed this into the search engine wanted to know, but I'll assume that the person wanted to know whether there was such a thing as "gentle c-ptsd." 

I have never read about "gentle c-ptsd," so I will reply to this solely from personal experience.  There have been times in my life when my ptsd symptoms have seemed to be dormant, when I have not had flashbacks and the other nasty symptoms.  However, I know now that the symptoms have been, like the encapsulated tb bacillus, just waiting to erupt into a full-blown problem.  I have no idea why my symptoms suddenly became so horrendous and life-disturbing when I was age 70, but they did.  Nothing I have read has told me why the symptoms may lie dormant for years and then become evident.  It's a mystery. 

However, I know now that even though I did not have the full-blown symptoms, the "gentle" times in my life have been an illusion.  This is because I was experiencing my life through the distorted lens of all the other aspects of C-PTSD--the lack of self esteem, the feeling that I don't fit into the world of "normal" people, the sense of being stupid, the desire to erase myself from the face of the earth because I shouldn't be here, and so forth.  I didn't recognize these parts of C-PTSD as being distortions in my thinking.  I thought these thoughts were accurate and true.  But now I know they are not accurate and true. 

So while C-PTSD may seem "gentle" because the miserable symptoms of PTSD do not seem present, the other aspects of C-PTSD are alive and active in the psyche and doing their own damage.  The longer a person goes without help, the more damage the C-PTSD can do.  I'm lucky!  I knew I had a complicated problem, and I persevered in finding effective help--and I found it.  Now I'm reaping the benefits of my hard work.  It's worth the effort! 

3.  Healing setbacks--

If you find my topic list on this blog and click on "Ups and Downs of the Process," you may find what you are looking for.  I've experienced my share of "downs"in the healing process, but when this happens, you just keep going.  It's a two-step dance--two steps forward, and one step backward.  Over time, though, the setbacks fade, and the dance becomes more like "three steps forward--one step back."  Progress peaks, of course, when you get to "ten steps forward--no steps back."  I hope the articles you find in "Ups and Downs of the Process" help you!  Namaste . . .

Another Search Term In Urgent Need of a Response Plus Additional Remarks Regarding Patricia Evans' Book

Today when I looked at my stats page, I found that somebody had used the term "can a long verbally abusive relationship . . ."  I'm assuming that the full search term might have been "Can a long verbally abusive relationship lead to Complex PTSD?"  My answer to that question:  A long verbally abusive relationship or a long abusive relationship of any kind often DOES lead to the development of C-PTSD in the victim or victims. 

In an early post on this site, "Complex PTSD: Does it Exist?", I cited both Bessel van der Kolk and Judith Herman, two experts and pioneers in the area of C-PTSD.  Both experts state that prolonged abuse can lead to the development of C-PTSD in the victim.  In addition, in a later post, I reviewed the book titled The Verbally Abusive Relationship by Patricia Evans and tied what Ms. Evans said to my own situation to demonstrate the dynamics of long-term spousal abuse. In other words, I used my own situations during my childhood and twenty-year marriage as examples to demonstrate the truth of what the experts reported in their own writing.  To find these posts, use the search engine on my site and type in the titles I've mentioned. 

I do not like the title of Patricia Evans' book, The Verbally Abusive Relationship, because I believe it is misleading.  The term "verbally abusive relationship" appears to be unrelated to what I consider to be the concept of highest importance in her book--her description of the "power over" mentality of so many abusers.  She describes this "power over" point of view as that view which sees women or potential victims as objects that exist solely for the use of the person who needs them, the abuser.  In fact, people with this mentality may see everyone as objects to be used for their own gratification/purpose.  As Ms. Evans suggests, in the case of a male who has this view of people, if his wife or girlfriend attempts to "get real" or assert herself,  then the guy becomes abusive in order to "put her in her place."  And so it goes.  You know the end of the story.  If intervention does not take place and if the cycle of violence is not stopped, somebody usually dies. 

In common speech, the term "verbal abuse" normally means that a person has belittled and insulted another person through name-calling and put-downs.  In Ms. Evans' book, however, the term means more than that.  It describes the often subtle sort of verbal manipulation that gradually wears the victim down and causes the victim to give in to the abuser because giving in is easier and less frightening than not giving in.  Thus, the description of the dynamics of verbal abuse in this book is important, but in my opinion, the description of the "power over" mentality is more important because that concept is less often discussed in literature.  People, women in particular, are less apt to be familiar with the "power over" concept and are less apt to be aware of the clues that indicate its presence when they meet a charming male who wants to sweep them off their feet.  It pays to be aware and alert! 

I'm not sure how to differentiate between a person who has the "power over" mentality and a person who is, simply put, a narcissist.  Ms. Evans does not go into that, and since I am not a mental health professional, I will not go into that matter.  For practical purposes, however, I would steer clear of a person with the "power over" mentality to the same degree I would steer clear of a narcissist.  If you do not know the characteristics of a narcissist, be sure to Google the term narcissistic personality disorder and find this information.  Again, it pays to be aware and alert! 

Since turning my husband over to the legal system in 1981 for abusing our daughter, I have been single and have been living on my own.  I have been careful to avoid situations in which I  might be abused, but I have not clearly understood what clues to look for when determining who is "safe" and who is not "safe."  It has been easier, in my case, simply to avoid dating--period.  However, after reading The verbally Abusive Relationship and after learning about the "power over" mentality, I believe that now I have the information I have long needed to make safer decisions regarding potential future dating relationships.  Of course, this is all "theoretical pie in the sky" because I'm 74 years old--too old to venture into the dating scene.  But if I were younger--maybe . . .       

Link to My Web Site and More Information--

Several readers yesterday found their ways to my blog by using the search term "childhood abuse and domestic violence."  If you are interested in this topic, you may find useful information on my web site: http://www.jfairgrieve.com/   See the page titled "From Abuse to Trauma."  Other pages on this site may also contain helpful information. 

My stat page also shows that a number of people in the past several months have been interested in the connection between being a victim of child abuse and being a victim of domestic abuse/spousal abuse. I plan to write a post on this topic.  Since I am not a mental health expert, a therapist, I can only write from my own experience.  However, according to my present therapist and to a few retired therapist friends I have, my experience is fairly typical.  Using my own experience as an example, then, I will attempt to give a clear picture of the dynamics of abuse and domestic violence and demonstrate how a person can be in a d.v. situation without really being fully aware of the true nature of the situation. 

What the above paragraph boils down to is this:  Today I look back on my twenty-year marriage and ask myself, "How could I not have seen what was going on?  Why did I tolerate the situation?  My brain must have been asleep!"  The truth is that my brain WAS asleep in its own kind of sleep.  Why?  How?  I'll try to answer those questions as well as I can.  In the meantime, I have learned that feeling guilty and blaming myself do no good whatsoever! 

Here is a Scottish saying that might be applied to my twenty-year marriage:

Ae scone o' that baking's enough.  (One scone from that batch is enough!) 

In other words, I have never regretted remaining single after my divorce in 1983!  ;  ) 

In Response to Your Search Terms, June 1, 2013

Dear Readers,
In looking over my stats today, I noticed several search terms that require special attention because they may not appear in the index on my blog site.  I'll do my best to address the following issues:  1.  Horses for battered women; 2. Don't like leaving the house; 3. How can I afford therapy?  So here goes . . .

1.  Horses for battered women--

Believe it or not, there are programs scattered across our country that use equine therapy in the process of helping adults and children recover from trauma.  Equine therapy is an accepted method for healing all sorts of issues, especially if it combined with conventional therapy such as Ego State Therapy and EMDR.  Here, in fact, is a link to a ranch near Chehalis, Washington, that provides equine therapy for people of all ages:  http://humanequinealliance.org/   There are many more such programs all over the nation.  If you are interested in this type of therapy, you might want to contact these people to get help finding a program near you. 

2.  Don't like leaving the house--

I can only assume that the person who wrote this wants to know how to deal with his or her reluctance or fear of leaving the house or apartment and going out into the world.  Well, I've had my own problem with this issue, so I can share my experience.  I hope it helps!

Four years ago, every time I left my apartment, my PTSD symptoms (flashbacks, numbing, derealization, leaving my body, etc.) were triggered just by being around other people.  If somebody talked loudly on a cell phone in a store or on the bus, I dissociated, left my body--especially if the person sounded angry!  I got to the point where I didn't want to go out because the symptoms were scary and unpleasant, to say the least.  Finally, in desperation, I sought help from a therapist.  I know now that this person was not capable of helping me because she did not have the training to identify C-PTSD, diagnose me as having it, and then help me competently.  After a really bad and debilitating EMDR treatment by her, I called a prominent psychiatrist in my city, Portland, Oregon, and got a referral to a competent therapist.  Now, over three years later, my symptoms have quieted to the point where they don't bother me when I go out, and I can ride the bus when somebody is arguing loudly with the driver and say to myself--not out loud!--"A--hole! Shut up and sit down so the driver can drive!"  I'd say my present responses are pretty appropriate to the situation and normal. 

I am no longer a prisoner in my apartment because my C-PTSD symptoms are under control--without medication!  I've done the work in therapy that I needed to do to bring this new peace of mind about.  And that's what it takes--if your mind is in chaos because you have C-PTSD, and if your symptoms are messing with your life, then you can change all that.  To bring about this change, you have to put forth the effort to make the change happen.  After about a year, I was able to leave my apartment and be in a crowd of people without having any bad reaction.  But during that year, I worked my butt off in therapy to arrive at this point.  If you want to change any aspect of your life, you have to put forth the effort to do it.  You are the only person who CAN do it!  A therapist can help you do it, but ultimately, the job is up to you.  So what can you do to take care of this problem?  Find a competent therapist, one who understands how to help people with C-PTSD, and establish a therapeutic relationship with the person--if you are comfortable with him or her.  If you don't feel comfortable with this first therapist, hunt for a competent therapist with whom you feel comfortable and begin your therapy journey.  If you choose to go the pharmaceutical route, that's an option, but remember that if you go this way, the symptoms may come right back if you discontinue the medication.  Doing the work in therapy is a long, hard road to healing, but it's a permanent fix for many people.  Medication is a quick fix, but if you have to discontinue the medication due to side effects, you may find yourself right back where you began.  Doing the work required for a permanent fix may take a lot of time, patience, energy, and money, but I believe the outcome is worth it.  Check the list of topics on this blog for other information regarding therapy.

3.  How can I afford therapy?

Check the list of topics on this blog for information on this topic.  If you have good private insurance, your insurance will pay a certain amount for your therapy.  If you are on Medicare, Medicare now pays 65% of your therapy bill.  If you have a Medicare supplement, that will cover at least some of what Medicare does not cover.  If you are on Medicaid, check to see if you can get help through a public clinic or through a qualified provider who does pro bono work. 

Special cases:  If you are a victim of a crime--sexual abuse, rape, battering, etc.--see if there is money in a victims' fund that will cover your therapy.  Note:  Only if the person who hurt you has been tried and actually convicted can a person usually have access to funds in a victims' fund.  This means that the victim must have pressed charges against the perpetrator and the perpetrator was convicted.  If the victim was raped and did not press charges, for example, she may not qualify for help from a victims' fund.

Check with the director of a battered women's shelter if you are a victim of domestic violence.  This person can help you through the process of getting help and paying for therapy.  It's easiest if you have pressed charges against the perpetrator and the perp has been convicted, but it may be possible to get help in other cases if you are in no way connected any longer to the perpetrator.  Remember: domestic violence is a fatal disease if it is not stopped.  Get help and get out of the situation! 

I hope the information in this post helps!  Life is short--live as much as possible of your life outside the cage called C-PTSD. 








 

Fallout, Conclusion: Reclaiming Our Lives

The following, the concluding segment of "Fallout," tells how I managed to get my life together after putting an end to the domestic violence in my twenty-year marriage.  There IS life after domestic violence!  Each of us recovers in our own way, and this is the story of my way.  Namaste . . . Jean Fairgrieve

So—where was I exactly in the process?  To answer that question, I took inventory.  I was now a single parent with no job, my teenage daughter was waging war against me and against school and against every other factor in her life which she perceived as having power over her; we had an income that consisted of my meager unemployment check and a child support check from my husband that amounted to $350 per month;  we no longer had access to a car.  Not having a car was no problem for me because I often rode the bus, walked, or rode my bike to shop, so I crossed that item off my list of problems.  We did have enough cash coming in to pay the bills, buy a few groceries, and clothe my daughter, so even though we did not have much, we could survive.  Cross finances off the list of major problems.  That left my daughter, her rebellion, and her depression and my situation as a single parent who had no job and little emotional support.   

After realizing that I now was the sole parent of my daughter and completely responsible for guiding her through the next few years, I decided that to help myself and to have a reason for getting out of bed in the morning, I needed to replicate the routine I had when I was working.  If I could stabilize myself by doing this, then I would be better able to help my daughter.  So one morning in April I sat down at my kitchen table with a calendar and a piece of notebook paper and listed all the ways I could spend my time meaningfully.  Number one on my list was, of course, looking for work.  However, due to the scarcity of work in Lewis County, I knew that job hunting would not keep me busy for eight hours each day.  Thus, I went through my list, chose the volunteer activities that most appealed to me, and made a short list of these items.  

That done, I looked at my calendar and decided how much time I wanted to devote to these activities and when during the week I wanted to do them.  My first choice was to work at the Salvation Army food bank, and my second choice was to tutor at the local juvenile facility. 

Decisions made, I implemented my plan.  The Salvation Army was happy to have my help in their foodbank, and I worked there two days per week.  I enjoyed the work.  Bagging powdered milk and flour were messy jobs, but they were simple.  Those jobs and the others I did at the Salvation Army were low-stress, and as I worked, I could think about my future.  The staff members were friendly and seemed to enjoy my company, and I liked being with them.  In addition to finding structure for my days and meeting friendly people, I gained the benefit of being able to take home fresh produce when the local farmers donated their excess to the foodbank.  At the end of the day, if there was produce left, and if there was no room in the refrigerators, I was allowed to take what my daughter and I needed.  So even though I received no pay for my work, I made friends, gained satisfaction from completing my simple tasks, felt good because I knew that what I was doing was helping people survive hard times, and managed to add some variety to the meals I prepared at home.   

My other major volunteer project, tutoring a teenager who was spending time in a juvenile offender facility, kept me busy on two of the days when I was not working at the Salvation Army.  In the process of trying to help the young man with his reading, I discovered that he was severely dyslexic and was reading sentences backward.  I did my best to help him, but because I had no training in the area of special education and helping people with learning disabilities, I could not do much for him.  However, in telling his counselor about my discovery, I may have helped him more than I was aware at the time.  Over the years, I’ve wondered how the young man fared after he had served his sentence.  I hoped that he was able to complete the work for a GED, get a job, and go on to have a happy life. 

With looking for work, volunteering, raising my daughter, and my therapy, then, I was busy every day and had good reason to get out of bed each morning.  As I met and compared notes with other about-to-be-single women, I could see the wisdom in what I had done, for many of them were suffering from such debilitating depression that they slept most of their days away.  One woman I encountered said she stayed in bed, let the kids take care of themselves, and read on average six Harlequin Romance novels each day.  A few I encountered turned to alcohol to help them get through the divorce process.  I believe that what saved me from depression and alcoholism was the structure I had put in place to give me reasons for getting out of bed and to force me to try new activities and interact with people I would not have otherwise met.   

Finally, in 1983 my search for employment paid off.  I saw a notice in the local paper stating that the community college was hiring people to work part time in the learning center.  The work involved working one-on-one with students who were earning their GEDs and their high school completion certificates.  Since I had a variety of teaching experiences behind me, including working with adults who wanted to learn English, I thought I might have a chance, so I applied.  I went through the interview process and was hired.  Granted, the job was not full time, but that did not matter to me.  Any money coming in was welcome, and I wanted the experience the work would give me.  Perhaps later I could get more hours, I told myself.  In the meantime, I had a job that I knew I would enjoy.  One step at a time.   

By 1983, my daughter was sixteen and was able to be left on her own at home for short periods if I had to stay later than usual at work.  After school, she helped the neighbor by cleaning out the horse stalls in her stable.  In exchange, the neighbor taught her how to ride.  That summer my daughter worked in a federal teen employment program and earned the money to buy herself a horse, which the neighbor boarded for her.  From then on, my daughter was occupied after school and on weekends caring for her horse and mucking out stalls of all the horses in the stable.  Having a horse to care for and ride gave my daughter a sense of purpose, something she desperately had needed since our family structure had changed so dramatically.  As a result, I believe, of tending her horse and working for the neighbor, she began the process of reclaiming her life and finding a direction for herself.   

By the time my daughter was eighteen, I realized I needed to plan my own future.  I knew that my future was not going to involve picking my daughter’s dirty clothes up from the living room and bathroom floors and cleaning her makeup from the bathroom sink.  No, there would be more to my life than that!   

Have you ever had a job that you enjoyed so much you felt you should pay for the privilege of working?  That’s the way I felt about my job at the community college.  Because I had just a bachelor’s degree, however, I was not allowed to be a contracted faculty member.  So in 1985 I sold my house, set my daughter up in her own apartment and found an apartment for myself nearby.  I had decided to spend one more year working at the community college and then attend Washington State University and earn a graduate degree in adult education.  During my final year in Centralia, I would, I decided, teach my 19-year-old daughter to run her household, pay her bills, and do all the other chores an adult must do.   

In fall of 1987, I began my graduate program in Adult and Continuing Education at W.S.U. in Pullman, Washington.  I was about forty-eight years old and scared!  I had hated college as an undergraduate and, therefore, did not do well.  That was in the late 1950s and the early 1960s.  I hoped, then, in the late 1980s, that my experience as a graduate student would be different.  For one thing, I was motivated, something which I had not been in 1957 when I entered college as an undergrad.  As it turned out, I need not have worried.  I enjoyed my program at W.S.U. so much that I decided to enter the doctorate program at Oregon State University and earn a degree in administration.   

By the time I entered O.S.U., however, the program to which I had been admitted had been changed, and I discovered that my instructors would be, for the most part, no more qualified than I was to teach the classes I would take.  Since I had an assistantship in the Composition and Rhetoric department that paid me a stipend for teaching lower-level composition classes, I decided to stay in school and earn an interdisciplinary degree with a major in Composition and Rhetoric.  The two degrees would, I reasoned, lead to a faculty position in a community college doing what I enjoyed most, teaching remedial writing to adults.  I was right about that!  I was hired to teach remedial writing in the Developmental Education department at Walla Walla Community College in fall of 1991.  

During the years I was attending graduate school, my daughter was struggling to get her life together.  I had taught her the basics of taking care of herself, and she knew I loved her,  but that was not enough to give her the feeling of self worth she needed to direct her own life effectively and find satisfaction in her decisions.  As many incest survivors do, she became promiscuous and became a binge drinker.  In addition, in the summer of 1988, she rode her motorcycle directly into the path of an oncoming car and spent several weeks in the trauma ward of Harborview Hospital in Seattle.  She had sustained a closed head injury and was in a coma for eight days.  When she had recovered sufficiently, she was discharged to a rehabilitation hospital in a small town south of Seattle.  From there she was sent to an adult foster home in Centralia.  Because my daughter was twenty-one, the State of Washington had custody of her and I had no voice in the decision.  However, when I discovered that the son of her foster mother was molesting my daughter and his mother was using the money the state sent for my daughter’s care to make payments on her r.v., I helped my daughter get an apartment in a low-income complex in Centralia.  She was capable of living on her own by then, and I felt that would be far better for her than being subjected to the sexual advances of the foster mother’s son.  She was more than ready to live on her own!  

During the thirteen years I taught in Walla Walla, my daughter held a lot of jobs, all of them low-paying because she had just a high school education and few marketable skills.  In the summer of 1994, I persuaded her to come to Walla Walla to get away from Centralia for a while because so-called friends of hers were supplying her with meth.  Her accident had left her with grand mal epilepsy, for which she took medication, and her brain was a time bomb waiting to go off each time she took meth.  She stayed in Walla Walla long enough to work for a year at the humane society shelter, a situation which she enjoyed.  When she returned to the coast, she found a job and also met her future husband.   

*     *     * 

The year is now 2013, and I am retired from my community college teaching position and living in housing for low-income seniors.  My daughter has married and lives within a few hours’ drive from me.  She seems happy with her life and doesn’t dwell on her abuse.  She does, however, suffer from symptoms of PTSD such as bad dreams related to her abuse, flashbacks, hyper vigilance, and intrusive thoughts.  I, too, have suffered those symptoms, but presently I am in therapy for what I hope is the last time, and my PTSD symptoms have faded.  My present goals for what’s left of my life are those of enjoying life free from the chains of Complex PTSD, writing my story, and helping others understand that they, too, can survive those events in life that seem impossible to survive.  The human spirit, while delicate and fragile, is at the same time amazingly sturdy and resilient.  We humans are wondrous creatures!