mental disorders?

mental disorders?
It is so hard, there are two fears happening at once, the first is "What if he never gets any better" and the second is "What the HELL will happen if he gets better?" Both I think are pretty universal.

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WOW, WOW, and WOW!! Are you in my head or what??? So many similarities. Almost word for word.
This just all sucks. I need a vacation.
p.s. My counselor called in sick today.
 
Perhaps as PARTNERS of SURVIVORS...we should re-focus our energy towards today.
Easier said than done, I agree. Between the Survivors fear about the past, our understandable fear about the future,neither is living for today,which is the only area we can attempt to have any control or influence over.
I offer this as advise, that I too could benefit,& should be following.

The SA we have no control over changing, it happened,we have become part of the aftermath,because of the Man we Love. If all our energy is scared & terrified (I am NOT saying I am not shaky at times, I am) about what if we are his strength, than he walks out,what more is there I don't know ?, how much more is he going to regress ?, how much more, can I listen to before I snap ! ! !,we are letting fear dictate our day.
Control appears to be a major need for the Survivor, well I want it to. I want to control the outcome not of next year, but the next day. I want to replace the fear the Survivors lived with everyday, that I am now "saddled" with, thoughts & actions towards empowerment. He deserves me to be strong for him, I deserve to be strong for myself. Prior to a month ago,this was not my life, well it isn't going to eat the life out of me. People who were supposed to be his support growing up, scarred him for life. With him brave enough to share his pain, I am more equipped,or perhaps more tolerable to handle his behaviour/hot&cold etc.
Get through every day at a time...

Cheers Niagara :)
 
Through this site, i just discovered 2 books dealing specifically with mother-son incest- a minor miracle.
*snip*
I noticed in the guys boards they often recommend Mike Lew's book "Victims No Longer"- that book SAVED MY SPIRIT in relating with my bf and I wanted to share that with you.
Click to expand...
Just wanted to remind any of you who are book shopping that it helps MaleSurvivor if you go through the site.
https://www.malesurvivor.org/Bookstore/index.htm
:)
 
This is a good topic. Boundries in these situations are so critical. I did put up with a ton if c---- and then came two things that crossed the line: lying and cheating. The contact is gone, the friendship is gone, the pain is getting less with every passing day.

I feel for all of you who have felt so diminished, or were labeled as such. No amout of abuse excuses dehumanizing another human being. I continue to ask myself how any person deased in a way that CSA does, can turn around and do that to another person? For the behavior you describe is abuse.

Peace and caring to all here. Happy New Year!
 
I just read up on all the posts and am so amazed I feel the same as everyone else. The above post sums up what my husband just did to me-dehumanize. We have been seperated (his choice)for a few weeks and he decided to send out an email to friends and family (my parents and aunt/uncles) on his perception of what a horrid person I was and how I had everyone fooled into believing I was a good person. I won't go into detail but he gushed for three typed pages about my low character, examples of past behavior which were his version. etc... Two days later he actually told my best friend he did it to bring me down to his level and make us even, now we could start to rebuild! I truly believe my husband is bipolar. He is suicidal at times and very depressed then other times he is raging and almost in a constant frenzy. He refuses help. I have begged for him to go with or without me. I have had to force myself into believing this has nothing to do with me. Even though in his mind I am the perp. I still love him and want our marriage to work but it will never work until he can live with himself. We had to go to court today. The judge ordered a protective order for me. He has not done anything physical but his behavior is so irratic it basically keeps him from making threats or harassing. He called this pm to find out about our kids. He was so depressed and sad. My heart breaks for him. I want to slap him and tell him to live for today and be grateful for what he has a wife and children that love him no matter what. But how do convince someone the sky is blue when he swears it's black?
 
My boyfriend is ADHD. He has not been diagnosed as bipolar, however, he has symptoms very much like it.

Over these Christmas holidays we flew to New Jersey to visit his family and while there he became a completely different person. He suddenly decided that he didn't want to be with me anymore. He said I ruined him and that he could never be in another relationship again. If I gave him a compliment he would get furious and say that I was lying to him.
It was a year ago that he disclosed to me that he was sexually abused. I really tried to encourage him to go to counseling and offered to go through it with him. He did not want to go because he said he was afraid if would bring out more stuff and make him more "fucked up" than he already was.
I cannot help but feel so hurt. After almost 5 years he decides he doesn't want to be with me anymore and seemed to blame everything on me. I am so confused because I have always made it apparent that I would be there for him no matter what and I have done my best to put up with his so called mood swings. I actually had to fly home by myself early this christmas because he was so mean--it was if he had no emotions whatsoever.
I don't know what to do now because I love him so much and I am so worried about him but he does not want to go to counseling. And I can't help but feel angry that I "wasted" 5 years of my life and now I get thrown to the side.
 
My question is does this continue for ever?

The episodes of depression then mania?
The pulling you in and then pushing you away all over again?
Being confused on whether to hate the man who did this to him or love him still because its his father?
As his mother I am tourmented by these things that my baby goes through and has gone through. How do we truly help?

I am remarried now and my husband and son are so close, he calls him daddy, but he still battles with the biological father. It rips out our hearts everytime he speaks of hm knowing what he did to him. I have to stay home full time with him now because he nas so many emotional problems and plus he is a brittle type 1 diabetic, I love him so much, but this is so draining. I just wonder will it get better? Will he ever find inner peace?
 
I suppose we are allowed to write here, so I will. If not, I'm sorry. I identify with what you are saying from the "other side". I was diagnosed as bi-polar about six months after my memories started to re-surface. I was 55. I thought it was strange that no one had picked up on it before that, but then figured that, since it's bi-polar II, that that might be the reason. Also, since there are others in my family who are bi-polar, I figured that it probably had been there all along. Also I have often wondered if I was diagnosed incorrectly because I was so depressed over the CA. I've been depressed all my life, but having discovered the CA could account for that. Anyway, I'm on every BP medicine under the sun and that seems to be helping.

I will try to express how I feel. I have done nothing else since I started writing here. I seem to understand better how I feel when I see it actually written down.

I like several others who have written feel very badly about how I relate to my wife concerning my CA. We grew up together and have been married for 37 years. She knows all of the people involved in my CA and has had close relationships with all of them. It would seem to be the perfect relationship for sharing.

Still there is a part of this that drives me inside. She asks questions and I try to give honest answers. I want her to know how I feel and what is going on inside. I want to relate to her openly and honestly. But there is a part of this that is so deeply personal.... The damage and the recovery are inside. The perpetrator did something to me from the outside, but he caused me to retreat/flee inside for survival. I am injured and hiding. To come out, I have to descend inside to find myself and try to pull that part of me out into the sun and back into life.

That's no excuse for the way I treat you. You are there, and you are anxious to help and I make you feel as though you were an outsider looking in. I also make you very fearful that the things I am thinking will eventually exclude you to the point that we will no longer be together, so you fight to stay a part of what is going on.

I make you walk a mental tightrope. I need you to be close. I need to know you are there for me. Yet I push you away at those moments when I most need someone to comfort me. I don't know why I do that. I don't want to do that. It's just that, when I am having my most difficult times and need to be held the most, those are the times when I simply cannot tolerate being held. Arms around me cause me to pull away. I don't understand that. I am not rejecting you. I am simply reacting on a level that I cannot explain to you.

Do not confuse my reactions with my love. They are not the same. When I am reacting to my CA, I am in a different place. I still love you. I still respect you. I don't resent you. I always appreciate you. I never want you to go away. I never want to hurt you. I never want to be selfish and only think of me. But I am injured. If I was cut or bruised and you could see my wound, you would understand that, if you touched it, I would pull away because of the pain. This may be the same thing....I don't know. Perhaps when you touch my wound out of love and caring, it hurts so badly that I must pull away from you in pain. I never mean to hurt you...ever.

I would understand completely if you left. I almost expect you to. I almost want you to to protect yourself from this thing that consumes me. It is an approach avoidance thing. To suffer alone is almost more than I can stand, but to watch you suffer because of who I am is just as, if not more painful. I hurt myself and you at the same time and right now I can stop neither.

I can make no promises. I don't know who I am right now. Discovering my CA has destroyed my concept of who I was, and I have no idea who I will be when I have dealt with all of this and have been "healed". I have no guarantees. I can only tell you that I love you and that, if I hurt you, I will hurt myself as well.

I may or may not be gay. I can't tell. I was straight. Then I was gay. Now I don't know. In addition to destroying everything else, he destroyed my concept of my sexuality.

I have been talking to my wife to try to help you perhaps understand where I'm coming from. I know that we are all very different and that your boyfriend, husband, etc., is probably very different from me. We are all individuals. We didn't start out as the same person and we have been affected by this thing in different ways. We do have similarities, however. In fact the similarities are sometimes shocking to me.

All I am trying to say I think is. I appreciate her so very much. I love her so very much. I can't possibly understand what she must be going through. I can make no guarantees. What I would wish is that, when this thing gets better, we are still side by side. I know I will always love her. But I hope beyond all else that she takes care of herself and that, if things get too difficult to stay with me, she will not sacrifice herself, but will do what is necessary for her own well being. The last thing I want is for two lives to be completely destroyed by this thing, although it may be too late.

Finally, it's not my place to thank anyone else but my wife for riding out this thing with me, but I do feel that I want to tell all of you who are going through this how much what you are doing is appreciated by all of us. Sometimes, when we want to tell you that the most, we just can't say it out loud. Bobby
 
Hi Bobby,

Thanks for that great post. Feel free to put down your feelings here anytime.
We grew up together and have been married for 37 years. She knows all of the people involved in my CA and has had close relationships with all of them. It would seem to be the perfect relationship for sharing.
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The same is true for my relationship--well not the 37 years part, but we grew up in the same town and know all the same people-- it has made sharing easier and harder. We have a strong foundation due to our shared past, similar experiences. There is much that he doesn't have to explain to me, because I know it. I've seen it. I've met them. I think that makes it easier at times. But it is hard sometimes not to cycle through all those years in my head-- not to blame myself for what I didn't see, what I didn't say. Funny how I tell him that there's no reason for him to be eaten up with guilt over things he did before he even hit puberty, but I have a hard time extending that forgiveness to myself when it comes to our childhood friendship.
 
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