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"Polyrhythmia" davel...@netins.net
In the middle 70's I was placed in a residential treatment center for 2 years, 2 months. I was 14 when admitted. I was said to be emotionally disturbed. When in there, I never saw anyone beaten or tied down, but there was a "quiet room", later 2 quiet rooms. But for me the most dreaded part was being fed on a tray, with no seconds. I got to see kids placed in lockup when they weren't "working on their problems". I also saw kids placed on closet restriction, where they had to sit in an open closet all day. This was like being in lockup, but without the lock. And there were kids still on a tray after over 2 years. I managed to minimize my time on a tray, and avoided the lockup, but did see time in the quiet room, often for reasons I still don't understand today. My question is this. Could I have gotten PTSD from this experience? I feel as if I can relate somewhat to sggaB's experiences, though they can't be nearly what she went through.
Though this happened over a quarter century ago, I just can't get it out of my memory.
"Joel Smith" j...@autistics.us
Yes, that's unfortunately a quite common reaction.
Hell is hell. Trying to compare these types of experiences is rather like comparing concentration camps in WWII.
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Joel
"Gareeth" Gareethn...@hotmail.com
Yes you could have Ptsd from that. I was treated for years anf years by psychiatrists sometimes in hospitals for some problems they though stemmed from child abuse. I feel I was abused as badly if not in some ways worse in the hospital setting and probably do have some degree of problems from that.
Everyone has their own experiences and pain so there isn't a lot of point in comparing and deciding you didn't go through enough or wahtever to be traumatized. What one person finds horribly traumatic wouldn't be for another.
Gareeth
sggaB ama...@autistics.org
Very agreed there. I have been through that line of thinking (comparisons, thinking I "hadn't experienced enough" to be experiencing the kind of trauma I was experiencing) in the past about myself and it's a dead end.
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"The autist formerly known as" N...@larry-arnold.com
What is or might be PTSD ?
If you had lived in my family and did not have PTSD that would be strange.
To see your mother beaten up, to be beaten up yourself to have absolute fear of your father, not knowing any hour of the day or night when he might verbally or physically ***ualt you. That is fear and trepidation and it leaves a legacy. A bigger one on my brother than me, but today I have a fear at the slam of a door.
I do not fear the risen voice because this is a fact, I have my fathers voice and volume and I know I can instill the fear in others that he instilled in me. I am his voice, and his voice is elsewhere remembered not for abuse but his singing, and my singing is his.
The fear, the trauma never goes away, the nightmares, unless you have been there you cannot imagine it. You cannot imagine the p***ion and the violence, the destruction and sometimes wilful destruction of the things you love.
My brother has not recovered, my mum is dead. I saw things no-one should ever see, and experienced and felt them too. But though I still fear my dad and anything like him in my dreams and in my inadvertant moments, I love him, and I know that although his love for my mum may have gone cold to the point of unforgiveness he loved me and my brother. In his dying moments he loved us and in his dying week I loved him and even my brother was prepared to take on the responsibility of caring for him.
He was an utter bastard as no one can be, and unforgiving bigoted prejudiced, self rigthteos and self justifying.
In my late teens though I could wrestle him to the ground (and I needed to be able to) Imagine the strenght of a full grown man in his prime who will not pull his punches when he tackles a mere kid (because he has not that self control) and imagine too the fear in that man, that the mere weakling of a kid half his size fights back with twice his strength.
There is no-one in this world that can abuse me worse than my dad, and that is his legacy I am stronger than he ever was in every sence.
I cannot say that what I endured was either entirely negative or not because what it was, was what I made of it, and the more I know about his own life leads me to realise he was a victim not a perpetrator, which maybe hard for some to understand, but as I say, I am half of his genes, and tougher than he was.
I think to that the circumstances of my mums death were traumatic to me, because I get all the cl***ic symptoms when I think of it. I saw her die, and I was a participant in that, I had to face decisions that most people don't have to, I was asked if she should be put on a life support machine, and because I am honest I told her what the consultant said and left the decision to her, and that decision was not to be put on one. Yet when she died in front of me the first time, I felt that, and again unless you have been there you will not know what I mean, but when she died the first time, I felt a loss immediatly and I was not well (I had pneumonia too but was disguising it) and I cannot explain for it only happened to me once before in my life what I felt then, but I lost my grip on the physical world and felt myself leaving and apart.
Then I watched her die again, I felt the soul was not there, but the body, without mechanical aid, recovered and went into Cheyne Stokes breathing, that was traumatic, because I talked to her not knowing where she (the essence of her, her soul) was hoping she could here and even now to write this just over seven years later is traumatic, but I told her the truth in all things that I would not change any of my past.
She died and she lives while I live and even when I am gone. My dad lives too in fond memories of many who did not ever see the bad side. I can't forgive what he did to her or my brother, not my domain, but I can forgive what he did to me and do, If I could not, then I could never be forgiven myself and hell eternal as well as hell on erth would be my inheritance. He was not an evil man, but subject to evil, real evil.
At the end of WW2 he was in Palestine, and saw the relativity of that conflict as it was then. He did some questionable things and had his first sexual experience with a Jewish Prostitute. My mum was appaled at that, but then later she did questionable things herself.
Dad enjoyed the sex but I am sure that in the way he revealed it, he felt guilty, he would have prefered that his first sexual experience had been with my mum as he supposed her to be when they first met. My dad had an enormous sexual drive and to a large extent unfulfilled. We could talk about later on in life man to man.
He had a sence of Justice though often selfishness would get in the way. He was a product of his time, someone who could not abide schooling and could not lern in that environment who nonetheless had a yourning for knowlege and lernt in the army.
He was a fine engineer, but in every other degree I have gone on to excell him though he never lived to see that.
I have so many mixed feelings, because life as it was, was fear and brutality, yet what is pain ? I am beyond it. I am better than my environment and in spite of everything I have made something of my life, more than my brother seems to have. But had my dad not been who he was, would I have made so much of my life, would I be as strong as I am. I am far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far far stronger than he.
Larry ...
"Polyrhythmia" davel...@netins.net
well, you have me beat there. my dad was almost 60 when i was born, and he was in poor health during the time he was here with me, so i didn't get to see much of the bad side of dads. it almost looks like you could stop the cycle of child abuse if you could just take men out of the equation..
sggaB ama...@autistics.org
Definitely not. Women can abuse children too, and just as badly.
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"The autist formerly known as" N...@larry-arnold.com
Well the cycle stops with me and my brother cos neither of us have any kids.
But I can say that even if I had, the cycle would have stopped. I cannot bear the everyday abuse and disrespect of kids that I see and hear in my neighborhood, here even if there is a known father, he is often absent and it is the mothers who seem to have no other communication with there kids but haranguing.
Never mind laws that outlaw smacking, they will never reach these estates, and who will police them if they do ?
I have a profound concern over the way that kids are raised, all kids NT and autistic, but if you are autistic round here then that is double trouble.
What I have suffered is nothing compared to instability of some and it is wonderfull to see those who have risen from that.
Now this is not to say that autism is caused by abuse, but that abuse often in situations of ignorance follows autism.
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??T L'autisme c'est moi "Space folds, and folded space bends, and bent folded space contracts and expands unevenly in every way unconcievable except to someone who does not believe in the laws of mathematics" ...
"Gareeth" Gareethn...@hotmail.com
Women also abuse their children. I was far more abused by my mother than my father.
Gareeth
"Hussin" k...@frontiernet.netttttttt
Not all men are abusers and not all women aren't abusers. It's not good to lump all men into one category, especially something bad like 'abuser'.
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Hussin Visit my website at www.cheese-a-phone.com
Mike Stanton mike.stan...@dsl.pipex.com
On Sun, 1 Aug 2004 02:06:40 +0100, "The autist formerly known as" <N...@larry-arnold.com> wrote snip Larry, your writing is honest, insightful, brave and eloquent.
Thankyou.
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mike stanton serving neither God nor Mammon on the lonely planet.
http://www.mike.stanton.dsl.pipex.com/autism.html
"rossignol" nachti...@mail2hell.com
Thank you Larry, for writing what I wish I could write.
"The autist formerly known as" wrote <snip rest of grandiose post>
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