How to deal with bad memories, constanlty thinking about them getting headaches
September 2nd, 2010
I had a bit of a crazy family. My mom is wound a bit uptight. When I was young I was really skinny and an pretty child and I was extrememly happy so my mom thought I was going to be gay. I was a bit like Butters in that South Park episode and to this day dispite having a long term girlfriend my mom calls me a queer because I go to the gym and a “gangster” because I am having sex with a “whore”. My dad pretty much smokes pot and beats his wife. My mothers boyfriend is a unemployed crack addict. To top it all I joined the Army to get way from all of this and got the living crap hazed out of me because I was a “pussy” because instead of getting wasted I’ve been working on college. I was beaten pretty badly or scared shitless about getting beat for about 2 years straight. I had my bed pissed on my bed thrown around, they pretty much molested me by grabbing my butt. I am almost out and over 1 year into college while being in the military but I just have no support what so ever. My mother calls me a “robot” because by going to college I am just following the masses or some crazy shit like that. Sometimes I have really bad anxiety and start to sweat and shake in public if nervous and I have a really hard time just leaving my home or maintaining any kind of friendship because I just do not trust anyone and the lack of any support system is scary for me. I have been working my ass of day in and day out trying to better myself but sometimes at night I am so stressed that I cannot sleep and just lay awake sometimes only sleeping for 2 hours a night for weeks at a time only to crash for 12 hours a night on the weekends.
Sounds like the support system would be the best thing for you to develop. Counseling, hopefully if you’re at a college or university with an actual campus it should be a free clinic there, use it. I might suggest group therapy just to help learn that bond of trusting other people (they’ll be in similar situations as you, working through similar problems, and asking you to trust them as much as they’re being asked to trust you). Constant rumination about bad memories is not good, but actively trying to avoid them does not help you forget them, just gives them more power over you. Try instead to focus on learning relaxation and developing skills that you enjoy, a hobby or some activities that make you feel good. Make the thoughts less threatening; you survived it when you were a child, and now you are older, you have more coping skills, more ability to tolerate emotions, more ability to stand up for yourself. You were trained in the army, you know things the average person just pretends (miserably) to be good at. Let yourself remember them while you’re relaxing and doing things that make you feel empowered, get use to them, take away their power.
meagain already gave very solid advice so i dont know what else to say. but i do feel for you man. you probably need to develop friends and find a sense of who you are to get a better direction in life and be happy. go out of the shadow of your family and live independently without having to think of what they’ll say about you. i know you’re having a really rough time but you gotta hang in there. try to rethink your life and set better goals for yourself and try to achieve these goals. finally, just try to be happy for yourself. you know, like a day out where you indulge on the things you like. you deserve it. :)
Get over it, it sounds like your on the right track.(Military & College). When you get finished and start applying for a great job pick one on the other side of the country. Sounds like you should be the one bitching at them.