PTSD: The Aftermath

Trigger warning.

Do not read if physical or verbal abuse upsets you.

Do not read if you don't like negative stories either.

In another post, I mentioned that I could relate to some of the patients I'd seen during my psych rotation. Patients with suicidal tendencies, clinical depressions, and PTSD due to a past filled with physical and verbal abuse.
I myself went through these things too, with the exception of the attempts at taking my life. I did look into things which would bring on a swift death, though.


This is a post for those who wonder about what it is like to have PTSD. For those who suffer from it as well. For those who want to know they're not alone in this, and that it might become better.
For those who seem to think that medical professionals don't know shit about PTSD, or about abuse.
Some of us do.
I do.

I was born in the Netherlands, to two first-gen migrant parents of Asian descent. The so-called 'Tiger Parenting' style is the only thing my parents know.
My parents had high hopes for me. I was their only child, out of so many miscarriages and spontaneous abortions. I was to make them, and everyone back in their home country, proud.
And luckily for them, I was a bright child from the beginning. Perfect for being their little poster child. Their perfect little daughter.

My early years were uneventful. My earliest memory however, isn't.
I was still a young child back then - probably barely past my 4th winter.
I recall calling for my dad, who I, up until then, always knew as a friendly daddy. Only this time, his temper had risen its ugly head, and he exploded in anger (although for what reason, I do not know).
I did not know this dark side of him. It frightened me. And it wouldn't be the last time I would witness the sudden personality switch.
My father is a piece of work, really. He's oddly similar to Dr. Jekyll and Hyde. Happy the one moment, and exploding with anger the next.
I remember being strangely scared of my father when I was about 5 years old.
Luckily for me, my mother wasn't like that.

I do not know when I first got my first beating. I do not know whether it was with an open hand, with a fist, or with a tool.
I truly do not remember. But I do remember being afraid of the orange bike flag that used to decorate my bike. The stick in particular. My father took it off my bike, sawed it through the middle, and probably gave me a good beating with it.
I can still vividly remember studying the sawed end of that thing whenever it wasn't causing pain.
Come to think of it, my first beating must have occurred before the age of what. 6? It probably happened because I made a mistake any young child could have made.

Nevertheless, I still loved my parents, and strived to please them. I was an exceptionally bright child throughout elementary school - I was the top of the class at that time. Mommy and daddy must have been proud, oh yes.
But I remember being called 'stupid' when I was maybe 6 years old.
I don't know if I paid a lot of attention to it then. I fully well knew that I was smart, even if I was still an elementary school student.
Obviously, this continued on throughout my childhood. The name-calling and the beatings, that is.
If I was too slow with doing school-related exercises, my parents would be getting their bamboo sticks to give me an ass whooping. If I got a note wrong during piano practice, my father would slap me.
If I came home late from playing outside (I was only allowed to play outside for a maximum duration of 30 minutes. And only if I played the piano for 30 minutes. Fuck you.), I would be terrified of my parents.
I remember my father taking my favorite dinosaur toy and destroying it when I was too slow with doing whatever it was at that time.
I remember crying, and being afraid of getting another whooping for crying.

One of the most vivid memories I have of my childhood, before I became 'darker', is the following.
I remember laying in bed with my mother. We were probably watching tv or something. I was about 10 years old at that time. And suddenly, the door to the bedroom slammed open, and it hit the closet with a good bang. I remember thinking that my father was having one of his random time-bomb explosions of anger again. And then, there was the crack of pain across my head. I remember thinking something along the lines of "What?!", and I somehow turned around, only to see my father, livid, report card (elementary school) in one hand, and a sneaker in the other.
I don't know how many times I got hit. I just remember the intense fear and terror of that moment.
My mother didn't do shit for me, and all that time, my father was yelling things about 'failing' and getting a C for handwriting. As if I can help it that my handwriting was befitting of a doctor from the very start.
I think that was what caused me to become 'darker'. I dressed in dark blues, and slowly graduated to wearing blacks almost exclusively. I started liking the colour red, for it became a synonym to blood. I became insecure, and I wanted to be invisible in class, despite still being one of the best of my class.
Things went downhill from there.

I finished elementary school with superb marks, still, but my attitude had slowly worsened by the time I got into high school.
I was remarkably aggressive towards my classmates (especially if they annoyed me), yet, I was remarkably quiet and docile in class. Neither my friends nor I myself paid much attention to my sometimes volatile behaviour though.
Over the course of years, my grades began to drop, and the abuse intensified.
I remember how my parents used to call me 'dumb', 'worthless', 'fat', and how they threatened to disown me.
And above all.. I remember how much I hated myself. How much I wanted to be 'unborn', and never exist. I thought myself to be a burden for everyone. I believed that I was alone, and that everyone, but not me, was destined to be happy.

Happiness was not something for someone as worthless as me.

I started to separate myself from people my ages. From people in general, actually. No one deserved to know what was happening to me. What was still happening to me. It was for me, and me alone. I alone would carry this burden, because I wasn't good for anything else.
It was my task to remove other people's pain, and to shoulder it all. I deserved nothing better.
I learned to recognize the pain in others, and talked it out of them, while my own pain only intensified.
At some point, I started to pride myself for being able to take it for so long, without ever breaking down in front of other people. I prided myself for being strong enough to handle it, for never making people ever suspect that anything was happening at home. I was the silent, strong one. I was the hyper-aggressive freak who would break bones if she had to.
.. In retrospect, that's actually something mighty strange to be proud of.

After years of internalizing the abuse, of being conditioned to think of myself as unworthy of good things happening to me, of continuing the strong front, at the age of 14 or 15, I learned to hate.
I hated the human race. I wouldn't have cared if a meteorite fell down on earth and wiped the human race out. I hated my life. I wouldn't have cared if I died while taking a bullet for someone else. At least I would've done something good for once in my life. I hated my own kin. My own parents - first, my father. And then, my mother, too.
And I hated my own weakness.

I hated the flinch which automatically happened whenever I could see someone suddenly raise his or her hand. I hated how I cowered like a beaten dog. I hated feeling that odd sensation, which the Dutch call a 'hartverzakking'. Roughly translated, it would mean something along the lines of 'heart falling'.
It is the odd feeling when you realize that shit is about to hit the fan. That moment when your heart skips a beat in fear, and you momentarily freeze in your tracks. I guess speakers of the English language would call it a sensation of your stomach dropping.
I hated myself for feeling terror well up in me whenever I could hear my father's angry footsteps.
I hated myself, my weakness, and the Asian culture for producing its infamous 'Tiger parents'. I hated it when my parents would brag about my smarts whenever we were amongst other people, yet they would belittle and hit me whenever we were home.
I hated 'God' for allowing these things to happen to me and other people.
I basically hated the world.
But along with this, my seething rage gave birth to another unhealthy trait of mine.
Vengefulness.
I vowed to myself that I would find a way to spite my parents.
And I would do it in any way that would shake them, bad.
I would have my vengeance, before I would finish myself off.

Before I die alone.. | Let me have Vengeance..

Before I die alone.. | I will have Vengeance..

At the age of 17, a cruel gift was bestowed upon me. My father suffered a non-lethal heart attack.
What's terrible is that I was somehow slightly relieved to find out that my father had a non-lethal heart attack. I'm not feeling even slightly guilty for that.
It marked the beginning of the end of years of abuse. He wasn't allowed to fly into a fit of rage anymore. The break from the physical abuse was what started my slow recovery.
I started practicing martial arts, because despite the fact that no one knew of what had happened to me, I still wanted to maintain the strong front.
My mother, whom I might have previously thought of as a harmless little bird, turned out to be more of a vulture instead.
She may have not always approved of the beatings, but she certainly did approve the verbal abuse. In actuality, it was she, who did the most of it, only to now complain that I have become a cruel person with a short fuse.
She called me a good for nothing daughter, stupid, fat, said that it might have been better if I'd be left in the gutter, etcetera.
And now, despite sometimes telling me that marrying my father had been a mistake, she sided with him.
I'm exceptionally lucky that the people at my martial arts class are such wonderful people, who somehow knew that something was wrong, yet never pried for details.
The quiet nods of approval from my trainers and sparring partners, along with their wonderful attitude, were what saved me from deciding to take my own life to come back at my parents.

Martial arts saved my life. It stopped the hatred within me from growing stronger.
I learned violence, but became less violent instead.
I learned that I was capable of doing things right. I learned that I did not fail at everything I attempted.
I slowly learned to let the insults, the belittling, slide past me.
I was strong. 17, 18 years of living in the hellhole that was my home, had taught me that I was powerful, in another way.
I graduated high school, and then, fought my way into medical school.
Apparently, I wasn't as stupid or dumb as my parents had always said I was.
And yet, me getting accepted into medical school is a bittersweet victory.
My parents had always wanted me to become a doctor. I'd always wanted to become a doctor to put a stop to the pain of others, and to finally be a valued person myself.
Now I'm here, a second year med student, with decent to good grades, who passed all her exams on the first try.
This doesn't feel like a victory to me, because my parents are now cheering and bragging about my accomplishments. How good a daughter I am, blahblahblah.
But I'm alive, and still capable of taking care of my future patients' pain.
My parents have long stopped hitting me by now, and I'm slowly starting to recover from my ordeals.
There are almost no visible marks on me, but if one looks very closely, they might find that my childhood has left a permanent mark on me. 

I was never properly diagnosed with depression or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, nor even seen by a psychiatrist of doctor for complaints of anxiety disorders or depression.
I managed to stay off the radar. But I know fully well that I have suffered, and sometimes still suffer, from both.
I fit, or used to fit, the DSM-IV criteria for chronic PTSD.

I do not voluntarily go up to my parents to give them a hug. Most of the times, they aren't even allowed to give me a hug. Mind you, I still live with my parents. How odd is it that I live beneath the same roof as they do, and that I never ever hug them?
I still feel like I don't really 'belong' anywhere. Sometimes, I'll even feel like I'm fated to remain stuck in the healing process. Fated to be unhappy for the rest of her life.
I'll sometimes go out of my way to avoid 'triggers'- cues, feelings, which can and will remind me of my past.
I avoided the elective subject which dealt with Child Psychology, simply because I was afraid of being confronted with things which could remind me of my past.
I deliberately chose not to do it, despite the fact that I am still quite interested in psychiatry.
Merely reading about abuse raises my heart rate, and unleash feelings of dread, hatred, and sadness.
Despite my training in martial arts, The Flinch sometimes still resurfaces, whenever someone suddenly raises his/her hand.
The 'stomach drop' still happens whenever I hear loud noises.
I almost always have difficulties with falling asleep.
I always feel like I should be ready to react to any threat. I avoid drinking more than a glass of beer, because it messes up my ability to properly respond to a threat.
I don't trust people, and I'll readily think the worst of people (luckily for them, I won't accuse them of anything until they've really done it).
And I still hate the thought of being weak.
There are more people now who know that I was beaten and belittled in the past. I'm still worried they'll think of me as a frail, weak and unstable little girl.
Now, whenever I hear someone complain about whatever tiny thing it is they're dealing it, I have a tendency to roll my eyes, and I inwardly think "Bitch, suck up and deal with it."
My mother was right in that I have become a cruel, harsh person. Cruelty is often a learned trait.

 
This is what my past did to me. On the outside, I'm a calm, confident and successful medical student. But on the inside, I'm a damaged, uncertain and vindictive demon.
I'm not a good person, nor am I a pretty person. I still don't know if I deserve to have a good life, with a wonderful significant other, children, and a pretty career.
It'll probably take me a long time to get over it, but only very few people will know what we're dealing with. PTSD is mostly invisible. Our scars are mostly invisible. But they're proof we survived the demons that were thrown at us.
I fully acknowledge that the demons are still there, that they can still affect me. But I'll also fully acknowledge that there are times when they've lost their power over me.

Because I'm finally entering a period where it's becoming better.