The Life Changing Event - Part 4
There was a look of genuine terror and fear in her face. She was living with a couple and the child she had been spending time with triggered off the childhood abuse, she would talk about it often after this for hours on end. She was suffering from Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Serve Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder) and was prone to experiencing psychotic episodes.

Not long after this I witnessed my little sister re-experience a repressed memory from childhood that involved her, my younger sister, maybe my brother and me. After she had relived it (which was horrific) she dissociated back to a young girl for a couple of hours, on the same night I had a dream of someone violently trying to open my door and when I woke up I felt a lot of fear and grabbed on to the closest living thing to me for comfort which happened to be our dog Maggie.
The situation at home started to wear me down and I felt overwhelmed so my brother and I decided to move out of home when I was 19 or 20, I moved in with my cousins. At first everything went well and I was doing my best to start a fresh in life but little did I know about the grieving process that was about to take place, when I got drunk my
inner-defenses lowered and I would breakdown about everything I had previously experienced that was suppressed deep within.
I believe the reason I was so detached from myself and my emotions was linked to a form of depersonalization which is triggered off by traumatic events, which is why I would use alcohol to try and reconnect with parts of myself. When I moved out of home it felt like I came out of a different world, a world that’s hard to believe yet it is what I experienced and went through growing up. The scene that would trigger me would be off good will hunting it’s not your fault, this would happen many times.
I carried a lot of guilt for the state of her life and that guilt had dictated and governed how I lived my own life, in many ways it held me back from reaching my full potential. ‘I partial blamed myself for the path she went down. That is why the movie hit me on such a personal level. In the midst of all this chaos I had a very significant dream that felt real; I’m in the room next to Dad and Mums I try to turn on the light switch but it doesn’t work I proceed into the hallway there is something written on the floor but I can’t read it.
I continue to walk on until I get to the billiard room and Mum is asleep on the couch and she is sleeping on a mattress I question her about the writing on the floor and she replies back it’s not writing it’s my blood, she proceeds to tell me I exist in my dreams, I reply back I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you and I start to breakdown. I see two dark figures leave the kitchen and go out the front door. I believe this dream was a reflection of the immense guilt I felt for not having the capability required to save her.
I had this dream after 23 but I feel it has significance. I’m with her on a ledge and she whispers in my ear Mum and Dad never loved us then she falls off and is hanging by rope lifelessly, after I’m standing in a wide corridor in a spooky house with archways leading into other rooms on the left and right of me, it is near pitch black and there is no front door. I walk down the corridor and then multiple corpses’ fall hanging from the ceiling. I walk through one of the archways into another room and it is pitch black I get harassed by two people I try to speak up to defend myself but can’t. At this point I feel a lot of fear. In both dreams there are two men I can’t identify.
My younger sister, brother and I eventually moved into a house together this is when I started to become more focused on going to the gym to train. I did breakdown a couple of times and also battled with alcohol. Mum and Dad had looked for answers to do with our unique situation in many areas but they all ended up been dead ends that lead nowhere. I’m 23 now and my brother, younger sister and I have moved back home. To be honest
all the isolation I’ve been through and the hellish experience I’ve endured growing up has left me in a position of struggling to know who I am and where I belong.
This blog is run by volunteer bloggers. If you are interested in sharing your story or blog for APTSDA please reach us at [email protected]
All contents on this web site are the properties of American PTSD Association, Inc. or its content suppliers and protected by United States and international copyright laws.
Tags: