PTSD Raw and Real: A Reason for Hope and Motivation To Fight On

By Jacqueline Pfadt

PTSD: Raw and Real is a reflection of my struggles with being a victim of child sexual abuse and the process of coming to terms with how these years of abuse have impacted my life. My life with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been a fragmented and disjointed existence with holes, blockades, and landmines. These unseen obstacles created emotional traps, blockades, and explosions at random intervals regardless of my surroundings. I existed for many years riddled with fear, anger, doubt, shame, self-loathing, despair, and loneliness. I tried to run, hide, escape, and disappear, but I could never find a lasting way to avoid the pain lurking everywhere. I didn't understand what PTSD was, and I was not diagnosed with it until much later in my recovery work. I lived life feeling broken, bad, poisonous, and crazy. I dammed these feelings up into a corner within my soul so that I could survive and function within my life. However, my existence was built on an unsteady foundation of negative self-worth that could not withstand the difficult trials of life. This book is my raw and real truth toward recovery and is the map behind the miracle of repairing my soul.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781635254600

Book preview

Intro to PTSD Round 2

I have read the book Hope by Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus.¹ I have read Finding Me by Michelle Knight.² Their books are them using their voices to tell about the horrific ordeals that they had to endure.

When these girls were finally found on May 6, 2013, I couldn’t even handle thinking or talking about it for a second. My insides were screaming, and I was doing everything I could to try to stop a complete meltdown of self-destruction and internal collapse.

On that day, I was in Washington, DC, visiting my friend, Rita, before heading to the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) National Convention for the first time. I was already emotionally charged because I was going to be meeting with my state representatives on Capitol Hill, telling them my mom’s story and asking them for funding for ALS research in support of my mom who had ALS at the time and my father-in-law, who had died from ALS in March 2011.

We were out to dinner at the Chart House in Alexandria, VA, sitting at the bar, looking out over the water of the Potomac River, and were talking about the upcoming conference and how my mom was doing. Breaking news was streaming across every station regarding the finding of Amanda, Gina, and Michelle after a decade plus of captivity in a house located in Cleveland, OH, my hometown.

The bar was buzzing with the news. I felt stuck and couldn’t find a way out of the conversations. I didn’t feel that I could ask the workers to turn off the televisions or change the channels. My anxiety levels were rising, and I was starting to panic. In order to stay in my seat and not go running out of the restaurant, I started to drink more and more, trying to numb the explosion that was taking place within my body.

I had been warding off the storm that had been looming overhead for several months to a year before the date of their release. My mom was terminally ill with ALS for just over two years at that point. I had been working and fighting to be strong support for my family as we fought that battle every day. I didn’t want my past to invade my life again and get in the way of me helping to take care of my family in their time of need.

We went back to Rita’s house after dinner, and I excused myself early, saying I needed to prepare for the conference the next day. I was finally able to seclude myself in the room where I’d be sleeping. My mind raced and rambled. I was sweating, my heartbeat was flying, my stomach lurched with nausea, and I curled up in a ball and fought to survive the painful surges that were coursing through my body and torturing my mind.

Something inside of me let go that day. I could no longer hold back my own battle that I had so desperately been trying to keep at bay. Everyone was talking about this house of horrors that these girls had endured. Any mention of it and I had to wall myself off from it because it instantly triggered a state of petrified fear that made me worry if I would survive the next day, hour, or minute as the fear wreaked havoc on my soul.

Over the years, I have gotten pretty skilled at numbing and avoiding things that trigger me in order to survive. Focusing on my role as a caregiver to my mom, which while it was a wonderful thing to do, was also an escape from dealing with and managing the impact that trauma has had on my life.

This breaking news of a story of survival, living in hell, exploded the walls that I had put up to help me escape and triggered a strong resurgence into my own hell. I didn’t need to hear these girls’ stories because I began reliving hell day and night, trapped within my own mind.

People talked of their amazing ability to have survived those years. Which is true, but so many people didn’t talk about, consider, or were even able to really grasp the hell in which these girls would continue to face and fight over and over again for the rest of their lives.

I could only think that these poor girls will never be the same. They are forever changed and will forever have to fight this fight.

From my own experiences, I know that it is an exhausting and relentless battle.

They escaped basically twenty years to the month, I believe, of when my abuse finally ended. These twenty years since have not been carefree or a celebration of my freedom but have been filled with a struggle against despair and a long-lasting fight trying to survive another day against the impact of abuse.

Although they are thankfully free from being held captive by that sick man, their battles are not over. It is just that the terrain of their battles has shifted. There is no guarantee of survival and thriving in this new landscape. They have been given a life sentence to carry this burden of torture and hell. The weight of that reality brought my own struggle back into the forefront of my life where it smacked me in the face with no chance to try and avoid, escape, or numb the long-standing aftermath of rape and abuse.

I had been putting off the work that had been desperately needed for a long time. I could not afford to avoid it any longer. I had been lost in the pits of despair before, and I didn’t want to fall all the way back into that darkness again.

Their story sparked awareness in the world of the awful things that occur in humanity. It sparked a fire in me to keep fighting to survive. I had needed a rest after my first round with PTSD, but the time was now to fight the next round of this battle against PTSD and despair.

Chapter 2

How Despair Initially Found Me

Despair became a regular companion of mine starting at an early age. A childhood that should have been filled with innocence and the simple trials and tribulations of being a youth was shattered and lost.

In the area I grew up, there were kids everywhere. My parents had an open door policy and lifestyle. We could come and go as we pleased and play with any of the kids in the area. Further, any of the kids were welcome to our house to play and get food or drinks. The good thing about this environment was the freedom it afforded us as kids. We loved being able to roam. However, with that freedom came a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong and unnoticed.

One of my earliest memories was when my parents left my brother and I at our house while they attended an adult party; some other kids came over to play while my parents were gone. Andrew (Drew) was the oldest, so I guess he was technically left in charge. I am guessing I was seven or eight years old and he was several years older. My family had recently gotten a hot tub, and it was the hot ticket for something fun to do at the time.

As kids often do, we decided to stir up some mischief. We divided into teams: the inside team and the outside team. The inside team was stationed in my older brother’s, Joey, room while the hot tub team was obviously in the hot tub. We somehow decided that using a hose to spray water at the inside team would be a great idea as they dumped buckets of water and threw things at us out the second story bedroom window.

Needless to say, the house was drenched. I think there ended up being several inches of water in the bedroom. We had to use every towel in the house to try to dry up the mess.

Sometime during that classic water fight, I remember Drew touching me. I can visually see myself in that moment and I don’t have the feeling that this was the first time this had happened. I cannot explain why I don’t think it was the first time other than saying that my memory and body sensations associated to the memory do not seem to have a sense of shock or surprise but rather a sensation of routine acceptance.

I don’t have a clear timeline or memories of when Drew began touching me. However, as I have tried to reconstruct my memories over the years, I believe this has to be one of the earliest memories I have recovered.

We were having this awesome fun fight, getting into trouble as kids should, and through it all, Drew was reaching under my bathing suit and was penetrating me with his fingers. He was fingering me, or the more technical term I have heard my therapist call it is digital rape. He also had me touching his penis underneath his bathing suit.

All this was happening as the rest of life went on around us.

When I was finally able to verbalize this story to my therapist, I was deeply agitated in the session. It took me years (age thirty-four) to be able to put words to this particular story. I had had visual, emotional, and physical flashbacks for years but no words or narrative to describe it.

After the session, I went to the bathroom to try to compose myself before having to drive home. In the bathroom, I realized that I had experienced some sexual response during the session. I didn’t feel it or even sense it while I was talking. I had been deeply agitated and felt physical discomfort in my body while I was talking to my therapist.

The recollection of having a sexual reaction in childhood when some of these things happened has always been a deeply disturbing thought to me. I was certain it must have meant that I somehow caused these things to happen. That I had asked for it. These feelings triggered the deep-seated sense of shame I had carried in myself and were among the root causes to my belief that I was an inherently bad person.

I believe this sense of shame is what made it so difficult for me to finally put words to this story and be able to share it with another human being. It was the fear of someone being exposed to my inherent badness that kept me silent. Once those words were out, I’d never be able to hide them again. They would know my secret: I was bad, bad, bad.

When I saw the physical reaction my body had in just recounting the story for the first time verbally, my shame and embarrassment soared. What the hell is wrong with me? It was horrifying to me to know that my body had reacted to the abuse and probably welcomed it in some ways.

The attention I was getting from an older boy and the natural sexual reaction were overwhelming and very confusing to a seven- or eight-year-old kid. I now know that I didn’t really understand what was happening.

On an intellectual level, I know that I was not at fault or the cause of this sexual behavior starting and that it was a natural human response for how my body reacted. It does not mean I asked for it or am inherently bad because my body found sexual arousal during the abuse. At age thirty-five, I am at least okay enough with this concept to no longer hide my story. I am starting to speak my truth and am not suffocated and weighed down by the shame. My soul is no longer cowered and imprisoned by a sense of inherent badness that I have carried as chains and burdens within my body for the last few decades as a result of these feelings and reactions.

In my memory, my parents came home later that night to find a laundry room filled with every towel in the house. My brother, Joey, who was not the best at being deceitful or lying, nonchalantly asked my parents if the house looked wet. I recall being horrified at his inability to lie to my parents and his so obvious giveaway to what we were trying to pull off. Why don’t you just tell Mom and Dad that we had a big-ass water fight?

Of course, this is not the ideal thinking of a seven- or eight-year-old. However, at this point, I already must have known how to lie to my parents about things that were going on in my life.

Drew touching me needed to be a secret, right? The weight of my secret life started early. Once you get pulled into a life of secrecy, it is very hard to unravel the fear and shame that take root and invade every aspect of your life.

Thus, the seed of despair and fear had been planted, and the darkness of what was going on in my life fed these poisonous beliefs to grow deeper and deeper into the base of my soul and into my very existence.

Part I

Chapter 3

Overview of PTSD Round 1

The Tsunami Hit

Hindsight is 20/20, so it is said. I have to admit, I did not really know anything about posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) until my mid-twenties. I think I read an article when I was twenty-five or so and thought, Wow, I think that is what I have been struggling with all these years. However, I had just gotten through what I now call round 1 with PTSD, and I was not about to dive back in and investigate what PTSD really was and how it was impacting my life.

In order to best follow the confusing path that PTSD and abuse have had on my life, I think it would be best at this point to revisit my first battle round or season with PTSD.

I have come to think of PTSD visiting me for either seasons (extended periods or years) or episodes (shorter visits like a weekend every month or so but where it does not consume my entire present-day life).

Through reading and my experiences, I have learned that our brains have this amazing ability to protect us from traumatic things occurring in our lives that overwhelm our ability to survive and cope. I don’t know exactly when my brain took over and blocked out the abuse; however, I think my brain shut down at the end of my seventh grade year.

The last memory that I have been able to recall was breaking up with my seventh grade boyfriend, Matt. It was the second last day of school, I think June 3, 1993. I was just a few weeks short of turning thirteen.

I was sitting in the cafeteria at school playing with yellow and orange magnetic balls. When the polar ends met, the balls pulled together, and when I flipped them, they pushed apart.

I was nervous and very sad as I fidgeted with these magnets. I had been dating Matt for a few months, and I loved him in an innocent way that a seventh grader can love. We had kissed, but it was nothing more than a youthful seventh grade relationship.

I think by this point, the abuse had slowed down and did not occur as frequently. I am suspecting it may not have occurred during most of the time I was dating Matt. However, just before that day, it must have happened again.

I was so ashamed. I didn’t feel like I deserved to be his girlfriend anymore. I cheated on him, right? What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I have stopped it from happening?

I, of course, couldn’t explain to him that I was an awful human being who was only meant to be used sexually by others. I was living in a fantasy world to think that I actually was allowed or deserved to have a boyfriend, to be happy, and to feel normal.

I told Matt I couldn’t be his girlfriend anymore. I couldn’t explain why or give him any reason. I still remember his devastated look and could see in his eyes that he had no idea why I was doing this. We really liked each other, and everything had been going really good. I was heartbroken but could not continue to exist knowing what I knew about myself and who I really was.

I think it was at this point that my brain just shut down. It couldn’t take anymore—the secrets or the pain. I have not recalled any memories of abuse after this point.

I believe I created a world inside of me where my abuse just didn’t exist anymore. It became as if the abuse had never happened. I don’t know exactly when or how this happened. I can only suspect and try to recreate my history based on the memories that I have recalled through flashbacks, intrusive memories, and nightmares.

Fast-Forward Three and a Half Years

My first season or round with PTSD started when I was sixteen and half years old. I had a boyfriend. This was the first boy I had allowed myself to really like since Matt. I had other boyfriends, but they were boys who I did things with but that I never allowed myself to really like. This time was different, and I was totally smitten.

We dated all summer and into my junior year of high school. I was just legal to drive, and this gave us a newfound sense of freedom. By November of that year, things were kind of touch and go, and I was desperate to do whatever I could to keep our relationship going.

My boyfriend accepted my invitation to come to my school dance. We went and had a good time dancing and having fun.

After, we were driving back to his house and were parked on a road next to his street. Things were getting a bit hot and heavy; my reserve was down because I wanted to do anything I could to make him happy so we would stay together.

We tried to have sex in the front seat of my car. It was very awkward physically, and it hurt me while we were trying. We turned a light on, and there was a little bit of blood on the dashboard of the car. All of a sudden, I was sitting in a bathroom, looking down at my underwear where I saw blood; I was probably nine years old and was crying.

I freaked. I didn’t know what the heck was going on, and I was oscillating between my flashback and the scary moment I was in presently. I couldn’t figure out where I really was or what was going on; I was terrified.

We went to his house so I could clean up. In the bathroom, I would look in the mirror and see a nine-year-old crying one second and then a sixteen-year-old crying the next second. I was having trouble figuring out who I was and where I was.

When I came out of the bathroom, we talked about what happened, but I was having trouble focusing. I remember that he was very concerned and considerate of my feelings. However, something was not right with me. I needed to get out of there.

I have referred to this moment as when