That is a classic symptom of PTSD. It doesn't go away by itself, but if you work through the PTSD, it doesn't have to be part of you forever.

Gosh, I had a nice long and informative answer written to this thread, and then my Firefox crashed so I lost it! But yes, I had complex post traumatic stress disorder (I believe that is what the OP is describing - it differs from regular PTSD because the abuse was prolonged, and like PTSD, it doesn't go away by itself, but you have to work through it actively). I think there is a sense in which the effects of abuse stay with you forever - you don't miraculously forget them - but you can work through the effects of PTSD/CPTSD so that they don't control you.

I used to get irritated easily when I first had CPTSD - what happens is that once you are out of the stressful situation, your body can stop using all its survival mechanisms, and you're exhausted and jumpy, because you're in a situation where it's safe to finally feel the effects of the abuse/trauma. Personally, I found that working through the stages for healing from PTSD really helped, and it's much more relaxing not to be easily irritated and jumpy. I really recommend Judith Herman's book Trauma and Recovery - it describes the stages of healing, so that you can follow them. Although I must also add that working through trauma is a very long and difficult process, and you have to be prepared for it to get worse before it gets better. It can take several years.

This is exactly why I posted this forum...so that we could help each other. There are alot of people on this site who suffer from the effects of abuse and trauma and PTSD, and they don't feel comfortable talking to a counselor [or can't afford to talk to one]. I had hoped that we could help each other deal with these effects and our behaviors as a result of our abuse/trauma, etc. This may not be the "ideal" place one would come to talk about their abuse, but it's a start, I suppose. I hope that more people would want to help each other and help themselves get better at handling these effects. They last a very, very long time. They don't go away over night, and without work on our part they'll never go away.

It's probably quite a personal thing for people to talk about on a public forum. Maybe people would be more comfortable talking about it in comments on a members only/friends only diary entry? Certainly it can help to write about it on a diary site - for me, part of my way of working through it was writing online diary entries on Open Diary, years ago. But it was easier because people there were strangers. It felt anonymous. I think it can be harder with people you've formed friendships with. There is a sense of not wanting to burden friends, not wanting to make friends uncomfortable or upset, not wanting people to judge, etc (not that friends will necessarily react that way, but for some reason people do tend to find it easier talking to strangers, at least at first).

I thought about that but there are more people on this site who suffer from these effects than just the people who read my diary. My friends and faves are only a small portion of the people who are online and who read the forums.

If people don't feel comfortable talking about it here, then they certainly don't have to talk about it here. I don't feel like I'm making them talk about it. And if we end up carrying it into some private discussion then that would be good as well. The whole reason some of the people I know won't even go to therapists or counselors is because they don't want to even acknowledge that it's happened and they don't want to change. Hopefully showing some other scared people out there that there are people who have been abused just like them out there and who struggle with the same issues and they are not alone. The hardest thing to deal with in terms of feeling abused, unloved, like you have no self-worth is to also feel like you're the only person in the world dealing with those problems. You feel incredibly alone and that only feeds into holding on to abusive people who say they "love" you.

I just thought it would be nice to show people they're not alone, and there are others of us out here who are willing to talk about it with them if they want to talk about it. I'm 30 years old and I still struggle with some effects of abuse. I've gotten lots better, but it's still a struggle. That's probably one reason you called me "a bit angry" one time - and I probably am sometimes. lol.

Heh - yes, I was thinking that was probably the reason you were 'a bit angry'. I used to come across as 'a bit angry' too, back in the day, always up in arms about all kinds of things. Well, at first I really was angry, but it persisted when I didn't even feel angry - I just felt that everything was a fight. That is supposedly a normal and healthy phase though - you naturally feel angry when you process the fact that you've been abused, and naturally feel a bit of resentment towards people who've had nice happy loved childhoods. And then one day you just stop being angry. Or you get irritable once a month like I do (gosh, that reminds me, I must update my Auntie Flo diary!). But I think most women get irritable once a month!

I agree with all of that. I used to also be really "high strung". I would get upset and angry alot. Even though people said they could not tell that I was stressed out, I carried around a lot of stress, from internal and external sources. But I have always been looked to as the strong one in my family. I am the one people come to when they need to break down and cry or need someone to make them feel better or be empathetic and understanding. Even though I suffered greatly because of abuse, I do see certain positive outcomes (or maybe I have made the positives) in that I can endure a lot and I am strong. I know that I can endure anything. I know that I will be okay no matter what happens. I have an optimistic outlook and a belief that everything happens for a reason.

When I was younger, I resented the fact that I would never have the father-daughter relationship that some people do...you know the whole "daddy's girl" thing where they feel they can talk to their dad about anything... Even now that I have forgiven my dad, and he as done things to try to make retribution for what he did (such as helping me get my house by putting the loan in his name because my credit is so bad and because I have no money he paid my property taxes this past year), we still now have trouble talking about certain things. We live on the same property and we still don't talk that much. It's kind of uncomfortable... But it's not that we can't talk - it's that we just don't talk. He is sort of anti-social, and sometimes I get that way too (where I just want to be left alone), but I am not as bad as he is. I still like to go out and spend time with people more than he does. He doesn't even like family functions.

Yet I still find I am moody. Everything I do (except things I have to do such as going to work), I do based on my mood. Sometimes when people want to make plans way in advance and it's not something that I really want to do, I will say "Ask me again closer to that time and see what my mood is." I have decided at the last minute that I just don't feel like doing something so I don't do it. If I don't want to do it, then I don't do it. I had a friend who also happens to be a counselor tell me that was "first born child syndrome" though - that people who are first borns and who are the babies typically don't do things unless they want to do it. lol.

I have been moody since I was a kid, and I don't know if the moodiness is from abuse or not, since I have been diagnosed with PTSD and bipolar. You know, I was in that car accident and had all that damage to my back and legs, and the doctors put me on an anti-depressant because they know chronic pain causes depression. It has actually helped me alot. I still get moody during Auntie Flo's visit though and I am more prone to sadness and nostalgia. Normally, I don't get very sad at all. I don't cry much. I am not overly sensitive or emotional. I used to take things personally but now I don't.

Most of my emotions always came out as anger and I used to have a horrible temper, but I am not as bad as I used to be. Everything used to be a fight for me... Now I have learned to choose my battles, because most things aren't worth fighting over.

I think it's from the abuse, honestly... you might feel like you're surrounded by stupid people, but the reality is that you're not surrounded by stupid people... I know, because I am one of your friends and I am definitely not stupid. You might think I am, but I know that I'm not. And the fact that you would think that I am stupid because of something I've said that's hurt your feelings [in your eyes pissed you off] then that's a sign of effects of abuse.

Abused people - myself included - have a tendency to have all of their feelings come out as anger or being pissed off. Because we would rather people think we are angry at them than let them know that they have hurt their feelings, we are disappointed, etc. The last thing we want to ever be seen as again is weak and vulnerable [which being abused made us feel], and if people see that they have hurt our feelings, then we THINK it means that we look weak and vulnerable to them - and that if we seem weak, they will take advantage of that weakness. So instead of saying, "you hurt my feelings" we will say "you pissed me off"... Anger always masks some other feeling.

This is another thing I can relate too. All through my high school years, & even now I'm the first one to raise a fist to someone you hurts me. It's one of my weak points. I can not stand to be made look stupid, vulnerable, or weak so to channel those feelings I lash out at people either with words or physically. Being one who has suffered physical abuse as well at the hands of an alcoholic father I never thought I would hit someone. But I have. I have done it several times. I was so tired of being the victim of that, that I wanted to be the one in control over someone else. If someone ever tried to make me feel backed into a corner (either mentally or physically) I came out swinging with all my might. It's a defence mechanism. I never want to be hurt by anyone like my dad hurt me. But also in another sense, I will NEVER make my daughter feel that way about me. I will never spank my child with anything like a belt, tree limb, or a paddle like my father did to me.

I can relate to that as well. I used to hate to be made to look stupid or weak or vulnerable. I would get mad over the stupidest things and come out fighting about it. I was determined not to be weak ever again. I had spent too many years as weak...only in the end, it really made me very strong.

I have also found that when we put out all of our feelings as "anger" then [especially in our relationships] we can't effectively talk about them and communicate with the person with whom we are upset... because they think we're angry - and we're not angry... We are sad, hurt, disappointed, etc. But we're scared to tell them that we are hurt instead of mad because we don't want to seem weak. So we tend to have relationships that have poor communication, and in the end, the relationship fails because we aren't honest about our feelings. Of course, if we worked through this and entered into a relationship where we were truly honest about our feelings, we *might* not have those same communication problems. Not that being this way stops us from dating, we still date...only with the next person, we're still scared to reveal our true feelings and so the communication problems are still there. I used to blame every guy I was with for having bad communication, and then I realized that I was partially to blame for those problems because I wasn't talking about the real issues. I was talking about something else that wasn't the problem or the cause of the problem.

Oh, to add though, even now that I have gotten a grip on some of this... and I have "chilled out" alot. I'm not as high strung or as angry as I used to be. People still say I am "chill with an undertone of not taking any shit off of anyone"... lol. Because I am not going to take any crap off of anyone. I took too much crap for too many years and I won't do it anymore.

Before my grandfather died from pancreatic cancer last year, he said, "You put up with too much crap, stuff you shouldn't put up with" and I said, "I know I do" and he said, "Well, stop it." I did. lol. And that was coming from a man who used to beat my grandmother and was a very mean person in his early life [but he changed dramatically]. Because my mom grew up in that kind of a household, I know that is one reason why she never jumped in to protect me or to protect herself from my dad's abuse. She'd experienced the same thing as a kid, so she ended up getting into the exact same relationship that her mother had been in.

Even now, I remember things my dad did to me that she doesn't remember - but I remember them very well because I suffered from the effects of what he did. I can remember in exact detail the last time he ever hit me, what it was over, how it felt, etc. I remember begging my mom to help and her just standing there. It took me years to forgive her - and to forgive him for that.

I am determined not to treat my children, if I ever have any, the way I was treated. I grew up with low self-esteem and no self-worth. And I won't let my children grow up like that. They will know they are loved all the time, unconditionally, and I will never abuse them. I know what it can do to a child and no child should go through that.

when i was about 14 or 15 i dated a guy started out all sweet,an a total nice guy(i've found that most of them do)a few months into it,he just started with constant put downs,insults,telling me that he was only 'giving me what i deserved'a few months after it turned to physical abuse,i tried to o.d an would up in the hospital.of course,he was right there with me,telling me i was a moron an all that.the night i got out of the hospital,while i was still pretty out of it,he decided he wanted sex.i was litterally so out of it,i couldn't do anything but just lay there an take it.apperently it wasn't working for him,because when he couldn't keep it,i got smacked in the face an told it was my fault.even then,i didn't leave him,because he would tell me all the time,if i left him,i might as well kill myself for real,because no one else would want to be with me since i was 'dirty' now.and he'd force me to do it whenever he wanted.i finnally left him,ONLY after he almost broke my arm,in front of my two yr old cousin when i was babysitting her.
even years later it still messes with my mind,i freak out if a guy raise's his voice around me,an alot of times,if a guy(even best friends,or family)goes to hug me,or makes a sudden movement in my direction,ill automatically panic an sorta curl into myself.
the WORST thing(in my opinion)is how badly it's skewed my view on relationships.it made me feel like i wasn't worth anything,except as a punching bag,or a sex object.so i'd be the girl that would sleep with someone after only 'dating' them a few weeks or whatever,because i honestly believed that was the only way to keep a guy around.
but,with some help from friends(and a really awesome boy-who,sadly,im no longer seeing,but he's always going to be special to me)i've learned that i don't have to sleep with ANYONE just to make them happy.