A rare peak behind the curtain the real me.

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Work and play always kept that demon inside, chasing me at bay.

With retirement and large swaths of time to think, I finally see my life, the big picture.

I am devastated.

Like many, we did not have a chance as little kids.

My childhood abuse followed me into college, where betrayal broke that abused little boys back.

It was stored as the most horrific thing that ever happened to me. I can not change how this was stored, the intensity or the harm or the event itself. Oh I have tried.

I never realized, I should never have entered a relationship with a partner, ever. I did not know the risk, the damage for life that would happen.

Childhood abuse left me damaged and incapable of ever handling betrayal, let alone public ridicule. My father so isolated me, I never confided in a soul.

I did not have anyone I trusted, anyone I would ever share humiliation, shame, loss or weakness with.

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I lived life inside my head, alone, since childhood. I was extremely vulnerable and had no clue.

I have paid a heavy price for loving someone. I never trusted a mate again. It was not conscious or cognitive, everytime a girlfriend or wife would go out alone, my bags were packed.

I did not understand why my gut would churn, my nervous system would go to tilt or why I suffered. This always caused conflict and suffering for me.

It was impossible for me to attach in a healthy way. But it felt like failure to be single.

I found it impossible to be close or trust any partner after college. I gave what was available, much of me had shut down without me knowing it.

PTSD was alive but I never knew it.

My cognitive rationalizations now, common sense, can not reach this nightmare. We can not cognitively reach ptsd or change it by talking to it, like many think.

It plays in a venue that thinks its worse than death. Somehow I need to proces this, integrate this, not try to change it.

Hard for an old guy to handle this level of anxiety, humiliation and outright fear, now.

How in the world do you fix this?

I have done the work, journeyed for a decade on the road less traveled and this is what remains.

PTSD does not care, we can suffer till we die.

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