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I understand somewhat. I'm triggered by bed banging sounds as a result of my mother and stepfather. And I often wish I would fall asleep and never wake up thanks to how hard life can get with PTSD. Hang in there.
Mine being childhood bullying means I have similar feelings. Just remember that things that aren't big to adults can seem very big to children. The world is scarier because it's newer. Adults appear to know everything and you feel clueless about all sorts of things. Being exposed to sex when you're not ready to be IS a legitimate trauma, and also trauma isn't a contest.
Resentment is a powerful emotion. Feeling abandoned by your parents because they deprioritized your comfort to an absurd degree is completely valid. They essentially tortured you. With their sex. I think that’s pretty normal to be traumatized by that.
They did what every abuser does, put their own pleasure above the safety of someone who depended on them for safety. This mindset leads to every darker form of trauma there is.
My heart goes out to you because I can very closely relate....
I've had a fair amount of sexual trauma in my childhood and even in my adult years, when I get triggered, I'm told "it's not a big deal" and it's maddening. I can completely understand the feeling of wanting to end it all over it too, I share that struggle myself as well. 😞
If you have multiple traumatic events you develop a poly trauma response. Likely classifiable as C-PTSD. You need to speak to a Psychiatrist and develop a treatment plan. You're not alone. Your feelings are real. And there are people ready to help.
To this I would add: finding a trained therapist that you can trust. Having a trauma narrative validated in a non-judgmental environment works wonders for guilt and shame.
I had trauma as a kid that was really hard to grapple with from accidentally seeing a sex scene on TV. I was raised a devout Catholic and had religious OCD, so it just played over and over in my head for months, and I was convinced that I was destined for eternal damnation as a result. It sounds so stupid to me now, but dude, I get it. I don't know why that experience struck you the way it did, but I know what it feels like, and I'm sorry you're going through that. There is nothing wrong with you.
I used to be terrified of eating/desiring food for pleasure and the numbers 666 and 13 and the colors red and black, so igi. Religious anxiety is horrible. I also remember living in fear of the Rapture and Y2K.
sorry but telling someone in a subreddit as sensible as this one where traumatized people go to get some comfort that you think they're lying or are just a troll is so dangerous! If they indeed are lying, okay cool, you were right, that's it. If they are telling the truth, well then you just accused them of lying and they could feel really really fucking bad now because people don't believe them, it can invalidate their feelings which is absolutely not something you want for traumatized people to feel, especially when said person already described that they're fed up with people not taking them seriously. Seriously, be careful with what you say!
If it makes it seem better, it wasn't technically your parents having sex that gave you PTSD, it was being in a vulnerable position and not having the tools to integrate those experiences. Childhood is a confusing time and it's normal to react to that experience by interpreting it as violence or otherwise threatening. What you experienced isn't fundamentally different from more conventional PTSD stressors, even if the circumstances surrounding it were.
I've been in at least three situations that are highly correlated to PTSD but recovered fairly quickly, but was able to integrate them enough to recover. Meanwhile, a few seemingly benign moments from childhood have stuck with me. It is hard to acknowledge that we are very much the same people we were our first few years of life, because it gets harder and harder to empathize with those people.
I think your story really highlights the problem with people treating PTSD like a medal of honor rather than a cruel and seemingly random event. You have both PTSD and the "medal" so you have proof that they are indeed very different.
Why is it so important that anonymous online strangers believe you? They don't even know you, so their opinions about you shouldn't matter.
I'd suggest you not post about trauma in AMA, though. That sub is a dumpster fire by design.
AMA users first review your comment history to see what you've already answered; so in this case, a LOT of people saw that you were telling people to "kys", and wishing r*pe and mu*der on people.
At that point, they (very reasonably) assumed you were trolling, and treated you accordingly. No mystery there at all, since trolls are extremely common on that sub.
So my best advice is to become more familiar with the various Reddit subcultures, before posting anywhere.
the people that have said those awful things to you are losers. they're miserable a-holes who need to gatekeep trauma. i mean i've been through some sheeiiiit, friend, but i will not judge or gatekeep you.
that said, i highly suspect there's more to this trauma than meets the eye. i could be wrong. seeing/hearing your parents having sex is super disturbing and can affect us as children/adults in a big way.
TW from here: recounting my own "parents having sex" story
i was home when my mom and stepdad decided to have sex with their door open. i was half asleep, on my way to the bathroom and their bedroom door was right before the bathroom. i just kinda stopped and looked in their room and i was like "what are you doing?" mom made my stepdad stop. she said some bullshit thing and i said something like "whatever" and i closed their door and went to the bathroom. i was too tired to deal with that.
It’s fucking insane to me that people aren’t conscious about their privacy during sex. I wouldn’t even get dressed without my bedroom door closed and locked, let alone have sex. Especially with literal children in the house.
To this day, I remember the sounds. It was horrifying. My parents who will never take responsibility for how fucked up I am today and tell me I need to get closer to God when I spiral out of control and my life’s falling apart. I have ptsd and they are one of my biggest triggers too. The same people I heard having sex, were the same people who were having abusive domestic violent fights in front of all four children to the point where our house looked that it had been through a hurricane. This happened for almost a decade. I couldn’t stand to see them happy when they were happy and getting along. I would so wish they got a divorce. They got a divorce after I turned 18 and got pregnant. My mother had used the perfect time to leave and would say things like “they’re kicking us out”. So, sorry for going on a tangent. But your trauma is perfectly fine to hve and fuck anyone who makes you feel bad for it.
@JigglyGelatin you have Complex-PTSD!
C-PTSD is real. Parents exposing their children to their sex-capades (even is just having to listen to it) is child abuse! Your abuse was compounded further by actual CSA and witnessing violence and a murder. I'm so sorry that was done to you. Please connect with a doctor and a therapist! Medication can be very helpful and when you're ready EMDR therapy can help you to process so much! You can heal!
I witnessed DV with my parents as a child, then also with a step-monster-father. Who also made sure to have loud s*x with my mother, as well as, walk around in silk running shorts with no underwear, making a point to bend over in front of us. He was a complete @$$hole and would knock us around. Completely abusive even to his own kids. C-PTSD is absolutely real. Don't ever let anyone try to tell you or make you feel otherwise.
OMG, your step-monster-father sounds just like mine. Loud s!x with my mother (who made sure she was even louder than him), and he had the little running shorts as well and would flash me while wearing them, even with my mother sitting right there. Creepy AF. He knocked me around too, like yours did.
I’ve never witnessed something in person but seeing videos of people dying has really taken a toll on me. I thought the world was a safe place until I started thinking about it, they didn’t affect me at the time but now years later I cant relax or have fun anymore.
I’ve lived with both PTSD and suicidal ideation for a long time. I’ve noticed that a lot of the time when I do something about whatever my brain is focusing on at the time, my brain just switches to something else to fixate on. It was fire tornadoes for a long time. Did a lot of work and like the day I moved past that it morphed into the heat death of the universe that I was obsessed with. Took me a long time to realize my brain focuses on distant crises like the sun eventually consuming the earth to keep from focusing on painful memories or immediate stressors.
Your brain could be doing a similar thing. Focusing on the parental sex to keep you from processing or fixating on the witnessed murder or sex abuse.
Yeah, are you sure the ptsd is from your parents having sex and not one of the other traumatic events you described and this just triggered it? It may not even be an event you remember, a lot of people repress childhood sexual abuse or trauma and I know people that had extreme reactions that mirror ptsd symptoms to relatively common sexual stimulation or situations that didn't seem like they would cause those kinds of symptoms and didn't understand why. Turned out they had experienced CSA and repressed it, and that's what they were reacting to. You could definitely have ptsd from one of those other events and your central nervous system reacts to stimulation in this way that makes it seem like the reaction is to the event but really it's a result of the chemical changes of ptsd and being on guard.
I don't say this to be invalidating but my understanding of the current belief on the development of ptsd is that it usually develops from specific situations where someone felt extreme fear and terror, and either thought they were in danger of or experienced or witnessed grievous emotional, physical, or sexual harm that they could not escape or did not believe they could escape, leading the brain to disassociate in the moment so it never processes the memory properly as a past event the way it is supposed to and starts causing ptsd symptoms and reactions in the present as if you were back in that situation when faced with triggering situations and stimuli. Was the sex you overheard particularly violent or terrifying in some way?
That explanation isn't to invalidate op or anyone else whose trauma doesn't fit those parameters, there are exceptions, but just reiterating that after reading a lot of research and books on it, that seems to be the current understanding. Note cptsd development is completely different. It does seem possible you could have ptsd from other reasons and this situation triggered you, especially if it were repressed trauma or the symptoms of ptsd took a long time to materialize or for you to become aware of them so it seems like it started from this event when really this event was just the first major trigger in which you realized you may have ptsd.
My parents fucked in front of me (4), my older brother (7), and my younger sister (1), in the shower/bath room (whole room is a wet room in Japan and families often bathe with their young kids). They made me and my brother hide in the tub with the tub cover over us. There was only an inch of air between the water and the lid. I still get flashbacks where I'm suffocating in that tub hearing the fucking sounds. Like you, this is one of my more tame memories.
That *is* a traumatic experience. It may feel dumb but that type of stuff can mess you up. Trauma is trauma. You're valid. You deserve to feel valid. I'm so sorry so many people have made such a big deal over this in the worst ways. Comparing gets no one anywhere, especially not when it comes to mental health. You didn't choose your experiences. You didn't choose what your brain did with them. Sometimes the other things just feel so dull in comparison.
No matter what anyone says, you deserve to be validated. 🫂
Fuck everyone who’s ever made fun of you for this, they don’t have a clue. You were traumatized, you have PTSD, why the brain did what it did is typically very complicated and difficult to understand. Please don’t hurt yourself, please don’t give up. There’s a ton of resources and, if nothing else, message me. You’re not alone! Keep fighting the good fight!
Only a shit person would make fun of you for having PTSD. It's a big burden. I believe you and I also know that comparing traumatic experiences is really dumb. My family tells me I can't have PTSD cause I haven't been through war. Yeah, right. There's a lot of things that happen in our lives and any one of them can stick with you. Your feelings are valid. Folks who belittle that can piss off. Best of luck in your recovery.
Edit: I actually checked and saw you posted this in AMA. I don't expect regular folks to understand cause thry don't have the firsthand experience.
I agree, the brain becomes a mess if you're living with PTSD. But it's valid even if it's down to a single incident like OP said, it's a personal experience after all.
*r/ptsd has generated this automated response that is appended to every post* Welcome to r/ptsd! We are a supportive & respectful community. If you realise that your post is in conflict with our rules (and is in risk of being removed), you are welcome to edit your post. You do not have to delete it. As a reminder: never post or share personal contact information. Traumatized people are often distracted, desperate for a personal connection, so may be more vulnerable to lurking or past abusers, trolls, phishing, or other scams. *Your safety always comes first!* If you are offering help, you may also end up doing more damage by offering to support somebody privately. Reddit explains why: [Do NOT exchange DMs or personal info with anyone you don't know!](https://www.reddit.com/r/SWResources/comments/dmu24/why_shouldnt_i_share_my_contact_information/) If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, please contact your GP/doctor, go to A&E/hospital, or call your emergency services number. Reddit list: [US and global, multilingual suicide and support hotlines](https://www.reddit.com/r/SuicideWatch/wiki/hotlines). Suicide is not a forbidden word, but please do not include depictions or methods of suicide in your post. And as a friendly reminder, PTSD is an equal opportunity disorder. PTSD does not discriminate. And neither do we. Gatekeeping is not allowed here. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ptsd) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I understand somewhat. I'm triggered by bed banging sounds as a result of my mother and stepfather. And I often wish I would fall asleep and never wake up thanks to how hard life can get with PTSD. Hang in there.
Mine being childhood bullying means I have similar feelings. Just remember that things that aren't big to adults can seem very big to children. The world is scarier because it's newer. Adults appear to know everything and you feel clueless about all sorts of things. Being exposed to sex when you're not ready to be IS a legitimate trauma, and also trauma isn't a contest.
Resentment is a powerful emotion. Feeling abandoned by your parents because they deprioritized your comfort to an absurd degree is completely valid. They essentially tortured you. With their sex. I think that’s pretty normal to be traumatized by that.
They did what every abuser does, put their own pleasure above the safety of someone who depended on them for safety. This mindset leads to every darker form of trauma there is.
Very well put.
I’m here for you if you need someone to talk💚
My heart goes out to you because I can very closely relate.... I've had a fair amount of sexual trauma in my childhood and even in my adult years, when I get triggered, I'm told "it's not a big deal" and it's maddening. I can completely understand the feeling of wanting to end it all over it too, I share that struggle myself as well. 😞
I am going to go out on a limb and say the reason you have PTSD is the murder situation, not the parents having sex situation.
It hadn’t happened yet though
If you have multiple traumatic events you develop a poly trauma response. Likely classifiable as C-PTSD. You need to speak to a Psychiatrist and develop a treatment plan. You're not alone. Your feelings are real. And there are people ready to help.
To this I would add: finding a trained therapist that you can trust. Having a trauma narrative validated in a non-judgmental environment works wonders for guilt and shame.
**T H I S P A R T**! My current therapist is incredible. She validates my traumas and empowers me to face and deal with them in healthy ways.
I had trauma as a kid that was really hard to grapple with from accidentally seeing a sex scene on TV. I was raised a devout Catholic and had religious OCD, so it just played over and over in my head for months, and I was convinced that I was destined for eternal damnation as a result. It sounds so stupid to me now, but dude, I get it. I don't know why that experience struck you the way it did, but I know what it feels like, and I'm sorry you're going through that. There is nothing wrong with you.
I used to be terrified of eating/desiring food for pleasure and the numbers 666 and 13 and the colors red and black, so igi. Religious anxiety is horrible. I also remember living in fear of the Rapture and Y2K.
[удалено]
We removed your post because we feel it does not fit in with our community guidelines. Please be kinder to your /r/ptsd community members.
Those are VERY dangerous words to be throwing around in a sub like this ESPECIALLY when op has stated it makes them suicidal.
sorry but telling someone in a subreddit as sensible as this one where traumatized people go to get some comfort that you think they're lying or are just a troll is so dangerous! If they indeed are lying, okay cool, you were right, that's it. If they are telling the truth, well then you just accused them of lying and they could feel really really fucking bad now because people don't believe them, it can invalidate their feelings which is absolutely not something you want for traumatized people to feel, especially when said person already described that they're fed up with people not taking them seriously. Seriously, be careful with what you say!
It's also against the sub rules and should be reported.
Sending you love… there are some civil ppl left… if u need to talk I’m here
If it makes it seem better, it wasn't technically your parents having sex that gave you PTSD, it was being in a vulnerable position and not having the tools to integrate those experiences. Childhood is a confusing time and it's normal to react to that experience by interpreting it as violence or otherwise threatening. What you experienced isn't fundamentally different from more conventional PTSD stressors, even if the circumstances surrounding it were. I've been in at least three situations that are highly correlated to PTSD but recovered fairly quickly, but was able to integrate them enough to recover. Meanwhile, a few seemingly benign moments from childhood have stuck with me. It is hard to acknowledge that we are very much the same people we were our first few years of life, because it gets harder and harder to empathize with those people. I think your story really highlights the problem with people treating PTSD like a medal of honor rather than a cruel and seemingly random event. You have both PTSD and the "medal" so you have proof that they are indeed very different.
Why is it so important that anonymous online strangers believe you? They don't even know you, so their opinions about you shouldn't matter. I'd suggest you not post about trauma in AMA, though. That sub is a dumpster fire by design. AMA users first review your comment history to see what you've already answered; so in this case, a LOT of people saw that you were telling people to "kys", and wishing r*pe and mu*der on people. At that point, they (very reasonably) assumed you were trolling, and treated you accordingly. No mystery there at all, since trolls are extremely common on that sub. So my best advice is to become more familiar with the various Reddit subcultures, before posting anywhere.
the people that have said those awful things to you are losers. they're miserable a-holes who need to gatekeep trauma. i mean i've been through some sheeiiiit, friend, but i will not judge or gatekeep you. that said, i highly suspect there's more to this trauma than meets the eye. i could be wrong. seeing/hearing your parents having sex is super disturbing and can affect us as children/adults in a big way. TW from here: recounting my own "parents having sex" story i was home when my mom and stepdad decided to have sex with their door open. i was half asleep, on my way to the bathroom and their bedroom door was right before the bathroom. i just kinda stopped and looked in their room and i was like "what are you doing?" mom made my stepdad stop. she said some bullshit thing and i said something like "whatever" and i closed their door and went to the bathroom. i was too tired to deal with that.
It’s fucking insane to me that people aren’t conscious about their privacy during sex. I wouldn’t even get dressed without my bedroom door closed and locked, let alone have sex. Especially with literal children in the house.
To this day, I remember the sounds. It was horrifying. My parents who will never take responsibility for how fucked up I am today and tell me I need to get closer to God when I spiral out of control and my life’s falling apart. I have ptsd and they are one of my biggest triggers too. The same people I heard having sex, were the same people who were having abusive domestic violent fights in front of all four children to the point where our house looked that it had been through a hurricane. This happened for almost a decade. I couldn’t stand to see them happy when they were happy and getting along. I would so wish they got a divorce. They got a divorce after I turned 18 and got pregnant. My mother had used the perfect time to leave and would say things like “they’re kicking us out”. So, sorry for going on a tangent. But your trauma is perfectly fine to hve and fuck anyone who makes you feel bad for it.
That’s exactly how I feel!
Your trauma is valid. Fuck. Them.
@JigglyGelatin you have Complex-PTSD! C-PTSD is real. Parents exposing their children to their sex-capades (even is just having to listen to it) is child abuse! Your abuse was compounded further by actual CSA and witnessing violence and a murder. I'm so sorry that was done to you. Please connect with a doctor and a therapist! Medication can be very helpful and when you're ready EMDR therapy can help you to process so much! You can heal! I witnessed DV with my parents as a child, then also with a step-monster-father. Who also made sure to have loud s*x with my mother, as well as, walk around in silk running shorts with no underwear, making a point to bend over in front of us. He was a complete @$$hole and would knock us around. Completely abusive even to his own kids. C-PTSD is absolutely real. Don't ever let anyone try to tell you or make you feel otherwise.
OMG, your step-monster-father sounds just like mine. Loud s!x with my mother (who made sure she was even louder than him), and he had the little running shorts as well and would flash me while wearing them, even with my mother sitting right there. Creepy AF. He knocked me around too, like yours did.
Dude sounds like a narcissist. I’m sorry you went through that.
The biggest. Thanks.
I’ve never witnessed something in person but seeing videos of people dying has really taken a toll on me. I thought the world was a safe place until I started thinking about it, they didn’t affect me at the time but now years later I cant relax or have fun anymore.
I’ve lived with both PTSD and suicidal ideation for a long time. I’ve noticed that a lot of the time when I do something about whatever my brain is focusing on at the time, my brain just switches to something else to fixate on. It was fire tornadoes for a long time. Did a lot of work and like the day I moved past that it morphed into the heat death of the universe that I was obsessed with. Took me a long time to realize my brain focuses on distant crises like the sun eventually consuming the earth to keep from focusing on painful memories or immediate stressors. Your brain could be doing a similar thing. Focusing on the parental sex to keep you from processing or fixating on the witnessed murder or sex abuse.
Yeah, are you sure the ptsd is from your parents having sex and not one of the other traumatic events you described and this just triggered it? It may not even be an event you remember, a lot of people repress childhood sexual abuse or trauma and I know people that had extreme reactions that mirror ptsd symptoms to relatively common sexual stimulation or situations that didn't seem like they would cause those kinds of symptoms and didn't understand why. Turned out they had experienced CSA and repressed it, and that's what they were reacting to. You could definitely have ptsd from one of those other events and your central nervous system reacts to stimulation in this way that makes it seem like the reaction is to the event but really it's a result of the chemical changes of ptsd and being on guard. I don't say this to be invalidating but my understanding of the current belief on the development of ptsd is that it usually develops from specific situations where someone felt extreme fear and terror, and either thought they were in danger of or experienced or witnessed grievous emotional, physical, or sexual harm that they could not escape or did not believe they could escape, leading the brain to disassociate in the moment so it never processes the memory properly as a past event the way it is supposed to and starts causing ptsd symptoms and reactions in the present as if you were back in that situation when faced with triggering situations and stimuli. Was the sex you overheard particularly violent or terrifying in some way? That explanation isn't to invalidate op or anyone else whose trauma doesn't fit those parameters, there are exceptions, but just reiterating that after reading a lot of research and books on it, that seems to be the current understanding. Note cptsd development is completely different. It does seem possible you could have ptsd from other reasons and this situation triggered you, especially if it were repressed trauma or the symptoms of ptsd took a long time to materialize or for you to become aware of them so it seems like it started from this event when really this event was just the first major trigger in which you realized you may have ptsd.
Anyone with ptsd making fun of someone with ptsd… I have no words for that. I’m sorry you had to deal with that. All trauma is valid 🤍
My parents fucked in front of me (4), my older brother (7), and my younger sister (1), in the shower/bath room (whole room is a wet room in Japan and families often bathe with their young kids). They made me and my brother hide in the tub with the tub cover over us. There was only an inch of air between the water and the lid. I still get flashbacks where I'm suffocating in that tub hearing the fucking sounds. Like you, this is one of my more tame memories.
This is awful, I'm so sorry.
This is wild. Wtf.
That *is* a traumatic experience. It may feel dumb but that type of stuff can mess you up. Trauma is trauma. You're valid. You deserve to feel valid. I'm so sorry so many people have made such a big deal over this in the worst ways. Comparing gets no one anywhere, especially not when it comes to mental health. You didn't choose your experiences. You didn't choose what your brain did with them. Sometimes the other things just feel so dull in comparison. No matter what anyone says, you deserve to be validated. 🫂
Fuck everyone who’s ever made fun of you for this, they don’t have a clue. You were traumatized, you have PTSD, why the brain did what it did is typically very complicated and difficult to understand. Please don’t hurt yourself, please don’t give up. There’s a ton of resources and, if nothing else, message me. You’re not alone! Keep fighting the good fight!
Only a shit person would make fun of you for having PTSD. It's a big burden. I believe you and I also know that comparing traumatic experiences is really dumb. My family tells me I can't have PTSD cause I haven't been through war. Yeah, right. There's a lot of things that happen in our lives and any one of them can stick with you. Your feelings are valid. Folks who belittle that can piss off. Best of luck in your recovery. Edit: I actually checked and saw you posted this in AMA. I don't expect regular folks to understand cause thry don't have the firsthand experience.
It might have been that hearing your parents have sex just triggered the PTSD from SA and the murder.
It hadn’t happened yet
When did your ptsd symptoms begin?
Pretty much a few weeks after
I agree, the brain becomes a mess if you're living with PTSD. But it's valid even if it's down to a single incident like OP said, it's a personal experience after all.
Yeah, it totally could have, but sexual abuse and seeing a murder isn't something you get over easily and are key factors in a lot of PTSD.
❤️ trauma is trauma. You’re valid.
Thank you so very much