LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Can you help a woman who is trying to hold on?

Editor’s note: I received this email a few days ago from a Lovefraud reader, whom we’ll call “Larissa.” At first I declined to publish it, because Larissa is raw with pain, to the point of seriously considering suicide, and I was afraid that it would trigger other readers. She said she was going to a hospital for help, if she could find someone to watch her dogs.

Well, she found a dog-sitter. She went to the hospital. The hospital sent her home, telling her to see a psychiatrist.

This woman is in need of support. She needs to be heard. She needs to be understood. Therefore, I am publishing her letter. If you are raw with pain yourself, it is probably best that you don’t read it. But if you are healed enough and strong enough to offer support, please provide some kind words to Larissa.

Suicide risks in the aftermath

What is it really like to be in Post Traumatic Stress mode? A horrible thing happened (I was denied access to my granddaughter because I finally got angry with her guardian (a step grandparent) for not taking her to a counselor after 3 years of sexual abuse by a man I BROUGHT INTO HER LIFE. I’ve waited a year and she still has not made a move to get my granddaughter any help. This scares me, she may end up like me and that is a horrible thought.

Okay ”¦ so this is what PTSD feels like in case anyone can relate ”¦ and I sort of just need to be heard right now.

1. It is my fault I brought the man into my granddaughter’s life. I am the worst kind of grandmother one can have if I can’t even protect her when I myself was sexually molested at puberty. Why didn’t I watch more closely?

2. I should never have disagreed with the step grandmother about counseling because I was putting my relationship with my granddaughter at risk. I always fk things up and end up on the losing end of the stick. I am worthless to my granddaughter because I can’t seem to keep her safe or get my point across about her needing counseling without offending the whole damn world! My mouth in “speaking up” has gotten me in so much trouble throughout my life you would think I would learn to just shut up and let life be ”¦ let it all go ”¦ let it roll off my back things that have been said to me over and over again such as when I say stuff like my stepfather was molesting me, my mom was abusing me, my dad was freaking crazy and torturing all of his kids emotionally and physically; and MY GRANDDAUGHTER NEEDS COUNSELING SO SHE DOES NOT END UP LIKE ME, wanting to die ”¦ hating myself. Blaming myself. And the tapes play on and on ”¦

Intellectually there is a disconnect in me. I feel unloved, unwanted, worthless, ugly, wouldn’t be missed, and a bother to society at large. I find it very difficult to ask for help because, frankly, I’m just not worth anyone’s time.

Now, that sounds like a freaking victim mentality if you ask me. So, now I hate myself for being such a wimpy victim.

Tapes tapes tapes tapes ”¦ playing in my head all day and all night long for going on 3 weeks now. Things my mother and siblings have said to me ”¦ how wrong I am. How I should just shut the f up! Finally the step-grandmother let me (grudgingly) talk to my granddaughter and did I hear a tone of I HATE YOU NANA and this is a real bother to have to sit and talk to you on the phone!! Now I’m paranoid too!!! Or maybe she is fed up with me or was alienated against me by her step-grandmother. Who knows? I JUST KNOW I KNOW NOTHING WHEN IN THIS MODE OF BAD THINKING.

I can’t stop it. It’s like telling a manic person to stop being manic. It’s not the type of mental illness that warrants pills because I know this will pass (hopefully soon because I’m becoming unglued completely). This is one of the longest stints of PTSD I think I have ever had since my son died. In that case I tried to kill myself over 10 times unsuccessfully. Rotten mother. Let’s her kid die!! I raised him to drive dangerously! The doctor told my husband that one day I will succeed. My condition is terminal he said! Like a cancer.

The disconnect is the reality. I raised my son to love me and he had a healthy self-esteem before he died at age 25. The accident was not his fault. I was married for 25 years, mostly happy, and had an excellent career where I often felt so much gratitude for my good fortune. I’ve been told and I see in pictures that I am an attractive woman. I wrote a BOOK something so many people would dream to do but never get that opportunity. I have friends that have stuck around me for years and they do not hurt me they support me. But no amount of “talk therapy” helps me. What I need is to be put away until the PTS leaves.

I hate the hospital. And what will I do with my 2 Maltese dogs? I love them too much to leave them alone (my granddaughter is not alone so won’t miss me). I have no one who can take my dogs for me while I recover in hospital; believe me I’ve tried.

So, none of these thoughts milling about and banging around in my head are true. Yes they are. No they are not. On and on like waterboard torture. I can’t sleep. I can’t shower. I can’t make a meal unless it goes in the microwave. I can’t take care of business. I lay on the sofa and dream of ways I can die as painlessly as possible (Forget the pills, I’ve been to that rodeo before and it has never worked. I looked it up on the internet and it turns out the magnitude of pills you have to ingest has to be enormous if you really want to die. Where am I going to get all of them?)

THINK THINK THINK. I’ve spent hours researching ways to die. Last week it was to lay on the road and wait for a truck to roll over me but I don’t want to damage the driver so forget that.

Stuffing clothes in my exhaust pipes is too risky ”¦ might not work and am not going to fail this time.

When you hate yourself so much (and I do not hate myself all the time, only when I am having a PTSD episode) you feel the world could certainly do without you. In fact, better off without you since you cause so much damn trouble. Really? How? Disconnect disconnect ”¦

If you decide you are better off dead than alive you better get all your ducks in a row because no one will want to bother to put a small funeral together for you you are not worth it so my thoughts lead me.

When you feel worthless, as I have since putting my relationship with the step-grandma on the line, I feel my granddaughter must hate me too. Certainly my ex does because he phoned to tell me how stupid I was and why do I always have to rock the fn boat!!!! She is better off without me, my mind plays over and over. 1. I introduced her to the molester and 2. I pissed off her step-grandma who now alienates her from me. 3. I pissed off my ex whom usually has a good relationship with me, considering we are divorced.

Everyone must be right because it is just me ”¦ just me who thinks a little girl who was molested from the time she was 8 to 11 was molested and filmed by my friend MIGHT NEED A LITTLE BIT OF COUNSELING! What a fkn idiot and worthless piece of shit am I!!!!! I harmed my granddaughter!!! HATE HATE HATE MYSELF. I DO NOT DESERVE TO LIVE! And besides, no one will miss me and certainly the funeral arrangements will be a time consuming bother for my ex to prepare (he is the only adult I have I consider “Kin.”).

I’m afraid. I’m afraid I will kill myself and then find out that all of my thoughts are wrong and someone down the road (like my granddaughter) might need me. These are the good thoughts ”¦ the proper thoughts ”¦ but not the thoughts that rage in my mind in PTSD mode. Disconnect.

Then there is my heart. My heart loves all of my sociopaths. I want a relationship with them but they hurt me so I had to stop ”¦ but I miss them terribly. I live alone; on disability ”¦ I can’t survive in my home much longer if I don’t get my career back. No energy. No self worth. WHO THE HELL WOULD HIRE ME? I AM NOTHING!

And so, in my mind, there is NO hope. I keep waiting for the PTSD to leave me but the situation has not changed (no counseling for my granddaughter and not allowed to have her with me for visits). No hope.

I don’t want to scare anyone here but the thing is I really do want to die. As soon as possible. I have to get “my ducks in a row” so as to not inconvenience anyone (I’m saying that seriously, not sarcastically).

I finally figured out a way that will work. I found it by googling. It is perfect, quiet, and won’t harm anyone else in my deed.

But I’m afraid. I’m too informed now that I understand this stress / anxiety / self-loathing will leave me.

People will call me a coward. Cruel to my grandchild. They will hate what I do. But, what is the difference? They think all that now!

I’m taking it day by day right now. Hoping and praying that I’ll regain my sense of balance and healthy thinking soon. The pain rivets through my body right now and is unbearable. Do I? Don’t I? What are my options????

And that, my friends, is the day in the life of a person raised by sociopaths and other sociopaths who seem to stick to me like glue. I have no more trust in new people. None.