From: nelson@news.weeg.uiowa.edu (David L. Nelson)
Subject: *** Spoiler ***  panic attacks
Organization: University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 12:51:28 GMT

Thank you to everyone who sent email and welcomed me to a.s.a.r!

Please reply to fist@chop.isca.uiowa.edu as that is a free
computer-club account and nelson@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu costs me "funny
money."

In this post, I talk about my being abusive -- I mean "emotionally
abusive."

I'm on an antidepressant that (according to a.s.a.r's FAQ file) is
targeted at panic disorder.

My ex broke up with me a month or two ago.  I was cruel to her
sometimes.  And she was cruel to me sometimes. But it overall looks
like abuse to me.  And I am having a hard time accepting that I was
abusive.  I already abuse myself via cutting, punching myself, etc.  

My therapist told me that one of the hardest thing to do is "cop to
being the thing you're most afraid of."  In my case, that means being
like my mother.  In reality, *everybody* has a lot of their
parents inside them, but it's extremely difficult for me to accept
this fact.

Somehow, having my ex break up with me emotionally resonates with the
rejection I felt as my mother abused me.  Obviously, I somehow
identify my ex-SO with my mother.  

I'm having panic attacks each time that I have any contact with my ex.
I've asked her several times not to contact me, but she always seems
to find an excuse.  Partly because she left some things here when she
moved out.  (I stayed at a friend's house for over a month after she
broke up with me and made arrangements for a place to live.)  The
"excuses" she has are legitimate as a person has a right to their own
property.  But she didn't move out completely when it would have been
ideal for her to do so.  And I was trying to be reasonable and allowed
her to store some of her property here.

This last time she called me, she told me that she still has a key to
my apartment.  I went crazy with terror about five minutes after
hanging up the phone after agreeing to what she wanted about
retrieving her remaining belongings.  I thought I was okay on the
phone, but then my heart started pounding and I had this irresistible
urge to get her out of my life.  It felt to me just as if my abuser
had a key to my home.  I took all of her remaining belongings that I
had been storing and dumped them in the yard of her new home.  This
was an insane thing to do, but when I did it my heart was pounding and
I was going crazy with the terror.

I'm acting like an abuser or spouse batterer.  Treating her property
so callously is *abusive*.  But I was *terrified*!  I can't seem to
make anybody understand.  I had to do something to get her out of my
life.  If everytime I see her, I freak out like this, then I have to
get some safe space.  This has been going on for weeks. And I TOLD her
that I was having such a hard time each time I saw or spoke to her.
But she keeps calling me.  Out of the last 2 months, the longest time
she's refrained from calling was one week.  And has taken me, at best,
two days to calm down after contact with her.  Now I've just turned
off the phone ringer.  I'd rather not get *any* calls than have the
chance of getting one call from her.  I know this is an excessive and
insane reaction.

I keep thinking "I am my abuser" and then each time I've had contact
with her I've thought "she is my abuser."  I am aware that I am
exhibiting black&white thinking as well as a lack of boundaries.  I'm
over-identifying with my abuser in a crazy fashion, in a way that
defies adult reason and reality.  It FEELS like everywhere I look
there is somebody who wants to kill or hurt me.  But *I* am the one
who wants to kill me!  This is insane.

It takes me days to calm down and think rationally after one of these
contacts with her. 

This last time the new ingredient in the hellbroth is what my
therapist said about copping to being what I'm afraid of being.  He
meant it in a reasonable, growth-inducing way, but I seem to be
applying it in a self-abusing manner.  I feel all alone.  I feel
totally unloveable.  Even though I started the forgiveness process a
week or two ago, I flipped out and wanted to start slashing myself and
off myself because I keep thinking "I am an abuser."

I bought a new lock for the door since she told me that she still has
a key. I'll install it sometime today so I can feel safe that way.  I
want to hide.  I feel completely friendless and totally *undeserving*
of any friendship since I keep doing actions that can be interpretted
as (or actually are) emotionally abusive (e.g., dumping her belongings
in her yard).

It is all I can do to make it to my half-time janitor's job. I don't
really make enough money to cover expenses, but I feel that it is a
foregone conclusion that I'll mess up any job interviews in my current
state of mind.  I'm 37 years old and I've never *done* anything
worthwhile in my life. I *feel* useless, even though I know that these
emotions are temporary if somewhat prolonged.  I had to quit my
programming job because I couldn't think.  It was a few weeks later
that I got on antidepressants. But it's more than just depression, as
I can *not* do anything that uses my mind.

I voluntarily enrolled in a batterer's education program.  Although I
didn't strike my ex-SO, I realized that I had been acting in an
abusive manner, not only to her but to every SO I ever had.  And after
starting the course, I saw even more clearly that some of the things I
did are considered intimidation and battery and I hadn't realized it
or thought about it.  When I see the videos that they show in the
class, I get *very* upset because I am forced to recognize that I have
done some things that batterers do, but my strongest reaction is to
identify with the battery-victims because my father acted toward me
like the batters act in the videos.

I used to think that I was *only* a victim.  I never realized that I
was also abusive.  And that is a shattering realization.  I guess that
that means that I was in denial.  I have always (it seems) reacted so
strongly out of my own terror (and used rage as a way to mask terror)
that I never saw what I was doing to others around me.  No, that's not
true -- I knew I was destroying my relationships but couldn't stop
myself because it was like a geyser exploding inside me. I can see now
that it was terror but it got transformed into rage by the time I
opened my mouth to speak or wave my arms and jump around with
frustration.  Now that I think about it, a lot of my actions were
about like a young child.

I can't seem to accept myself, accept being this *thing*, this abuser
that I am.  Ever since I got my memories back, I had thought that I
was only a victim.  And now I see that I was also an abuser.  And I
have always *hated* abusers.  I always wanted to kill every child
abuser or wife beater I ever met or heard of.  Even if I didn't molest
a child or beat my ex-SO, I know that I did abusive actions.  

Sometimes I was able to get my mother to stop abusing me by going
crazy and throwing a fit.  

I am going crazy inside because I feel that I am so evil and should be
destroyed.  But I also feel terrified and overwhelmed by panic.  I
can't bring the two states of mind to reconcile with each other.  

And I feel like all of this is just a complex rationalization, that I
am making up my sex abuse to cover over for the fact that I am
inherently evil and a sociopath.  I own up to my actions.  I don't deny
actions that I have done.  I used to think that I was incapable of
hurting another person, but that was a fantasy.  

Plus I was in a fundamentalist Christian cult, and everytime I panic,
I start feeling that God is punishing me for leaving the cult, feeling
that insanity is God's punishment upon me.  Part of me *knows* that
this is leftover brain washing, but it still affects me emotionally.

Does anybody know what to do when your mind runs out of control like
mine has been doing?  I read once in _Courage To Heal_ that usually
it's only other survivors who have the patience to listen to a
survivor talk over and over about stuff.  So that's why I'm posting
here because I think I've worn out the very few friends I have left.

Anybody out there want to be email penpals or something?  If anybody
has felt and perceived what I'm talking about, I wish I could hear it
so I would know that I'm not the only one who has been through this.

-David Nelson
fist@chop.isca.uiowa.edu
(I only Pnews from nelson@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu)