PTSD, League of Legends, and Recovery

Thanks in advance to all who take the time to read my story.

There's always an apprehension when I talk about my PTSD, will they believe me, will anyone understand? I wasn't in a war, I don't have any medals, I didn't watch my parent die or anything that shouldn't objectively be easy to get over. I'll skip my childhood, which probably plays it's own role in my brain boiling over, because the real messiness came as an adult.

It's hard to describe how someone ends up an an abusive relationship, like a lobster slowly coming to a rolling boil. You excuse the warning signs, and exercise entirely too much forgiveness. You want to believe that people are good and that people can change. You give second chances, third chances, fourth chances, over, and over, and over. You believe the crying and the promises to change as you cling to the few happy moments. It started when I was six months pregnant. I don't remember the events leading up to it, but I was naked, and came at my skull like a kamikazi a good seven times. Afterwards he cried and called his mom sobbing. There were a few other times he pinned me to the floor, the wall, and growled like a wild animal.

The weird part was we started seeing a counselor, this by the way is unethical, because my partner wasn't receiving individual treatment, and the counselor knew about the abuse. It played a strong role in how long I stayed. It also helped stop the physical abuse by teaching my partner how to control feelings instead of fists. Looking back it was a weird cumulation of events. My partner had selected a counselor who had cheated on his wife, and subsequently blamed her for leaving him. We knew way too much about him. They attended men's gatherings and naked sweat lodges together. My partner started a weekly men's group that was unspokenly for white straight men only, with weird justifications about how they just wouldn't be able to understand the struggle of minorities. We even went to events where he announced to a crowd of 300 or so people that my ex was like his son. Needless to say, you don't need to be a mental health professional to understand the problematic dual relationship that blossomed.

I realize now, that I was not allowed to have my own thoughts. It sounds silly coming from someone in a masters program with an IQ that should be more than adequate, but it's slow, festering, and pervasive. Comments that slowly erode your confidence, sanity, and place in the world. They don't even have to be believable, because the irritation will wear you down. My ex wants to become a psychologist so it not only came in comments about my body and my eye liner, but my intellectual thoughts as well. Before I scare you from ever seeing a psychologist again, just remember there are good ones and garbage ones just like any other profession, but I digress.

Eventually I decided being alone was less frightening then spending a lifetime with that man. It takes the average woman (sorry men I know you are affected too) 7 times to leave a relationship. It's not some heroic act where a scorned woman blasts Aretha Franklin as she shimmies out of the house telling him to marry the dog, it's the most sad and desperate act you can imagine. You hate yourself, and you're terrified, and if you get out, had you waited another ten minutes, you probably would have stayed. When you barely have the strength is when you leave. When you muster the tiniest little bit of energy, and hopefully have someone waiting on the other end who can help protect you when you get out.

For me it was my friend. I called her, and she understood what needed to happen, she helped give me that final push, and I left in secret. I called him the next day and told him the bare minimum. You never tell a person like that more than you have to, because they'll convince you to go back. His family has money, and he proceeded to unleash a legal hellstorm. He sued me for full custody, tried to get a restraining order, forced our house into foreclosure, and made false claims to DCF. It was the restraining order that tipped me over the edge. He called the police when I was sobbing and begging for him to not force the house to foreclose. He had lied and strung me along for months about selling it.

I'll never forget that day in court. We were the last ones to present, and we listened to a child sexual abuse case (father perping on a daughter) for hours prior. He got up on the stand and lied like a magnificent actor about how dangerous I was. He had prepared an hour long presentation to the judge, and it was in those moments I began to truly understand what a monster he is, and that he did not possess any real moral values or empathy. I don't remember the actual speech, but afterwards is when I began to really feel the terror of what I could not get away from. My state is very pro father and without well documented abuse I can't get that custody taken away. I wasn't even allowed to block him from texting me upwards of thirty times a day thanks to Family Court.

The terror and anger became my existence. I stopped functioning. I couldn't get out of bed. I lived like this for a while, about a year, I'm not sure how I lasted that long between the panic attacks and finishing school. I stopped painting, watching tv, and couldn't watch movies or listen to new music. In a way I was frozen. But I've always been good at fixing me, and I understood I had to start finding people to trust. The first was Dan, he was in the Navy, and as depressed and lost as I was, but he introduced me to emotional survival and League of Legends. I started playing music that made me cry, and practiced not reacting to the sadness. Over and over I practiced not crying. I started counting the days between crying, and like a muscle built up a tolerance. A lot of people think bottling emotions is awful, but when you have too many, it's necessary for survival. Those emotions can be handled later.

And then there was League.

To this day I have yet to find a game as immersive as League of Legends. It quickly became the reprieve from my suffering, something new I could do! League takes my focus off of my hypervigilance and helps me reset my anxiety. When I play League makes me forget about the monumental load of stress that I carry. I think the psychological term is "flow." I started off playing it for hours everyday, it became my reward for functioning in the real world. I did some homework? 1 hour of LoL as a reward. I went to work? 2 hour reward and then homework. I sent off 5 job applications? 2 hours as a reward. Eventually I started medication too, because I was ready to get better.

Slowly but surely I started being able to handle more and more...

For anyone who is wondering I actually work with high risk sex offenders now, and am working to transition into data analysis. I'm marrying a wonderful man and we won our custody relocation this summer :). I still play League but I've started doing other things again, listen to new music, watch new tv shows, and can even watch new movies! Slowly but surely everything is coming together...

As for dealing with my ex I've developed a lot of experience working with manipulators. He's still a nuisance, but predictable and manageable. Feel free to PM me if you want any advice, I'm always happy to help.