So here I am on a lovely saturday...bare with me because this will be a raw entry. Stick with yourself and just be honest, dont hold back... The PTSD program I'm in dosen't meet over the weekends and I'm finding how difficult it is to put myself in social situations. I find myself still withdrawing from family gatherings. Particularly my fathers side of the family....and even a family I've never met. My father, is just a non-understanding unsupportive asshole...What do you do with yourself when you realize one member of your parental team will never be there for you? How do you react when he tells a room full of people that his son served in Iraq and since hasn't had a steady place to live, abandoned his fiance and recently went to rehab? It wasn't rehab...yes I was detoxed for drinking much more than I should, but it was more of an intensive psych unit. It was locked I couldn't leave. I saw a psychiatrist and had a chance to understand why I was pushing people away and self medicating with alcohol. It's called Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD). I live with this everyday, for the rest of my life...and am just starting to learn to live with it and not let it control every aspect of my life. So my father announces to a room full of strangers how his adult son is a loser and needed to go to rehab before he killed himself. How do you react to that? I just left, I had to...and when I did I called my fathers house (obviously he wasn't home at this point) and left hime a message: "Hey dad I just want to thank you for embarrassing me in front of a room full of people and being so supportive of me, and understanding on what I have to live with. You've really shown me over the past couple of weeks what kind of relationship you want to have with me. Call me back and let me know when It will be a good time for me to stop by so I can pick up the rest of my stuff. Bye". now I wonder to myself if I was just running from the situation by removing myself from the get-together? or am I doing the right thing by not carrying on a relationship with my father? I know there has never been a working relationship with him...and It's best if I expect nothing from him, because I get nothing in return. I feel like I open too much of myself up at one time...or I dont open up at all...and I feel ashamed of myself for feeling that way. Since I've started communicating with Kate lately I've felt better. I've felt like something was there, and It is and probably always will be. But is it healthy for me to feel like this? I know I abandoned her in CT, I can't blame it all on my PTSD because rather than run, I should have sought help. But a big part to overcomming PTSD is first realizing something is wrong, and I didn't do that untill recently. So Kate, is trying her best to get on with her life and dating...and really I say I am happy for her to try and move on....but it just kills me that I'm on the right path and I'm taking the baby steps to living with this accursed condition, and we tell each other we miss each other, and that we love each other allthough I'm not ready to carry on a relationship AT THIS POINT. And she is still dating....but really, I can't blame her for trying to move on. I can't be selfish and just expect her to drop everything because I'm finally dealing with my problems. It's like I half expect her to wait around for me to come around...I can't ask that of a person. But I just love her to pieces...And it kills me to know, not just think but know, that shes still out there, knowing I'm slowly getting better, and still out there looking for someone other than me to connect with. It's almost like being cheated out of another chance to have things just the way they were. The best thing I can do is just be brutally honest at this point and just let everything out. just like I'm doing now. Not easy, sharing so much of myself like this...speak up about how I'm feeling and why I think I feel that way. Maybe I should just keep in mind that whatever happens is beyond my control, I just need to show what I feel for myself and nobody else, because I can't control everything. But maybe I still try to, my doctor did say I am a bit of a perfectionist...which leads to a lot of my self-guilt. I need to learn to control that within myself, just let myself go almost free-fall and be open and honest about everything. I'm trying my best to look at myself from a different angle, and under a different light...to see myself almost for the first time. I need to be vulnerable and stop being so self critical...Maybe I'm just wishing someone would me meet on the other side? Maybe I just need to meet myself on the other side?