Trigger warning for mentions of SA, talk of sex toys and masturbation

I have a long history of experiencing SA. I feel like I've progressed a lot in my healing journey, but today, I feel like I've just set myself back.

I bought one of those vibration/suction rose toys. I've heard endless good reviews about them from people online and in real life. I was curious, I thought I would like it.

The suction setting ended up being painful and uncomfortable. I stopped immediately, but I was already being bombarded with flashbacks. I feel gross and afraid, and I can't stop thinking about it.

I know not everyone will enjoy the same things. What feels great to others can be totally unpleasant for someone else.

I just can't help but think, "What's wrong with me? Why can't I experience this the way other people do? What did I do wrong?"

I feel disgusted and embarrassed. Things have been so good recently, I'm so mad for setting myself back.

I'm in my mid-30s, married, a father of two young children, and doing reasonably well professionally.

From the outside, my life probably looks stable. I have a career, responsibilities, a family, and the ability to handle fairly complex situations at work.

But emotionally, I feel like I'm still carrying a frightened child inside me.

I'm sharing my story because I want to hear from people who've experienced similar things, particularly those who have actually made progress in recovery.

1. My childhood: Growing up without emotional safety

I grew up as an only child in a family where emotional security was unpredictable.

My mother displayed many behaviors I now associate with emotional manipulation, guilt-tripping, control, and narcissistic traits. My father was largely emotionally unavailable.

As a child, I gradually learned:

• Saying "no" could lead to guilt, anger, or emotional withdrawal.
• Other people's happiness was somehow my responsibility.
• Disagreeing with someone could mean losing their affection.
• Expressing my own needs could create conflict.
• Keeping everyone happy was safer than standing up for myself.
• Love and approval were things I had to earn.

I didn't recognize these patterns as a child. They were simply my normal environment.

Only as an adult did I begin connecting those experiences with my present emotional difficulties.

2. Adulthood: Successful professionally, struggling emotionally

Here's the contradiction that frustrates me.

Professionally, I'm capable of handling responsibility, difficult decisions, and complex problems.

But personally, I struggle with things that appear effortless for other adults.

I experience:

• Extreme sensitivity to criticism.
• Difficulty saying no, even when my reasons are valid.
• Guilt whenever someone becomes upset with me.
• Fear of confrontation or being shouted at.
• Constant overthinking and overexplaining.
• People-pleasing and fear of rejection.
• Difficulty maintaining boundaries.
• Sudden emotional reactions when overwhelmed.
• Shame and regret after losing my temper.
• Feeling responsible for other adults' emotions.

Sometimes, even raising a reasonable point during a conversation feels threatening.

My mind immediately imagines the other person getting angry, humiliating me, or rejecting me.

I understand intellectually that I'm an adult and can handle disagreement. But emotionally, my reaction sometimes feels completely disproportionate.

It's almost as if my nervous system hasn't caught up with my adult life.

3. My relationship with my mother: Love, guilt, resentment, and attachment

This is probably one of my most complicated struggles.

Growing up, I experienced my relationship with my mother as controlling and emotionally exhausting.

As an adult, I've tried to establish boundaries and develop independence.

But whenever she becomes upset, unwell, or vulnerable, I experience overwhelming guilt and fear.

The confusing part is that my mother has become considerably calmer and more reserved in recent months.

I can see that her current behavior is different from how I experienced her throughout childhood.

Yet my emotional reactions haven't necessarily changed with her.

I love her and want her to be healthy and comfortable.

At the same time, I don't want my entire emotional stability to depend on her moods, health, or approval.

How do you love a parent who hurt you emotionally without remaining psychologically trapped in that relationship?

4. Marriage: Another area of emotional loneliness

I've been married for several years, and our relationship has experienced a long period of emotional disconnection.

We function as a family and manage our responsibilities, but meaningful emotional intimacy and mutual understanding have become difficult.

Conversations sometimes turn into arguments. I often feel unheard, and I recognize that my own emotional sensitivity and reactions also contribute to our difficulties.

I've spent years hoping things would naturally improve.

More recently, I've started questioning whether I need to build emotional stability within myself instead of depending on my spouse for reassurance and validation.

I'm not trying to diagnose or blame my partner.

I'm trying to understand why emotional distance affects me so deeply and how to stop repeating unhealthy relationship patterns.

5. Parenting: My greatest motivation to recover

I have two young children whom I love deeply.

Becoming a parent has made me increasingly aware of how childhood emotional experiences can shape an entire adult life.

My greatest fear is passing my unresolved trauma to my children.

Sometimes stress accumulates from work, family relationships, and marriage. When I'm overwhelmed, I become impatient, raise my voice, or react more harshly than I intend.

I recognize the pattern and want to change it.

I want my children to experience the emotional safety, consistency, and reassurance that I struggled to find growing up.

I don't want them growing up feeling responsible for managing my emotions.

6. The recent development: An overwhelming fear of death and losing loved ones

This is what finally motivated me to post.

Over the last couple of months, something has changed emotionally.

A close family member experienced an injury requiring surgery, followed by another frightening medical episode.

Thankfully, they've received appropriate medical attention.

But these events seem to have triggered something profound inside me.

I've become extremely fearful about losing people I love.

My mind repeatedly asks:

• What if something happens to my parents?
• What if something happens to my spouse or children?
• What would my life look like afterward?
• Would I be mentally strong enough to cope?
• Would I completely break down emotionally?
• How would I continue living normally after such a loss?

To clarify, I'm not suicidal. I'm terrified of losing loved ones and of not being able to cope emotionally with grief.

Sometimes the anxiety becomes overwhelming.

At night, especially when the house is quiet and everyone is asleep, my mind starts constructing terrible imaginary scenarios.

I've even experienced distressing dreams involving harm coming to loved ones.

I understand these are thoughts, not predictions.

But understanding that intellectually doesn't always stop the fear.

7. Why am I calm some days and emotionally overwhelmed on others?

Another thing I struggle to understand is the inconsistency.

Some days, I'm extremely calm, confident, motivated, and feel capable of handling anything.

On other days, even a relatively small stressful situation involving someone close to me can trigger intense anxiety, helplessness, or emotional flooding.

The contrast feels enormous.

It's particularly difficult because I know how capable I can be when I'm calm.

I wonder how much of this relates to childhood trauma, emotional dysregulation, attachment insecurity, or other issues I haven't properly understood yet.

I know these symptoms need professional assessment rather than self-diagnosis.

8. What I've learned so far

I've spent considerable time trying to understand childhood trauma through books, articles, and educators such as Jerry Wise, Dr. Ramani, Anna Runkle, and Tim Fletcher.

I've encountered concepts like:

• Complex PTSD and emotional dysregulation.
• Hypervigilance and catastrophizing.
• Emotional enmeshment.
• Anxious attachment.
• Fawning and people-pleasing.
• Toxic shame and conditioned guilt.
• Self-differentiation and reparenting.
• Emotional flashbacks and fear of abandonment.

Many of these descriptions resonate with my experiences.

But I've also realized something:

Understanding why I behave this way isn't the same as knowing how to change it.

I can explain my patterns quite well.

Yet when a real family crisis occurs, I sometimes fall straight back into overwhelming fear.

I want to move beyond collecting information and start making lasting changes.

9. What I'm trying to achieve

I don't expect to become emotionless or immune to grief.

I want to become someone who:

• Can experience uncertainty without constantly catastrophizing.
• Can love family members without being emotionally dependent on their every reaction.
• Can disagree with people without fear or shame.
• Can establish boundaries without overwhelming guilt.
• Can stay regulated during difficult family situations.
• Can be a calmer, safer, more emotionally available parent.
• Can experience difficult emotions without feeling psychologically destroyed by them.

Most importantly, I want to stop living in constant anticipation of something terrible happening.

I want to experience the life and relationships I have today rather than spending so much time fearing their eventual loss.

10. My questions to this community

I'd genuinely appreciate hearing from people who relate to this experience.

1. Did you experience extreme emotional sensitivity, catastrophic thinking, or fear of losing loved ones after childhood emotional abuse?

2. Did your trauma responses become significantly worse after a parent became ill, aged, or experienced a medical emergency?

3. Have you successfully reduced emotional enmeshment with a parent while maintaining a caring relationship?

4. Which approaches actually helped you recover: EMDR, trauma-focused CBT, IFS, somatic approaches, medication, meditation, daily practices, or something else?

5. For those who have made meaningful progress, what changed? Can you now handle uncertainty, conflict, criticism, and family stress without becoming emotionally overwhelmed?

I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who struggled for decades but eventually developed a more stable sense of self.

Not looking for miracle cures or quick fixes. I'm looking for realistic experiences, mistakes to avoid, and practical steps that made a difference.

If you could go back to the beginning of your recovery, what would you do differently?

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

They gatekeep MTF gender affirming surgeries by using clinical language to justify neglect. Yet WPATH states clearly that withheld surgeries from transwomen makes transwomen suicidal, depressed, angry, and/or “crazy”. Almost like they want to use me to further their careers and get paid from neglecting my medical need for MTF surgery and ruin my entire life by pretending their malice is “care”!

This one is complex, but I’m just so lonely rn. I’m a 30 y/o Black Man in a hard place. I’m conventionally attractive, and very high functioning, but I’m just so tired. It all feels like a bullshit performance. I’ve fought so hard for so long — done what everybody has ever told me would get me where I’ve wanted to go. I’ve got hard degrees in shit I never actually cared about, a job I hate that doesn’t pay nearly enough surrounded by backstabbing and petty morons, and nobody to come home to. Never had that special person. I know I’ve put myself on the back burner while being fuckin Superman for people who ain’t deserved that shit.

And I’ve developed some hella unhealthy tendencies with dating apps. Because of how much I’ve overdone, I hardly have the time to seek love organically. Or so I’ve told myself. So I’ve become dependent on dating apps designed to leech and suck you dry — but giving you just enough to keep you coming back asking for more.

And then there’s the shame piece of it. They didn’t tell me what I did. So I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out if I was ever disrespectful or discourteous. I know how annoying it is for a non-member of an in-group to speak on issues specific to that in-group, so I’m not gonna try and convince everybody that I’m the greatest Male ally of all time. I’m not. I may be a Black Man, but I’m still a Man in a patriarchal system. But my shame is telling me I’m just as bad as them Cornell fucking pieces of shit somehow — even though I can confidently say I value a person’s bodily autonomy as much as my own. And my actions back it up. Like, I’m crazy cautious with this sorta stuff, and I’ve never ever continued with somebody if I even felt for a sec that they weren’t enthusiastic! I think its because I’ve been through physical and emotional abuse as a kid. I know what it is to feel powerless and used and discarded by bad people. But what if I made somebody uncomfortable, and they were afraid to tell me and I didn’t pick up on it? What if I helped contribute unwittingly to this hellish environment we all live in right now where women in particular don’t feel safe reporting their abusers? What if I’ve become what I’ve always feared most becoming, He who hurt us all so much? Idk… I’m not sure what I need right now, but I just feel so alone and overwhelmed. I’m sorry guys

I've never been fully honest during therapy about my mental health. Every time I fill out a questionnaire before my appointments with my therapist. I don't answer honestly. I just don't want to be that vulnerable with anyone and I don't want to be involuntarily hospitalized because that is the last thing I need. I hate that I can't be truthful with my therapist. I do like her and I do think that she is a good fit for me but I don't trust her with my emotions. Is there something that I'm doing wrong? How do I be honest with her? My fear is that I will be honest and it will scare me being that vulnerable and set me back on my healing journey again. My last therapist who I thought was nice. In one session I was a little vulnerable with her and I cried. She was actually really nice but I didn't feel validated by her words I just felt disgusted with myself for reacting like that in therapy. For the rest of the sessions that I had with her, I could not be honest with her and I would lie about how I was doing just so that I wouldn't have to talk about anything deep. So I figured I would post here and ask, I feel like you guys would know lol. what do I need to do?

TW child abuse, bullying

I was talking with my psychiatrist today about fear of abandonment and that after years of therapy I still struggle with fear... I used to go to therapy for plenty other types of trauma and made some progress but Im still unable to function or keep a job... During this appointment was the first time I talked about how lonely and neglected I was growing up. I constantly scratched myself to blood throughout my whole childhood, was malnourished, I had no friends and lived on a violent household... There was a time in my childhood that I havent spoken even one word to anyone for entire month and nobody noticed. When my parents finally noticed I was yelled at so hard...

The amout of embarassment I felt from not understanding other people, how disgusting I felt and unwanted... It seems i was unaware how deeply it haunts me. I struggled so hard in school with understanding the lessons and dispraxia which made my movements so awkward and weird to other people... Volume of my voice was awkward, the way I spoke, my interests... Everything was weird and disgusting and wrong about me to others... Being a gender nonconforming girl as well was something I got bullied for... It made me feel so worthless and rejected and apparently it never stopped hurting

I only recently understood I was never disgusting, I was just a sensitive kid who needed a hug and a weighted blanket... I was diagnosed only 2 years ago and im 25

So I finally decided to give this a try.

I have scored multiple times for CPTSD. I've been in six different group therapies since October of last year. Here's my story.

I've been treated and managing my childhood abuse and neglect since I was 18. I was a functional person who held a job as a software engineer doing really well medicated and having many years of ongoing treatment.

Almost four years ago, I let someone into my life and my home that I thought was safe, caring, and loving.

I saw the red flags and tried to talk to them about how I felt certain things needed work and felt like we were not compatible.

This person was on disability and treated for their mental health. Schizophrenia specifically and CPTSD.

I've been in many good and bad relationships. I identified the early signs of abuse and allowed them to continue because they would often gaslight me or make promises that never came true in a form to pacify me.

For context, I was doing really well for myself. They saw that and I finally felt like I was doing well for myself. Four years felt like they kept me in the relationship until recently.

They broke up with me because they said my behaviors were becoming erratic to the courts for a order of protection they put against me.

I still don't understand why they did it but it made sense recently.

This person left me and I already had abandonment issues for themselves. They're pregnant and I finally accepted and had known for a long time they were my abuser.

To me she got what she wanted and that was made clear when she hushed me when I said it during her family gathering.

They filed and got granted on an order of protection stating I was stalking and was a threat.

That's not true. I filed my own order of protection after it was granted against her then I saw it

The order of protection in my State allows the petitioner to be released from a legal binding lease.

Good on her for using the system to her advantage but I also felt blindsided because I signed this apartment I couldn't afford alone for her. She wanted this and even told me if the relationship doesn't work out she will make sure to help me monetarily and move to a cheaper apartment.

That wasn't true. I knew it was manipulation but I listened to her again.

I ended up leaving on my own accord a month after she had left and found another apartment.

I'm frustrated that she put on record that I had be stalking and harassing her when I wasn't. We were communicating civil until she filed the order of protection out of no where.

I'm at a lost of how to process this. She is carrying I think is my baby. She said she found out she was pregnant three days after moving out but it was three weeks.

I know it and I don't know if she does. I bought and brought her prenatals the moment she informed me.

I'm just at awe that the judge granted it.

There were letters after the OP was placed stuck to my door about personal things only she would know pretending to be a friend looking out for me and telling me to do things that weren't safe to me.

I never experienced that and I feel like it could be her.

It was very clear to me someone was harassing me because my tires were also deflated that night.

I wasn't able to address any of that...because she focused on defamation of my character the entire hearing.

So she's getting what she's wanting. A baby, possibly child support to give her access to my income, and worse of all, what kills me the most.

ZERO accountability

So here I am. Typing this out. I haven't done anything for myself. I haven't and don't feel like eating. Not even playing the guitar like I love to do.

Ive been sitting in silence working through all this pain.

I've been able to manage it for four years of this relationship and living with her.

This time it's different. I can't let it go and the lack of accountability and I guess her "winning" hits differently now.

If she has her way I won't see the birth of my first child and quite possibly until the courts allow it which is October of next year. She is due in April. The judge asks if she wanted the order to place until then but she wanted a year.

How do I process this? There's way more context but this is what has been circulating in my mind this time.

Edit: she was granted the order of protection against me. I've obviously had stopped talking to her. I had to pay off her phone and disconnect her because she didn't request for her phone service to be facilated and transfered by the courts. I've been struggling financially so that $1k for her iPhone hurt.

I'm safe now in a new apartment that cares and accommodates my new disability. But everyday it feels like my nervous system flares up for long durations.

I had to make this post because I am living underneath someone for the first time. The stomping and cabinet/shelf doors slamming triggers me and gives me flashbacks.

I went downstairs today and they're moving me to the top floor when one comes available. They didn't even mention a transfer fee.

I'm actively seeking help but this situation with my ex requires patience that I currently don't have because my nervous system is trying to fight it when nothing needs fighting now

Say something trumuatizing online and I keep doing research about it I keep making sure about it I keep watching thing that relates to it. It is terrifying but my mind keeps saying I want to do this and that I like doing it. Is this a repetition compulsion and what is the treatment for it

Yesterday I spoke to my neighbor about an issue had he responded to me in a very condescending way. It made me feel so worthless. I cried for 4 hours. Drank 2 drinks. Cried again today for hours.

I want to sell my place and move, but that will take some time. In the meanwhile I am dreading seeing him again. I am worried how the interaction will go and what it will do to me.

The next time I see them can I just say that "I do not want to interact much, I would like some space"? Is that weird to say to someone who lives about 5 feet away from you?

How should I deal with this?

I'm doing therapy in which I talk about traumatic episodes and try to stay in them through grounding and breathing.

The problem is that I remember very few episodes.

How do I heal if I don't remember all the episodes?

Anybody had the same problem? How's your therapy going?

Thank you

Has anyone gone through your CPTSD being too much for your partner?

I (23F) and my partner (22M) were together for almost four years.

Over that time, I’ve overcome a lot of triggers when it came to having a steady, healthy relationship. For example, I would freak out if I didn’t hear from him on nights out (even with his family). I would feel major anxiety and often upset myself with his distance.

As time went on, obviously conflicts arose. For example, him not putting in effort with dates. The smaller things like jobs shared around the house. I suppose natural resentment arose in area of our lives changing with the seasons. I know I put in a lot of effort with him to support him even with my diagnosis and chronic illness. Meals every night. Laundry. I did it all while he worked full time and studied full time.

I started therapy within our first year of dating because I didn’t want him to take the brunt of the emotional burden that I know this has because of its affect it’s had in me.

I will admit this now and will continue to.

I would not be able to regulate my emotions when conflict arose. I would speak a million miles an hour. I would raise my voice. I would always feel like I needed to have the last say. It would result in me passing out in the shower afterwards because my body could not take the stress of it all. I must say that these were infrequent towards the more recent half of our relationship because of therapy.

I was aware of this. I thought a lot of the time it was on me. Yes, it will always be on me to regulate my own emotions. But my partner would also be emotionally unavailable. He would not bring up things that bothered him. He would let it sit and simmer. I would feel it, as one does when they’ve walked on eggshells their entire first half of their life.

It would scare me. Beyond anything else. I chose this person to love despite all the challenges in my life that suggest love is not a safe place to land. Now it seems it has been too much for him.

He has since cheated on me and I have caught him. He thereafter proceeded to tell me that he was no longer in love with me and had felt this way for some time. We were supposed to move away to a different city come the completion of my degree. I also made it clear to him that if he meant and intended to move with me, that he show it e.g find a job, pitch in on ideas on places where we’d live. He said he would. He even said he still would’ve moved if not for what he had done.

How the fuck am I supposed to move on from this? I feel like this break up has completely unearthed all I have done for myself in therapy and everything I had been working towards. Please guys, I’m drowning and I don’t know what to do.

That feeling of waiting for something, but not knowing exactly what it is? And until it happens (even though you don't really know what you're waiting for), you can't truly feel at peace, as if you're putting off happiness and serenity indefinitely.

Edit: thank you all for the lovely comments and conversation about this. I'm really happy to see all the discussion going on from people all over the spectrum of sexuality and lifestyle. I almost deleted this post when I first made it because I was embarrassed and afraid of being misunderstood, but I'm really happy I didn't because I think it's so cool how meaningful this topic is to you guys. Thank you again and I hope y'all are having the best day today 🫶🏻

Yes, I know that that is a common and valid response/reaction to physical abuse. I also have no problem with BDSM dynamics and relationships. I have happily and consensually participated in some light/mild BDSM during sex with people I loved and trusted very much. This is just me venting. Also TW: for SA

I was sexually abused by many people in many ways in my life since I was at least eight or nine years old. Whether it be family friends, members of both my immediate/extended family, grown ass men online, guys I went to school with or romantic partners. And BDSM or overall sexual violence, for some fuck ass reason, was essentially seen as the default 90% of the time.

When I was 17 years old and I was in my first actually sexually active relationship with a guy in my class, there were so many times where he choked me so hard that I truly thought I was going to die. This same person, who was literally just a 16 year old kid, tied a rope around my neck and "walked me" around his house like a fucking dog. And when he was done, he had my bare ass naked self "sit" on the kitchen floor, where he proceeded to open the fridge, pull out a can of ginger ale and insulted me while he took sips of it. And after he was done degrading and humiliating me, as a final "fuck you" to me I guess, he took his can of ginger ale and poured it all over me. It's been just about nine years since that, and I've only just recently gotten to the point where I can see someone drinking ginger ale without wanting to cry and run away. I refuse to keep it in my apartment, though. And I refuse to drink it. I never want that disgusting awful shit near me again.

I loved this person more than life itself at that point. I didn't want to be insulted. I didn't want to be degraded and beaten and bruised and walked around the house like an actual fucking dog just to have ginger ale dumped over my head and onto my naked body I just wanted to love and be loved. Violence isn't love to me, it's never been love to me. For me, love is taking care of each other. Being slow. Just enjoying each other. That's love to me. Sexual violence, or any form of violence, really, is the exact opposite of love to me. It's scary. It's upsetting. It's hyperactive in the most awful and uncomfortable way. I've been abused so many times by so many people, and during the abuse I wanted nothing more than for it to stop. Why the FUCK would I want to replicate that in the most vulnerable position you can put yourself in?

I absolutely despise the fact that BDSM is now seen as "the default." Why the fuck are teenagers tying each other up in barbed wire and doing rape roleplays? My experience was from high school in 2017-2018, I can only imagine how awful it is now with social media normalizing it and making it so casual. I've heard so many stories of people meeting their tinder date at a bar just getting to know each other for them to be in bed three hours later just naturally choking/slapping/beating each other (or asking to be choked/slapped/beaten) from the absolute get-go with very minimal, if any, trust and conversation about it beforehand. Hell, I've heard of people getting ghosted after a date/hook up because they didn't naturally assume their partner liked that shit. It's one reason why if my wife and I don't work out for some reason, I'll be single and abstinent for the rest of my life. I also hate being accused of "being lame" or shamed for being "vanilla" (as if it's a slur) because I don't want that shit. I don't want to slap you and degrade you the first time I sleep with you, and you better not fucking try to do that shit to me. It's lonely and isolating, really. Sometimes it makes me feel like my assaults and abuse must not have been "serious enough" because if they were, I would've developed a kink/fetish for it. Since it seems like everyone else has.

If you read this far, I appreciate it. This is something that's been on my mind for a very long time, and I just needed to finally get it out before I went crazy.

how can my mother not care her own daughter has ptsd due to her own neglect? she truly believes my father is all the bad and she had no part in it. maybe he was physical but you stood in the corner or walked away while i sobbed. im turning 20 in a week and she goes on and on about how i need to grow up now that im an adult. maybe if anyone had protected me i could. crazy thought. im stuck with nightmares, sobbing constantly, i can never rest, i am disabled and developed seizures due to all this. and she truly believes shes some hero because he left after years of violence. which mind you, she left because iiiii caught him cheating and that’s the final straw. not your daughter bruised but god forbid you’re hurt. fml. i so desperately need to move out but as mentioned, i am disabled and struggle to work and it all feels impossible. im not asking for money, i just wanted a place to vent with likeminded people. you all exhausted too?

Hi I’m very new here and I’m at an extreme low..

I’ve had prolonged trauma for about like.. the past 5-6 years? It started off with my dads divorce, which wasn’t exactly too upsetting to me. I like spending time with my dad one on one. But he got severely depressed and I was always walking on eggshells at 12 years old trying to make sure he didn’t off himself. Didn’t help I had to leave to my mom’s over the weekends.. and I’d come back home to him severely injured or drunk. Poor guy was in the trenches of depression.

We went poor. Lost water. WiFi. I didn’t have clean clothes. Food. Didn’t stay up with hygiene. This was when I started to develop severe depression as well. But I didn’t want to leave my dad, in fear he’d be alone and actually end up doing something to hurt himself if I left. I felt like I was the only one he was really living for.

Eventually, he was admitted to a rehab center, stayed there for a few months. I discovered I couldn’t read anymore. Because my mind was racing. And while I tried to force my mind to slow down, I ended up having severe intrusive thoughts. I tried to research the reasoning why, and my brain picked up on so much information and used it against me in the long run.

I moved in with my grandma and tried to convey my struggles, only to be ignored and shoved to the side basically. So I rawdogged my anxiety disorder, and accepted it as a part of my personality. It wasn’t bad enough for me to hate my life just yet.

Then I moved in with my mom at 14. My dad went to rehab again. Got out. And he’d called her saying he wanted to hurt himself. I started having panic attacks, anxiety attacks, racing thoughts. Inability to sleep or watch tv and was heavily dissociated from the world around me. I’d get nightmares of my father severely injured or even dying.

My mother took me into the hospital, noticing my struggles. I only was diagnosed with GAD and MDD and was prescribed 25mg of sertraline, which didn’t do shit for me, but it made a tiny difference. I’m going up to 100 now.

That year was good. I wasn’t happy yet. Still just.. allowing my brain to be a dick without truly telling anyone about it because I thought maybe I was just being dramatic.

Then my mom had a manic period. She left her husband, moved us out, started getting irritable. I was already worsening mentally due to all of the stress, and she was mad at me for it. I woke up one morning and she was beating my brother simply for asking where she put his dog’s bowl, and asked her why she kept moving shit around. She beat him hard enough I thought she was killing him, so I ran out, and he had scratches down his face, he looked horrified, was on the floor trying to scoot away from her. He was only 14. I was 16. I stood between them. And my mom looked my in the eyes and said “don’t save him.” I just stared at her and pushed her away. She got mad at that and ended up chasing me out to the front yard while I debated calling the police. She put her hands on me, grabbed me by the neck. I told her she needed to calm down and she yelled no.

Eventually she ran back inside thinking things would go on as normal and like she didn’t just traumatize the house.

My brother sat in his bed, shaking and crying. I walked in and told him to show me his face. He had claw marks from her nails down his cheek. She didn’t want him going to school that morning because people would ask questions, I bet. But.. my smart self got audio recordings during this whole fiasco. Pictures of his injuries.

So she drove me and my other brother, who was 12, to school, because we had no visible marks and she didn’t think we’d say anything.

But I walked my happy ass to the guidance office and showed them everything. Got her arrested. Had to write a report, go through questioning.

And somehow I ended up back in my dad’s care.. he was more stable at the time and I’d rather stay with him than my grandma because he doesn’t emotionally neglect me. He may not have his shit together but he loves his kiddo.

During the time I stayed with my dad, I tried to take my mind off of things by doing dishes. A cup broke with my hand inside of it, and I got ten stitches.

My mom got out of jail and texted me just to say my cat was gone. Didn’t tell me what she meant. So she let me worry about if he was dead or out in the streets where he’s never been before because he was a house kitty.

My childhood home burned down. My dad got hooked on some drugs, don’t know which kind, but something that caused him a seizure.

My great grandfather died.

I was half convinced I was cursed.

This all happened within the span of a month.

Eventually I was forced back into my grandmas care because she’s the only one who’s well off financially. I started suffering severe night terrors, sleep paralysis, flashbacks, blended reality episodes where I couldn’t tell if I was back at my mom’s house because both houses and energies just felt so similar. I had panic attacks, severe intrusive thoughts. And when I reached out for help, my grandma looked me in the eyes and said “I’m not going to baby you.” And I emotionally cut her off entirely that day.

I was 16 pushing 17 during this time.

I couldn’t watch my phone, watch movies, go outside, go for a walk, my head was just tooo loud. Experiencing these symptoms was traumatizing itself because the more I reached out the more it backfired. My grandma ended up kicking me out so I went to my boyfriend’s house at the time and she actually called the cops and framed me as a runaway. I came home to all of my stuff gone. Room empty.

And as I tried to make sense of my thoughts without someone helping me get counseling or psychiatric help, I unfortunately had to resort to google to find coping mechanisms or a diagnosis that made enough sense that I could research and work my way through without any professional help until I turned 18 and could do it myself.

My brain hooked onto very scary subjects. Such as OCD. I have never had history of OCD and nobody in my family does. But my brain likes to generate thoughts that almost dress up as OCD. Sometimes they’re not even finished thoughts, just scrambled around and make no sense. And that’s how I know my brain is just trying to keep me on edge by throwing whatever it can at the freakin wall. Because it’s not just those kinda thoughts, it’s a plethora, like my brains filter is broken and presents every bad thought up to me under a spotlight. Whether it be sexual, derogatory words about myself I actually don’t believe, soo many things. There is no theme. Brain is just throwing shit at me to keep me on edge. I still have panic attacks when certain dates come, and when I see specific people, it’s severely effecting my daily life even though I’m not in that bad place anymore.

I know it is selfish, but it would be nice to hear that kind of thing when I'm not at my lowest or spiraling.

M24.

When I was 12 I was sexually assaulted by an MTF/trans person. On top of years of verbal and physical abuse at home, it completely wrecked my ability to trust people. I’ve spent most of my adult life on high alert — constantly scanning for red flags, waiting for the other shoe to drop, and keeping everyone at arm’s length.

I’ve had romantic relationships, but actual friendships have been almost nonexistent for a long time. It’s especially hard with other men. I just can’t fully relax around them the way I can around women. I recently made a new female friend who’s genuinely great, and both she and my wife have told me the same thing: I’m missing out on good connections because I stay so guarded.

I know they’re right. I can feel myself evaluating people instead of just being present with them. It’s exhausting and lonely. Living like this is so stressful.

Has anyone here managed to turn the hypervigilance down after similar shit? Therapy, habits, mindset shifts — what actually helped you start trusting people enough to build real friendships? Especially interested in hearing from guys who struggled more with male friendships after trauma.

I had never thought about my subconscious reacting during the anniversary of a severely traumatic event. Having enforced amnesia that without a medical provider I am unable to fix makes it a lot harder to know my timeline or my name thus giving the threat the opportunity to relive and recreate said event. Looking back my impending sense of “doom“ when I turned 30 and fear of leaving the property line when I went home (while still maintained) would have been a big red flag if I knew what I was afraid of. Does anyone else have reactions to an anniversary even without knowing it?

Has anyone noticed that they feel bored when everything is peaceful?

I feel like I’ve gotten used to being on edge that peace feels very very boring to me, even though I love the quiet and peace. I get bored easily even with loved ones and people who I care about.

In friendships, I feel like I have done something wrong or something is about to go wrong when there is a period of silence or non-communication. And then I withdraw. But in reality, nothing happened.

Is it because my brain doesn’t think it’s normal? I have this expectation that something should happen at any second.

Tw for somewhat graphic descriptions of grooming and sexual stuff

It haunts me that there’s videos of me out there. I wasn’t very popular with guys my age at 13, so getting attention from older men online was a huge confidence boost.
They said they never saved anything but I’m sure they lied. I talked to them all on discord so who knows. There’s probably a video of me at 13, covered in red sharpie insults and a strangers name, touching myself, crying, on my green carpet, somewhere out there. I was told I looked sexier when I cried. He’d call me at school. He changed his profile picture and username to “your master” and would threaten me if I didn’t run to the bathroom to strip and take pictures. He’s urge me to cut myself because it was sexy. There’s a grown man with photos of me on my knees in a locked bathroom in my grandmas house. With videos of me touching myself. Photos of me in lingerie far too many sizes big, pinned tight with safety pins to accentuate my non existent curves. Photos of me bent over, multiple because he said I didn’t get the angle he wanted right. He didn’t want a side photo so he could see my entire body. He wanted a photo from behind, so he could imagine what it would be like to rape me. All because I wanted attention. And past the two men I actually engaged in a sexual “relationship” with, I’d constantly talk to older men afterwards. I couldn’t feel good any way else. I’d dumb myself down and act innocent to make them like me more. There’s a man with texts on his phone from a 15 year old girl pretending not to know what sex is, asking him to explain it to her, to tell her what he wanted to do to her. I disgust myself sometimes. I disgust myself more than the things they said to me did. “You’re so sexy when you cry, I wish you were my little sister because they don’t tell anybody, I just want to take you to the woods and deflower you, baby sitting is my dream job, I bet you’re so tight, let me see your ‘princess parts’, I want to hear you scream and cry, I’d love to drug and rape you, you should wear a short skirt on your day out tomorrow, you’re such an ugly girl I’d only fuck you with a bag over your head”. I can’t even like remember most of my life ages 13-16 except major events.
I remember after being pressured and threatened into making a body writing video for this guy I couldn’t get it off. I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed until my skin was raw and red and it was still there. I just sat in the tub debating drowning myself. Afterwards I laid on the floor of my room and ate Nancy’s pizza with a bottle of cherry Pepsi. I remember how the carpet felt on my body. I went to school the next day with a hoodie and jeans on. I learned about BDSM through older men who had a big emphasis on the DDLG scenarios. I was told by most of these men the same thing,
“All men like this stuff. Some are just more open about it. It’s normal!”
I’m 18 and a virgin and terrified of men. I can’t get it out of my head that most if not all men are secretly pedophiles to some degree. I know it’s silly, but from my lived experience, it feels true. But I finally ended up learning my lesson talking to older men. One of them was someone I considered just an older friend. But he got drunk one night and we started chatting. He rambled about he wanted to fuck me, and loved the little freckle/mole between my tits. (I had sent him a photo of me in a tank top). He woke up, was disgusted with himself, and we got into an argument. For the next year and a half he stalked me ritualistically. He threatened to tell my parents everything if I broke up with my boyfriend at the time (I will explain that later, it’s bizarre I know). I’d try to leave, and he’d somehow always find out. He’d send me photos of my parents contact information, my address, and say he’d tell my parents what a stupid whore I was and that I was a disappointing slut waste of a daughter. The end of my sophomore year, he reached out to me once again. I thought it was another threat. He told me he was getting arrested for something. But he wasn’t. He was about to shoot himself and wanted to apologize to me. He told me that he didn’t want me to leave my boyfriend because he’d have “disgusting thoughts” about me. All his threats were just empty. But they didn’t feel empty. I nearly puked from the anxiety most of the time. I cried in class when I’d get texts from him. I debated driving my new car with my new license into oncoming traffic several times. I slept with a knife under my pillow. I freaked myself out so much I locked every door and window in my house, forgot I did, then ended up locking myself out after school. My life was ruined and I ruined others lives over what? An empty threat?

And what’s even worse? I let it change me. The first two years of high school you know what I did? I bullied people horrifically. Specifically two girls who I had petty drama with. I saw they had normal boyfriends. Normal dating lives. They won my friends over in one fair swoop in our arguments. I was so fucking jealous. So when I got the opportunity to get my “payback” in my mind, I got it. Rumors, shit talking, snarky comments, gossip, nothing was off the table for me. I hated everyone and myself. I just can’t. Now I smoke pot or consume cannabis super often. I love to drink and self harm. I just can’t. I’m such a fucking pussy for even letting this dumb shit affect me so much. I act like I was held down and raped against my will. I did most of this because I liked it deep down. I liked feeling wanted. I liked feeling pretty. I just don’t know what to do anymore. I can’t live with myself. The trauma I let happen to me. The shit I did to other people. I just can’t.

I don't think growing up in an abusive family constitutes a relationship. I think it's an atmosphere but the relating is solely on the estranged level, there is no back and forth emotional reliance, there is no give or take and there is no element that is associated with a relationship. A relationship is kin, it is embracing and it is safe. Otherwise what you have there counter to popular opinion is a hostage situation. That's it. A child born into a hostage situation will find any way to survive. Running away, freezing before her captive or fighting to escape.

OK - so now the captive is an adult and this person refuses ever to be anyone's captive or victim. There is no trusting a species of homo sapiens that produced the potential and resulting state of captivity from birth. This is what creates the hate and isolation.

Thank you, elephant out.

I hate myself and it's so bad. I had such a bad relationship with my mom and I feel like I'm always regressing into that little person who felt so unlovable. I self loath because I self loath, and I self loath because I'm depressed and it's this cycle but I don't know how to stop hating me.

I have been working worth my trauma therapist for about 6 months due to my experiences of emotional neglect, rape, and child abuse. My therapist asked me to really think about some things, so I have been, and I think she is right. I also talked it through with my husband, a trained sex assault investigator, and he agrees.

So, my narrative has always been that I would go to a party and get black out/pass out drunk and have a brief, semi conscious moment where some one was having sex with me, and I would pass back out. I can remember that sometimes I would be able to try and push them away or tell no, etc, but that never did stop anything, and I would just lose consciousness again.

When I started actually thinking about it. It only happened when I was with a specific group of people (with one exception about a year later, I will come back to that). Now, at that time, I could drink a lot, like chugg half a fifth of whiskey and walk 2 miles home and remember all of it, weighing in at 120 to 130lbs at 5'4". But the only time I got blackout drunk was at parties with a specific group, but not if I had a boyfriend with me. Also, there was one party where I know I had not planned to drink a lot because I had a 10 mile hike the next day. At that party, a friend pulled a guy off of me and said that I could barely walk, barley talk, and just couldn't stay awake. They said they had never seen me that drunk before.

Now back to that exception that happened about a year later. I was no longer partying with that group of people, and had a new group I was partying with. The same thing happened. But this time, I had to take urine drug test a few days afterwards, and it came back positive for barbituates, which I never took.

Now my head is spinning that maybe my narrative was wrong. I wasn't getting black out drunk, I was being drugged. And if that if true, that means the people from the first group did this with intent, multiple times. I worked with these people every day...I though that maybe they just got drunk too and made a bad choice, that I shouldn't have kept putting myself in that type of situation, I shouldn't have drank so much, etc. But if this was done purposely, all of that flies out the window. Have I been accepting part of the blame for myself for years, when I was actually drugged by men whose intent was to rape me?

I don't know where to go from here.

I finally admitted to another person in real life for the first time today (my new therapist) that when I was in 8th grade a family member almost hit me with a tennis racket. I was actually very intentional about not telling the therapist I saw when I was younger this.

I was also honest about the fact that I grew up around a family member who my mom admitted SA’ed she and my aunt. It’s something I’ll have to delve into more when I see her next week. This was something I found out within the last year and it’s been very difficult to process. That in addition to my current SA case has made everything more challenging and more exhausting, having to think about the insanity I am used to dealing with.

Do anyone try using mendi and differs in treating his trauma?