I don’t know exactly how to explain this. I don’t mean this in a context of hyper vigilance or feeling unsafe. I mean I feel like I’m losing myself when I have a busy day (just studying all day by myself) or if I’m just out and about going from one class/event to another or constantly socializing. Because I’m not constantly thinking of my thoughts, feelings, inner world, etc like I do on most normal days and that’s what I have done most days for years of my life now. Anything other than that makes me feel like I’m losing myself and feels so weird even if I’ve had a somewhat happy and fulfilling day. It’s like I need to be all alone most of the time, doing nothing and be extremely self aware of my existence and constantly observing myself to feel like myself and have a sense of self.

It leaves me in this weird place where I’m not fully happy isolating (because I feel somewhat empty despite feeling like myself), but I’m also extremely reluctant to change it because it’s so comfortable and familiar and any change feels disorienting and akin to losing myself. Why does this happen? Perhaps it’s me trying to validate my own existence and my mirror my own thoughts, feelings, and existence because no one else ever did. Perhaps that’s why it feels so existential and so instrumental to my existence and sense of self.

Does anyone else experience this? Any theories on why it happens or your reasons/experiences?

It has been a while since I wrote my last post here. Complex trauma recovery is a funny-not-funny thing. I guess it comes with unexpected chaos and calmness. I’ve hated both.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how difficult it is to build a life around living rather than surviving.

With complex trauma, we don’t really have a prologue. I’ve been reading stories about people who survived tragedies, and something struck me. Many of them have a past to look back on. They remember what life was like before things went wrong. They have something to compare their present to. They know what feeling safe once meant.

But what happens when you don’t have that? When you’ve been exposed to trauma since childhood, even before you were old enough to understand what was happening?

As I recover, I’ve begun to realize the cruelty I had to endure and the cruelty I had to witness. Life was never fun. I had to protect myself from my parents and from the world. My parents neglected me, and somehow, I still needed them to survive. They hurt me, lied to me, taught me unhealthy habits, controlled me, and created an unhealthy codependent relationship with me.

I didn’t choose to come into this world. I didn’t choose them as parents. But the funny thing is, they wanted to bring me into this world. And yet they raised me in fear. Under extreme religious beliefs, they taught me to be afraid of them, of the world, and even of my own thoughts. They made me believe there was an entire entity called God watching everything we did.

As I grew older, something wasn’t adding up. Somehow, my body seemed to have a stronger will to live than my mind was able to understand. I was 22 when I took a plane across the ocean to get away from them. I didn’t fully understand what I was doing back then. I just knew I needed to leave.

But leaving physically wasn’t the same as leaving emotionally. I was still trapped in that toxic codependent relationship with them. And the world outside wasn’t necessarily a safe place either. I had to deal with bullying, unhealthy work environments, and people who took advantage of my vulnerability. In some ways, I spent my entire life trying to understand other people’s reactions, anticipating what could go wrong, and figuring out how to protect myself.

Years later, I met my future husband, and something strange happened. I began to relax. I guess, for the first time, I was experiencing what it meant to be loved unconditionally. And that’s when the trauma symptoms started to emerge. I had to take a break from life, and slowly, my mind began catching up with what my body had already tried to do when I was 22.

Eventually, I found the strength to cut off my parents and the rest of my family completely. And I felt so cruel. It’s strange how protecting yourself from people who hurt you can make you feel like you’re the one doing something wrong.

But recovery also brought something else. I began to regain my agency. I wanted to do something better with my life. I started taking steps forward, finished my studies, continued learning, and began expanding my professional possibilities. Somewhere along the way, I realized they were wrong. Completely wrong. About me, about the world, and about what life was supposed to be.

Now I feel like I’m approaching another stage of recovery, and it’s surprisingly difficult to understand. For most of my life, my relationship with myself and with the world revolved around survival. Everything had a purpose. I had to understand people to protect myself. I had to anticipate reactions, analyze situations, prepare for what might go wrong. Even my abilities, curiosity, and interests developed in a world where I constantly needed to protect myself.

And now I wonder who I am when I no longer need to survive. Do I love writing because I genuinely love writing, or did I learn to write because it helped me survive? Do I enjoy analyzing things because I’m naturally curious, or because understanding everything around me once made me feel safer? Perhaps these things don’t necessarily have to be one or the other. But I don’t really know how to experience them outside of survival.

And perhaps the strangest question I’m facing now is: How do you live when there’s nothing left you need to escape from?

I don’t mean this in a depressing way. I’ve actually built a pretty good life for myself, and I’m aware that I’m writing this from a relatively privileged position. I have a stable job, a safe home, and the possibility of taking vacations and visiting beautiful places. I’ve accomplished things I’m proud of. I’m reconnecting with my creativity, picking up writing projects again, and discovering interests that don’t necessarily have anything to do with survival. And I genuinely appreciate these things.

But that’s also what makes this stage of recovery so strange. For most of my life, I was moving away from something. Away from my parents, away from fear, away from unhealthy relationships, away from situations where I didn’t feel safe. Even when I was building something good, there was often an underlying need to protect myself, to become independent, to make sure I would never have to depend on the people who hurt me again.

And now I don’t necessarily have to escape from anything. I can make choices simply because I want to. I can write because I enjoy writing. I can learn something because I’m curious. I can make plans without those plans having to serve some greater purpose of protecting myself. But after spending so much of my life surviving, that kind of freedom feels unfamiliar.

I think one of the hardest things about recovering from childhood trauma is that you don’t return to the person you were before, because there was no before. You don’t have a reference point. You have to discover what living means without having anything to compare it to.

For so long, everything revolved around the need to do something to protect myself, as though whatever happened next could potentially be dangerous and I needed to be prepared. But living doesn’t necessarily come with a reason. You don’t always need to anticipate something, understand something, fix something, or protect yourself from something. Sometimes you’re just living.

And I don’t know what to do with that yet.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy my life. It’s that I’m still learning how to relate to it. I spent so much of my life trying to reach a place where I could finally feel safe, and now that I’m beginning to experience it, I realize I don’t really know what comes afterward.

I guess this post is partly me venting, but also trying to put into words something I’ve been experiencing lately. I needed to get these thoughts out of my head, and I’m curious whether anyone else has experienced something similar.

Has anyone reached a point in complex trauma recovery where surviving no longer feels like the center of their life, but living still feels unfamiliar? When you’ve spent your whole life trying to get somewhere safe, what happens when you finally get there?

How do you learn to live when your life no longer needs to revolve around escaping?

Hugs

TW: Eating disorders / disordered eating / food

Hey everyone,

Wasn't sure where to put this, but I've often found solace in this subreddit so thought I'd put it here - I hope it's in line with the rules.

A few weeks ago my partner sat me down and told me they thought I had some disordered eating habits, and it worried them. I have never thought about this myself, and never noticed it - but now they've pointed it out, I think I agree with them. Cooking food stresses me out so much I just don't do it, can't do it. I always thought it was because I was inherently lazy or that it was just something I hated doing, but after this conversation with my partner I feel like I've realised I've been in emotional flashback mode whenever I cook. It makes me feel anxious, and upset, and confused. I'm also so anxious to make sure everything I eat is healthy, I obsessively check labels to make sure what I'm eating isn't processed or all sugar or whatever which, though I don't think is inherently a bad thing, the amount of stress it causes me is probably not worth it.

Anyway - now this has been pointed out to me, I realised it's because food was a BIG stress when I was a kid. My mom couldn't cook at all, we got takeaways all the time, and I used to beg her to buy veggies. It really embarrassed me and the food always felt icky to me. Completely forgot about this until now. Life is strange!

Another part of my notes on CPTSD pt 1

I think a major issue with CPTSD treatment, is a lack of understanding of what exactly is being treated.

Let's define trauma as a distressing event that causes cognitive, emotional, and physiological responses. Typically these responses will be associated with feelings of fear, helplessness, dissociation etc. By itself, these responses are normal and adaptive: if I run into danger, some fear and adrenaline are probably useful to get me moving to safety.

This traumatic event can cause a disorder if these responses are lasting after the danger has gone, or in situations that are inappropriate. That is, the responses that were adaptive and helpful, have become maladaptive and unhelpful. We can say a person is "traumatized" or "has trauma" if they have these maladaptive responses. We might also call the maladaptive response itself "trauma".

So trauma is when an distressing event causes a long-lasting, maladaptive cognitive, emotional, and physiological responses.

Of course, there's another name for the process of developing a long-lasting response -- learning.

Fear un/learning as a theoretical basis for understanding CPTSD

CPTSD can be understood as a form of associative learning (think Pavlov's dog's) and more specifically fear conditioning.

In this simplified model, the traumatic event is the conditioning stimulus (CS), the responses to trauma are unconditioned responses (UR) and other stimuli present at the time can become conditioned stimulus (CS). These CSs can re-activate the trauma memory and generalize to other CSs. We can refer to these CSs as "triggers".

We can then consider a "flashback" a situation where a CS or trigger causes the unconditioned responses (UR). We can think of these URs as the set of somatic, emotional, and cognitive pathways that activate automatically.

If CPTSD is caused by fear learning then recovering from CPTSD is fear UN-learning. There are two primary mechanisms of unlearning: extinction and reconsolidation.

Despite its name, memory extinction is about forming NEW pathways in response to triggers. If we think of fear responses to a trigger as a set of nervous systems pathway that activate automatically, memory extinction means that we teach ourselves a new set of responses. Then instead of the trigger activating the old pathways, the new pathways activate instead. Over time, the old responses will slowly fade. However because this is a form of active learning, these new pathways are also subject to problems of forgetting. And since the old pathways are still there (we're just learning new ones), they can re-activate. Unfortunately one issues with CPTSD is that there's an additional deficit in extinction learning.

The second form of unlearning is called memory reconsolidation. When long-term memories are recalled, they become malleable for a period of time. By adding new, or contradictory information to the old learning while it's still in a malleable state, we can directly change the old pathways. This is considered by some "faster" than memory extinction since it doesn't require new learning.

Any effective recovery modality then should incorporate one of these two unlearning methods: extinction or reconsolidation.

There's also an implicit learning involved as well -- extinction means learning a NEW set of pathways to activate, and reconsolidation usually requires new or contradictory information to the old pathways. I typically refer to these new learnings as "cultivating positive qualities".

Other pathways implicated in CPTSD

There are other neurological pathways that are also impaired in those with CPTSD, threat salience, emotional regulation, context updating. Issues with threat salience means that typically attention is biased towards perceived threats (amygdala, dorsal anterior cingular cortex, insular cortex, PFC). Emotion regulation (medial PFC, dorsolateral PFC). Context updating refers to the brain updating mental models as new information arrives, and information about safety. The inability to recognize or update new safety information results in hypervigilence (Medial PFC, thalamus, hippocampus).

I firmly believe that for people like me, with lifelong cptsd, chronically feeling alone isolated unsafe and not understood, that a good friend or 2 in your corner would go such a long way towards healing. Just a good friend that you know supports you, cares, speaks well about you, and has good intentions.

But how can I make friends if I'm hypervigilant, wounded, lack confidence, have isolated so long I'm awkward socially, I'm stuck in fight or flight/survival mode and I don't even have real hobbies. But like i need friends when i'm broken and still mending too. When you grow up in survival mode there is little time to develop hobbies and learn about yourself much less safely explore the world around you?It always feels like people expect you to be healed and bubbly when you engage or try to make friends.

Even as an adult leaning into your interests and engaging in new hobbies is often looked at like you're strange for being so far behind the curve. For instance, learning how to game as a 39 year old woman, a mom, gets me so much judgement because everyone I meet has done it for years and I'm just starting and still suck. Or judgements for being an adult and a mom and what I'm supposed to do or not supposed to do. That's a minor example but I've found it to be true about alot of hobbyist communities I try to make friends in because supposedly it's best to try and connect when you have wholesome common ground.

And if I'm honest i never find more kind and understanding people then I do here and in the cptsd subreddit. I can post about my deepest thoughts or worst experiences and I'm always recieved and validated and offered advice and support. And this all from people society might shun and view as mentally ill or damaged and write off. I shared such a sentiment with my therapist and told her I only feel understood by other "damaged" people and she suggested that surrounding myself with people that have similar challenges as me can create a negative feedback loop.

And I see her point but what about the negative feedback loop of meeting "well adjusted, healthy" adults and being outcast? And even if i did find one that seems nice, what do i have to offer them? What makes me qualified to be THEIR friend? I usually can't keep pace with them, socializing all the time, group events, even the way they seem to always just want to small talk and still seriously have friends for 10 or more years having never gotten deeper then taking about surface topics. Please dont take that wrong, it's not to invalidate anyone, I understand that these differences in the way I think and experience others and friendship are why I'm lonely, but it's just so hard for me to navigate. I wish i could just be light and friendly and bubbly and just enjoy small talk and feel connected like them.

Or realizing that sometimes these "well adjusted, healthy" people only appear to be healthy because they never did any reflecting, self work, are not self aware and just live their best lives by being avoidant, lacking boundaries, or outright just being selfish and self serving?

I just feel like I connect with so many posts and stories and experiences here. I'm sometimes so tempted to make a post here or in cptsd looking for friends because sometimes you guys truly make me feel less alone, understood, and welcomed like the home i always wish I had. Like at least I know the people will be self aware to some extent, trying to learn, lots are in therapy and are really doing the work.

Is that weird? Had anyone ever posted in these communities for friends? How did it go? Would you do it again? Why/ why not?

My parents accustomed me to stay in abusive relationships and put up with bad behavior from people.

I have made poor relationship/dating choices. It is taking me a long time to learn lessons and each one is so difficult. I have this image of myself but in reality I’m not there but getting closer to the image this time not just pretending. It will be a life long process to get to that place.

Being angry and resentful over people abusing me, taking advantage of me, and putting me in dangerous situations is helping. For a while I thought that if they were trying to use me then maybe I could get something in return. They hated that and punished me. I am practicing setting boundaries but it’s hard. I feel that if I’m under mental pressure, coerced enough or threatened I genuinely freeze and my critical thinking skills diminish. I give into the situation even though it is harmful to me. Examples below.

I’m childfree and a few married men have pretended and lied to me about being single and childfree to get access to my body. I only found out later but was so lonely it took me leaving and breaking things off multiple times to actually stay away. They would reach out to me on different platforms when I blocked their phone number.

There was the guy who I traveled to see in a foreign country who ghosted me. We knew each other for a year before we met up in person. It took him treating me like absolute garbage before things ended.There was the guy I met on a dating app. Used me during a transition phase while life was hard. I ended up offering to travel to meet him after talking for a few months at which point he ghosted me. He has tried to come back several times.

I’m hoping I can sustain the anger to protect myself. Otherwise I feel like a helpless child/victim/vulnerable woman. People love taking advantage of that.

I'm 34M, and since 2016, I've been in therapy. I saw something in front of my eyes back in 2009 that completely wrecked me.

I have been in survival mode. At work, I couldn't connect with anybody. I missed so many opportunities. I couldn't work properly, so I missed out on promotions. I started working as a software engineer and never got a promotion to a senior role.

I saw so many beautiful girls, but I couldn't ask any one of them out. I froze, like I couldn't move my tongue, and the thoughts from the inner critic afterwards – it's been horrible. I remember it so clearly. I literally couldn't move, and it was very frustrating.

Past few weeks: Somatic Experiencing and slow walks. And then slowly, working on stretching my body, and then I have been having crying spells.

Now, when I lie down and start stretching my core body, I slowly connect with my pain, and what surprises me is the very first thing I feel: I missed so much. Without my body, I had been floating around, and all the opportunities that I missed.

I feel it. I connect with my 'agency', with my anger, with the very me, and even writing this makes me so emotional.

I don't have the answers to this.

I was having frequent dreams of something similar in the past few months, and yesterday, I connected the dots, and it's the same thing that happened back in 2009 that is now coming to the surface.

Yesterday, I was having a walk with a friend of mine, and I told him what happened in 2009, and I started crying outside, and afterwards, I became so calm, and life became so easy, like it was so easy to walk in a grocery store, and I wasn't afraid of anything.

So much has been lost to being in survival mode. I could have gotten a partner and have built a life with her.

I guess it's all part of life. I will get the opportunities again, and perhaps these experiences were necessary to deepen oneself, to have more grounding, and to truly connect with oneself on a deep level.

I hope I can connect the dots moving forward. Thank you if you have read it so far.

Even if these things only last for a while, that doesn't change anything.

I will post this here because you, people with cptsd, will exactly understand me. Because the experience of cptsd isnt understood by people outside of it.

Examples: people who have physical disabilities, chronic illness/pain, anything that affects psyche strongly or for a long time, people with brain conditions, people who need a lot (or a few) of accommodations in their daily life, people who have ADHD or autism, people who have complex PTSD, people who have brain injuries (that could also come from complex trauma or abuse), people who live in prolonged poverty, people who are actively getting abused.

Almost all of the previous, if not all, make someone practically debilitated and/or disabled. They need more accomodation.. or things affect them stronger than someone without these burdens. Their baseline state is gonna be more exhausted.

I look tired very very very often..almost most of the time.. when I'm around other people. I'm a sensitive person, has complex trauma and burdens..which make life heavy.. and I may be facing some sort of collective and systemic ableism in my life as well. I also am living in poverty..and dont have the privilege of living in a way that accommodates my needs. And I fear abuse at the back of my mind and i lived in active abuse for a long until extremely recently and I'm still paranoid i may be thrown back to it someday.

I look exhausted..or.. I AM exhausted most of the time I'm around people.. especially outside house (which is ofc 99% of the times I am around people). My face looks tired, i am too overwhelmed to make eye contact..sometimes cant speak.. just lie around people in class exhausted. But I wanna be around them, it feels better than being alone.

But the feeling or thought that they don't realize that I enjoy being around them..it breaks my heart into a million pieces. and they dont interact with me unless I do first.. so that makes it really hard for me.

And of course my post and words are about people who DON'T WANT TO MASK. I will NOT mask. It's literally no point, people will wanna be around me or know me for a fake version. I feel more real when I am not masking. Even if my baseline is much more exhausted than their baseline.

Again, do not advise me to mask because I will come after you and be in your house. Genuinely worst thing you could say to me.

But also.. I constantly have that insecurity at the back of my hear that people dont wanna be around me or talk with me first bc I'm "a downer". When I am just.. less privileged than them. And I honestly don't know if they not wanting to hang around me solely for that makes them ableist or what. But I am not masking.. I'm not making a face that is different from my actual current face, or acting more energetic or cheerful, just for someone to be pleased with me. That isnt real connection to me. I will talk with my real face.

Even if they say they dont think that, I feel they're lying.

Does it ever get easier? Like I get that it may get easier to make the decision to act. That's something I've been slowly experiencing over the past few years. I use supportive phone lines from time to time, and I used to stay on the phone for the full duration of the call no matter how the experience went. The person could be triggering me, they could be over stepping boundaries or sometimes even be disrespectful. I'd just dissociate and endure. Because I believed it was wrong to leave, let alone say anything.

I've had some great experiences, thankfully, with people on support lines who encouraged me to prioritize my own well being over the perceived well being of the stranger on the other side. And I slowly started getting to a point of saying things like "I think I'm done for now" and leaving the call. Found times where I would say, "I don't know that I agree". And now it's gotten to a point where I'm more willing to just hang up, say "I don't agree". There are people I recognize by voice/name who are not a good fit for me to interact with on the support line. And now I am more willing to hang up upon recognizing it's them on the other end. But I still feel guilty for doing it. Not guilty to the point that it tears me down, but it definitely affects me in the moment and for awhile after.

I understand the support line is there for those in need of support, not for those providing support. But somewhere in me, it still feels so wrong to not try to make sure the other person's feelings are a priority.

Does anyone else experience this? This will be long and as much as I'd love an answer I doubt anyone will read this rambling.

Context:

I was parentified throughout an abusive, violent and neglectful childhood. I used to keep in touch with my mom and siblings for years, no matter what they did or how toxic it felt to be around them. Until I started therapy and realized just how bad things were. Think increasing drug abuse and toxic mentalities with crabs in the barrel dynamic. I was called stuck up for being straight edge and scapegoated while also actively being parentified as well.

I tried low contact and eventually went no contact. Throughout all of this i worked in an intense managerial job with toxic bullying, harassment, and predatory and abusive practices. Often it wasn't even directed at me and i'd try to do my best to quietly be different and make change. I'd be kind to the targets. I'd help out the people that no one liked. But the longer I was there and the more I saw the more it changed how I viewed humanity. It just started to consume me until eventually I started calling people out and eventually ostracized myself there. Even the targets I initially tried to help, distanced themselves from me for a chance to be on the inside. I didn't blame them i saw how much they suffered and know they just wanted it to end. It felt just like the family at home that I had worked so hard to escape. It triggered a big change in me. My mindset shifted into survival mode.

The plot thickens: in the middle of all of this work drama and family drama. Partner and I get pregnant. My hormones and changing perspective just made it so much harder to cope.

I gave birth and immediately crashed. All of my 'people' that id have done anything for weren't there for me and i suddenly learned none of them held me as closely as i held them. It was a very rude and very painful awakening. I fell into a deep depression where i could barely bathe. I was in a deep depressive freeze, for 2 years. If i wasnt apathetic I was crying and couldn't stop. Before and since then i was still depressed just not in the same deep freeze, can't move, numb, apathetic state. I went to my PCP and got a referral for a psych for supposed ppd and ppa. I suffered at that job for another 4 years and each day was harder then the last.

Finally i left the job, cut out every relationship outside of my baby and partner. I felt like my minimal energy was owed only to them. And I started to really focus on therapy and self care.

Even when I still lived back home, I've always had no problem finding jobs, meeting friends, I always had a bunch of acquaintances and 1 or 2 very close friends. After i finally moved out I got even better and more successful and independent. Although i struggled to confide in others since forever, i'd have done anything for my friends. It was when I needed them back (post partum period) and they let me fall that I started to wonder if they ever really liked me as much as i liked them.

I still don't know if I was just too reactive from work stress and family stress and saw danger and boundary crossing where I could have shown more grace? My therapist and husband say i had just never implemented boundaries in the past and that not everyone would appreciate the change. That it was best to move on.

In my mind i didn't cut off a toxic family and job just to keep toxic friends. I've tried to put myself back out there and meet people but it takes one instance for a budding friend to throw up a red flag on me before I'm scrambling for the scissors and actively cutting them out as soon as possible.

My partner says that most people just understand there's good and bad about everyone and most people are shit sometimes, you just accept certain things in order to maintain friendships and family connections. He says most people would just move on and thats the main difference. Is this true? Do I just have to understand that relationships and friendships are just not like tv or movies?

He says that people in general tolerate shit behavior or treatment often from others and just move on without holding grudges or resentment? But how do they manage to stay vulnerable after someone hurts them and not hold grudges? And maintain the connection???? I do feel lonely and a huge sense of responsibility for creating a community around us for my child. But i also know I'm not strong enough or confident enough in myself to keep people around me that hurt or make me feel bad. It will affect me. Peoples treatment of me is always internalized as something I did wrong or some bad thing they see in me.

I'm still not as far in my process as i'd like to be. I've completely kept myself isolated. I feel broken and flawed and like i am alien. Like no one understands or identifies with me and the best thing i can do for myself and everyone else is just not force them to deal with me. I literally speak to no one outside of my partner and child, except school or situations where I have no choice. I hate speaking to anyone for any reason because I feel like it never turns out right. They will always end up disliking me or hating me and I just don't want to deal anymore. I'm starting to think everyone around me would be better off if i didn't exist.

I've changed for the worst since trying to claw myself out of this pit. I've become much less trusting. I feel hyper aware now to everyone around me. I started to notice every little comment, every little look.. every passive aggression that i just would ignore in the past. Behaviors from others that i'd have quickly have written off as "their problem" and not think twice about. Now I feel more like even before I realize I'm seeing a pattern, MY BODY alerts ::danger this person is unsafe and has hidden issues with you::. Even issues with my partner that id have easily been able to swallow and move past are impossible to ignore now.

I'm trying my best to build good habits but I feel permanently changed. I feel like having my toxic family around kept me level headed as i was the regulator, the fixer. Without them I feel like the toxic one. Like i was only healthy and well adjusted as part of a toxic dynamic. so really how healthy was i? I'm still actively in therapy.

Just to give a visual imagine being sunburned to blisters all over your body from head to toe. Normally, someone rubbing our caressing you feels nice. Even if someone walked up and hugged you too tight, or worse slapped you on the back, it might hurt but you can tolerate it. But not when you're sunburnt to blisters. Everything just hurts to a maximum degree. Simple things that worksheet normally bother you are excruciating. Even a feather can feel like torture when your skin is in that state. That's how I feel emotionally. My entire nervous system is sunburnt to blisters. But it's not an intentional choice or way of being. I move funny because everything hurts and I'm just trying to go about my life and heal.

I'm constantly, constantly scanning for danger. I've tried putting myself out there to make friends but I feel like no one sees the good in me. Once i feel like ive found someone has behaviors or habits that could hurt me i instandly close the door.

I feel like I'm giving subconscious signals that everyone picks up on but me. And I feel like I've accidentally created a loop that keeps self fulfilling. I'm the common denominator so it can't be everyone is reading me wrong. Maybe it's the constant fear and anxiety. Maybe it's how I speak. Maybe it's how I act. I don't see myself as doing anything wrong, just being myself by people just don't see me how I see myself. Even when I think I'm being normal and relaxed I feel like people are reading into everything I say and do. They 'other' me immediately.

How do i fix this? Have you experienced this? How do you get on the other side? How do you shake off the fear that you just are unlikeable? How do you stop connecting the dots and finding danger and threats? How do you stop triggering people's if you honestly don't know what you're doing wrong?

If you read this far you're a real one. I doubt anyone will its just too much.

Any insight advice or input is welcome even if its just calling me out as toxic, just please help me with any advice on how and what to fix. I do suspect I'm neurodivergent and through my writing on subreddits have been asked if I'm autistic. I may be and I'm not closed to that. I've asked my therapist so many times and keep being told it's just CPTSD. Through reddit I also learned about trauma based neurodivergence so yes I mean it when I say I know I'm the problem but idk what or where or how to fix it.

I am in therapy for 4 years and thankfully I became aware of many toxic thoughts, the cruel voice, improved some symptoms of shame and low self-worth… yet Idk what to do about this.

I used to fall for all the lovebombing, mixing crumbs, attention for love; by hurtful experiences I got my lesson but I can’t help feeling overly excited like a teenager in any person (I feel interested in) showing me friendly curiosity, giving me attention. I feel so silly and am aware I don’t even know this person yet, but one piece in me is burning in starvation asking for love, yearning for being loved as myself, being “chosen” as priority to someone. It’s just the love, warmth of it that melts your tightened shoulders, like a blanket that wraps you.

It took some courage for me to express it openly so pls be kind. Anyone else experienced this kinda yearning and what helped you to meet the need? I know we need to love ourselves first but it’s not enough? I’d appreciate any advice from your experiences.

TW:: CSA, CPA[child physical abuse], rape/SA? At 18, mention of bad prior therapist, transference

So I’ve noticed that since starting proper and adequate deep and intensive trauma work including 2hr relational psychoanalysis sessions , I go to an MBT program 2x a week and also I’m doing additional EMDR-modified and IFS for my DiD./BPD. I’ve been doing this for 7months now. I noticed that last night (therapist has been on break btw) that I was suddenly overtaken when I thought of my therapist with feelings of being cared for, fatherly love, and acceptance and respect Towards me it to be honest made me feel really good but it also made me
Pause and think if what I was feeling was good for my treatment? I’m unsure if this is beneficial or not and I keep getting mixed answers when I look it up lol. For some bg on my father my father was a heavily abusive and mentally ill man who was a Swiss german and Finnish immigrant. He was always stern with me, almost never showed emotion or anything that would indicate to me he felt remorse about what he did [CSA/CPA towards me, as his son, he would beat my mother unconscious, and he would rape me mainly but also would terrorize, interrogate, and hit my sister in-front of me; when I was 4-10 when my sister lived with me] my father horrifically as well sexually abused me from ages 2-18, I won’t get into all of it but to put it short he started the sexual abuse when I was 2 years old and it ended on my 18th birthday since he anally raped me on that day. Forever tarnishing that memory and that year and that birthday. He also used to hit me when I was 4-6 and often I’d need to go to the hospital but yet nothing was ever done even when I heard the doctors tell my mother I had genital evidence of sexual abuse she screamed at them in the hallway and told me I would never see that doctor again. But overall I’ve noticed that my therapist whilst yes he is not and will never be my actual father at the moment in my mind he FEELS like a father figure to me. Someone who will guide me and mentor me into a better future for myself and also someone who cares about me and can help me when I’m at my lowest and doesn’t scoff at me for it. Doesn’t hit me, doesn’t rape me, doesn’t hurt me, he doesn’t judge me , he doesn’t even say condescending shit to me about how I made “choices” with my father like my prior therapist did before I started my MBT and relational psychoanalysis cuz you know I was asking for it yeah!💀. [AS A KID?!!!!, Like god my prior therapist was so bad!] but overall this is very positive feeling[s] I’m having towards my therapist I’m Unsure if there exactly good or healthy for my Treatment though.

TW for mentions of abuse (no detail)

My brother is ~7 years older than me. I didn't realize at the time that he was being abused by our neighbor (who ended up going to jail for it I think), as well as what we were both getting from our parents. With therapy and processing that newer information, I came to a better place with it all. What he did to me wasn't okay or excusable, and at the same time he was also a severely abused child himself.

I was worried at first when I heard he got married, terrified when I learned they were expecting. But my SIL reached out to me and we ended up sorta repairing. I hadn't really spoken to him since he moved out at 18, but I came to learn that he carried a lot of guilt/shame/remorse for everything he did to me. He'd never reached out because he felt he had no right to intrude into my life, that being contacted by him would do more harm than good. We had a conversation about how we were both trying to break the cycle, him especially going into being a father for the first time.

My neice is now four years old and an amazing kid. Things were going well for a while. I never exactly became close to my brother, but I started coming around a lot to see my neice and developed a good relationship with my SIL too. We recently worked at the same place for a brief period as well, and since then meet up about once a week to hang out and catch up.

But external stressors have been enormous for them in recent years, and have only gotten worse. I noticed their relationship started to seem strained, my brother was withdrawing more and more, and eventually she started talking to me about how much they were arguing. How mean my brother was becoming, how depressed she was feeling... She always followed up with how much she couldn't wait for things with his job/her job/their living situation/etc to get better, so things could back to normal.

But I was getting worried. I was afraid my brother might be backsliding into his older patterns, and terrified of the idea of my neice growing up with the version of her father I knew in childhood. Finally, two days ago, I got a text from my SIL saying her friends had staged a "mini intervention". They told her they think my brother is emotionall abusive and they're worried about her.

I still haven't fully been able to process it. Or maybe I just don't really need to much, because the possibility of it never really fully left the back of my mind. I was hopeful, so hopeful, but... What matters now is the safety and well-being of my SIL and my neice. I've let her know I'm around to listen, to help her with whatever she might need/whatever she chooses to do. She's still processing herself, doing a lot of questioning her own perception/sanity.

I want to be there for my neice and SIL. I'm also struggling with a lot of mixed feelings, of course. I don't want to get over-involved, since that's a pattern I'm still working on from my own trauma - I get really protective of people, get involved in conflicts and try to fight people's battles for them because that's how I got through life in our home. I fought back, a lot.

But... I don't want to fight my brother. I hate that he's let things come to this, that he's slacked off on his own growth to the point that he's hurting the people who least deserve it. Who love him the most. I'm mad at him, of course, but also sad. It's hard to explain why. I guess I've just come to see his humanity so much more clearly since my neice was born. I've seen the burden of our past that he's still carrying. And as much as I fucking hate abuse and will never tolerate it/stay neutral when it's involved... Some part of me is just heartbroken for all this means, I guess.

I'm not sure exactly what I'm looking for, typing this all out. Maybe just to get it off my chest, since I have no one to really talk about it with in real life. Advice or support is welcome, but if you could please refrain from a primary focus on harsh words/judgement of my brother, that would help a lot. I promise I do not and will not excuse his behavior. I will always prioritize my care to victims of abuse first and foremost, especially when it comes to my amazing little neice... I'm just not in the best place to hear any more terrible things about my brother quite yet.

If you have any thoughts on how to navigate supporting my SIL/their daughter in this mess of a situation, that would be lovely. Or even just any kind words you might have. Thanks in advance.

Y’all, I’m so tired. I’ve tried SO hard. And I mean it. I’m a go getter who will try, try, try, and try. And I’ve tried so hard to get better.

I’m only 20 and I’ve already tried 5 different therapists and 10 different medications over the past few years. At first, I thought that surely it’s because I’m doing CBT. Then I tried EMDR too and a bit of somatic and that didn’t work either. Does anything work?? Will anything ever work?

For context, I mostly struggle with hypo arousal, lack of motivation/interest/will, emptiness, isolating, daydreaming/scrolling, disconnect from life, etc. Did anything work for you? What should I try now?

I’ve done Somatic Experiencing, a little IFS (more on that below), neurofeedback, and lots of talk therapy of various kinds. I’ve grown a lot and have become much more connected to my body, compassionate toward myself, assertive and confident, clear about the trauma I’ve been through, discerning in my relationships.

But when I’m alone, I still go into freeze and dissociation constantly. This has been the case since adolescence, so about 30 years. I’m either stuck in freeze, wanting desperately to get things done or do something fun but glued to the internet and unable to tear myself away; or else I’m floating in a confused fog and not knowing what I want. I‘ve never gotten good strategies to use alone.

I expected IFS to help me more; I think it didn’t because my therapist was guiding it all and I have a memory impairment, so it felt more like a thing I did once a week with her than a tool I was able to employ on my own.

I would be grateful for any suggestions about tools or therapies that have helped you if you relate to my experience.

Edit to add: I also have an ADHD diagnosis, but ADHD meds have never worked for me. I understand it as freeze. Edit2 to shorten.

I think I am outgrowing my relationship as I progress with healing, but I feel very confused about it and chronically second guess myself.

Mostly I feel like my partner doesn't really understand what I'm going through or how I'm changing, and when I try to bring him in there's some resistance. We've talked about it, and he usually says the right things, but it also hasn't really shifted.

I also find that my nervous system doesn't want to be fully open with him. I've worked through lots of layers of dissociation and am landing at a place where I am feeling pretty regulated and "alive" a lot of the time (thank god) but I find myself wanting to contract and kind of "deaden" a lot when I'm with him. I can't work out if that's because I'm still just so afraid of really being "seen" by the closest person in my life, or if it's a sign to move on.

There's so much more I could write, but mostly I want to hear from people who have been through this and how you made the call. Did you eventually just know with certainty?

this isn’t new, but I’m starting to learn to address it.
I don’t entirely know how, but I wanted to not feel alone, or at least heard. I struggle with rejection sensitivity which I rly haven’t found solutions for at all and therapy doesn’t help with it at all unfortunately.
My fight or flight physically feels activated when ppl double text me esp when it’s less than 24 hours and it’s not an emergency, it feels like they are demanding I respond to them, so in turn I will choose to just not respond longer (sometimes not a choice, I will feel too anxious so I hold it off until I calm down)

I noticed cus I stopped people pleasing, I tried to tell my partner it makes me anxious sometimes when she double texts me (usually when I wake up late for example) because it feels like I’m being pressured / rush to respond. I tried to reassure it wasn’t to make them feel bad or anything. my partner, from my perspective, had their own rejective sensitivity moment (I will also admit maybe my time was also off cuz they were having a sad day, so lesson learned w that, social cue missed I think…) also seemed to feel rejected by this information and then I in turn felt like my need and boundary wasn’t respected. (We’re gonna talk abt this soon dw. and pls be respectful and kind yall we’re both doing our best.)

I have another friend who sometimes will text me, and then if I don’t respond on what feels like “their time” — they will text me again like “👀 ?” Like they asked me a question, saying to respond once I read the message, but I was like “no, yeah I’m gonna respond when I have time / capacity, not just cuz I read this…” It felt like a demand versus a request, so I allowed myself the time I felt I needed to reply but a couple hours later they asked again 😭 I’m like pls I’m at work idk.

It bothers me so much but I’m struggling with the urge to back down from my need / boundary so I’m just wondering what I can do I guess. I can only guess I feel this way because it feels like my “choice” / autonomy is being taken from me and that’s triggering somehow?

Background: I’m a mom of 2 adopted teens who both have multiple mental health issues including adhd for both, FASD for 1 and BPD for the other. Our home life is chaotic, to say the least. We haven’t needed to call 911 in 6 months though, so that’s positive…. But still, home is stressful and chaotic and I’m the manager if the chaos, the keeper of all knowledge, nurse, therapist, tutor, executive function/life skills coach, primary caregiver. While I had multiple traumatic SA experiences as a teen, a large chunk of my trauma has been from dealing with my oldest over the last 3-4 years - hitting or throwing things at me(shes bigger than me), trying to push me down stairs, running away 1/2 dressed, wrestling a large knife away from her neck, etc and then hearing her scream when we told her she was going to residential treatment to keep us ALL safe.
So as I try to work through trauma, I come home to be back where it all happened and with the person it all happened with and she’s often still yelling and dysregulated and I’m dealing with school issues 2-3 x per week. I do NOT think I’m going to make progress while in this situation. But we also don’t have a support system that can help support my husband and kids if I’m not here (she has frequently reported false allegations of abuse when he tries to stop her from attacking or destruction and it’s not good for any of them for it to just be him for several weeks!) My therapist and I agree I need some time and space and I’m trying to figure out how that can happen.
*** Anyhoooo….if you read all that, thank you! Now wondering if anyone has adult residential treatment recommendations in case I can figure out a way to make it happen? Preferably a reasonable amount of freedom, accepts insurance, trauma-focused, EMDR, other somatic therapies, NOT a substance focus or dual diagnosis treatment center…and if it’s on the coast that’s bonus points! Online IOP program recommendations also welcome.

Something I was reminded about again recently is how isolating it is to not have the common experience of grieving the loss of parents. I know we grieve what we didn't have but I'm talking specifically about the experience of grieving losing people you love. It feels insensitive of me but all I can think of is what a privilege it is to have loved & been loved. I know that's what makes it a painful experience & I have a lot of empathy not just sympathy for their experience but it's all still from outside the glass looking in, this world I can't enter. My own type of grief makes me feel deeply understanding of their pain yet it's still not the same. I don't even want to imagine how much I'd struggle once I actually have people I'd grieve losing, as someone who was deprived of that type of connection their whole life but the grief of not having grief for one's own parents is its own kind of hell. They are both still very much alive but I often think of how I'd feel or not feel. I have never bonded with these people, they are more like acquaintances, the only grief I get to feel is the grief of what I should've had. I feel even as a survivor I am isolated as often people still feel some sort of connection with their parents.

Recovery related question around an old friendship. I recently reconnected with an old friend. We dated for a few months 20 years ago but were friends for many years after. Broke up due to me moving away and neither of us ready for a serious relationship.

Long story short, we fell out of touch when I got married and they got into a serious relationship. Prior to that we became super close, shared a lot about life, relationships, spirituality, etc. All long distance. Due to that deep connection I was getting feelings but didn't communicate them due to the distance and feeling it wouldn't be returned. I took some space and reached out a few times to check in over the years and never heard from them so I let it go.

Recently they found me on a networking site and wrote this heartfelt apology saying they were in a bad place, they didn't expect a response, and they were sorry. I replied saying that I understood, the friendship meant a lot to me, but I wouldn't be reaching out anymore. I wished them well and intended that to be the end, as much as it hurt to do so.

They replied immedietly with their contact info for if I changed my mind. I didn't respond and the next day they texted me asking me to talk before I ended the friendship.

To keep this from getting much longer, we've talked a few times. I still have feelings, even though I suspect it's more of the limerent/fantasy sort. They are in therapy and stuck in an abusive relationship, only recently contemplating leaving. My difficult marriage is ending. So we are like... sharing this pain and they are saying I'm wonderful and mean a lot to them and they want to talk regularly.

This is messy and I realize it. I'm also seeing this pattern of romantically complicated friendship that was a big part of my younger life, pre-marriage/pre-therapy work. I've been prone to limerent style crushes most my life too, due to a highly imaginative personality and attachment issues/cptsd. These are really addictive internal experiences that are hard to break because unlike a drug you can't just stop relating to people (in this sense it is more like an ED).

My therapist suggests I share honestly where I'm at feelings wise and step back. That is probably the best thing. What makes it hard to hold a boundary around this relationship is how much I do care for them as a friend and how guilty and sad I would feel pulling away.

I'm having a hard time with this and would welcome other perspectives, especially from people with similar patterns or experiences.

TW: CSA

For a very long stretch of time I felt alot of hatred for younger me. Especially myself at certain ages , those ages I’d aim my self loathing and hatred at was definitely
For younger ages
-6
-8
-10
-4

For older ages
-13
-15
-16
-17

I hated my younger self mainly because I had come to the conclusion that my purpose on this earth was to suffer and to serve others sexual needs. And so I believed that all the abuse and neglect I had endured over the course of my life was DESERVED.
I also hated myself due to my DID especially but also other MH struggles i hated being seen as an attention seeking weirdo who was mentally unstable for most of my adolescence and some of my early adulthood ; I was heavily bullied in school starting in kindergarten but it got way worse from when I was 9-13. I was beat nearly everyday at school and then I’d come home to my room trashed, my door off its hinges and being ask to clean faster and faster!! By my father or else he’d rape me if I didn’t do it immediately or to his liking or move the way he told me to. I also being groomed heavily online when I was at ages 13-17. And that only added to my later adult hatred of my younger self. I thought that I had for the longest time somehow lead-on not only my father but also my groomers online/irl. [Irl since I met up with my more „long—term “ for lack of. A better word groomers] and I felt like I was a slut as a early teen [13-15] and by my late teens I assume to cope, I started thinking that it was me who was in control that these adults were not preying on me; that in fact I was seducing them (haha…) but that was obv not the case looking back. But overall I hated younger me due to many factors and feelings such as shame, self loathing, punitive behavior and measures towards self, black/white thinking from my developed BPD, and anxiety over morality and existential anxiety, and CSA from my father from
Ages 2-17
But I’ve noticed since started relational psychoanalysis / EMDR-modified / IFS / Attachment therapy that I actually have a lot of hidden empathy for myself that I didn’t prior know I had. I feel thinking back and reflecting on my childhood I don’t feel anger and shame and an urge to hide in my house from the world anymore due to all of it. And everything that happened to me. I feel like a true survivor. for once in my life I don’t feel like I’m a fake victim who “had it good “ like my eldest sister implanted into my head from a young age. in fact I am No longer angry at myself I just feel a deep grief?, sadness, and nurturing instinct towards younger me I wish I could’ve given kid me the parents he deserved and still does deserve I also have ALOT more empathy for others since getting properly dxed and treated. This year!;I can now feel new found empathy for my TRUE family and loved ones I never had high amounts of empathy beforehand now I do to the point I’ve cried when my girlfriend is upset about smthn deeply it’s like I feel the emotional side so clearly like a signal wave being transmitted.

Side note on my father just because I need to get this off my chest quickly

Has anyone else had an experience like this with there abuser especially if your abuser was you’re father?
My father was rough, degrading and cruel to me during the CSA incidents from ages 2-5 and then when my mother caught him hitting me [he’d hit me then engage in CSA with me often he did this in a sequence.] when she caught him hitting me she got him sent to prison for 2 years and I remember being brought to tears at this news when my mom told me that dad was going away to prison and I couldn’t visit him for 2 years. I was heartbroken but idk ..? Why? Why was I so sad now that I look back at it. He was abusing me!! But anyways when my father eventually came back home he started abusing me sexually again from 2-18 but he was gentle and affirming towards my gender and not violent in any form after he got out??? Why????

I have nowhere else to share this.. and I have no people I can talk about this with irl sadly. But I just found something that made me really glad and proud of myself. Actually impressed with myself.

My younger self was so cool. Wow. I had so much potential since a young age... I love this so much.

It's also really sad that it never got to have it thrive at that age, since it wasn't nurtured at all. Nor seen. Nor being let the space to shine or explore.

I was doing something on my phone which is a way of archiving my stuff on it, just in case my phone decides to stop working at any time.. I dont want my stuff especially my writings and art to get lost. So I was archiving my stuff.

I read some of the things I wrote when I was 17-18. They were lyrics and poetry.

I ... wow.

I was reading them impressed. The language I was writing was beautiful and rich. The way I wrote and organized my words.. impactful. I was reading pure art. I wrote that at 16! Or 17 or 18!

I got to know that young me was a very emotionally deep, very intellectual, very beautiful person with a lot of artistic mind. I really really really really would be soooo friends with them if I knew them.

I also remember saying a similar thing about my 13 year old self at a different instance before. I was genuinely so beautiful. So amazing. Such a lover and great friend, having a very beautiful mind. I feel soooo sad that we had no friends and little me thought there was something wrong with them.

I feel I was born to be a superstar, just reading the lyrics and songs I was reading.

It's so sad that they never got to become real songs at that time. I also had artistic visions and deep emotions and love since I was a lot younger... but again never seen. Nor appreciated.

It makes me sad how much my younger self never got to be cherished, celebrated, nurtured, and made to thrive in their own traits, instead of being forced to hide them. I was only being myself halfway, in hidden ways..such as unreleased song lyrics (and compositions!) and unread poems. My emotions were never seen and were forced to dull. Just sad

I wish I could show these lyrics to people :') I feel lonely over here

I am someone who also struggles with being misunderstood a lot by people for some reason (that itself is a hell in itself for me). I got banned from a sub because of being misunderstood.

Anyway. I was thinking today of setting boundaries for real now. Actually removing myself from situations that harm me..people who don't listen to me.. etc. But now I thought: people may misunderstand me, spread a false narrative about me, then end up getting me kicked out of my housing or maybe job or whatever thing I'm in and need. Or, another thing that an abusive person may do to me: they don't like my boundaries so they end up spreading rumors about me that never even happened, make others believe them (abusive ppl for some reason always got others on their side), deny everything and every PROOF I say about how it isn't true, then get me also harmed in the same way like lose my housing etc.

Also these are things that ACTUALLY happened to me before. I actually got kicked out of housing over rumors and lies before. Straight up lies, not even twisted realities.

But I cant stand the harm that happens to me without boundaries either.

This is what I'm scared may happen if I set real boundaries for myself.

Real boundaries here means: boundaries about exactly what I dont wanna be participating in and how much I wanna be in something or not etc, rather than having wallsssss and strict boundaries to protect me all the time.

I can't find the courage to live my life authentically. I don't know how to honor my own feelings and let myself experience them. I've robbed myself of many years of my life over this and I want to get over it. I need to get out of learned helplessness. I'm such a loser and I still can't set boundaries. I'm so pliant and have no sense of self. I'm still people pleasing when it never helps me. How do I get out of this mindset? I am always mourning the time I lost not giving myself the opportunity to do the things i want. Because of my abuse I mentally caged myself. Now I'm stuck and I don't know what to do.