So, today, for the first time, I felt really deep that I'm never going to get "rid" of this trauma in this lifetime. No.matter how much therapy I throw at it or how hard I work or how much I try to overcome it.
Strangely, it doesn't feel primarily like a defeat - tho there is that too - but also a sense of acceptance and relief, that I can stop struggling to get rid of it.
I remember as a kid, I had that naive hope that kids have of "when I get out of this trauma, everything will be okay"...
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To those of you who have endured crippling CPTSD.
Have any of you experienced meaningful improvement in your life with symptoms related to nervous system activation from CPTSD
(e.g. less constant hypervigilance, fewer emotional overwhelm/shutdown cycles, reduced dissociation, improved ability to feel calm, safer relationships, or more day-to-day stability)?
If yes, what information, people, therapies, or tools helped you the most?
If you’re willing, details that might help others would...
Growing up with trauma, neglect, abuse from very early childhood, I think I've always wanted to both live and die...
Obviously, I've got that normal evolutionary instinct to stay alive and to want to stay alive that's present as a baseline in all living beings.
But at the same time, there's also that evolutionary response of wanting/ choosing death when life becomes impossible.
I guess it's a spectrum and ppl with a good life will be on the want-to-live end of the spectrum and people with...
Not quite sure where to put this thread...
So, today the topic of "being yourself" came up and like many here, when you grow up with trauma, "being yourself" is either not an option at all, or it's something very rare, or even done in secret.
I realised today that by growing up like that, it's become second nature to me, to always "not quite be myself" because that's the safer option. Always be a version of myself, that's acceptable in a given situation.
For the first time today, I truly...
Hi there,
Upside Down here, went by a lot of names but I don't come around so often any more.
I was diagnosed cptsd from childhood abuse.
I am relatively fragmented (or a lot?) in the sense that there's many aspects of me who operate quite independently, but not to the degree of being DID.
One of these aspects is stuck in childhood, perhaps age 6. Jung would have probably called it the wounded child, it's a mix of extreme sensitivity and neediness for control by some outside figure.
This...
This thread is for people who are, right in this moment, in a situation that they find difficult to bear.
I recently learned a new technique called 1% change.
I'm not going to write long explanations about it, just going to invite whoever wants to try it, to see if it helps them.
The point is that often, when we're in distress of some kind, our first instinct is to "make it go away" or to "fix the situation".
Often, that's not possible tho, either in the moment or generally. And that...
What do you do to support the medicine you’re taking?
Example. I take daily anxiety medicine so I also do deep breathing exercise regularly and make sure I take it early in the morning etc.
I have no way to get more meds that will help right now and I’m suffering so looking for ideas to feel better I guess ? Hope this makes sense I’ve been crying for hours
Dude I hate men. So so f*cking much. Oh, somebody gets raped? 9/10 times it's a man. Oh, a school gets shot up? Oh yeahhh; it's a guy.
I'm so f*cking sick of f*cked up men. Women rarely even do as much bad shit as guys do.
Before I even turned 13 guys wanted to f*ck me; particularly older men.
For example; one time my mom& I were walking the street, there was a creepy guy staring at my ass.
And there's another example with how one of my older cousins (who was a dude) when I was 5&10...
The whole "it didn't matter" message when I was experiencing trauma was super helpful at the time. I now know that it did matter. And telling myself it didn't was a survival strategy.
However, at the root of that was the message that "I don't matter". It's this root message I am struggling to work through.
Have you worked through it?
Cognitively I know I matter. I have people in my life who tell me that. But *feeling* it and *knowing* it is difficult. It just hard wired in my brain...
I couldn’t think of a good title.
I’m struggling with a puzzle. I was abused by my caregiver, so my concept/sense of “familiar” and “home” are associated with negative feelings and experiences. So then it’s “easy” to find myself in relationships and situations where I don’t protect myself from or avoid negative feelings and experiences. Because I have internalized things like “it’s normal for people who care for each other to… yell, dismiss, mock, hit, etc.”
There’s an idea that “people...
Idk if this is the right place to post this—was thinking about “Relationships”, but anyway. I’m curious. When you find out that a famous person abused their kids or their family or did some other thing like that, do you remove their music, movies, books, etc from your collection? I know it’s nuanced because some are not proven and some are complicated by historical times and other reasons. But I’m just curious because I think that our personal histories play a part in these kinds of...
Stole half the title and the whole of the idea from another thread.
So, many of us have, ahem, slightly distortes views of what they do/don’t deserve. Good stuff, treatment, care, help? Nah. Past abuse? Sure.
So, what do you feel you deserve? Not in a cerebral, knowing way, but on the deeper, irrational knee-jerk level.
And: why? Why did/do/don’t you deserve it?
What if your thoughts were the other way round? What purpose do these beliefs serve?
I’ll go first.
Did I deserve the...
Some people with PTSD will have particular subjects that they avoid, but I don’t find any particular subject too difficult. I don’t have triggers in that sense.
I find myself having flashbacks to completely random, highly specific objects/situations. I can’t predict what my triggers are going to be.
I saw a teenager with a particular model of mobile phone- and my thoughts just started to race- it was the fact that they’re in a school uniform with that specific phone in their hand.
I would...
I am really struggling with supermarkets. My partner has agoraphobia so I often go to the supermarket alone, armed with a shopping list. I struggle to read the list in the supermarket, forgetting what I have and haven't got - I stand frozen in an aisle like an idiot reading and re-reading the list. Decisions cause terrible spikes of anxiety - having to substitue an item leaves me worrying about getting things wrong, getting my partner angry, and then the world will end. Sometimes I buy...
This is a thing for me.
Is it for you?
***
I started to write “This is a big thing for me,” and had stop. Nope, not big, huge. Sigh. Not right, either. So I sat here looking for the right way to describe something I understand so well, and not at all; that’s so much a part of me and my life, or not at all; that I struggle to find the words to even describe it, much less discuss it.
Big. Huge. Sharp. Simple as life or death. Complicated as hell. Dangerous. Pernicious. Subtle. Subtle as a...
I was gaslighted for 15 years. Yes, I am using the correct term. Psychiatrist called it gaslighting. I have been assessed by 15 psychiatrists and have clinical PTSD. Nothing else.
I want to know if others have been gaslighted and how they cope? What belief structures did it cause and how did they overcome?
My reality distorted for 15 years. I'm angry, hurt, worried, lost, tearful, anxious. Trying to just survive each day on my own.
No therapy available for 2 years waiting list. By that...
there are points in my life where my mind genuinely tries to believe my trauma never happened. i completely go into denial and try to think i have no childhood memories, or no traumatic memories whatsoever. for me this happens about once a month, how long the wave lasts depends, but its a really strange feeling.
im wondering if anyone else goes through this? its really challenging for me
Currently, I'm struggling with feeling dead/collapsed inside. Young parts are feeling like that because of anniversary period. They just want November over. They are playing dead/checked out until it's over.
How do you help yourself if you have experienced this?
I want them to understand it's ok now and we don't need to wait to feel better again.
But I just don't know how to do that.
I have managed it before with another anniversary period. But that seems easier because that's summer...
CPTSD has been documented for over 30 years, yet it remains absent from the DSM, the foundation for diagnosis and insurance coverage for mental health care in the U.S.
Despite clear research from experts like Judith Herman and Bessel van der Kolk, institutional barriers persist: outdated diagnostic frameworks, insurance limitations, and professional resistance to change.
The cost of inaction is devastating millions who continue to face higher rates of suicide, substance abuse, domestic...
Realizing everything people have done or not done to me leads to aggression. This awareness led to me finally starting to do what I'd always wanted, I became more self-confident—and it worked. But I can no longer bottle up all my emotions; now that I'm aware of them, it's unbearable. I can't live separately from my family yet, but that's in the plans. But this awareness affects not only them but my friends as well. It's become more difficult for me to connect with people because I've started...
Hello everyone,
I had a rough day. I was listening to a cPTSD audiobook this morning, hoping it’d help me understand myself better, but it hit way harder than I expected. I ended up in an absolute meltdown, crying inconsolably, and had to leave work early. Now I feel embarrassed and childish. I keep replaying what happened in my head on loop.
Has anyone else had something like this happen? How do you handle it especially when learning about trauma ends up being the trigger? How do you deal...
I recently got into a fight- ish? I’m not sure what exactly it was, with a friend. One of the things in it is she asked me how do I feel supported, how do I feel seen or heard, as in what behavior can she do for me.
And the honest answer is I have no idea. I blanked. Anything I can think of that other people might say just feels fake or out of pity. It’s not that she does a bad job or anything. But I’m really, really, really good at stuffing down my needs to make sure everyone else is good...
I am terrified that I need to get attached to my therapist for healing! I’m almost a year in therapy and I reject my T. T knows I reject because I don’t want to fall in love with them. They say therapy would not work well if I don’t open the door to a close and real therapeutic relationship. We do different stuff like EMDR, rescripting, talk, but all that doesn’t seem enough because I put T at a distance.
I believe in love with T is:
Pailful,
Stupid,
Shameful,
Scary,
Time consuming,
Energy...
I wonder if you have experiences/symptoms about object (in)constancy. If you're unaware of the term, look it up on wikipedia. I just recently became aware of this topic which really is its own well of suffering to me. It basically has to do with people still being the same when you are lonely or upset. I usually get thoughts that devaluate or fundamentally question friends or my therapist while they are not around even though I cognitively know that im comforted in their presence. Also I...
So apparently it goes like this:
- Trauma happens but I was unable to do what I wanted to in order to protect myself.
- Because I was basically blindfolded and heavily medicated - couldn't run, or fight back, or whatever.
- Survival energy got "Stuck" because it couldn't discharge, it just stayed stuck somewhere.
So much of my hyperarousal/hypervigilence can be set off by "seemingly unrelated events"?
The explanation totally makes sense too as I was literally off my feet for a couple...