Recent content by Carlito2017

Very relatable. As a bullied seven year old kid I used to dream about learning karate and surprising my bullies by opening a can of whoopass on them. These days the 'power' I daydream about is just... someone caring about my feelings. I fantasize about having arguments with former friends who...

Six months later, I've been banging my head against this the entire time, and I can't say I've made any progress. If anything, I though a combination of retraumatizing life circumstances in the presence as well as tackling past trauma with EMDR has made me feel overall much worse. I still can't...

Not sure if this belongs in the relationship section, but here goes. I've been exploring inner child work and the question of how I would reparent the my childhood self. It's still very much early days, but there's a paradoxical thing I've noticed. I realized that my attitude of self-compassion...

When I'm normal I can fall asleep almost immediately. When not, it's like nothing can get my body to relax and sleep. Last night I was feeling alright as I went to bed, and yet ended up tossing and turning for two hours, getting up to drink a shot of vodka, tossing and turning for another two...

Friday Thank you. Just read them both. My honest reaction is to want to throw out a rebuttal: BUT I ALREADY KNOW AND APPLY ALL OF THAT, AND YET HERE I AM. ...evidently, I'm not applying them right. Funnily enough, I just tried to name the cognitive distortion described in my original post...

Movingforward10 Thank you. That reads wonderfully vague and reassuring at the same time. I've always thought I *do* have a strong sense of self - I know what I like, have a strong moral compass and don't struggle too badly with consistently pursuing my goals. Though now after a couple of weeks...

parrotthepolly Thank you. Even just you saying "it isn't all true" and "there are some delusions in this" really makes me want to write a wall of text with detailed explanations of why you're wrong and I'm right. Hmmm, must be a sign of something. Part of me of course wants a fulfilling social...

Oh yes, I did that all the time as a kid. It got so bad that some of the fantasy world stuff started bleeding into my real life behavior, making me even more of a weirdo and exacerbating the bullying in school. These days I still have a fantasy world that I transport myself to when I have...

So, I'm currently not diagnosed, but starting to feel that it might benefit me to work with a trauma-oriented therapist. Before I go though I'm trying to explore and tackle a few things on my own. Here's a question that I've struggled with for a long time now. I'll just copy the following...

Hi! I'm a 37 year old man. I'm not officially diagnosed with PTSD but my recent struggles are related to me dealing with (what I think is) complex trauma, so hopefully there's a place for me here. I had a rough childhood growing up in an unsafe and unsupportive home and being severely beaten...