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Did anyone's parents practice any covert, oblique types of abuse on them? I'm realizing that it wasn't an accident that I didn't have a social life when I was a kid. My mother was actually making choices to deliberately keep me from having any friends or getting out of the house. Does anyone...

Just want to reach out to the people who've learned the hard way that the legal system is a joke. I'm feeling your pain. Shitty state employees and legislators are paid to slap together stupid, inadequate policies. Crazy, sick, evil people get through the holes and ruin lives. Then you have no...

I just have shitty, inadequate government/state agency policies on my mind right now. Why does there seem to be so many poorly thought-out/executed policies in these domains? Who are these people? Can anyone get a job in state departments like education, school districts, child care, child...

Does anyone have any tips on effectively compartmentalizing? I'm not even talking about PTSD memories. I mean just external things happening around us? I'm having trouble concentrating at work, feeling scared and panicked, like something bad is going to happen any moment. Like, I just want to be...

There is a particular state agency that my parents got one over on when I was a kid. If they were doing due diligence they would have caught onto some extremely messed up stuff that was happening. If they knew about this, the state would have taken us away, probably. They had some policies in...

I might be seeing some of my siblings around Christmas. I have not seen them for, like, 14 years. I contacted them out of guilt and a sense that I need to be looking out for them, giving them guidance, since I'm more worldly and "together" than they are. I'm wondering what I got myself into...

I don't have insurance right now, but I could really use therapy. I remember when I did prolonged exposure treatment, we would record sessions. I'd listen to them at home as part of the therapy. What are your experiences with listening to yourself in session? Has anyone tried recording...

Basically a rant. Title pretty much says it all. I mean, I think I didn't want to face it in the past. I guess hope springs eternal. I just thought I'd pull it all together, and to a degree I have. But there is so much mangled and maimed that can only be dealt with at best, but not repaired...

Can anyone offer advice on social workers? I've gotten back in touch with my siblings after years of estrangement. They are all in pretty bad places, and I'm trying to help with practical guidance, but it's pretty overwhelming. Where could I find social workers that can help them with issues...

I wanted to post this in anonymous, but was very upset to find that forum has disappeared. :-( I hope it is resurrected soon. I have a sibling who has very poor literacy due to our parents' neglect (if not downright deliberate evil). I want to broach the subject with her, and get her on the...

I've heard of molesters having children for the sole purpose of sexually abusing them, as horrifying as that sounds. Do narcissist parents sometimes have children so they can "groom" them to be narcissistic suppliers to them? For instance, they might oppress them and put them in humiliating...

I just looked up a relative online and found all these sites like Spokeo and Reverse Phone Lookup that have me listed as a relative. How the hell do they know that? I'm not on social, and my mobile number isn't even in my name. They have my old name and new name listed, past addresses, etc. If...

Does anyone know of any health insurance that cuts around the ACA? I'm on Medicaid now, and the mental health coverage is really shitty. I just applied for ACA, and did not qualify for the tax credit, because I've been too despondent/bed ridden to manage things like filing taxes every quarter...

Long story short, I've been doing some hard processing work, and I had a very calm, pleasant day yesterday. I felt different -- present in my body and grounded, much better than I had felt for some time. Then today, shortly after my usual morning meditation, a hideous memory came up. It...

I have been in a prolonged exposure treatment program for a few months. It was supposed to last 12 weeks, but due to my lack of progress, we extended it. I still feel horrible most of the time. The therapist has decided that we should switch modalities from PE to more traditional talk therapy...

Edwin Shneidman, a psychologist who spent his career studying suicide, said, "Suicide is murder in the 180th degree." I haven't had time to dig deeper into his work. Is he saying that suppressed aggression leads to suicidal urges? Does thwarted aggression cause me to hate myself? I feel that...

A couple of famous musicians (Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington) killed themselves in the last couple months. Kind of makes me think, why weren't they happy? What was it that success, millions of fans, tons of money, girls throwing themselves at them and all the rest could not knock out of...

Is anyone familiar with the SUDS (Subjective Units of Distress) scoring system in trauma treatment? I heard that in order for re-learning to occur, your SUDS level has to be somewhat raised. But if it's raised too high and you're just plain triggered, you will not learn that the situation at...

I got back from my fourth session of a twelve-week prolonged exposure therapy program today. We went into greater detail about the particular memory that loops in my head as well as some peripheral traumas. I got home and took a nap. Aside from the generally crappy mood I woke up in, I also...

I just completed my second session in a 12 week prolonged exposure trauma therapy program. We were discussing the in-session, imaginal exposure and the real life (in vivo) exposure "homework" I would be doing. So I said: Going to the supermarket and waiting in line is somewhat triggering...

The past week or so has been really rough. I was fed up with constant (trauma-related) loops and fantasies that go through my head all the time. They are distracting and they keep me out of touch with the present. So I started doing some aggressive grounding techniques to stop the loops and the...

I have this memory loop of this person, which I think is a re-enactment of some kind of parental rejection/attachment disorder thing. It is ridiculously hard to go a whole day (or even an hour) without thinking of it, so I'm pretty sure it's significant. Anyway, I was doing some aggressive...

I mentioned to the therapist I see that she rarely asks questions or gives prompts to get me talking about something. I come in and sit down and she just sits there with nothing to say. It's kind of awkward. I have to get the ball rolling myself. "So, ahem, I had a some trouble with sleep this...

I found this book called The Betrayal of the Body by a psychoanalyst named Alexander Lowen published in 1967. I am interested in somatic theories of emotional illness and healing, so I thought I'd skim through it. I was engrossed by the book's analysis of how childhood experiences cause people...

I went to see my psychiatrist today, and he said that the data shows that therapy has a good chance of "curing" (his term) PTSD. Is this true?