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Welcome to the forum! Sounds like you are in the right place. Healing after trauma can be a long process, but it's worth it. I have known several people who make that process hard. You can heal despite them. Hope you can find some distance so that you can take care of yourself.

I wonder if you dissociate in therapy because that's a safe place for that small one to be. You don't dissociate around your husband because he is angry and you need to be vigilant around him. Or, I could have that backwards. Or it might not be the point at all. The real point is that it...

Sometimes I have a really hard time expressing myself. Truth is, this "caught in the machine" feeling is about getting used to being abused. When I was a kid it was the norm. I geared my life to fit it in. I compensated for the negative affects, and that compensation didn't end with the end...

I’m doing schoolwork and am feeling some anxiety that is stopping me. I feel like if I go further into the subject I’ll get caught in a machine. I’ve experienced this feeling before. It happens at work and at home. I work in accounting and have to use spreadsheets. There’s one machine. I...

Makes sense. Like @DogwoodTree said: I've discovered a lot of who I am, and made some fundamental changes. But it's taken time. I realize now that I don't have to fix everything in my life. I'm a single parent. I have had extra help for my daughter through a family friend I moved in to my...

Right now I know of 5 dissociative states I've experienced. Two tend to not happen any more. I know they don't happen because I don't feel like I am in the past, and I don't have to do a lot of extra work to function in these areas. My PTSD is developmental, so when I'm not dissociative I'm...

I agree that it's a temporary fix. I've taken meds for anxiety. Some worked. Some didn't. The real solution is to work with a therapist to heal the trauma. That's a chore. I've used meds not as a crutch (or as a temporary crutch), but as a way to make the therapy more tolerable, and allow me...

When the beatings stopped I was left out of balance. I didn't know how to act around other people. I felt completely misunderstood. I really got used to those beatings. I didn't know how to live without them.

I think of self abuse as a coping mechanism. I can't really beat myself up over it, because like you said: Doing self abuse has been a way to survive more awful stuff underneath. So, I've had to be really forgiving of myself. The thoughts can be really powerful. It's like, "I'm going to...

I've been there. It's been a long time since I self abused, but the memories are fresh. Alcohol worked for years to sedate my flashbacks, but the side effects got really bad. And I would self abuse around the sexual abuse, both when drinking, and when I couldn't drink. I have thought about...

Me too. I can't talk to my family about it since they were involved and tend to live in denial. I have few friend, and those I do have don't understand PTSD. Those that do understand PTSD have it and have as hard a time as me relating to others. I get support from a therapist. I get support...

If people only knew. I didn't tell anyone about the stuff that happened to me as a kid because my mom started early and that left me mute to some things. I always felt that my experience was nothing because my mom didn't leave marks. She was proud of that. She was proud she didn't leave...

It's not just you. Trust comes slowly. It doesn't come on demand. I left a therapist once because he was clever and could say things that made my lack of trust seem silly. He was wrong. All he did was humiliate me. That is a good reason for a lack of trust. But then, my last therapist said...

Triggers for me are not always obvious. I sometimes think they are random, but if I look closely enough I'll find one. Last week I got triggered and thing went south for a few days. I couldn't figure out what was going on until I read here about @shimmerz getting triggered by moving boxes. I...

If you aren't allergic maybe you can use some other aroma to mask the smell flashbacks. Maybe if you light a candle, or use air freshener you won't get this ghost smell. Also, maybe there is some grounding you can do before you go to bed. I find the craziest things triggering me. I'm not...

I have prayed to die. It goes like this. If God can't fix this then please make it all go away. I get so exhausted dealing with the day to day, and I just want a rest. I don't want to die. I just want get hit by a runaway truck, or catch some awful life ending disease, so I don't have to...

Recently I went through some triggering arguments with the ex-wife. I felt myself freeze and go numb this whole last week. I hated it because I need to get a job, and I have school work to do. I could do some stuff, sure, but as the week went on I felt more and more locked up. It wasn't until...

My answer it to see what’s triggering, get the hell away from it, and start again. I hate it because it can take days to unfreeze. And there can be multiple triggers, even triggers that I can't recognize, or can't get away from. Hope you can keep moving forward, @shimmerz.

Its the same thing most of you have experienced. When I was 13 my mom got a DUI and had to quit drinking. She didn't like it and complained for 3 days. I tried to help, but what did I know. She really wanted to have things her way. It drove me nuts until I just hurt so bad I had to shut off...

Makes sense. Oh, and I what do these mean?

I hate posting here because I have such a hard time communicating my own feelings. I can respond to other people's posts, but starting one myself is a horrible experience. I don't know why. This last weekend my ex wife asked me if I would get her in touch with my daughter, her step daughter...

The emotional abuse for me was awful. Glad you're here. You will find lots of people who will relate to you.

Walked the dog to the stream. Probably 20 minutes.

Me too. Welcome to the forum.

I had numerous flooding experiences (feelings I never knew existed), and I was often expressing my shame at having "parts". I called them fragments. As I read other people's posts, including yours, I realize what I went through was normal for what I went through, not something to be ashamed of...