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I have moments of that now. After 30 years of therapy. I've gone through dozens of programs/workbooks on "healing from trauma". Now I have moments of feeling safe. Moments, mind you. I don't have hours or days or weeks. But I have individual minutes where I feel a flood of "Nothing bad is going...

*You* have nothing to be ashamed of. *You* did not do bad things. You had bad things happen to you, which is different. I'm sorry it hurts.

I think you can heal your inner child, but it's hard.

I'm reparenting myself. I am so lucky to have my children. In the process of appropriately parenting them (with guidance from lots of resources) I'm learning what should have happened for me and I'm forgiving myself for a lot of things.

Reading your post makes me think you should find a therapist. You have a lot of layers to work through and unfortunately over the Internet we will be of less assistance than you will need. That said! Welcome to the forum. You will find lots of people with similar backgrounds. It is possible to...

Eek, @Rumors, some of us feel almost allergic to 12 step programs. ;) I hope I don't have to deal with my PTSD that way. :D I would like to be able to react to my life right now instead of reacting to my life 20+ years ago. My life today is so flipping good. I am so blessed to be where I am...

I find that I have to work with therapists who believe in Harm Reduction. It's a specific therapeutic approach (uhm... often directed at the substance abuse community... sorry about that bit...) that encourages looking at your life holistically and figuring out how to take baby-steps towards...

I'm pretty obsessed with suicidal images. I visualize how to do it a lot. (Yes, I talk to my shrink about it.) For me, it's a control thing. When I feel really out of control and in pain... I think about the only way I can completely control the pain--dying. Everything else I can't control how...

I feel like I have many areas of arrested development. But I feel like I have nevertheless become a pretty interesting adult. I love parties. Especially kid parties. When I'm having a good day I can be the life of the party. I like to say "I bring the party with me". And then there are the...

Well, I found that I had to set aside specific time for grieving in order to move through it. I had a few years where I woke up between 3 and 4am every day to spend 3 hours crying before my day started. I haven't done that in a long time. It didn't work as processing until I was completely safe...

Nope, all I have to do is file a one page form once a year registering as a private school and there is no further oversight or testing requirements.

California is actually incredibly liberal for home schooling. :)

I would call the police and file a report. There were witnesses. That's not permissible any more. You can take action. I would ask for her to be immediately taken out of that classroom. There are teachers who can find a way to work with spirited children. You might have to move schools. I home...

She also brought me a bag of goldfish and told me to eat all but one for good luck.

@FridayJones That was neat.

I'm not going to "like" this because I don't like this. I'm really sorry you feel that way. It sounds hard.

My Taiwanese friend brought me a bouquet of plum blossoms and she said it is traditional. :)

Seems relevant to me @StellaBlue. I am definitely someone who says this. I say/think/believe I don't have a core personality. Everyone manages their lives differently. I... blow with the winds. I am terribly, awfully changeable. I am getting more consistent as I get older (I'm 33) but it's...

Well, most of the shame I feel is because I was a predator. I didn't know it at the time. I just thought I was being a "good little girl" like my father wanted. Now I know I raped people. I feel sad that I was taught to be that kind of kid, but I think it was horrifying that *I* did those actions.

@jaccat Ironically, I kind of meant the opposite. :) In my fevered imagination, people who had good lives before trauma learned magic coping skills I lack. The basics of self care that I struggle with. Goodness this topic is complicated.

I have the... perhaps pessimistic belief that everyone will see some trauma in their lives. Not everyone ends up with PTSD. People who do end up with PTSD do so for a lot of different reasons, some of them genetic. I have a long family history of lots of mental health problems which leads me to...

This is a topic I think about a lot. I don't want to play the Oppression Olympics. But I do want to understand how to help people in my life who are like me or who are not like me and I feel like I get stuck in my biases. I don't really have "pre-trauma" because stuff started so early. As a...

No. I usually have more the opposite problem. I think that people who got to have a happy/normal childhood who experience trauma as an adult are better able to cope than I am. They have a foundational self to build upon and I pretty much lack that. It also helps that my childhood traumas were...

Recently I had an issue with a running buddy of mine. She has PTSD too, so we are both uhm, emotionally reactive. That's tactful. :D I told her that I was having a hard time with some stuff she was saying to me and she exploded that she was a worthless human being who should DIE DIE DIE. I had...

Personally, I think it is good to talk about how you feel in the forum. Without such feedback it is hard to adjust over time to changing needs.