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Still feeling like I can't cope with much of anything; have a nasty cold and that always happens when I'm physically sick.

I have told a few friends a few things very slowly, but only when they had a helpful response to information that wasn't the most sensitive for me. Family... I told a few things to one who has medical training and responded well to less crucial stuff, similarly. Most close family, though, were...

I feel guilty that I'm not going to drive 12 hours to visit elderly relatives this week as I'd planned. I normally just push myself and do whatever but a mild illness and feeling pretty overwhelmed seem more prominent in my mind that such things used to. (Actually I never used to feel...

A couple of possibilities come to my mind, though I'm not a professional. One is... if you have counterproductive thoughts that quickly go through your mind when these folks do something kind for you, you can actually identify and change those thoughts to realistic ones that will open the...

Given how many millions of people have ptsd worldwide, the chances that anyone would correctly identify any of us here seem pretty small (short of putting your name and address in a post)... I hope the posts here are helpful to lots of folks out there and am glad Anthony et al. are trying to...

You can also write it down in a journal and show that to your therapist, if it's particularly hard to say for any of a number of reasons.

Even people who are supportive of "those poor abuse survivors out there" can have very different reactions when it's people they know... way too threatening for some. Then there is the problem that our society shows violence and trauma in movies and tv constantly, often in highly unrealistic...

Also, please don't feel like you're taking "too long" to develop better emotional regulation. You're noticing the issue -- huge huge step! Also, consider how long kids in "normal" families take to learn emotional regulation! It takes many years, and teenagers are often still learning the finer...

I have had discussions with various people over the years about this... treatments are always changing so the future is open. However, my take on this is that it's very hard for people who were victims of abuse to change and heal; generally we want to though we often don't have the right help...

@FridayJones -- I think her emotional response to my intent is likely to most crucial aspect for me. Absolutely loads of people cannot eat all sorts of things, or just don't like them! That's not the issue... taking it out of the realm I intended completely, and making it into an issue of 'That...

p.s. I have taken my trauma therapist cookies. She ate them. I was happy. I felt oddly safer. Monkeys share food too; I often enjoy learning about the social activities of the (less violent) monkeys... when not bonding with felines...

I think that ethical therapists differ on these issues, within reasonable limits (and they probably don't agree on what is reasonable totally, but certain things are definitely out.) Some do allow some contact outside sessions, for instance... it probably depends upon the client's issues and...

What a great thing to know about, thank you! I definitely feel more secure when under several plump felines, maybe it's similar in a way. The contentment of the cats also seems helpful.

I hope you will keep working at it and do your best. You have an incredible amount to offer others, and a person like your partner also has an incredible amount to offer... Everyone is from different worlds to some extent; sharing worlds is a skill to be developed, not an innate ability, so...

:hug: I am sending good thoughts to you too. Also warmth from my cat here, and some purring. What if you write about the trouble you have calling your T when you want to but can't, and then show your T what you wrote, during a session? It could be a way to connect the issue with support from...

Ouch, @Intrepid -- I hope that you feel validated most of the time here, and that most people here don't minimize and discount... that happens loads in other places and it is important to get validation somewhere. That being said, this is an open forum... a T's office or safe friend would be...

One note... it's quite possibly not psychotic at all... the descriptions @Intrepid uses include lots of events that were likely real, and not part of the response. Some of the language is figurative but "feels right" for dissociation to me. Whether Intrepid's response was all dissociation vs...

Forms and more forms... sounds like one of Dante's hells to me... at the very least, pretty "one size fits all"... (but doesn't fit anyone well at all) Not sure if I could remember when I was mindful the previous day or even during the past few hours; memory issues would make that part...

Maybe this is part of why some therapists seem to focus on helping our current emotional states and our futures, rather than the precise details of the past. I guess some of it might be that the traumas were partly cumulative, too, so we're not really "solving" each one separately anyhow... not...

@Justmehere -- another reason to work on thinking of good people like your T as your *real* family... A lot of the time, it seems to me at least, entrenchedly abusive folks will get even more abusive if they sense that you are making progress, becoming able to see what they are doing more...

@Chava, what kind of physical therapy have you had? Maybe that can overlap with somatic therapy some, but actually be covered by insurance? My PT person is really helpful with my muscle stuff, and muscle things with associated emotion blobs feel so vaguely connected to those emotions that...

@Nighthawk, love your title for Levine's book! :D

Hi, @Chava. I just got an electronic copy of this new book that I'm really liking, that has some very relevant stuff to your post here. Van der Kolk isn't a big fan of CBT for complex trauma survivors... There's research cited in the book supporting his position as well as numerous other...

@Notsowild -- are you able to exercise regularly? Some doctors won't even mention it as a good treatment for depression for whatever reasons, but some recent studies showed it's as often effective for depression as medications. It helps ptsd symptoms for me too, lots. (Muscle issues, overall...

Physically, each day I seem to be feeling different. This morning: lots of itching in shoulder and neck muscles, they want to move and shiver. Yesterday they were all crunchy. Vivid dreams last night. Emotions but not sure what they are.