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Oh Blackbird, your last statement about your fear of gaining weight if you ate more healthily... gosh, that is me, exactly me. I want it... until I think about what might happen if I had it. Strongernow, I am so sorry for your past too, and for the struggles it has left you with. I would...

Thanks MO, Ashton and Abstract. It's so hard to know rationally why things are the way they are, yet to feel as though I am branded with a vulnerability that is all about who I am and who I can't stop being. Abstract, gosh, your example of how you reacted to being pushed is not nothing, in...

Hi Joseph, and welcome to the forum, where you will find lots of empathy and support and online company which will hopefully help you at least a little during the time that your therapist is away. It's absolutely absolutely normal to feel anxiety and concern and turmoil when a stable safe...

I am currently struggling to come to terms with the extent to which this horrible condition has plagued, and continues to plague, my life. In a literal sense,I know that as a child I learned to be passive and compliant, at least on the outside, and to accept that there was no way out or option...

I think there are a number of versions of this pyramid, each of which are similar but slightly different, and all of which are subject to interpretation and difference of expert opinion about what is dependent on what etc. Frankly, I think it's one of those debates that could go on forever...

The John Bradshaw book "Healing the Shame that Binds you" is an excellent insight into the origins and manifestations of toxic shame. It taught me a lot, and in very practical ways, about ways in which I can combat what often feels like the most debilitating feature of my life. Meadowsweet, I...

Way to go Drew!! Totally agree that goals are a great way of keeping ourselves on track, maintaining momentum, creating some personal accountability and pulling towards the things we value in life. Personally, I need to be very careful not to set unrealistic goals, or to use them as...

Wow, Samson, this is a truly momentous achievement! Sadly, the hugest moments are often so overwhelming and exhausting that their significance kind of misses us at the time, but when the dust settles, I hope you can give yourself a really quiet but sincere mental hug for this. Well done! Maddog

Abstract, I think perhaps you nailed it with your last sentence, that being the fact that your internal toxic shame is strong. Toxic shame, in my sadly rich and diverse experience, has many voices and shapes and forms, some of which are internal self talk, some of which are external and...

Philippa, I had a lot of feelings as I read your first and subsequent posts, and most of them were an almost eerie sense of empathy and understanding, as I have a friend whose relationship with me, including recent experiences, feels very similar to the way you are describing, and has placed me...

Absolutely, I carry anxiety and tension in my muscles to an extent that causes extreme and chronic pain and muscle fatigue on a daily basis when my anxiety is high, such as it is at the moment. Sometimes it is only when I exercise, such as doing weights at the gym, that I become aware of the...

Yes Brat, thank you so much for sharing this most refreshing and hopeful post. Just as in life, I think that we here on the forum often don't tend to make time for the good stuff either, and it is genuinely refreshing to read a post such as yours. It was also sobering and timely for me, as I...

Oh Therisa, I cringed with familiar frustration at your account of the "it's complicated" comment, one which I have heard many times before about the same issue. I am extremely extremely sensitive and generally intolerant to almost all forms of medication, not just psych meds, and have an...

I struggle enormously with this CBX9, to the point at which exploring and processing through my difficulties of this nature has become a focal point in therapy at the moment. It is a form of freeze survival response that has been warped into a more generalised response that kicks in even in the...

I'm not sure I have my thick head around the question either to be honest. Perhaps that tells me I haven't adapted... I have been different and dysfunctional, to varying degrees, for my entire life, particularly in the realms of personality and interpersonal relations. I always vaguely knew...

Hi Grahamcracker. I think you've done an excellent job of articulating yourself about your current situation, and in doing so, you are very clearly in control of yourself, your anxiety and your reasonable judgment about what you need at this time. At a rational level, I think it is highly...

Have already experienced the benefit of the drafts feature, as my brouser decided to nod off to sleep mid diary post. Very nice. I am far too grumpy and intolerant to want to rewrite things thesedays. I always cringe in fear when the site is upgraded. Things that are wonderful for most...

This has turned into a very validating thread for me. Often thesedays I feel as though I must come from another planet. I am fiercely rejecting of social media, not for what it is per se, but for what it has done to the fabric of society. I am bored and intolerant of meaningless...

Oh yes you do, in really big and important ways. Thank you for recounting your session, it brought a flood of emotion to me that was very intense. I find it very validating to read of what you are working on and how it feels, because it is strikingly similar to what I'm working on at the...

I'm self harming badly again at the moment, in my 3 favourite and long-term ways - starving myself, denying myself of sleep, and exercising ruthlessly and obsessively. The cycle feels never-ending, and for every day on which I do better with these things, there is always another stressor...

When we become very fused with our thoughts and feelings and memories, I understand, and relate, that it can definitely feel as though we are actually transported back in time to the past. That's part of what PTSD is and does - it transports the past into the present and convinces our minds and...

I find it both confronting and enlightening to read back over my trauma diary. Self reflection and insight come in many forms, and for me this has been one of them, much as I make a habit of reading back over old therapy notes and homework exercises from time to time, to help me gauge the...

Hashi, I could have written your post word for word, and have often thought about doing so. Needless to say it's difficult for me to offer much in the way of feedback, other than to say that I have been heartened and reassured by what everyone else has written here, and I hope you have too, at...

My therapist gently reminded me just yesterday that our ultimate goal in all of this is to get my adult self, instead of him, to be the one comforting and nurturing my child self. As I told him, just thinking about the concept sends chills up my spine, which actually frightens me a lot, because...

I believe that suicide can be either an impulsive, spontaneous and irrational decision, or a calculated, pragmatic and definitive one. Yes, the act and outcome are the same, but the purpose and meaning are very different, and sadly and inevitably, in many cases, those left behind won't...