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This article is interesting... http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-empathic-brain/201307/inside-the-mind-psychopath-empathic-not-always

Anthony -- it's clear that no one here knows his childhood! Have some chocolate.

You might have missed my specific statement that my personal experience was with non-psychopaths, Anthony. I put it in bold after I saw that. I think the absence of empathy is very important to the pleasure/power thing, I agree with @Dana1010 . Makes sense to me anyhow. We pretty much all must...

Ugh, a lot of posts in the thread seem based upon incomplete readings of other posts. I'm going to go eat chocolate and empathetically pet a cat.

It's odd that so many folks in this thread are mis-reading the original post as claiming this abuse is *worse*. I don't get it!!! The specific events that cause trauma are indeed quite distinct, and distinct categories tend to leave certain distinct problems for the survivors. This isn't at all...

One can definitely have a fear of emotions of various sorts, esp. strong ones. (I never actually think of it as a phobia, just fear, not sure why.) Fear of strong emotions that feel overwhelming is really common if you search around on this site and elsewhere for complex trauma from childhood...

Thank you, @whserenitynluv ! Those images are very powerful and beautiful.

I hope someone will do a similar writeup that specifically includes dissociation stuff in detail, and stages of dealing with that! There are probably different types or something even within that... but I think some general things could be done; maybe there is stuff written that I just haven't...

You can also say something like, "I actually had a couple of friends who did that, and what you suggest would have been terrible for them because ____". Think about someone here who self-harmed due to abuse, and whose guardian was actually abusive in some way, for instance, so you're saying why...

@Determinedone -- A pretty important distinction should likely be made between the actions/symptoms you mention in your first post, and the mention you make later of *emotional abuse*. Please do protect yourself, and don't lump any type of actual abuse he's doing in with his other issues; he's...

Hi @Wounded Scribe . I have had small jolts of a strange sort but it's so hard to know if another person's sensations are similar to one's own! In my case, I've had a lot of partially numb muscles that never released, and I just assumed I had tighter muscles than many people for decades. It...

@Wounded Scribe -- are you working on your issues in a new way, recently? It seems likely, if you were only just diagnosed with delayed onset last year... maybe you are getting more connected with some old stuff; does anything correlate with these electrical jolt sensations, like sorta feelings...

It's always good to get things checked out! I think they could definitely be from ptsd-related issues but they could also be other things. It's also possible that you can get help for them, no matter what the cause! You don't have to just tolerate pain; I think that's pretty common for...

Hello @Little Flower ! I understand the fear of being alone with this... a lot of us feel that way often; often people are not supported when abuse happens too -- seems to make ptsd more likely -- and it's weird to think of how many people are out there feeling this way, separately... We're...

Feeling how much my shoulders tensed up from focusing on packing etc. Trying to calm down again now.

I think that a related issue can be a deep-level fear of confronting the perpetrator(s). Perpetrators can be people who use power over others in a pretty dangerous way, and I think that peoples' monkey brains can tell them to defer to that person, take that person's "side", etc. without...

Hi @katiekat -- I didn't define it as abuse of me as a kid, mentally. That is hard to explain. I defined what my brother was doing to my mother and grandmother as abuse, but just somehow not myself, although I did work very hard to leave there because I mentally thought my life was at risk. It...

I think minimization is really likely with sibling abuse that caused ptsd, but then that is what happened to me. Sibling abuse can definitely be a criterion "A" type of event; there are some really twisted, violent, and/or sadistic kids and teenagers out there, and some kids murder people. Lots...

25 years ago, talking was largely all that people knew about (or at least it's all I ever heard about and had available to me.) It was actually pretty revolutionary in a way, the books and studies were fighting against strong societal avoidance of a lot of trauma types. The "speak outs" and such...

When bits of relief come, they can feel really wonderful... small colorful butterflies?

To add a bit to Kas' comment: sometimes we can have sort of cognitive/emotional "knots" that keep us from even getting to this slow, safe re-experiencing & desensitization. For instance, if we learned to squash feelings related to the trauma, and don't even notice that we're doing this...

Feeling sad about so much time taken up by trauma issues in various ways in my life.

Feeling a bit more relaxed; my muscles are doing weird things, shivering, it feels like they are getting old feelings out and working more normally tiny bits at a time. Where does that stuff sit though before I feel it? Very weird to not to have known about it for so many years, adds a layer of...

Hi @Chava -- it sounds like maybe part of you wasn't ready to have that much of your back relax at once, maybe? Definitely not good to get suicidal... I'm really sorry that you had such a bad experience after feeling so good and relaxed. :(:(:( I'm really glad the SE is helpful though! :):):)...

Hi @Chava, I will be thinking of you! You are very capable. You are working to put yourself in a better place with coping skills, which is great, and you are looking at more things now, and minimizing the self-harming. I hope you can practice some non-self-harming ways of feeling safer more when...