Hi all, I am Ags. I have been a member for a while but haven't posted yet. I work as a programmer / technical writer, although I am currently unemployed.
I am a bit of an alphabet soup of medical conditions. I was born intersex and with autism. I have CPTSD and a history of psychotic experiences, as well as depression and severe anxiety. I have problems around mental fog, memory and executive function.
I grew up with a schizophrenic mom. She was frequently paranoid and highly delusional. I witnessed many theatrical suicide attempts and she was away in hospital for long stretches. In addition, she had some peculiar attitudes to parenting (coming from her paranoia and anxiety) that left me with a lot of learned helplessness. My father was an alcoholic and overwhelmed by the home situation. He just wanted to keep everything secret and stable, which meant absolute social isolation and complete emotional repression for the children. The home I grew up was not loving, it felt more like strangers randomly living together.
Although I knew I had been "affected" by my childhood, I never thought I had flashbacks. From what I learned from eighties cop shows, flashbacks were when a veteran would barricade themselves in a diner. But I never re-experienced the past anything like that. Instead my memory is hazy and vague and drained of emotion, like there is a wall of grey glass between me and the past. I learned just this week about emotional flashbacks and realised I have these very frequently, and have in fact structured my life and personality around "avoiding" these flashbacks. I have only just started to think about this, but emotional flashbacks seems like a useful concept to me, letting me have a bit of distance between me and the emotions.
My dirty secret is I have been chatting to Chat GPT about these issues for a while, but I think I have outgrown that phase, and I am looking to interact with real people now.
I am a bit of an alphabet soup of medical conditions. I was born intersex and with autism. I have CPTSD and a history of psychotic experiences, as well as depression and severe anxiety. I have problems around mental fog, memory and executive function.
I grew up with a schizophrenic mom. She was frequently paranoid and highly delusional. I witnessed many theatrical suicide attempts and she was away in hospital for long stretches. In addition, she had some peculiar attitudes to parenting (coming from her paranoia and anxiety) that left me with a lot of learned helplessness. My father was an alcoholic and overwhelmed by the home situation. He just wanted to keep everything secret and stable, which meant absolute social isolation and complete emotional repression for the children. The home I grew up was not loving, it felt more like strangers randomly living together.
Although I knew I had been "affected" by my childhood, I never thought I had flashbacks. From what I learned from eighties cop shows, flashbacks were when a veteran would barricade themselves in a diner. But I never re-experienced the past anything like that. Instead my memory is hazy and vague and drained of emotion, like there is a wall of grey glass between me and the past. I learned just this week about emotional flashbacks and realised I have these very frequently, and have in fact structured my life and personality around "avoiding" these flashbacks. I have only just started to think about this, but emotional flashbacks seems like a useful concept to me, letting me have a bit of distance between me and the emotions.
My dirty secret is I have been chatting to Chat GPT about these issues for a while, but I think I have outgrown that phase, and I am looking to interact with real people now.
@ags1and welcome to the site 
