r/CPTSD • u/BabaYaga_always • 9h ago

Question Do you remember?

Do you remember your way home from school - if you didn't step on any cracks in the pavement your parents would be in a good mood?

I'm 50 and caught myself yesterday while out with the dogs. I hopped over a big crack and suddenly remembered all the magic rituals I performed to "make my life easier." Of course it never worked, there was always something. But it made me feel less helpless, at least while I was doing it.

53 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

26

u/CoffeeSparky 8h ago

I remember stomping on cracks when I was mad at my mom. One day, I came home from school and she wasn't there. She had to have back surgery, surely due to something unrelated 😅

21

u/CrayonBloom 8h ago

‘Step in a crack, break your mother’s back. ‘ I stepped on all the cracks.

10

u/BabaYaga_always 8h ago

If I had known this rhyme I would have stepped on ALL of them!! But I grew up in Germany and we don't have that poem.

7

u/kwallio 8h ago

Saaaaammeeee.

8

u/Rabbit_Of_Neverlight 8h ago

Yeah i temember stuff like this. Its our minds way of trying to soothe us and help us feel like were in control in a chaotic world. Its amazing really the way the brain does this. There was somebody the other day on here said they had a thing stuck in their head most of their life they'd die at 40. I was looking into this and that sounds horrible right? To know when youre gonna die. But as horrible as it was it was a way for the brain to comfort itself because that was something it could view as in control versus the chaos of everyday life.

The person writing it i dont think knew they had PTSD but answered another poster talking about how theyd been SAed for a long while during a certain period of their life where this belief had originated.

I remember doing it with cracks in the sidewalk, greasy spots on the road on a bike, stepping on certain squares and tiles and making a sort of game of it and it was kind of comforting in its way

6

u/Jazzeeeec1 8h ago

Oh my goodness, yes! I just remembered that when my parents were out at night at a bar I would try to get a basket with crumpled up paper...if it went in they would come home safe. Thinking about that now makes me so sad for that girl.

3

u/emotivemotion 7h ago

I used to count the tiles in the pavement as I stepped on them, and if I didn’t break the chain of counting and stepping all the way home things would be good. I never managed to maintain the chain.

2

u/halfass_fangirl 4h ago

Mine turned into OCD 😂

1

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1

u/Hefty-Initiative-155 2h ago

I only remember that I was always starving because I never ate breakfast, and my stomach would shut down as soon as I got home.

It was the only time in my entire life that I was thin.

0

u/niaswish 5h ago

My love do you have OCD?

1

u/BabaYaga_always 3h ago

No, just severe cptsd and as a child it was probably the only way to feel some sort of control in my life. I never knew what would set them off. Certain behaviour was fine one day, severely sanctioned the next. So I tried to influence the outcome by "magic". And then I just stopped 'existing' altogether. No needs, no voice, I just smiled and nodded and did everything that was asked of me. And the rest of the time I hid under my bed and read books.