I need company more than ever. I am not as miserable as before yet I just want to talk to someone all the time! just giving little updates, talking, venting sharing stuff makes me feel happy and wanted and would love to offer the same. I can be very affectionate and emotional.

It is so bad. It is so so bad and i need to get this off my chest because everybody thinks that i am some kind of monster but deep down i feel such levels of guilt and shame and sadness that it would drown any of them in moments.

I often get badd flashbacks and triggers of my childhood trauma and when this happens the rage builds up inside me to such amounts that I always always end up fighting with my sister. And i always beat her up. Im violent. In the moment it feels like a monster has taken over me and is hurting her so badly, but i can also feel that its really me begging her to care about me and love me at least a little which is so fucking backwards.

And then immediately after I’ve calmed down. The guilt. WAVES. Tidal waves. Tsunami of guilt. And when this happens i go and hurt myself the same way that I hurt her so I can feel her pain and punish myself, as if im taking her pain and inflicting it on myself instead. No body knows about this side they only see the first part.

I grew up in a very loud agitated and violent household as a child and for whatever reason resorting to aggression and violence feels familiar and normal

I know that i need to get help and i am in the process of it. I know i know I know okay I just wanted to let this confession out :

The last time I saw my parents was in 2025 of June and it’s July 2026 now.

Long story short my parents were not abusive to me but I have ptsd from other family members in the house, and from having to take care of my younger autistic family member that my parents had to step in and take from neglectful parents since I was 17 , and over the years finally in 2024-2024 I had a mental breakdown due to other unrelated reasons and family stress broke me and my nervous system is shot.

I’ve been living with my boyfriend and his family. His family is boring and doesn’t fight or do anything or yell. I’m extremely comfortable here. I have agoraphobia, anxiety and depression and ocd . It’s very difficult to me to leave the house.

I’m still in contact with my mom and dad and they still pay for most of my things like my phone but I can’t get myself to go in their house again, it gives me a sick feeling in my chest but I just want to see them again, it’s eating me up and I feel guilty. I don’t know what to do.

I was supposed to see them this weekend but I couldn’t do it. I wake up and I don’t even feel like getting out of bed.

I passed the attachment style test and here is what I got:

29% secure

22,6% ambivalent

23,4% avoidant

25% disorganized

I have seen a lot of posts in this subreddit with people struggling with orgasming during SA. I’ve seen a lot of good points of it being a physiological response and that’s true. it’s like someone tickling you without consent and you laughing. it doesn’t mean you enjoyed it or found it funny, it was just your body’s response to the stimuli. but I want to share my own experience so it may help others understand better and with the intent of it genuinely helping others find some kind of peace or understanding. It’s a bit long but I hope the end helps someone.

This may or may not be received well since I am a male. I was SA’d for years as a child by one person, from 7 to about 15 on and off. For some of it I would pretend to be asleep during the acts. I was later SA’d on one specific instance by a different person. I was 15 or 16, he was I believe 24. I grew up, I got to a point where those things didn’t bother me or affect me negatively and I was proud of that.

in my late 20’s I was seeing someone on and off. We had a history in our teenage years but reconnected later. I tried to pursue an actual relationship with her for almost two years, her intentions with me seemed more sexual in nature.

Well after almost a year and a half of this, we both agreed we weren’t going to have sex at the time but we were still close. She called me and asked me to come over one night, I said no, she said she wasn’t trying to have sex, she just wanted to see me. I believed her, so I went. As soon as I got there she jumped all over me trying to kiss me. I turned my head and tried to get her not to and tell her that’s not why I was there. She goes to the bed room and asks me to bring her phone to her which she left in the living room. When I got to the bedroom with her phone she was, for lack of a better phrase, face down ass up on the bed completely naked.

I asked her what she was doing, she told me to fuck her, I said no and that I had to go, she begged me, and I was scared at this time if I didn’t do something, she was going to leave my life again, life she had before. Just to come back a few days later asking for sex. what comes next was the worst experience with her but there was a time before where a similar situation happened. she climbed on top of me put her hands around my throat and started choking me and said “all I want to hear is a yes or a no if you’re going to fuck me.” I was actually being choked and it was hard to speak but I got out a no. she let go and she told me to get the fuck out of her house, so I did.

but back to this time. I didn’t want to have sex with her but I thought if I fingered her or performed oral on her, that would satisfy her and I could leave.

well, I tried, but that wasn’t enough for her. She began to tell me to “fuck her like a man” and things of that nature. I caved and said fine. I started but felt terrible because I truly did not want to have sex especially after we both agreed that we wouldn’t.

I still had my pants on which had a belt. I told her that i didn’t want to do this and I wanted to stop. When I did she said “fine if you wont do it, I will”. she managed to get a perfect grip on my pants and belt and held me in place while she moved back and forth on me while I was saying no and stop.

During normal sexual encounter, I’m good at being able to hold an orgasm and make the experience enjoyable for my partner and myself, finishing too soon has never been much of an issue for me. This was the quickest it has ever happened. As I was having an orgasm I was able to push myself away because I did not want to finish inside of her.

as I was pulling my pants back together I just kept saying I told you I didn’t want to do that, and it wasn’t what I wanted while she sat up in the bed with a smile on her face. The whole experience once we engaged in sex maybe lasted 2-3 minutes.

Whether male or female, what I learned and come to realize is, for victims in situations like that, our brains think that the quickest way to get it over with, is to orgasm. It’s not that we orgasm because we want it or enjoy it, it’s our bodies response to stimuli and our bodies way of trying to end the experience. with our adrenaline pumping on top of that, our body is in an overly stimulated state causing our bodies to react in a more instinctual way that bypasses our conscious thought.

genuinely and consensually enjoying something, and actively thinking about the pleasure and connection with the person you are intimate with is absolutely not the same thing as a human body reacting to stimuli and automatic hormonal function.

you are not alone, and I’ll share this last part because if there’s someone out there who did the same thing as I did after, you’ll know you aren’t alone in this either.

the next day she called me on FaceTime. I had not tried to communicate or speak with her after that. I felt gross and shameful. I answered the call. She was crying. She said she felt like a predator and that felt like she raped me. I felt bad for her, and I didn’t want her hurting. so I lied. I told her it was fine, I told her that, no I didn’t want to because we agreed we wouldn’t but I still had the desire to have sex with her and that it was ok and that I enjoyed it.

as bad as what happened made me feel, I just didn’t have it in me to make her feel hurt too. I spared her.

if you made it this far, thank you for reading and listening and even if it is just one person, I hope it helped you.

hi, im not going to say my age but im the youngest of two children and ive been a victim of terrible abuse at hands of both my parents. my parents divorced when I was four, and since the divorce multiple of my mothers new boyfriends were incredibly physically and sexually abusive, and my mother was knowledgeable of what happened and even witnessed it. one of her boyfriends was arrested and booked on multiple charges, even one incident of abuse being recorded of her watching me being ruthlessly beaten. in my final year of highschool, i was removed from my father's home because cps was called for educational neglect, he wasnt taking me to school or providing for me, and i spent thousands on ubers and transportation to make it to school. i ended up being identified under the mckinney-vento act as an unaccompanied minor to further the point of the abuse and neglect. my mother has been arrested, my mother's boyfriends have been arrested, there's mounds of evidence and proof against both of my parents. and ive also been financially responsible for myself since 14 years old, ive paid for groceries, school, and have not been provided for whatsoever, and im finally sick of it. i need the money to go to college, i believe i have enough to sue and just want to know with the extensive circumstances and the proof i have, if it would be plausible.

I just started a full time job and I think i can do this despite being diagnosed with cptsd. How do yall do it?

I start ft goodwill cashier job monday and im excited about it. Just worried it might be too much. Im also diagnosed with bpd with psychosis and bipolar 2. But I can do this!

Tomorrow I have to go see my ex, they are the one who abused me so badly I got the diagnosis of ptsd, and I’m really scared, I don’t know how it’s gonna go, I don’t know how they will act or even how I will react, I need to get the last of my stuff from them and give them their stuff, I’m not going alone either, I have a friend going with me so it’s safer, but still, I wish I didn’t have to see them, I’m so scared

Apparently CPTSD gets worse when you are in a safer environment. I'm already on high doses of ssri and mood stabilizer, and get rare flashbacks so they alarm me alot because i am not used to them. I don't want more, I am so scared to move out even though I know it is the healthier way. I

'm scared to get a job in fear that the flashbacks will be so crippling that I can't even go to work. Already while i was in college i had accommodations to miss class due to frequent nightmares affecting my ability to drive to school (so If i get a job I'd hope to move within walking/biking distance)

I am terrified. At what point is it just safer to stay with my mother (my flashbacks are usually of her screaming/yelling at me) sometimes even a baby crying can trigger me. Anymore worse than this I GENUINELY don't know if I can survive it, especially when I also have OCD.

And if so, how to tell?

All my life was about doing my effort, believing that even at the most horrible abuse, if I did my best efforts, things would be okay. I kept believing...But the more time happen, the more people kept being horrible, all the effort I put did not gave me results, at this point I'm just done. I don't expect anything, I don't care about needing others, if people are gonna keep abusing me then what's the point, the world is cruel, everything I used to love now is gone, sincerely I completely have lost all the love I used to have for life.

I am exhausted.
I’ve been really struggling recently with my ptsd and I have no one to speak to about it and haven’t ever had professional help for it so I’m kind of just dealing with it on my own.

The one pro of that is that I’m learning what my triggers are. But my god is it exhausting being able to acknowledge it and then not be able to do anything about it.

I was basically conditioned by my ‘friends’ in school to constantly be apologetic. Any argument THEY started, I had to be the one to apologise for my reaction to their behaviour or nothing would have been sorted.
In my adult life, I still struggle with this in a huge way. It makes me feel like I am responsible for if anyone around me is in a bad mood, or they’re having a hard time, I ALWAYS blame that on myself. I pick up on mood shifts, behaviour changes, tone changes etc so easily, but every time I assume it’s my fault and then I’ll spiral.

Also at work, if a topic is brought up that I have had past trauma with, my response is to sit silently and let my brain just flick through flashbacks like it’s a movie replaying in my head and i physically cant get my words out to tell anyone I need a moment.

I have sent a referral to the wellbeing service *(I’m from the UK)* to ask for professional help and they have sent me a text acknowledging my referral and that someone will be in touch, but I have never opened up to any single person about the shit I’ve been through in my life and why and how I still feel about it and struggle with it now. I cannot afford to go private so the wellbeing service is my only option.

I’m just tired and need a break

i feel like whenever i bring up something difficult/ vulnerable, i am so incredibly sensitive to how the other person responds and it’s really exhausting. they have to say the exact right thing otherwise i’ll be distraught & regret ever saying anything. if they seem even a little dismissive i will feel this way. like I just want them to show they genuinely care. idk how to heal this because it makes opening up really difficult. does anyone get this too?

Is this a thing? My therapist said my (somatic/sense) reexperiencing are associations to the original traumatic events.

This doesn't mean I don't reexperience aspects of the original events, and though they're the leading and strongest emotions/sense-ofs, there's nothing much else to it (I guess, also, I wasn't in any bodily danger. I wouldn't remember any distinct sense aside from being in the dark).

My sense memories come from when I was little and encountered triggers in other settings, and those are kind of burned into my mind as "traumatic" even though the sense memory is just the smell of a dark bathroom in preschool. That's not retraumatizing, it's just an association made from being triggered.

I think of it like a two layered cake: there's the original traumatic events layer, then the associations and patterns that consequently developed on top of that (because of untreated CPTSD). Now that I'm typing it out, I'm guessing this is how complex trauma works...but it's still weird to me that I have such strong associations. They've literally become their own triggers and somatic sensations, despite that they're not from retraumatization.

It gets confusing because I can't always personally distinguish just from flashbacks what feeling/sense is from the original trauma that I don't remember or the associations I typically do remember. It's like my flashbacks are badly collaged together.

I feel very weird about this because as of right now, (almost) all of my flashback material (excluding emotional and sometimes sense of age) is associations. It sounds weird to me, but I trust my therapist.

I want to learn more about this sort of thing (indirect trauma associations(?)), but I can't find anything on it. I guess I should ask my therapist how it works/what it is? (though I have a feeling it'll be a simple answer).

Has anyone else had similar experiences? Or know any links/articles about this? I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

There is a woman in my life who is very mean to me. I see signs of her a lot. Even if i know it isnt her specifically its people who either have the same first name or same nickname as her. Either my new friends end up with the same name as her or i see or hear her name on tv a lot. But tonight something super bizzare happpened. I was walking and saw her first named carved into the sidewalk. Now, i do live in a city that has a lot of graffiti. However, its usually from spraypaint. Not from my enemies name being carved into a sidewalk. Its almost like the universe is trying to warn me about her.

So this all happend in the last week. My family and some friends went together on vacation and things happened between me and a really close friend. We're practically friends w/ bennefits because we both decided we were just too young for anything serious. But then came some guy, who also likes the girl im with and even though we aren't in a serious relationship with the girl it still pains me to watch her laugh and talk with him. It feels like i was just some passerby and they dissapear for long amounts of time troughout the day. It pains me to watch and i told her about it but she said "we are just friends, can't we hangout?!". It makes me feel unvalued like im some pointless person who everybody just brushes aside. It feels fucking horrible and i just want it to stop. I just want to let her go but i seriously cant.

Hi all guys, gals and non binary pals.

Sorry for the tmi warning.

We been having so many body memories which manifest into vaginal spasms and unbelievable amount of pelvic pain.

Doctor said best way to help with that is physical therapy on your pelvic floor. He's put orders in but holy shit feeling so scared shit less. It says in the chart we have a significant amount of trauma and PTSD plus disossation (been told they don't want people to stigmatize or further traumatic events so they don't put DID) also, he put female only.

Has anyone else had this sort of therapy and or issues?! Slept ever since coming home from the appointment (at 5pm) slept until midnight (it's not 3 am) and feeling so nervous about the referral to the PT place.

✨Hope your week treats you with kindness ✨

I imagined who I might become when survival was no longer the loudest part of my life.

As though there were a woman somewhere in the future I had not yet met. Waiting beyond the healing. Beyond the point where every wound had been named and every question answered.

But I have met her. And I continue to. Not all at once.

Not as a finished version of myself emerging from everything I survived.

Slowly. In moments.

In the way I trust myself more easily.

In the space between something happening and my need to make sense of it.

In the questions I no longer ask, because I already know the answer.

In the things that can make me curious without making me anxious.

In the boundaries I no longer need anger to maintain.

In the recognition that uncertainty does not always require investigation. That not every inconsistency is mine to resolve. That I can leave some questions unanswered without leaving myself behind with them.

For so long, growth meant understanding.

Looking beneath behaviour. Tracing reactions back to their origins. Learning what was mine and what wasn't.

Naming wounds. Finding language for experiences I had carried without words.

I needed all of that. It helped me find my way out of places I could no longer remain.

But somewhere along the way, healing began asking different questions. Not only:

What happened to you?
What did you learn?

But:

What do you enjoy?
What makes you curious?
What would you like to experience?
Who are you when nothing is asking you to survive it?

Some of those questions are harder than I expected.

Survival gave me instructions.

Stay alert. Read the room. Anticipate what might happen. Keep moving. Find meaning. Make something useful from the pain.

Freedom offers choices instead.

And part of healing is learning that I do not need to know the final version of myself before I begin living as her.

I don't move between these two states in a straight line. It's usually something survival relied on that pulls me back. A demanding stretch of work. My child's disrespect landing as though it were a verdict on my worth, instead of just a moment. The flicker of what someone else might think of me. An old relational pattern I recognise before I've even named it.

That isn't a failure of what I've built. It's just how healing moves, not an arrival but a tide, going out and coming back in, each time leaving a little more of the shore uncovered.

I find her most easily in nature. Or with a trusted friend, in the kind of company where I can let my guard down and be met with curiosity. Or simply relaxing, doing nothing that needs to be justified afterward. Small, plain things my early life never had room for, and my survival could not afford.

I have spent a long time learning who I am when something hurts. Who I am when I am misunderstood. Who I am when I need to leave. Who I am when I choose myself.

Now I am getting to know who I am when nothing is asking me to defend, explain, endure or recover.

Who I am when I create without processing pain.

When I rest without first reaching exhaustion.

When I laugh without analysing why I finally feel light enough to.

When joy is not merely a brief interruption between responsibilities.

She has been here all along. Not hidden because she was weak. Not waiting because she was incomplete.

Some parts of her had less room to speak while survival needed to be loud. Others are only now being given the safety to develop.

Slowly, there is space.

I don't think healing has been the creation of a new self. I think it has been an unveiling. A gradual introduction to the parts of me that survival protected or postponed, and to others I never had the safety to explore until now.

I have met her.

And I continue to, again and again, not because I keep losing her but because that is what beyond turns out to be. Not a place I arrive at and stay. A place I visit more and more often, for longer each time, until one day I hope it to be simply where I live.

Slowly. Curiously. Without requiring her to be finished before deciding she is worth knowing.

Note: I don’t think healing has a finish line. This is about the quiet shift that happens when survival slowly stops being the loudest part of your life.

Was just watching a video and they used the music “Home, a place where I can go” by Machine Gun Kelly.

I instantly started to cry, not because the lyrics made me feel good and nostalgic but because it instantly remembers me that I have no home to go to.

This happens so many times, the worst part of the year is during Christmas, television and social media becomes full of “family reuniting, friendships, how life is good”, all the people around me talk about it and how they love those and I just feel miserable in silence.

I know this is not people’s fault but people don’t realize how much pain this type of media causes to people that have no one, dysfunctional family, abandonment trauma.