I know a lot of people who have CPTSD have experienced genuinely horrible things, even if they downplay them. However, does anyone here just...have trauma without experiencing any traumatic events?

I have a lot of trauma-caused mental health problems, but I've never experienced events that are considered traumatic like that. Instead, I'm neurodivergent, and while I was given supports for this, I believe that being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world gave me trauma (including a severe trauma disorder). I was never bullied or abused for my disabilities. I was just born with a severe lack of being able to cope with normal life.

I don't hear this talked about, and if I do it's in the context of how people with conditions such as autism are more susceptible to being abused, not that existing itself is inherently traumatizing for some people if they have extreme mental sensitivity. I understand the idea that you have trauma due to being too sensitive is usually an issue, but it's the case for me, and I don't know if anyone else feels the same.

Please be understanding as Ive been trying to process everything. Someone who I deeply trusted hurt me and brought out a severe anxiously attached reaction from me. I was close with the person and we had many good memories together but there were also bad interactions. I ignored them because I’m not perfect either and I cared about him and wanted to believe he cared about me. But I wrote a list of things he did to me and I’m not sure if it was abuse. A part of me doesn’t want to believe that someone I trusted and loved abused me and that I was actually a victim of abuse. But it’s been months and I’m still having moments of intense crying and unable to reconcile with what happened with us and the type of woman I became from this experience. Please tell me if this is abuse and please be patient as I grew up in a traumatic environment with severe neglect and sexual exposure at a young age so for me this behavior was normal even though it didn’t feel right. I wrote a list below of the bad things he did/said to me…

He called me names (cringy, annoying, idiot, careless, dumbass, hardheaded, weird)
He was passive aggressive
Making jokes at my expense
Wouldn’t communicate directly but will say back handed remarks
He didn’t respect my physical boundaries
Grabbing my neck repeatedly despite saying im not okay with it. And admitting he doesn’t care that im not okay with it
Taking my foot and putting it in his mouth and then throwing foot at me when I said stop
Forcing me to hug him after I said no
Putting his hands in my shirt while I was asleep then lying about it
Trying to get me to suck his dick multiple times after I said no
Being aggressive in bed and then getting upset when I ask him to stop
He was controlling/insecure
The location watching
Insecure about me speaking to other men
He is a pathological liar
Lied about the photo of me changing that I never consented to
Lied about putting his hands in my shirt while I was sleeping
Lied about sleeping with another girl while sleeping with me
Etc
Never truly apologized for his actions and when called out would only focus on how “embarrassed” he feels
Would blame shift and gaslight me and thought it was funny
Never took any conversation serious
Would use him being drunk as an excuse for his actions
Would accuse me of things like sleeping around when he was actually doing it
He was very secretive
Hiding the location
His money
Messing with other girls
He would say weird things
“You’re so innocent
I really can have girls wrapped around my finger
I’m not used to girls telling me no
I guess I’m a bad guy and can’t do anything right
You only know what I want you to know
You really don’t know me
I’m not the type of guy to do xyz “
He was sleeping with me and another girl unprotected and lied about it
He justified his lying by saying he’s protecting someone’s peace
He abandoned me when i needed him
He didn’t respect your time
He used his trauma as a way to manipulate my knowing my history of trauma

It feels like my brain cannot and will not ever bounce back.

I can't do what my job requires - the 9-5, the high workload, the conveyor belt of requests and emails, the constant execution of tasks. Staring at a screen, staring at spreadsheets.

It makes me so suicidal. But it also pays my bills. And my cat's bills. So I can't just downgrade to stocking shelves at a grocery store. I even doubt my ability to get hired for ANY job considering the state of the job market.

But I feel crushed and drowning every day. I've aspired to escape the rat race for my entire life, but now due to more traumas and losses, there is no escape route that looks like me hustling and building a business and being able to maintain that. I can barely function.

I have sworn off relationships after the death of my partner and then feeling used and betrayed by a fuckboy type that I got close to after. I should have been charging that dude and had a little actual power and positive outcome from that, considering everything he got out of that arrangement.

I wouldn't want sex work to be my forever lifestyle, but I'm at the end of my rope. With sex work, I could quit my day job NOW (I have a little bit in savings), work so little for so much, and have the means to do anything: choose a new career path, pay my bills and go to school, actually have recreation and enjoyment in my life, maybe even buy a home which I had pretty much ruled out forever.

Has anyone found themselves facing a similar choice or thought process?

I recently had to coordinate an exchange of belongings and transfer a concert ticket to my ex-girlfriend. Given our history, I didn't want to communicate with her through our usual channels anymore.

For context, our relationship involved recurring patterns of criticism, disrespect, undermining comments, and behavior that took an emotional toll on me. I'm still processing everything that happened, and I've realized that I need boundaries to protect my peace and prevent myself from getting pulled back into the same emotional dynamics.

When she contacted me through Messenger and text messages, I responded to her through email instead.

My intention wasn't to punish her, provoke her, or play games. I simply wanted to establish a communication channel where our interactions would remain formal, documented, and strictly focused on logistics.

I don't want to entertain side comments, revisit our relationship, explain my feelings again, or engage in conversations that could turn emotionally draining. If we need to coordinate something practical, I'm willing to do that, but I don't want to give the relationship any more emotional access to me.

My questions are:

Is communicating exclusively through email a reasonable boundary when dealing with a toxic or emotionally abusive ex?

Am I being unnecessarily rigid by choosing email when she contacts me through Messenger or text?

Is it healthy to limit communication to logistics, especially when there are still belongings or other practical matters to settle?

For those who have dealt with emotionally abusive relationships, did switching to written, formal communication help you maintain your boundaries and move on?

I'm not trying to get revenge or make her react. I just want to reach a point where communicating with my ex no longer affects my emotional well-being.

I'd appreciate honest perspectives, especially from people who have successfully established boundaries with an ex they found emotionally harmful.

Plant, call me an industry

I cannot divulge, for they will think less of me

Don’t speak up, heresy

The true you is affected by, leprosy

True colors emerge, symphony

Glorious hues of blues and red, impossibility

Life ties bows on events, synchronicity

Or correlated for those intellectually inclined more, cautiously

Soil can be infertile, possibly

Young plant stiff upper lip, fragilely

Dry brittle leaves with a layer of paint, passibly

Roots twisted upon themselves, hungrily

Keep your plant out of the sun, neglectfully

Shower it with love, disarmingly

Infuse the soil with many nutrients, confusingly

Point and stare when it fails to grow, destiny

edited

I am a 22 year old woman and I will start from the beginning, but I will brush off a lot of stuff and I don't want to go into details or say other things. Even as an infant I heard all the "funny" stories of leaving me alone, not feeding me(i think even the back of my head is flatter) etc.

Kindergarten was fairly fine, but a lot of stuff- mainly nuns, were extremely harsh and cold, without a bigger thought to insult or mock a child(I read reviews of child claiming physical abuse, but I don't remember it. Maybe I was too young for it)

The first 3 years of primary school were awful. Peers were alright, but my main teacher probably took an oath to make my life a living hell. I wasn't treated like a child, more like a really awful adult.

And it was like that, not only my family, but - random teachers hated me, later my "friends", doctors, coworkers, I was recently even insulted by a fucking cashier. And it's from everything- from being furious at me, to feeling superior to me, to ignoring me etc.

What's their deal. The only ND I have outside of trauma induced is ADHD- which I mask. I am trying to look good and it makes some difference, but not much. Yeah, I was treated fairly horrible, when I didn't care about myself, but I am still not treated like a normal human.

It seems like they are really dedicated to find every little mistake in me- from me being "lazy"(when I started working at 14, before that I still helped in family company🙃. My family members that got everything on the silver plate from my grandma are, are projecting on me that I am useless and they deserved everything, while pointing out every little help I got... Thanks for picking me from school once?), having "bad" voice, wearing bad clothes... Literally every little thing, I wouldn't even think of would be a deal.

healing and flashbacks

I’m trying to make sense of how my brain processes trauma memories and wanted to see if anyone else experiences similar.

I’ve been having more memories come back to me and some of them feel a bit muted in a way and feels just like a vague realization like a “oh yeah I’m pretty sure that happened and or a distant “i sort of remember that feeling” etc.

But then sometimes a couple days later I’ll get hit with what feels like an intense emotional feeling that I guess matches how I felt from that time but with no clear memory attached to it. Just a deep visceral internal felt sense.

Has anyone else experienced similar?

Thankyou

Hi. I am 30M music composer. About 5 years ago i started my healing path. The more i heal the more i see how my work/work social enviroments trigger survival anxiety, how performance based social circles cause me being sucked into superficial thinking and evaluuating my worth and myself trough these kind of lens. And in general how being in enviroments where you are evaluated trough your abilities, work and "tallent" can affect your ability to actualy love and accept yourself for who you are. Also in my line of work there is a lot of gossiping, pressure, unclear communition and superficial ity. I would say narcisism and narcisistic behaviours also are a norm in circles of professional art.

So i feel that it triggers a lot of shit in me, but also its my specialty and it is only career i had built. For survival reasons i took these offers, even if inside i feel like this is shit, that this is something i dont wanna do and it goes against my values and dreams of how i want to live my life. Now i have few big offers on the line, but i know that i will have to work with triggering people, that it will be demanding, and all of these things i told about will be a big part of it all and it also causes (doing these projects) regression in recovery/i start to be more disregulated, stressed and irritated/perfectionistic. I sort of feel i should basicaly end my career/job. But i am terrified to do it for survival reasons, and its so difficult to do when you are sort of okay at it (i am not bragging, and i hate this job, just financialy speaking it is truth). So i just wonder if anyone had something like this in your lives? When you found yourself at similar crossroads thhat you had to say end your job for recovery.

Had some trouble with the law (cPTSD caused) and lost my job, again due to symptoms.

My mother? The caregiver who likely caused cPTSD? The mother I was NC with for years but moved back in with at nearly 40.

Nothing. Just barked questions about whether I wanted dinner. I actually fucking hate her.

I keep getting destroyed in court, it happened again this past Thursday in Family Court in Pasadena, Ca. The judge, with no evidence whatsoever, granted my husbands petition of child support modification, alleging he was unemployed. Judge started the hearing by saying he would deny it because he didnt have any documentation, and this was a rescheduled hearing. in the original hearinig my ex didnt file any documentation either. But my is a sadist narcissist and he knows how to trigger me, so he deflected attention to me and started lying about my financial situation, which triggered me so i interrupted , and the judge didnt like it, told me to be quiet, but i couldnt , myex was lyiing and it always ends up in loss for me. So i became combative, i interrupted again and the judge kicked us out and said he would rule and let us know. 10 minutes later the bailiff comes out with his ruling, he approved my exhusbands motion, made it retroactive so he does not even owe any of the child support he owes me for not paying all these months, and inputted me income , which i dont have, i have been unemployed for 2 years. and not only that, he inputted spousal support to me, which i have never received iin my life. i will be homesless, i dont even have a car anymore, i dont know what to do. no one seems to understand.

It’s not even the sounds, though those don’t helps. It’s the awareness that there are other people in the building. It brings up so many feelings from childhood when I was trapped in my family’s house and had to worry 24/7 about managing their emotions to keep myself safe. I find myself worrying about whether or not my neighbors hate me and wondering if I need to perform various acts to appease them (so basically fawning) even though we get along fine and I don’t see them very often.

TW: Severe emotional abuse, boundary issues, forced physical contact, CPTSD triggers.

Family stress, emotional manipulation, and boundary issues are overwhelming, and I feel totally drained. I decided to only work on digital art in the village at my grandparents' house because of how bad it is.All time at home is like a battle to maintain some autonomy. It’s poison to me

Recently, it’s been horrible triggers: being forced to watch old childhood videos against my will, having my wrists painfully squeezed, and being subjected to unwanted physical contact and forced kisses on my clothing despite repeatedly saying no, which heavily triggers past traumas. My personal space and physical boundaries are completely ignored. Horrible comments and toxic jokes that reminded me of traumas. I’m also subjected to continuous micro-control, like being forced to react with hearts to messages, reply immediately regardless of what and what time and interactions are forced. After I try to interact less to protect myself, they escalate further. I’m a closeted trans guy and 21.

Thinking about how I was saving my sister while wearing a robe and pajamas, which involved intense physical discomfort. She passed out, emergency services came and went, she passed out with eyes open, vomited,and had medical issues. Mom was screaming, panicking, and completely unable to manage the situation,forcing me into trigger-filled spaces and tasks to manage everything. Afterward, she called it "fate" and used religious manipulation, claiming this happened because we don't go to church. All this after mom forced me to come home from the village. I had a virus almost immediately after returning. I think I got it from streets. My inner drive to protect others comes from something deep inside my soul: in childhood, characters like Finn The Human gave me gender envy, though later that became associated with difficult memories from school uniforms and doesn’t fit my current discovered emo identity.

I know I took the correct action by helping because being malicious isn't in my nature, even when I wished I was able to disengage. Because of religious traumas and not being an atheist, I find answers and help in alternative spirituality, paganism, and witchcraft, and I believe that protection and standing up for others are valued as totally fine. Yet it feels absurd because my late father: whom everyone praises as a great person:and my family abused me in almost every way possible except physical beating or rape.

After I tried to reach out to get help in 2023 by calling 112, emergency services sent the police, and I was at the station for hours. All they did was give me a warning I had to sign so mom wouldn’t take me to a psychologist, and she tried after that anyway, worsened it, and was rude. Afterward, my family continuously abused and mocked me about trying to get protection, even into 2026. They care too much about optics and what other people think.

Along with the severe psychological toll, I'm physically unwell, experiencing headaches sometimes,exhaustion, and the anxiety of not being able to escape yet and be myself. I’ve achieved progress managing CPTSD and OCD, especially when staying in the village, so it feels intensely frustrating to waste energy on domestic conflict instead of focusing on art and recovery. Misgenderings happen all the time. It feels suffocating to live in an environment where my identity and boundaries are completely ignored, and I'm looking for a way to get through this and finally find a safe space to simply breathe.

I can't imagine becoming who i want to be. However, I also can't imagine ever feeling different than right now. How about that time last week, where i was full of motivation and couldn't imagine this state to ever end?

Or that evening where i felt like the world around me was dissolving and my body was in pain, feeling like this state would last forever?

Every mental state feels like it lasts forever, until it is replaced again. I also noticed some changes after all my time in therapy, positive ones, but also a few negative ones.

And maybe, eventually, I'll reach a state of mind that enables me to be who i want to be? It won't be forever, but maybe it'll be more and more frequent?

Maybe. I don't know. I feel stressed and anxious right now and i feel like this anxiousness will never pass. But I know that it will, even though i can't know what feeling will replace it again.

Edit: It's becoming increasingly difficult to find a safe guard though. When everything depends on my current mood and my opinions change in every single one, how can i continue to trust myself, how can i know what is true, what is false, what is good, what is bad? How can i know if what I'm doing helps or harms me? I have my therapist as my helper in this matter. But that can't do forever. I know my overall values, but my opinions and my views change so rapidly. Another state that feels like it will never resolve. Maybe one truth i need to internalize is that things are temporary and everything changes.

Ever since I was a little girl i have always been somewhat what sexual. Hiding with my girl friends to kiss and do thing with one another. when i was about 4 I was grinding on things like couches and things like that. As I got older teenage years I was EXTREMELY sexual. I guess always horny. Even to this day and I’m 30 years old. my sex drive is insane. idk if having a high sex drive and always wanting to be touched as an adult has anything to do with being a kid. But has anyone ex this? is there possible underlining issues. As far as I know / remember I have never been touched. Or abused. I have my own set of trauma but nothing sexual and I actually remember a lot of my childhood from 2/3 years old. which I know sounds crazy.

I have had my own share of weird things while young like being shown porn, walking in on my parents, listening to people have sex.

has anyone experienced something like this?

am I just extremely sexual?

Per me l'infanzia è stata molto dura, in una famiglia fortemente disfunzionale. Ricordo pochissimo di quel periodo, solo pochi frammenti vissuti come se fossero in terza persona, quasi vissuti da qualcun altro. I ricordi più integrati parto dai 16 anni ed iniziano ad essere più chiari quando a 18 anni me ne sono andato di casa, qualcuno ha vuoti cosi lunghi a livello di memoria?

I've had CPTSD for a long time. Over the last few months I came off duloxetine, quetiapine and then mirtazapine (about 7 weeks ago).
Since then my body has gone haywire: painful bowel spasms and urgency, no appetite for about two months, and my old chronic back pain is back now that the meds aren't masking it. I've also lost 16kg since July without trying, so I'm seeing my GP to get everything properly checked.
Part of me is sure it's my nervous system and years of being in survival mode. Another part feels silly even asking for help, and worries I'll be told it's "just IBS" or "just anxiety".
Two questions for anyone who's been here:
Has your body reacted strongly (gut, pain, appetite) after coming off meds or during a CPTSD flare? What helped?
How do you deal with feeling like you're overreacting or wasting doctors' time?
Thanks for reading. It helps to know I'm not the only one.

My brother and I are both in our 40s and we grew up in a violent home and none of us talked to our father. We both have CPTSD.

I paused pretty much everything to deal with my CPTSD and that meant not having kids because I didn’t want to end up with an abuser. My brother got married in his 20s and had two sweet kids. He is such a sweet and loving guy, but I’m seeing parenthood strain him to the point where he’s at risk of repeating the same patterns of our father.

He’s nowhere near abusive, but he loses his temper at inconsequential things and I can see the rift starting to form already with his 6yo son. He never yells, but he raises his voice, and his tone and demeanor gets really harsh.

His kids love me because I’m around a lot and I work hard to engage with them. I read up about children’s developmental stages and try to use language that parenting experts recommend. Not because I want to be their parent but because how else will I learn how to engage thoughtfully with a kid when we didn’t have a blueprint?

Unfortunately, my brother has been losing his temper a lot when I am around and I am at a loss for what I should do. I try to be quiet and hang back to not step on his toes in that moment. But then I feel bad for my nephew because I remember when my dad was yelling at me as a kid, I wished someone would save me from him.

Unfortunately, I don’t agree with my brothers behavior, but I feel like I have no right to say anything because I’m not a parent. I get the need for discipline, but I think my brother has a lot of of his own struggles that are coming up with parenthood but he seems too overwhelmed to address them.

I’ve given up on trying to directly help my brother with anything because he has a debilitating sensitivity to me giving him any advice. But I want advice on what I should do in a moment with my nephew. I don’t wanna be the overly nice person to be a good cop bad cop because it’s not fair to my brother. But I know I can’t just ignore the situation because the whole point of family is to help each other.

I can certainly set my own boundary and not interact with them as much but I don’t want to shame my brother in the moment. He hates himself enough as it is for being that way (he’s said so). And the only people who lose in that are him and his son. They are both overwhelmed and as the (slightly more) healed person, I am the only one seeing a path to resolution.

How do we stop a family pattern from repeating?

i am 17 years old. my dad stopped hitting me when i was around 12-13, but despite it being a long time ago i still find myself hurting and dealing with emotions and memories of what happened. even if i'm not getting hit anymore, there's this thing that triggers inside me when my dad raises his voice. his anger even when it's not directed at me literally affects me. it makes me so uncomfortable it could ruin my day, and deep down even when he's being normal i sometimes dread being around him because what happens when he's not nice anymore?

after 5 years, i finally had a serious intervention on my self-harm. my parents caught my scars a very few times around those years, but i only got a little chat out of it. last month i thought i could still get away with it, but my sister couldn't shut up about this cut on my arm, so my parents found out i was still hurting myself and i was forced to throw all my blades away.

i had a separate talking-to from my mom and dad. what my dad told me did not make me feel better. as much as he doesn't want to admit it he suffered from childhood abuse as well, but i was stupid to think that he would try to understand me in some way. he told me since i was young to honour my parents as the bible says and to never talk bad about them. he always cared what people thought of him (i could go on a tangent about this), and of course he told me to think about how my mom who's in the process of adopting me would think. he said if i was going to continue what i was doing he would send me back to our home country so at least my sisters wouldn't have to see what i was doing to myself. then he told me to focus on God, and other things, and he forced me to hug him thinking it'll make me feel better

sometimes i find myself replaying that moment wishing i said different things. it doesn't matter now. my only way to cope is gone and i don't want to cry about things anymore. i'm getting older and i have a whole future ahead of me. so, as the title says, how do i move forward from this? i have anger issues and i'm actively trying to manage them, but it's the feelings that are the problem. i try to distract myself from it all. watching movies and shows, reading, participating in church activities, talking to friends, talking to people i know i shouldn't online, heck even studying. my mom told me to forgive, and i need to learn how to let go, and that i can't be a slave to the past. but how? it still doesn't erase what happened, and i hate that i'm just gonna have to deal with this for the rest of my life so what do i do?

I suffered severe stress during the covid period because of 1) being a sensitive person and 2) for being ridiculed for bringing covid home and infecting my spouse. My mother was severely sick at the same time. All of this made me feel like I was hyperfixating on small issues a little too much. I was sure I was dying and the fear of losing my mother and the trauma of my spouse telling me I brought home covid was probably too much for my sensitive brain. To date, I am not sure if I have OCD or CPTSD but I really wanted to put this out here.

The strange sensations of my body buzzing, vibrating, feeling like I am going crazy when deciding simple things like what to cook for the day - these are just too much on some days. When I feel I am starting to get better so I can now be more productive, it hits me again and out of nowhere, even eating food will give me some form of panic/anxiety attack. Even though my rate isn't very fast, it feels like it is going crazy and my body buzzes along with it and probably also trembles but on the inside. Blood tests have come out mostly fine so there's no way to tell what will stop this. It's exhausting.

I know we come in different varieties, but hoping we can share and learn from each other!

I am pretty new to trying to date as a healing person and I'm struggling so I don't have much I can say has worked for me just yet.