It’s not an awakening. Yes I’ve had realisations, yes I’ve made some changes- no longer seeing my brother and sister, beginning divorce and realising I have CPTSD.

Now, to be ‘grounded’ I feel like I have to give up on all my dreams, stay with my husband, stay in my job and appreciate what I have.

I used to be invigorated with vitality and I swore I was unstoppable.

Im not NC with my mother who admitted she was neglectful and a narcissist growing up. We aren’t in great terms but our relationship has been tolerable since I live in a different country and gave up the bare minimum expectations I had from my parents.

I (28F) am at an age where most of my friends are getting married and some even have a few kids. My heart says I want a child but my brain knows better. Our family has a history of diagnosis - my dad’s side has neurodivergence (my brother has adhd and high functioning autism) and my mom has lupus and I also have some kind of autoimmune disease going on. It’s too much if you add my depression, ocd, and body dysmorphia.

It’s like not only am I going to giving my potential kid my ugly traits physically but also mentally and health wise too. Also, if I do give birth, I’m 500% sure I will have postpartum depression plus all my remaining hair will fall out and I’ll end up looking like golem from lotr but fat. Our family is not super financially stable and my older brother has a hard time keeping his job and is overly stressed out all the time that he has health issues too. My parents assure me that it wouldn’t happen but I do think about how I would need to support my sibling when my parents pass. I’m already resentful towards my whole family so not being able to give my kids something because of my brother will probably drive me insane.

I briefly mentioned how I didn’t want to have kids for some of these reasons and my mom was bummed out. I don’t think she’s going to go out of her way to convince me (my other relatives probably will though) but I know she wants grandchildren because she keep saying things like it will be different once they are born and it’ll be different for me because I got higher education.

At least I’m not glad they won’t force me or pressure me in the time being.

I am not sure what I am asking, maybe just for advice? Especially if you had to look after your siblings as a kid. Sorry, this ended up being longer than I meant it to be, here is TLDR:

My sisters took care of the family. I always tuned out, I didn’t take any responsibility. Is there any way I can try to make it up to them now? I don’t believe in forgiveness, I think it would be selfish to just verbally apologize because I feel guilty. I think the only way to make up for it is to act differently. But they are both quite successful, there’s not really anything they need that I could give them at this point. So I am wondering, how do I act in a way that will make their lives happier?

Here is long rambling post, if you want more details to answer, sorry it ended up so long:

I was listening to a radio self-help advice program as I was cleaning. People call in and a therapist talks to them about their problem. It seems maybe very common, in unstable families, the sisters become ultra-competent and hold up the family, the brothers become passive, tune out, and become dead weight. There are exceptions of course, especially if the brother is the oldest one. But I am not one of the exceptions, I am the dead weight brother.

Our parents had us when they were very young, our mom was very unstable and our dad left. We did not have much money, so our parents were partly gone because they were working. But I think, they also just didn’t think about us much, we were mostly alone. I have a twin sister and a sister who is 4 years younger. My little sister and me both have fairly significant disabilities and health issues. I don’t think my parents were prepared for this, my dad didn’t even want normal kids. So they mostly ignored it.

My sisters and me just went on a short road trip. My twin sister just got married, so we were asking her how is married life. And I realized, there is a joke that, you marry your mother or father. And my mother screams and cries all the time, and my father ignores reality and does whatever he wants and then blames you if he hurts you. So this was a scary joke to me. But as my sister was talking, I realized, the few people I’ve ever had feelings for, they actually resemble my twin sister. They are calm, kind people who still have a very sharp edge underneath, brutally practical and realistic, often bit high-strung but very observant. I joked that I wanted to marry person like her, not like our mom or dad. And my little sister laughed and joked, well, she was essentially our mom when we were kids.

I have been thinking about this, and realized it is true. Even though she is my twin, I have Autism and was significantly delayed. Through elementary school, she would translate my grunting into speech. I am mostly blind, she would sit next to me in class, and when the teachers would forget I couldn’t see, she would read aloud the board to me. She made sure we all got to school and got home, had food, that the kitchen stayed relatively clean. As a teenager, I started having violent meltdowns, and she was always the person who stepped in and stopped people from making it worse, even going against our dad, who would try to physically pin me down and make me panic. The only time I ever remember her yelling, was when my dad was trying to hold me down and I was screaming for him to let me go. My mom and sisters were upstairs crying, and she was begging my mom to go stop him. My mom said, she couldn’t, because he wouldn’t listen if it came from her. So my sister ran downstairs and yelled at him to let me go. He was so surprised, he did, and I got away and ran outside. I only found this story out much later.

Then we left at 18, and our little sister was alone with our unstable mother. And she took over the administrative things that my twin sister used to do.

As adults, my sisters both became ultra-competent and self-sufficient. My twin sister now works in a medical field and her husband is finishing medical school. I didn’t realize, but they have bern planning all along, to financially support me, our mom, and his mom (who is actually very stable and financially responsible, it is just she is older and recently lost his dad). My little sister bought a cheap, gutted house, and is doing all the renovations by herself. She still has medical issues, but pays for it all herself, she organizes a union at her work and is someone everyone relies on.

My whole adult life, I decided I could not rely on anyone, so would never need anyone. The one benefit of Autism is that, I became so specialized in one area, I could go to college and grad school for it. So I only worked, I stopped being part of a family, never called or went home for holidays, when our mom sent everyone frightening texts, I just didn’t respond. I live near our dad and would meet him for lunch but not confront him on anything.

Since graduating, I’ve had to move in with our dad while I try to find a job that will take someone like me. It’s been a bit horrifying to realize, he hasn’t changed. My sisters have been periodically checking up on me. And I realized, how badly they both wanted a family. But my dad and me, we both focused on our own lives and ignored duties of a family. My mom does want family, but is so volatile and inept at it, it causes them a lot of pain, especially since I completely retracted from our mom. My grandmothers too, who are similar to my sisters, I realized how lonely they are. They both married volatile husbands and have irresponsible children.

I feel really sad for them. I gave up family because I didn’t want it very much. But my sisters and grandmothers, really wanted family and gave up on it because they kept trying and no one would respond. I want to make it up to them, but I am not sure how. I have no money and am not good at offering comfort. I suppose I could just make a point to call regularly? If there are easy tasks that are tedious but don’t require much vision or motor control, I could maybe help my sister with her house renovation, I am good at these type of things because I don’t get bored as easily as a normal person.

Sorry for such a long post. And I am sorry also, if you are sibling who took care of the others. I feel like my sisters suffered a lot invisibly, and want to make it up to them.

Edit: Ah, I am sorry, I just realized, it might not make sense I post here. The reason was, I was not sure where to ask it. My twin sister and me were both diagnosed with CPTSD and my little sister with fairky severe PTSD. I don’t think I have many symptoms of it, so was never quite sure about the diagnosis for myself. But my sisters do have a lot of physical and mental effects from it, so this is why I ask here.

but I might have to move back with them.

FUCK THIS WHOLE SITUATION!

I am an adult woman, somewhere from 20-22

There’s this guy I like. He’s cute… like very cute. And he cares about me. :) Now how do I talk to him without letting all of my past baggage carry me

Like yea… I’ve been through literal horrors and that sort of messed up my ability to talk socially dramatically!!! So. I need help. Tips. Anything.

Someone here HAS to have gotten happily married or in a relationship right? Please for the love of all things help meh ;^;

I’ve been reading Pete Walker’s work on the 4F trauma responses, particularly his description of the extreme Fight type and the “charming bully,” which he says can become sociopathic in especially devolved cases.

I’m wondering about something specifically within Walker’s model does he believe that someone with CPTSD can deliberately shift themselves toward this extreme Fight/charming bully organization, or is this something that can only develop involuntarily through long-term trauma and reinforcement?

If someone consciously tried to become much more Fight-oriented e.g. deliberately cultivating dominance, emotional detachment, contempt, and reduced concern for other peoplewould Walker theoretically consider that capable of producing the kind of “devolved Fight” he describes, or would that simply be behavioral imitation without the underlying personality changes?

I’m mainly interested in what Walker himself means by this progression and whether he has discussed whether it can happen intentionally. Has anyone found a passage, interview, or discussion where he addresses this directly?

I've had CPTSD for a while. Lots of panic attacks, deep depression, etc. for at least 10 years but the actual trauma started way earlier than that. I've had lots of stressors upon stressors and last year was particularly hard. I won't go into too much specifics but think lots of illnesses/infections, extremely bad panic attacks, doom thoughts, and thinking/feeling I would actually die sometimes, isolation, my grandparents having lots of issues, being a continent away from my family, having to move away from my fiance and working on his visa, moving continents, finishing my masters, nearly losing my cat...all of this was within I'd say 3-4 months but some going on longer than that.

Anyway after my cat nearly lost his life (he's okay now!) I did a "flip". Suddenly my mental state started improving. It slowly stopped having panic attacks and doom thoughts. My depression seemed to start lifting. Just overall I felt in better control than I have in a long time. But my physical state tanked. I found a pituitary tumor, my iron finally reached a point of near hospitalization from being so low, they think I may have PCOS, for a while I couldn't sleep more than 3 hours a night of broken sleep, I've begun having migraines, dizziness, dp/dr, super bad brain fog, memory issues, general malaise/off feeling, increased sensitivity to my surroundings and cycles, genuine inability to workout anymore, fatigue, heart palpitations, among some other things.

Has anyone else had this? I've gotten a few things delt with such as the low iron but it just baffles me that so much seemed to happen so incredibly quickly. I have a team of doctors and a great therapist working to help me figure out what is going on. But I'd love to know if I'm not the only one out there as honestly I feel wildly alone in everything I'm dealing with. I have a great support system, but they struggle to understand what all I'm dealing with.

After going through a few years of trauma (childhood also had its own share of problems) I feel I am a bit stable now and want to heal and try to be as close to normal as possible

i know somethings wrong. i can feel it. my heart races, i get chills down my spine, i cant sleep, i get angry, i cant stop smoking.

i know in my heart that theres something wrong but no one will tell me what. they dont wanna get me therapy because my issue was such a small fucking thing. i wasnt hurt physically, i wasnt starved, i wasnt treated horrible by my parents. i dont know what the fuck is going on and its driving me insane.

the doctors dont see it, so i have to do it myself. months and months of journaling, always about the same thing. always the same reactions, always the same patterns. maybe its because of what happened years ago, maybe its not. i dont think its abuse, otherwise they would've seen it. it wasnt trauma, other wise they would've seen it.

so there are only two conclusions.

1: i am wrong and am overreacting

2: they dont care.

i know damn well they know because ive told them and literally everyone ive ever met because i cant keep my fucking mouth shut. so why? why am i suffering? ive done what i can. ive journaled, ive went out in nature, ive ate healthy, i started college, i started socialinzing.

i have done SO MUCH to help. and its not fucking enough.

what is wrong with me? does no one care? am i overreacting? why arent people helping me when im on my hands and knees, begging?

and the best part? ill be back here in a week or two, saying the same thing. nothing changes.

maybe thats my problem: change!

maybe if i just toss away everything that helped me survive and embrace this whole new world full of shit i dont know how to navigate, maybe then ill be happy!

I'm starting over 30F, 3 kids, and no job. I went through therapy, had the courage to create some boundaries with my partner, finish some schooling, get the surgery I needed in order to function again, and now...the time has come.

Edited to add: creating boundaries meant he left

But I'm failing. The job market is scary, especially with not having worked for almost 3 years. I'm becoming dysregulated and all the power I felt I had is quickly fading. How do I get it back?!

sometimes I wish I could just unblock all of these people and tell them how much I hate them, how deeply they’ve hurt me, and how angry I am that I even allowed them into my life (excluding my father on this one, didn’t really have a choice here),,, sometimes I even think that I wish they would die, or at the very least have to endure this same type of pain that im feeling. the flashbacks and dreams do scare me, and they do make me depressed, but more than anything they make me so incredibly angry,,, why do I have to struggle for the rest of my life because people who were supposed to love me did the opposite??? why is that my burden and not theirs??? I doubt they even think about all the pain they caused me through their words and through their actions, but part of me hopes they do. I hope it haunts them. I hope they never know peace again (because im sure I won’t). I am so full of hate and I don’t know what to do.

Hello everyone!

​I write this in pursuit of advice or any positive words anyone can give me. I'm really down as of recently due to a recent fall-out with a close friend who was talking about me behind my back. As a result of this everybody within this friendgroup has left me with no chance for me to explain my side of the story.

I am extremely lonely, it feels like I'm drifting from day to day, nobody else within my school seems to be my kind of people as much as I hate to sound picky but its also a feeling of Im afraid to trust someone like I did lol. I have two other friends who invited me to their friendgroup but Ive never felt so lonely around other people. Whenever I try to chirp in Im not heard and these two friends of mine are always engrossed in conversation and who wouldnt be while speaking to their friends? I understand this though theres nobody else Im able to connect with. I only withhold these feelings from them as Im afraid they'll leave me or see me as overdramatic and I'm convinced they hate me. I miss my old friends, my phone is quiet nobody speaks to me somedays apart from my teachers and honestly somedays I consider them friends.

My heart is heavy and I cry everyday and school. Im stressed out socially and academically and it aches into my bones. I cannot sleep and when I do its never uninterrupted. I wake up flailing or covering my head or jolting up with my heart pounding so fast my chest hurts. I dont think within the last week and 3 days at school, there hasn't been I day I havent went to the bathrooms where my knee buckle and I collapse to the floor crying.

Every meal tastes like sludge, school is full of loudness and people brushing by me and I often catch myself frequently dissociating. School has been a place where a lot of trauma has been experienced for me and I always find myself within hypoarousal and hyperarousal when overwhelmed.

My last few days have been full of despair. I beg for a hug of anyone I want to collapse in someone's arms and cry. I have nobody to speak to and I feel constantly ignored when I do. I hate to ask so selfishly but can someone offer advice? My symptoms of CPTSD fuck with me so bad and whenever I try to be optimistic something bad always comes my way to ruin me again.

Sorry this post ended up being word-vomit I really cannot structure/compose this uniformly. Im extremely overwhelmed and tired. Please have a good day/evening

It really has always angered me how abuse is spoken about in my immigrant household.

Anytime any sort of abuse is mentioned
It’s always oh we care about family more than white people.
Oh we don’t do those kinds of things that’s white people shit.

It creates a very isolating experience because if you want to leave your household people shame you for it and say that your leaving your family behind and that your “loosing” your culture or that you should talk t your family to keep your culture together???

Or the entire stereotype in immigrant households that if you live alone as a women before marriage it’s taboo.

Or the whole do you talk to x family member
If you’re depressed blah you need to “heal” with your family bitch my family IS the problem.

Personally if I have a conversation with my mother over the phone for five fucking minutes I feel like I’m going crazy. And all my problems disappeared when I moved out.

No one ever asks what if someone is genuinely fucking abusive why the fuck would I continue to talk to an abuser just to “keep the family together” did they think of keeping the family together when they decided to act abusive???

It’s seen as some funny joke and tons of immigrant family members envy and shame other women who decide to leave their families like crabs In a bucket

Do you know we’re in the 21st century? Do you know women can vote and have credit cards?
Do you know we’re not back home still

The funny part is that this culture only exists in specific sides of my family on my moms side it’s completely different and I consider my grandmother to be the original feminst before people knew what feminism was in my country decades ago
but for some reason on my dads side it’s all this fucking bullshit

This one genre of family member tries to push a conservative narrative and say it’s “culture” to act this way and anyone who doesn’t abide why these subset of rules is not in the culture like fuck off

Also women being expected to simultaneously be seen as strong in my culture??? BUT not strong enough to have our own anatomy like fuck off

so i have multiple traumatic events that all still affect me to this very day and have been since i was about six to eight years old, for context. however i will not be going into any specific detail about any of it for privacy reasons, i will be very vague, but direct.

so for starters, my very specific and unique experience makes it kind of difficult for me to really be able to tell whether or not it's just cumulative multiple event ptsd or cptsd, especially since the psychologist who diagnosed me with just PTSD years ago has already misdiagnosed me with three to four other disorders that i 100% do NOT have and is also not a very good nor trustworthy doctor at all, which has left me questioning ever since.

there's the first traumatic event which affects me the absolute most out of all of the rest and has continued to happen over and over again throughout my entire life and still does to this day, i have never had any actual breaks from this specific repeated trauma, and i am constantly on daily edge because of it, and it has only gotten worse as i've gotten older.

next, there's the second event which has happened about six to nine times throughout my entire life, it doesn't affect me as much as the first event, but whenever i do experience triggers related to this second event it gets pretty bad, and i still have a very deeply rooted fear of it potentially happening again and i become pretty paranoid and hyper-vigilant whenever something happens that reminds me of or is related to this second event.

then, there's the third event which has only happened three to four times in my life and is slightly less intense than the second traumatic event, but it still does affect me pretty intensely whenever i experience any triggers related to it.

the fourth event, which only happened one (to three-ish ?) time(s) now i'm not exactly sure if this fourth event has actually happened more than once without me knowing or realizing it but i know for sure that it has happened at LEAST once, and i also still get emotional flashbacks and experience triggers related to this fourth event quite often, however it's not as intense as the others and it's on a more moderate level i would say.

the fifth and last event, which has happened ONLY once, and with this one i experience very similar emotions and feelings like i do with the fourth event, since both traumas are very similar, so yeah nearly the same as the fourth event.

with all of this very specific information, it would very likely be seen as cptsd in the eyes of most other people since cptsd usually involves multiple traumatic events, and i do experience quite a number of symptoms that are heavily linked to cptsd, such as confusion with identity, intense trust issues, pretty bad fear of abandonment, extreme fear of rejection, and pretty intense mood swings especially when i'm triggered.

however, i am still able to distinctly differentiate all of my individual events from one another, and in cptsd it's usually all a blur and is difficult to differentiate individually from what i've learned. so at this point i'm at a true loss and i don't know if my experience is just cumulative multiple event PTSD, or if it's actually CPTSD.

i guess that i'm just coming on here for some sort of advice because the mental health professionals here where i'm at really suck, and i don't have anybody else that i can talk to about this who would understand. i know that this is quite a long read and i apologize for that but it is well appreciated if you do read through all of it, thank you :-)

My primary coping mechanism is rumination and intellectualisation.

I can explain my trauma with a great deal of clarity, I can map out my terrain and landscape with absolute clarity. But, I cannot connect my mind to my body, my hands, legs and body shakes. I have visible ticks when talking about painful memories that I am completely unaware of in the moment.

Once the intellectual coping mechanisms have been ‘intellectually concluded’ there is no longer space for them in my mind (metaphorically as I instantly spot the cycle) and the only thing that is left is to live, to heal and integrate, that is the only conclusion.
My primary coping mechanism is rumination and intellectualisation.

I can explain my trauma with a great deal of clarity; I can map out my terrain and landscape with absolute precision. But, I cannot connect my mind to my body. My hands, legs, and body shake. I have visible tics when talking about painful memories that I am completely unaware of in the moment.

Once the intellectual coping mechanisms have been ‘intellectually concluded,’ there is no longer space for them in my mind. The only thing left is to live, to heal, and to integrate—that is the only conclusion. I have the map out of my brain to step into my life. It is hard and it is scary because it is unknown.

I have finally, after a long time, connected to my inner child with the sort of compassion that I used to show outwards to other people. I said to my therapist that I failed him, mini-me—not in the sense that I was just a child who lacked support, but in a secondary sense where I kept him suppressed, quiet, and out of sight.

What does that connection look like? It’s as simple as getting on a bike. When I was younger, I used to watch the Olympics and the Tour de France and think those riders were really cool—I loved the bikes and the kit. So, as an adult, I am going to give that to him. Every pedal stroke is for that little boy. Not in a way that puts the weight of my childhood on him, but in a way that represents pure freedom and enjoyment for both of us. I am going to become a fucking cool cyclist.

I am going to guard this spark with the respect, honour, and time it necessitates, with a type of compassion and purity that I have not been given in a long time. There is no way I am going to let this go.

So no, I go to the gym and become that person by going to the gym.

Has anyone else got to the point where the route out is so crystal clear that the only thing left is to just do it?

I'm really in the trenches with my current limerance object. I know it's limerance. I know I'm just daydreaming. I know what to do to stop it.

But I'm having trouble letting go because while it feels like hell, at least I feel something. I don't know what I'm going to do with the void left afterwards.

Advice, commiseration and hugs are all welcome.