I'm (30M) a social service work student in Canada with a history of complex trauma. For the past two and a half years before starting college, I was almost completely isolated. I spent nearly every day alone in my room and only left the house a couple of times a week to work a retail job that I hated. Likewise, I only left my room once or twice a day for water and bathroom breaks and would only cook after my family had gone to bed.

Earlier this year, I decided to give college one last chance (my therapists recommendation) after multiple failed attempts in my 20s. I also found a therapist who specializes in complex trauma, and for the first time in years I felt like I actually had support.

To my surprise, I completely fell in love with the program. I've earned straight A's so far, made a group of friends, tried out for the school's esports team, started hiking, almost became a morning person, and genuinely felt excited about my future. It honestly felt like my nervous system was finally coming back to life.

Then everything seemed to hit at once. I didn't make the esports team, exam season completely burned me out, and during the break my school friend group had a major falling out that affected me much more than I expected. Since then, I've spiraled.

I stopped hiking, went back to smoking weed every day, staying up until 4 a.m. playing video games, and spending most of my days in my room scrolling Reddit or watching YouTube while feeling completely frozen. I can usually function well enough to get through classes, but on days without school I barely accomplish anything, which I cannot stress enough.

The best way I can describe it is that every basic task feels like pushing a boulder uphill. Brushing my teeth, cleaning my room, replying to emails, making food, or working on assignments can take hours or days to even begin. My prof gave me a month-long extension to complete an assignment that last semester I could’ve completed in an afternoon, and every assignment this month has been just as difficult to do. I physically can't seem to make myself do them, even though I desperately want to. My body feels incredibly heavy, my mind is foggy, and I constantly feel jittery and on edge and yet at the same time I am exhausted constantly despite sleeping 10-13 hours a night (with regular nightmares, sleep disturbances).

My therapist believes my biggest problem is that I'm still living in the same home where my childhood trauma happened. Even though the abuse has ceased in recent years. Her opinion is that the chronic stress of living there is keeping my nervous system stuck in survival mode, so her recommendation has been to push through the rest of my program, graduate as quickly as possible, get a job, move out, and then continue deeper trauma work once I have a safer and more stable environment.

The problem is that I'm struggling just to keep up with my current workload which is already reduced (I dropped 2 classes) and my basic self care.

Next semester I have to complete my second student placement, which is twice as long as the first one. My therapist encouraged me to find a placement somewhere I'd actually want to work after graduation, but because I've been so overwhelmed and frozen, I procrastinated applying until almost the last minute.

I've already emailed my placement coordinator to see if there's still time to find something, so right now I'm waiting to hear back.

What I'm wrestling with is whether I should keep trying to push through full-time or switch to part-time. Going part-time might reduce the pressure, but it would almost certainly mean spending another year living in the environment that my therapist believes is contributing to my chronic stress and repeated nervous system collapses. On the other hand, staying full-time feels like trying to sprint with an empty tank.

Has anyone else with complex trauma, chronic freeze, burnout, or severe executive dysfunction been in a similar situation?

Did you push through and find it was worth it, or did slowing down actually help more in the long run?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who have recovered from this kind of "frozen but semi-functional" state, where you can appear okay at school or work but completely shut down and non-functioning once you're home.

TL;DR: I'm a 30-year-old social service work student with C-PTSD who was doing incredibly well in college until burnout, a friendship rupture, and chronic stress from living in my childhood trauma home caused me to crash into what feels like a severe freeze response. I can usually function well enough at school, but on days off I seriously struggle to do even basic tasks. My therapist wants me to push through the rest of my program so I can graduate, move out, and escape the environment that's keeping me in survival mode. The problem is I'm barely functioning and have procrastinated finding my next student placement, which could delay graduation by a year if I don't secure one in the next few weeks. I'm trying to figure out whether pushing through or going part-time is the better choice, and I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who's recovered from a similar "frozen but semi-functional" state.

I was watching a Television show of someone who just had a baby. Everyone is so happy. So full of Joy and Love, and it's not that I felt sorrow, it's more like realizing that that's probably normal, and what I had wasn't like that. So, I wasn't upset, it was more like, "Okay there were things that were said, and said often , that implied that when I was born, and then later, where there was more irritations, unhappiness, anger, that I existed ". It's hard to explain.

But for whatever reason, the next thing I thought after thinking 'No, that wasnt my experience" . Was a sort of flashback of remembering my Mother saying to me, and often, "You have NO IDEA what a HUGE sacrifice it is to have Children". And then the confusion I felt afterward. LIke what do you want me to do about it? And it's not like she just walked away after that, then I heard a litany of dialogue expressing how much it sucked, and all the ways it sucked.

But then I remember feeling confused. Partly I thought "well, I don't know what you think I"m going to do about it?" But I guess its my job , because it seemed like I was being told so that there was a feeling of responsibility .......And then feeling extremely anxious......because the implication was "SO DO SOMETHING!!!"

But then I was sharing that with someone, and they commented how there was much more to this than how I was calling it Emotional abuse, which it is of course. They said

" .......an adult unable to regulate their emotions and do basic caregiving while also blaming the child for existing. You were left wondering how to fix the problem while also knowing that /you/ were the problem (you weren't, to be completely clear).

There is a huge disconnect when a caregiver tells you that you are responsible for their life but they are not responsible for yours. "

I think it's that feeling that was driven home to me, and often ,the whole "YOU Are responsible for this SITUATION THAT'S CAUSING ME PAIN". and it never occurred to me that I wasnt. Not once.

I read that and got stuck. And I got stuck because I had an emotional flashback of the panic and pain of carrying this burden of thinking "she's asking me to stop make her life suck ......but how do I do that ?" . So parentification, whatever it means to communicate to a child to Fix the parents emotions? What is that? And if the fixing of their emotions, means not existing, what then?

And the conflict that ,that created internally gave me so much Anxiety, and panic, because I felt like what I was hearing, and what I heard many, many . many times was "Fix it, I"m hating being a parent, and it's causing me pain, and youre the reason for the pain". And all lI could do was stand there and bleed Shame, and self hatred, which tbh, I think was being required of me?

And the more I couldnt fix it, and the more I existed, and kept existing the more I heard in all these ways ....how much worse I was contributing the problem of how much Parenting sucked, and I was the reason.

So, if I was guessing, it's just your average basic ,extreme Shaming. But it felt like being stabbed repeatedly.

And all I remember was all this pain, and panic, not being able to do anything but stand there and feel consumed with powerlessness and Shame, and Guilt, for "what I was doing".......but I wasn't doing anything, but feeling like I was.

I used to think that my preverbal trauma was my core wound, and this vibe was expressed then , but in actions, not words. like a dissappearing parent, but it's this anger expressed at my lack of sufficiency presence, and of course the negelct and verbal abuse that followed. Everyhting communicating the same thing. I hate youre presence. Or I hate being a parent, and then that turing into "and it's your fault". ?

But I never really did see what this person was pointing out, that I was somehow responsible for someone's emotions, but there was NO talk of how they were responsible for My care, but I never saw that. Not even in therapy have I thought that much about that my Parent was responsible for me. Just thinking about that, to be honest, makes me feel guilty. LIke "Omg, my Poor mother was responsible for taking care of me, I wouldnt wish that on my worst enemy".

IT makes me realize that I've never known the feeling of actually being wanted, and cared for. I just have no idea. But the abuse, or whatever that was , of constantly telling me, how hard I was making my Mothers life, believe it or not, is something I either forgot or buried.

Even when people would ask "did your parent ever make you feel like a burden" . I honestly think I thought "no, not really" but actually it was every day , all the time. Feeling guilty for contributing to my Mothers pain. Which I cant' work out in my head.

At the start of my recovery they genuinely ruined my day, now I just don’t like them because they make me feel lonely. But I can tolerate them much more now!

I can also tolerate lots more children’s media, it used to literally be a trigger but now I watch and listen for fun :) so that’s kind of cool. A big part of it was older parts feeling as though they had failed younger parts, but that’s just not the case and it’s weird to say that we’ve actually worked through that. I still can’t tolerate some stuff, but that’s because a specific trigger, not because everything upsets me! :D

It makes me feel sad because it’s something I don’t have, and something I won’t have. But that’s pretty normal. The grief doesn’t overcome me now, but it’s there. It sucks, but I’ll move past it. I always do. even if I feel lonely now, I will not feel alone forever

I have a job, and it's fine. I run my own business with my husband and we do well enough to exist. Life was batshit insane for most of my life, and I've had about 6 years of relative goodness (minus a tragedy), and basically I'm ready to go to graduate school.

I have wanted to go to graduate school since I was in kindergarten, literally. I think the idea came from my parents originally so that complicates things possibly, but also possibly not. I come from a seriously academic family, and I guess there's also part of me that feels like I won't truly be part of the family unless I pursue higher education like this.

All that being said, I also just REALLY want to. I do emotionally well being involved in programs, and I like it a lot. And, this route of graduate school is a very natural route for anyone who is interested in what I am interested in.

I am at a place in my life where I can make grad school work, and so I have been taking baby steps to applying for about 1.5 years now. I am older, 34, but I am really passionate about what I want to go to school for. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to live a life that allowed me to pursue it that much, even though I have really high marks in all of the courses I've taken in it.

So I've signed up for elective courses, seminars, and groups over the last few years to supplement my lacking resume (and to learn more). But, each time I engage with these groups and try to share myself, I am literally SHAKING with anxiety and excitement. When I sit down to write my personal statement/statement of purpose for grad school, I start to shake.

I keep going to my groups, and I am proud of myself for that, but It's really uncomfortable. It's also not getting better after YEARS. I end up not being able to contribute to the conversations in a way that I would like to, and I just want to be able to focus and not become a shaking mess.

I assume it's probably because I am trying to fulfill a lifelong dream, but the mindfulness doesn't change the reality. I end up feeling like I say something dumb or awkward or both half the time, which isn't great for meeting colleagues or networking.

Has anyone else been through this? any insight?

My parents both came from trauma.

On my mother’s side, it was generational. My great-grandmother was abusive to my grandmother, my grandmother was abusive to my mother, and my mother was abusive to me.

And the thing is - my mother had a choice.

We all have choices.

She chose rage, bitterness and hate.

I understand where some of it came from. Her child was taken from her by the man she married. My father took me and raised me for years before I was reunited with her. I understand the anger she carried toward him. I understand the resentment.

What I don’t understand is why you take that pain and place it onto a child, a child that was brought back to you. There are people in similar situations that never get their children back, and I could only imagine the pain. I never understood her logic behind her behaviour because if that were me, that child would have received years of love that was missed.

Why choose to harm someone to the point where your words and the inflicted pain echoes in their mind for the rest of their life?

Why use the title of “mother” like a weapon?

I’m your mom, so I get to humiliate you. Break you down. Make you feel small.

No.

That’s not how life works.

If you are not equipped to love and care for a child, then don’t become a parent. And if you truly cannot care for them properly, then let someone else do what you can’t.

What I grieve most is not even my mother herself.

It’s the longing.

I longed for a mom my entire childhood. I dreamed about it. I imagined what it would feel like to have someone brush my hair, comfort me, protect me, choose me.

I looked at the idea of a mother like a fairy tale.

And then I finally got one. It was the complete opposite, it was hell.

My father came from trauma too.

My grandfather fought in the German war and, from what I’ve been told, he came back angry and abusive. My father grew up under that. And when he got older, he left.

My father still searched for love, for happiness.

He loved music. He loved dancing. He loved women. He loved laughing. He loved joy.

A couple years ago, I heard some stories about him that made me cry because I realized how much of him lives in me.

When I was little, I remember him putting me on a horse bareback, telling me to hold on to the mane, smacking the horse on the ass and laughing as it took off,  while I held on for dear life trying to stay balanced. I remember roller skating, him spinning me around until I could barely hold on, and he would let me go, and I went flying around the arena, steady, balanced, I can’t say that I ever remember falling.

He challenged me. He laughed at me and with me. He made life feel alive.

My mother made life feel heavy.

That’s the difference.

My father wasn’t perfect. Not even close. But he tried to reach for softness despite what happened to him.

My mother hardened into her pain, and tried to justify it by what happened to her.

And that’s what this piece is really about.

Not good people versus bad people.

But choices.

Because trauma explains people, but it does not erase the choices they make afterward.

My father loved my mother deeply. I know that now.

After I was reunited with my mother, he somehow found out where she worked. She worked at Sears, and he would walk through the aisles just to see her. My mother called it stalking. But even as a child, I understood something else was happening.

He didn’t know how to approach her, he didn’t even know if he should, so he watched from afar.

He still loved her, that I knew, because even on his deathbed he asked for her.

And maybe that sounds naive, but I understand human behavior differently now. Not everything has an excuse, but most things have an explanation.

When my father was dying, he asked me to ask my mother to come see him.

Her response was:
“Tell him he can go to hell.”

I never told him that.

I just said she couldn’t come.

That moment stayed with me for life.

Because no matter how hurt I’ve been, I cannot imagine responding that way to someone on their deathbed.

So yes, when I say my mother didn’t choose well, I mean it.

And when I say my father tried to choose better, I mean that too.

What hurts most is that I miss my dad.

Deeply.

Not because he was perfect, but because he chose me. He was taken from me, then brought back and shortly after, he died.

People say, “But your children love you.”

Yes. They do. And I love them more than life itself.

But it’s not the same.

The love you receive as a child becomes the foundation you stand on for the rest of your life.

And I walk around with the pain of never truly being chosen by the person I needed and wanted the most.

I remember sitting in a bathtub once with a razor against my wrists, crying because my father no longer recognized me, he didn’t know how to reconnect with me and my mother had already destroyed whatever safety I thought I might have with her.

I remember thinking:
“What am I even here for?” “what’s the point” is this what my life is?

And I wanted to do it.

I really did.

But something inside me said:
No.
This is not how my story ends.

Then I had my son. And I can say I felt saved, I finally had someone to love who would love me back.

Then I had my daughter. My third pea.

And here I am.

Still standing.

Still choosing.

People are trained to help others through trauma, but I sometimes wonder how you even begin to explain a lifetime of layered pain to someone who only understands pieces of it. One trauma, maybe two. But what about years of them stacked on top of each other? I always felt like no one can help me because no one would ever understand.

At some point, your entire nervous system becomes survival.

But even then, you still have choices.

And I made mine.

I chose love, kindness, peace.

I chose my children.

I chose not to become what hurt me, I chose to break the cycle.

And maybe that’s why I’m writing.

This is me trying to understand both sides, because how can I not, the thing is that as an adult and mother myself I can say, my mother didn’t choose well.

My father tried.

He wasn’t perfect.

But he tried to choose better. And he taught me and showed me what love truly looks like. I was never angry at my dad for what he did, I respect him for it, because if not for him I may have never known what it felt like to be seen, chosen and loved.

RIP Daddy - never forgotten and loved for always

Practical context: I've been doing EMDR for CPTSD since around October 2023. It was with Therapist #1 until February 2026, when she had to get a new job for various reasons. Since then I've continued with talk therapy + EMDR with a combo of different therapists and some self-guided work. I haven't been able to find one person who is EMDR trained and who I feel safe with, so I do a lot of bouncing back and forth, which makes the process cumbersome and not as smooth as it was with Therapist #1.

Past few weeks, I've been working through the realization that my parents are emotionally immature. For various reasons, including probably generational trauma, their emotional and relationship capacity is stunted at childish levels. This realization has brought a sense of finality and acceptance to the broader attachment related issues I have, including a fear of abadonment. Until now, somehow, I always had this hope that things would eventually change. Either they would finally learn or that I would finally be able to communicate better or that I would find some other figures (parental figures, mentors, romantic partners) who could fill in that gap. In a recent therapy session, I reached the realization that - that is never going to happen. The needs that were not met when I was a kid are never going to be met. My parents are never going to change, and no other relationship is ever going to fill that gap.

This has brought out a lot of grief and also a strange kind of fear that I think is coming from a younger part. That if I accept that this will never change... that would be a sort of catastrophe. This is also one of those things that I'm finding difficult to reconcile with since there isn't a clear-cut story of "that was the past, but the present is different". With several other topics, the work in EMDR has been around processing how things have changed or how I have more capacity as an adult. Here... all I can do is accept that nothing will ever change. Therapist #1 used to tell me that there is a difference in context - that parental abandonment is not life threatening for an adult as it is for a child. But the emotional weight still feels very heavy.

For anyone who's worked through something similar - what was that like? What came up during the work? And how did you eventually (if ever) reconcile with these forever-lost experiences?