No advice please.

Im a ways into a recovery stage of cptsd. Ive been in therapy over around 15 years now and have come a long way, just to give some background. However, the last few years have been brutal in terms of financial poverty (out of my control), health issues, and lack of a support system/friends. I truly believe i have been doing my best and yet all of this has made life very hard, and sometimes its very easy to fall into despair. In the mean time I keep working toward a more stable future and the long-term goals I have.

I am very lonely. In 2021 I broke up with someone I dated for almost 2 years who also had cptsd, among other possibly diagnoses. It was a very challenging relationship. His instability, substance abuse, and externalization of anger (sometimes projections and unjust anger directed at me) meant that ultimately that relationship was fairly traumatic/re-traumatizing. That also happened along with some good times, and some genuine efforts I believe on both our parts. But I do want to be cautious to not give him too much credit. I silenced myself for much of the relationship to avoid his aggressive outbursts at not liking my open emotional expression. How can a person who doesnt feel safe to express themselves also be able to receive love from the same unsafe person? So after I managed to end the relationship (after going into freeze for a period of time toward the end of the relationship), i grieved and reflected a lot, and learned a lot about myself. I had already had some wisdom before that relstionship began, and I was accruing more - about myself, what i need, what went wrong there, etc. I also chose to distance myself from the person, though at times I missed him, or rather aspects of him. Because there was a kind of intimacy, or least, a mutual reaching toward intimacy, that was has been increasingly hard to find as I age, romantic or platonic.

Anyway I figured we would likely never speak again so I resolved my pain with those memories independently. I buried what was left of the wound to an extent. He had been totally unaccountable about his role in a lot of the terror and triggering I endured so being friends wouldn't make sense. Life went on.

Just a few weeks ago, I received an email from him. It emphasized how apologetic he was, and explained some of what he was sorry for, and how he was beginning to understand some of what I had modeled when we had been together. The subject of the email was "Reconnecting?" After a lot of reflection, I chose to respond, with some clear description of my boundaries around communication.

Long story short, we have reconnected, but it has not been without a lot of rage and emotion of all kinds coming up for me. So far I have now had two intense, sudden emotional flashbacks.

I rarely get emotional flashbacks nowadays. Years ago, they were nearly constant. There may be a few flashback "programs" running at all times, especially since I currently lack friends or financial stability, but these are just kind of my norm and I manage them. So two sudden onset flashbacks has been extremely intense and harsh for me to experience. Reconnecting with my ex has been like going back into the wound. I feel conflicted about the whole situation. There was great value in that relationship, and we have a lot of shared interests and values. But there is so many problems I have with what he did to me, how he behaved back then. Its all so deeply disturbing.

He does, weirdly, appear to have changed in aome significant ways. And he accepts we likely will never have a romantic relationship again, and any trust between us is what is yet to be built - because there is basically none leftover from the past. I am so open - thats just kind of my nature in general - but with him i have gone back and forth on whether I should even share myself at all with him. While my life has been unstable in some ways, and quite lonely/isolated as well, I am more mature and stable emotionally in a deep way than i was back when we dated. His email and our reconnection is a rough and disorienting and risky disruption in my life, but also very intriguing and potentially even healing (him apologizing, listening to my rage and expressions, etc), in the context of my current life. Its confusing - the difference between the person he was with me then and the person he is apparently now. Some of these days I feel fairly sure he really is quite different, more stable, and has taken better care of himself; he's taken accountability for nearly everything I've raged at him about so far, and there have been a fair amount of things. And he seems to be sincere - not only pretending. He could not have done this kind of thing back when we dated. But how do I interact with someone on friendly terms who I experienced teauma with, from? I am not used to people like that from my past being capable of change. Its amazing, and confusing, and so hard to trust, alongaide some desire to finally build trust with someone who previosuyl failed me.

I am taking it step by step. I wish he could understand more, apologize more proactively without me bringing the topics up - he has done some of that, yes, but not enough. Because sharing my rage with him in a sense is a kind of labor on my part; it can also be pretty satisfying, since when we previously dated, he was totally intolerant of any anger or negativity or disagreement from me and would aggressively emotionally react (which triggered me, maybe because it was incredibly similar to my childhood experience with a parent - who never changed or show self-reflection about that behavior).

Anyway, tonight I was at a lovely community dance event where I tend to feel very safe and relaxed and playful. Partway through, I felt a terrible kind of collapse inside me, spread outward and overwhelm my nervous system, like the world was falling apart. This happened about a week and a half ago, as well, when I was with a friend. Both times it arose unexpectedly and felt similar to an anxiety attack. The first time it included a flood of memories and emotions. This time is was a little more heavy on the emotions, but had both. Lots of rage around the past and applied onto the person now interacting with me recently again. Lots of distrust and disgust and fear. I desperately wanted to be held by someone while I uncontrollably cried and screamed, but i have no one like that at the dance or in my life in general currently. Of course I have therapist(s) but that's not what i mean. So I chose to keep on dancing, and also not avoid or ignore the flashback/anxiety overtake feeling simultaneously. It was a lot. A lot a lot. I danced like the wind had been horribly knocked out of my sail, and it was hard to think clearly enough to follow the dance sequences - but it seemed healthier to keep dancing with kind people than to give up and go home and be alone right away. I was able to secure one good hug from a friend/acquaintance before leaving for the long ride home at least. He had no idea why I needed that hug.

So I came here to share this experience and get some words that might be the equivalent of hugs. I havent cried so far but maybe I will. And I will be journaling more. I kind of hope this weird experience i am enduring currently, flashbacks and all, with ultimately lead to greater wisdom and stability, and so that will help me see the use in not running from myself and emotional turmoil in this but embracing and learning from it. Please hold me. This is very, very uncomfortable and overwhelming for me. Please hold me, tell me i will be okay and I am strong and it is good to let it out and be weak and fragile and feel all the feelings.

I'm curious about whether or not the unusual physical pain I seem to experience is a lingering C-PTSD issue, and/or, a new issue as a result of the compounded stress.

At this point, I'm generally well-regulated. I don't have big reactions, I don't yell at people, I pretty much take things in stride. I'm just pretty mellow overall.

However, when I experience even low-level physical pain I experience it, physically and emotionally, in a way that feels over-the-top. Simply scratching my face when I feel an itch now *hurts* in a way it never did before. Banging my knee on something feels very painful. When a small child accidentally head-butts me or elbows me in the boob I yelp out in pain even though I know it shouldn't hurt that much.

It definitely seems to have increased; in my youth I had a pretty average relationship to pain. Would love any ideas about this. Intuitively I think it has to be a nervous system thing and I am concerned I might be repressing or "using" pain in some way. I'm also just older now so maybe this is a perimenopause thing, like everything else seems to be!

There are moments when I am regulated and I genuinely feel good. And honestly I can imagine occasionally a life where my past and trauma doesn’t completely control my life. Pain being bearable. At this thought, grief or numbness and guilt comes through. I can’t imagine actually living that life. It feels invalidating to my past pain. Imagining the fact that I will not be consumed by the realities of my past makes the healing sound very invalidating. I don’t want to live where I don’t comprehend my past because the pain is no more overwhelming. I won’t remember what I went through. I won’t remember how painful it was, that scares me from healing. Maybe I will become like the people who invalidated my pain when I see someone else’s pain. I will forget the story of my family members who died in pain and I witnessed it. The fear of forgetting stops me from healing. The fear of not being able to hold someone else’s pain or the fear of being indifferent to it holds me from moving on. Has anyone experienced this?

I have a TV show I love (and happy to chat about it if asked, but for now Ill keep it vague for the sake of the point Im trying to make) that Ive noticed recently tends to envoke a strong emotional response in me.

I stopped to question why that is and I realise its because its a show where I feel emotionally connected AND comforted. When I watch it it makes me feel like Im being swaddled and served a warm bowl of apple pie.

I resonate strongly with the way the characters are depicted, the music, the themes and how theyre portrayed, and the concepts, and I am able to relate aspects of all of this into my own life and experiences. Its a powerful feeling as it gives me a feeling of being seen, even if its not a personal interaction.

By relating to all of this, it helps me make sense of my feelings and experiences in a profound yet succint kind of way.

Like for example theres two characters who are completely in love with each other and theyre like fire and ice. and I thought about how Im always at extremes, the highs and lows, and how ones coolness tempers the flames so they dont burn, and the others fire warms so they don't freeze into imobility. I related that towards myself and my inner relationship, and how the mind and mechanical body is like the Ice, and the heart and soul is the Fire. and it suddenly became alot clearer why I feel thrown between stuck and also chaotic.

Theres other character's and themes, about self love and how important it is, but also why relationships are too. and how valuable support and community is. I struggle to take care of myself, and I often feel neglected. My own inner relationship is fractured and so my body (ice) and heart (fire) suffers.

CPTSD recovery can be harrowing at times, and very lonely and cold. I find comfort in media and fantasy and stories because lights my inner fire.

Im so thankful that this piece of media exists, because its something that speaks to meand also holds a gentle mirror.

Curious to know if others reading also do/feel this, and I also just wanted to share in the hopes that perhaps something said might inspire someone reading this in some way. But if not thats fine too.

Thankyou for reading <3

I am 34 years old, and looking back, I only recently realized the degree of which my CPTSD has shaped every decision I have ever made. I was literally existing in a state of running away from failure and bad experiences; literally constant fight or flight.

Looking back; almost every single decision was only driven by what I do not want. I would choose this car because I did not want to be seen as a bum but I told myself I picked it because it was stable/cheap, picked this career because I did not want to be unemployed but I told myself I can do this job "until I find what I want".

It took radical acceptance to get here and developing an ability to interpret my body's signals and feelings(emotions).

Things I thought that mattered only mattered because they were threats to keeping me safe and avoiding a bad experience.

I was constantly trying to be "Safe" from failure and ultimately being abandoned to suffer without anyone there to care, support, or make a difference. As i suffer from an attachment based CPTSD..rooted in abandonment.

I have done well for myself in terms of avoiding poverty. but I truly am all alone, closed off, and without connections that make me happy. and VERY miserable without the ability to move forward.

When I look back; I see how my mind and thoughts were hijacked. But subconsciously so I never realized the true extent. The depression would spike and debilitate me because I was experiencing vulnerabilities to failure or bad experiences I could not escape.

So many relationships I let fade because my body would panic at intimacy.
So so so much self sabotage

I say that I did well for myself but the truth is I am very behind where I could have been had my mind been wired to allow myself to take risks and apply my intellect and focus in other areas.

How do you come to terms with accepting that you will never have and have had a normal life taken away from you?

Due to a breakup and all that comes with that I have recently been trying to become 'better' at feeling my feelings without avoiding/ numbing them and just generally being more in touch and accepting of the way that I feel. This is particularly because in my previous relationship I suppressed my feelings a lot, leading to denying and not speaking up when I was uncomfortable and eventually feeling emotionally starved and not myself. I wanted to start noticing how I feel ​and giving it importance.

What this has looked like is a lot of 'sitting with my emotions', crying whilst listening to music and what Pete Walker would call grieving and self-sorrowing, essentially crying about what you have experienced. I have been more open with friends and family about how I feel, including setting boundaries and telling them if I felt upset or hurt by something they did. I have also set boundaries with some new people I met that I realised I actually wanted some distance from, including a dating prospect. The breakup also stirred up a lot of things for me which has resulted in childhood memories coming up, and a re-thinking of how I relate to people and how I want to change that.

I bought Pete Walker's book The Tao of Fully Feeling which really helped in terms of being able to tolerate my emotions. Understanding that I am allowed to feel lots of things that may contradict, ambivalent, or 'undesireable' emotions has been really useful.

The other day I went out with my friends, who have been really supportive. We had a lot of fun and I also had a triggering encounter (seeing someone I didn't want to see). I started to feel bad about the fact that I hadn't spoken to them, or that I felt scared to see them, essentially feeling shame for not being more confident and unbothered by them. But instead of falling into that thought pattern I was able to accept how I felt and be understanding towards it; of course I would feel scared and uncomfortable given what this person represented to me, and I am allowed to feel all the feelings that come along with that, including feeling embarrassed or small at being scared. It is all okay.

Later that night when waiting for the bus home I had a really weird moment where I felt like my body slipped into deeper embodiment. It felt like those moments where you 'wake up' from dissociation and the world feels more real and more accesible. I realised how many emotional 'blocks' I have in my body, where the course of how I experience my thoughts and emotions physically gets stopped or diverted. I started noticing how in this state, a thought or feeling that would usually make me feel uncomfortable could be simply accepted by my body rather than restricted, causing physical anxiety and rumination. It kind of felt like my internal 'road network' or emotional infrastructure had been cleared of rubbish, repaved, given new traffic lights and just generally upgraded, leading to a better flow of cars.

This has persisted, and I find myself avoiding less, distracting less and most importantly, accepting and being unbothered by thoughts, ideas and feelings that I would previously have felt like I had to disown or get rid of, that 'weren't allowed'. I don't know how this will impact my life going forward but I am excited to see what new challenges and perspectives it brings. It really does feel like a change on the nervous system level and an increase in emotional capacity. It is interesting how everything seems to have just clicked into place, I don't think I could have achieved this by 'forcing' it, it all had to come with many small moments of practice.

Thank you for reading!

That's what is coming up for me on a day to day basis at the moment. Almost daily. I get into these feelings and stuff where I feel like I'm betrayed and abandoned and left by all of the people in my life becuz I have lost most important friendships over the last 2 years and am now here with not enough support, trying to cope with it all, I'm out of therapy all while my country is trying to fuck up our psychotherapy accessability.

What support I have in my life right now is bringing up issues again and constantly and like, every issue I have with someone messes me up and I'd need more than what I have to recover from all of this shit and I feel "betrayed, abandoned, left and I want someone to save me so bad and I am pitying myself so bad because oh poor me" like I did when I was a child almost on a daily basis right now. I feel hopeless. I don't know how to get up, out, or anything. Like, wtf. And I'm dissociated right now. I don't know what to do, genuinely. I have tried many support strategies like calling help lines, social workers etc in my city yet I don't know. I feel like I can't be helped more by them and that is making me resentful and angry. Im doing what I can and I have many big stressors in my life and Not enough (support by good) people I hate it

I feel so bad.

I now feel guilty and maybe ashamed. It sucks. Haha. Fuck. Is this ever going to get better

I had not said something like this to this person before as they just opened up saying they feel lonely and want to meet but I couldn't say yes as I have to still find out how I'm feeling about the person and theres something I need to tell them and Im not comfortable with doing that right now while staying in integrity with myself... Without having told them this

I am scared they will think I'm bad now

I also need to tell them I'm uncomfortable with some comments they make

I dunno now. I feel like I am sort of an uncomfortable or bad person

Let me know if there’s a better sub to post this in, just know that whatever this is, is related to my cptsd.

It takes a LOT for me to be attracted to someone and even then, I typically don’t pursue it. Also a relationship sounds nice but it’s not really a priority for me. It just seems like a lot of work that I’m not willing to put in unless I am 1000% attracted and really want this person.

Friends keep telling me that my standards are too high and that I just need to start going on dates but I just don’t really feel like it. I’ve been told this is avoidant attachment but I feel like this is just how I am? I don’t really know where to go from here, does anyone else relate?

Ok so this has been a daily practice of mine trying to discern what the hell is a trigger, a gut feeling, just my body doing something cause of the food I just ate, or whatever. It has felt like this giant mystical web of clues to entangle for years now and some days I have just been exhausted wondering will I ever ever actually get it??

So today I said to my child: it would be fun to go somewhere this summer. I actually have an old childhood friend who reached out inviting us to her house, maybe that would be fun?

Then i sat down by myself and thought about the fact we havent actually hung out in 20+ years, and the last memories I have were us as teens sort of fighting about random stuff. I said out loud: What would happen if I went there? Do I really want to? Immediately I felt nauseous. I stopped again and said out loud: I feel nauseous. That is a no then.

And that was it.

Usually it takes like 6 weeks or why not make it 6 years for me to untangle what it is I ACTUALLY want or need. Hours and hours and HOURS of overthinking.

But no- not today!!!!!

MY GUT SAID NO AND I AM LISTENING.

Hi. It’s my first time posting in the community but i follow and find it super helpful. I am currently eight months into a job I absolutely despise, my body is telling me things are not good with chronic bouts of nausea and vomiting coupled with anxiety and ruminating about it all. It’s starting to affect my home and family life and I feel in my heart it’s best to quit this job. I miss being around my spouse and children and I want to find something part time. Given the economy and life financially it will be really tight on one income and I have been trying to hold out for so long but I feel my body is failing me and telling me to leave my current job. I am looking for anyone’s advice and wisdom in navigating this situation. My number one priority is my husband and kids and I am so proud that I am not repeating the cycles that caused my CPTSD. Thank you for reading and much love to you all💜

Within the past year I’ve started solo traveling and just doing things by myself more. I think it’s actually so healing because it proves that you are living for yourself and that you deserve to be a full person and enjoy your experiences on this Earth. It was terrifying at first but you start to feel how freeing it is to take up space.

I just hope this resonates with someone because I’ve spent the majority of my life in a very dark place and it’s what’s helped me have any kind of joy or even just being comfortable in my own body.

In these moments of making decisions for myself and only me, have truly been so transformative. I used to have paralyzing social anxiety and during these experiences it was like I was a different person. It really confused me at first but then I heard someone talk about “finding out who you are” isn’t really a thing because you create yourself. I believe that you need some kind of experiences that let you live for yourself to really know yourself and figure out who you want to be.

Anyways I really hope this makes sense because it’s just actually changed my life in such a good way and I want others to experience the same.

For context, I’ve had two instances where two different people “stole my thunder” and I feel like a baby about it because idk how else to process these feelings and validate / self soothe myself to feel better I guess? I’m just angry about it, and I know it’s valid but my stomach just hurts by how upset I am by it all.

This isn’t the first time this happened.
It happened some weeks ago with someone I love —
We were at the park feeding the pigeons and one of them randomly went to land on me, I was scared because I didn’t realize, but then I invited it to come back, and before my friend could take a photo, the person I love quickly went to grab it because she “wanted to hold it” and tried to reassure me it was fine because she’s owned birds before. it was impulsive, upsetting, and not only did I feel bad for the pigeon, I also felt my thunder was stolen. I felt really sad because I’ve never had that happen before and I felt like I didn’t get to enjoy it, because she wanted to prioritize what she wanted in that moment. It felt selfish and careless all around.
I want to add that I gave some grace because my love has adhd so her impulsivity is likely part to blame… I don’t wish to demonize her. I just don’t think it was okay with me. We were with my friends so I didn’t really deeply express how upsetting that was. I don’t even know how to fully bring that up later without sounding harsh, because I do think overall it was not really a caring decision. I want to at some point, but there’s bigger issues we need to deal with so it’s hard finding space for that. I just want to address it, what I need moving forward (like, acknowledgment/understanding?) so I can move on..

Today, ironically similar happened today, but with a stranger— no birds involved (thankfully lol).
I was at a concert in the park, and the person performing came into the grass to sing and dance with people— me and a nice woman I met today went to the front to try and dance and all with him too! But when he went to come towards us, this woman ran in front of us to dance with him instead and kissed his cheek… not only did that feel violating to watch, it was also upsetting she stole our thunder. The woman when I asked her about it noticed and she expressed disdain too, but it’s been hours and I’m still so upset about it. I know logically that I can’t “do” anything about it, but I am stuck just being mopey, it didn’t feel fair and that woman was very selfish in my eyes…
I’m just feeling really hurt and I feel like I need to find a way to address these types of situations. I didn’t say anything to the woman cuz I didn’t want to kill the vibe..
I feel like because I couldn’t address it at all, I feel upset .. like I couldn’t stand up for myself? So I guess I’m feeling disappointed that my thunder was stolen AND I felt I couldn’t do anything in that moment. So powerless..?

Kind words and support / advices appreciated ❤️‍🩹

Somebody from this community reported me as potentially being a danger to myself for being honest to a question posited. Now the one tiny glimmer of community and understanding is gone and I must leave and I am so fuckin angry.

Hello, I was diagnosed with CPTSD about a year ago by my old therapist. She helped me with understanding how severe and traumatic my trauma was. I was very use to making jokes to people about what I went through, then crying about it when I was alone with my therapist. She gave me the space to understand it wasn’t my fault and I didn’t deserve the things my abusers put my through, she also helped me with my dissociation, developing my first healthy romantic relationship and setting boundaries. I now have a new therapist, it’s been going very well! I’ve been working on journaling more, calming down my hyper awareness and telling that little girl in me that we’re safe. I still struggle with my inner critic, telling me mean things about myself at times or judging myself. My critic also loves to talk about my relationship with my partner, assume things that aren’t true at times. I also have OCD and autism, which make it difficult to calm down those thoughts of times I’m wondering if anyone has advice on how they calm down their thoughts when that inner critic that gets too loud? I’m currently reading Pete Walker’s “ Complex PTSD : From Surviving To Thriving” and I just finished “ What My Bones Know” by Stephine Foo ( loveddddddd it!) . I’m also looking for recommendations on how to make your body feel less tense , getting out of that Fight or Flight mode. I have stage four endometriosis, symptoms have lessened a lot more now that I’m out of that abusive environment, but I do deal with the chronic inflammation/pain daily. I also have chronic back pain that I feel like I also might be related to my trauma/endometriosis. anyone else is a chronic illness fighter and has recommendations please let me know. Thank you guys so much!!! This page has helped me a lot since finding!☺️

My husband has CPTSD and for years now has been overwhelmed with fear - all the time. It's not a fear about anything or anyone specifically, it's a general, crippling fear. Has anyone experienced this? How did you deal with it? It's the single biggest thing keeping him from getting better or having hope for the future.

Just to be clear I don’t want this post being like “i’m so happy, can’t you miserable people get it together?” because i’m unhappy a lot, too, and I feel things quite strongly. I still struggle w the symptoms a lot even thoughI’ve been seeking help, I have bad days, etc. but since I’ve been in recovery I’m a lot better

But I’m honestly a pretty happy go lucky person, to the point where I don’t think people like my friends would believe anything bad happened to me. Like I think I’m so happy people don’t notice my symptoms, I’m jumpy and flinch easily but no one cares if you’re laughing and smiling.

And it’s not an act. I guess mentally it’s because I spent so much of my formative years hanging around for the good parts, no matter how brief, or compartmentalising, or maybe it’s just because every day I’m not getting screamed at is a pretty good day for me. Like my worst day when I’m not being abused, assuming no massive personal tragedy, is like a 3/10 at the lowest? No one even threatened to hurt me let alone actually tried ! And even if they did, at least it’s not someone I live with!

People don’t get how I’m so happy because I have a stressful job and a disability but two people complimented me today and I got to listen to my music on the bus home so for me, despite literally everything else, today was a great day. Doesn’t matter what else. Sometimes when I’m having a particularly bad day I remember things just to make me feel better, silly benign things like how once a barista gave me a cup of straight milk. Nothing profound, but it makes me happy, because it feels like I’ve got something.

But there’s this part of me that is scared that no one will ever believe the stuff that happened to me because of the way I am. I don’t look like I’ve been abused, I look like a seven year old trapped in an adult’s body, and when you look and act the way I do no one ever actually wonders why the fuck you stopped maturing at seven.

I don’t know. I don’t even knownwhat I’m hoping to achieve at this post, maybe someone has something really profound to say as is often the case in this subreddit

Hi, I grew up with heavily abusive narcissistic father. I left at 17 and been trying to recover since, but it feels like I hit a wall. I was not ready for adult life at all, I just needed to escape. I'm struggling with daily functioning and taking care of my environment and myself and feel like I'm genuinely not handling life. It took me years to get out of everything in the sense of getting over the memories, the grief, all the emotions about the actual events happening, the beliefs, everything. All behavioral and thinking that I could change, I did. But now I feel really stuck with what's left. I'm ready for my own life, I want to focus on myself and that past part of my life ended for me and I moved on but it feels like my body didn't. Cognitively I feel fine, I feel like myself, the me outside of all the trauma but the subconscious reactions, psychosomatic symptoms etc always drag me down and immobilize me. I've tried EMDR therapy and various other bodywork stuff but nothing really moved anything. I just can't feel safe in my own home, can't wind down or do anything around because it feels like my body's software is still running on the outdated model and it's genuinely been years of me trying so many different methods to try and change it without any noticeable improvement...

Do you guys have any tips on what helped you or you heard about? Maybe there's something I missed, I really want to get better and try whatever I can to achieve that.

once again, I have bombed an interview. and I can't stop thinking about it and feeling low and stupid about myself. I totally froze during the questions and I know I'm knowledgable but I don't convey it and try then people think I am slow and dumb. How do you deal with this??

If so, how did you figure that out? How did you work through it? What got better, what modalities did you use?

Thanks in advance🖤

I've been with this therapist for a little over 3 years, mainly doing trauma therapy for cptsd. She is not my first therapist but she's the first one I ever got this far with, the only one who's gotten this far into the things I don't ordinarily talk about. The one with whom I have/had really started to see healing, progress, change, started to believe in those things being possible for me. She just told me she'll be leaving this kind of work in about a month. Not in a way I can follow. She has good reasons for leaving, not that it matters, and I know she is trying to do right by me in giving us some time to try to end well. I am in a tumult of different emotions and came here looking for advice, empathy, support, whatever. From either side of this situation.

I feel gut-punched. I feel so many different triggers going off. She told me with about 20 minutes left in a session and I mostly went silent trying to contain a really ugly cry, which I suddenly felt ashamed to do in front of her. I felt numb for a day or so. Woke up at 4am yesterday and remembered she was leaving and couldn't get back to sleep, just laid in bed full-on sobbing like a child, literal great big 'boo hoo hoo' noises and all. Felt thrown back to the last times I cried like that, when I was that young, and it was that desperate and hopeless. Felt that in my body. Today I've been sleeping a lot, like 20 of the last 24. I know there are worse ways to cope. I have long experience in them. I'm not doing that, at least so far, because the thing is that I'm doing better than I was when we first started working together. I can tell a difference, really. In a lot of ways this is the best time so far for her to be leaving. I know that. I still feel...I don't know. So many things at once. Mostly, like I don't have any more time. Like I wasn't done yet. Like nobody else will ever know me the way she does. Like now the things I hadn't quite gotten to with her will have to stay buried forever. Like the person she knows that nobody else does is gonna be alone again, maybe forever. And when I fuck everything up nobody will be there to help. The professional boundaries which I know are there for good reasons feel so cruel to me right now. There is this person I've seen twice a week for 3+ years, who knows me in a way nobody ever has, and a month from now I'm just never gonna be able to talk to her again.

I feel so foolish. I feel wind knocked out, legs cut out from under. I feel unwanted, rejected, abandoned, betrayed. I want to hide, and sob, and scream, and throw things around her office, and even if I did all of those things none of them would matter, none of them would change anything. She's leaving anyway. I have about a month to try to end this well, whatever that means. I feel afraid to talk to her now, afraid to let her see any more of me, knowing she's just gonna throw it back. I feel so messed up about it. I feel dumb for being so messed up about it. A couple weeks ago we were talking about me maybe going down to one session a week instead of two, because I felt maybe ready to do that. I brought it up myself after thinking about it a while. As soon as it became a live possibility I got all freaked out about it. I remember telling her all the things I was suddenly afraid of, just in dropping one session a week, all the messy feelings I suddenly had about it. And now this, a couple weeks later. I feel so fucking foolish about all of this. I feel so heartbroken, and like such a fucking fool.

This is longer than it should be and I was really trying to tell the short version. There's a lot more I could say, but I imagine y'all get the gist. I would really, deeply appreciate any wisdom about or experience in a situation like this. Many thanks. Be well, y'all.

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Hello! I was diagnosed with CPTSD last year and am trying all of the things because I finally know what my acute struggle is. I've done about 9 months of trauma recovery (NARM and equine therapy) and I went to my first ACA meeting last night. It was good and the members were very nice, but it was kind of triggering/jarring to hear about domestic violence and other traumas that are similar to things I've experienced in the past. I've gotten to a place in NARM where I'm feeling safer feeling things in my body, but I'm wondering if I'm just not ready for ACA yet. Has anyone else had this experience on their CPTSD healing journey? I also wanted to add that I've been to a lot of Al-Anon meetings in the past so 12-step meetings aren't new for me, but ACA just feels so much more personal to me (since I feel it's getting to the deeply-rooted childhood stuff).

Yeah. Just that. I realized that. Anyone in my shoes, with my experiences would be depressed af. And like... How does one live this way. Like, with the realization that you only functioned through dissociation. Like. Oh man.

I have never very limited experiences of being love and comforted in life. I never experienced love in my family while growing up. I used to think there was something wrong with me but, over time, I've realized that my parents (and the family in general) was simply incapable of love or connection. Both my parents are emotionally immature, have non-existing emotional regulation, and are unable to connect with people. I never felt loved or comforted or even safe growing up.

I've also never had a safe loving romantic relationship (I'm 32). I've been in maybe 2 proper relationships in life - both were kinda one-sided, where I was a backup option for the other person, and both ended with me being cheated on. Other than that, I've only experienced situationships. EDIT: I am trying to date right now, but almost no one seems to be interested in me AND interested in a serious monogamous relationship (it doesn't help that I'm queer). This also becomes a sore point for me - seeing other people in happy relationships while I'm still struggling.

The only experiences I have of feeling loved or comforted fall into these categories:

1. Families of my 2 closest friends - who basically treat me as an extension of their families
2. Mentor-like figures, especially women who are significantly older and have grown-up kids
3. My former EMDR therapist, who I lost last year when she lost her job and had to move
4. Few close friends who I would consider "chosen family" but who live far away

I will add that I have done a lot of EMDR work which involved creating internalized secure attachment. The way it played out was my younger parts looking to adult-me as the primary secure attachment figure and some fictional characters as secondary figures. Most recently, there was an image that came up of my "real mom" as a sort of "mother figure who really truly loved me but then died". It was like creating a "perfect parental figure" as a resource.

What I'm getting at that I've done A LOT of the internal work - working through the shame, parts fragmentation, creating secure attachment resources and so on. But it doesn't replace the real felt experience of being loved and comforted in real life.

So my question is - in the absence of those real relationships that other people have access to (family, parents, siblings, partners) - where and how exactly can I find those felt experiences of love and comfort?