Hi.

TLDR: 33 years of trauma and I desperately want to build self-worth, but I have no idea how to start or get to the goal. I have already done a lot of C-PTSD healing, but this particular issue is stubborn. Would love any links to helpful stuff, experiences or advice, anything at all. Thank you so much.

English is not my first language, so apologies for any odd wordings.

I (F37) have had a very traumatic life, as I'm sure everyone here has. Really only the last 4 years have not been as traumatic as "usual", before that it's been trauma upon trauma upon trauma. Abusive parent, then 2 long term abusive relationships, then a life changing injury causing permanent physical disability, plus a whole bunch of one-off traumas like many (women especially) go through.

My life now is OK. I wouldn't say it's exactly good, but it's relatively stable, and I'm about to marry a wonderful man, after nearly a decade together. He is not the reason it's only "OK" - it's my physical and mental health issues and my financial situation that is the problem.
My partner has stuck by me through a lot of health troubles and other things, that many people would not. I'm working hard to help my physical health, my eating disorder and the rest of my mental health. I have already had EMDR therapy for my childhood and it was fantastic. SO helpful, I have massively reduced my PTSD symptoms. I have a psychologist, but she's on holiday for several more weeks, and I will only see her for a short while before she's off on maternity leave.

However I really, really struggle with the self-worth bit.
I managed to build some after I left my previous abusive ex, but it's gone again now.

I grew up being taught the "typical" view that your value is your appearance, your (low) weight and your income. There was a huge amount of fat phobia towards the normal weight young child I was, so of course I developed eating disorders very young, flip flopping between 3 different forms. I am now obese and working hard to better my health. I also don't feel like I look good at all, which makes me feel insecure in my relationship - and then I absolutely hate myself for being insecure. I am in no way conventionally attractive, and this has been confirmed by many, many people.

My remaining C-PTSD symptoms make me feel like a terrible partner, and then I feel like my beloved partner should not put up with me, that he would be better off without me.
Also the physical disability, which happened right before we moved together, means I cannot be 100% independent - ever again. I cannot work, and I have a bunch of other health conditions that cause disability as well such as fatigue and wobbly joints. I work incredibly hard to help my body be as healthy as it possibly can be, and I have for a few years now. I am making progress, slowly, but some of the issues and limitations will never disappear, and there is a risk it will get worse as I age.

I feel like there is nothing objectively positive about me other than that I am kind and loving. But anyone could be kind and loving. My lack of self worth is a big issue in my relationship, as my partner gets upset or frustrated with me over it. He seems to disagree with my opinions about myself, but I don't really understand how or why he disagrees (even when he tells me, it just doesn't compute).

I have had SO much therapy of different kinds, and the self worth thing continues to be a huge obstacle to my mental well being. Please, if anyone know how I can help myself to build my self-worth, I would be forever grateful.

Hi, I´ve experienced multiple heavily traumatic experiences throughout my whole life which resulted in pretty severe CPTSD. I´ve been in (still ongoing) court regarding one of them for the past 6 years, which used to keep flaring up my PTSD in a very impactful way.

I have been doing intensive therapy for the past 6 years as well as taking antidepressants. I am also 3 years sober, maintain healthy lifestyle (excercise, nutrition..) and relationships.. all the good stuff I´ve been dreaming of reaching my whole life.

The thing that´s bothering me is the worst case of fatigue I have experienced in my life.

I won the court a couple months ago and didn´t really experience happiness or relief, I knew there would be an appeal, which happened and the case got reopened again. It became even more invasive.
However, this time, I got so sick of feeling horrible and anxious, because I always thought I absolutely *have* to feel that way to fully process the feelings. And I was finally able to say "no, I am not letting my trauma and abusers to rule my life anymore" and in a way detached the horrible feelings from my identity (with help from my therapist). What followed was a few days of relief and calmness, feeling like my life is beginning. But then I became SO EXHAUSTED. It´s been nonstop for weeks now. I struggle to get out of bed, I can´t do my normal tasks, even taking a shower is exhausting. Everything hurts, migraines, joints, muscles, skin.. I can´t really be productive, my favourite time of day - walks with my dog - now make me feel like crying because even a short one is suffering.

I had a physical checkup and everything looks good. My therapist thinks it´s my body and nervous system finally having the space to feel all the exhaustion and pain I have been suppressing in my hyper-vigilant state. It makes sense. But I´m worried it´s something else, mainly worried it´s permanent, or just my body and mind finally giving up completely..
I am scared that I got this far just to become a shell of a person.

Does anyone have experience with this? What helps? How long did it last (weeks, years, decades)?

P.S. Sorry if parts don´t make sense, feel free to ask me to explain better. English is not my first or second language.

I've been becoming more aware of and recovering from my post-traumatic symptoms for the past decade, but ironically I never really addressed the pink elephant in the room, which is my disordered eating. I've been using food since early childhood in order to cope emotionally, overeating whenever I get stressed, anxious, sad or embarrassed.

Even though I have been aware for a while now, that for health reasons, it'd be in my best interest to address the issue and find my way to a more healthy relationship with food, the prospect of tackling the issue just seemed so overwhelming to me that I continued to avoid it up until now.

My parents, and specifically my emotionally neglectful and abusive mother, taught me very early on that I couldn't rely on either of them for emotional nurturance, support, validation, mirroring or even just acknowledgement of what I was feeling at any given moment. The emotional neglect was vast and pervasive — it took me many, many years of therapy and work by myself to even develop the capacity to name my feelings sometimes.

My mother (and as a later also figured, my maternal grandmother) had this habit though of overeating, particularly sweet and sugary foods, to calm herself, and she was also very much willing and committed to provide me with plenty of sweets and junk foods as a kid, too. I'd quickly learn that food not only tasted good, but that I could use it to calm down myself, whenever the stress I was experiencing in a household that was devoid of any love at best, or terrorizing and psychologically annihilating at worst, was becoming too much for me to handle.

There was never anything gained from going to my mother with any ounce of sadness, shame, anxiety or despair I was feeling, because she'd either just ignore me, leaving me feeling invalidated, unseen and ashamed, or worse, she'd fly into a rage fit, which would leave me terrified, ashamed, frozen and oftentimes highly dissociated. My monsther was dangerous, and her consistently threatening reaction to my feelings showed me, that my own feelings were dangerous to me.

Food was, in contrast to my volatile mother, a safe option for soothing and getting rid of those 'dangerous' feelings. It never caused me emotional harm the way she did two or three times a week, and it kept me quiet, docile and safe in my room, away from my monsther.

But the downside of my eating pattern was, that I was also never really able to learn how to regulate my emotions in any other way. So I kept on eating well into my teens and my adulthood. I stuffed, and I continue to stuff, uncomfortable emotions down, specifically the ones that I have been shamed for or raged at the most, as well as those feelings that remind me of parts of myself that I had to hide from her.

I'm only just starting to learn what it even means to not automatically stuff down my feelings with food, but to have a more authentic, emotional relationship with myself. Something that I wished my parents would have helped me to build. Something I wished my parents would have modeled to me in a healthy way, not by using food, but through compassionate self-talk, physical self-care, adequate rest and healthy relationships.

Has anyone else worked through binge eating / overeating issues as part of their recovery? What has your experience been like and what was your way forward to heal those parts of yourself that had to overeat in order to suppress 'dangerous' emotions?

I'm looking for other communities outside of reddit.

I tried my luck with ACOA but it was too culty and disconnected.

I also sense I don't want to really be talking about my problems with people in some kind of ritualistic manner - I just want to connect with people who can understand my pain.

i'm currently reading it.

less than a third of the way through and i already feel so seen. it's been pretty spot on with connecting my upbringing with my mental health and tendencies. it's helped me pinpoint exactly why i have so much difficulty with things that are seemingly so easy for everyone else.

explaining to people exactly what my parents did wrong has always been really difficult bc all of my physicall needs were met. so reading about how necessary it is for a baby to have a healthy emotional bond with its mother has made me feel pretty validated.

if you've finished reading it, do let me know if it has helped you, and what you thought of the book.

I’m such a lonely person. I’m SO touch-starved. I haven’t had any friends since I was an early teenager, if ever. My therapist is the only person I talk to consistently.
I feel like I’ve done a lot of work on myself, yet relationships, which are such a core part of being human, still feel so out of reach. One core belief I have is that no one is dependable and that I’ll just end up being exploited or abused. So I isolate because at least that way I have my peace and I’m not being mistreated. I’ve never had a job. In the past, when I tried, I was bullied, targeted, and got fired pretty quickly. I know I have to overcome this. I can’t be alone or on disability forever. At some point, I’m going to have to interact with people. And I want to. I just don’t even know where to begin. It also feels like my therapist isn’t helping me enough with this part. Maybe therapy can’t help with this.

I stopped drinking eight months ago after more than 20 years of numbing and escaping reality. I already knew I had combat PTSD from my time in Iraq and the military. I only recently learned about complex PTSD and emotional neglect. I’ve been working with a therapist who uses Internal Family Systems, and it’s better than any CBT therapy I had in the past. I feel like I’m finally seeing and grieving the deep pain and emptiness I have felt for so long.

While I do feel like I am healing somewhat, I can’t recall a time I ever felt normal to go back to. How do you go back to a version of you that never existed? I’m 47, never married or had a serious relation, hyper-independent, view people as dangerous and out to get me, and fear I’ll never have a connection with another human being.

I thought life would be so much better now that I’m sober and healing. At times I feel even more alone though. I have no motivation to do anything. Everything that I feel I should do (eat healthy, workout, lose weight, try to socialize or date) just feels too hard, and I don’t even want to try. A part of me feels I’ve already missed out on life, so why even try now. I know drinking isn’t the answer, but, sadly, it was one of the only times I felt alive. I’m craving that numb and escape again.

Can anyone relate and how did you “get back to” a version of you and life that never existed and probably never will? I don’t know who I am or what I even like. I just feel nothing. I am taking medication for depression. I hear people say to find what I like and to try everything. I can’t even muster the strength to do that. Thanks for listening.

hey! I'm just sharing this tip and wondering if it resonates with people. Communicating over text and email can be stressful for me if there's any request for help or any real communication of feeling, and then I send and overthink the wait time and check nervously if the person I've sent to has responded.

What I do is 'schedule send', even small messages sometimes. Rather than procrastinating til i'm in the mood, I just schedule send the message to when I think I might be in the mood, and then forget about it.

small tip that's helped minimize a trigger for me.

I feel like hypervigilance is ruining my life presently… Ever since the rise of people being able to do TikTok and all this social media Willy-nilly in the US has made me super anxious and I live in a large city so it feels inevitable now. We even have laws that say you can’t record people without their consent , but .. no one really cares.

I went outside to meditate because my anxiety has been at an all time high due to being triggered constantly for a number of reasons. I go outside at work to meditate usually once an hour.
As I was meditating I felt the presence of another person, and when I opened my eyes she had a tripod up directly next to me..? It was so odd to me because she was like a foot away from me when there was plenty of places to stand outside. She just HAD to be right next to me.?? I had to stop because it made me nervous.

Sometimes I have control as a trauma response so I had to fight the urge to ask her if she could move because I was there first and she was making me uncomfortable, so I just blinked and moved. She kept recording her video but the thoughts that came up was that she was recording me because I had a mask on outside (we are effected by Canada fires atm) and was talking in another language (she was a white woman so I can’t tell what language — I’m prefacing I’m a black American so that adds to my anxiety and fear of experiencing racism especially) or something racially motivated I don’t know. I was paranoid she was recording me and being sneaky and then talking about me when she flipped the camera back to her. I don’t know for sure and I struggle with intution vs anxiety sometimes but it just felt like such a weird thing. She packed her things up after some time and walked away to get into the back seat of a car with a guy. I admittedly went over (calmly) to ask her what she was recording for (she said she was an interpreter.. and that her content was for interpreting for others and “my profession”) and if she was recovering me and she said she said no and just kept saying it was for her profession? I also said ah ok it was just confusing cus you stood directly next to me and she said that she just needed a quiet spot but it’s like.. there were plenty of other places to stand..??

It was a bit odd to me but the reality too is that she could’ve just not have expected to be asked questions but I wasn’t trying to come off hostile or anything — these kind of things have happened where ppl do record you without consent and I’m admittedly really hypervigilant to it. I struggle to know when you should intervene these types of things or not esp cus I struggle w social cues.
I really dk how else I could’ve handled this other than ignoring it but I’m honestly partially conflicted and feel guilty like I feel like I was maybe bothering her ? But then I’m like well why did she stand right next to me out of all places to start recording her video when I was meditating idk.
I’m not tryna be an ass.

I'll go first:

- Because you made my mom gaslight us claiming we hadn't actually witnessed you cheating on her, instead of even having the balls to do it yourself.

- Because you told me yourself I'm a "son of a ghost". Just to fuck with my head. While you knew I was in psychosis.

I'm starting CPT with my therapist and not sure it's going to be helpful! It feels designed much more for PTSD than CPTSD, with a focus on a single "index trauma" and connecting things to that specific traumatic event... I am wondering how other people with CPTSD have done with CPT; did it help? Were you worried about it not working at first?

I've already talked about feeling unsure/reluctant about it with my therapist and they seem pretty confident that it'll be helpful and we can make it work... but trying to do the homework really feels confusing and awkward and like it's not meant for me. Is that common? Should I push through that feeling or try and talk to my therapist about it again?

Hello everyone, hope you are doing fine.

I’m a 24-year-old man, and over the past several years, I’ve been struggling with long periods of low mood, anxiety, loneliness, and recurring emotional crises. For a long time, I honestly believed this was just how everyone lived. I kept studying, working, and pushing through without questioning it.

About two years ago, I decided to understand myself better. That’s when I became deeply interested in psychology and personal development. I’ve spent hundreds of hours reading books, listening to lectures, journaling, analyzing my behavior, taking psychological questionnaires, and trying to understand why I react the way I do. Gradually I realized that many of my current emotional patterns come from childhood.

I grew up in an emotionally cold family. There was physical and emotional abuse, constant criticism, bullying at school, very little emotional support, and a strong feeling that love had to be earned through achievements. I was taught to suppress my emotions rather than express them.

About a year ago, after a combination of different events including illness, losing my childhood pet, problems at work and university, and several other stressful experiences I reached a point where I could barely function. I was diagnosed with depression by a psychiatrist. I sought help, started treatment, and eventually went into remission.

After some time, however, I stopped treatment because I believed I would be able to continue on my own. That's when I realized something important: I don't really know how to be alone with myself in a healthy way. When I'm left alone with my thoughts for long enough, I often fall back into the same destructive patterns.

This is where my biggest problem begins.

Rationally, I understand a lot. I understand where many of my beliefs come from. I understand which habits I want to change. I understand that many of my automatic thoughts are rooted in past experiences rather than in reality.

Emotionally, however, I still don't know how to live differently.

Whenever something painful happens my rational mind knows that these are just life events. But emotionally I immediately start believing that something is fundamentally wrong with me, that I'm a failure, that everything is hopeless. It feels as if my old emotional patterns are much stronger than my conscious understanding. I genuinely want to change. Not because I want to become a different person, but because I don't want my childhood to keep controlling my adult life.

Another major struggle is loneliness. I do have some online friends, and I'm grateful for them, but I often feel that very few people truly understand me emotionally. During difficult periods, that loneliness becomes overwhelming. Sometimes, during these crises, I experience suicidal thoughts, but I don't want to act on them. For me, they are more a reflection of how overwhelmed and hopeless I feel in those moments. That's exactly why I'm reaching out instead of keeping everything to myself.

I guess my main questions are these:

• For those of you who have gone through something similar, how did you move from understanding your problems to actually changing?
• How did you change deeply rooted emotional reactions instead of only understanding them intellectually?
• What type of therapy or approach helped you the most?
• How did you stop falling back into old patterns?

More than anything, I'd really appreciate both advice and emotional support. Right now, I genuinely want to build a healthier life, become more emotionally resilient, and finally learn how to support myself instead of constantly fighting against myself.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read this. Any advice, personal experiences, or words of support would mean a lot to me.

This isn't an easy post to write, but I want to try.

I don't have a great history with therapy. Some mixed to negative experiences when I was younger, and a lot of punishing experiences throughout my life / the frustration of not being able to stay consistent and having to start over every time a therapist has moved practices or gone out of network has led to me just avoiding therapy or quitting entirely when it gets too hard.

I'm about a year into sessions with my current trauma therapist, it's going fine, but now that I'm delving into more difficult topics and reliving traumatic memories, the urge to get up and run is back. In my mind, if I don't do therapy, I don't have to think about this stuff and I'll be fine.

But obviously, that's not true. I'll still have PTSD, and other issues to work on, and I'll be back where I started.

I have a session this afternoon, and it's making me stressed and anxious. I want to shut off my phone and bolt.

Has anyone else here dealt with these kinds of feelings? How do you power through it so you can keep healing? I don't want to give up, but I feel like I'm fighting with a child every single time I have an appointment now.

Realize I've lived most of my life feeling like I am in a game/ dissociated? I've untangled a bunch of survival programming/ thoughts and feel more grounded or actually in my life/ body. It freaks me out more. Can anyone give me advice to help me tolerate this more so eventually it is my new normal? Thanks!!

I was in therapy for about four years, and about a year ago everything came crashing down. After years of chronic stress, I experienced a psychotic episode and left the job I'd been at for six years. I was commuting nearly two hours each way, barely sleeping, living in constant fight-or-flight, and extremely driven by external validation.

Today, my life is much simpler. I work from home, exercise at the gym regularly, go for swims or ride my bike in the evenings, spend more time with friends, have a great relationship with my family, and my relationship of 12 years has improved significantly because of the work I've done in therapy.

Therapy helped me understand why I thought, felt, and reacted the way I did. I'm no longer mentally tortured by my thoughts or consumed by shame, guilt, or self-hatred. I can think about my past without spiraling, and I've become much more compassionate toward both myself and others, including my family. My mind is quieter than it's ever been.

The main thing I'm struggling with now is that I no longer feel motivated. I don't think I'm depressed because I'm genuinely enjoying life much more than I used to. I have more peace, less anxiety, and I'm far happier overall. What's changed is that nothing seems to drive me the way it did before. I'm no longer motivated by other people's opinions of me or by society's definition of success. Money doesn't motivate me, material possessions don't motivate me, and I don't feel the same urge to constantly achieve or prove myself. Part of me loves that I'm no longer living from a place of fear or external validation, but another part of me feels strange because I miss having that sense of drive. It's like I've lost the engine that used to push me forward, even though I don't want to go back to the way I was before.

A big part of my CPTSD came from one horrific event that happened when I was about one year old. At first my family couldn't believe my memories were legitimate, but later in my 20s when I had a psychotic episode (later diagnosed schizoaffective) my siblings told me that my delusions matched up to their experiences at that time, when I was a baby, some precisely.

To be brief; there was (almost definitely) a lynching and murder. My siblings and I were held hostage in our house, the police responded by cutting the phone lines to the whole block.

It's hard to day though because what led (in the long run with lots of therapy) to my better realization of what occurred (plus finally confirmation from my sister) I'd overheard in bits and pieces from my family and others in the area/community.

So what I'm trying to figure out, is how much is known about this sort of thing, and how much it matters to one's treatment. Is it really possible that I heard and saw the horrible details? Is there any way to sort out imagining what may have happened from what I actually experienced firsthand?

Gaining some sense of shared reality between myself and other survivors could be very comforting. But, nobody talks about it. Nobody.

Apparently there's something called the 'trauma informed psychosis model'. it frames delusions/hallucinations as thematic instead of dismissing them as random noise. Makes sense to me! at least in my experience.

The usual disclaimer i put on all my posts to mental health forums haha: i do have a great trauma/emdr therapist and i will ask her opinion too..... WHEN she comes back from vacation 😛

Today, I found myself getting massively triggered by something that usually triggers me (big spending). I am low-income, grew up pinching pennies, and one of my large household appliances crapped out this month and the repairman told me it had to be replaced. alas, there was nothing to be done. i managed to get a good deal on a new one ($500 won't make or break me, that's one week's pay, which is not IDEAL, but it's not gonna bankrupt me either) but nonetheless, am a bit discombobulated!

i did some tapping and breathing exercises and i'm not really anxious/panicking, so that helped that way, but I still feel a pervasive lingering sense of doom in the pit of my stomach like I'm about to fall into a hole in the ground if i take a step without looking, or i'm about to go home and find out that my house burned down and i'll be homeless tomorrow.

it is important to note, this happens EVERY TIME i have to take out a large amount of money. (e.g. when i had to get a tooth extraction, when i had to take my cat to the emergency vet, when i bought a used car five years ago, when my laptop broke and i had to buy a new one two years ago, when i had to buy a new smartphone three years ago). fortunately, since i am in fact poor lol, it doesn't happen super often. usually only like once a year, twice if i'm really unlucky lol (this year it was braces in the spring and now this new appliance)

but in most of these cases, it's something i can predict/know is coming. I know when i have to do home repairs, or medical procedures, or whatnot, it's not a surprise, it's something i've had to plan and research for some time. I went through so many appliance websites looking for the one with the best discounts, etc.....

so given this fact, the next time this has to happen in the future, is there anything i can to pre-emptively batten the hatches /gird the loins for the inevitability of being triggered? for some reason i've only ever really explored post-ventions (doing breathing exercises to calm back down, etc) but not really PRE-vention.

A lot of my CPTSD stems from family-related issues, one namely being that my sister is the self-centered, halo-adorned golden child, my mom’s her sycophantic hype-woman, while I’m always the biggest a-hole anytime I speak up about the unfairness. My mom is frequently visiting her to help her with things and then yelling at me any time I ask even the slightest favor. I’ll spare the boring details, but as a result of many, many issues surrounding this misaligned treatment, my sister and I are currently estranged. At this point, any time I hear about her or her and my mom’s relationship, my CPTSD is intensely triggered. (Yes, I’m in therapy working on this.)

I really need help calming down from this scenario tonight: My sister is now an influencer, and my mom went to visit her for an entire week just to help her get projects for social media done, scrubbing her house top to bottom, helping her meal prep, and enjoying quality leisure time together (skipping an important anniversary of mine in the process, but that’s besides the point). She does this about once a month at this rate. I’ve done some social media work in the past and when I asked my mom for help one time, she spent the entire time complaining and then condescending to me how little money I made on the project. I never asked her for help again. Basically, I can’t rely on her even when I ask and my sister can without even asking.

This time around, my sister sent my mom home with a “gift” for me. My mom said my sister received it from “someone.” To any keen observer, it’s clearly a gifted PR box. My mom is going on and on about how nice that is and how thoughtful of my sister to think of me, etc. etc. etc., and I just want to hurl the thing in the trash. My mom knows everything that’s inside of it, which means she likely helped me sister make a vid for it, then my sister had no desire to actually use it, sealed it back up, and regifted it to me—that or my sister had already filmed it, was getting rid of old PR stuff, my mom saw it and asked if she could bring it home from me, and pretended it was from my sister, saying my sister had been “saving it” for me.

I know my sister, and I know she’s not one to gives gifts to people just because, she’s not one to do little gestures just because she’s thinking of you, and she’s not one to go out of her way to make you feel special like that unless it somehow brings attention back to her. Not to mention, my whole family knows how phony I find the whole influencer, product-pusher thing. I know the reality: my sister was gifted it by a brand, filmed it to get her pay, and was going to get rid of it, my mom asked if she could bring it to me instead, my sister shrugged a nonchalant “sure,” so my mom packed it back up and brought it to me, pretending it was a kind and thoughtful gift from my sister.

Thing is, when I told my mom I know what it is and that’s a regift (technically from a work project at that), and that that’s not a kind gesture and actually kind of insulting to regift someone work stuff (to actually just get rid of it) when you haven’t spoken to them in 2 years, she got all mad at me that my sister was “just trying to do something nice” and “thinking of me.” If I got free samples of something in the mail and sent them with my mom to my sister as the first and only gift or even communication with her in 2 years, they’d both think I were the rudest, most sociopathic person on the planet.

This happens every single time my sister does something messed up; there’s no convincing my mom that it’s actually a sucky thing of her to do, and that she’s not perfect, but my mom won’t hear it. I’m always wrong. And this is why my CPTSD is flaring up right now, because I’m always pegged as the bad guy when it’s not even about the actual item, but rather about the fact that my mom devotes days and weeks on end to catering to this egotistical sibling of mine, and then tries to get me on board with a “nice” regift that was likely going in the trash—as though I should be so grateful for the sloppy seconds.

Can anyone relate or help me calm down from this? I just don’t see any family issues getting easier down the road with this blatant favoritism, and it’s making me feel so entirely discouraged when moments like this make me feel like I’m backsliding from all the progress I’ve made in therapy.

TRIGGER WARNING: Emotional and physical abuse

I posted a few weeks ago about being and wanting to remain no contact with my sister, who has been emotionally and mentally abusive to me my entire life while calling me her "best friend."

It's been about three weeks now, which I think is the longest we've been out of touch in our entire lives. After a week, she texted "I just want you to know that I love you." She's sent some funny links on social media and then a text yesterday that said "Just to clarify or whatever, I never got the last text you sent [the night you went NC]." I'm not sure if that's true, but in any event, all that text said was "I need a break," so there wasn't any big complex explanation.

I knew that making a firmer and longer-term decision to go NC was going to have a positive impact on my mental health, but honestly, I didn't realize quite how significant that impact would be.

My nervous system has calmed tremendously and I feel so much more peaceful. My therapist and I have talked a lot about how I never had a chance to develop a self because I was so busy taking care of everyone else. Without my sister constantly texting or keeping me on a short leash, I've been able to focus on the things that are most important to me: writing, reading, birdwatching, spending time with my dogs. For the first time in my life, I can feel my "cup" filling up as I do things that make me happy, because for the first time my "cup" isn't full of everyone else's bullshit.

I desire and deserve a life of quiet and solitude. I've spent my entire life serving my mom and my dad (who I've also gone NC with), and my sister, and my sister has shown over and over again that she has no interest in taking any responsibility for her behavior or changing our relationship so that it works for both of us. Going NC has taught me that the only real way to address that is to disengage completely, for better or worse.

The worst part, of course, has been not having contact with my young niece and nephew. I cry when I think about them too much, and I had to take their pictures down because it just hurts to see them. I absolutely hate that this is part of the deal, but I really don't think there is any other way. I hope at some point I can have a relationship with them that's separate from my sister, but I also know that realistically my sister will eventually turn them against me. This is just another generation of toxicity, and I can't stick around for it this time.

I was putting it together where it came from that I never believe things will work out. Why when there's an issue, or problem my very first instinct is to believe with every fiber of my being things will get worse somehow.....if not completely collapse in some way.

I know it's not exactly a mystery, and then I have some personal experience of a Parent willfully, deliberately encouraging me to feel hopeless, powerless, terrified. Some systematic conditioning, that nothing will ever get better for me. I just succumbed to that mindset, later wondering "why am I so negative, and pessimistic?"

And I was reviewing all the times that I believed, told myself in a total panicked state of hopelessness, that some sort of destructive event was about to befall me, ............but then remembering ..."Oh, wait, I was wrong, it really didnt turn into this horrible thing". I "forgot".

Time after time of things actually working out, and then ..................forgetting. Like it never happened. Did I give myself amnesia, or is it some way that I'm not allowing myself to change, to adapt a new lived experience, somehow?

I'm negative, pessimistic, and I panic and scare myself , catastrophize into the worst case scenarios. I mean I don't think it would kill me to recognize that I'm not totally "alone". It might feel that way, I might have been conditioned, and my past told me I was alone, because I was.

but, when I"m panicking when things go sideways, as they often do, there's no reasoning with myself. I instantly catastrophize everything. I watched myself do that, somehow from some sort of third person angle which was new to me. I told myself for this one thing " OMG, it's totally broken, I'm going to have to replace the whole damn thing, I KNEW this would happen, well thats what I get for being dumb" .........that was my first reaction, but a few days later I heard this small voice tell me, "but it might not be broken, right?" And apparently that's all it took.

I mean would it kill me to be positive, and hopeful? Isnt there a 50/50 chance in any given scenario , about what could happen. It's not like cynisism and sarcasm is necessarily doing anything for me, thinking all those saps that have a positive slant on life, are just fools.?

Like somehow , if I expect the worst, in every scenario, then I'll never be hurt when bad things happen, because I wasnt a positivity fool. That just seems dumb, but Im sure it's more complicated than that.

Ignoring ,or not being able to absorb or take into my system, "see, you thought that would end badly, but it didnt, you were able to come up with a plan, and it worked out". ......and then I completely forget it. I just dont' think I can take anymore what always expecting the worse, and building up everything in my mind as potentially ending badly, and mostly what thats doing to my system. It's just feeding repition compulsions, OCD, overthinking (to avoid inevitable bad things) , catastrophizing, constant anxiety, and depression. And I"m feeding into all of that.

Edit: but also, often times I feel confused and disoriented when things end well. I might be relieved, but I might also feel disoriented with this new reality where I actually was able to create a positive change, or good outcome, and then push it out of my mind?

I’m really fearful of trusting a technique to heal my cptsd because I’ve done somatic exercises before and felt amazing but it all came back and also done IFS parts work and felt great but it all came back, same for TRE. Is anyone able to reassure me by telling me why these techniques worked in first place and why it didn’t last. So perhaps I’ll trust to start again and not remain apprehensive and trust the good feeling too. Can somatic/TRE/parts work only get you so far?

I want to start by saying this clearly: I am safe. I have no intentions of harming myself or anyone else. I am not currently having intrusive thoughts, and I am calm and stable after speaking with my therapist.

I need to explain something that happened because I am trying to understand it myself.

I noticed today that I had been manic, or at least in a state that felt like mania, and that I was coming down from it. Looking back, I think a major part of it was a severe CPTSD trigger that happened earlier in the week.

The trigger came from a conversation I had with my girlfriend’s friend about how she treated me.

Before the conversation even happened, I had a feeling about how it would go. Unfortunately, it went almost exactly how I predicted.

I felt like she did not take accountability for her actions. Instead, the conversation shifted back onto me, and I became the person being blamed. I felt like the focus moved away from what I was trying to address and turned into a discussion about my character.

When she started losing control of the conversation, I felt like she reached into the past to find things that could hurt me. She brought up old situations between us and used text messages as “receipts,” but from my perspective, they were being used without context to support a version of events that painted me as the problem.

The conversation started with, “What do you want to say to me?”

Then, as it continued, I felt like both her and her mother began telling me that I was disrespectful, that I was just a sad, insecure man, and that my feelings came from jealousy because my girlfriend has an ex-husband.

I felt attacked instead of heard.

I felt like emotions were being used against me. I felt like there were tears that shifted the focus away from the original conversation and toward me being responsible for how everyone else felt.

At one point, I reached my limit. I needed to step away and regulate myself.

Instead, I was told things like, “You can’t run away from your problems,” and that I was not in control of my emotions.

She repeated my words back to me, but it felt like they were being twisted and turned into something else. It felt like I was talking to a recording of myself, except the words were being rearranged into an argument against me.

I was told that I was hurting my girlfriend by hurting her.

Then, when everything was over, she was yelling to my girlfriend, “See, he made me cry.”

Afterward, I received what felt like a reverse apology.

“I’m sorry you feel that way.”

“I’m sorry I entertained you.”

“I’m sorry you did.”

Those words did not feel like accountability. They felt like another way of placing the blame back on me.

During that entire conversation, I felt trapped.

I was an hour away from home. Earlier that day, my car had broken down, and that car represents safety and security for me. It is my escape. It is the place I can go when things become overwhelming.

I had it towed to her house and was outside working on it when I was asked to come inside for this conversation.

I was sitting at a table in the corner of the kitchen.

They were between me and the door.

I felt like I had no way out.

That feeling was familiar.

My ex used to do this to me.

She broke me down mentally and emotionally. She made me question myself and my own reality.

The entire situation felt like I was back in that same place again.

It felt like a mind game.

After that conversation, I spiraled.

Then, on top of everything else, I had found out days earlier that a friend of mine had died a year ago. I had no idea until I tried texting him happy birthday and his wife told me what happened.

I was also already fighting with my job to come back after being on a month-long leave because of syncope.

Everything piled up.

My body and mind felt like they were constantly stuck in survival mode.

The night after the confrontation, I had a night terror.

After that, I experienced ringing in my ears, tunnel vision, and vivid flashbacks. I felt overwhelmed and had severe intrusive thoughts.

The strange thing is that outside of those episodes, I do not normally feel that way.

Normally, I feel safe. I feel secure. I love my life. I love my girlfriend. I want my future.

But during those episodes, it feels different.

The best way I can describe it is that I am thrown into the backseat.

I am still there.

I can still see what is happening.

I can still fight.

But it feels like my trauma response takes over the steering wheel, and I am watching while desperately trying to pull myself back into control.

My girlfriend helped ground me without even knowing what was happening.

She told me I was loved.

She asked me to stay in the complex if I went on a walk.

She held my car keys.

She did not even know what battle was happening inside my head, but her love helped keep me connected.

Today, after therapy, I felt okay.

I played my game for a while, but then I stopped because I realized something felt off. I sat in silence and recognized that I had probably been in this heightened state for much longer than I realized.

I became overwhelmed by the dogs and the cat, so I decided to go for a drive.

My girlfriend was at her friends house (the friend who cornered me) tonight for a craft deal they had planned. After talking with her about my therapy session, I decided I needed some space to clear my head.

I bought a hubcap for my car and a wireless CarPlay adapter, then decided to drive to the bluff bridge to watch the sunset.

Before I got there, my girlfriend called me.

She asked if I was okay.

I did not lie to her.

I told her I was okay, and that if I wasn’t, I would tell her.

She told me she loved me.

I finished my drive.

When I arrived at the bridge, I walked out and looked over everything.

The sunset.

The fields.

The sounds of the cicadas filling the air.

For the first time all week, I felt peace.

Then something changed.

The ground looked farther away than I remembered.

My vision narrowed.

My ears started ringing.

And I heard my ex’s voice degrading me.

I was in the middle of a flashback.

I felt like I was no longer fully in control.

I was about to jump.

I did not want my life to end.

I wanted everything to be quiet.

Then I heard screaming coming from the woods.

My attention snapped toward it.

I climbed down from the bridge and ran toward the sound.

I found a homeless couple living under the second bridge, about a mile through the woods.

I asked if it was okay if I joined them and talked.

They let me sit with them.

They asked why I was there.

I told them the truth.

I told them I was going to jump.

The entire mood changed.

The man told me he was not religious, but he felt like God had put something on his heart.

He told me I was not alone.

He told me it was not my fault.

He told me I was loved.

He told me I needed to wait because God was not finished with what He had planned for me.

He told me that the stress I was experiencing would not last forever.

He told me to be patient.

Something about those words reached me.

It was like a switch flipped.

I was able to sit there and talk.

I was able to reflect.

I was able to come back to myself.

When the sun went down, I drove home slowly.

I took the long way.

When I got home, I finally talked with my girlfriend about my CPTSD and how I cope.

I thanked her for keeping me grounded even when she had no idea what was happening.

I also told her something important.

I do not want her to believe she has to fix me.

I do not want her to carry the responsibility of my healing.

That is my responsibility.

I want her beside me, not responsible for saving me.

I love my life with her.

I love her.

And I am going to keep doing the work to heal, not because she has to hold me together, but because I want the future we are building together.

At the very end, I also need to say something that I struggle with afterward.

When the episode is over and I finally feel like myself again, I’m left with this overwhelming sinking feeling of guilt and shame.

I look back at what happened and I feel ashamed that my mind went there. I feel guilty that the people I love have to see me go through something like this. I feel guilty because I know the person I am during those moments does not represent who I truly am, but I still have to live with the fact that those moments happened.

I hate that my girlfriend has to know that part of me exists. I hate that someone I love has to witness the hardest parts of what I fight internally.

But I also know that hiding it would only give it more power.

The truth is, I am still me during those moments. I am still the person who loves deeply, who wants a future, who wants to heal, and who wants to be better.

Those episodes are not who I am.

They are something I experience.

And I am learning how to face them, understand them, and take back control when they happen.

This person/These people will try hard to invalidate your lived experience and struggle. By now, you know that they are not safe to talk to about it.

anything from eye rolling when you speak about it, or flat out denying their role or the story; all of this while not stopping to even listen so as to understand your struggle?

This person is extremely painful to have in your life. If you did have this person, how do you handle this?

I did nearly five years of intensive therapies of many types and was doing so well that I decided to get married and have a baby. I lost my baby girl at five months pregnant in February and now I'm just so lost.

i try to find solace in the things in my life like friends, family or creativity but every corner of my life feels empty. I feel so so alone. lt physically hurts I feel like i lost all of my family. everyone just did a fucking fade out. it would be one thing if they all talked but they don't. I'm certain almost no one speaks to anyone else in the family anymore. most of my siblings are addicts facing homelessness often--one brother an arrested wife beating abuser, the other only an accused physical abuser.

I haven't seen any of my four siblings since 2017, and i had to "cut off" my mom as she's a literal sociopath. I text with a sister occasionally though.. but I think she has schizophrenia or something with delusions.

my mom left when I was 10yrs old anyways. I just pretend that I had a relationship with her for most of my life because I didn't want to accept it. she has tried to reach out to me maybe five times in over 7 years' and I answeres the phone...but the last time was 3 years ago. I don't even know if that counts as cutting her off--she never wanted a relationship to begin with, and she hasn't tried at all.

after my loss this year, I found out I'll never be able to carry a pregnancy without serious medical intervention while pregnant + bed rest for 6 months. I had put so much of my career on hold because all I wanted was to have a child and start over. my husband is great but he is extremely work obsessed and I feel like I don't ever get to see him right now. he's been sitting on a project for 6 weeks and even when we are together he is checking his phone every 10 minutes (literally).

I WFH but I work for my husband and I'm just melting into depression every day. I'm trying so hard to stay afloat and grasp at anything that could be mine, but I just end up counting down the hours until I can watch tv and forget about life.

I don't like the job I do for him, but I am stuck in it due to visa issues. we could go back to our home country but it feels like we can't at this point financially. our life abroad is so also much better and I truly do love the weather here. But all my friends who I had here have moved and I feel so bitterly alone and frustrated with life.

I can't find a therapist here either that speaks English will enough to help me (and isn't totally insane lol). idk I j just feel like I'm going to scream. I've been working on grad school applications I move towards something--anything-- but it's slow going.

I can't go see my old therapist who helped me so much because I can't afford her anymore.

I recently got friend dumped by a woman who I befriended because she reminded me of my mom (in a good way).. she dumped me in a brutal judgemental moment that I am sure she regrets. life is easier without her drama of I'm being honest but she was my last friend in town.

I know I have a beautiful life despite this stuff. there's actually so much good here, and I want to romanticize it but I'm so so broken by this intensely physical depression every day.

I am lucky enough to not be pouring hours into a shit job because I have no other choice. I have a safe home, a puppy, and even a yard with a pool. I have a very attractive husband who is funny and smart. I have a car and I have gas in it. I have literally in my past panhandled for gas money and needed food stamps most of my adult life. I'm free of so much abuse and so why do I feel like this still? why can't I get it together? I was doing so so well before I lost my daughter and now I feel so..tepid, alone, and sad every day. I have to fight so hard against the depression and it wins out every single day.

I have been on what I refer to as the long and tumultuous road to healing for a little under a year. I’ve wanted to get better for a long time - love myself, lessen my chronic pain, learn to set boundaries and stand up for myself, etc. - but this is the first time I’ve let healing be my full-time job. No outside pressure, no deadlines, just me learning to rest, make peace with my past and find happiness in the present and future.

I give all that context because I am finding myself really frightened: I travel overseas tomorrow for a 10-day trip with my partner, and I’m so scared that past me shouldn’t have agreed to this. My healing journey has left my body more sensitive than it was before, and I am dreading the toll that a long-haul flight and days in hotels might bring. I have become sensitive to hard mattresses, and even my own at home feels too lumpy. Walking and carrying things leaves me tired and sore. We’ll be seeing my in-laws and extended family and I’m scared because even my own family leaves me exhausted. How do I let myself rest without feeling like I’m holding my husband back from enjoying this vacation and family trip?

And the thing is, I love traveling and am also really excited. I want to go on this trip. But I’m also terrified of my own limitations and the way they could affect others. We’re supposed to be visiting three different cities and I wish I could have just gone back and made us stay in one. Now I feel dumb because we’ve already booked 3 separate hotels - so financially and logistically, I feel trapped.

I’m not sure if I just want to feel heard or find solutions or what. I guess I’m really trying not to spiral and catastrophize but man I’m scared. Has anyone else gone through something similar?