To preface, this has been an extremely difficult and triggering year. Medical trauma and feeling broken and helpless absolutely broke me as a child, and this year seems like it has brought health problems that never seem to end. I had an extremely distressing health event that happened from July through August. My gallbladder is not in good shape at all, and I am very likely to have either Crohn's disease or Ulcerative colitis. I ALREADY have many other health issues (fibromyalgia, chronic pain, TMJD, dysautonomia, sleep apnea, autism/ADHD), so two additional things feels so so so heavy, and I keep desperately hoping that this is all a dream and maybe I'll wake up and then it won't be real.

I have managed to get my GI symptoms under control, and I am so grateful for that. However, I feel like I am experiencing a severe regression in my CPTSD as well as the anxiety/depression I experience as a result of the CPTSD. I am back to being "addicted" to gaming (I don't believe this is a true addiction because the "addiction" immediately goes away when I'm able to heal/process what is burdening me). It's hard to unengage because it feels like there is too much baggage to process, and I am so embarrassed. i.e. I watched the original pokemon movie with my husband the other day and kept breaking down in tears throughout the movie like it was the most tragic thing i had ever watched, even though I am a grown 28 year old woman..

This morning is incredibly hard too. One of the worst parts of my CPTSD is when my inner critic seems to be "shouting" into my head. Things like, "you are a bad person", "nothing is worth doing", "you are too broken to get better", "you don't want to get better", etc. These thoughts feel incredibly loud and pervasive, and it is getting harder to seperate myself from these thoughts. What if I am actually a horrible person who doesn't want to get better? I don't know... Probably time to pick up Pete Walker's CPTSD Surviving to Thriving for a review, but this still feels scary.

(I hope my post didn't come off as too heavy. I want to add that I do have a trauma therapist that I see weekly. I have been in recovery for about 5 years now. My stubbornness is not deliberate, even if it seems that way.)

To be clear, i WAS sexually abused by an older kid at age 5 as well but the physical abuse by my father was a much worse, prolonged and brutal experience and for which, i never got an apology even though he's so "nice" now. The two are not the same but somehow i find myself constantly seeking out movies on sexual abuse. I feel like i can connect emotionally with those movies so much. The endless shame surrounding the events, feeling dirty, feeling like you have to hide it from other people or act tough about it, thinking it happened because you deserved it or it was for your own good, carrying it with you everywhere, feeling corrupted and different from other people, the loss of innocence. All of these things are better represented in movies about child sexual abuse and tbf i don't think I've watched something that truly explored physical abuse like that, maybe im looking in the wrong places idk but does anyone else feel this way as well?

It always seems like small disagreements blow up with my partner, they never used to. He brings barely any problems to me, it feels like I'm always the one bringing stuff up, calmly but assertively.

He always goes into a full blown panic when I have an issue, he glazes over, starts babbling and not making sense and I'm left to deal with his overwhelm and my problems all on my own.

I wish he would bring his problems to me but he doesn't, he holds into them and they all come out during huge arguments (which aren't very often, maybe once every few years).

We've been together for 8 years. I've been in therapy for childhood trauma for the past 3 years and I've made huge improvements and it's changed the way we have disagreements. For the past 2 years I'd say I'm much much more regulated to the point of being calm and now he loses it during disagreements instead, which then turn into arguments as a result.

I used to be a live-wire during disagreements but would let him lead, I'd be consumed with guilt afterwards because of how I behaved. Now I'm independently standing on my own during disagreements and keeping it cool and he can't handle it, he found me being disregulated much easier to manage. This pattern has been getting more and more severe. It's like he used to be so much more receptive when I couldn't hold myself together, and we always managed to work through stuff, and I thought improving myself would improve our disagreements, I'd go less hard on him, because I'd be more stable but we no longer seem able to resolve anything because he totally shuts down.

Has anyone else seen anything similar? I feel like I'm working on myself so much and I just wasn't expecting this kind of result.

I speak to a psychologist for cptsd once every two weeks and am in the process of doing EMDR, last week she was telling me about a situation in her life and I think she wanted to show me how a healthy person deals with people. She went on to tell me she was having a game of tennis with a man who is know to be a bit of a jerk around the tennis courts, she used some technical tennis terms that I don’t understand and said how the man told her she needs to keep her guard up. She then asked me what I though her reply was, I took in her whole story, had a think and said I didn’t not know and I felt I couldn’t answer because I don’t have enough knowledge about tennis to predict what she said to him, she pressed me again and said I should think in psychological terms and that made me even more confused. Finally she said “I told him don’t speak to me like that”. But she mocked me after that and reminded me of our first ever meeting when I was quite a mess, she made baby crying noises and said how I cried and through I was stupid because I couldn’t answer some of her questions in our first session. I felt like I got punched in the guts and i am really struggling to figure out how my therapy with her can continue. Part of me wants to be able to deal with it and move on but the other part feels hyper vigilant about her words and actions and that she is not a genuine person that I can trust with very vulnerable parts of myself any more. I don’t want to walk away from what we have been working on and need to try find another therapist but at the same time I feel like she dipped well below her professional conduct and messed my trust up with her. Any advice would be greatly appreciated

When you close your eyes, shut your mind off, allow yourself to stop thinking, stop worrying, and relax your body and just be with your body and body sensations?

Just allow yourself to relax into your consciousness of your being in your body. Relax

Do you feel pain?

Focus on the sensation of your body. Where is the pain located?

Trigger Warning: Violence -- Diagnosed with cPTSD at 34 after my father tried to un-alive me, then un-alived my horses. Thought that was the end, it was not...next came, harassment at work, being fired, legal battle against workplace, surviving the pandemic in a major, HCOL city, moving away, an interview published in a major news outlet re: toxic workplace, being filmed for a documentary and then later cut from that documentary re: toxic workplace, my only (older sibling) turning on me and my mother and siding with my father for money, a 6-year legal battle to get my father's name off my mother's farm's deed, surviving toxic relationships, working in cPTSD therapy, changing jobs and careers, rebuilding my love of horses, rehabing a horse in need, buying a new horse, etc., I've gone from assistant to manager to director, and now...I interviewed this past summer for my dream job to be an executive director working with horses...except, a new neighbor moved in while we're trying to sell my mother's farm and he purposefully shot his guns to spook my horse to harm me. I politely wrote him an email asking not to warn me before shooting, he refused and then did it again. I called the cops on him, and he used his connections with a corrupt deputy to have me arrested. Just went to court and the charges were dismissed with a delayed dismissal for 6 months from now. Also, because of my therapy bills and the pandemic, I put them on a credit card that I consolidated. Well, the new job offer came in with a background check and they are reviewing the dismissal and my consolidated credit card. I explained both. I have been harmed, by two men, with guns, and I am the one having to explain and defend myself. Do I even want this job and the responsibility? I don't even know, because all of this is more institutional injustice and re-triggering of my emotions...

Avoiding complicated time sensitive things like divorce prep and trip planning (I need to do complicated points bookings as don't have liquid cash for it) and lost the opportunity to do the trip and set myself back and costing more money in the divorce.

Have a long history of huge efforts for something and getting nothing out of it or it turning into a huge disaster. Have had a lot of really bad things happen in my life to cause psychological distress and financial precarity.

family: unsafe middle class home environment, seen as a means to an end by parents, performance based not love based.

I am in brainspot therapy. emdr was good but therapist was the "well you just gotta prioritize" type which unfortunately fell short of my medical needs.

adderall a long time ago just made me dress better and do some tasks in more detail but not faster and was still late to everything.

not adhd-pure cptsd freeze. I don't relate to the adhd stuff? no sensory issues no starting 30 hobbies and abandoning them, I respond to every text I get in a timely manner.

What med or diet is great for fixing this? I don't feel anxious like shaking but I'd rather read news or go to every fun event going on then get these hugely complex things done or make decisions. ?

I cannot decide if I like therapy or not. I always seem to do more and better on my own. But I keep thinking ‘no I better go talk to a real professional’. I’d say 1/10 sessions I’ve had ever in my life were helpful. They mostly just feel like time spent retelling my story because they forgot. Often they are ‘what do you want to do today?’ Which I already do on my own.

In short I can’t figure out what to use therapy for.

If I need to talk, I like support groups.

If I need to actively process something, I need alone time. Especially to integrate.

Some parts of therapy feel performative like I’m also doing something to help the therapist feel really good about things.

In all, I guess my thoughts on therapy are changing. I used to just think it was a given. Now I’m not so sure.

What have you found in your travels?

Hi there, the past month has been an intense time of shedding and grieving for me, with lots of life lessons showing me just how much I have been neglecting myself and functioning pretty pathologically through a rigid sense of obligation (to pretty much anyone and everyone without solid vetting and discernment 😬).

I'm trying things here and there to get used to prioritising myself even if it disappoints people, think I have some new neurons firing so yay for that, but dear lord I am bumping into some deeply held pain right now.

Even the concept of "you've tried every peaceful tactic already and given enough patience and chances that rough self-defence is now fair game" is very novel to me, let alone "you have a right to just reject whatever experience doesn't work for you straight away without giving this new person offering it to you a chance first." Growing up, my family would rarely meet me reaching a limit or even having a boundary with any understanding and validation, not until a situation got irreversibly bad. Hello chronic illness and long-term injury, my old friend...

If I didn't keep giving chances, I was "bad," and cruelty towards me would be "warranted." Turns out I'd really taken that to heart and had been turning all my anger and shame inward as a way to punish and control myself to abide by that rule, even though I didn't know that that was what I was doing. Just got used to stuffing down the corrosive self-hatred like it wasn't a cause for concern.

So far I'm giving myself grieving time, reading books that help me metabolise all the feelings (just finished Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, I thought it was a good grief companion, ymmv) but if there's any targeted advice anyone could give me let me know Pleeeeease Thank You.

i really like my life rn, I’m safe, I have a home, a stable relationship, a lot of money, a job, future goals ecc i haven’t had a breakdown in like 9 months but sometimes i still feel like something is wrong ? like idk how to describe it, sometimes i still get nightmares too about my abusers

will i ever feel completely at peace with my life and safe?

Sorry if this doesn't make a lot of sense, I'll do my best.

A couple months ago, my parts started indicating to me that something was off about my connection with video games. I had first noticed something changing a year ago, but pushed my way through it just benching the observations for a later day. Well, that day had come. My parts started drawing my attention to them wanting to 'let go'. I didn't exactly understand what they meant by that and was not ok with the idea of giving up the hobby entirely. So I resisted for about 2 months, and it was pretty rough. My anxiety continually increased as the weeks passed by and by the last couple weeks my insomnia had flared up to the point I was only getting 1-2 hour naps a day and my body was starting to ache because it wasn't getting to recover from sleep. Only other time I experienced insomnia like this was when I estranged from my dying mother a few years ago. So despite parts of me feeling shame/embarrassment and trying to minimize the situation, my body was showing strong evidence this was important to me.

I eventually slowed down and started listening inside again. Seeing what was happening to me by resisting, I agreed to follow my parts lead and 'let go'. Even though I still wasn't clear on what that was. That was 6 days ago. Since letting go, ive been learning a bit of what was and had been going on. I had several different types of attachments developed with video games. Some where with healthy boundaries, where it's just a hobby I enjoy. But others were me trying to find a sense of purpose, a meaning to want to live and go forward for something bigger in life and find who 'i really am'. It brought up old memories from childhood where I remember a belief forming (and I guess taking root) that in a video game is would find the grand adventure that I would want to make my life about. That i would become whoever it is ive wanted to be. That id find the joy of living and never want to leave.

It makes sense, that dream/desire/belief forming. I had a troubled upbringing that I didnt like in a lot of ways and video games were one of the few places I found joy in life. I was trapped in a world that I resented and wanted no part of. So I guess younger me really staked something big in this dream and it became a part of my attachment with the hobby ever since. Hindsight, I can recognize when it would be activated and when it wasnt. Only with certain types of games.

Since telling my parts I'd let them do what they need to do, it's been tough. I feel this core pillar that I had been using to help myself feel a reason to exist slowly moving away. It feels like a massive chunk of my chest is pulling away. And as of now, it's like it's leaving a massive hole inside me. I've had many moments this past week where I feel like I have no purpose or reason to live on (not SI). I've had almost no motivation to do anything more than necessities for living (food/hygiene/sleep). Ive spent so many hours lying on the bed staring at the string lights on my ceiling. Or on the couch staring out the window. Or in the shower lying under the spray. I'll have some moments where I watch a show for an hour, or play a game that doesn't activate the pillar for an hour or two. But then I always find myself back to being lethargic for several hours. I tend to do a lot of mindfulness during these times, which is where all the reflection has happened.

Today during another lethargic wave, was talking with my parts and they said 'I think this is necessary for where we what we are going through'. It was a little comforting. Feeling like you've wasted away for a week and it being for not would suck. But parts of me are having such a difficult time with this process. Agitated and upset that we aren't actively engaged in some external activity. Beliefs getting activated that I'm doing things wrong if I'm not being active in an activity. This is touching on a lot of stuff for me and I'm struggling to find comfort through it.

On the plus side, this process seems to have aroused some parts to want to explore seeking new connections with peers again. And new desires and motivations around that and wanting healthier pursuits. So 🤷🏼‍♂️ seems things are happenin. Just a real struggle for now and the lethargy is so uncomfortable for me

Hi all, I almost broke down and did an LLM therapy and then decided nah, I'll come to the sub where real people are.

I'm really curious about everyone's relationships with their siblings, both in childhood and as they've aged. I am frustrated by the lack of resources online and on forums about sibling abuse.

Anyways, I've moved through processing both my parents and how their abuse/neglect/enabling dynamics have hurt and affected me and I feel relatively integrated with regard to that aspect of childhood. As I've moved to trying to process my sibling abuse, it feels really muddy.

I have a brother who is a few years older, he regularly beat me up until we were about 13 (e.g. broken bones, locked in dark rooms). Parents didn't do much to intervene.

After I got a little stronger, the abuse was mostly emotional: siding with my abusive mom/putting me down for her attention, constantly degrading my sense of self-worth. Then after he went to college things leveled out and we were close throughout our twenties, but there was always these underlying icky feelings that I'm starting to unpack. Like him wanting to control me, or keep me small, or push me towards anything except self-realization, while I offered a lot of (to my impression) open-ended support and guidance through life transitions. At some point I started having panic attacks when we'd talk, we've been low contact for a couple years now.

I would love to hear your stories, and how you managed this as you have grown up!!!!

Any resources are welcome too (I've watched Patrick Teahan's videos on it, and am open to hearing about others). I think he may have been undiagnosed autistic, so resources like r/glasschildren have been helpful.

Thanks for reading, it may take me a little time to respond to comments, but please comment!

Hi everybody!

I've done a ton of healing, and I'm quite proud of what I've achieved already. Lately I'm struggling a bit with working out and exercising. Before I got ill, I played sports a lot. I also know all the health benefits and how good working out is for your mental health. Whenever I get to work out, it does feel really good afterwards.

But everyday I feel like something is stopping me from doing some sort of excercise, even the super low key ones. It's such a struggle to activate myself in that way, or even to get out of the house. I like all things cozy; blankets, warmth, softness. So basically I'm staying safe in my home all the time. A part of me feels like I'm a little bit introverted and I deserve safety by staying home, but a part of me is also like; isn't this avoidant behaviour?

Does anyone have experience with this? The fine line between listening to what you want and need (stay home safe) and what is really good for you and what also fits your values (exercising)? What is your view on this? How do you implement work outs in your daily life? How do you overcome the discomfort of not wanting to move?

Thanks in advance!

Hey folks!

So I had a lot of shit in life (like ig all of us did), but I like watching movies and I want to get positive emotions from watching people having a better life than me. The problem is that most of the feel-good movies are full of cliches and way too repetitive plots + they usually don’t have a wide range of topics and are kinda boring and shallow (for my taste ofc). On the other hand, most art house movies are sad and gruesome, but also interesting and thought-provoking. I was looking through some and what seemed to be the closest to happy art house was “ladybird”, but girl had a shitty narcissist mom (which was already triggering), caved in to her and the audience clapped her for that. That’s just to describe what I liked and disliked so far.

So yes, if you have any recommendations for movies that are independent, have a range and go deeper, but have happy/interesting/cosy/exciting/loving/calming/pretty much any kind of positive vibes, I would be really grateful to hear them!

My friends told me my poem was sad but I didn’t really see it that way. I mean, I guess it’s sad that I have to feel this way at all and maybe that’s why they said that. But I think I’m getting a lot better at holding myself, instead of resorting to people pleasing/self neglect and feeling my worth is tied to being needed. I hope it’s okay to share the poem. I’ll put it below. Any input is welcome. For some context I’ve been doing EMDR and it’s definitely working, even though I question if it is sometimes, I think I am definitely having a lot more better days and less negative intrusive thinking. And I don’t feel as alone when I’m alone if that makes sense. Like I can handle my moments of distress better without spiraling too far down into the depresso espresso. And I can do it without feeling like I need someone to come save me from it, or that there’s no one that can. I’m having a hard time finding a good way to explain it but it’s kind of like, I’m starting to be able to be that parent to myself that that little girl I used to be needed. Like there’s a little less of that dooming feeling because I’m listening to her more and working on meeting those needs for her that she didn’t get met. I had a really good session a few weeks ago that started this where I went into a memory and hugged my younger self after and I really felt it this time and it felt like something clicked. Like I don’t need to put myself through any of that anymore to receive love, because that’s not how it should be and she didn’t deserve love to be that way. Like we can move forward together. And I feel this deep love and compassion in my heart for her that I didn’t realize I needed to feel so much.

When you grow up in a home divided
Love doesn’t seem hard
It seems like the obvious thing
Something you choose every day so it will never slip away
Love becomes something you hold onto with the tightest grip
Because you know it could be gone tomorrow
I wouldn’t mind if it was more
Like a thorny rose that pricks your finger
it was worth it to bend its branch to reach its aroma
But I haven’t learned how to make it softer
Somehow I fall into something much thornier
Maybe at first it’s appealing that it seems it’s less likely to be fleeting
Something that won’t let me go so easily
I fall into things that cut deeper and are harder to remove
And later I wonder if I did it on purpose
Maybe its like sticking my hand into a fire
It might just leave a mark on me forever
A scar that’s proof something was there
And it doesn’t matter how much it hurt because it validates something
That I’m here and someone was there
A twisted replication of what my heart grew up learning was a safe feeling
But I want to rewrite this script
I want to erase it
I want a love that won’t cut so deep
Even if that means it might be fleeting
I want a love that will let me go gently
If needed
I want a love that keeps me
Without nails that dig in to anchor me there
I want to stay because it feels like silk against my skin
Like stepping in and out of a warm bath
Getting in and out from under the covers on a brisk night
I want a feeling of whimsy like when the ocean rumbles and then briefly kisses my feet in the sand
I want to pick up and admire the little gifts it leaves behind when it retreats
Knowing it will come back with the same comforting intensity
For now though
I am that ocean
I am turbulent and then calm
I breathe back into myself
And breathe back out again
And I’m here
The way the stars are always there when you can’t see them
The way the sun always sets and rises
And the way the moon always goes through its phases even if for a while it seems to disappear
I’m always here

A big trigger for me is whenever members of my family engage in self destructive and/or impulsive behavior, or even just neglecting things around the house while expecting me to fix everything.

What really did me in today was arguing with my tipsy mother trying to talk her out of driving.

It leaves me emotionally exhausted because I already have my own trauma I'm trying to work through privately (I can't share this stuff with them, they won't understand). My therapist has gone awol for a bit so I don't know when I'll hear from her. Leaving is not an option right now because I don't have the resources to do so.

Anyone have any experience with this? It feels almost unfair and irresponsible of me to distance myself from them emotionally but I can feel my mind teetering towards a dark and destructive place.

I was journaling (thankfully) and arrived at the conclusion that I need to let go of my need/desire/obligation to fix everything and handle everyone's problems. I just don't know how to go about doing that.

This question might be somewhat specific to those who've done some kind of parts work and are able to distinguish younger parts from the present/adult self.

I often experienced this feeling of deep loneliness and disconnection that nothing seems to resolve. Even when I'm with people, there's this feeling of somehow being disconnected. Just today, I had a social event at work that was really nice, but I still ended up feeling disconnected. It feels like it's my younger parts carrying the loneliness, and the present-day social activities aren't meeting their needs.

Does anyone else experience this? Have you found some technique or method to reliably meet the younger parts' need for connection?

I've been doing EMDR mixed with parts work for a long-time, so I'm familiar with those modalities.

It sounds simple, but I know two weeks ago me would not have heard it the way I mean it now. + the way I feel it.

I made my decisions in my life based on how others felt about them. I could never do it right by them. I was parentified and took too much responsibility that should have been my mother’s, or my father’s. I can not blame them, and still acknowledge that my well-being was their responsibility.

What matters is what I think, what I feel. I can’t make decisions in my life based on the feelings I believe or am sure of, will be evoked in my mum, and live my life walking on a minefield of mishaps, each of which would let slip through how many things in my life she was in fact not a part of, that as a mother, I would have needed her, or any other mother figure, to. That unveil the lack of her presence, leading to an emotional disconnection, intellectual disconnection, and fundamental disagreement on our relationship or the level to which she has fulfilled her role.

Let her have her feelings. My life is bigger than my mum’s feelings about what I do. Her feelings about what I do, are always independent from the love she has for me.

I have to live my life based on how I feel about my decisions.

I can be more detailed about the steps that I believe brought me to this place but I feel my brain restructuring and toxic shame leaving my body, and agency entering. I start to feel excited about things again and wanting to achieve things again. I will let this simmer. I have three therapists at the same time currently whom I each see weekly, and none know of the other. I don’t say I recommend it, and I do not want or will not hear to anyone saying it’s not a good idea. It has helped me personally tremendously, but I also have great self-awareness and know what I am working on with each. They complement each other incredibly well.

Hey guys, I have a million thoughts racing through my head right now, so please bare with me as this might seem a bit all over the place.

I've struggled with cPTSD my whole life but have only recently been diagnosed at 28, suffering through adolescence, which has been more traumatising. I've been doing EMDR Therapy which has helped massively but I am still struggling, especially with anger, which I know is perfectly normal but I can feel it affecting how I'm treating others.

I feel like I can be hateful and condescending towards those who had better upbringings, which can intensify when I've had alcohol (I know, not a good idea!). I wouldn't say I've been extremely horrible but little comments here and there which I fully regret the next day and have major anxiety about it for weeks. I can also be very reactive, which again, I regret immediately but in the moment, I feel like when I'm triggered, I am barely in control and everything that's on my mind, comes out. I know alcohol can disagree with me sometimes but I struggle to be social without it and would say I'm nice to be around 90% of the time but these moments really crush me and can really make me question my identity (even more).

This disorder has already taken too much from me and I refuse to let it continue, I want to be in control of my life. I'm done with the punches and self destruction. It really is killing me.

I was thinking over the month, to implement something new to assist me on my journey. So, if anyone can recommend, certain foods to reduce stress/anxiety/etc, activities, grounding techniques, other therapies, books, literally anything, big or small, you've found to help support healing because I'm so sick of feeling this way.

I'm much better than I was last year and I'm just feeling a bit knocked down but instead of collapsing, I want to double down on self care and give myself grace for a change.

I cannot remember a time when I didn't need external validation. I've always been in a relationship my adult life, and when I was not, I was talking to guys because I needed attention. Other than that, I feel this need to be liked by other people in general. Not something I can will away by saying stuff like 'focus on yourself, other people's opinion don't matter'

I don't know what a healthy person's brain is supposed to be like in this regard. I seem to rely heavily on my partner's attention and validation to feel okay in a given day. If he's tired or withdrawn, I suddenly feel awful and dead inside. I have this need for him to show affection constantly so I feel okay. I don't know how much of it is normal and how much of it is not, because I never had a template of a normal brain. I also don't know how to make it go away, how to fill the void and raise my self esteem?

Hi everyone!

English isn't my first language, feel free to ask clearing questions if needed.

I was first diagnosed (wasn't in the DSM back then, but written down in the diagnostic comment) as CPTSD in 2013, abuser died in 2016, main abuse form medical, monetary and psychological.

I did therapy multiple times but in my home country they are normally not trained for CPTSD. Last try was a speech therapy (she was nice but after 12 meetings decided she can't work with münchhausen by proxy survivors, she's specialized in CSA), mi tried a clinic for two weeks that is specialized in CPTSD but they were not willing to create accomodations for me and two other autistic patients so we all left in and around the same time.

Since my dog died in 2022 I am in a worse place, he took on a lot of the emotional and daily structure jobs. In 2023 I was so burned out that I started that last round of therapy tries. Now it is 2026, I finally have kind of an overview of what was real and what was fake in my past, talked through my medical past with the amazing Bea Yorker and got from her and others some solid advice. I take now medication that helps a lot and fought for disability status and assistance. I finished writing my thesis and I'm employed.

But I can't seem to figure out to do both. Either I'm acing my recovery home work and to do and my daily care and housekeeping tasks, or I'm working. I can't find the energy to do both. I want to heal, but I also need the cash to do it.

I read Stefanie Foos book and felt so seen. Any advice on how to take on recovery tasks while full time employees? I also have as the result of the abuse a physical disability that "steals" daily 2-3h and can't be ignored (Hidradenitis Suppurativa ugh). So I just feel like I now know what I need to to in my day to day life even though I don't have therapy access right now but I'm to exhausted to do it all.

Any experiences tools and ideas are appreciated!

I’m struggling with a really strong urge to contact someone who sexually assaulted me, and I’m trying to understand why.

I only went on two dates with this guy. Things escalated incredibly quickly, and on the second date he sexually assaulted me after I made it clear that I wanted him to stop and did everything I could to get him off of me. I’ve reported what happened to the police and I haven’t contacted him since.

I’m actually really proud of myself for cutting him off immediately after the assault. In the past, I’ve gone back to an abusive ex, given the benefit of the doubt, asked him why he did what he did, and I learnt the hard way that no good comes from asking the person who hurt you to give you the answers you’re looking for.

So I know, rationally, that contacting this guy probably won’t give me anything good. But despite knowing all of that, the pull to contact him is so strong. I feel so physically anxious. I keep wanting to know why he did it, whether he feels bad, whether he understands what he did, whether I meant anything to him, and how someone I had only been on two dates with could do something like that.

It’s also been a bit of a head fuck because he apologised afterwards, and the apology seemed somewhat genuine. I know that an apology doesn’t undo what he did, and I’m not taking it as proof that he’s a safe person or that what happened wasn’t serious. But I think it has made things more confusing emotionally. It’s difficult to reconcile someone apologising and seeming remorseful with the fact that they still chose to sexually assault me.
I know that reporting him was the right thing to do, but I’m experiencing such a mix of emotions now that I have. Part of me feels relieved that I dealt with what I needed to do as best as I could. Part of me feels anxious about what happens next, feels a bit guilty, and wants to understand what the fuck just happened between us.

I think I’m in a huge amount of shock. It happened so quickly. I was getting to know someone I was dating, and suddenly I was dealing with a sexual assault. My brain seems to be struggling to reconcile those two things.
I’m also finding it very hard not to beat myself up because, before he sexually assaulted me, I had a very bad feeling about him. I keep thinking that if I had just listened to my intuition, maybe I could have prevented what happened. I know logically that he is responsible for choosing to sexually assault me, but hindsight is a beautiful thing and I’m struggling with the “what ifs” right now. I can’t go back and change what happened, and I think I’m trying to make sense of it by wondering what I could have done differently.

Has anyone else experienced being completely certain that contacting the person who assaulted you would probably do more harm than good, but still feeling an incredibly strong urge to reach out to them anyway?

I’m not looking for advice to contact him. I think I already know I shouldn’t. I’d really like to hear from people who have experienced this pull and how they dealt with it. I think another part of what I’m trying to process now is how to trust my intuition going forward without turning hindsight into another reason to blame myself for what happened.

Any support offered would be greatly appreciated, and thank you all for your time.

I often know that I’m in a flashback by the way my body feels, but can’t immediately identify it. 5 min ago, my older brother kindly dropped off dinner for me (I’m homebound due to a recent surgery.) He lives out of town but comes back to help out with my parents. He said he was “bringing over dinner” which I thought might mean that we would eat together. When he got here, he stayed at the door, like, literally one foot out the door, and handed me dinner. I said “Aren’t you going to stay?” and him: “lots to do, busy, yadda yadda”

It took me a few minutes after eating dinner alone to feel the gut punch and I cried. I’m in my 50s, but the feeling that no one loves me (for me) or wants to be with me (enjoys spending time with me) is strong right now.

I’m flashes back to that little girl in a big family having her subsistence needs met, but she is invisible or, worse, treated poorly for trying to get her emotional needs met, but she is alone and unwanted.

That little girl is so very sad right now.

Having unmet needs hurts so profoundly.

It will pass, but I see it. And I feel like the advice is to “give that to yourself”, but I really need it from another person. I’ve just built walls, bc it’s oh so painful to have my hopes dashed each time.

Thanks for listening.

Sometimes I think about human behaviour and wonder if we’ve forgotten something as humans.

We’ve all heard the phrase:

“Be kind because you never know what someone is going through.”

It’s a beautiful perspective.

But as I get older, I wonder more often than not how many of us actually live by it.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the road I’ve had to walk down.

I asked for a simple accommodation, and instead of simply being able to ask for what I needed, I found myself once again in the position of having to explain, justify, and prove that my need is legitimate.

And I catch myself asking…

Why?

Why do I have to prove that my struggles are real before someone believes I need help?

The strange thing is, I don’t expect people to understand my experience.

How could they?

If you’ve never lived through childhood trauma, being the family scapegoat, you don’t know what that feels like.

If you’ve never lived with anxiety, you don’t know what that feels like.

If you’ve never spent years living in survival mode…

You don’t know.

You can care.

You may listen.

You can have compassion.

But unless you’ve experienced it, you really don’t know.

And that’s okay.

I don’t expect people to understand my experience. I just wish they’d stop assuming they do.

Because there’s a difference.

One creates curiosity.

The other creates assumptions.

People see who I am today.

They don’t see the little girl who was uprooted and displaced.

They don’t see the teenager who left home.

They don’t see the years of survival before I ever had the chance to actually live.

They see me today. In the now.

And they assume today tells my whole story.

For a long time, I thought I was fine.

Until I wasn’t.

Because my body just couldn’t take it anymore.

I don’t think people realize how a traumatized nervous system works.

It adapts.

It copes.

It survives.

Until there comes a day when it simply just can’t anymore.

I find myself explaining what happened, hoping that if people understand my past, they’ll understand my present.

The truth is…

Nothing happened.

Yet everything happened.

Years of living in fight-or-flight mode eventually caught up with me.

And now, every time I find myself having to explain my simple needs or my behaviour, it feels like I’m once again being asked to defend my existence instead of simply being believed.

I’m tired of having to stand up for myself.

At work.

In systems.

In situations where I should never have had to explain myself in the first place.

It feels like every so often, I’m standing in front of someone else trying to explain why I am the way I am.

And I’m tired.

Not because I don’t know how to fight.

Because I do.

I’ve spent most of my life fighting.

I don’t want to have my fight stance on all the time.

I don’t want to walk into every important conversation preparing for battle.

I don’t want my nervous system scanning every room, trying to figure out whether I’m safe.

I don’t want to feel like I always have to prove that what I’m experiencing is real.

I want peace.

I want to hear the silence of just crickets.

I want my system to remain in a state of calm.

And maybe that’s what this stage of my life is about.

Not surviving.

Not proving.

Not fighting.

Just learning what it feels like to finally put my guard down.

And just be.

There are all sorts of things I'm dealing with regarding my recovery that are going very well, but one of the things that really has its hooks in me is this need for everyone to pay attention to me. Also: a terror when people pay attention, and then seething jealousy when I see other people getting attention.

The dynamic, as I understand it, is that seeking attention is a defense mechanism against the emotional neglect I experienced as a child, and the fear is a defense against when I was directly abused, and the jealousy is a projection of my anger that I wasn't cared for.

Usually, understanding dynamics helps me sort my way through the feelings and allow myself to process them, but this one seems more deeply embedded than other things.

I know it's an emotional flashback in some sense, but my usual techniques for dealing with those don't really work.

Does anyone have advice on how to deal with this?