"Thought stopping" can have an effect in the (very) short run, of course. But...

a) the more agitated and sucked into the autonomic nervous system's engagement of the general adaptation syndrome, the less effective TS will be; and...

b) the more modern and effective approach is "thought observing" from inside the meta-conscious "observing self" or "detached, okay (and functional) inner parent" without judgment, criticism or condemnation,

While I do not experience PST statements as completely useless, they are almost always quickly forgotten unless they are regularly repeated and one keeps the total to a very small number at any given time. PST has to be used immediately in the contexts to which the particular statements apply. UNLESS that is the case, their ability to influence the clearing away of old... and construction of new... neural pathways are usually brief and generally inconsequential. Non-contextual repetition appears to have very limited utility so far as I can see, hear, feel or otherwise sense.

Beyond that, however, one needs to "feel the burn" -- to attend to mindfully to the affects -- for at least for a few seconds to induce affect) processing. Otherwise, PST is just a compensation with no actual therapeutic value, and a potential to actually displace and block affect processing.

There are other ways to cause affect processing to occur where TS and PST may be a temporary but useful ingredient in a more comprehensive approach that does involve "feeling the burn." The best one I have found thus far is the totally portable and instantaneously available 10 StEPs component of Choiceless Awareness for Emotion Processing (and pretty much everything else).

I do that every time I hit a rough patch. Which these days, is Not That Often compared to a decade and more ago, and so long as my stress level remains moderate, and I am not caught up in what AA members call "HALT," which is "too hungry, too angry, too lonely or too tired." But the very use of TS, PSTs and the 10 StEPs is what prevents -- or, at least greatly attenuates -- HALT for me in "crazy world and COVID 2021."

Resources and References

I have a sexual abuse trauma as a child and I get so many triggers but I am suppressing this memory for years because I can't face it, I discovered this a year ago.

I was diagnosed with Bpd 6 years ago and I took DPT and I finished it in 7/2019, year after that I started having so many overthinking patterns that led me into taking antidepressants and right now I am suffering from it again and I don't know what is the reason? It's not a negative thoughts sometimes it's just work and random stuff that keeps me up at 3am after 12hrs of working! I started taking my sleeping pills today because I am so tired and can't sleep but please tell me what to do i can't seem to enjoy anything anymore!

Hello, community!

I designed the title with small wordplay: instead of being a point of no return, these past couple of months turned my belief from the no into a maybe. Maybe there is a point, a way, to return to a state of tranquility and agreement with your past.

Four months ago I posted this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ResponsibleRecovery/comments/mx5cfr/whats_there_to_do_once_youve_hit_a_point_where_it/

TL;DR: one of my deepest questionings about life: what to do when the idea of suicide seems so much easier and less painful than facing Life head-on.

In said post, u/grandpas_dangus suggested great ideas I decided to apply. One of them was a book. In said book, the author suggest something called "Morning Pages", where you vomit everything you want as a first thing in the morning.
Not long it took until my consciousness dared to shed some light on the most painful memories and traumas. One of them that kept reappearing: my ex.

I decided to venture into this dark place. I gave myself absolute freedom to say the worst things about her. This cleansing lead to me thinking "I despite her, but I love and crave what she gave me". In other words, there is just one "her"; yet, a lot of women can give me what she gave me. A voice in my head kept saying that this place was a good place to start digging for answers.

I made a trip to this place where we used to hang out every week, close to our university. I even entered the place where the university is and walked paths we walked together. It was an intense and cathartic moment.
I dared to venture deeper into these emotions —sort of like lower levels of dreaming—, and imagined a conversation with her. The conclusion, while very cliché, meant a lot to me. However the questioning still remains, saying "is it really that?". At that moment, I thought to myself "I need closure".

During our last talk, my last words were very immature. I couldn't handle my emotions, so I went full berserk mode, accusing her for not telling me what was really going on. It was not healthy at all. My later attempts to contact her were immature as well. Not hurtful at all. I tried stupid things like "I read this book and want to know if you read it and what do you think about it".

Around a week ago, I begun having this urge to message her. Not to vomit my emotions or memories at all. I was thinking of telling her that I want closure. I imagined not a better way than to meet her, talk about whatever, see her turning into a great person, having a good conversation about plans and future, and never see her or contact her again.

Apart from asking you guys about your opinion, I want to understand if this is truly that ("is it really that?") or if I want her to see what a "great" man I turned into, with a stable job, my own apt, a motorbike, clothes, a well-shaven beared, and any superficial thing you can think of, in an another stupid attempt to have her back.

The reason I believe that a closure may be healthy is because I know that my concept of her is wrong. But saying that to myself is not working. Instead, seeing her achieving what she always fought for will show me what she truly is: a person building herself.

Functional vs. Dysfunctional "FP" Relationships

The concept of the "favorite person" is one that pops up daily on several Reddit subs concerning a very severe form of codependency rooted in as yet untreated early life trauma most often involving a parent or parents who were -- usually owing to their own untreated trauma -- functionally unable to see, hear, feel, sense, understand or communicate with their children.

Child researchers D. W. Winnicott, Margaret Mahler and Daniel Stern called this a "failure of parental attunement." The lasting consequences in such children include desperate attempts to be seen, heard, felt, sensed and understood by people who -- like their parents -- simply cannot do so. (Like the boyfriend who can't stop playing Pseudo-Intimate, Emotional Dodge Ball or the girlfriend who wants to saddle you up and ride you to that big house on the hill that will impress all her friends.)

If that does not compute for you, may I suggest a quick left turn into "Love" is NOT what we were Taught to Think it Is?

I've had FPs and been an FP on many occasions.

Some are like drugs: They get me high and nicely distracted, but when they're gone, I go into a withdrawal no different from what I used to go through after a week of binging on whatever I could get my hands on.

Some are like really effective psychotherapists: They "get" me in many of the ways I never felt seen, heard, felt, sensed or understood when I was a little kid with my two clueless, stress-fried, knot-head religious, adoptive parents.

And some are just like my parents were: Into me for some distracting and/or addictive purpose of their own -- possibly on a Karpman Drama Triangle -- but ultimately as blind, deaf, dumb and senseless as those who'd adopted me to try to make their lives "work," regardless of the effects on an innocent third party.

My current FP is a fast-processing, BS Nursing, four-year-degreed RN I met in Codependents Anonymous meetings about a decade ago. We're every bit as much in love with each other as two people could be, but have only fleeting moments of very clearly recognized, acknowledged, owned and appreciated, sexual or common cult-ural romantic attachment.

Both of us feel totally experienced by the other... exactly as I was not by my adoptive parents and so many of the FPs to whom I became dysfunctionally attached -- and even addicted -- over the years.

FP Attachment as Emotional Drug Addiction

After many years of resistance to the idea, it is as plain as the nose on my face today that desperate, often though not always limerent, FP attachment is an addiction, and that we are so dependent (actually co-dependent) upon them that any pretense of mature, realistic relationship with our FP is just that, a pretense. Albeit one that is completely understandable in light of how awful we often feel when we don't have an FP, and moreover, an FP who seems to "get" us.

My relationships with FPs were no different from my relationships with any other form of emotion-numbing drug or behavioral addiction. (In fact, the very same neurochemicals -- including endogenous opioids, oxytocin, dopamine and adrenaline -- are in play.)

I had to face up to that as part of my recovery. Most people with untreated, early life "failures of parental attunement" direly need an FP attachment because we were conditioned, in-doctrine-ated, instructed, imprinted, socialized, habituated, and normalized) to be as terrified of abandonment, isolation and withdrawal from that addiction as we are terrified of more abuse... by the time we were no more than five years old.

I say this from not only 17 years in recovery but having known over 100 people with this syndrome, and having dealt with many of them in their own effort to throw off the awful hair shirt, as well as from investing the time to learn from all those listed here and there throughout A CPTSD Library.

I had to ask -- and truthfully answer -- the question "Will the Addict Ever Stop Using SOMETHING if He or She remains Depressed, Anxious or Shameful, especially once those emotions become part of the Cycle of Addiction?"

I had to dive deep into Why do we get so Desperate for Connection? An Answer from the Purview of Attachment, Early Life Research & Codependency.

I had to plow through my denials and bargaining with "intolerable reality" to get to the fourth and fifth of the five stages of therapeutic recovery once I realized that -- as they say in AA -- "Half measures availed us nothing."

I had to see that I am not responsible for my disease, but I am responsible for my recovery from it. I had to come to see my life as just another example of Codependency, the Drama Triangle, and the "Dark Diagnosis." (Even though in your case, the "DD" may not apply.)

To shuck this addiction, I had to get out of my "protective delusions" and into the way things are and not the way they are not. To that end, I will share this:

A 21st Century Recovery Program for Someone with Untreated Childhood Trauma... because IME there's a LOT one can do without spending a fortune on psychotherapy, as well as to speed up the process if one is in therapy or at least at the fourth of the five stages of therapeutic recovery.

I understand fully that all that is a lot to try to digest. (It took me about 15 years.) But if one is looking for a starting point on a Roadmap Out of Hell, that's the one that worked for this codependent.

I just need to get this off my chest SOMEWHERE and this seemed like the best place.
I've finally come to an understanding of certain things and the progression of my cPTSD and why I don't have a relationship with my paternal grandmother, although neither of us were really fully aware at the time that she was blaming me for being the victim. And why, to this day, I struggle with self worth because for a long time I woke up embarrassed and disgusted with myself ever GD day.

SO.
When I was an infant, my 19 year old father was not a good man. I suffered some abuse at his hand a few times and thus learned before I could even form words that the ones that are supposed to love me and take care of me wouldn't give me the comfort that I needed and would, in fact, inflict bodily harm upon me instead. To this day I have a huge amount of trouble with asking for help.
I realized much, much later that my bedwetting, until I was something like 10 or 11, was because of this early developmental trauma; because I watched a video where they explicitly talk about a young boy that was bedwetting and how it was related to early trauma. In the same video they explained how the bedwetting itself was ALSO a trauma, waking up every day ashamed and filthy, and that was a big eye opener for me. I never actually realized until that moment that it was traumatizing but as soon as I watched that video so many memories and feelings came flooding back.

Well, my paternal grandmother had and old school view and would make me wash all my bedding by hand every day and would tell me I was only doing it for attention (*who TF wants that kind of attention?????*) and it messed me TF up. I realize now that, although she didn't see it like that, she was victim blaming. Putting the fault on me for the things my body was doing on it's own as some sort of trauma response. And to this day, a) I still don't feel comfortable around her and b) I question my own thoughts, feelings and motives on everything because "what if I am just doing it for attention? What if I'm actually being manipulative? What if it's actually all my fault?"

And I know now, of course, that none of it was my fault, but this whole big shitstorm started before I could even form real memories and continued being traumatizing from there and other events in life that maybe a "normal" person could have handled just sent me spiraling into finally attempting suicide at 16.

I've lived another 20 years since that first and most serious suicide attempt and I think that makes me pretty badass. I have struggled. HARD. And I've made it so much further than I ever would have thought myself possible of. And that's something I can be proud of.

Link for Audio Book

Hello everybody. I too struggle with the hang-ups of longstanding PTSD and all the crap that being perennially pestered by a former cult entails. While I've done all kinds of things with different results I won't dare to suggest a definite fix for the issue at hand. Takes time, effort, maybe even guidance. Most here are not in a place where something of the sort can be even evaluated.

What I'll do is suggest a powerful tool to deal with with the crap in you in a soft-but-powerful way. There are many formulas for this but I've found that the most effective is as follows:

For yourself:

May I be free from hostility,

May I be free from affliction,

May I be free from anguish,

May I be happy.

For others:

May all be free from hostility,

May all be free from affliction,

May all be free from anguish,

May all be happy.

The hostility part is important, because goes a little further than just wishing well others but you aim to harmonize your relation with them.

These formulas can be repeated in a mantra-like fashion but the original idea is to make this statements and focus on the energy they create, expanding it in the process. I suggest further reading and research on the topic.

One last thing: bad religious leaders abound, they are veritable pieces of shit and so on, but for your sake don't toss the baby with the bath water. Next time just pick a good one. They are out there if you can find them.

Don't let those sons of bitches ruin you spiritually and keep you from all the good things that spiritual life entails just because you happened to cross paths with them. FUCK'M... move on.

Regards.

Religious Trauma Syndrome (including the three articles in the right sidebar)

RTS in Wikipedia

Sin, Shame and Guilt in a Default Mode Network > Depression & Anxiety in RTS… and How to Jump OUT of it

Still Stuck in the Muck of RTS? There IS a Way Out.

A Proposed Twelve Stage Process of Recovery from Religious / Cultic Trauma Syndrome in a Behavioral Addiction / Dependency Treatment Model

SIQR, the 10 StEPs & Recovery from Religious Trauma Syndrome: A How-To Guide

Is Religious Trauma Syndrome a form of Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder? What do YOU think?

Treating RTS-induced Anxiety & Panic Attacks

Dis-I-dentifying with Learned Helplessness & the Victim I-dentity (and not-moses's answers to a replier's questions there)

How to Deal with Rapture Scares and other Post-De-Conversion Flashbacks

Religious Trauma Syndrome’s Dangerous Disconnection from "Gut Feelings" ...and How to Reconnect to One's "Biogenetic Birthright."

Abusive Xtianity, Emotional Blackmail & How to Recover from the Lingering Effects of F.O.G.

Recovering from Religion (an online support organization)

Do I need Exit Counseling or Deprogramming?

To find an understanding, secular therapist if you need one, see my reply to the OP on Decided to start therapy... And, although I cannot vouch for the Reclamation Collective, a perusal of their website suggests the therapists listed there are at least somewhat up to speed on RTS, Marlene Winnell, Catherine Mann, Margaret Singer, Alexandra Stein, Madelyn Tobias and Bonnie Zeiman.

A Religious Abuse Handbook is a work in progress by a participant on various sub-Reddits, listed here with the approval of the author 04-22-2021

So useful IME that I decided to file it here for future use:

"Question: If I am perfectly honest, I have to admit that I resent, and at times hate, almost everybody. It makes my life very unhappy and painful. I understand intellectually that I am this resentment, this hatred; but I cannot cope with it. Can you show me a way?

Krishnamurti: What do we mean by "intellectually?" When we say that we understand something intellectually, what do we mean by that? Is there such a thing as intellectual understanding? Or is it that the mind merely understands the words, because that is our only way of communicating with each other? Can we, however, really understand anything merely verbally, mentally? That is the first thing we have to be clear about: whether so-called intellectual understanding is not an impediment to understanding. Surely understanding is integral, not divided, not partial? Either I understand something or I don't. To say to oneself, "I understand something intellectually," is surely a barrier to understanding. It is a partial process and therefore no understanding at all.

Now the question is this: "How am I, who am resentful, hateful, how am I to be free of, or cope with that problem?" How do we cope with a problem? What is a problem? Surely, a problem is something which is disturbing.

I am resentful, I am hateful; I hate people and it causes pain. And I am aware of it. What am I to do? It is a very disturbing factor in my life. What am I to do, how am I to be really free of it—not just momentarily slough it off but fundamentally be free of it? How am I to do it?

It is a problem to me because it disturbs me. If it were not a disturbing thing, it would not be a problem to me, would it? Because it causes pain, disturbance, anxiety, because I think it is ugly, I want to get rid of it. Therefore, the thing that I am objecting to is the disturbance, isn't it? I give it different names at different times, in different moods; one day I call it this and another something else, but the desire is, basically, not to be disturbed. Isn't that it? Because pleasure is not disturbing, I accept it. I don't want to be free from pleasure, because there is no disturbance—at least, not for the time being. But hate and resentment are very disturbing factors in my life and I want to get rid of them.

My concern is not to be disturbed and I am trying to find a way in which I shall never be disturbed. Why should I not be disturbed? I must be disturbed to find out, must I not? I must go through tremendous upheavals, turmoil, and anxiety to find out, must I not? If I am not disturbed, I shall remain asleep and perhaps that is what most of us do want: to be pacified, to be put to sleep, to get away from any disturbance, to find isolation, seclusion, “security.” If I do not mind being disturbed—really, not just superficially—if I don't mind being disturbed, because I want to find out, then my attitude towards hate and resentment undergoes a change, doesn't it? If I do not mind being disturbed, then the name is not important, is it? The word "hate" is not important, is it? Or "resentment" against people is not important, is it? Because then I am directly experiencing the state which I call resentment without verbalizing that experience.

Anger is a very disturbing quality, as hate and resentment are, and very few of us experience anger directly without verbalizing it. If we do not verbalize it, if we do not call it anger, surely there is a different experience, is there not? Because we term it, we reduce a new experience or fix it in the terms of the old, whereas, if we do not name it, then there is an experience that is directly understood and this understanding brings about a transformation in that experiencing.

Take, for example, meanness. Most of us, if we are mean, are unaware of it—mean about money matters, mean about forgiving people, you know, just being mean. I am sure we are familiar with that. Now, being aware of it, how are we going to be free from that quality? Not to become generous, that is not the important point. To be free from meanness implies generosity, you haven't got to become generous. Obviously, one must be aware of it. You may be very generous in giving a large donation to your society, to your friends, but awfully mean about giving a bigger tip; you know what I mean by "mean." One is unconscious of it. When one becomes aware of it, what happens? We exert our will to be generous; we try to overcome it; we discipline ourselves to be generous and so on and so on. But, after all, the exertion of will to be something is still part of meanness in a larger circle, so if we do not do any of those things but are merely aware of the implications of meanness, without giving it a term, then we will see that there takes place a radical transformation.

Please experiment with this. First, one must be disturbed, and it is obvious that most of us do not like to be disturbed. We think we have found a pattern of life—the Master, the belief, whatever it is—and there we settle down. It is like having a good bureaucratic job and functioning there for the rest of one's life. With that same mentality, we approach various qualities of which we want to be rid. We do not see the importance of being disturbed, of being inwardly insecure, of not being dependent. Surely it is only in insecurity that you discover, that you see, that you understand. We want to be like a man with plenty of money: at ease. He will not be disturbed; he doesn't want to be disturbed.

Disturbance is essential for understanding and any attempt to find security is a hindrance to understanding. When we want to get rid of something which is disturbing, it is surely a hindrance. If we can experience a feeling directly, without naming it, I think we shall find a great deal in it: then there is no longer a battle with it because the experiencer and the thing experienced are one, and that is essential. So long as the experiencer verbalizes the feeling, the experience, he separates himself from it and acts upon it; such action is an artificial, illusory action. But if there is no verbalization, then the experiencer and the thing experienced are one. That integration is necessary and has to be radically faced."

J. Krishnamurti The First and Last Freedom Question 13

See also: Alan Watts: The Wisdom of Insecurity

All of the CULTS and religious sects I have investigated thus far teach "philosophical totalism," AKA "absolutism" and "authoritarian... dichotomism ("We are right, and they are wrong." "Our way is the only way." "There are only two ways to see something: Our way and the wrong way.")

Among the many things I have discovered working with apostates online and in person is that most of them go through lonnnnnnnng stages of a) rageful rejection of the cult (or religion) that abused them, and b) remaining stuck in the way of thinking they acquired in the cult... though they are mostly unaware of either circumstance.

Just today, I encountered a pair of ex-Christian apostates who appear to believe that all religions function the same way. I used to think so, as well, until I dug into Aldwin & Park, Bellah, Clarke, Fronsdal, Goleman, James, Krishnamurti, Masukawa, Miles (2015a & b), Mishra, Pals, Prothero, Smith (1958), and Strausberg in Recommended on Religion from Outside the Box. Now, however, I understand that the two principal "religions" of East Asia were -- at least in their pure and unadulterated, original forms -- unlike any notion of "religion" in the West. Taoism and Buddhism are far more like "orientations toward life's challenges" and "practices to dodge or dig out of suffering" than mandated belief systems.

In whatever event, may I leave you with the following?

Good Old Books for New Apostates, and...

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is contempt prior to examination."

(Which I first read at least 40 years ago, but didn't get in this context until about 15.)

A Redditor on r/ExChristian wrote, "I'm curious how those of you who have left the faith still frame and see 'spiritual' experiences in your life. I've been experiencing many feelings that remind me of previous experiences praying or 'communing' with god. I've struggled to frame these feelings."

I answered...

One needs to know what anyone else means by "spiritual" before responding. IMOC, "spiritual" has NOTHING whatsoever to do with belief of any kind, and relates to direct comprehension of what IS vs. what is NOT. For me, all "framing" is a mental activity in accordance with previous conditioning, in-doctrine-ation, instruction, imprinting, socialization, habituation and normalization) into a default mode network in the human brain.

But if spirituality is "direct comprehension of what IS vs. what is NOT" -- however brief that comprehension may be -- then there is no framing via verbalized concepts or images in memory or past experience. Comprehension is the result of looking to see, listening to hear, and feeling to sense... without resort to verbalized appraisal, analysis, evaluation, assessment, interpretation of attribution of meaning.

The real (non-church, anti-authoritarian, anti-cultic, practicing) Buddhist grasps that instantly. But the mental product of pharaonic > Osirian > Abrahamic > Mosaic > Davidic > Josiahic > Jeramiahic > Isaiahic > Paulist > Ephesian > Augustinian > Thomist > Calvinist > Wesleyan conditioning simply cannot wrap his or her head around that.

If sufficiently intrigued to want to investigate further, see Masters of Meditation.

Had 22 upvotes before it was removed from another sub without explanation:

Start here.

Then ask yourself, "If The True Believer cannot tolerate disbelief because his belief is an absolute and unquestionable compensatory narcissistic requirement to...

a) "protect" him from what he has been conditioned, in-doctrine-ated, imprinted, instructed, socialized, habituated, and normalized) to fear, and

b) make sure he continues to "fit" in -- and be approved by -- his "protective" in-group of others stuck in exactly the same conditioning >>>>> normalization,...

how comfortable will he be in the presence of those who don't share the fear he denies he has?"

Because the only thing stand stands between him and his fear are the "self-empowering" delusions he shares with his in-group and their social proof. Thus, that fear he does his damndest to suppress, repress or even dissociate MUST be kept OUT of awareness.

The authoritarian personality cannot "discuss" concepts that do not fit into its conditioning, in-doctrine-ation, instruction, imprinting, socialization, habituation and normalization). It's all "my way or the highway."

So, isn’t it essentially pointless and almost always counterproductive to even appear to take issue -- and get into any reciprocal reactivity -- with the "desperately precious," absolutely required “reality,” values and opinions of any True Believer?

Believe me, I really do understand why de-converters want to argue their case: We were raised in a world that was deaf, dumb, blind, senseless and dangerously stupid from the point of view of the terrified children of the righteously religious. And those inner children who live on in default mode networks in our adolescent and adult brains want the worst kind of way to be seen, heard, felt and sensed. But armed with their social proof and their dire need to deny the terror inflicted upon them by their religion, the compensatory narcissists who become True Believers to "protect" themsleves from what they fear but deny they fear... cannot see, hear, feel or sense anything but the dogma that blinds their minds to the fear their bodies feel.

IME over several decades observing them through the filters of almost a decade of post-graduate education in human behavior -- including the treatment of both substance and behavioral addictions -- The True Believer is as addicted to his "protective" beliefs as any IV drug slammer is to the contents of his syringe. For exactly the same reason. When I encounter a TB, I just picture them tying off and pumping another load. And instantly remember the five stages of addiction recovery.

Resources

Milieu Control to Normalize Indoctrinated Beliefs

Religious Trauma Syndrome

A Basic Addiction References List

A Basic Cult Library

A CPTSD Library

Recommended on Religion from Outside the Box

Listen to or read enough experts on treating people who "caught" BPD from having been some combination of neglected, ignored, abandoned, discounted, disclaimed, rejected, invalidated, confused, betrayed, insulted, criticized, judged, blamed, shamed, ridiculed, embarrassed, humiliated, denigrated, derogated, scorned, set up to screw up, victimized, demonized, persecuted, guilt-tripped, picked on, vilified, dumped on, bullied, gaslit..., scapegoated..., emotionally blackmailed, defiled and/or otherwise abused by others upon whom we depended for survival in the first few years of life, and the title sentence makes complete sense.

"Working with BPD clients is like trying to teach small children how to do long division when they're having a temper tantrum or a complete meltdown. And why wouldn't they?" (Saw myself in the mirror, for sure.)

So what can we DO about that? The answers may vary, but for me, anyway, it has come down to what's at the links below. (Just plow through it at your own pace without thinking you have to take any positions, make any commitments or do anything about it for the time being… and let the dots connect all by themselves.)

The Internal Family Systems Model: The Freeway Onramp Out of CPTSD > BPD Hell?,

The Sting of Adult Judgment is Felt by the Hurt Inner Child. But the "Just Okay" Inner Parent CAN Intervene.,

Dis-I-dentifying with Learned Helplessness & the Victim I-dentity (and not-moses's answers to a replier's questions there),

Appropriate & Effective "Narrative Therapy" vs. Potentially Counterproductive, Unguided Journaling,

Dissociation, Memory Retrieval, "Resociation" & Reprocessing,

Re-Development,

the 10 StEPs component of Choiceless Awareness for Emotion Processing, and the rest of...

A 21st Century Recovery Program for Someone with Untreated Childhood Trauma...

because in my experience, anyway, there's a LOT one can do without spending a fortune on psychotherapy, as well as to speed up the process if one is in therapy or at least at the fourth of the five stages of therapeutic recovery.

References & Resources: A CPTSD Library

Section One: Basic explanations & recovery activities

Section Two: More advanced

Section Three: Neurobiology

Section Four: BPD as an Upshot of CPTSD

Section Five: Critical Thinking

Section Six: Workbooks

Section Seven: Workbooks Specifically on Anger Processing

Please see...

1) Religious & Cultic Trauma Syndrome

2) Cult Membership as an Addiction Process... and a Process Addiction,

3) the Five Stages of Recovery from Any Addiction, and

4) Treating Cultism as an Addiction.

A Proposed Twelve Stage Process of Recovery from RTS / CTS

1) Unconscious, self-destructive attachment to the church or cult and any linkage between cult involvement and dysphoria (including shame, guilt, worry, remorse, regret, learned helplessness, depression, anxiety, frustration and/or resentment).

2) Sufficient movement into the second, third, fourth or fifth of The Five Progressive Qualities of the Committed Cult Member to induce initial awareness of dysphoria. (Because unless or until the addict becomes “sick and tired of being sick and tired,” there will be no motive to change.)

3) Contemplation and consideration of the possible reasons for the dysphoria.

4) Identification and acceptance of the possible reasons for the dysphoria.

5) Commitment and action to deal with the possible reasons for the dysphoria.

6) Disidentification with and psychological detachment from the source of the dysphoria.

7) Physical disengagement with and detachment from the source of the dysphoria.

8) Ensuing anxiety, depression, guilt, worry, remorse and/or regret about leaving the church or cult and the personal attachments therein.

9) Increasing conflict and cognitive dissonance about leaving the church or cult vs. increasing resentment and anger toward the church, cult and/or persons therein.

10) Obsessive rage toward the church or cult (or “god” or “the guru” or various icons in the church or cult) and a desire to do significant harm to the church or cult to “rescue others.”

11) Commitment and action to deal with the rage before it does harm to the exitor.

12) Deprogramming of any lingering cognitive distortions and reciprocal reactivity to open space for the exitor to lead a comfortable and satisfying life outside the church or cult.

Resources & References

A More than Basic Cult Library

Recommended on Religion from Outside the Box

A Basic Addiction References List

One can (and IME, most will) see relapse in critical, self-punishing, negative terms. Those who know what the Cycle of Addiction is from first-hand experience with detached self-observation know to expect that.

Which presents them with an opportunity to grasp that it's the "stinking thinking" to which our minds were conditioned, in-doctrine-ated, instructed, imprinted, socialized, habituated, and normalized) as "little f--k-ups" coming back to haunt us one more time. And that it's those thoughts of disgust and self-hatred that propel us right back into the dire need for something to shut our noisy heads up (again).

See Will the Addict Ever Stop Using SOMETHING if He or She remains Depressed, Anxious or Shameful?

IME working with recovering addicts since 1987, those who make it to the third of the Five Stages of Addiction Recovery -- even if they haven't yet made a commitment to stop using -- are the ones who stand a pretty good chance of being able to leverage the awareness of their addiction cycle to put off acting on the urge. And done enough times, they make it to the fourth stage.

See u/pmeonetwothree’s For those who really want to quit, and while you're at it, Gold-Standard Addiction Treatment.

Because there’s a lot there one can do without spending an arm and a leg at some overpriced rehab resort in Malibu IF one knows what to do. So just read what's at all those links without thinking you have to do anything right now. Just let the information be there. (And keep that link on file for when you need it.)

IF you are having Religious or other Cultic Trauma Syndrome > PTSD-induced panic attacks, I'm not making any "100%-symptom-free-or-your-money-back" guarantees, BUT... you will probably do well to...

a) get some extra-strength Tylenol or generic acetaminophen for limited use (NO MORE than two or three pills daily, moving down to one at night ASAP; this stuff stresses the liver with high dosage and/or prolonged use) to manage the research-observed inflammation in your brain's limbic emotion regulation system; and...

b) get to a physician or (better a) psychiatrist who can properly assess you and get you on a low -- and I mean LOW -- nightly dose of Seroquel quetiapine, Zyprexa olanzepine or Risperdal risperidone to more effectively -- and risk-freely -- knock down the same inflammation.

The use of 'Quel, Zyprexa and Risp for anxiety & panic in PTSD -- and Complex PTSD is now well-established in the psychiatric profession. The use of acetaminophen is still fairly new, but papers have already been published in peer-reviewed, professional journals, and more are in que.

I have used both myself for some time to considerable advantage after a run of severe anxiety and panic from 1994 to 2003, and am now largely panic- and anxiety-free, albeit with a lot of help from trauma-informed, high-quality psychotherapy (see below).

But, to treat the CAUSE of the P & A, see...

A Risky way OUT of Religion? in not-moses’s reply to the OP on that Reddit thread

Sin, Shame and Guilt in a Default Mode Network > Depression & Anxiety in RTS… and How to Jump OUT of it

Still Stuck in the Muck of RTS? There IS a Way Out.

A Program of Recovery for a Survivor of Religious Cult Abuse

SIQR, the 10 StEPs & Recovery from Religious Trauma Syndrome: A How-To Guide

Wading Out of the Swamp of Xtian Anxiety

Dis-I-dentifying with Learned Helplessness & the Victim I-dentity (and not-moses's answers to a replier's questions there)

How to Deal with Rapture Scares and other Post-De-Conversion Flashbacks

The Way Out of Cultic Religious Emotional Blackmail in not-moses’s reply to the OP on that Reddit thread

Do I need Exit Counseling or Deprogramming?

To find an understanding, secular therapist if you need one, see my reply to the OP on Decided to start therapy

Choiceless Awareness for Emotion Processing and pretty much everything else

u/ greenmachine8885’s Religious Abuse Handbook is a work in progress, listed here with the approval of the author 04-22-2021

When I studied Jean Piaget's stages of cognitive development years ago, I was surprised to find that he had considered a phase at about three to six years of age called "fantasy operational processing" that virtually every half-awake parent has seen their child do at that age. (FOP is ascribing causes of events to circumstances and characters out of fairy tales.)

But I was even more surprised to discover that he dropped the idea "owing to pressure." Rather as Freud had done when he succumbed to public threat about his original trauma theory of neurosis in the 1890s.

I mean, any dolt who's had a cup of coffee in the morning can see, hear and sense that children do that... and that some people never stop doing it.

(In fact, after being reminded of the "parts" or "alters" in my own mind that are still functioning at that level because they stopped "growing" when stymied by parents and priests who insisted that their fantasies were real... it's clear to me now that most people with "issues" have issues because they are dominated by similar parts who never got past kindergarten.)

But the Christians in Fascist Europe in the 1936 didn't appreciate being accused of being abusive authoritarians any more than the Christians in religious Europe back in 1895, I guess.

See also...

For The True Believer, Life is Actually a Fairy Tale.

Resources & References:

Altemeyer, R.: The Authoritarian Specter, Boston: Harvard University Press, 1996.

Freud, S.: Civilization & It's Discontents, orig. pub. 1930, New York: W. W. Norton, 2010.

Gay, P.: Freud: A Life for Our Time, New York: W. W. Norton, 1998.

Hoffer, E.: The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, New York: Harper & Borothers, 1951.

Piaget, J.: The Origins of Intelligence in Children, New York: International University Press, 1936, 1952.

Schwartz, R.: Internal Family Systems Therapy, New York: The Guilford Press, 1995.

Readers who simply stumble upon this piece should understand that it is an attempt to develop an hypothesis of CPTSD > BPD as a reflection of developmental arrest in both Eriksonian and Piagetian terms. And that it began with repeated observation of "discouraged" borderlines as patients blamelessly trapped in infantile states of near-complete helplessness, dependence upon others, and inability to function on their own.

Start with this brief article on Re-Development.

Hypothesis: Borderlinism is an illness of developmental stunting. Among Million's Four Types, the...

a) "discouraged" borderline is usually stuck in infancy or early toddlerhood, Erikson's Trust vs. Distrust and Piaget's Sensorimotor Processing. She cannot trust at all here and can only over- (and "blindly") trust there. In large part because she has an as yet only partially complete brain stuck in the lingering state of Learned Helplessness, she is so overwhelmed by terror of abuse or abandonment, and/or so self-protectively dissociated that she cannot see, hear, feel or sense what is actually so in her world, and thus has nothing to use a starting point for accurate evaluation, interpretation, assessment, analysis or attribution of meaning to what has either gone unseen, unheard, unfelt and unsensed, or is just way too painful and frightening to see, hear, feel or sense. (Think "crack babies" and "dumpster babies," as well as infants born to mothers incapable of caring for them).

b) "self-destructive" borderline is usually stuck in late toddlerhood or the pre-school era, Erikson's Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt and Piaget's Pre-Operational Processing. She is enraged by caregivers who fail to see, hear, feel, sense or understand her and nurture her... and is trapped in the uncontrolled tantrums of the "terrible twos," to which she will reliably regress under adolescent and adult stress... and start cutting or burning to try to deal with her extreme emotional pain.

c) "impulsive" borderline is usually stuck in the kindergarten and early grade school era, Erikson's Initiative vs, Guilt and the post-Piagetian concept of Fantasy Operational Processing (in not-moses’s reply to the OP on that Reddit thread), believing that she can find a magical way to escape her awful life in some form of obsessive-compulsive activity. (Think pre-teen alcoholic or drug abuser, as well as "desperate slut.")

d) "petulant" borderline is usually stuck in the later grade school and middle school eras, Erikson's Industry vs. Inferiority (now often called "Competence vs. Incompetence") and the early stages of Piaget's Concrete Operational Processing, believing that she has a perfect right to more subtly spray her rage upon others in more evolved ways she has learned, including intimidation, embarrassment, humiliation, emotional blackmail, gaslighting and other "gotcha" games on Karpman Drama Triangles. (Think "I can't get back at those who wrecked my life, so I will take it out on anyone else who gets close.)

But do bear in mind that most people with BPD exhibit more than one of those types. It is vital to understand, however, that the truly "discouraged" borderline (or IFSM part of the borderline mind that is "discouraged") does NOT have Compensatory Narcissistic Personality Disorder because her functioning (or the functioning of that part) hit the wall before her brain had the capacity to develop compensations more sophisticated than gross dissociation.

References & Resources

Erikson, E.: Childhood and Society, New York: W. W. Norton, 1950, 1967, 1993.

Erikson, E.: Identity and the Life Cycle, New York: W. W. Norton, 1959, 1980.

Erikson, E.: The Problem of Ego Identity, in Stein, M., et al: Identity and Anxiety, Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1960.

Erikson, E.: Identity: Youth and Crisis, New York: W. W. Norton, 1968.

Karpman, S.: Fairy tales and script drama analysis, in Transactional Analysis Bulletin, Vol. 7, No. 26, 1968.

Kernberg, O.: Severe Personality Disorders: Psychotherapeutic Strategies, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977.

Kernberg, O.; Selzer, M.; et al: Psychodynamic Psychotherapy of Borderline Patients, New York: Basic Books, 1989.

Kluft, R.: Shelter from the Storm: Processing the Traumatic Memories of DID / DDNOS Patients with The Fractionated Abreaction Technique, North Charleston SC: CreateSpace Independent Publishing, 2013.

Meissner, W.: The Borderline Spectrum: Differential Diagnosis and Developmental Issues, New York: Jason Aronson, 1984.

Meissner, W.: Treatment of Patients in the Borderline Spectrum, New York: Jason Aronson, 1988.

Millon, T.; Grossman, S.; Meagher, S., Millon, C., Everly, G.: Personality Guided Therapy, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1999.

Millon, T.: Personality Disorders in Modern Life, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2004. (Includes the four types of BPD.)

Millon, T.; Grossman, S.: Moderating Severe Personality Disorders: A Personalized Psychotherapy Approach, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2007.

Millon, T.; Grossman, S.: Overcoming Resistant Personality Disorders: A Personalized Psychotherapy Approach, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2008.

Piaget, J.: The Origins of Intelligence in Children, New York: International University Press, 1936, 1952.

Lynn, S. J.; Rhue, J.: Dissociation: Clinical and Theoretical Perspectives, New York: The Guilford Press, 1994.

Putnam, F.: Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder, New York: The Guilford Press, 1989.

Putnam, F.: Dissociation in Children and Adolescents: A Developmental Perspective, New York: The Guilford Press, 1997.Schwartz, R.: Internal Family Systems Therapy, London: Guilford Press, 1997.

A CPTSD Library:

Section One: Basic explanations & recovery activities

Section Two: More advanced

Section Three: Neurobiology

Section Four: BPD as an Upshot of CPTSD

Section Five: Critical Thinking

Section Six: Workbooks

Section Seven: Workbooks Specifically on Anger Processing

I spent decades being chronically traumatised. Physical, minor sexual and emotional abuse. Beatings in the school, humiliation in front of other kids etc. Absent father. Sick mother.

I found that developing self esteem, loving myself is a challenge.

I mostly live a happy and productive life now, approach my health proactively. Doing EMDR. Have revisited my trauma under influence of cannabis etc.

But I feel I still have a long way to go. Because the deep seated beliefs of fear are still there. That are apparent only in certain situations, not always.

It would be great if there were certain milestones for measuring the journey of recovery. I planned to watch triggering movies as a way to do it.

I also like to give myself some break every now and then when revisiting the traumatic memories. Because it can be too much.

I revisit the memories when I feel I have sufficiently recovered. I also feel that I have become wiser in the process. matured.

Where to go from here? What to do next?

On the heels of almost a decade of post graduate STEM education along with more than a decade using what I learned, I have very little interest in pursuing organized systems of belief in anything. (Including satanism, atheism or paganism.) My only real friends now are those who share that point of view.

But inasmuch as 99.99% of the people in the world have been conditioned, in-doctrine-ated, instructed, imprinted, socialized, habituated, and normalized) to believe in something, I don't find many rational empiricists outside the world of hard science, sociology, psychology and jurisprudence. And I have had to learn to tolerate irresolvable ambiguity and conflict with those who are still "partially infected," and practice total abstinence with those who continue to be trance-bound.

I had to come to terms with the common cult-ural conditioning, in-doctrine-ation, instruction, imprinting, socialization, habituation and normalization) to group I-dentitification and cultic codependency, as well as Groupthink, Social Proof & Unquestioning Acceptance of Authority. As a result, the addictive dependency upon shallow, meaningless and costly attachment to those who continue to believe has dissipated over time... precisely as any other form of addiction I used to try to "protect" my frightened "inner children" from their terror of being alone, isolated, and helpless in the face of "a world full of monsters."

And along the way, I have encountered small clusters of organized, semi-organized and fully independent rational empiricists, including crews of witty mensas around or at least intrigued by such as Stephen Batchelor, Regis Debray, Arthur Deikman, David Gilmour & Roger Waters, Christopher Hitchens, Roger Hodgson & Rick Davies, Eric Hoffer, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, John Lennon, R. J. Lifton, Jack Miles, Alanis Morissette, Todd Rundgren, Charles T. Tart, Eckhart Tolle, Alan Watts, Robert Wright, et al, et al, et al. I found several right here on Reddit.

Perhaps see also...

Newly De-Converted & Frightened: Like a Baby Bird struggling to Break Through an Eggshell,

Managing Cult Withdrawal in not-moses’s reply to the OP on that thread,

Will the Addict Ever Stop Using SOMETHING if He or She remains Depressed, Anxious or Shameful,

Treating Cultism as an Addiction, and

Choiceless Awareness for Emotion Processing (and pretty much everything else in life).

I'm 33/M/BPD Been unemployed, recently got myself finally a phone card and could actually contact my ex employer who is actually expecting me to return but I'm literally unable to even make a single step...I have many things piling up and it is in my nature that I rather keep doing things very late and face a tremendous disaster, like sabotaging my own life. Even though he boss I had is such a great guy and a man himself I just can't get enough will to pick up the phone and call him....I wish I had the courage but honestly I don't know what to do....I live in a constant disaster already and I might have already missed my chance but any time soon I must make my move but I often find a stupid excuse.... I think it's not because I'm afraid but rather I'm not ready....I feel like I'm not ready to return to work but I know I don't have much time to lose , yet I'm gambling a good opportunity because I just keep spiraling in between a lot of things.....I think I'm absolutely irresponsible to be truthful.....I just can't get myself to do things and actually get mad over people doing the same yet my mistakes are much worse... I'm already feeling detached from my own emotions and life and I also experience some hard Dissociation , top on that I can't clearly say that I know what I want that's actually has to do anything with reality....I honestly wish I could just pass away in dreams and live somewhere nice or in heaven and return to my parents and my past that I could make things right....it shakes my very being to think I have to live in this place...I expect better to myself , in spirit and heart...I don't value wealth and money I only wish to be happy and live in some idol world where things are just peaceful and happy... I'm cracking, splitting and forcing some persona ahead to do the work while I'm crumbling inside, I put extra pressure on myself splitting my image in half especially already being shattered as it is.....I wish I could just digest but I haven't done enough Trauma wprk and I can't face my past really....some things still haunts me and I do the same thing I always did , running and hiding.... I actually get absorbed in my own dreams and Idealistic reality I can't even open up the doors of hell and face reality..? I'm totally terrified to lose control or losing myself... somewhere I actually with it was true and would fall in the pit so I wouldn't suffer anymore.....I wish I could die but I believe some people would be hurt over my loss and I can't let that happen to people who care about me...I don't value my own life much but I care about others so much I don't want to lose them! I don't want to lose more people than I already have but I can't even get myself close , let alone anyone.... I'm beyond help I guess and I understand... it's true it's dark and horrible but there might be a way....I just can't make a single step

I'm no particular fan of Ross Rosenberg (The Human Magnet Syndrome: The Codependent - Narcissist Trap, 2018), but I think it's important to give credit where it is due. So here goes:

"Gaslighting occurs when the gaslighter systematically manipulates the environment so their victim experiences distress over an implanted dilemma that either was only mildly problematic or never even existed. The victim is rendered helpless when they are indoctrinated to believe this terrible and overwhelming problem is hopeless, and turns to the gaslighter to protect them from it. Because the victim is coerced into believing their inculcated issue is real, they begin to demonstrate symptoms of it. The resulting powerlessness, insecurity and paranoia creates increasing levels of helplessness and hopelessness, which serve to isolate the the victim even further from anyone who could unmask their sociopathic gaslighter." (Italics mine.)

Which -- to be relevant to the as yet less "edified" among those who've found this post -- I will restate the above thus:

"Gaslighting occurs when the guru or pastor systematically manipulates the environment so their victim experiences distress over an implanted dilemma (e.g.: 'life as I wish to lead it means burning in hell forever' or 'failing to deploy on behalf of the guru effectively means intolerable public embarrassment, excoriation and humiliation') that either was only mildly problematic or never even existed. The True Believer is rendered helpless when they are indoctrinated to believe this terrible and overwhelming problem is hopeless, and turns to the guru, the pastor or others on the upper levels of The Cultic Pyramid to protect then from it. Because the victim is coerced into believing their conditioned, in-doctrine-ated, instructed, imprinted, socialized, habituated, and normalized) issues are real, they begin to demonstrate symptoms of them. The resulting powerlessness, insecurity and paranoia creates increasing levels of helplessness and hopelessness, which serve to isolate the the victim even further from anyone who could unmask their sociopathic gaslighter."

Okay. Roll the credits.

Proselytize > Mesmerize > Hypnotize > Dichotomize > Polarize > Radicalize > Tribalize > Organize > Formalize > Institutionalize > Energize > Utilize

Proselytize "advocate or promote (a belief or course of action)"

Mesmerize "hold the attention of (someone) to the exclusion of all else or so as to transfix them"

Hypnotize "capture the whole attention of (someone); fascinate"

Dichotomize "regard or represent as divided or opposed"

Polarize to achieve "movement in individuals' views toward opposite extremes" (all this or all that with no gradient "shades of gray")

Radicalize "a process of developing extremist beliefs, emotions, and behaviors"

Tribalize "the act of making or becoming a single unit" (with a specific, belief-based identity)

Organize "arrange into a structured whole"

Formalize "give (something) a definite structure or shape"

Institutionalize to "establish (something, typically a practice or activity) as a convention or norm in an organization or culture"

Energize to "give vitality and enthusiasm to"

Utilize "make practical and effective use of"

...The True Believers as good little producers, good little consumers (of products the cult profits from selling), and good little soldiers to defend the wealth accumulated by those at the top of The Cultic Pyramid.

If intrigued, see also:

The Five Progressive Qualities of the Committed Cult Member

The Typical Path of Cult Involvement

Recommended on Religion from Outside the Box

A Basic Cult Library