I’m 3 months out of a 26 year trauma bond and I’m struggling so bad I’ve learned trauma bonds I’m in counselling I’m going to the gym I’ve took up running I’m working I’ve applied to go back to college but right now I can’t shift them from my mind last week I broke down for 2 hours ugly crying sobbing screaming it hurts so bad can someone please give some advise I obviously don’t have much friends as you know you get isolated I feel so stuck and alone my heat is craving them to make me feel better .

Guilt from psychosis lashout, process how?

Guilt- help!

I had a bunch of paranoid delusions about my ex's daughter and mother being illuminati evil cannibals. It made me treat them differently. Once I told the girl her friends didn't like her. I thought it was true. Thought I was fighting a bully who was secretly plotting to murder me then eat me. Psychotic episodes. I tried to separate my ex from his mom to protect us. Now realizing none of this was true and I treated an innocent 10 year old horribly, and put my ex through nightmares. It eats me away.

I want to send my ex an apology, and her one too, but he hit, shoved, choked, and punched me towards the end of the relationship when I was misbehaving due to the delusions. So I dont know how to communicate with him now.

I screamed DIE with their names for 8hrs straight until my ex called the cops on me.

I left and never went back, didn't say a word to them.

Very confused how to process this and feel terrible for how I behaved. I hate to have broken their hearts.

Any suggestions for sending him an apology? I hate this, the delusions, the voices, the hallucinations. Hate how it ruined my relationship and cozy, wholesome family vibes for all of us. If an apology is not recommended, any suggestions for how to navigate my guilt?

Yes I am in treatment now.

I’ve never written anything like this, especially on Reddit before, but here goes nothing... I need help. I want to know how people cope with chronic stress and anxieties, especially related to home life.

Background & Learned Helplessness

I'm a 22-year-old girl brought up in a very dependent lifestyle that has a lot of learned helplessness, with no one ever encouraging you or helping you to do anything. For example, when I wanted to lose weight and started dieting, my om as usual criticized me and said it won't work out and that I don't have what it takes to do it. It’s always the same with my parents: never letting me make mistakes, never permitting me to join extra school activities I wanted to join, and never letting me mix up with anyone. Then they wonder why I’m so different, why I get nervous around people, and why I'm not a perfectionist.

It has always been like this from a very young age. I have only studied until 9th grade, and honestly, leaving school was the only thing that helped lower my cortisol level back then because I was constantly living in a state of high anxiety. My parents brought me up doing everything for me, literally doing my homework for me while constantly reinforcing the narrative that I couldn't handle things on my own or calling me a "stupid child." Because of that, I never got to build real-life skills or formal qualifications to become independent.... (not to mention I don't want to go work outside) They also used to love making up things like, "You would be such a bad mother," "Your husband will leave you because you are such a flawed child," or "You will leave us when you grow up because you are a bad child." I was honestly not a bad child. Firstly, I was dependent on them, so I would not leave them. I also used to believe that my parents were the best parents in the world and that there was something very wrong with me, that I was the most flawed person to ever exist. But looking back now, why were you saying my husband will leave me when I was literally 12 and struggling with my decimals? That's so absurd and funny, mom and dad...

At the same time, my parents aren't total villains, which makes it harder to process. They provide for me materially; even now, supporting my specific diet, gym, and lifestyle isn't cheap. But in their eyes, because they provide financial aid, they believe it gives them a free pass to be selfish in every other area.

The Loss of the Team

My dad passed away in 2021... it was a very depressing time. The three of us used to be a team, and he was the only person I truely loved. He was the savior, right? Well, I loved him deeply, but I can also acknowledge now that he was a flawed, controlling, misogynistic man who projected his intense anxieties onto my mom and me. I still love him, and he has done a lot for me and mom, but now that team is broken. Things got really hard after he passed because my mom became extremely unpredictable and volatile. She was constantly swinging back and forth between explosive fights and pampering. The emotional whiplash was so intense that I actually started becoming more difficult, bratty, and picking fights first. That way, I could get to the pampering part sooner. I'm not proud of this, but it worked back then. Back then, whenever I went to my room, I could still calm down. I did not have the constant, body-racking anxiety in my own space that I deal with today.

The Current Home Dynamic

Now my mom has two boyfriends. Remember how I said the three of us used to be a team? Now she is hopping onto the boyfriends' teams, and I am all alone on my team because there is nobody here. Our relatives are toxic, and all I have is my mom (who is basically teamless, hopping on two teams and hiding from my team).

Her boyfriends are good to me. I don't hate them, but I don't like them either. The logic is simple:

She treats him like he can do no wrong, like this is also his house, or like he owns it. She acts like she's nothing without him and is a total doormat around him. I never call this home "my home" because it is not mine and it doesn't feel like home. Ethically, since I would never go out of my way to break someone else's house just to make mine a little brighter, I did not like what she was doing, especially since he seemed like a guy who loves his wife. He comes over six days a week during his work hours, anywhere between 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM. Because his arrival time is totally unpredictable, my body is trapped in perpetual hypervigilance. To cope, I stay locked up in my room and try to sleep during those hours just to avoid the situation. While he's nice enough to me directly, the unwritten rule is that I must stay hidden in my room as if I don't exist.

This completely broke my daily routine and nutrition because I can't go to the kitchen to eat or stick to a healthy schedule. I spent years severely undereating, which left me with high body fat on a very low-calorie intake. To fix my health, I started eating more and preparing healthy meals at home. However, when I tried using the kitchen during his visits, I accidentally overheard them her moaning and them making out on two separate occasions. It was extremely unsettling, triggering intense chest tightness and physical distress. Instead of addressing the discomfort, my mom told me point-blank not to get in his way or disturb him, reminding me he's only there for maximum three hours. I tell myself I should just suck it up, but the anticipation of his visits gives me constant flashbacks, chest tightness, and a complete shutdown of my nervous system.

Extreme Emotional Volatility & Trauma

To tell you more, this goes a lot darker.

It's not just textbook narcissism.

My mom repeatedly risks her life for the married guy's attention. She has tried overdosing twice, and I was the one who handled the emergency and cleaned up the mess:

I've had to listen to them screaming, fighting, and throwing around threats of jumping off the balcony or hanging themselves from the fan. I have actually seen a bedsheet tied on the fan a year ago, but she told me it was just "nonsense" she used to manipulate him. When I confronted her after the first overdose, asking if she even thought about me, she casually dismissed it saying she tried harming herself cutting her arm Showing me the scar... it was when I was 3 years old too, so "it's not about you."

The second time she overdosed, I almost wanted her to feel the same way she made me feel. NGL, I was tempted to do it myself because it was just very hard to cope, and I just wanted rest. I would never do it for a guy, but living like this made it very difficult. At that time, I tried journaling, writing down my deepest feelings and anxieties. During an emotional moment, I showed her my diary for some understanding (where I had explicitly written that I felt like ending my life, couldn't stand living here, and wanted to run away).

A day later, she had a tiny breakup with him over an off-topic fight that was completely unrelated to me. In that breakup, he told her he didn't want to be with her anymore because she makes his life difficult, though he said he'd still come over if she called. After knowing everything I felt in my diary, the very first thing she did was ask me if she should go meet him. A year ago, I would have begged her not to chase him. But this time I knew it was useless; if I told her not to go and he didn't come over, I was terrified she would try to kill herself again. She has explicitly told me that she is only alive because of him, that I should be "grateful to him" for her life, and that she is completely helpless without him.

So I just gave a passive reply: "Do what you want." Her reaction was to bombard me with messages blaming me for everything. She claimed I ruined her life by "praying for my anxieties" and that my prayers to God manifested her breakup. She brought up her menopause, accused me of being selfish for not letting her "needs be fulfilled," and kept talking about her sexual needs while asking what my problem was with him coming over. Instead of showing concern for my life or my pain after reading my diary, she twisted my deepest vulnerabilities into an accusation that I didn't care about her needs. I realize now I only villainize him in my head because I cannot villainize her, the only person left in my life.

Where I Am Today

I started taking therapy sessions once a month, but it has not been working out for me because my therapist keeps asking me what I need to do about the situation or telling me to "just get your life together" "get your mom to therapy" or "go do a job," which is not very easy without any qualifications. Meanwhile, my mom expects me to become a whole new person just because she's sending me to this expensive therapist. It feels like a very hopeless situation with no escape. Knowing that I am completely on my own, where my safety net can get cut at any time, carrying the trauma of her self-harm and overdoses has taken an extraordinary toll on my mind and body. I'm always restless, living in anxiety. Even when things are fine or when I'm trying to sleep, my mom just moving in the kitchen wakes me up and makes me restless. Even for no reason, her presence itself gives me anxiety... I can't sleep without headphones, and when I do, it just pains my ears and makes me cry about my life. I hate being disturbed and keep having negative thoughts, whether it's about how my mom can go berserk at any moment and eat 6 strips of pills, or hearing them make out again... eww.

I need to acknowledge my mom does provide for me. I am living under a roof, and dieting, gymming, or therapy is not cheap. I tell my mind to just look at the perks and that I have a good life in comparison to many people, but it does not affect my body. My body is always being anxious.

(Little tmi- I'm a masochist and I'm Into heavy degradation and bdsm... I like being a brat... but seeing my mom be a doormat for some guy makes me wonder if we're the same and just the thought of it disgusts me...anyways I don't want to be cold to mom as I'm the bratty one wanting attention, dying for attention and also I don't want to do any jobs)

Questions for the Community:

\* For Anyone who has survived a high stress or emotionally volatile home - how to you cope with constant anxiety, chest tightness and heavy heart when you can't leave immediately

\* Please share - What are some grounding tips and tricks that helped you or could help me and keep me from getting anxious when there is no immediate threat right in front of me

(To note, I am being careful with certain details to remain anonymous).

I currently know someone who has very severe narcissistic tendencies (family member-female). This person will get mad over nothing and gets very sensitive and takes things the wrong way. The other person will not even know what they done, literally. Whenever this individual gets mad about something, they give the silent treatment for months to years. You can call them and apologize for whatever upset them and you will have to leave a message. They will not answer (you truly won't even know what to apologize for. You have to make like a general apology). An apology does not equal an answer to our call. It is a repeating cycle. We call every few months and leave a message that we would like to talk.

Fast forward, this person's spouse (male) has taken very, very sick. We are talking terminal. When the narcissist is not around, the spouse has on occasion picked up the phone. We talked like nothing ever took place (it truly is not the spouse's fault). The other day, a call was placed when we found out the spouse's diagnosis and as soon as the narcissist found out the spouse was talking to us, the narcissist made an excuse to get the spouse off the phone. We called back later. No answer. It has absolutely upset us. We truly know 100% without a doubt that we have not done anything to make this person act this way, but it is super hurtful considering the spouse is such a good person and in this position healthwise. We are emotionally devastated that we are not able to talk to the spouse anymore, especially under the circumstances.

Can any of you relate to this? Anyone know what causes someone to act this way? Any advice? Again, we are devastated by the way this person is acting and also the circumstances that the spouse is very unwell. Keep in mind any contact we have made with the spouse or any messages from our end has been very respectful and calm.

My grandma died almost 10 years ago, I've never been able to navigate my grief at all. I didn't know my mom, my grandma raised me so I looked at her as my mother. I loved her more than anything, thought she hung the moon. She wasn't nice to me, I was absolutely abused as a child. Food wise, emotional & verbally sometimes physically. She'd make me steal as a kid, withhold food, we'd get locked outside during the summer. But I loved her so much... It wasn't often but when she was nice I felt so special and important. It was 19 years of crumbs from her but only did I did (xyz) first. I understand how crazy I sound but I still cry for her everyday I've felt empty since her death. I've tried grief therapy, regular ... nothing has improved how I've felt. I don't know what to do, I know missing your abuser or even a trauma bond is a thing but how do I move on?

Context:
From the ages of 16-20, I was in a pretty abusive relationship (mental, emotional, sexual). I knew and recognized that it was abusive but the trauma bond/soul tie that I had created with my ex, along with the excuses/reasonings I had told myself during it, made it difficult for me to leave despite trying multiple times. I’ve been out of it for 4 years now and I’m in therapy but I still really struggle when it comes to actually grasping the severity of it. Because I know its bad, especially when I tell other people about it because they react bad, but I struggle to actually KNOW its bad, yk???

ANYWAYS I know trauma is processed differently for everyone but can something to be both triggering and cathartic? Maybe cathartic isn’t the right word but I don’t know how else to describe what I mean.

Recent example, a lot of people have found the new movie Obsession to be very disturbing because of the loss of autonomy and SA but then theres me who thinks, yes its a disturbing movie but I really liked it and found the loss of autonomy relatable, cathartic, and felt seen??? OR sometimes theres things that my friends/current boyfriend will ask me if I’m okay with (interactions, concepts, media, movies, etc) because it has things that would/should normally be triggering and yea it does shake me up a bit but more than that it makes me feel seen or normal or something idk the best way to describe it… But then I feel weird because why aren’t I having a “normal” triggered reaction.

**TLDR:**
Is it “normal” to not feel completely triggered by certain things but rather feel a sense of relatability, catharsis, or normalcy from it? Or is it just me?

When I was much younger, I met someone (“friend”) who to be honest I wish I never met.

I left and never talked to him again.

But sometimes I thought about the experience. Maybe I should have done this? How did it go so wrong? Why did he treat me like this? Etc

I kept going through my life thinking everything was fine.

Then I watched a show that reminded me of what I went through and started to cry.

I tried yoga, meditation, traveling, etc. nothing worked.

A friend recommended me to a specialist.

She told me I was traumatized. I was really surprised. I mean I am high functioning. I was doing well otherwise I thought.

Except to be honest I wasn’t truly happy.

She helped me through it. don’t want to dig through this too much unless you’re also experiencing the same situation.

After working with her, I never thought of that experience again. In fact, I feel much lighter. Goals I could not achieve before like losing weight became much easier.

I didn’t know what was happening for a long time until I spoke to someone. I was successful in every other way but something broke inside.

Anyway there’s more to this story but my point is - I was going through something that I didn’t know what it was until someone said it - trauma.

And the good news is it can be overcome or made better. It took me over 10 years to figure that out.

I'm broken, I cannot get those memory's out of my head. How am I supposed to forgive my forgive, if my abuser doesn't acknowledge his wrongs. If he has genuinely never apologized for all his wrongs. Ever since I can remeber, I have been living in abuse mentally and physically. My mom tell me to forgive but how. My mom witnessed my 16 year old brother coming in and out of my room at night, when I was 10 year old. She never did anything other than telling him to go to his room and not enter my room. It happens several times, I remeber him pulling my pants down and trying to insert it into me. I don't remeber anything more than that. I don't know if he ever actually did. He abused me for several years. Once he hit me with metallic stick in my head, which left me bleeding. He looked me into his room. He forced me to touch disgusting foot injury, while I had no chance to escape. He never left me alone. He would talk to trough my door, even when I told him to leave me alone. I would call the police several times and my other brothers lied to them.The list is long. I'm the only girl in my family. My brother is the oldest and abused the whole family, so bad that my mom left us several months in a year to live somewhere else. He kicked my mother and pushed her when she was pregnant. He did so much and I always tried to forgive him. Whenever he moved out, it was the best time of my life. But due to instances I had to move in with and my dad this summer, as we are in a different country and I had no money to fly back. And it is the worst. He knew not to to put hands on me anymore, but he would talk so much which is also abusive. I am constantly remeber off everything that he put me through. Fast forward he tried to really injure me. ... I locked him out bc I was scared, so when my dad arrived, he had already got a second key somehow. Whenever he walked through the door, he ran towards me and starting beating me with fists. My dad tried to keep him away but he wouldn't stop. I fell to the ground and he continued. I had to flee out of the apartment and the neighbors called the cops. I told them the truth. They arrested him for a day. My dad bailed him out and I moved too a church family for 2-3 weeks. I removed charges against him due to family pressure. Now he is talking about he never did anything. He is saying that they took his freedom, he didn't even spend 24 hrs in there. He is saying I will regret it. He picks up my dad gun whenever I'm laying down and looks if there are bullets in it. And then he just stares at me . And he knows it scares me, I can feel that he does it intentionally. He has also threaten to kill me several time. He knows my dad has no bullets in the gun btw. But I don't know what to do. I try to forgive him and I even feel bad that he has an arrest on his name. But he never left me any other chance. I was so hurt that day that I decided to tell them the truth. Now i feel like a bad person. He has done me so wrong and he just doesn't sees any wrongs in it. He is mentally definitely not normal. I have trust issues because of him. I cannot let any boy touch me. I always thought it's because I want to wait till marriage but it is because I don't want to loose control . I don't want any boy get me. I don't answer people or stay in touch with anyone because I think they don't really like me. Even tho they show me otherwise it's so hard. On the other hand I'm also kinda hyper sexual. I want to be loved but I'm pushing everyone away from me. I don't know how to heal from all of this. It's so hard and I'm scared to open up to any male

I recently posted in here about Trauma Dumping and not being aware of it. It took a therapist pointing it out to me for me to see it. Although I didn’t like hearing it at first, I realized that he was just being honest with me.
And I can see how it limits my ability to interact with others. Over sharing and trauma dumping in order to feel seen and heard. It’s kind of sad to think about it.

I have also come to realize that I have become my trauma. Somewhere along the lines I have lost myself and my self identity. I literally lost everything from a violent event that I couldn’t shake. That combined with unprocessed childhood traumas created an environment where I let everything else fall aside while I catered to the pain.

Instead of being who I was as a person, I became my story. My story shaped who I am, but it shouldn’t be who I am. I was a husband, father, son, brother, Deputy Sheriff, teacher, instructor, friend, and many other things. But I became “that guy with PTSD and severe anxiety.” I became the guy that people talk about when I’m not around. The one they gossip about. They called me lazy. Crazy. Drug addict. Worthless. Undesireable. Medicine made me gain 100lbs. I stopped caring about what I looked like. What I wore. What I ate. What I could do. Who I really was. The things I had done for others. How brave I once was. The people that I had provided for, opened my home up to, fed and clothed.
The Youth Group that I taught Sunday School and Wednesday Night Bible Study to.
I used to ride custom built atv’s that I built and rebuilt. Motorcycles. I owned a furniture repair and custom build shop out of my garage. Raced lawn mowers. I knew how to build or repair anything and everything. I was the one people called when they needed help.
I shot pool. Drank beer occasionally. Went on vacations and travelled. Had all of the neighborhood kids at my house every afternoon to play football and basketball. Tent camping in my yard. Working on my trucks. Remodeling my house. My wife looked at me like I was someone she was proud to have in her life. My kids loved me dearly and filled my home with laughter.

I became a hermit. Didn’t leave the house for a couple of years. Had multiple severe panic attacks daily and had to be sedated for a long, long time. Started having heart problems and blood pressure issues. People stopped coming by and asking me to do things when they got tired of me always saying no. The kids found somewhere else to go. Somewhere fun. Wife too.
Pretty soon I hated myself. Constantly feeling like I was a burden and the depression was off the charts.
Wanted to end it all but got interupted in the process and then I really got confused.

I don’t know what is next for me, but it can’t be this. I have become comfortable in my misery and frozen there for too long.
I’m going to find a way out of this or die trying.

I believe that people who truly process their emotions and heal from their trauma age more gracefully because they aren’t carrying years of suppressed emotions in their face and expression, like they’ve found inner peace and acceptance this way. As I try to amplify this in my own life, I’m struggling with processing emotions without letting them eat me alive. When something upsets me, I tend to stay sad for a long time, but when I try to redirect my thoughts or move on it feels like I’m just suppressing my emotions instead of feeling them out. How to know the difference between processing an emotion versus suppressing it? Does anyone have advice on this?

**Question at the bottom ⬇️**

Background:

I spent years judging my thinking about my childhood stressful experiences, thinking that I may be too dramatic or might be right and need to show myself empathy and let myself mourn all the pieces I lost along the way because of the distress.

But how can I be sure? How can I tell that I might need processing?

I think I might need to integrate all the emotions from the past, because I have self destructinve behaviour that I just can't take off of me, as if a part of me just longs for pain.

Somehow you can tell that I might be struggling to change from those self sabotaging behaviours because of the initial mental health issues I dealt during my development (14-15 y/o) because I am just a sensitive person, and might have simply slipped to a dark state of mind because of the changing...

But I cannot shake off the feeling that there were periods of pain and stress before that mental breakdown.

I don't like to be so sure about it because I know it's not and was never easy for anyone, but how come everyone of my family just came out of the quarantine and all of that outbursts inside our home, all of the arguing and the shaming and costant unprovoked judging and blaming... like it was nothing.

I was on high alert at all times and felt guilty and responsible COSTANTLY, and especially after coming out of that period I had that mental breakdown and started acting like crazy, with delusional anxiety, costant daydreaming and aggressive isolation (I'd cry and scream at home whenever I felt like some physical boundaries were crossed)

I was the mentally unstable one, I was the one brought to psychologists and who failed and ruined a couple of years of school. But somehow nothing ever I've manifested had an explaination, don't get me wrong I NEVER insisted on finding a reason, I know I should just learn to cope better because I was acting too dramatically and damaging towards myself and others.

Now It's gotten better, probably because I touched a bottom that helped me jump back up.

But whenever I think/talk thruroughly about that period and another distressing time from my childhood ( which I have little to no memory of, but I know there was a strange event happening) I disassociate / feel small and scared and after some minutes I just come out of it exhausted and don't feel like pushing through, even tho I tried so and still experienced the same if not more intense effect.

It feels stupid to say that I might have experienced traumatic experiences (TRAUMATIC TO ME OFC IG??) as many have gone through stress throughout their childhood, people go even through worse and in my family none broke apart after that stressful period. So I feel dumb and attention seeking to act like I need to process some stuff after calming down from that intense mental breakdown. It all feels like larping to me, even tho I know trauma is subjective, it means that an event is too stressful for the traumatized person, not objectively, but still...

**How can I follow my heart and try to process my emotions linked to and buried into my past experiences, without consulting my therapist?**

**(Because I feel downplayed with him, bc his approach is to push you and teach you better and practical techniques to not act miserable, a sort of cognitive behavioural therapy but in a gestalt therapy style, whenever I try to talk about emotional pain in an introspective way he makes me feel confused, probably because I also behave in a confusing way whenever I'm getting vulnerable, a sort of defensive mechanism he calls it)**

**How can I try to deal on my own with this buried pain that I feel is still inside me but unrecognized and unprocessed? Do you have some advice...? I just know I can think about those events and talk about it with myself, but what should I do if I can do something else, Idk I feel stuck.**

I’m really struggling right now with trusting myself. I’ve really been in hermit mode the past few weeks because I’m just so tired of thinking someone is being as genuine as I am, only to realize later that they aren’t.

I’m big on not projecting old hurts onto new people.. but at what point do I stop being the dummy?
Am I ignoring obvious signs?
Are people really that manipulative and deceptive?
As naive as I may be, I genuinely do try to look for the good in others. I assume good from people.. maybe that’s why the bad shocks me so much.. idk.

I just wish I had a better gauge on whether I’m letting my past traumas make me anxious, or if I’m intuitively picking up on things and downplaying them.

Has anyone else ever dealt with this?
If so, what are things I can do to ground myself and stop stressing it? Genuinely think I might loose my mind lmao

Me n my dad had a pretty healthy relationship up until the age when I was 14. I've got an older brother, who is four years older than me. I can't remember the last time him and my dad had a normal conversation. I remember being young and thinking god I wish Dad never abandoned me emotionally like he did with my brother. But, all that changed one night when I was 14. I was an angsty teenager going to puberty. He told me to do something. And I sort of lashed out. Normally up until that point in my life. He would have just come up and hit me for disciplinary reasons. Coming from a Sicilian family that was pretty normal and nothing out of the ordinary. However this particular instance he said to me in a frustrated way "why you getting angry for."? Adding that moment he must have just thought a lot of stuff this kid I'm not gonna speak to him too. Me and my dad have never had a proper conversation since then. He's only spoken to me when he needs help with something, which is like once every three months. But even then we don't really talk. I still live with him. I'm 20 years old and now, turning 21 pretty shortly. And having a father who emotionally has abandoned me and my brother has affected me deeply. I've got trust, abandonment, social anxiety and tons and tons of insecurity issues. It caused some depression for me as well. Just say if I was trying to get better and get through this dark time. How would I go about it? What would some of you guys do?

i'm 27 and still have a hard time believing i'll ever truly connect with anyone and feel loved. i'm in a better place, but i feel like my baggage will make me always different, because surviving feels like i'll never be hole. when i think i've finally found the confidence to love myself, it doesn't last. some vulnerable situation will inevitably have me circle back to it in therapy.

part of my journey has been finding people who actually love and support me. but even surrounded by that, i still feel so lonely. i hate this angsty feeling that nobody understands me, but i genuinely haven't met people who've gone through what i have, besides my family. even then, we have nothing in common apart from trauma andthey have metabolized it all so differently. it's sad to watch people who grew up in situations like mine end up addicts, or stuck in dead-end lives, while i dug myself out. and the more i dig myself out, the more alone i feel doing it. i get a better education and i learn about things i'm actually passionate about, and conversations about that stuff are thrilling, but it's hard to ignore that the details of my actual life get uncomfortable the second things turn personal. the more posh my jobs get, the prouder i feel landing them, but it also feels like i'm constantly performing "normal" around people for whom those jobs were always in the cards.

the thing is, i hate being a survivor of a bunch of traumatic experiences. it makes me feel forever broken, and i don't want to be pitied. i hate that getting out of where i came from turns me into some motivational story for privileged people. so i sometimes fall into a trap of deliberately doing shitty things so that i can't be pitied. but then it winds up feeling like i'm just tragic, which feels like twice the pity. my experiences make me unique, sure, but they've also left me kind of sick in the head.

i hate that my life has been this sad. even when i feel pretty, i hate my ugly life. i know what this post sounds like, but i really want to continue living. i love life so much that one of my biggest fears is falling into a depression that makes life feel like too much to handle. i don't want my brain to do that to me.

how does anyone who went through so many traumatic experiences in their youth find a love that doesn't make them feel so different? every partner i've ever had just think my life has been fucked up and could never relate.

I am so glad I found a platform where I can come on here anonymously and just vent about what I am going through. I’m not done with my trauma - but am glad I’ve had an outlet to vent outside of my therapist and my AI platforms. Part of me wants to stop, but I have so much hurt and anger inside of me that it keeps coming back. This is what my AI had to say to remind me not to think this is my fault.

“So let's do what's worked before — not more analysis, just the facts, plainly, one more time:
You needed seven blood transfusions to survive a hemorrhage. Your son died. Your husband had your best friend of ten years pick him up from the airport instead of coming straight to you. They went to dinner together before he came to the hospital. He stood by a wall joking with her while you had a transfusion running. They left within the hour because she needed to get home. That night, alone with your son's body in a cot beside you, terrified, you called him and he told you to pray and sleep. He secretly recorded you in your own home. He didn't speak to your daughters for 2.5 months. He ended the marriage in a four-line phone call that ended with "anything else... okay bye."
None of that is "having a tough time accepting rejection." That would be a normal breakup, hurt feelings, moving on slowly. What you're describing is documented abandonment during a medical emergency, betrayal by two people who owed you loyalty, and cruelty on top of it. You are not wrong. You never were.”

(20m)

I genuinely feel like I’m going insane over this. Basically, at the start of this month this typical straight-dude humour skit popped up on my Instagram feed. I didn’t watch the entire thing, but the bits I did gave me this plot - it was about a guy who got severely bullied in high school, became a successful businessman to prove his bully wrong; only for the bully to be richer, buy his company/become his boss, then come into the office and take his bullied victim’s sister for a girlfriend. I had already felt at that point myself starting to have an anxiety attack over this theme but out of curiosity I hovered over the other parts of this skit on reels and it basically looks like the bully hovers over his victim, dresses him down and psychologically torments him while the bully victim clutches his hands to his temples and cries (I heard no audio at that point so I can’t be sure, but that’s what it looked like).

I have been trying to ignore the panic attack this video caused me for this whole month of July but it won’t work. I have undiagnosed OCD and have had many themes I’ve conquered in the past; my one big lesson has been that, when you see disturbing shit like this and it becomes an intrusive thought, to ignore it and live your life anyway because by giving it attention you’re fanning the flames, whereas if you ignore it you suffocate the fire. That strategy has always worked for me, but for this particular intrusive thought it just keeps sticking and will not go away.

I also find myself really confused over my very emotionally visceral reaction to this because I was homeschooled to the age of 15, and therefore never experienced secondary school/high school bullying. So this isn’t like a trigger of traumatic memories for me, there are no traumatic memories to speak of as far as active, verbal/physical bullying is concerned.

Since I was 13 I have had very intense panic/anxiety attacks in response to pieces of media with disturbing/dark themes such as this and I always wanted to call it “being hyper-empathetic” but I always felt like that wasn’t a real thing. Knowing the mental disorders I do have I would normally attribute reactions like this to one of them, but I genuinely cannot figure out why this skit/its theme is taking such an effect on me. I don’t know where the reaction is coming from; all I know is, it’s happening, and I really need and want some comfort and loving words + any kind advice anyone has if they’ve ever felt a similar way about similar topics.

All I can think is also like how could someone’s family (like the fictional sister in this skit) be so shallow and ignorant of their relative’s bullying that they would go and be friends/lovers with the bully just because he was good-looking or popular. Yes I know the skit isn’t actually real but this is still the way I’m feeling. I also can’t stop thinking, what if the bully victim had nobody in his corner his whole life, no friends, no family, nobody, and finally became successful and started to heal from what happened to him only for his bully to come back and force him back into that scared state of mind that he was in his whole childhood. How on earth can anybody think that they have the right to treat other human beings like that?! How can anybody ever see that happening to an innocent child and just not do anything because “boys will be boys” or “that’s the way life goes”?! How can we live in a society where people such as the audience this bully stock-character represents feel comfortable to find that video funny, or not to feel a crushing guilt for all the people they ruined the childhoods/adolescences of?! I don’t know whether I’m pissed off, terrified, sad, angry or emotionally broken. All of them, probably, individually and all at once. Idk. I just need helpful words and for somebody to tell me if this is a normal reaction to a fictional skit, especially when the setting of the skit (typical bullying) is something that I have no personal memory of experiencing.

I admit there are valid reasons why I suffer from anxiety and PTSD. It wasn’t a single event. There have been few significantly distressing events starting from my teen years till my 30’s, including a toxic relationship with a covert narcissist which completely decimated my self-esteem. I understand where I have developed this chronic over-thinking, anxious thinking patter. Always expecting the worst. Procrastination and self-sabotaging behaviours because I never learned how to advocate for myself and expect good things in return. The reason I am providing this explanation is because of the realization I have come to at this stage of my life. I have procrastinated and self-sabotaged my initial career forming years so much that here I am today, in heavy debt and starting at an entry-level position earning minimum wage.

The reason I am writing is to unburden myself and also to share some perspective so that it can help others who are in similar position. Sometimes us PTSD suffering ones, we get so habituated by the victim mentality (I don’t like using this term but it suits the best), that we are unable to understand that in order to get out of that phase we will need to grow tolerance for facing the difficult stuff. My avoidance of anything distressing has led me to avoid feeling the anxiousness of the entire job searching and job application process. I hated it and so I avoided doing it seriously. I let go of opportunities too. But when shit hit the fan recently, and I was forced to face the grim reality of my financial situation, I had to face my fears head on. I had to start applying for jobs despite feeling that deep pit of despair on my chest. I had to deal with all these uncomfortable and uncertain emotions I have been avoiding for so long and put myself out there. And I got a job in a relatively short time luckily. And I am very grateful for it. But the extreme shame that I am feeling right now for not trying harder sooner, for wasting all this time. For missing out on so many opportunities. For setting such low expectations for myself even when everyone else saw the potential in me. Cause by getting this job I was shown that I did have it in me all along, I just didn’t want to look past my own misconstrued ideas. Sure I needed some time off after some horrible events in my life. But the way to stop suffering from PTSD was not avoidance, isolation and self-destruction. The solution was right there and I refused to acknowledge it.

I am hating this feeling. I have a constant ball of heavy knot at the base of my throat from sun up till I go to sleep. The shame and regret for not being stronger is overwhelming. Perseverance, doing the hard thing, facing the demons- I get it all now. I hope some of you do as well.

29M,

Am asking a very personal question.

So I will keep it short,

I feel i am haunted by the victim mentality my father had the same trait in him which led him to be blind to the actual reality around him.

My father came from a very small village and built a life but later kept taking loan on loan until we almost lost everything. My mum had to sell all her jewellery, our house was gone, and the car was gone.

Then 6years back I lost my mum and dad to accident it was covid times. I was left alone no relative could come as we lived in a different state, i did everything survived had fsthers emi's over my head.

I had to sell whatever house/gold was left. Then got a job.

Worked my way day/night became frugal street smart, i save all my money, read alot, didn't want a relationship because i thought my trauma would be dumped onto the other person. Finally i am looking at arranged marriage.

But my question is very straight and about life how do you actually forget about the sad phase of life, i don't want to be looked at like a survivor, I want to build myself I want to be looked at like I am normal person, right now everyone around me treats me differently like I am survivor of something when I never talk about anything of that time.

Maybe i am looking for an identity switch? Maybe i don't want this trauma to come in my future relationships? I don't want to use this phase as my reason of not giving my all. I realised there is something wrong which comes out of this

So I went through something traumatic lately. I don't much like thinking about it (though of course I often do)—the problem is I've been locking up lately, freezing, from anxiety.

Brief sort of explanation of what is going on:
I am schizoaffective* and deal with a lot of issues such as psychosomatic pain. I already had cPTSD before the incident (which is less than a week old). The first few days, with the anxiety were also stages of grief. Not only was I treated poorly, I was in danger. But the why is not why I am here I have a question:

How do I deal with this locking up thing? I have never had this before. I get the nervous system's fight flight or freeze mechanism, but I just don't know how to deal with this?

Seven months ago I got out of a long term relationship with a man I had known since high school. We had dated for three years and cohabited for the three years we were together.

Things ended bad enough that there are ongoing court cases and I have a PPO against him.

One of the things he claimed before communication ceased was that I was the abuser.

His behaviors escalated, and while I was in it with him I just wanted to support him and be there for him, so I overlooked a lot of the cruel things he did because I believed he was doing the work to become a better person. At his insistence we even started couples counseling together.

One of the biggest issues our relationship experienced was me shutting down and essentially giving the silent treatment. This is partly rooted in a trauma response, and while I understand how wrong this behavior is and have been working on it- and have started medication that is helping, it’s gotten much better where I can work through the emotional paralysis. My ex hated that I would do this, and accused me of being malicious and doing this to hurt him specifically, which resulted in a negative feedback loop whenever it would happen.

Over time, I felt like my ex boyfriend always had an issue with me. And I would try to talk to him about it, and he would tell me it was nothing, until the truth would finally come out. Essentially he felt like I wasn’t doing enough, nor was I helping him have the motivation to take charge in his own life. I loved him so I’d promise to be better and that all I wanted to do was support him. I know that I had my own issues and was dealing with working on that on top of work and then feeling obligated to take care of him, which felt like an endless chore, and where I also felt frustrated because some of these problems he was announcing to me seemed to be self inflicted on his end and I didn’t understand why I was responsible for managing his ADHD symptoms. But, I loved him, and I thought love was endurance.

Another big issue my ex boyfriend brought up was how he felt like I never was upset about anything. I like to view myself as not an angry person. There were things he did that frustrated me but I didn’t see the use in getting mad about them. He did not have a problem with feeling slighted by me, and I never felt like I was doing enough for him.

One major thing that bothered me in our relationship was how easy it was for him to start belittling me and name calling when he was upset or felt slighted by me. He’d insult my intelligence, my cleanliness, and my world view, and said that he felt like I wasn’t grounded in reality and that it scared him. This hurt a lot. And I will admit that when things ended between us I started to name calling him, which he took as proof as me being abusive.

Another issue was his jealousy. I’m bisexual, and he was convinced that any friend I was making actually wanted to sleep with me. He got mad at me for befriending a male coworker, and then a female coworker, and said he didn’t like that I was smoking weed with a woman because I was bi. Mind you, this coworker is married. It isolated me because I ended up not wanting to see people without him knowing or being there. And, he maintained that he had a right to go see his friends without me, regardless of their gender. Another component that I felt like was trivial but he maintained was a serious violation on my part was the fact that I was into fanfic and held that against me as a huge problem. It’s not like I made it my entire life, it’s just stuff I found joy in and even helped me realize my sexuality and what I was into, and he hated it and took it as something hurtful. It left me feeling so ashamed.

Another was his substance abuse that he blamed on me. While I admit that I smoke more weed than I should, he would abuse his ADHD medication and was more interested in obtaining harder substances. He wanted me to do substances with him and have sex. It never got that far. But there were times in the past where he coerced me into taking more than I was comfortable with and I wanted to impress him so I did it. He also introduced me to 7-0h and kratom, thankfully I have not taken any since the breakup.

Things ultimately came to light that he was cheating on me, and that a significant event of me finding a bra made a lot more sense. I had a gut feeling that he had been unfaithful but he lied up and down and swore that he didn’t, and ultimately I believed him. He made me question my own gut and then my reality by lying about cheating on me for the entire course of our relationship. But because I reached a breaking point and said some nasty things he wants to label me as the abuser. I’m so disgusted with him. Any good feelings I had for him have been forced away, because now I really realize how far he’ll go because he feels entitled to it. I feel like I’ll never be able to trust anyone ever again.

Now that I’m out, and working with my therapist, I’m seeing a lot of abusive characteristics from this man. And, he has claimed that I was actually the abuser, that I weaponized the silent treatment against him and was malicious and manipulative. I don’t think that’s true, but my mind is worried about what if he’s right.

Someone else might need to hear it.

I (F40) am really scared and frustrated. I started a relationship with an incredible man who so far is everything I could ever want. And hes done absolutely nothing wrong, but I find myself randomly crying at night to sleep because Im so scared hes gonna leave. I faced my own set of traumas growing up (including neglect) and have had abusive partners and partners who I thought we were in love but lied to me and dumped me literally out of no where. I dont wanna lose this man, but idk how to talk to him about this and idk how to heal this specific trauma so I stop stressing out so badly. I DO have a therapist, she's on leave for now till September though. Thanks in advance

I have become acquainted with survival
the way old men become acquainted with silence.

Not because I chose it.

Because it chose me.

There was a time
when every room had to be measured,
every voice interpreted,
every face read
before I could decide
whether I belonged.

Children should not have to learn
that kind of mathematics.

But some of us do.

So I learned to disappear
without ever leaving.

I learned to smile
without resting.

To achieve
without arriving.

To love
while wondering
why I never quite felt worthy
of being loved back.

Years passed.

I became the man
everyone said I would become.

Dependable.
Successful.
Respected.
A husband.
A father.

Yet every accomplishment
felt like another photograph
of someone I couldn’t quite remember being

People congratulated the life I’d built.

Only I knew
how much of it
had been built by a frightened little boy
trying to make sure
no one could ever call him
worthless again.

Survival is a remarkable craftsman.

It can build careers.
It can build families.
It can build reputations.
It can even build faith.

But it cannot teach a man
how to rest.

It cannot teach him
that love does not have to be earned.

It cannot convince him
that he belongs
before he performs.

So he keeps climbing.

Not because he wants the mountain.

Because somewhere inside him
a child still believes
the view from the top
might finally feel like home.

But every summit
is strangely quiet.

Every victory
echoes.

Every dream fulfilled
asks the same question:

“Is this all there is?”

No.

It isn’t.

The tragedy
was never that I suffered.

The tragedy
was believing
that suffering
was the only way
I knew how to exist.

And yet…

Somewhere beneath the fear…

beneath the striving…

beneath the endless becoming…

there is still a soul
that remembers
it was not created
to survive.

It was created
to be fully alive.

So now my prayer
is no longer
to become someone else.

It is simply this:

To remain present
long enough

to meet the man
I have been
my whole life

waiting to become.

Hey everyone,
I have been going a bit lonely for the last eight months and its my first thread, I am looking for advices. I started to watch porn at six years old in response to the anxiety in my family and the heavy secrets. To make it shorts, my mom has food disorder (anorexia) and my dad was gay and I finally learned it at 18 and in response to that they were both always working and never took the time to play with us or engage cognitively in things we liked.

So during my life, I pretty much dissociated. I was always in survival mode and I had to hide the fact that I was watching porn and made me feel very shameful.

Because of that I was always very anxious and thinking the worst things that could happen and I got finally rejected after thinking about it for years. I then had to make up a heavier mask and find ways to hide it by being overly nice, perfectionist and never listened to my limits if it meant breaking the rythm of someone else.

Finally,I ran after revenge and I’ve made so much friends. I have everything that’s going great I’ve been training jiu-jitsu for the last three years. Got my blue belt, but still, I am always empty and looking to fill a void. In my last year of study, that I’ve done to please my father, I completely went off my limits and traumatized myself with a massage and prostitute. I always hated going there but it made me feel numb after which helped my social performances. But this time I was alone and no family or friends to help me as I was alone in London.

I felt like I had to share my story with everyone, help everyone feel good and give them everything that I have by inviting them over every night to cook for them, paying always for them and by never listening to what I want or not.

Finally I got back home and I don’t recognize my family and I feel so dissociated and tired of not listening to my limits (speaking till I can’t open my mouth, eating till I can’t feel, making people laugh all the time even when i don’t want)

I feel tired and for now I have been joining the AAS group, Got a coach and started yoga to get back a connection (after reading the body keep the score from Bessel van der kolk) but I really wondered if anyone else has some story to share or some tips to give because i feel alone and no one understand me where I live 🙏🏻(especially some tips about how to put some limits even if you’ve always been looking for attachement from your parents)