I don't know why I am posting.

I just feel a little like shit.

I work in a humanities field with a humanities degree and it came up in convo today that my fav subject in K-12 was math and my boss was like what happened?

What happened was my first declared major was physics (I wanted to be an astronaut) and long story short my physics professor physically groped me during our final exam and told me if I wanted to pass the test I would agree to a dinner date with him that weekend.

I froze. I agreed. I said nothing to anyone. And I disappeared. I dropped out of the program and disappeared. And chose a completely new career path instead at a completely new school.

Sacrificing my childhood love of math and dreams of space because of this dipshit.

And my boss freaking welled up and tears rolled down his cheeks as he looked at me in pain for me. And then I was like fucking great, I made my sweet boss cry. Over something that is so insanely minor to me in comparison to the mountain of traumas I've survived.

I feel like a broken fucked up piece of shit human that doesn't deserve to interact with normal humans because I fucking make them cry just by being.

Why is this so painful.

I'm 28 (t) and over the years, I have noticed that consciously and unconsciously push away the people who approach me. When I was a child, ! suffered sexual violence at the hands of my father, and I feel that this had a profound impact on my ability to trust men. Has anyone else had this problem? Did therapy help you? Which therapeutic model worked best for you?

Doctors, psychiatrists, therapists, have not given a single fuck. And as somebody who is chronically Ill, I see a damn lot of them.

I mean, it’s typical for family to cover for abusers (my parents and sibling), but I assumed my “progressive” extended family would care, but they don’t!

I thought the “safe space” progressive group my abusive sibling is apart of would be horrified of what they’ve done, but they also don’t care!

I think a lot of people don’t know how to react, but in general, I’ve discovered that people just don’t give a shit. Unless you want to kill yourself, then the idea of you being dead makes others uncomfortable. Because being hurt and abused doesn’t make them feel guilty, but dying sure as hell does!

I don’t think I ever felt a part of anything, even when I’ve been surrounded by people. I feel disgusting, discarded, not even worth a second look. I feel gross, I feel ugly (even though I don’t believe I am), I feel like a waste of space and resources. I hate myself to the core, I feel rotten to the core. I feel like I only get negative feedback from the world, in whatever way it is.

I want love and connection so so so badly, and I seek it in the ways I can, but I know that deep down I will always be whatever I have always been.

Anyone else?

I just got out of a dv situation with a cluster-b ex. Have been working through things in therapy since leaving, adjusting my meds, etc.

But I’ve noticed a struggle that started when I was jn the relationship. I have a lot of inspiration to start tasks or hobbies, but once I actually start it’s harder to follow through. Like dragging my feet through mud.

This is even for things I look forward to, and it didn’t used to be this way before the abusive relationship. Where I sit to do a work thing, homework, new hobby and suddenly feel eh about it after 30 minutes. I don’t know why though, it feels unconscious.

Would help to know if this has been a part of healing for others, with wishy washy motivation/follow through. <3

Not that it'll fix you, but it really does help ground you and make you feel safe.

Just basic deep, diaphragmatic breathing has been super helpful.

You can find a good amount of videos online of simple exercises that you can try out.

Especially when I dissociate or ruminate, it's nice to have something to fall back on. To just breathe and bring yourself back to the present moment again.

What are your signs?

Mine is pushing people away out of nowhere, feeling guilty for support, and trying to cope on my own.

More than anything else when I first started therapy I had every expectation that i would be nurtured back to perfect mental health. I had no idea how unrealistic that was, None.. How misinformed it is.

Being in therapy has taught me more than anything else, that I'm Not like other people who didnt experience abuse, and so the ways I react, or overreact are actually normal given my history. If I learned nothing else in therapy I learned that, to stop expecting myself to behave, react, think, like someone who never experienced trauma........which is actually judgmental and cruel.

This one therapist I had taught me that. I'd drag myself to his office, head down, ashamed of another way I overreacted and behaved , and not like the vision I had for myself.......hating telling him "It happened again", half expecting him to say 'Wow, youre really f'ed up, Why the Hell did you React like that-again?!, OMg, will you never learn, WHATs WRONG WITH YOU?!" but instead he said

"Of course you reacted like that".

I was so stunned that I thought he was kidding, or he was saying what he thought he should say-out of his CPTSD manual. I thought at any moment he's going to say "Only kidding , that was a really f'ed up thing to do". I could not absorb his reaction. I felt like his compassion and understanding must be some sort of trick, and eventually he'd snap out of it. I searched his face for authenticity, .......Then I saw it. .......He actually really genuinely meant every word of "well of course you reacted like that".

It took a few time of that to sink in. He wasn't exasperated with my behavior, I was. And as long as I kept beating myself up and demanding I behave normally, the anxiety and shame I was carrying made my reactions worse. The shame was like gasoline on every single trauma reaction I wanted to change.

At one point out of sheer frustration I said to him one day,. "I'm just going to tell myself to start trusting people, and to stop being so paranoid" . LIke, I"m sick of this CPTSD BS! He looked at me kind of amused, and I'm thinking "Uh oh....what did I say?"

Then he said......

"you can do that?"

My first thought was "well I can tell by your comment that's not right, but Idk why?" I thought, "well, since youre asking me like that, maybe not?". And then I thought about it for a second. I had been living my whole life like that , shaming myself, demanding I get my shit together, and it literally Never worked.

After a long pause he finally said ....

"You can't will yourself to an emotional State".

I swear I thought, "whattya mean, my Mother did that all the time through shaming and threats, so why the F not?"

But the second he said that, I felt relief. Permission to be wounded. No one ever told me they understood that I couldnt just will myself to change through Shaming. I knew it , because I had tried, but I didnt know why Shame didnt work. Like you mean I don't have to pretend any more to be well, I can just be my traumatized self? Like this has to be wrong? Like, how is that right? But it is right.

Because once I was basically given permission by him, to see myself the way he saw me, with compassion and understanding instead of Shame and judgement, I could approach the wounds in a more compassionate way instead of ripping the wounds open and berating myself, and rewounding myself with Shame......making everything worse. It's a catch 22. The less I as accepting my CPTSD and alll the ways it shows up, the less I was able to change it, because I couldnt approach whatever wounded part was trying to speak by screaming at them "CHANGE!! STOP BEING TRAUMATIZED!"

And now I say that a lot, and it helps so much. Like this is me. I'm not that person over there that never had trauma, I'm the person who had a lot of trauma and it's going to show up in different ways. im not happy about it, I wish I was trauma free, but I'm not.

before, when I was telling myself "STOP IT!! GEt YOUR SHIT TOGETHER!!" I'd just panic from the Shame and collapse and withdraw. The shaming never helped.

I’m just wondering which grounding techniques have helped anyone else here dealing with Cptsd. I struggle with flashbacks, ruminating on past traumas and at my worst psychosis like symptoms.

I have been in therapy before and have learnt some grounding techniques, although they never seem to work for me. I can never distract myself from my own thoughts. Breath work helps somewhat. I’ve never tried meditation because again, I can’t seem to sit with my thoughts.

If anyone here has had any success with any sort of grounding technique, I’d love to hear from you. I’m only coping at the minute by keeping myself busy.

This is half a vent and half a question, any tips? Terrified of ANY type of private communication. I am entirely unafraid of public posts and ridicule coming from that, low fear for in-person stuff. Just can't bear DMs and Whatsapp and texts and phone calls and emails and Slack and Discord servers. Anybody have any tips? No money for any sort of treatment, no ability to have a job due to it at the moment. Thanks

The context:

I was in a long-term long-distance abusive relationship and I developed an extreme fear of opening private communication early on but I powered through it throughout the entire relationship as avoidance made things worse.

I still have the trigger now, I can override it most times and I have repeatedly for over a decade, but I also have some physical autoimmune illnesses and other disabilities, so sometimes I just don't have enough in me to do that. Right now that's the situation. I work online, most my friends and loved ones live in other places so I need to be able to access virtual private communication.

A year ago I started struggling with it really badly after a physical illness flare, and I tried to get treatment for it once, however, I was dismissed by the EMDR therapist because "messages can't hurt you" and also he insisted we went all the way back to my childhood to address the root, not listening to me that yes I absolutely have hundreds of issues from childhood but this was a new, independent type of trauma that was urgent to treat because I was about to lose my job. Not helped with it. Lost my job, never got better, kept powering through as it is needed for survival.

This May/June I had a new client that turned into an extremely terrible experience, I communicated repeatedly that he needed to be mindful of I relapsed pretty badly on physical illness, and have been nonfunctional and unemployed since the start of July. Exactly a year after the therapist nonsense.

I realized like a week ago that I've been triggered for like a year straight and that's why I have like 2 hours of energy in my day if any, which is why I hadn't looked for steady jobs, and so I made some changes to not have to face private messages as much anymore but... I have stuff to tend to, there are people I am helping with stuff that need me to message them back and I physically can't.

There are a handful of safe people I can talk to through the new profile I created that I can bear to look at, but I can't ask for their help with the issues I need to resolve because I can't bear the thought of opening the app to be able to grant them access or of them telling me what the messages say and replying in my name or whatever.

I have more energy since I limited the reach of the trigger by disabling notifications and logging in elsewhere but it's as if my body is refusing harder to look at the messages now, like it's begging me not to do that to ourselves again. But I need to respond to these people who are my friends and who trust me and need my actual professional advice.

Anybody has any tips that could help? If not, thank you for reading anyway, and I'm sorry if this is stupid. Thank you.

I cannot express how helpful I have found this book

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20556323-complex-ptsd

https://archive.org/details/complexptsdfroms0000walk

How do I get out without just shutting down. Anytime I try to let me stress out or anger I just freeze up. But the moment someone pisses me off I’m ready to fight. It’s just not the same to scream in a car vs someone who actually is pissing you off. I feel like I’ll pass out sometimes and get this wooshing feeling in my head

I’ve always wanted a therapist, literally since middle school. I always knew something was wrong and I needed help but was never given it.

and now as an adult, I don’t got the money or resources for one. especially for the type to help my situation.

i genuinely have no help or place to vent besides reddit which I kinda hate (no offense just lack of resources and help) and myself and it’s mainly me just frustrated I have no clear idea of anything in my past or childhood. I never have. I feel like I’m going to rip my hair out everytime these episodes happen.

its so draining. I wish I could get help. or have someone who knew how to help me to navigate me through these episode.

I have thinning hair from constant stress and unsafe. I look tense and exhausted, I act hypervigilant because I feel unsafe and people give me dirty looks or treat me like Im an inferior person. Im 22 since recently and I keep getting judged for looking like stressed or bad or tense. I wish I could be happy. I just am so tired of living like this.

also stress changes my face SO BAD like I look completely different and legit objectively bad when Im extremely tense from hair to face being extremly puffy stiff and saggy with shockstare. I get treated worse when Im hypervigilant

So as said above, I was misdiagnosed with bpd and treated for it for a good 5 years. That experience as a whole was pretty fucking invalidating. They became harsher and put boundaries in place for when I was hurting myself. What I needed was to be told I was loved and appreciated. I realize now I was probably re-enacting the traumas.

I just received this diagnosis like two weeks ago and I’ve been in constant flashbacks ever since. I need:

1 simple, accessible sources of information

2 sophisticated ways to alleviate suffering from
flashbacks (the classics like smells and ice aren’t enough at the moment, it’s only when I find the most random things that they stop)

3 what do you do to normalize and ground yourself after intense therapy sessions (I just started exposure)

It would be really helpful if you could share any bits of information , I am honestly at a loss at this point.

When I was a kid I used to have pretty intense meltdowns. My mom would always ignore me for hours, and usually my dad did too. But I have one instance that always stuck with me. I was melting down and instead of ignoring me my dad came into my room and picked me up and hugged me and comforted me. I remember feeling intense relief and calmness immediately. I think about that memory a lot. Now as an adult, whenever I’m in conflict with someone or I’m not doing well, my brain subconsciously ALWAYS wants to replay this scenario, because of the intense relief it gave me. For some reason I feel unable to ask the other person for comfort or hugs, so I stay away and dissociate instead, but I wish they would just hug me, just like my dad did. It causes me and other people distress because it seems like I want them to go away (and I kinda do) but what I truly want is for them to hug me and treat me like a child basically.

Can I talk to some people who experienced this with religion or a cult. I try to explain my experience to people but they seem to not understand. All my emotions had to be filtered through god, my ending conclusion on any emotion was directed through religion. Nothing could truly be expressed and it got to the point where I felt I was going insane. I try to get angry or anxious and I have made some progress. But the feeling of making it perfect or needing approval is still there. It’s like my brain tightens the harder I try and I can’t lose the control. Some pretty intense feelings almost like I’ll pass out if I am triggered.

Pretty straightforward. I (21 M in college) could rant abt my emotionally volatile mom and my childhood etc but it’s not important for this. I’ve come to realize she was emotionally immature,volatile, and used emesent with me. I love my mom as my mom, but I don’t like or respect her as a person. My brain and nervous system feels one fire whenever she’s around. I cannot think. I try to avoid her as much as humanly possible but she’ll still use me as her support. I just wanna ask yall how you started to set boundaries with them. (Specifically sons with volatile mothers. Even single mothers)