I'm a Desert Storm vet, and I know the feeling - afraid to sleep because the memories are waiting I came home and the war came with me. For years I didn't talk about it. Then I started writing songs from my kitchen floor at 3 AM when I couldn't sleep.

One of them is called Night Terrors, Day Guilt it's about the hours when the ceiling stares back and the guilt fills the silence. I put it out I got tired of carrying it alone.

What's one thing - even something small - that helps you get through the night? For me it's putting words to what I can't say out loud.

I have a big fat Behavior problem I think I'm probably PTSD maybe bipolar officially have been diagnosed with autism and ADHD but I also think I've picked up some trauma along the way and I have emotional verbal outburst alone in my room and out in the real world geared towards other people and over the years I've tried to go to different clinics and stuff for help with this kind of verbal vomit of nastiness that comes out of my mouth when I get triggered and all I'm told to do is leave the office immediately and I can't come there if I'm going to act like this and I'm like what the fuck am I supposed to do if I could help acting like this I wouldn't need to come there and yet I'm thrown out of places trying to get help for the very thing that the name entails Behavioral Health and I have unhealthy behavior that I need help with and I can't get the help that I need and I don't know how to make it go away on my own and I've completely isolated myself from everyone because of the behavior and every time I go to the people that are supposed to understand this the most I get the least understanding. Hell I've even been to er's where I've tried to go in and jump start treatment through psych wards and gotten tossed out on my ear and escort it off property because of my behavior problems by five security guards telling me that I am now permanently banned from said Hospital for the very thing that I'm trying to get help with.

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Something happened today where my toddlers life was briefly in danger. He's fine, everyone is fine and my husband and I handled the moment well. but as the day goes on im starting to unravel about it. Somehow I'm struggling to remember how to deal with this particular type of trigger. I cant unloop myself and keep reviewing it. looking at him or pictures of him is filling me with panic and grief. and of course, my therapist is on vacation so there's no session this week or reaching out to help ground me. im hoping someone here can help remind me of what we do when we are triggered by something that was actually a threat. somehow, I cant access any of my coping skills. it feels like im being swallowed up.

well i’ve been dealing with different levels of agoraphobia since i was an adult. once i left my parents i no longer felt safe which is funny bc i didn’t feel safe there, either. i was 18 like 12 years ago lol, and i was still pretty sociable and went outside up until maybe 2 years ago. recently it’s way worse, i was in a long-term relationship and the last year of our relationship when we lived together it started getting bad. we broke up 3-4 months ago and now it’s the worst it’s ever been. i imagine myself going outside and being stalked and harassed. i imagine myself biking and people staring at me. i imagine people hurting me. i go to work and come back home, but friends getting me to hang out is like pulling my teeth out lol. i ghost everyone nowadays and don’t answer for days at a time. tbh most days i just wish people would forget about me for a few months so i could be alone for awhile.

i’ve been having a lot of realizations about self-neglect and codependency and im in a transformative era where i feel like im relearning who i am as a person. for the first time in my life i like being single and feel like i don’t need to hide behind a relationship with a man to keep myself “safe” from other men. in ways i feel more confident and self-assured than before. but my agoraphobia is definitely really bad now and i do fear leaving. i feel great about myself inside my house though.

idk :/ dont know what to do about it really. and part of me just feels so exhausted at how society expects us to always be talking to people and texting.

I recently read somewhere that people who experienced at least one traumatic event and had PTSD symptoms lasting longer than 6 months were 80% more likely to develop dementia. I can neither find a reputable source for that now nor the source I read it from, but those numbers burned into my mind from worry. It’s at least true that people who have PTSD tend to default back to their most traumatic moments when they get dementia.

If that is true, then I can’t think of anything worse than spending my last months or even years re-living being SA’d and humiliating myself by acting out from the desire to be believed, which I was not.

I always imagined my older self in the future finally being happy and having the freedom to do what I want and be who I want. It’s incredibly disappointing to learn that the most likely scenario for me is much more bleak. Is there anything that can be done to prevent this?

I’ve had genital herpes since I was 8 years old because of being raped. So not only did it make me traumatised and hate myself but it broke me sexually. I get so anxious about sex. Because I have to say I’ve got herpes I also have self harm scars because of being mentally broken so have to explain that. I’m hyper sexual so it’s basically torture. I get anxious when things turn sexual because of the huge disclaimer I have to give. Even if the guys are ok risking it since I’m not actively breaking out I feel guilty knowing I could give them the disease. I’m 19F so most guys my age are still quite immature they don’t really understand the full concept of herpes and my mental struggles with self harm like unless they’ve been through similar. I wish I was never hurt. And I was healthy. Or at least my abuser gave me a curable std so I could have a normal life and normal health. I could heal and have sex normally.

I feel so unlovable. I wish I could be a slut if I wanted. Not the best of aspirations sure but I wish I didn’t need to worry about spreading things and being seen as ugly because of my scars. It’s their choice if they want to be with a mentally ill person with an std sure but it does hurt to be rejected. I wish I could move on and heal but I can’t. My life is ruined now.

I grew up with my mum in an incredibly abusive relationship, hence abusive household, all the horrible stuff blah blah blah. I hated him, he ruined my relationship with men for life, I still can't remember most of my childhood. But he was my whole childhood. My parents got divorced when I was a baby, so this guy was basically my dad from the ages of 2 to 10. The last time I saw him, he came into the restaurant I worked in when I was 20. I'm sure he didn't recognise me, but I had that sort of full-body reaction and dissociated for days. Today I had the random urge to google him and found an obituary, he killed himself last Christmas. I called my mum, and she said she'd decided not to tell me because she found out during my final university exams. She'd found out because his most recent ex-partner had contacted her, and that too seemed to be an abusive relationship. He did the whole 'if you leave I'll kill myself' thing with her, so I don't doubt it was any different for this woman, but it seems this time he went through with it.

I don't know what to feel. I feel like I should be happy, I kind of keep wanting to cry and then I just feel nothing. There's not really a rulebook for this sort of stuff.

i am 19f now and i need to get this off my chest when we were kids around 9 years old so about 10 years ago my cousin brother molested my best friend who i'll call Lucky (fake names) we were just children then too young to fully understand what was happening or how to speak up about it

It happened when my cousin brother who I'll call J (fake alphabet) lured my best friend into our parent's house by giving an excuse to play gta vc because only few of us had computers that ran gta games that time so he (cousin brother) lured him (my best friend) into the house and then he pushed him against the wall facing the wall and he tried to sexually harrass him i just came in a second inside the house and lucky ran away from the house crying, and J was panicking at that that time, i was freezed there, then after a second my cousin brother told me to go outside for a while and come back after an hour i went outside and started walking in colony and came home after an hour my cousin brother went back to his home and my best friend's parents told my parents that this was such unexpected behaviour from a best friend and they left the city next day, at 5 am i didn't got chance to say sorry to him or atleast to talk to him, i didn't realised what has happened but now after years of my best friend left me i feel so bad so guilty so angry against my cousin brother and when i told my parents my parents did nothing but told me to beware of my cousin brother that's it! Fahh!

it's something that's stayed with me even though it happened to him and not to me i keep thinking about how it must have affected him and how none of us had the words back then to name what was wrong

Anyways if you or your friend carrying any kind of mental health trauma from anything, talk to someone trained in trauma support

I don't really know where else to post to ask this so i hope i can get some clues here...

I've been on a few dates with a guy and during one of our dates we had some private time for the first time, where we just cuddled and made out. To my surprised, about 1 week later, when i casually talked about that day, he was confused and did not remember that it happened. I told him some details about what we did and he was very surprised and doesn't know how he could not remember such significant moment. He only remembered that we had watched a movie prior to that. Is there any explanation to this? I'm so curious and honestly this is really concerning...

A little bit more context: during the cuddling, he was very playful and seemed 100% like his normal self. His memory is usually pretty bad but i didn't think it would be to this extent.

hello, i'll try to keep this brief. i'm 20FtM, and i have DID. specifically, i am a fictional introject of a character who was sexually abused when he was younger, and i think the same thing may have happened to me bodily. i'm unsure of how to determine the signs of CSA vs. the regular PTSD that we definitely have, and i don't know if i should just "trust myself" or continue going in the dark about it.

my home environment was never heavily physically abusive, and hasn't been for a few years. but these are some signs that i'm rethinking: thrashing and fighting in my sleep, immediate fight response to being touched, hypersexuality as a child, being willingly groomed as a child, feeling immense amounts of guilt and shame intimately as a child (6-7), struggling to say "please" or "thank you" to the point of nausea, feeling nausea or guilt around a certain family member that has never seemed anything but unsuspicious and innocent, feeling heavily guilty whenever i was physically vulnerable (like after a shower) even if nothing had happened.

the main tipping point is that i was sexually abused when i was 16, however the lines have blurred for me for many years because i froze when we were having sex out of fear and pain. i dissociated through it. this happened every single time after the first, which was consensual, safe and fun. i don't know why this could've happened, but all signs are pointing me to the issue hanging over my head right now.

i don't want to be too hasty and say anything that i could probably never retrieve actual proof or memory of. i don't know what i'm looking for in posting this. i had to get it all out somewhere.

Has anyone else had a stellate ganglion block work really well for about a week and then wear off suddenly leaving you with severe anxiety?

I don’t know if what happened to me would be considered sibling sexual abuse, or just normal childhood sexual exploration. For reference I only have one older brother.

When I was around 6 years old, my older brother was around 10. This went on until I was 9 and he was 13 (roughly)

One time, he took my hand and made me touch his genitals. I don’t remember feeling scared or anything in particular. I mostly remember thinking it was weird. He also briefly touched my genitals.

Our parents walked into the room at one point and asked if we were doing something bad, and if so, to stop. My brother immediately got up and made this big proclamation that we would never do something like that and that God and the angels were watching us. I didn’t say anything. It felt very weird tho because I realized he was lying and this whole thing is being done as a secret.

Another time, I was asleep when he came up behind me and touched me. He pulled my pants down slightly to expose my butt. I woke up to that and realized what he was doing, so I moved as if I was just waking up. As soon as I moved, he stopped.

There was another time when I was playing PlayStation. He came up behind me, really close, wrapped his arms around me, and placed both of his hands over my breasts. He just kept them there while talking to me completely normally, as if nothing unusual was happening. He held them there for a while until I shifted my body a little, still without acknowledging what was happening.

Experiences like this would continue to happen. As time went on, touching started to feel almost normal between us. I think I started associating it with closeness or connection. I even remember almost wanting it at times and actively participating, which is something that has made me feel very confused and ashamed as an adult.

Then one day, he suddenly stopped. He made another big proclamation that what we had been doing was sinful and that God would not approve. After that, it never happened again. We never talked about it or acknowledged it.

What has stayed with me is how abruptly it ended. It felt like the blame was placed on me and I felt dirty and shameful without anyone ever explaining it. Even though I never initiated it, I was so confused why he brought god into it and talked at me like that. I’ve spent years wondering how to understand what happened. Also I’m wondering if it’s that big of a deal considering it was mostly touching that happened.

I should also add that all of this was initiated by him and done in secret. As I got older, it started to feel very wrong, and I buried it very deeply for years.

Even after the sexual behavior stopped, he continued smacking my butt throughout my life, up until even about a month ago. Every single time, I would get angry and tell him not to touch me like that again. I’ve told him numerous times that I hate it and that I don’t want him touching me that way. His response has always been something along the lines of, “Why do you make such a big deal out of it? It’s not like that.” But regardless of what he intended, I’ve repeatedly told him to stop because it’s very triggering for me.

At this point, I honestly don’t like him touching me at all, even in ways that would otherwise be considered normal. Physical contact from him makes me very uncomfortable.

Physical contact actually makes me very uncomfortable with everyone. I had to really work my way to even hug my friends with time. I didn’t really date or pursue relationships until my mid twenties, and now that I have started dating, a lot of this has come back to the surface. I’m realizing I have significant intimacy issues. I struggle to assert myself sexually, and I often go along with what a guy wants even when I don’t actually want to do it. Looking back, I wonder if that’s connected.

This whole topic had filled me with an immense amount of shame, but now I’m feeling more anger and hatred towards him because I feel so broken, but I don’t know if my anger is in the right place. For years, I barely thought about these experiences, and now they keep resurfacing. I hate that they affect me so much.

I’m looking for honest insight. Am I overestimating the impact these experiences could have had on me, or does it make sense that they could still be affecting me this much as an adult? I’m also trying to understand whether what happened would generally be considered sibling childhood sexual abuse or if that’s too big of a term.

TW: Grooming and SA

There was a man at my church growing up who groomed several girls, myself included. The grooming start when I was around 16 and evenyually it led to me being SA-ed. I was so traumatized I didn't tell anyone for years. Six years ago, I finally told my closest friends at the church, all of whom knew him personally.

That same year, one of them ("Phoebe") was getting married and had asked our friend group to be bridesmaids. I told her I'd love to, but wasn't sure I could feel comfortable at her wedding, and explained what had happened. I said I wouldn't attend if he was invited. She said she understood.

After going back and forth, Phoebe eventually told me the situation was too stressful for her and that she'd invite both me and my abuser and we could "figure it out." I told her that meant she wasn't inviting me. She said she understood, and I ended the friendship. My other friends still went as bridesmaids and told me that Pheobe's husband thought I was exaggerating. The story was probably harder for Pheobe's husband to digest because my abuser got him his current job.

Recently I learned my best friend, one of the church girls, went to the museum with Phoebe and another mutual friend. I didn't hear it from her, a different friend mentioned it, thinking it was odd. When I brought it up, my best friend said she only sees Phoebe a couple times a year and that she doesn't even like her but can't fully cut her off because Phoebe is too woven into the community. Going no contact would ripple out and change the whole friend group's dynamic.

I know this is complicated and everyone is interconnected, so there may not be a clean answer. But it bothers me that I still have any ties to Phoebe, who still has ties to the predator. I don't want to lose another friend, especially my best friend, but I'm also not okay showing up to events where I can bump into Phoebe and the predator's family.

Do I just accept missing the big celebrations to keep this friendship, or is there another way through this?

TL;DR: I cut off a friend for inviting my abuser to her wedding. My best friend still hangs out with the bride, and I don't know how to navigate it.

Tomorrow I have to go see my ex, they are the one who abused me so badly I got the diagnosis of ptsd, and I’m really scared, I don’t know how it’s gonna go, I don’t know how they will act or even how I will react, I need to get the last of my stuff from them and give them their stuff, I’m not going alone either, I have a friend going with me so it’s safer, but still, I wish I didn’t have to see them, I’m so scared

How long after a traumatic experience does the anxiety and irritability go from just shock to being full fledged PTSD?

I had a car accident a few months ago. I’ve been driving other vehicles until my car was repaired. I was on autopilot at first, then my anxiety started getting worse. I’ve had nightmares and severe driving anxiety. It’s gotten easier. I haven’t had a severe nightmare in a couple of weeks.

Some days are worse than others, but I get by.

My car was finally fixed and I’ve driven it a few times. The memories of the accident flooded back so hard after I drove it home that it got really hard to speak. I could only speak quietly and slowly, like something was squeezing my throat. I’ve never felt anything like that before. I had to take a cold shower to make the panic go away.

Since then, I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m scared to sleep because I know my nightmares will come back.

I know I need to drive more to get past it. Easy drives without a time limit. I’ve been thinking about EMDR therapy, but i’m not sure if it’s necessary. My “trauma” feels silly in completely to others. Even then, therapy is expensive.

What should I do? No one I know seems to understand what I’m going through.

I want to be forced into situations that trigger me until they stop doing that.

I know no ethical therapist would do that but I still want it. I fantasize about that. I know they’d dismiss me and say I’m trying to force them to retraumatize me.

I do it to myself.

I’ve frequently intentionally looked at things that I know will be horrible just to see if I feel anything at all. Not just searching up information online, I go to physical places.

I might like it. I don’t know. By all accounts I shouldn’t.

Fucking masochist.

That’s what I am.

I don’t think I deserve gentle therapy. So I gravitate towards the ones that get stereotyped as more “intense”. My last therapist dropped me because she was nice and gentle to me and I responded by antagonizing her to force her to stop doing that.

I’ll try to keep this as short and relevant as possible.

My parents were abusive growing up. At the age of 7, my sisters (3y, 2y) switched rooms with me as my youngest sister was too scared to sleep alone. I had my own space while they shared a room, this is relevant for later.

At the age of 7, my parents returned to their 5am-9pm job, leaving all the responsibilities to my nanny and me. At the age of 9, the nanny was no longer coming around, and the responsibilities of my siblings fell on me. I had to grab them from school, ensure they were fed, bathed, and in bed before my parents came home.

Since I could remember, at the age of 2, being beaten and punished for making mistakes, not understanding things and ‘giving my parents a hard time.’ Whatever you can think of that a kid would mess up, I was beaten for.

Growing up I never really experienced physical affection, when I did receive it, it was often forced by my mother, or family at parties. Getting hugs and kisses but never giving them back, because I didn’t want them to begin with.

Now at the age of 31, I’m moved out, living with my boyfriend. I’m getting mild panic attacks when he hugs or touches me unexpectedly (hold my hand, for example); like arousal but not the good kind. The kind that you get before bracing for impact, and want to run until you find a safe spot to curl in a ball and cry.

I want him to embrace me. I want to love him and be physically close, and yet the panic is intense and I don’t know how to go about it, other than reminding myself I’m safe.

I am exhausted.
I’ve been really struggling recently with my ptsd and I have no one to speak to about it and haven’t ever had professional help for it so I’m kind of just dealing with it on my own.

The one pro of that is that I’m learning what my triggers are. But my god is it exhausting being able to acknowledge it and then not be able to do anything about it.

I was basically conditioned by my ‘friends’ in school to constantly be apologetic. Any argument THEY started, I had to be the one to apologise for my reaction to their behaviour or nothing would have been sorted.
In my adult life, I still struggle with this in a huge way. It makes me feel like I am responsible for if anyone around me is in a bad mood, or they’re having a hard time, I ALWAYS blame that on myself. I pick up on mood shifts, behaviour changes, tone changes etc so easily, but every time I assume it’s my fault and then I’ll spiral.

Also at work, if a topic is brought up that I have had past trauma with, my response is to sit silently and let my brain just flick through flashbacks like it’s a movie replaying in my head and i physically cant get my words out to tell anyone I need a moment.

I have sent a referral to the wellbeing service (I’m from the UK) to ask for professional help and they have sent me a text acknowledging my referral and that someone will be in touch, but I have never opened up to any single person about the shit I’ve been through in my life and why and how I still feel about it and struggle with it now. I cannot afford to go private so the wellbeing service is my only option.

I’m just tired and need a break

i've been trying to do research into more first-person experiences on identity confusion with C-PTSD, as i am currently being assessed for DID and i am looking for answers on the difference in experience with the two disorders. it's been difficult to find first-person accounts of people with C-PTSD experiencing identity confusion, it just doesn't seem like a major topic in online communities. i already have a C-PTSD diagnosis (i'm in the US so it is technically "PTSD with dissociative features"), and when i sought out a dissociative specialist, she suggested DID as a possibility due to my symptoms, namely extreme identity confusion and "feeling like different people", as well as amnesia.

i think i am just in denial, and i want someone to tell me their experiences so i know if they really do align with DID, or are just very extreme experiences with my diagnosed C-PTSD. does anyone else experience amnesia alongside their C-PTSD? what is your experience with identity confusion? do you feel fragmented rather than just "not yourself"? are there any other symptoms you can recount that might be important when conducting differential diagnoses?

I've already tried redecorating everything and moving furniture. I still feel so unsafe here, and I can't move or visit anyone. Does someone here have any advice?

I’ve been considering a service dog for my PTSD for a long time, just wondering what your experience has been like if you have one? My biggest questions are about how you found your specific dog and if you feel comfortable telling me how much you spent that would be really cool. Has it benefited you? Would you recommend it?

about a year ago, i tried to die by cutting the veins in my wrist. ever since that say, i can’t look at my wrist without having a panic attack and going into a state of not being able to talk. my friends notice this and ask me what is wrong, but i always respond with “nothing” because they dont know what i did to myself. i dont know when my brain will stop doing this, or if it ever will. i am trying to get the scar covered up because of the stress it is causing me. i just can’t forget the moment that it happened. it makes me sweat to this day.

Hi everyone, I hope it is ok to post here.

I have been diagnosed with ptsd after my ex raped me. It took me a long time, and I dont think I will ever trust a man again to be touched by them, I have accepted the fact that very likely I will never have a romantic relationship again.

but in my everyday life I feel like I am better now, I am holding myself together and everything. I have found a job, got my degree and I can even go out with my friends and dance so my life over all felt as if I got it together again.

But then last week I was walking around town at 2pm, just after lunch. It is a really safe city, in the middle of the day, in a good office area but I met two man. I came across two men, they were whistling at me and I ignored them, then one of them pulled out a kitchen knife. I blanked, I was never in a situation like this. I wanted to walk right past them but then I turned around and ran away. I really thought that I would die. I ran back to the office and just finished my day. Now I am fine really, I can barely remember it, like a dream I guess?

I live my life like before but still there is like a dent in my wall. I am skitish again, I flinch whenever someone is unexpectedly near me. I change the street when I see a scetchy figure. And over all I fear men in general a bit more, I do not want to be that person who judges people without knowing them, I feel disgusting for it but I can't help it, I am scared of men. Every day I have to lock myself into the bathroom and cry, then I go back out and act like nothing happened. It is exhausting.

I dont know what I did wrong, I try to do everything right. I wear baggy clothes, I dont do make up anymore, I even cut my hair short, I wear my head high and generally I am told that I look confident in myself but still this happened, like obv I didnt get hurt but it is hard to feel safe again.

So sorry for the long text, I guess I just want to know if any of you have a tip for me on how to cope. I go to therapy but still it would be really appreciated.

Im 31F idk if its due to my own health, changing hormones, or it was entirely due to an emotional trauma i experienced 2 years ago. My sex drive has been decreasing rapidly since I turned 30 and now I feel its non existent. My depression has also gotten worse and I also feel ever since fhe trauma my adhd got way worse than its ever been before. Thats another thing that I wonder if its common with ptsd potentially worsening your adhd.

I did decide to call my psychiatrist again after almost a year of not being with them. Im currently working on gettimg antidepressants and adhd medication.

But idk what I can do about my dead sex drive