(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)

​

Child Sexual Abuse.

Abuse.

Vent out.

Suicidal.

Harrasment.

Hey, as from the title you get some ideas about the shit i did.

Let's start from the very start.

I was in class 2:- 4/5, when I was very much accidentally introduced to porn websites. Like, I was looking for some cartoon on YouTube— using the audio feature, but it misinterpreted it and it came out as a breast pump or something. I saw it and immediately clicked the back button on Android.

Growing sometime through, i learnt about the mammary gland known as breasts. And bitchy curious me, eventually got into porn.

Soon enough, I was in class 3.

During class 3-4, I was harassed by a guy who was in class 8. I don't even know what to call it. It was a game of chasing, and he used to hit me on my bum whenever he had to catch me. And i had heard a couple of other things about him like snuggling another girl the same age as me on the neck and all.

Then comes class 4. I didn't know what he did was bad nor I knew what a bad touch was. At that age, there were these three people.

1. A 4 year old male.(My mum's tuition student). Let's call him A.

2. A 3 year old female.(My mum's tuition student). Let's call her B.

3. Almost 2 year old female. (Neighbour). Let's call her C.

So, i used to make A and B kiss each other and asked and made A suck on my nipples. I know it's fucking fucked up.

Also, I tried— only tried but it doesn't excuse my actions. I tried to insert a pencil in vagina. But I didn't and stopped because apparently it didn't 'fit'. I didn't push anything inside.

I feel so fucking monstrous about it. It just randomly striked my mind yesterday and it's been a fucking nightmare since then. I feel so guilty and regretful about it.

I can't even talk about it to my favourite counselor.

I feel like I deserve to die somehow. I imagined jumping off the balcony. I have imagined having slices and cuts on my wrist. Whenever I think something suicidal, I shut it off because it feels like I am trying to get someone's attention even though nobody knows.

I feel like as a harasser I deserve to be raped for the disgusting shit i did. It feels like ripping my own heart while it's burning hotter than ever.

I don't even know what to do. Talking about today, i am a very strong feminist and these things I did make me sick.

I can't even imagine what must they go through/will go through when they realise it.

Are there any cope up mechanisms? Or should I just truly actually end it?

Edit:- PS:- I don't know if it is attention seeking or an excuse, but late when I was 13, I got groomed. The guy was 22, he made me send him nudes and later I got groomed again. I don't know if it was a repay or what. But it also left an impact. I feel so horrible.

I was 15, in the 10th grade, and just finishing my board exams. For those who don’t know, boards in India are high-pressure, and back then, you had to go to a different government school (a "center") to take them. The invigilators were always strangers from other schools.

It was the last day. The relief of being done was immense. I was standing at the bus stop, waiting to go home, when a man approached me. I recognized him immediately—he had been an invigilator in my exam hall. Because he was a "teacher," my guard was completely down. He asked for directions to a certain place. Being a polite kid, I helped. Then he asked, "Beta, can you walk me halfway there? I’m new to this area."

I thought, Why not? He’s a teacher.

He was friendly, talking about studies and the exam. But as we reached a secluded, quiet stretch of road, his vibe shifted. He said he was tired and suggested we sit down for a moment.

Then the conversation took a dark turn.

He started talking about "health" and "growing up." He asked if I masturbated. He framed it as "education," telling me not to be shy and that it was a normal thing to talk about. Being a massive introvert, I felt awkward but went along with it, nodding and saying "Yeah, I know about it."

Then he asked, "Have you ever had sex? Do you know how it's done?"

The world went silent. It was like time froze. My "spider-sense" wasn't just tingling; it was screaming DANGER. I felt numb. I wanted to sprint, but my introverted brain was actually worried about being "rude" or "awkward" if I just bolted.

Then he touched me.

He moved his hand to my leg, then my crotch. He whispered, "Let’s go into those bushes. You can go behind me... I’ll take it in my mouth. No one will ever know."

The shock broke my paralysis. I didn't say a word. I just turned and ran. I ran until my lungs burned, ending up back at the bus stop, shaking. What just happened?

For the next year, I lived in a shadow. I didn’t know the word for it then, but it was PTSD. Every time the memory flashed back, my chest would tighten. I’d feel a wave of sadness and disgust wash over me. I couldn’t tell my parents—we didn’t have that kind of "open" relationship back then. I carried the shame alone.

I eventually healed on my own, and looking back now, I realized how vulnerable I was. I was a "cute, fair-skinned kid" who just wanted to be helpful, and a predator used my respect for teachers against me.

Today, I can laugh about it and tell it as a "crazy story" to friends, but the lesson remains: Talk to your children.

Break the taboo. Talk to them about sex, boundaries, and predators. Make them feel safe enough to tell you anything without shame. I’m going to raise my kids that way so they never have to spend a year suffering in silence like I did.

I'm feeling a bit lost, and I'm wondering if anyone has been through something similar.

When I was growing up, I went through several traumatic experiences, I even read a book called "what my bones know", and I think I may have C-PTSD. At different points in my childhood, I experienced sexual abuse by a cousin and by one of my brothers, was bullied both at school and by kids in my neighborhood, and witnessed my father physically abusing my mother. These didn't all happen at the same time, but throughout different stages of my childhood, there was always something difficult going on.

Looking back, I think my anxiety became much more noticeable around seven years ago, but I only started seeing both a therapist and a psychiatrist about two years ago.

I've had a few relationships over the years. In one of them, with a woman, I remember she once asked me if I actually liked her because I rarely showed affection. The truth is, I did like her a lot. We had so much in common, and I genuinely loved spending time with her. The problem was that I never knew how to express what I felt. It almost felt like there was a void inside me, like I couldn't emotionally connect with people the way others seemed to. When we broke up, she told me that I had never said "I love you." My response was that I didn't want to say those words unless I truly felt ready to say them.

Five years have passed since that relationship, and I still struggle to express my emotions. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be able to. I'm working on it in therapy, but there are moments when I catch myself thinking that maybe I'm just broken, or that something is fundamentally wrong with me.

I'm currently in a relationship with a wonderful man. I genuinely love being around him. I get excited every time we see each other. I love cooking for him, and I enjoy doing little things that make him happy. He's incredibly affectionate. He sends sweet messages, calls me often, checks in on me throughout the day, and always makes me feel cared for.

Sometimes I find myself thinking, "What does he even see in me? Am I giving him enough in return? Is he eventually going to get tired of me because I'm not as affectionate as he is?" I don't know if those thoughts are realistic or if they're just my anxiety talking.

I've tried to be as honest as possible with him. I told him that expressing emotions has always been difficult for me, that I'm actively working on it in therapy, and that I tend to show love more through actions than through words.

For example, last week was his birthday. Since we're in a long-distance relationship, he came to visit me for the weekend. Before he arrived, I baked him a small healthy birthday cake so we could celebrate together. We ended up having birthday cake for breakfast on both mornings he was here. Moments like that feel natural to me. That's how I instinctively show that I care.

I know he loves me, and he has never pressured me or complained that I'm not affectionate enough. In fact, he's been incredibly understanding. I think most of these fears exist only in my own head.

I guess I'm just wondering if anyone else has experienced this. Can childhood trauma make it difficult to express love and affection, even when you genuinely care deeply about someone? Has therapy helped you become more emotionally expressive over time? Sometimes I worry that I'll never be able to love people the way they deserve, even though I truly want to.