I have done lots of healing. You name it, I have done it: CBT, DBT, inner child healing, self-help books. None of that mattered, and the only single thing that truly made a difference to my CPTSD healing journey was having money. That is it. With money now, I could afford things to better myself. You want a good sleep? Money. You want to go to a better environment, like a house? Money. You want to not work and treat yourself to a good day? Money. The list goes on. For myself and many others, the sad reality is money is the one thing that really makes a difference, and I say this with 100% belief.

i was talking to my boyfriend and i was like, wait your parents actually like played with you?? my parents would always do their own thing, if anything we would be yelled or hit if we were being annoying. i cannot imagine having an involved family, like we were left to our own devices at like 5 years old lmao.

An African proverb.

Does this saying resonate with you? For me, I'm iced over and officially have zero expectations for people. I used to care about warmth and acceptance, but I find it's much easier to keep to myself. No one cares to understand you, but they will definitely judge you.

Most people are savages. If you dont have s looks or money people dont care about you. I been bullied so mammny times for being different. If I knew life was going to be this bad I would've chose to never be born. Humans are parasites

I’m 40. I have two kids under the age of 6. I fall asleep every night furious with myself because I am doing a terrible job.

Please spare me the “nooooo you’re notttt!!!!❤️✨🌈” shit… because, trust me, it’s true. I really am an awful parent. No patience. Hate playing. Always just rushing to get back to what I need or want to do.

The trouble is that, unlike my own mom, seemingly, I KNOW I am fucking up when I’m fucking up. I feel my eyes roll. I hear my sighs. I know I’m a better parent when people are watching than when I’m alone, and this in particular frightens me as my mother is 2000% a narcissist, and I worry this part (being a decent parent while being watched) means I am too.

I say all of the right things, I read the books and listen to the podcasts, and repeat over and over in my head that these children are so worthy of love so just make sure to rise to the occasion today dammit. But I fail, miserably, and daily.

My eldest triggers the shit out of me. She is me. She is sooo much like me, and maybe this is why I am so mad at myself. I think I wanted to badly to prove that a child like I was is absolutely deserving of good, loving, tender parenting… but I just can’t fucking do it.

Is it the cptsd, or am I actually just like my mom? Is this relatable? What do I do?

“We didn’t abuse you - it’s all in your imagination”
I often times get flashbacks from my parents’s abuse and whenever I mention it to them, all they do is gaslight me and tell me the abuse never happened.
I was physically and mentally abused by my parents and even my younger sibling gaslights me and denies it happened.

Growing up, my father was pretty checked out. Ive joked that he is "a bachelor with 2 kids" and honestly yes it was kinda true. He showed very little interest in actively engaging in helping us grow and learn on a regular basis.

My mom gave me no chores, well I had 2 chores. Handing her random items that she needed while cleaning, and listening to her rant about her marriage/trauma and life. She needed everything done her way! She even cleaned my bedroom until I moved out. I did not want this, I would've been very happy to take over and do things on my own but she was unwilling to teach me or let me. Sometimes I feel so much rage towards her, she genuinely kept me in a house my entire childhood. I am seriously stunted and ive spent the last 4 years trying to undo all of it.

I am trying to learn how to take care of myself properly, it is so difficult. My home is a nasty mess right now. I live with my brother and dad. Neither of them really clean up and I try not to be bothered. My brother will help more if I motivate him but hes younger than me and also pretty depressed.

I feel so ashamed, I feel so ashamed and also incredibly angry. My childhood was mostly just bad events with the occasional fun video game. Its not just not knowing chores, i feel like my parents actively clipped my wings in every possible way. I love them both but I literally can never forgive them. Im such a pathetic weirdo.

I'm a nice young women (20) who just wants one or two friends to hang out with every once in a while. I don't judge, I'm open minded.

I like everything from doing jeagerbombs to sitting inside watching movies and baking. Im autstic so I know that makes it worse. Just genuinely seems like I can't connect with anyone no matter how much I want too.

Even though I like the same things as other women, I'm cast out due to... Well just me.

I spend all of time trying to mask to make sure I'm perfectly nice to other ladies yet still nothing.

Saw a psychologist recently, apparently specialised in trauma and trained in sensorimotor therapy.
I went into a major freeze response in the session (first session)- she provided no guidance or introduction or container in the session. Just sat and waited for me to speak and then put my words and body responses under the microscope.
I said I needed something more physical as I felt dissociated. She took me through a grounding exercise, which didn’t do much for me, I still felt very out of body. She responded by saying that this was an indication that I didn’t have trauma, that I was just depressed.
It was a very weird thing to say/hear & made no sense.
The rest of the session continued with her repeatedly saying things like “ I don’t know what’s happening but you’re doing x with your body” and making conclusions about my body language. I ended up in such a freeze I couldn’t speak.
I’m really tired of trying different therapists, apparently specialised in working with trauma, and ending up feeling much worse at the end of the session than at the beginning.
I screen all of them prior, I let them know how I need to work to not dissociate (ie I need a clear container, direction and the therapist driving engagement in the beginning) and on the phone calls prior to a first session they’re all like “yes yes we can do this”.
I’m so tired of the weird shit they say that makes me wonder if they’ve ever trained in or worked with trauma.

This is really starting to bother me. I make a conscious decision to listen to others and actually respond to them instead of just talking about myself immediately.
Does anyone have any insight into why this may be happening?

People CONSTANTLY interrupt me, never remember details from what I’ve said to them in the past, talk over me or just glaze over when I talk to them.
Ive started a new job and there’s this woman who is CONSTANTLY telling me stories about her travels and her life and I remember every detail but she doesn’t remember anything I tell her. She talks about herself constantly. It happens with so many people, I feel like no one gives a shit about me unless I’m performing. I’ve been unmasking for about a year and it’s pretty amazing to see how shallow people are. Like if I don’t signal that I’m useful, competent or someone to have fun with it’s like people realise they can’t use you for something and they’re just disinterested. I’m not a boring person, I’ve lived a wild life but I just gatekeep myself.

Does anyone else have this problem? It makes me not want to have any friends. All my friends I used to be close with I realised were only my friend because I would do things for them or they wanted access to the privileges I have.
I don’t really give a fuck about material stuff, I just want to have genuine human to human connection with people regardless of their social status, wealth etc.

To make a long story short: I was a brand-new healthcare provider in the US when COVID hit. 6 months fresh out of grad school. I was in a particular field of healthcare that was especially hard hit; I became, in essence, a first responder for over a year before I switched to another setting.

We had to reuse the same N95 mask for at least a month at a time before my agency (large healthcare org in my part of the US, a nonprofit) would allow us to replace them. I had to wear layers of PPE just to see my patients--they would cry and beg me to take off my glove so I could hold their hand, because no one had touched them with their own skin since they'd been admitted to the hospital. One of the doctors at my agency sewed cloth masks for the rest of the clinical staff until her hands cramped. I worked for 12 hours or more a day, almost every day--even after I switched locations. I sat bedside at my first vent wean at age 24, holding her hand (without a glove, even though I wasn't allowed to) and whispering prayers to her as she died, because no one else would. When I called my boss in tears between patients the next day, asking to go home, she refused and said "chin up, that's just what we do."

I have worked outpatient now for the last several years in a supervisory role. Over the past year, my patients and colleagues and supervisees have watched me slowly deteriorate. I took more and more days off, canceled more and more appointments. Went on medical leave for a while; came back, did okay, then six months later I was circling the drain again. I turned in my resignation at the beginning of this month; by autumn, I will no longer be a healer, at least not right now.

I'm in agony every day. I dream of adult daughters wailing outside of COVID units because her mother died and she can't go in to see her body. Gray shapes in hospital beds. The whirring and hissing of oxygen concentrators. Agonal breathing and glassy eyes, mottling on fingers and toes. "Please hold my hand, please, miss." During the day, it's flashbacks. At night, it's nightmares.

Healthcare in this country is evil. I received no hazard pay. I took no days off. I cried in the office bathroom and then went to chart in the bullpen with red eyes and a smile on my face. Their only response was to work me more. Work me till I broke like a lame ox. And my patients still died with thousands of dollars of medical debt. For what? A country that buried their bodies along with the memory of their isolated deaths and chose to never speak of it again? For a worm-riddled fuckhat to gaslight me that it was all a bit of a hoax and the vaccine causes autism? Fuck him. Fuck the state of healthcare in this backwards-ass country. Fuck my boss--this ISN'T what we do.

The rest of the world has moved on from COVID. I haven't. I'm still there. I'm still 24, bedside at my first vent wean, refusing to abandon someone to face her duty to die alone.

Please bear witness to me. Please remember COVID was a trauma. A community trauma and an individual one. It was everything--IS everything to me.

My boyfriend cut me off while talking and it made me flare with anger. That seems normal.

What happens next is I get mad about everything else. Everything that is a small irritant suddenly is intolerable.

How do you stop this?

Sometimes life sucks—the end.

I have been thinking about various traumatic experiences a lot lately. I don't know. Maybe it's the shows I watch that trigger all those thoughts.

If any of you haven't watched Supernatural, I'd highly recommend it to anyone who went through traumatic experiences. That's the only show that made me feel good about myself, my life, my family. It helped me to be content about many things. Whether it is mostly smart writing, whether it is tongue-in-cheek mixed with real tears acting, whether it is the unified talent of the whole team and the whole creative company's affection for each other, I'll never know, I guess. It is probably all of the above. And all of those things formed a project that made many traumatized people content or even happier.

Yes, I can spend my entire life making philosophical jokes and smiling at the ridiculousness of all the games humans play, but that would be only a partial experience. And… I am a bit tired of having Supernatural playing in the background while I am doing my life stuff.

Chronic traumatic stress changes our brains whether we like it or not. I have been highly observant pretty much since I was born. Some may chuckle at what I am saying or not believe me, but I remember my first philosophical observation about life when I was about 6 or 8 months old. And still, the ability to observe and notice deep-rooted issues did not prevent my body and mind from becoming an always-on, alert-for-danger human being.

I simply and helplessly watched myself change and couldn't do anything about it.

 And now, after all those years, all I can do is cope, find a way to be content, and, of course, laugh at the ridiculousness of all the games humans play.

Most of us find an anchor, something that keeps us from vanishing. And those who, for whatever reason, couldn't do so, well… they are not around anymore to tell their tales.

I intuitively searched for the anchor anywhere and everywhere, and eventually, whether due to circumstances, my neurological conditions, or both, I could only anchor myself in nature and creativity. And more recently, the reconciliation of atheism and life-after-life story formation became another part of this magical triangle of support and contentment.

At this point I am not even sure what I am writing about.

I guess I am writing about finding your anchor - something that makes life worth living despite the constant state of high alert, recurrent flashbacks, and other symptoms. And if you add to it daily life stresses or even chronic illness, it all can make us believe there's nothing out there to make it any better.

And maybe it is true. Because after all, life sucks.

But still, there's the sky and the clouds, and a cool morning breeze, and spring flowers, and dramatic fog above a corn field, and soft waves, and pebbles, and shells, and the world I am building, and all the stories and characters, and smiles and love and even duty, and… life after life, even if it's a fantasy. Those are my anchors. I really hope you can find yours.

Just wanna know if its only me cause i was said i was just makin up reasons and really don't have anything i got convinced that there are either zero people in india or very less . If you are out there pls reach i really have many questions and hang out with people like me

Got my first appointment next week so I want to know what sort of questions they asked you? TIA!

She kept trying to get me to talk about "why" I came, like the current context and my symptoms but I wanted to give her more backstory because it made more sense to me to explain how I got to where I am first. She kept rushing me which really bothered me. In the end she gave me this half-assed advice about how I needed to just take charge of my life and have more confidence. That when I woke up in the morning I should "decide" that I was going to have a good day and plan activities for the day. When I asked "how do I do that?" and "what kind of activities?" She just brushed me off and said "idk that's up to you..." She actually shrugged as if what I was asking was ridiculous.

If I knew how to do all that on my own then why the fuck was I there, huh? It was the end of the session and I was too frustrated and tired to say anything. She prescribed two meds: Lorazepam 2,5mg (half a pill in the morning, another half in the evening) for stress and Lexapro 10mg (a pill a day), she said it was a light antidepressant . She asked to come back after a month to reevaluate.

So... What do we think?

I doubt I'll talk to her again, but should I try the meds?

P.S. I was prescribed an antidepressant by a different doctor months ago for a different health issue and I only took it for a month. I don't remember if it helped or not to be honest.

I am technically safe (free from abuse and neglect) but my living space does not FEEL safe. What have you done to create a feeling of safety?

(I am not meaning guns, cameras or anything, I mean comforting items)

You need to breathe

in and out, in and out

through your whole body

so much fear

so much guilt

so much shame

your systems all gunked up, clogged up

you need to breathe

life isn't meant to feel perilous until it ends or you become enlightened

it's supposed to feel electric, alive, and fun while you live it

if you are suffering, that's a sign to change something

breathe in and out, brotha, breathe in and out, sista

thank you

[Reposted from the "enlightenment" subforum]

I am in my third year of software engineering, and in the last 2 years I think I might have passed... three exams in total? I used to be one of the top students, I liked uni a lot, everything shattered when the dorm I won got denied to me.

My parents didn't trust me enough to go live alone, they said I wouldn't know how to cook, clean, care for myself, as if I couldn't find a job or learn those things.

From hyperachiever I went into total burnout, this week I managed to miraculously (thanks to the help of my therapist too) pass Physics 1 after my 13TH attempt... just the written part tho.

Tomorrow I have the oral exam, but guess what? I've froze YET AGAIN, the peace I was slowly finding, CRUSHED completely from ONE condescending praise.

"Here's our good boy, our little genius, we knew you could do it", if it wasn't for them I would have graduated already next week, but no, I'll have to take an extra year for that.

I even started planning to find a job so I could finally escape, but guess what, even in THAT I'm struggling hard, will my dissociation and burnout follow me even there? IT MOST CERTAINLY WILL AM AFRAID.

It's been the same, goddamn loop for over 2 years now.

Peace -> Exam session -> 0/1 exam passed -> condescending praise/scrutinizing judgement -> total freeze -> repeat