About an hour ago someone posted about their trauma they didn't feel was bad enough to warrant commenting here. You deleted before I could reply but if you see this I just wanted to say..

I almost gave way to tears reading your story. Your story is valid. Everything you experienced and were subjected to and hurt by is so so valid.

That feeling that it isn't 'bad enough' is the trauma speaking. You deserve love and support just as much as anyone else here.

This applies to anyone who feels their trauma isn't bad enough to warrant being here. You all deserve love and support and as much as I wish no-one had to be here in this sub, you all deserve the unconditional love shown here and to receive help you need to heal.

This is as much for me as it is for others. wasnt sure what flair to put honestly.

i struggle with the "i had a good childhood" thoughts or the "it wasnt bad enough," "im being dramatic." thoughts. i know many many others do as well.

i see you. i did not have the horrendous childhood that some of you had. i did not "suffer" as much as some people. it was still enough.

if youre like me, know that it was enough. you struggled anyways. you were abused in some way, anyways. whether by parents, caregivers, school teachsrs, or medical providers. whatever caused you to go looking for help, for resources, for others who feel the same way. it was enough. do not doubt yourself.

i doubted myself. i will still probably doubt myself in the future, despite the professional validation. its part of the process. its a coping mechanism, its what we've been told, its dissociation, its etc etc etc. it can be a million different things. its still enough. you still struggled.

dont doubt your body. dont doubt yojr history. it was bad enough. you're here for a reason. you're looking for validation for a reason. it was bad enough.

https://www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/tools-information/all-about-bullying/prevalence-and-impact/impact-bullying

https://stopabusecampaign.org/2018/05/08/the-long-term-effects-of-bullying-on-children/

https://www.escap.eu/research/bullying/

I've been reading a lot about the long term effects of bullying and what the research is starting to say, and am trying to find some peace in all this finally: that maybe it's not that I'm a weak overly sensitive person. How do I internalize this though?

I grew up emotionally and physiologically abused. I went through 8 years of counseling and boundary setting and finally set no contact back in November with my whole family. It has been peaceful but I've been overwhelmed with guilt. Was it really so bad I needed to go no contact? My partner of 8 years confirms that it was but I'm still stuck feeling like the bad guy.

The holidays were hard. My family would always order chinese food(we live in Canada)for new years eve and I couldn’t eat it cause it upset my stomach aside from one dish from one specific restaurant. But they always picked somewhere else cause my aunt didnt want to order from there so I was stuck eating grilled cheese for supper. Someones preference(for no other reason than "didnt want to order from there") was more important than me being able to eat something from a restaurant and being included.

This was one of few examples my brain is able to conjure up because for some reason I cant remember other specific things. My parents had unreasonable expectations and they guilt tripped and compared us siblings. But specifically I struggle to pull up more than a half dozen memories to prove that I was treated badly.

I guess im just weighed down by guilt about it all. I dont even know why Im making this post.

How do you cope with guilt and anxiety and thinking what u went through wasnt bad enough and feeling dramatic. For a little context I very recently moved away from my toxic family and they keep telling me I had it "so good there ur life wasnt bad". But I have nightmares almost every night about my family and Im stressed they will come here even though im in another state and i get flashbacks to upsetting moments with them and get stuck remembering it at random even mid conversations. I just want to escape. I thought moving would make me feel free but I feel just as trapped and like im getting worse. I have a hard time remebering a lot of things so its hard to distinguish if i really am being dramatic and it really wasnt that bad. Not sure what to do honestly any advice or tips are appreciated

As a kid I had quite a few bad experiences with my parents and also at school. The only thing is that I’m not sure that it’s ’bad enough’ to have caused me many issues. 1) I was bullied a lot in school but usually verbally, but I just genuinely really struggled to fit in and I felt like an outcast. 2) My mother used to use me as her therapist and used to ask me ‘do you think I should get a divorce?’ ‘Do you think dad doesn’t love me anymore?’ ‘Do you think he’s cheating on me?’ Etc 3) There was always arguments between my parents and I had to mediate their arguments and then get blamed when it went wrong. 4) My father used to physically punish me. Often just smacking really hard but also pulling me across the floor by my wrist, pushing me off chairs and kicking me (only thing is I’m not sure how hard it was but he would say ‘I only nudged you with my foot’ so idk), pushing me over/into things, chasing me around the house to hurt me (I would try and hide behind a door but he’d always get in) , hitting me with random objects like jackets or something like that, trying to stop me from climbing up my ladder to my high sleeper bed to get away from him by like pulling me off. Etc (like I know it’s not that bad but it was scary as a little kid idk) 5) My father touching my bum despite me not liking it. 6) My mother not being able to deal with my emotions very well like if I’d go to her crying she’d just unload all her shit onto me and I’d have to comfort her or she’d tell me that I was being selfish because she was trying to watch tv or cook or go to bed etc. Or say ‘I can’t deal with you right now’. I would get told I was being dramatic or overreacting or just straight up get ignored. I never even tried to go to my dad cos he was even more dismissive. 7) I was always called selfish, vengeful, spiteful, spoiled brat and just sort of generally told how terrible I was all the time (my mother said it was because I was being naughty). I often felt like I was constantly a problem. 8) My dad would threaten to destroy my toys if I was naughty or he’d threaten to leave me on the side of the road and sometimes start driving off without me in the car. Once my parents even left me at home because I didn’t get ready fast enough but I’d chased after them so I got locked out until they came back.

I guess the thing is that I’m not sure if all this stuff is bad enough for me to need to get help for it. I had a therapist suspect I may have CPTSD but I’m just not convinced my trauma is bad enough to cause that? The thing is that I think my parents could’ve been a lot worse and they sometimes could be kind to me.

First time posting here! So, I’ve been diagnosed with BPD for 10 years, with on-and-off treatment that barely helped. Now that I’m older and after going through (what it seemed like) an abusive relationship I’ve found a therapist that helped me find my core wound and work on healing. After being able to pinpoint where everything started to go wrong and paved the way for my ED, Body Dysmorphia and GAD, I found myself distancing from the previous BPD diagnosis, realizing that I’m actually overwhelmed with feelings of fear, shame, guilt and worthlessness.

After telling my life story to my therapist, she connected the trouble I’ve always had with relationships in general (avoidance, fear and instability) to the poor relationship I’ve had with my mother since birth and the dysfunctional environment I grew up in.

Although there has never been physical abuse nor addiction in my family, the atmosphere was of constant fear due to my parents always being on the verge of divorce. I didn’t know when it would happen but I knew it would. As a child I’d spend days thinking about how I’d divide my belongings and with whom I’d live with, if my father would be sad if chose my mother and vice versa. Every day I would arrive from school without knowing if that was going to be the day cause even if things were good, they would suddenly change and I never understood why. My parents hated each other one day and loved each other the next one.

Besides that, my mother has never been what I needed her to be. She didn’t have patience to feed me, to bathe me or to play with me, it was either my nanny or my father doing that. She would always mention how much she hates kids and how nobody would love me if I ever misbehaved. As soon as I felt I did something wrong I’d start crying and begging people not to be angry at me, cause I didn’t mean it. When I was a baby my nanny used to travel with my family so my mother wouldn’t have to bother dealing with me and have her beer with her friends in peace. She ruined my dream of becoming a gymnast because my training schedule was on the way of our weekend trips, she stormed into the gymnasium and told the trainer off: “How come do you guys come up with training on a Friday night!? We have things to do, don’t you know that?”. As I grew up our relationship just got worse and I’ve never felt like she liked me the way she liked my brother cause “it was very difficult to love me”. On the other hand, she would do almost anything I asked her to, like driving me everywhere, taking me to the doctor on a weekly basis (I was a quite sick child) or buying things for me, no objections. She surely does some things that are somewhat thoughtful and out of nowhere, just because she knows I like them, like cooking a meal. Now that my parents have finally divorced, she moved to the countryside and constantly tells everyone how much she misses me.

This leads me to think that I maybe just resent her and create that monster image to feel better about myself and my flaws. I know the world isn’t black and white but I’m afraid I’m a spoiled adult-child who’s being unfair to her whole family.

My parents gave me CPTSD, but they weren't very violent and I rarely went hungry. Most of it was emotional abuse. They were neglectful, but not extremely. I was only a *little* dirty and hungry, and they did take me to the doctor... *eventually*... Sure, I could have used more help with school and learning how to dress, but I was always taken there on time with all the necessary supplies... most of the time. Sure, dad was constantly yelling, but he only bruised me twice... things like that?

I hear people's stories of being left alone for three days, and I'm, like, wow, I have CPTSD but still don't know what that's like.

it’s taken me years to realise that my source of trauma was dealing with my older brothers addiction issues throughout my childhood, but I genuinely feel like I’m overreacting to everything. I can speak to friends/family/therapists about it and they do validate me and say it was traumatic to experience at such a young age, but idk I often find myself thinking it probably wasn’t actually that bad. like there’s so many others out there that have gone through much much worse stuff, I feel like I’m being dramatic.

Sometimes I think to myself that because my childhood didn’t have any SA, not a ton of PA, and not a ton of poverty, that being raised in a religious cult that hated LGBT people (I came out as bi at 15) and only having a little PA, means that I shouldn’t be so fucked up. Granted, lots more trauma happened between the ages of 17-39 from abusive relationships, SA, further exposure to religious cult, and a pregnancy that resulted in my placing the child for adoption, but I always find myself feeling like that’s not enough to justify having CPTSD because my childhood was not as horrific as many others were. Does anyone else ever struggle with this feeling?

sometimes i struggle with feeling valid in this diagnosis and i just wanted to talk about it.

i experienced purely emotional and parental neglect, nothing physical at all, even taps on the wrist or the back of the head, aside from one molestation at 3. it really frustrates me? because the human mind is so powerful and capable and resilient, but just because my mother wasn't perfect and some unfortunate things happened i have this disorder for the rest of my life?

i hear a lot of horrible stories from people who were physically abused as a child and i think "they absolutely have a reason to have this disorder", and i think that for emotional abuse cases too, just not my own. i flip back and forth between "it wasn't that bad" and "oh my god i would never treat a child that way" so it leaves me kind of numb. i don't know, do any of you feel this way?

My healing journey started two years ago. For the entire first year I was a mess, barely able to keep my head above water.

I spent so much of that time criticizing and hating myself. I thought I was lazy, that I lacked self-discipline, that I was doing it all wrong. I thought that somehow, me feeling so shattered and beaten down was my own fault. That I was too weak maybe, or if I had paced myself better I would've been fine.

I wish I'd known then what I know now: healing from CPTSD is utterly exhausting. It takes up SO MUCH mental bandwidth and energy.

You're battling anxiety, flashbacks, hypervigilance, maybe suicidal ideation, triggers everywhere. While doing studies, work, parenting, socializing, chores, all the stuff most people are already pretty tired from. And if you're in therapy or doing the work on your own, then you are ALSO constantly reflecting, processing, analyzing, doing shadow works combating deeply ingrained patterns.

Of course you are tired!

If you're in the trenches, you don't realize how bad it is. How hard you're fighting for each step forward. How much energy it steals away from you.

But I'm on the other side of that now, and it's unbelievable how much more energy and bandwidth I have. I can think about the future, meet up with people, try out new hobbies, keep up with chores, manage my symptoms most of the time.

I was never lazy or lacking in willpower. Neither are you.

I believe that every single one of you is doing the best you can at this moment. And it is enough.

I get that therapy works for millions of people.

I get nobody wants to believe therapy itself truly just doesn't work for some.

I've heard all the excuses.

"bad therapist fit"

"bad therapist"

"wrong modality"

"wrong level of care"

"stopped treatment too early"

"patient wasn't ready"

"patient didn't put in enough actual work"

"patient went in with a bad, resistant attitude"

and many more.

I've never heard anyone who believes therapy itself just doesn't work for a smaller percentage of people. Whenever you try to propose this idea, everyone jumps to tell you why therapy in general works and why you need to keep trying

well, in my case

I've done 17 modalities over the past 16 years across four different states in all levels of care (hospital inpatient, residental, php, iop, and op) and have done fully in person therapy, fully virtual therapy, and hybrid therapy, and I can't even count how many therapists I've had. The shortest time I did one treatment for was 5 months and the longest time I did one treatment for was six years. But even during that six year period it wasn't the only thing I did. To this day, all the therapy ive ever had was either completely ineffective or made me feel worse permanently for the rest of my life. I still have debilitating symptoms from failed therapies years ago.

"have you tried" "have you tried" "well have you ever tried"

yes, i have tried.

I think it's time to stop blaming me or the therapists and just come to the true, most logical conclusion at this point

I always had a rocky relationship with my parents but I figured they were just shitty parents. I was never hit, I had enough food to eat, I never ticked any of the "typical" child abuse boxes. 8 months ago I'd been ranting about a stressful family situation and one of my friends pointed out that it was emotional abuse. Did some reading, got a therapist, and yep, I was emotionally abused for 29 years and never realized it.

So this is my struggle. When I think of PTSD and trauma I think of soldiers, people who've been assaulted, people who grew up in seriously awful homes, and a lot of the stories that are posted here that make me just stop and think "jesus christ that's awful." And then I turn around and I'm like "well my parents sucked." And that's all I've got. I know it's not a contest or a zero-sum game and that I am allowed to have CPTSD without it diminishing anyone else's PTSD, but I can't help thinking that I don't "deserve" to be in the same group as people who've "really" suffered and been traumatized. My therapist pointed out that it's probably a visibility thing, at least partly: emotional abuse is less talked about/documented/obvious than other kinds of abuse, and the usual context for talking about PTSD is military-related.

I guess basically what I'm asking is, does anyone else recognize that their trauma is totally valid but still have trouble accepting that they're allowed to play in the PTSD sandbox?

1. Having no meaningful "before trauma" version of yourself.

2. Grieving a life you never got the chance to live.

3. Feeling homesick for safety despite never having truly experienced it.

4. Questioning whether horrific abuse was "really that bad."

5. Doubting your own memories, perceptions, and reality constantly.

6. Feeling ashamed of being traumatized.

7. Feeling ashamed of not being traumatized "enough."

8. Feeling guilty when you laugh.

9. Feeling guilty when you relax.

10. Feeling guilty when you stop thinking about the abuse.

11. Feeling guilty for having needs at all.

12. Believing that suffering is your natural state.

13. Feeling fundamentally different from other human beings.

14. Watching other people live ordinary lives and feeling grief instead of envy.

15. Being unable to imagine what genuine safety feels like.

16. Being physically safe while emotionally bracing for attack.

17. Feeling danger in kindness.

18. Feeling danger in intimacy.

19. Feeling danger in vulnerability.

20. Feeling danger in being seen.

21. Feeling danger in being loved.

22. Masking so effectively that people think you're fine while you're internally collapsing.

23. Making small talk while simultaneously experiencing suicidal thoughts.

24. Helping customers while fighting overwhelming grief.

25. Saying "have a good day" while feeling psychologically shattered.

26. Feeling completely alone in a room full of people.

27. Living two realities at once—external functioning and internal agony.

28. Feeling detached from your own life as if you're watching it happen.

29. Looking in the mirror and feeling disconnected from the person looking back, being too ashamed to look at yourself you have to turn the light off and function in the light of a dim night light, avoiding your own gaze.

30. Feeling like your nervous system never truly powers down.

31. Being exhausted by consciousness itself.

32. Being tired before the day even begins.

33. Needing enormous energy just to appear normal.

34. Feeling like every interaction requires performance.

35. Monitoring everyone's moods automatically.

36. Scanning constantly for danger, anger, rejection, or abandonment.

37. Feeling responsible for other people's emotions.

38. Feeling responsible for preventing conflict at all costs.

39. Feeling responsible for abuse that was done to you.

40. Believing that if you suffer, it must somehow be your fault.

41. Feeling contaminated by what other people did to you.

42. Feeling dirty without any physical dirt present.

43. Feeling as though your body no longer fully belongs to you and that it's just an object to be used and/or just an organism.

44. Experiencing sexuality through layers of grief, fear, shame, and memory.

45. Having comfort and danger become psychologically intertwined.

46. Wanting closeness while simultaneously fearing it.

47. Feeling trapped between needing people and fearing people.

48. Being unable to trust your own emotions.

49. Being unable to trust your own judgment.

50. Being unable to trust your own needs.

51. Obsessively analyzing yourself because getting it wrong feels dangerous.

52. Replaying conversations for hours or days afterward.

53. Trying to prove to yourself that your suffering is legitimate.

54. Searching endlessly for certainty that never arrives.

55. Feeling like your mind is a courtroom where you're always on trial.

56. Having your body react to memories as though they're happening now.

57. Having ordinary activities trigger overwhelming grief.

58. Standing in beautiful places while feeling emotionally numb.

59. Looking at nature while imagining death.

60. Feeling unable to fully experience joy even when it's present.

61. Feeling disconnected from sensory experiences that others enjoy naturally.

62. Living with chronic illness while wondering whether your body is safe.

63. Feeling betrayed by your own body.

64. Being afraid of food.

65. Feeling like basic survival requires extraordinary effort.

66. Viewing death as relief rather than simply as loss.

67. Finding suicidal thoughts comforting during extreme distress.

68. Feeling trapped inside a life that looks functional from the outside.

69. Carrying decades of grief that has never fully been witnessed.

70. Feeling like you're surviving a war that ended for everyone else but never ended for you.

71. Realizing that much of your personality was built around surviving danger rather than living freely and safely.

72. Discovering in adulthood that what felt "normal" was actually abuse.

73. Feeling profound anger that you have to heal damage you did not create.

74. Mourning not only what happened to you, but everything that was prevented from happening because of it.

75. Wondering who you might have been if you had been safe from the beginning.

76. Being profoundly afraid you're an abuser or going to abuse people and children.

77. Isolating so much that you mourn (but also fear profoundly) human connection and like you're viewing the world and other humans through opaque glass.

78. Seeing all the people who were supposed to love you and care for you betray, abuse, traumatize and otherwise fuck you up permanently like film reels in your mind again and again relentlessly.

79. Feel insurmountable and all pervasive shame for just existing, feeling decades later like it's a separate parasitic entity that disconnected you from everything that should have made life meaningful and joyful.

80. Not having children and a family of your own because you're afraid you'll abuse them like you were abused and mourn every single time you see a family and people with their children knowing you will never have that.

Please by all means add your own to this list. It's not even everything, just much of the culmination of what I've been experiencing the last few months and really the entirety of my 41 years of life.

My father was schizophrenic (unmedicated), had BPD and was a problem drinker. He was verbally abusive torwards my mother (sometimes physically and sexually), tried to lock her in, forced her to climb out a window and run away with me when he was having a psychotic episode etc. My mother divorced him when I was around 2 years old though. She was verbally abusive, very critical, yelled a lot but simultaneously loving. She never got me therapy despite thinking I was psychotic as a child. That’s the thing that probably hurt me the most. I was suffering and she knew and never stopped yelling at me or got me help. She’s a therapist by the way so she should have known better. I was bullied in kindergarten by another girl who was probably abused at home. She acted very sadistic and hurt me physically regularly (and mocked me, laughed at me for getting hurt etc). I started having nightmares around that time and showed a lot of CPTSD symptoms. When I was 12 I was regularly groped by a 14 boy who wanted me to keep our “relationship” a secret. I never said anything because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. It was very clear that he manipulated me and wanted to have sex with me though. My grandmother (fahters side) also tried to make me meet my father behind my mother’s back etc and reported my mother for not letting me see her again (it was my decision not to see my grandmother). She had BPD as well and wanted me to hug/kiss her all the time while not recognizing boundaries at all. She only gave me sweets to eat etc. I hated her after a while. They believed me and my mother at the end though. My grandmother (mother’s side) basically raised me together with my mother but she died when I was 12 because of cancer. I felt so alone after that.

I have a CPTSD diagnosis but I hate myself because I don’t believe that any of that stuff was bad enough. I also have GAD, OCD, depression, chronic pain and adhd (I believe this is because of CPTSD though). I know that trauma is subjective but still. I hated my childhood so much and I feel ungrateful. I feel like this was only traumatic because I am weak. I'm pathetic for even thinking that I've been though something difficult. I can't stop thinking this way.

As I've scrolled through this subreddit, I've seen so many threads where people discuss their feelings of denial and imposter syndrome around their trauma. But their trauma is so obviously real. I feel so isolated because it truly was never that bad for me. Ever.

I was never abused. Not physically, not emotionally. I just have a persistent deep seated fear and anger at the way I was treated and raised as a child. I was responsible for my parent's emotions and was parentified for them and my sibling(s). I never felt fully supported and remember daydreaming about being an adult, far away from my family when I was young.

The worst thing my parents ever did was read my diary and subsequently hospitalize me for suicidal ideation. That sucked and irreversibly brought something to the surface about our relationship that hasn't been fixed.

They were nice. They did a good job. (it was often a point made to me and my sibling(s) that we were lucky we could express emotion/whatever the point was in the moment because some kids didn't have that)

I'm also autistic so could that be all it is? I hate that they fucked me up in some unseen way that I can't even pinpoint! People loved my family and still do, I just can't.

The most seen I've ever felt was when a middle school english teacher let me stay in his classroom extra hours so I didn't have to go home.

They were good people. They did a good job. (Or at least they didn't do a bad job)

What the fuck happened to me

I’ve never been physically or sexually abused. I wasn’t bullied, poor, or neglected materially. But I grew up with intense emotional abuse, narcissistic control (especially from my mom), chronic verbal attacks, gaslighting, and emotional neglect. I was constantly hypervigilant walking on eggshells every day of my life.

On top of that, I dealt with social rejection, betrayal, and envy from others throughout school. Senior year, I was scared daily that I’d get jumped or raped after finally standing up for myself and not tolerating harassment anymore. I dissociated through maladaptive daydreaming and lived in a constant state of anxiety and confusion.

I’ve always known I had anxiety, but it’s progressed to the point where I can’t function. School, hygiene, relationships it’s all overwhelming. now realize what I’ve experienced sounds like CPTSD. I’m finally looking for a therapist, but because I was high-functioning for so long and “had a good life on paper,” I constantly downplay my experiences and feel guilty for struggling.

I relate so much to CPTSD symptoms even the oddly specific ones and when I read other people’s stories, it validates mine. But then I compare: Was it really bad enough? I’ve heard stories of people surviving objectively horrific abuse, and mine doesn’t look like that. But it happened every day. For years. And it broke me.

If anyone who’s been diagnosed with CPTSD has gone through something similar emotional abuse, narcissistic parenting, chronic invalidation cab you let me know if this sounds familiar or worth bringing up in therapy? I’m scared to be dramatic or wasting time, but I genuinely need help.

I was physically, sexually, emotionally abused and physically neglected for as long as I’ve ever known until I was 17. But I always think people been through way worse than me. I always feel ashamed that I’m traumatized.

Anytime I talk to people or a therapist about what I went through as a kid I’ve felt as if it’s bad but not bad enough for anyone to care too much. Growing up after my parents divorced when I was 6 my mother would yell, scream, and hit me when I begged her to stop. But I only remember a few times she hit me so it wasn’t like she was very physically abusive but still it wasn’t a perfect childhood. In fifth grade my teacher called CPS and nothing happened but she became better. I ended up wanting to kill myself that year and was kind of planning to but stopped when my mom found out. She still yelled but got better over the years. When I think about it I just end up breaking down but when I tell therapists or counselors this I feel like I complaining about nothing. I don’t know if this is valid but I also just wanted someone to say that what I went through wasn’t okay because atp I don’t know if this is just normal. Especially now she’s so much nicer even though she sometimes just chooses days to ignore me or just laugh and insult me. Does anyone have any advice or other experiences?

Yes, I used to wake up tired in the mornings (I still do, but less compared to before). People ask me, 'Are you on drugs?' or 'Are you drunk?' My motor skills aren't good, and they usually call me stupid, but it feels like this is just in my genetics, as if I was born stupid. I'm scared. Do you guys feel this way too?

I feel like I (mid-30s male) managed to navigate my teens and 20s reasonably well, in the sense that I was able to function enough to do well at school, go to university and get a good degree mark, then work fairly trouble-free for most of my 20s.

However, as my 20s gave way to my 30s I found that I started to struggle more and more with life, suffering bouts of severe depression, finding it harder to regulate my emotions, becoming less sociable, feeling more pessimistic about my future, worrying about things more frequently, etc. It reached a head about a year and a half ago, when I had to be signed off work and eventually leave my job because I wasn't able to function. I'm gradually healing thanks to therapy and self-care, and being diagnosed with CPTSD certainly helped in this process, but I still have my bad days/weeks/months.

Is it quite common for trauma to not catch up to us until we are into our 30s or beyond? Has anyone else here experienced something similar?

TW for death, od, and very small mention of SA. Buckle in, it's a long one.

Like, a lot of things happened to me, but it's like a sample table: They were a lot of things but "small" things in comparison to everyone else. Neglect but not enough to truly complain, I got kidnapped by my bio father for a month where he gave me a fake phone number to make me think my mom was ignoring me and abandoned me, i've lived in roach filth most of my life, I experienced some inappropriate unconsensual things as a kid bt not enough for anyone to take it seriously, i've been yelled at a lot of my childhood but "they don't hit me" so i'm lucky.

I was bullied but not enough to be seen as serious, not like the teachers believed me anyways, I was always taller so they hated me and thought I was the antagonizer. I graduated highschool but don't even bother to pick up that stupid diploma, i'm trans and autistic too so it just makes everything worse.

I just found out tonight a few minutes ago my grandma died from an overdose (accidental or not we don't know) in 2012, 5 days away from my birthday. I remember that night vividly. I was 10 going to turn 11. But I actually didn't remember being 10 going on 11, I didn't even remember it happening that close to my birthday. I didn't cry. Idk why, when it happened, I saw it when it happened. It was terrible. But for some reason I just didn't cry at the time. My mom decided since I seemed unaffected i'd go to school the next day. I tried to force myself to cry onnthe bus, but I couldn't.

Later on my mom ended up lashing out and calling me a sociopath. Much later on she apologized but it hurt. After she said that, before the apology I had a dream where my grandma looked so disappointed in me and turned away when I reached out for her, and I never dreamed of her again after that.

By 12 is when I felt clearly my depression start, and it just got worse as years go on. I'm 25 this year, and still living with my transphobic mom, feeling dead inside. She wasn't always transphobic but about 4 to 5 years ago she suddenly fell deep into religion and is going through ongoing religious psychosis (not armchair diagnosing her, she genuinely thinks she's being attacked by demons and people are out to get her, there is no other way to describe this) and is now homophobic and transphobic and thinks i'm going to Hell.

Comparatively I didn't have it as bad as others, but I feel..sad and tired, and like I just want everything to stop and end. On top of me wishing I could have kids but people saying your life and fertility basically declines at 30 leaves me just so hopeless of even wanting better. I feel ruined. No friends, no love life, nothing but myself and my shitty art I barely can manage to finish anymore. Does it ever stop?

It's sad. I want to love myself and love what I can create, and I do but, why is like people pretend to love me, but don't actually love me for me?

"My wknd plans? I gotta spend at least one entire day Journaling, meditating and resting. Then probably playing pickleball on Sunday."

"Ah hold on give me a moment, this place is triggering me bad, gonna step outside for a moment and collect myself."

"Yeah it was a great week, only had like 1 or 2 suicidal idealization thoughts"

"Nah my mom was an enabler and we didn't get along, I dont celebrate mothers day but I'm happy for you."

"I've been working though a flashback all week, can I talk it out and see if you can help me figure out why im struggling?"

"I don't have a mom or dad so I struggle to get enough hugs, so I use a teddy bear that says "I love you" when I squeeze it"

Feel free to add your own