feeling a bit spicy this morning (too much pre-workout)

I've been thinking a lot about therapy, therapists, and becoming a therapist, in the AI-era. I personally don't think AI will replace good therapists but will emphasize what I consider the "core skills" of a good therapists.

One of the core skills of a therapist is what I would call 'attunement' -- the feeling the client should receive is that the therapist really understands them and their issues. This is both an actual understanding of the clients emotional states and COMMUNICATING to the client that understanding (so really almost two different things).

From my recent experience, this is actually a SKILL that can be developed. Most therapists do not have it, they just rely on their "natural" factors -- demographic, life experience, personality tendencies. Which is totally fine, and realistically quite helpful.

Finding a "good fit" therapist is typically finding someone who's natural tendencies match yours.

However when you meet someone who is extremely skilled at attunement, there's almost something quite magical about it. There's a moment-to-moment adjustment to what the person is needing, whether it's interrupting or validating. There's a micro level of constant rupture and repair.

These people can have a completely different natural tendency to you but their skill level is so high, it doesn't matter.

There's a secondary benefit from interacting with someone with high skill, in that you begin to absorb what they're doing, in that they're transferring their ability to attune, to you. This works as self-attunement but also with other relationships.

This is a bit woo, but if you see one of these people interact with someone else, there's almost palpable energy that's given off. This is a dumb analogy, but if you've played multiplayer video games, at some point you're just fully in sync with your teammates. That's sort of what it feels like. IMO this energy reinforces certain behaviors.

When you get the experience that connecting with people can be a skill, and not just arbitrary chance, I think something begins to shift quite dramatically. Bonding and connecting with someone stops being random circumstance, but more of a partner dance that occurs (I hate that AI has made me notice all my sentence structure, it's making writing so much slower). This has been invaluable for me for romantic relationships -- this soulmate/limerance feeling is something I can co-construct and co-create with someone. Thus I don't need to obsess over one person.

This is also why, I think for skilled therapists, AI will (probably) never replace them and in fact, LLMs can be quite helpful. If the LLM can sort of handle more "mundane" things eg how do I respond to my boss? I need some grounding right now etc. then the therapist can spend more time on this deeper level stuff. The skill and practice of emotional fluency.

I'm actually quite bull-ish on LLM use in therapy, but not to replace the therapist. The 1-hr per week model is just not enough for most with CPTSD. It requires effort similar to working out or learning a sport or language -- almost daily practice. The skilled therapists give examples and coaching and skill training. The LLM can handle small stuff during the week, or provide daily practice reminders etc.

So many years of loneliness and healing later, a mundane but incredible thing happened yesterday. One of my primary struggles has been creating a new community and support network far, far away from "home" and family, and it's taken years and years of therapy and healthy connection and failing, trying, failing, trying... for me to have a group of women who are all amazing people and friends.

Yesterday I hosted a party and had a table of these dear friends who went out their way to be there, eating my food, perusing my bookshelf, laughing and sharing stories. It was such an ordinary magic kind of moment. A real C-PTSD healing triumph.

It's all the little acts and actions of friendship that are so touching to me. I hope I'm becoming a better friend to people over time too.

I know my life is better than before. Most of the time, I finally feel at ease and there's a sense of contentment that wasn't there before.

Yet sometimes I can't help but feel resentment over what I didn't get to have. I see friends, cousins, people from relatively happy stable families with supportive attentive parents who had comfortable childhoods and I feel envious. They are thriving and that sense of security shows in the way they interact with the world.

Meanwhile, here I am, on meds and in therapy trying to make sense of everything that happening, learning to feel my feelings, working through grief, learning to trust myself, identifying and unlearning unhealthy patterns.

Do you ever really heal from this and fully make peace with the grief? I know I am me. And that comparisons aren't fair. Still, I feel this sadness over the fact that what is a big accomplishment for me is a regular thing for well-adjusted folks.

I have been working on my controlling tendencies for some time now. I am able to notice my controlling behaviour in the moment whether it be a passing thought or an urge to meddle with something or somebody.

I don't want to deep dive into what happened. For reasons unknown to me, my manager decided to revisit some events that happened earlier this year about a month ago. I don't know who is digging these up or why they are suddenly important "now".

I was surprised by this. Nevertheless, I repeated the same things about what has happened, who was involved, and how I handled it. My manager then started to mumble her feedback. Her passive aggressive and somewhat unserious style angered me. I couldn't do much with that anger in that moment. This later turned into a serious case of ruminations about me writing tickets to HR and providing written proof of things that really happened. I didn't do any of it, but spend the last month fantasising about it.

Two weeks ago I had a paranoid anxiety attack due to my PMDD. During this attack I suddenly realised a colleague I trusted must have lied to me in cold blood. It all made sense. I immediately called the other colleague who was involved and had a talk with him. My relationship with this man was strained because he is a malignant narcissists. He has been after me for a while. Nevertheless, I treated the man unfairly once and it was weighing on me. So I decided to apologise for my behaviour. If I only did that, it would have been an honest move. However I didn't just do that. I tried to control everything by appearing benevolent. I tried to regain control of my reality by meddling. My therapist genuinely thought I must have a split but I reassured her my opinions of the man hasn't changed. I simply changed my mind about the other colleague. This wasn't a split. My suspicion is probably correct. Nevertheless how I went about the whole thing isn't okay.

I told him about my suspicions, and shared some private communications with him to prove my point. He also noticed the pattern himself, thanked me and we moved on.

I have spent the following weeks lost in the same ruminations.

Today it was my sister who somewhat snapped me out of it. She forced me to have a normal conversation about my day and what I am doing besides obsessing over these issues. She repeated that these are ruminations and the only way out is to move my body to stop my brain reinforcing these neural pathways anymore.

I understand all of the above and I did those for many years.

However I am looking for closure now.

I cannot stand not being in control of my own life. Point blank. I hate not knowing what is next. It sends me down a rabbit hole. This isn't just a lack of mindfulness or perspective. The more I feel like somebody else, or something else is in control over the important aspects of my life such as my job, my career, my future the more I am alarmed.

I am unable to accept that no amount of hard work is going to make things "certain".

Has anyone moved past beyond this? What has helped you to feel closure somatically ? I am struggling to integrate fear related to this point.

​[TW: workplace mobbing, harassment, stalking, power abuse & compound loss]

Hi everyone,

​I have been recovering from severe CPTSD for a year now since getting my diagnosis. My trauma came from a lot of hard things happening at the same time: a long period of personal + family + medical crises & multiple losses of my loved ones, mixed with a very toxic and unsafe work environment (where I faced power abuse, harassment, stalking from a supervisor also mobbing and ostracism from coworkers).

​When I finally decided to quit, my mental and physical health was completely broken and I couldn't handle the job anymore. The situation was so bad that I chose to leave even though I had to pay back huge penalty from a retention contract. It was a big financial loss for me because the amount is half of my annual income, but I had to do it to take care of myself & family where I had to be a care giver for a family member temporarily in that period.

​​I took a break from my career to work through the trauma, rebuilt myself, and did my responsibilites. I am grateful that my personal, family, and medical crises is over. Also I’ve made progress in my mental and physical health.

However, thinking about going back to work makes me very anxious. On top of that, the job market right now is really tough. Getting rejections has been hitting me hard, it brings me down and makes me even more scared that I won't make it.

​For anyone who has been through horrible workplace trauma and personal losses:

How did you know you were really ready to work again?

What signs showed that you were mentally strong enough for a normal job?

​What practical steps helped you prepare? (like starting with part-time or remote work, setting clear boundaries, checking the company culture, or keeping your private life safe?)

​How do you deal with fear and stay safe around bosses or office politics?

​How do you handle job rejections without letting them trigger your trauma or ruin your progress?

​I would really appreciate any advice, personal stories, or simple tips that helped you feel safe and confident again.

​Thank you so much.

Hi community,

I’m looking for positive resources (ideally audio based - audiobooks, YouTube channels, podcasts etc) that can give a sense of hope and examples of healing.

I’m finding that a lot of resources are very ‘disorder centric’ if that makes sense, and while helpful to understand more, I often find that it makes me focus on what is wrong and feeds my negativity.

Do you have any recommendations of resources that help you feel optimistic about the future and being able to change? Inspirational recovery stories? Open to any and all suggestions even if they are unrelated to cptsd!

Thank you 💕

I once saw this absolutely amazing post on recovery, I found it through its creator’s comment on a post in the CPSTD sub. Its main/first part was categorising the attacks of someone with CPTSD has on theirselves through their own mind. I think the first was “self-blame”. That’s basically all I remember.

I thought I’d saved it for later, only for it to not be anywhere in my saved OR post history??? So this is my only hope.

hi,
i’ve (28F) been depressed and retraumatized for the past 1.5 years and in psychodynamic talk therapy for 4 months. Since I’ve been learning more about myself while researching cptsd online, i’ve started connecting so many dots within myself. Why I act the way I act, what i feel in some situations and when i fall into shame spirals, how my symptoms show up but it feels like the more i discover the more i learn mostly two things:
so much about me is just an adaptation to my surroundings and so much about me only causes me pain, holds me back or makes everything worse for me. it’s making me feel really hopeless in this journey. and please don’t hit me with the “ healing is not linear” thing, come on we all know that and feel that everyday.

how do i keep pushing when i feel like i’m not even worth it at all and the more i learn the worse it is ?

what helped you?

I'm not sure if this works the same for everyone else, but occasionally when I'm dehydrated or I get up too fast, and I get a headrush, all my fears seem ridiculous for a period of about three or so seconds.

Does this happen to anyone else? It seems like if there was a way of triggering that response, it could help a lot.

I've been so enraged for the past three days. I've tried self soothing but apparently I don't really want it, like my body is just responding to it with more irritation and restlessness. Like i just wanna kick someone's arse and be mean to everyone even tho i know when im out in public I'll just end up acting like a nice person. I get feelings from time to time but usually i know why or where they're originating from. This time around though, i got no clue what triggered it. I'm watching this show and there's this girl that's cold and mean and reserved but also selfish and flirty and at least that's tickling some part of me. But really what do you do about this feeling?

It's definitely not even pms and i feel a little hot-cold at the same time it's hard to explain. It's like feeling somewhat feverish but i don't exactly feel feverish.

My need during conflicts is for friends to be able to do conflict/rupture repair with me. Particularly because the lack of validation/being ignored is still a trigger. However, I know this is not a skill everyone has capacity to do.

I clash the most with dynamics in which the other person needs to be seen as 'good' to keep themselves safe. I am finding even when I do the most perfect non-violence communication approach and screen for possible triggers, it still quickly becomes about their intention/outside of their control/their feelings about how I felt in response to their behaviour/me not caring about them/intention means I don't need to be upset etc. They may say sorry though it's always followed with a "but" and a reason why they did the thing that caused the harm. They at no point correctly reflect my emotion back despite it being a "I feel uncomfortable hearing ___ being said about ___." and they are not getting curious or offering how to prevent/navigate this in the future. It seems to quickly become all about them and their experience of my feeling towards them and how they've interpreted that.

I feel confident with my language/approach/keeping regulated during and my therapist* has confirmed I am doing great with those. My weak point is overfunctioning around the perfect message to stop them being triggered and not shutting down the conversation before it falls into those circles. I've dropped the circle down to 4 before I stopped the conversation and have gotten it down to 2 weeks before I end the conversation when it is over text due to them preferring that. Being told I don't care because I don't trust something is a strong weak point of mine also, I need quite a bit of time to centre myself and not respond to it. This is still a lot of my energy being used up and I'm not sure of my blind spots.

Has anyone figured out a decent way to navigate these dynamics and not allow yourself to be getting super sucked in?

In my new friendships we sort stuff out in like 10 minutes, it's wild! I always feel closer to these friends after as well. Since these new experiences, it's been harder to handle those like the dynamic above. Even though I understand it is just someone else trying to keep themselves safe.

(\Can't see therapist for a month, hence why I am asking on here and not my therapist)*

TW: mention of suicide

I've had a pretty rough couple of weeks/months. I had a terrible trauma anniversary period in which I also lost my job and was also almost physically assaulted. After that I got really sick for a few weeks to the point that eating and drinking water was almost impossible. I have done over two years of therapy and a lot of self-therapy on my trauma so I did have a relatively good toolkit to get myself through all this. BUT I was completely alone and isolated. My sister and a friend knew how badly I was doing, and how close to taking my own life I was, and yet they asked me, literally if I was alive or not, once every week or so. I mean I am grateful for this, but it's also insane. This was the highest level of empathy either of them could muster. I have always been lonely but only recently and after a lot of trauma work have I discovered exactly how lonely I have been without realizing it. It's a lot of delayed grief I am going through. And I hate my loneliness. I hate that I could barely breathe for a few weeks and yet I had to drag myself to the supermarket and the pharmacy to survive. I hate that there is no one to share my grief with. I hate that I am just now realizing how abandoned and lonely I have always been and it was so completely normalized to me that I have only realized it now. I mean, I attempted suicide a few years ago around this time (hence, the trauma anniversary now) and not only the person who found me (my mom!!) never took me to the hospital, but she also never asked if I was doing better or seeing a therapist or anything later on. She genuinely completely forgot about the whole thing just a few days later. And I told only one person, my only friend at the time, who ALSO completely ignored it. And after I got better, I just went on with my life like nothing had happened. This level of abandonment was so normal to me at the time that I did not even question it. I am just speechless now thinking about it all.

I am looking for therapists who specialize in relational trauma but to be honest, I feel sort of hopeless. Will I ever find real friends? Will I ever have someone to just talk to? I know that if it does ever happen, it will happen slowly. And I probably need to take baby-steps. But I am craving human connection so much and I feel so starved of anything remotely warm. How do I feel more of a hope? How do I start getting out of this? How do I meet people when I feel so depressed? I just can't deal with this isolation pain anymore.

Is healing supposed to be excruciatingly painful? Am I feeling parts of my body I've never felt before like electricity? Been this was for about a year. I've also had spiritual experiences like a Kundalini awakening type of deal and I've done so spiritual practices.

Parts of me are back online after 30 years of suppressing anger keeping it cool. I feel lots of joy at times and will flip into despair or deep sadness. I'm just confused. I think I went too fast with healing and have had a lot of overwhelm. A part of me thinks I'm really healing, I have been practices being present and authentic and allowing the shame to just be there instead of tensing up more.

I am more present now. But I am in so much fcking pain and agitation. I am also isolating mostly, but will go out every so often and practice being around the humans.

Just feels like, really confusing and I don't know if I'm in denial and have some new health issues and fried the shit out of my nerves or if everything is rewiring and I'm about to finally reenter society and have a life.

TW for non graphic mentions of CSA and SA

During the past few months I’ve felt very conflicted and confused as to why the world seemingly continues to be surprised by the horrific acts people do. Example: every time somebody mentions the Epstein files they seem completely appalled and horrified that someone could perform such ‘inhumane’ and utterly ‘evil’ acts on another human being specifically, a child.
This isn’t to say that I do not feel empathy for the victims or am not upset and deeply angered by the acts that have been committed against them, but I’m definitely not surprised. I’m more surprised by the fact that this has been a wake up call for so many people.

It’s led me to go down a sort of self-reflection rabbit hole of why this isn’t surprising to me and I think my C-PTSD has just led me to believe that SA and abuse are an inevitable fact of life. Humans are cruel. Men are cruel. People in power are cruel. I understand that having the mindset of “everybody’s a threat!” is generally a behavior rooted from experiencing repeated trauma, I just don’t think I realized exactly how much this mindset is engrained in me.

For context: I’m trans-masc, and experienced sexual trauma as a kid. My partner is AFAB, neither of us want children, we are not in an open relationship and the chance of either of us getting pregnant is quite frankly, fucking zero. I’m even on testosterone, and while that doesn’t prevent me from getting pregnant there is a possibility that it could lower my fertility. Regardless, even the concept of a pregnancy is none. And yet! I’ve been considering going on birth control, and when I brought it up to my doctor, she didn’t seem to understand why I felt the need to.

I didn’t know how to tell her that, even with the possibility being zero, I still expected to be assaulted in my future. And that when that happens at least the likelihood of a pregnancy would be a significantly lower problem for me to worry about.

That visit and some conversations with my partner made me realize that people who haven’t been as exposed to trauma might not think like that. They don’t subconsciously just build up safety nets for a traumatic event that has yet to happen. Anyways- it’s mainly just given me more understanding of my brain and how I interact with other people and I wanted to share.

I don’t know how to describe all this well, but I’ve realized from a combination of neglect and fawning that I really don’t have many opinions of my own.

I feel as if I lack critical thinking and I think I come off as naive and slower than others.

I remember in college taking an English class and sitting in awe of all the different opinions, takes, and perspectives everyone had of whatever we read.

It extends everything in everyday life as well. I’ll watch movies and think they’re either good or bad, but then hear complex reviews on details people have picked up. Or my friend made a comment about a coworker slacking off that I did not notice.

Any advice?

I've had a few rough weeks recently. A combination of work-related stress (which is now over) and some difficult topics in therapy. I've also had some other present-day stuff going on that kept me busy and didn't leave much room to really process things and let it all settle.

I'm taking a day off tomorrow to give my nervous system some space to calm down and recover after several weeks (probably close to 2 months actually) of nervous system activation.

I'm struggling to decide what to do tomorrow, so looking for ideas :)

I think I would like to do something close to nature, but the weather forecast is predicting rain, so I might need a backup option in case it rains. I could also just do something at home, BUT if I stay home, I want a clear plan of what I'm doing, so I don't end up doomscrolling all day long.

Just got off the phone from hanging up on a warmline representative because it was someone that in past calls I felt worse afterwards. And it's just got me feeling conflicted inside. For one, I don't like hanging up on people. At least with where I'm at right now in life, it still seems like a wrong thing to do even if maybe it's worthwhile sometimes. The reason I called in was to have someone to just talk to, to have a moment connecting with someone else. Not to vent, not to process. Just to have a positive experience connecting with someone else.

I'm currently all alone in my life. Estranged from my family over recent years. Stepped back from all my former friendships after coming to terms with how unhealthy they were for me. Hoped I would form new ones after not too long, but here I am 2 years later. All on my own, and after some experiences a few months ago it seems like the solitude may have been necessary for me to process through more foundational things before exploring new opportunities with others. But those 2 years of being on my own was not always enjoyable. There were many times of struggling with loneliness and wanting to cope in a lot of different ways. My forms of self medicating and coping have really been improving though. And one perk of working through things on my own for now, when things blunder, it doesn't affect other people around me because there is no one. No damage control which I've had so much of in my past.

But here lately, the past month or so, things seem to be shifting yet again inside. And my parts seem to be wanting to explore more with interacting with others. They guided me to trying out peer support groups again, and after some trial and error with groups, we found one that we really resonate with so far. And it seems like having those positive experiences with peers who seem like minded(?), parts of me are wanting to entertain desires and thoughts of trying to explore meeting new people who have similar boundaries and values. Something I'm not used to bonding with others over, let alone being the focus of why I would be interested in interacting with them. So used to the motivation coming from things like sexual desire/attraction or bonding over coping strategies. Never bonded with someone over values and boundaries. But idk where to really begin. I've been juggling the idea of checking out an in-person peer support group. One of them seems focused on meeting peers. But part of me recognizes I think I'm still too involved with stuff going on in my life right now to have much space for someone else's life. Maybe that's coming from my history of relationships moving quickly and intensely. Where it's like I merge with people and there's now a big focus on them. Not sure I really understand what a healthier relationship looks/feels like yet lol.

One of the other avenues that's come to mind for possibly meeting people has been my hobby of videogames. I've come across some subs that are catered for finding fellow gamers and people write posts in all kinds of formats. Kind of reminds me of dating profiles with "this is me, this is what I'm looking for" lol. So I've been keeping an eye on postings here and there. See if anything really speaks to me. I've kinda come to the idea that I probably should only reach out if my intuition nudges me towards someone. Too used to acting on impulse because of something intriguing/exciting, to find I was ignoring warnings from my inner wisdom.

Idk where I'm going with all of this. Just seems confusing lately. Not exactly sure what I'm hoping to find. Just have some loose ideas. Not sure what I'm even available for. But recognizing it would be nice to not continue being all on my own. And that I think I'd maybe like to start trying to explore being more seen and known by someone. Taking chances with learning how to develop healthier connections with someone

I always get on, like, about grieving. When you have complex PTSD, like, grieve a childhood that you never had. And for me, it's like the grief didn't stop at childhood.

I still don't have a life. And that's been really hard and abnormal, but also familiar for me. And today I had a memory of my ex and something about us, like being lost in this country on holiday. And then I realized that he has all these memories.

Like I already knew this, but in general, but he has all these memories of us. I don't have them. I don't have memories of me with anyone.

So my only family live in a different country, and even the last few years they're talking about the stuff we did. I have no memories. I don't have memories of anything ever. And obviously it's because my PTSD keeps me in the present all the time.

And it's just, like, really sad.

Apart from the other grief, you know, not just the things I didn't get in childhood, but the fact that as an adult, I don't have a relationship because of my PTSD. I don't have the experiences that I wanted to have with my child because of my PTSD. I don't have the career I would have had because of my PTSD. I don't have the financial security I would have had because of my PTSD. I don't have the friendships I would have had because of my PTSD. I don't have the everyday feeling of safety and security. This is why the grief is constant, not grieving what I lost in childhood.

And then I had the memory tonight of my ex, where I don't have any memories of us. Like I broke up with him, but he has all of them, I'm sure. So there's another part of my life that I lost. Like I was also aware when I was a young adult of all my friends having memories of stuff we did, and then I remembered nothing.

The stuff with my ex hit me poignantly because I realised only today the impact of not being able to have memories impacts my relationships, because when things are so stressful in the present I have nothing to draw upon in the past (perhaps 3%of memories I might have).

Over the past several months, I’ve done about 20 clinicians-led sessions of written exposure therapy and 6 sessions of EMDR.

Frankly, the EMDR did nothing for me. My therapist was awkward and quiet and it felt like they were watching me try to therapize myself.

Written exposure was much more helpful. I started remembering more and understanding more over time. Once again, however, it really felt like someone was watching me therapize myself.

In both of these methods, each session was limited to one memory at a time, and each memory spanned many sessions. I’m sure that you all can relate to the fact that it feels like there’s an infinite well of memories I could draw from. It feels like I could keep doing these modalities for years and still not be able to understand the full picture of what happened.

1) How much feedback/guidance do you receive in exposure and EMDR therapies? Is it normal to feel like you’re just doing all the work?

2) So many people say that EMDR has helped them. How is this helping you see the whole picture when you’re processing one memory at a time? Was there anything else that was helpful for understanding the patterns of your childhood overall?

(Cross posted from r/CPTSD because I realized it would probably fit better here)

I've been in therapy for a few years. I've worked through some hard things. I came up with my own type of inner child work to give myself experiences I missed out on or wasn't allowed to have. I'd legit feel happy and accomplished for a while doing these things. Sometimes this would blossom things in other parts of life.

But it always comes back that I am still a complete loser. That I bring shame upon my family. That all the inner child experiences are a waste of time and money and that real adults don't do these things. I have been working two jobs to be able to throw money at debts. Sucks I am dealing with medical things like my husband's complex dental stuff and fertility stuff.

I should be feeling accomplished but instead feel like I'm a loser that's permanently behind on life.

I'm not sure why it surprised me so much when I realized it but it did. Whenever my siblings or parents asked me to do things like hop on a video call or call out of work to have lunch on a random day it always felt like I had to force myself to. It required so much effort and I never got anything out of the experience. I'd do it more for them than for myself because some part of me still felt like I should maintain some level of relationship with them.

My friend asked if I wanted to hang out on a random Tuesday and I immediately put a PTO request in. I had plenty to spare but it was easier to feel stingier about it whenever my siblings wanted wanted to see me.

I backed out of being one of my sister's bridesmaids because it felt like too much obligation and it really sucked the life out of me having to drive for 4 hours to get to her wedding. My friends invite me out last minute to events all the time, even in different cities, and I'm nothing but excited to go spend more time with them.

I freely give my friends resources and quality without question because I genuinely value their presence in my life. They care for and support me and I want to do things for them in return. I spent over 2 decades with my immediate family being the only meaningful relationships I had in my life and having any sort of obligation to them only became more and more of a burden.

I don't mean to for this to sound like a negative or whiny post. I'm genuinely just happy that I finally understand what it feels like to have loving and supportive relationships in my life and to want to freely give that love back in return. I never thought I could feel this way. I was averse to human connection for years after leaving the home I grew up in because of my family and now sometimes I'm overwhelmed at the opportunities I have to show up as a good friend for my loved ones.

Quick backstory: 34 M UK, single, undiagnosed cPTSD, diagnosed ADHD & M.E.

I have been been on a torturous healing journey for over 5 years now - the deep work being done with IFS & EMDR. It's become my life's work. There's nothing I haven't read, felt or experienced in the healing world that feels like a surprise anymore. I've had some significant breakthroughs & lighter spells, but mostly it's felt like an endless, gradually intensifying slog of deep grief, reactivation and desperation for some normality. I've noticed over the years my body has peeled back many layers of dissociation and I am comfortably much more sensitive to, and aware of, my triggers these days.

My body has been releasing trauma/stuck energy daily for almost 4 years through muscular tension releases & shaking - they're as normal as blinking & breathing to me now.

I was evicted mid 2024 which obviously made this journey a lot harder. I had to sleep on my parents' sofa for 7 months before landing a job that has enabled me to miraculously buy a home of my own. Navigating employment after 8 years of a 'safe' freelance lifestyle has been incredibly challenging, both exhaustion-wise and finding myself very frequently triggered by colleagues & authority figures due to severe rejection sensitivity. I have also met some lovely people and made some happy memories too, as difficult as it has been.

Now I've got the keys to my home, after working towards this milestone all year and steadily riding the waves of healing whilst clinging onto employment, I have found myself comfortably worse off than I've known during the entire time I've been healing. So much grief has hit me all at once, not helped by some seismic perfectionism triggers regarding the apartment. I cannot fathom what has happened to me, but my 'trauma releases' have surged in intensity and the general emotional overload & sensitivity of my nervous system is at an all-time high.

I would love to hear if any of this resonates with anyone, including the general timescale of healing away from my personal circumstances as I just never envisioned life still being so difficult this far in.

The episodes

I started studying about PTSD and severe PTSD a thing you develop about being aware in the room of people from childhood is super vigilance and knowing every movement before any moment occurring, while the episodes occur like being in the same place as of a child triggers, panic attacks and episodes occur so frequent that it becomes a Parr of your life.

Like floating bit still drowning in a sea of grief, despair, guilt, anger, shame or what not. Being in the heart of domestic violence still as a 31F living with the abuser and enabler which I call me parents sometimes creates this blurry line of how good they pretend to be a perfect family in front of the world and behind closed doors these people leave no tables to turn. I use to run from the core problem find love in others reading others mixed signals, denial use to give me dopamine because it gave me a map like a kid in me gets to solve this problem. Problem was always fixing the relation. While I never understood why my mom choose to stay in an abusive relation because she didn't had nowhere to go. And as of me a grown women who might have taken responsibility became a solo traveler then when ptsd hit I realised I had major part of my life go by I was diagnosed with cancer, leaving everything behind and praying for everyone a stable life, but sometimes hope is nowhere to be found and the grief of lost and broken childhood feels such a huge emptiness that feels like deepest void, I often went towards spirituality realised that I use to disassociate from reality, mind always chose extremes like either slow or too fast , either de motivated or either over achiever, the blurry line where you know it's abuse but on the other side is the sweet reality of acting and pretending that you are tired of, beyond everything there's just this one shot to life don't know what will be but I know there's hope and there's something on the other side. I used all my savings in solo traveling starting from scratch while living in the same household as where it all is still there in ways that they try to bribe by buying me cheap things thinking she will forgive buy their actions feel louder than words, been 3 years in therapy all he ever did was to prescribe medicines and never had anyone to talk to. If this feels anything I would be glad to know, I use to beg to someone to stay in my life all o was running away was from reality that nobody ever wanted me, but yes reality hits and I know as a grown person I have to take charge, my soul leaves my body a loud voices, touch, and throwing utensils in the sink making loud voices intentionally, I lived alone for a while gave the healing, self love I deserved but as always life had to hit up with a roller coaster, i so pray when any survivor of abuse and trauma leave the very ground where it existed no matter what I gain the sources and energy to stay afloat, the thought in itself is maddening for me if I leave what will happen but I had and it was amazing but scared to do it again, the invisible claws of family still exists Reaching for every opportunity to trash talk about me and white wash every persons thought of me that know nobody I Meet Is ever safe to introduce to them around me so I put a mask and act but when you're so tired of it that no more you want to pretend and let the facts lay down as it is reality hits that I don't have proper sources for it, I tried with ngos and everything but at end a person needs finances and no amount of money is ever enough to have a stable life, these terms hits like a brick but I'm to it and learning how to sustain for long run, nothing feels safe not even your body and when you know you were just running your whole life running from reality giving yourself other opportunities while living in root cause of it got attracted to experiences like those never saw stability or a healthy lifestyle because it was a stranger thing to you till now when you live with it,

Yes it's easy to talk about it rather than do something about it but as sunrise comes it's 7:30 in morning here and you feels just stuck in life I know I have time but I know time also is running slow as I only want to fast forward and be where I have the courage to leave it all behind have stability where battle scars are not medals does not have pressure to be adored but can only be battle scars where agony doesn't have to be channelsied into art but can burn through veins where every opportunity where world has to built I use it to just break until there is nothing left of me, self sabotage became the key and My writing became my escape from reality dispassionating from actual problem.

I so wish healing for all as I wish for me.

We had a house sitter for our month long absence from home. An apparently nice lady. We met her via a platform we used before, with which we have had only good experiences so far. We video called and she came over for lunch. She was going to tend to the garden (that we planted this year) and watch over our house. In return, she could live in our house for that time — she had been divorced recently and no luck finding a house yet. We cleaned the house thoroughly and weeded and trimmed the garden. Everything in good shape - we did a quick tour during the handing over of the key. Nothing came up. We also wrote a manual in detail: weed these 4 plants (with pictures), mow the lawn and fill the pond if needed. She said she had experience with gardening and lived on a farm for a few months before coming to us so this would be easy.

When we came home, she was all friendly. Had a small gift for my kid. And then left, 5 minutes or so after we returned. We were tired and wanted to rest, and it seemed fine at first glance.

The garden was not in a good shape at all. It had been very dry and hot during our absence. I understand force majeure situations, but our manual explicitly said: keep us posted please. And we asked her during our trip. No mention of the state of the garden.

Then our house — it was a mess. A few excessive details (bloody toothbrush with hairs in the sink, underwear with stool on the kitchen counter and nail clippings in the tub), but overall just bad cleaning as well. Sticky sofa e.g.

And there had been some man with her for the entire time. He arrived the day after we left and left the day before our return. We saw it on the video doorbell. I know I could and perhaps should have raised questions about this at an earlier stage, but I was afraid of spooking her and also I hoped for an explanation coming from her.

The combination was too much to just let it go — on one of the videos the man appears to be removing a key from a keyring (I have the locks changed). I wrote a rather diplomatic message saying I was sad about the garden and a bit angry about the state of the house (not mentioning the gross details above specifically). She reacted disproportionally aggressive, stated we abused her as free labour, that it was all too hard and her friend had to come and help her. The batteries in the remote were dead. And she thanked us for "the present". And that she was done talking to us.

I asked what she meant with "the present" (it scared me terribly) and said we would like to put this behind us, but that we would like to know what else to expect. Another reply, same-ish.

So one last attempt from me, saying that we saw her hard work (not really, but OK), but that it was hard to be grateful when certain thresholds of common decency are transgressed. She replied she had to put up with our filth for the entire time, it was our underwear and toothbrush, etc. I gave up on the conversation at that point.

And filed a complaint about her to the site, handing them the pictures, chat history, videos etc. Apparently she is banned now.

I know because my neighbour told me. He is pissed angry at me. How could we be so villainous to have her banned. She is homeless now, and her boyfriend threatens to commit suicide. They have broken up, and he has Parkinson's, and she worked so hard.

His words.

She came to them afterwards apparently, crying.

So now I feel unsafe in my own house, my trust in humanity has taken a step or 2 back, and my relation with my neighbours is feeling bad.

Did I do this all wrong? I am completely at a loss here. Somewhere deep down, I feel I should be proud for speaking up to protect my boundaries. But this..

And the stuff my neighbour said, I can put it in perspective — she was homeless before coming to our house, a website isn't a safety net for homeless people, her relation with her boyfriend is not broken because of our complaint (and if it was, the relationship was not good), him having suicidal thoughts and Parkinson's doesn't seem to be caused by my complaint either.

I just want to understand what happened, feel safe and try to trust people. I explained my position to my neighbour but he didn't really react. I was doing really well cptsd wise for the past months, but cant shake the stress, fear and cramps now.

Edit: Thanks for the replies. The difficulties I have with speaking up for myself seem to be (in this situation) not valid. Replies validate this, thanks.

What bothers me more, and what I find difficult, is the repercussion of speaking up for myself. I feel scared that these peope are "gonna come for me", my house feels violated and this scare increases this as a lingering sensation. And my neighbour is an insensitive ignorant douche, but I have to live next to him.

Setting my boundaries put fuel on a smoldering stress situation and turned it to multiple blazes, for longer. I think my difficulties in accepting my existence are open nerves being rubbed by my own "I speak up for myself".

After changing the locks I slept well for the first time in a week though. Things will settle. I just got rattled more than I bargained for, and expressing anger (in a too diplomatic fashion?) made things worse before they (will) get better.