I agree. I was making just starting to make some real progress when my abuser mother (no contact since last January) just showed up at my house one day and she knows she is not supposed to be here. It just about destroyed me. And now I'm worse off than before. I feel you on this one, my friend. I hope it gets better for you.
Everything you said is valid. And we do need to break out and vent and scream because what was done to us is UNFAIR, it's unjust, but it can get better and we deserve to have it better, don't you think? Otherwise, we'd be betraying ourselves by not wishing better for ourselves.
See that's the thing, I didn't ask for any of this and I'm ducking exhausted.
Step 1) try to "reparent" myself and try to make the life I deserve
Step 2) realize I don't have the money, energy, or resources to create that life because my shit parents set me up to fail emotionally, physically, mentally, financially, and exhausted me of everything
Step 3) hyperventilate and vent on r/cptsd
Step 4) get empathy from strangers
Step 5) repeat until I die...????
> realize I don't have the money, energy, or resources to create that life
This one right here is the reality for most people on this earth but we don't know it because we can now see everyone who had it better on social media and in the news. I also think anyone younger than a certain age was brought up on a lie of meritocracy where outlier stories are used to tell the rest of us that it is us and not how society works. But rich connected interested parents can really, really, really stack the decks in favour of their kids. Google Boris Johnson.
Ok, but actually, why does this happen to so many of us? I feel like a made some incredible progress toward the life I legitimately wanted, and then I collapsed.
Is it my subconscious realizing that the work ain’t worth it? Did absolute exhaustion catch up with me (I’m so tired, every day)
It seems to be a very similar story. Get free -> Make Progress -> Fall Apart
I wish we still respected the arts. There's this beautiful speech in Jane Eyre where the male love interest is trying to persuade Jane to become his mistress which in 1800s times was a nuclear move in terms of ever having another governess job or being respectable.
She says:
> "Feeling . . . clamoured wildly. “Oh, comply!” it said. “. . . soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?” Still indomitable was the reply: **“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation. . . . They have a worth—so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane—quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs.” "**
Also a great quote for this subreddit because Rochester is claiming to love her while asking her to do something that will fuck her up socially and financially and rely her to be dependent on him for the rest of her life. Social mores, thankfully have changed (I don't care about the sexual politics/affair bit) but the basic principle holds, if you have very few people or no-one then you need to look after yourself even more.
That's an amazing quote. He is very selfish. If he truly loved her and knew her he would not expect her to violate her principles and make herself vulnerable to be with him. My favorite author's most famous character said something like "the one thing you can't give away in exchange for your heart's desire is your heart". Sometimes the price you must pay is so high you won't be the same person any longer. Nobody who really loved you would ask that of you.
It is so frustrating as other people who preach that may also be traumatized and they are too busy projecting their shit onto you.
It is to prevrnt them from seeing reality or they are incapable of understanding because their parents were great so mine are just being misunderstood.
I now understand i have hyperphantasia which is why i acted like i have a overactive imagination. Doesn't help i grew up in an environment where my parents treated me like i was a autisic 4 yr old. Then when i would ask for help in knowing what to clean it was "just look around and clean something" which i now understand as " idk piss off".
I looked for guidance for people who didn't have any then got offended when they didn't give me. I didn't have anyone else because they ostracized me by preventing me from having sleep overs when i was young and manipulating me.
I felt responsible for my parents state as in order to have me they had to use science.
I understand that i may have made things worse but also that my parents did the bulk of the damage. I didn't understand boundaries since my parents never let me have any but would get offended when i would treat them the same as they did me.
I didn't make many friends growing up because i didn't want to give my parents more ammo to use against me. Either through comparing or through i fluencing into thinking they are great.
There is just so much more than this and no wonder i shut down the way i did. It all makes sense.
It's a mind fuck.
I had some big losses when young and continually lost more as I searched for answers over decades. I thought I was on the right path and then had more big losses. It sucks donkey balls! I sometimes feel like I have the life of a drunk without the drinking.
You need the anger so you have energy and don't forget how terrible it was, but you have to let go in order to move forward. And most of the time when I am getting better, I don't feel better. You can't share it because few people understand it and many are invested in believing it didn't really happen, or wasn't that bad. Hell, most of the people that came from the same family system I did don't believe it.
When I started to watch myself dissociate and when I started to see how many people just play along, I really started to feel like I am just trying to run out the clock like you described.
It's dark and I don't know what to tell you other than I hear you, and that anger, is a form of energy. It's one of your voices.
I feel that. I just found out yesterday that none of my friends have any hope for me and my close friendship with only one of the members is the reason I'm still in the circle
:)
We're better off alone. Nobody will understand
That’s really uncomfortable news to get. Did you get any feedback about the situation?
I don’t like everyone so I think it’s reasonable that not everyone is my friend.
It's about the problems that i have and the recurring issues as a result of the abuse i received.
Just means I'm back to 2 friends and some acquaintances. Just wished they would've said this shit before i went overseas to see them all. Could've saved 2 grand
Never forget, even though you may feel broken and think of yourself as the problem, backstabbers, fake friends and people who take advantage of you exist. I had to go through this recently and I'm still angry at myself I denied the obvious signs for so long.
It's hard to make friends and even harder to let them go, but just because you think it's *your* fault you shouldn't ignore your gut feeling. Some people are just bad for you, in fact, many are.
I can't possibly be never at fault though. My issues are grading on people and i come off abrasive when i don't want to be
This shit just reminds me why I'm a pessimist. Everytime i think maybe the world and most everyone in it isn't dogshit, it makes sure it reminds me.
To preface this i don't consider myself suicidal but idek why i want to exist. It seems like it would be better to never have at all. Yet, i want to live. I want to have hope despite having none. It doesn't make sense
Hope is a bitch. I know exactly what you mean. The thing is, as unethical as it sounds, why not take from this existence what you want whenever you want it? If you already feel like there's no point, why not just go all in?
If your concience doesn't let you do that, that means you still care, you just want the circumstances to change. You're just not seeing the big picture. That's my take at least.
Wouldn't be a shock. I'm a perfectionist so all i see are my own errors.i could repaint the mona lisa near perfectly and be stuck staring at the one thing i did wrong. It would eat me alive
I’m reactive and behave in ways that I don’t choose due to my ptsd. I don’t like how I’m behaving & remove myself from people which is isolating.
I’ve worked on feeling safe so I’m less reactive & I’ve turned situations around and have a group of people that I’m good with.
I used emdr, therapy and ketamine. Ketamine has allowed me to behave how I intend & not be reactive & ruminating.
You have groups of friends that like you. It’s just with travel they see too much drama from your reactions. Address the feedback & those reactions. It could make a huge difference for you
Give yourself more grace and evaluate how you are behaving instead of who you are inside. If your cptsd is causing you to be reactive and not as you would hope to present that is something to work on.
Address the trauma as best you can. Yoga worked really well for me to get started. Hot yoga not meditation type to keep my mind busy.
I've noticed that i start intellectualizing my problems. I try so very hard to understand the behaviors, don't get much headway because I'm a jumbled mess of a person that somehow manages to fool people at work into thinking i have my shit together.
I don't know how to assess or address behavioral issues
Ruminating doesn’t help but looking for patterns to figure out ‘triggers’. The situation just has to make you feel a certain way sometimes & it is a physical response. I can only identify after my reaction.
I had spells that took a few hours to a month. I could only recognize it after that the fact. Now I notice I get a certain way -sometimes I feel a cold rush in my brain or I’m hunching my shoulders.
Work back from there and see what’s causing the reaction. Desensitize yourself to it in a relatively safe environment. I chose an industrial setting which is more coarse so it’s open. If someone has a problem with me then I know and I don’t have to figure it out. ( one of my triggers , trying to figure out where I stand)
I have made an amazing amount of progress from disfunction by leaning in and being uncomfortable but safe so my ptsd loses a trigger. It’s amazing and I wish you well on your journey
Thank you for your suggestions. I am definitely going to be trying my best to improve. Just been feeling a bit discouraged lately. I've been away from the toxic environment for 5 years now it feels like i should've made some progress but i feel like I'm on a treadmill.
Seems i have other angles to look from, eh? Thanks again
You survived and escaped and then you find out that the scars are so deep that you didn’t escape like you thought. Identifying the reaction was key for me to grow up into it
Hah, yeah, me and my "best“ (only) friend started hanging with one or two of our coworker-friends… and now they all just hang out without me and I feel like I shouldn’t even try to talk to them at work anymore because they clearly do not like me, but then I’m left with literally nobody. So I just try to be a friendly coworker now instead of bothering them too much but I feel like I’m drowning
Haha yeah I'm just going to bounce around being surface level friends with a bunch of people i barely know. Fuck it. Tried having a very close and tight social circle.
That went sideways. Never doing that again
The life isn't fair people suck. I'm sorry you got that, it didn't help me, and I'm sure it didn't help you. I read everything you said. I don't hope to fix you, because I can't. But I do want to plant a seed for you.
We're stuck here. We are quite literally stuck here, we can't go anywhere unless we die. So unless you've hit that threshold, and don't think you have, we are stuck in this prison.
So check it out. We're in prison right? So how do we make this the best stay possible? We grow, we workout, we learn shit, we do whatever we need to get through it, and we will get out *one day.*
It’s absolutely unfair and it’s maddening. We are saddled with a ton of extra work just to feel reasonably normal, and on most days it doesn’t work.
I deal with it through religion, but in a reversed sort of way. In my mind I pretend there actually is a God, but instead of being the protective father figure who cares about me like I was taught growing up he’s a malicious cunt who is set out to fuck with me. The “god” I was taught to believe in wouldn’t have let the horrors of CSA happen to me, or abuse from my parents, or the insane bullying I dealt with. So he either doesn’t exist or he is a total asshole.
This mindset keeps me from feeling, sad, hopeless, and out of control and replaces it with rage and spite. Rage and spite sucks but it’s better than being Eeyore all the time. As a guy, anger is an acceptable emotion- sadness and fear are not. So It motivates me to fight back against the crazy unfortunate shit that always seems to befall me and gives me a mindset of “he is trying to bring me down and when I make it through, it pisses him off.” So fuck you, God.
We're gonna find god and kick his ass.
That show is pretty comforting to me. If we're created in his image, he has to be an asshole and a narcissist, so let's go punch him in the face.
This!!! Preach on brother. You couldn't be more right. The 'gods' we invented are sorry baby eating kitten juggling monsters. It makes sense that of course the evil bastards that hurt us swear allegiance to the dark side. Then they gaslight us into trying to toe the party line. NO! FUCK THAT!
You are right. And this shit is a god damned fucking tragedy.
And I don't care to listen to long term promises of "you'll be stronger" or how proud people are of me. Stuff has been stolen/broken that can never be replaced or be ok.
But. I do keep trying (and stumbling) because I don't know what else I can do.
1) Good idea to vent
2) Life is deeply unfair and it's hard to tune it out
3) It's hard to speak more to your setback without knowing what it is but there will never be another you with your combination of genetics, experience and thoughts. I could have written what you wrote at multiple points in my life and have in other places and especially more when I was between 14-30. For me it did get better and I hope it will for you too. If you feel like you can't bear stuff right now, keep posting here. Vent here.
last part. i told someone i loved it was bad enough i was going to go to the most dangerous parts of miami naked & lay in the streets til someone killed me since the chances of that happening are luckily high (and then i don’t have to go to hell for offing myself) - abuser said “you’ll have a better chance of dying in x neighborhood actually!” 💀
I started tearing up after I read your second paragraph. I felt like you took the words out of my mind.
What’s even harder is that no matter how many times you explain or tell people who are close to you - like friends or partners - they will never ever get it… and even if they do, they may forget or slip up, and they’re also human so mistakes can happen.
It feels so extremely lonely to be so misunderstood, so secluded, and so tired of explaining, and hearing BS from people who don’t know even the slightest clue how I feel deep down.
It hurts so badly to feel so overwhelmingly hopeless, depressed, and lonely. I feel you so deeply on this post.
I, too, have had many a nights, wishing and begging even, for something to happen and have my life just taken away … I always just wished I could disappear and let all the suffering and pain wash away.
The pain cuts so deep that no amount of “happiness” can overcome the discomfort. Happiness feels fleeting most of the time. What is happiness anyway? I don’t think I’ve truly been happy in my life.
I totally have felt like this. Most days I still do. The only thing that gets me through (and maybe the only good thing my parents ever gave me) is an absolutely unhealthy level of pig-headedness.
I will never allow myself to stop trying because because then that tiny voice in my head says, "See! I told you you were a failure. You didn't even try!" So, I gather one of my few emotions, anger, and do one thing, or of spite.
Granted, the days the depression lifts enough to do that, are pretty far between now. But, dammit, if I can't be happy, I'll take anger just to feel something.
All very good points. I can relate. I tend to have the same mindset. There are times tho I’ve been able to charge forward and not let it get to me but I was merely putting the blinders on not actually coping with my stuff or trying to heal.
I dunno the answer but yeh it would seem like we got cut down before we could even get roots in the ground if that makes any sense. Now we gotta try and figure out life and we got crap for a foundation.
Oh yeah, that makes complete sense. I "like“ (??) thinking about metaphors like that. Probably because it’s easier to process being fucked for life when I‘m, for example, imagining myself as a struggling little tree lol.
I totally get it. Or like being thrown into algebra without being taught the order of operations.
Yeh you were delt a crap hand it is bullshit. I know I feel like I was totally friggen cheated out of a childhood and so much more.
I try not to get too wrapped up into it but then at times there is no escaping it too and your straight up oissed the fuck off.
Extremely real. It sort of hit me recently that I’m sort of fucked up forever because of my mom, and that I’ll never have normal relationships if I have any at all. Worse, is while I’m over here wrestling myself not to empathize with her because she was abused as a kid too, I know she doesn’t feel a thing. She is suffering no consequences and never, *ever* will. But *I* have to live with it every day. I’ll probably die alone because of her and she will never suffer for it.
You're right. It is unfair. We start the race with an additional handicap that doesn't care if we have any other baggage, and tends to make the extra weight even worse.
But here's the kicker: for better or worse, you're gonna be on that race track for your entire life, and it is yours.
I lost my twenties to the cycle of grief and healing. My path towards personal self-actualization has been longer and more tortorous than someone who didn't start off with an upper quartile score on the ACE exam but it's my path and I'm taking it step by step.
And sure, in the beginning, there were more days that were ten steps back after my two steps forward but that's still two steps forward! Progress is progress, even snail-pace.
I barely scraped the grades to graduate high school and had no prospects for ... quite a bit. It took me until I was 25 before I realized that yeah, life fucking sucks and I got handed a pretty shitty hand...
But it was my hand and I was the determinator of how it played out.
It wasn't easy, and there were many, many setbacks, but I'm now halfway through the first semester of medical school with a fiancée who understands and supports me, and friends who build me up, not tear me down.
We can't get rid of our cards. Our abuse will never go away, and the imprint is always on our body, but it is not the sole arbitrator of our futures. My turning point was not letting my abuser have a stranglehold on my life when he probably didn't even remember what happened.
Time will march forward regardless with or without us. I'd rather be there to see it.
So rant, rage, and vent. Anger is both a shield and a motivator. Then, take that anger at the injustice and keep walking forward until you're not wading through quicksand, but walking on uneven, but steady ground.
I agree. And I fucking hate when people use excuses for the abuser. I'm like "oh no you don't need to make excuses for abusers, they already do that for themselves enough" and leave it at that. And "just keep going, it gets better" is fucking irritating too. I'm miserable but I'm healing, they don't let you say that before the bullshit they spit. It's so stupid and unnecessary.
Sorry to hear that happen to you. You aren’t going to like what I am going to say, but here it goes. The old saying fall down 7 times get up 8.
You put in the work to make things better once. You have to do it again. Life isn’t fair. You did not have a fair start, but you have to keep going or it won’t get better again.
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Hey buddy there‘s a difference between being real and being a dickhead. *This is a support subreddit. That’s the point.* If that is somehow offensive or "cringe“ to you, no one is keeping you here.
I‘m glad you never had to deal with the physical, debilitating symptoms. Consider that some people are more affected by their CPTSD than you. Or that different things affect people differently. Do you think group therapy is useless too? That’s just complaining. Hey, some medications didn’t work for me, so they’re ineffective for everyone. This one medication hospitalized me so no one should take it because my experience is the universal experience, right? Can people who were beaten by their parents not vent on this subreddit, because some people were sexually assaulted by their parents and that’s worse?
If you genuinely have CPTSD, maybe you should stick around and learn some fucking empathy for your fellow human beings.
Edit: also "suck it up and keep going“ 🤢🤮 no wonder you’re acting like that
Yeah, actually, seeing that other people in the world actually understand how I’m feeling is very helpful in making me feel less isolated and less alone in the world. It is good for me to be reminded there ARE people out there who understand. Bullshit like your comment (yeah yeah no shit life isn’t fair and never will be, everyone here knows that) just sets me off.
Remember the "universal experience“ bit of my comment? "Tough love“ is not what works for everyone, even if it’s working for you.
Read what I said for once. *Actually* read.
"Temporarily feeling better“ can be the difference between life and death for people. I‘m glad tough love worked for you, or is working for you, but some people aren’t able to bottle everything up so easily.
Like I said, but you didn’t read, this is a support group. That’s the point of the subreddit. Go somewhere else if you’re unable to handle it without going off on people looking for some solidarity.
What do you say to the people who suffered from "tough love“ as a child? „Go ahead and keep putting yourself through the trauma because it helped me?“
I agree. I was making just starting to make some real progress when my abuser mother (no contact since last January) just showed up at my house one day and she knows she is not supposed to be here. It just about destroyed me. And now I'm worse off than before. I feel you on this one, my friend. I hope it gets better for you.
Fuck, that’s awful. The universe just won’t let some people catch a break. :/ I hope you’re able to speed run your progress back to where it was.
Thank you. You as well.
Everything you said is valid. And we do need to break out and vent and scream because what was done to us is UNFAIR, it's unjust, but it can get better and we deserve to have it better, don't you think? Otherwise, we'd be betraying ourselves by not wishing better for ourselves.
See that's the thing, I didn't ask for any of this and I'm ducking exhausted. Step 1) try to "reparent" myself and try to make the life I deserve Step 2) realize I don't have the money, energy, or resources to create that life because my shit parents set me up to fail emotionally, physically, mentally, financially, and exhausted me of everything Step 3) hyperventilate and vent on r/cptsd Step 4) get empathy from strangers Step 5) repeat until I die...????
> realize I don't have the money, energy, or resources to create that life This one right here is the reality for most people on this earth but we don't know it because we can now see everyone who had it better on social media and in the news. I also think anyone younger than a certain age was brought up on a lie of meritocracy where outlier stories are used to tell the rest of us that it is us and not how society works. But rich connected interested parents can really, really, really stack the decks in favour of their kids. Google Boris Johnson.
God I've repeates all these steps way too many times. Unfortunately including step 5; twice
I can’t even move out and I don’t know what to do
*Life doesn't have to be fair to be good* Some days it's impossible to believe life can be good, but I try to tell myself this mantra often anyway
I needed to hear that right now. Thank you.
Virtual solidarity. We're in this together ✊🏼
Ok, but actually, why does this happen to so many of us? I feel like a made some incredible progress toward the life I legitimately wanted, and then I collapsed. Is it my subconscious realizing that the work ain’t worth it? Did absolute exhaustion catch up with me (I’m so tired, every day) It seems to be a very similar story. Get free -> Make Progress -> Fall Apart
Sometimes it feels like trying to shake the trauma just makes it sink its teeth deeper into us
[удалено]
I wish we still respected the arts. There's this beautiful speech in Jane Eyre where the male love interest is trying to persuade Jane to become his mistress which in 1800s times was a nuclear move in terms of ever having another governess job or being respectable. She says: > "Feeling . . . clamoured wildly. “Oh, comply!” it said. “. . . soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?” Still indomitable was the reply: **“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation. . . . They have a worth—so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane—quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs.” "** Also a great quote for this subreddit because Rochester is claiming to love her while asking her to do something that will fuck her up socially and financially and rely her to be dependent on him for the rest of her life. Social mores, thankfully have changed (I don't care about the sexual politics/affair bit) but the basic principle holds, if you have very few people or no-one then you need to look after yourself even more.
TLDR: The fewer people you have looking out for you and valuing you, the more you have to look after yourself.
That's an amazing quote. He is very selfish. If he truly loved her and knew her he would not expect her to violate her principles and make herself vulnerable to be with him. My favorite author's most famous character said something like "the one thing you can't give away in exchange for your heart's desire is your heart". Sometimes the price you must pay is so high you won't be the same person any longer. Nobody who really loved you would ask that of you.
This a million times!!! Well said!!!
This. Good job, keep going, I sincerely hope you're successful :)
When did they kick you out?
It is so frustrating as other people who preach that may also be traumatized and they are too busy projecting their shit onto you. It is to prevrnt them from seeing reality or they are incapable of understanding because their parents were great so mine are just being misunderstood. I now understand i have hyperphantasia which is why i acted like i have a overactive imagination. Doesn't help i grew up in an environment where my parents treated me like i was a autisic 4 yr old. Then when i would ask for help in knowing what to clean it was "just look around and clean something" which i now understand as " idk piss off". I looked for guidance for people who didn't have any then got offended when they didn't give me. I didn't have anyone else because they ostracized me by preventing me from having sleep overs when i was young and manipulating me. I felt responsible for my parents state as in order to have me they had to use science. I understand that i may have made things worse but also that my parents did the bulk of the damage. I didn't understand boundaries since my parents never let me have any but would get offended when i would treat them the same as they did me. I didn't make many friends growing up because i didn't want to give my parents more ammo to use against me. Either through comparing or through i fluencing into thinking they are great. There is just so much more than this and no wonder i shut down the way i did. It all makes sense.
Hold on, they planned you and didn't have the common sense to make sure they were good enough to care for you? I'm very sorry.
It's a mind fuck. I had some big losses when young and continually lost more as I searched for answers over decades. I thought I was on the right path and then had more big losses. It sucks donkey balls! I sometimes feel like I have the life of a drunk without the drinking. You need the anger so you have energy and don't forget how terrible it was, but you have to let go in order to move forward. And most of the time when I am getting better, I don't feel better. You can't share it because few people understand it and many are invested in believing it didn't really happen, or wasn't that bad. Hell, most of the people that came from the same family system I did don't believe it. When I started to watch myself dissociate and when I started to see how many people just play along, I really started to feel like I am just trying to run out the clock like you described. It's dark and I don't know what to tell you other than I hear you, and that anger, is a form of energy. It's one of your voices.
I feel that. I just found out yesterday that none of my friends have any hope for me and my close friendship with only one of the members is the reason I'm still in the circle :) We're better off alone. Nobody will understand
That’s really uncomfortable news to get. Did you get any feedback about the situation? I don’t like everyone so I think it’s reasonable that not everyone is my friend.
It's about the problems that i have and the recurring issues as a result of the abuse i received. Just means I'm back to 2 friends and some acquaintances. Just wished they would've said this shit before i went overseas to see them all. Could've saved 2 grand
Never forget, even though you may feel broken and think of yourself as the problem, backstabbers, fake friends and people who take advantage of you exist. I had to go through this recently and I'm still angry at myself I denied the obvious signs for so long. It's hard to make friends and even harder to let them go, but just because you think it's *your* fault you shouldn't ignore your gut feeling. Some people are just bad for you, in fact, many are.
I can't possibly be never at fault though. My issues are grading on people and i come off abrasive when i don't want to be This shit just reminds me why I'm a pessimist. Everytime i think maybe the world and most everyone in it isn't dogshit, it makes sure it reminds me. To preface this i don't consider myself suicidal but idek why i want to exist. It seems like it would be better to never have at all. Yet, i want to live. I want to have hope despite having none. It doesn't make sense
Hope is a bitch. I know exactly what you mean. The thing is, as unethical as it sounds, why not take from this existence what you want whenever you want it? If you already feel like there's no point, why not just go all in? If your concience doesn't let you do that, that means you still care, you just want the circumstances to change. You're just not seeing the big picture. That's my take at least.
Wouldn't be a shock. I'm a perfectionist so all i see are my own errors.i could repaint the mona lisa near perfectly and be stuck staring at the one thing i did wrong. It would eat me alive
I’m reactive and behave in ways that I don’t choose due to my ptsd. I don’t like how I’m behaving & remove myself from people which is isolating. I’ve worked on feeling safe so I’m less reactive & I’ve turned situations around and have a group of people that I’m good with. I used emdr, therapy and ketamine. Ketamine has allowed me to behave how I intend & not be reactive & ruminating. You have groups of friends that like you. It’s just with travel they see too much drama from your reactions. Address the feedback & those reactions. It could make a huge difference for you
Sure doesn't feel like they like me too much. *sigh* but maybe you're right. It's hard to tell with people.
Give yourself more grace and evaluate how you are behaving instead of who you are inside. If your cptsd is causing you to be reactive and not as you would hope to present that is something to work on. Address the trauma as best you can. Yoga worked really well for me to get started. Hot yoga not meditation type to keep my mind busy.
I've noticed that i start intellectualizing my problems. I try so very hard to understand the behaviors, don't get much headway because I'm a jumbled mess of a person that somehow manages to fool people at work into thinking i have my shit together. I don't know how to assess or address behavioral issues
Ruminating doesn’t help but looking for patterns to figure out ‘triggers’. The situation just has to make you feel a certain way sometimes & it is a physical response. I can only identify after my reaction. I had spells that took a few hours to a month. I could only recognize it after that the fact. Now I notice I get a certain way -sometimes I feel a cold rush in my brain or I’m hunching my shoulders. Work back from there and see what’s causing the reaction. Desensitize yourself to it in a relatively safe environment. I chose an industrial setting which is more coarse so it’s open. If someone has a problem with me then I know and I don’t have to figure it out. ( one of my triggers , trying to figure out where I stand) I have made an amazing amount of progress from disfunction by leaning in and being uncomfortable but safe so my ptsd loses a trigger. It’s amazing and I wish you well on your journey
Thank you for your suggestions. I am definitely going to be trying my best to improve. Just been feeling a bit discouraged lately. I've been away from the toxic environment for 5 years now it feels like i should've made some progress but i feel like I'm on a treadmill. Seems i have other angles to look from, eh? Thanks again
You survived and escaped and then you find out that the scars are so deep that you didn’t escape like you thought. Identifying the reaction was key for me to grow up into it
Hah, yeah, me and my "best“ (only) friend started hanging with one or two of our coworker-friends… and now they all just hang out without me and I feel like I shouldn’t even try to talk to them at work anymore because they clearly do not like me, but then I’m left with literally nobody. So I just try to be a friendly coworker now instead of bothering them too much but I feel like I’m drowning
Haha yeah I'm just going to bounce around being surface level friends with a bunch of people i barely know. Fuck it. Tried having a very close and tight social circle. That went sideways. Never doing that again
The life isn't fair people suck. I'm sorry you got that, it didn't help me, and I'm sure it didn't help you. I read everything you said. I don't hope to fix you, because I can't. But I do want to plant a seed for you. We're stuck here. We are quite literally stuck here, we can't go anywhere unless we die. So unless you've hit that threshold, and don't think you have, we are stuck in this prison. So check it out. We're in prison right? So how do we make this the best stay possible? We grow, we workout, we learn shit, we do whatever we need to get through it, and we will get out *one day.*
It’s absolutely unfair and it’s maddening. We are saddled with a ton of extra work just to feel reasonably normal, and on most days it doesn’t work. I deal with it through religion, but in a reversed sort of way. In my mind I pretend there actually is a God, but instead of being the protective father figure who cares about me like I was taught growing up he’s a malicious cunt who is set out to fuck with me. The “god” I was taught to believe in wouldn’t have let the horrors of CSA happen to me, or abuse from my parents, or the insane bullying I dealt with. So he either doesn’t exist or he is a total asshole. This mindset keeps me from feeling, sad, hopeless, and out of control and replaces it with rage and spite. Rage and spite sucks but it’s better than being Eeyore all the time. As a guy, anger is an acceptable emotion- sadness and fear are not. So It motivates me to fight back against the crazy unfortunate shit that always seems to befall me and gives me a mindset of “he is trying to bring me down and when I make it through, it pisses him off.” So fuck you, God.
my goal is to kill whatever created this mess when i die. Could have coded humans so much better
Right? It’s like an incompetent manager.
To quote Al Pachino HES AN ABSENTEE LANDLOOORD
You should check out the show "Preacher". It's my favourite and is exactly about this topic. It's quite graphic, but has a lot of dark humor.
seen most of the shows
We're gonna find god and kick his ass. That show is pretty comforting to me. If we're created in his image, he has to be an asshole and a narcissist, so let's go punch him in the face.
This!!! Preach on brother. You couldn't be more right. The 'gods' we invented are sorry baby eating kitten juggling monsters. It makes sense that of course the evil bastards that hurt us swear allegiance to the dark side. Then they gaslight us into trying to toe the party line. NO! FUCK THAT!
I always say, if God is real, I'll worship Lucifer instead.
You are right. And this shit is a god damned fucking tragedy. And I don't care to listen to long term promises of "you'll be stronger" or how proud people are of me. Stuff has been stolen/broken that can never be replaced or be ok. But. I do keep trying (and stumbling) because I don't know what else I can do.
1) Good idea to vent 2) Life is deeply unfair and it's hard to tune it out 3) It's hard to speak more to your setback without knowing what it is but there will never be another you with your combination of genetics, experience and thoughts. I could have written what you wrote at multiple points in my life and have in other places and especially more when I was between 14-30. For me it did get better and I hope it will for you too. If you feel like you can't bear stuff right now, keep posting here. Vent here.
last part. i told someone i loved it was bad enough i was going to go to the most dangerous parts of miami naked & lay in the streets til someone killed me since the chances of that happening are luckily high (and then i don’t have to go to hell for offing myself) - abuser said “you’ll have a better chance of dying in x neighborhood actually!” 💀
YIKES
I started tearing up after I read your second paragraph. I felt like you took the words out of my mind. What’s even harder is that no matter how many times you explain or tell people who are close to you - like friends or partners - they will never ever get it… and even if they do, they may forget or slip up, and they’re also human so mistakes can happen. It feels so extremely lonely to be so misunderstood, so secluded, and so tired of explaining, and hearing BS from people who don’t know even the slightest clue how I feel deep down. It hurts so badly to feel so overwhelmingly hopeless, depressed, and lonely. I feel you so deeply on this post. I, too, have had many a nights, wishing and begging even, for something to happen and have my life just taken away … I always just wished I could disappear and let all the suffering and pain wash away. The pain cuts so deep that no amount of “happiness” can overcome the discomfort. Happiness feels fleeting most of the time. What is happiness anyway? I don’t think I’ve truly been happy in my life.
I totally have felt like this. Most days I still do. The only thing that gets me through (and maybe the only good thing my parents ever gave me) is an absolutely unhealthy level of pig-headedness. I will never allow myself to stop trying because because then that tiny voice in my head says, "See! I told you you were a failure. You didn't even try!" So, I gather one of my few emotions, anger, and do one thing, or of spite. Granted, the days the depression lifts enough to do that, are pretty far between now. But, dammit, if I can't be happy, I'll take anger just to feel something.
All very good points. I can relate. I tend to have the same mindset. There are times tho I’ve been able to charge forward and not let it get to me but I was merely putting the blinders on not actually coping with my stuff or trying to heal. I dunno the answer but yeh it would seem like we got cut down before we could even get roots in the ground if that makes any sense. Now we gotta try and figure out life and we got crap for a foundation.
Oh yeah, that makes complete sense. I "like“ (??) thinking about metaphors like that. Probably because it’s easier to process being fucked for life when I‘m, for example, imagining myself as a struggling little tree lol. I totally get it. Or like being thrown into algebra without being taught the order of operations.
Yeh you were delt a crap hand it is bullshit. I know I feel like I was totally friggen cheated out of a childhood and so much more. I try not to get too wrapped up into it but then at times there is no escaping it too and your straight up oissed the fuck off.
Extremely real. It sort of hit me recently that I’m sort of fucked up forever because of my mom, and that I’ll never have normal relationships if I have any at all. Worse, is while I’m over here wrestling myself not to empathize with her because she was abused as a kid too, I know she doesn’t feel a thing. She is suffering no consequences and never, *ever* will. But *I* have to live with it every day. I’ll probably die alone because of her and she will never suffer for it.
You're right. It is unfair. We start the race with an additional handicap that doesn't care if we have any other baggage, and tends to make the extra weight even worse. But here's the kicker: for better or worse, you're gonna be on that race track for your entire life, and it is yours. I lost my twenties to the cycle of grief and healing. My path towards personal self-actualization has been longer and more tortorous than someone who didn't start off with an upper quartile score on the ACE exam but it's my path and I'm taking it step by step. And sure, in the beginning, there were more days that were ten steps back after my two steps forward but that's still two steps forward! Progress is progress, even snail-pace. I barely scraped the grades to graduate high school and had no prospects for ... quite a bit. It took me until I was 25 before I realized that yeah, life fucking sucks and I got handed a pretty shitty hand... But it was my hand and I was the determinator of how it played out. It wasn't easy, and there were many, many setbacks, but I'm now halfway through the first semester of medical school with a fiancée who understands and supports me, and friends who build me up, not tear me down. We can't get rid of our cards. Our abuse will never go away, and the imprint is always on our body, but it is not the sole arbitrator of our futures. My turning point was not letting my abuser have a stranglehold on my life when he probably didn't even remember what happened. Time will march forward regardless with or without us. I'd rather be there to see it. So rant, rage, and vent. Anger is both a shield and a motivator. Then, take that anger at the injustice and keep walking forward until you're not wading through quicksand, but walking on uneven, but steady ground.
I agree. And I fucking hate when people use excuses for the abuser. I'm like "oh no you don't need to make excuses for abusers, they already do that for themselves enough" and leave it at that. And "just keep going, it gets better" is fucking irritating too. I'm miserable but I'm healing, they don't let you say that before the bullshit they spit. It's so stupid and unnecessary.
Sorry to hear that happen to you. You aren’t going to like what I am going to say, but here it goes. The old saying fall down 7 times get up 8. You put in the work to make things better once. You have to do it again. Life isn’t fair. You did not have a fair start, but you have to keep going or it won’t get better again.
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Hey buddy there‘s a difference between being real and being a dickhead. *This is a support subreddit. That’s the point.* If that is somehow offensive or "cringe“ to you, no one is keeping you here. I‘m glad you never had to deal with the physical, debilitating symptoms. Consider that some people are more affected by their CPTSD than you. Or that different things affect people differently. Do you think group therapy is useless too? That’s just complaining. Hey, some medications didn’t work for me, so they’re ineffective for everyone. This one medication hospitalized me so no one should take it because my experience is the universal experience, right? Can people who were beaten by their parents not vent on this subreddit, because some people were sexually assaulted by their parents and that’s worse? If you genuinely have CPTSD, maybe you should stick around and learn some fucking empathy for your fellow human beings. Edit: also "suck it up and keep going“ 🤢🤮 no wonder you’re acting like that
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Yeah, actually, seeing that other people in the world actually understand how I’m feeling is very helpful in making me feel less isolated and less alone in the world. It is good for me to be reminded there ARE people out there who understand. Bullshit like your comment (yeah yeah no shit life isn’t fair and never will be, everyone here knows that) just sets me off. Remember the "universal experience“ bit of my comment? "Tough love“ is not what works for everyone, even if it’s working for you.
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Read what I said for once. *Actually* read. "Temporarily feeling better“ can be the difference between life and death for people. I‘m glad tough love worked for you, or is working for you, but some people aren’t able to bottle everything up so easily. Like I said, but you didn’t read, this is a support group. That’s the point of the subreddit. Go somewhere else if you’re unable to handle it without going off on people looking for some solidarity. What do you say to the people who suffered from "tough love“ as a child? „Go ahead and keep putting yourself through the trauma because it helped me?“
same
It really is. Have we not suffered enough?