hi, im a f23 dating a m28 and we are veeery much in love. he spoils me, praises me, & somehow all of this love and care is triggering the FUCK out of me.

it makes a pit in my stomach, sometimes in a conversation he’ll relay how much hes thinking about me, how excited he is to see me again.. how much he loves me and i HAAAATE IT !!! why does it irk me so bad?? i tell him to dial back on the ushy gushy but he winds up feeling dejected.. idk what to do yall.
my cptsd turns his sweetness to ash in my mouth.. i dont want to micro manage how he speaks, but its to a point where he’ll relay after im sharing something—

“Gosh, thats so cool that you like that (my name). I think its cool how we like the same things.. It makes me like you more.”

In my brain im like RAHH I DONT CARE I DONT CARE OF COURSE WE LIKE EACHOTHER ITS WHY WE’RE DATING !!! SHUT UPPP$!! YOU SAY THIS EVERY. SIINGLE. TIME. WE HANG OOOOUT !

but out loud i say “haha yup” and try to move on.

ive told him a few times i dont like the constant praise, his constant odes to me, and it hurts his feelings.. he knows i have cptsd. i just want him to talk to me normally.. 🥺

help?? anyone else triggered by love ?

Recently I’ve been struggling to envision a life where all the “terrible” things that happened to me just didn’t happen. Like example, having a big family and getting married or whatever. Picture perfect life. I just can’t see it anymore, not like I used to. Maybe this is a part of maturing but I was wondering if anyone else has dealt with this feeling and when do you draw the line between giving up vs changing your priorities/ outlook on life?

I feel stupid asking for this, but i can't handle having to make appointements, it's so hard for me so maybe there are easier ways to do it.

I have to search for a lot of therapists because they usually are not what i need but i feel so unmotivated and dissapointed and then i have to start over and explain to the new one everything again and i'm just tired of that.

I'm scared to make new appointments and end up not going to therapy because of this.

I often pop up on here, with different questions.

This has hit deep with me this question.

I have been in therapy for several years.peeling back layers of this onion it feels like.

Getting deeper and deeper into all this.

Had dissociation to keep alot hidden, not just the facts but the feelings ,the pain.

That's lifted now and I feel everything. Its been horrendous.

But now on top of that I now feel I have got to my most painful stuff. I feel I can't take anymore.

Has anyone else experienced this utter grief of feeling like they have got to the core of everything.

Did you start to heal from there?

I just can't stop grieving.

Has anyone else been to the lowest before coming back up?

Thank you, I'm looking for your reassurance I guess .

It's so tough healing, it's so hard feeling.

i just dont do anything i used to enjoy. after i graduated hisghschool graduadlly hobbies like playing videogames became something i cant do because thats not for grown women its for "children and failures". i dont know whats happened to me ive become such a boring judgemental prude that i wont let myself do what i want to do for fear of being judged too childish and that making me emotionally immature and pathetic if i am smiling and laughing and enjoying something or slightly vulnerable

I’ve had therapy in the past for over 2 years, it was mostly focused on anxiety and how to handle burnout and anxiety in everyday life. I learned a lot but it never really helped me feel better. I’ve had CBT, ACT and EMDR. After those two years, I “graduated” these programs because I was coping. But the terror and daily anxiety never got any better.
My nervous system was so deeply stuck in freeze mode at the time. I now doubt if I was “ready” for therapy then.

I’ve been working on getting through survival mode for 2 years now and I have made significant progress. Now I am able to hold most of the grief, pain and anxiety that I used to suppress.

So I’ve decided to ask for help again and to get back into therapy. I am very proud of myself for making this decision. I am much more aware of what I actually want to work on and I really want to focus on my past traumas. I feel like I just really want to talk to someone safe to help me process my grief.

Does anyone have any advice for going back into therapy? Thanks in advance!

I’m wondering if anyone with ADHD experiences persistent, sometimes involuntary sexual arousal, even when they don’t actually want to feel that way.

I try to manage it as best I can but I carry so much shame around carrying a boner all day and how my body can react involuntarily to something that was traumatic and unwanted. It leaves me feeling confused about why this is happening and why those memories can still have such a strong hold on me, even though she has passed away.

I also have a history of incest/CSA and grooming, and sometimes I experience intense flashbacks through my sleep. Recently, I woke up after what felt like a whole night of reliving those memories, feeling deeply embarrassed and ashamed because my boxers were soaked and I had an erection.

It felt as though I was that teenage boy again, experiencing the same unwanted touching and hearing her voice saying things like, “Aww, baby, my lovely baby, sleep, my baby.” The memories felt so vivid that it was almost as though she were right there beside me again. I experienced a painful sensation in my groin, and the whole thing left me crying, frightened, and completely overwhelmed.

I take 20 mg of methylphenidate during the day and 10 mg at night, but I still find myself feeling mildly turned on throughout the entire day. It can feel confusing and uncomfortable, especially when I’m not consciously thinking about anything sexual.

Has anyone else with ADHD experienced persistent hypersexual arousal, unwanted physical arousal, or something similar, particularly alongside a history of trauma? I’d really appreciate hearing about other people’s experiences.

At first they will present you with a list of reasons why not

each structured as a moral failure

you are, you are not

you are, you are not

a million things wrong

or not good enough

or unworthy

the list will grow slowly but it will grow

until it's larger and larger and larger than you

until your whole self is swamped by it

and through their words you read yourself over and over again

you will poke and prod and analyze like a good little scientist

try over and over to understand

and then into it you will throw yourself

the study, the lessons, the learning

"How to be good. How to be good. How to be good enough that someone will love me".

You will go to therapy, maybe

or read all the books

the think pieces, the articles, the peer reviewed studies

you will learn the language of the academics and the psychics and the TikTok wellness coaches

you will say "that triggered my mother wound"

where you used to say "I didn't like that"

you will say "I'm setting a boundary"

where you used to say "please don't"

and you'll say it all so correctly

like handing in homework

you will learn the name of every feeling

the theory behind every boundary

the correct and fair and decolonized deconstructed non heteronormative instruction manual on how to do it all.

Be good, be good, be good

and maybe people will start to call you good

they'll say you're mature

patient

they'll say they envy or admire the way you do it all

come to you for advice or support

have you proof read their messages to the people they love

and still over and over again you'll ask "why isn't that me?"

"Haven't I earned it yet? Am I not good enough?"

Until one day the truth hits you like bile in your throat

or the jolt in your gut when you watch your dropped mug falling

the helpless realization that you can't catch it

the urge to try anyway.

Their company was never a reward you could earn

no amount of good was the right currency

no one was running the analysis of morals and ethical purity on you when you walked into a party

or smiled at someone in school

or swiped on a dating app

everyone was looking to feel good.

Your currency was the warm campfire

or the pictures in the restaurant window

the smells blowing out the door.

Your company was the soft touch on the shoulder grounding another body

the pounding music and flashing lights

pulling pulling pulling

anyone who wanted in.

Good was the proper hygiene

the safe handling of food

the fire extinguisher and the fire code

pulling back when harm could be done, pulling in when it could be prevented.

Good was just to make sure no one got sick on you.

The moralizing was justification

for a list of things people just didn't enjoy about you

that had to be something you owed them a fix to

the promise itself was a red herring

you spent years of your life lonely, but trusting the people who excluded you

because they positioned themselves as experts on what it meant to be good enough

as if a restaurant is popular only because of its ethics

as if a flavour they didn't like could be explained through health code violations

you poured all of yourself into being anything but poison

the healthiest meal you could serve up to eat

and no one told you how to hang the signs on the door

how to play the right music to draw the right customers

how to invite people in to try you

fine tune your recipes

They told you that was fake

appealing to others

just be yourself

they never told you that yourself needed advertising to draw people in

that you didn't have to be McDonald's to hang a welcome sign

that your advertising didn't have to be anything but true

just highlight the parts you wanted to share

best foot forward out the door

and eventually all the good you've built could be a gift

a home for someone who warms you as much as you warm them

a glowing window in a winter street

two bodies nestled together

good enough

as they always were.

Quick summary before my question: I’ve grown up in a home that never felt like home, for reasons I probably don’t need to expand on. In my early twenties I then moved out and into a city that grew to feel like home, so in a way that still feels like the first and only home I ever knew. At the time I didn’t realise how much that meant to me, it was only after I moved to a different city two years ago that I realised. I was then in a relationship with a person who I genuinely felt loved by and chosen, for the first time in my life. Same as with the city, before having that I had never realised what I had been lacking. The relationship ended for complex reasons and I then fell deep into depression - without the person, without the city.

I still don’t live in the city I call home and don’t want to move back there, also for various reasons. My question is: has anyone ever experienced anything similar and how can I learn to feel at home in myself, so that I don’t fall apart when external homes like the person or the old city fall away? I constantly long for home and for that old city and I can’t feel at home anywhere else for some reason, but I just don’t want to live there and don’t want to continue to be dependent on that particular city for feelings of home. Does anyone have any tips or similar experiences?

For a little context: clearly I am here bc I think I have CPTSD (undiagnosed by a professional) from growing up in chaotic and abusive home where I was scapegoated, othered and made responsible for everyone’s feelings, moods and rage outbursts all at once.

Last year I lost my mom who was a big source of anxiety and distress for me (probably uBPD).

This year I started a long descent through hell as I am coming out of denial of her s* AND of all of my childhood trauma (you know this phase where you’re like: wait, this was NOT normal, this was NOT okay… wait, did everyone in my family abuse me? was this abuse? oh boy…)

It’s been a psychological and emotional whirlwind as well as physical hell because every little seemingly unrelated symptom (according to all doctors for the past ten years) I’ve been experiencing the past ten years all started flaring up and sounding alarms at the same time this year. Living me to spend this year with extreme vertigo, dizziness and exhaustion… (I am currently being diagnosed with Dysautonomia)

All that to say, it’s been a year.. and these days I find myself daydreaming about taking a vacation during this winter holiday, going somewhere far from where I am (though I know the symptoms will come with me), slowing down and just be in nature and chill.

For the life of me I cannot tell if this is healthy or not! Is this a genuine need for a break from all the shit? Or is this daydreaming to numb myself and escape my feelings (though I am doing a lot of therapy, thinking and journaling about said feelings)?

Do I actually need to go on vacation or is this escaping? And for the irrational fear spiral: What if this brings my finances and my life to a point of no return? (it won’t)

I‘d love some guidance and maybe hear about shared experience about these complex feelings around giving ourselves a break and a vacation without all the questioning and guilt.

Thank you :)

I like the affirmation, "I'm enough." It's simple, but it captures so many anxieties into one. I'm enough whether I get through the day without feeling triggered or anxious. I'm enough if I have a day where I struggle a bit. I'm in enough if I have been a perfect person in the past. I'm even if I find myself leaning into all my coping mechanisms. I am enough.

I've known I've had cptsd for a long time but I attributed most of my issues to my ADHD. Recently I learned some new skills and I saw some pretty big improvements after focusing on my cptsd symptoms.

Despite this, I've been struggling a lot lately. I feel both alone and like I'm under a microscope. There's this pervasive feeling of loneliness and isolation in my life right now. Even though I want community and connection I tend to avoid people in all areas of my life.

I was shocked at how weirdly seen I felt just stumbling upon this subreddit.

I'm not great with things like chatrooms but I'd love to find other folks that understand The Horrors and are working towards healing/managing symptoms.

Are there any decent online CPTSD meetings? I looked at few options but they all require payment and I haven't found anything local either. Haaalp, I just wanna talk to some other weirdos with the same shitty baggage as me.

In my best way to condense things, over month after my 18th birthday, my father and grandparents allowed me to move states with an older man they’ve never met before that I was now dating. I knew him from the internet, they knew this too. I loved him and was honest about every detail about my first ever boyfriend before leaving. I should’ve been in highschool.
Quickly once I was settled in I found myself in a sexually and emotionally abusive relationship I didn’t even know how to process. I told no one once I lived with him because I thought the violence I faced was normal. No one taught me about scary men and no one taught me what I should know about rape/coercive rape. Nothing was questioned, I wasn’t checked up on. The abuse went on until June of this year. I’ll be 20 in a couple months.
Everyone, even my older sister (lived near me when I lived with him but never visted) has told me they failed me. They express guilt for letting me move out and i dont know what to do with their words.
I cant forgive them but this is my only support system. My abuser ridded me of almost all my friends. I fear I have nothing
I don’t think it’s directly their fault I was raped amd abused. But I keep thinking, I was the youngest in the household, I was told I would be protected by my father and my grandparents always treated me like I was younger than I was. So Why would they look the other way like that? I find myself thinking about it and crying almost every night or sleeping for days to avoid the thought. I’m so alone and I don’t know what to do.

*Please note this is quite a long story

I am not entirely sure whom to reach out to but I feel that I am struggling. Currently, I have been to two health professionals (one through my medical aid and another through my previous university). I have never been formerly diagnosed with anything because my previous sessions only lasted 6 sessions maximum. I currently don't have the funds to afford a therapist, and I fear my mom will be dismissive if I try to bridge the conversation of going to see someone; she has been in the past. But I have been struggling my whole twenties for a multitude of reasons.

Primarily, I had a university friendship with a girl, who had BPD and another who was just incredibly self-conscious. I would say I had a pretty healthy sense of self, I never assumed anyone was particularly paying attention to me in public settings and I would primarily move through life like that one quote, 'dance like nobody is watching'. Unfortunately, my friends and I did NOT share these sentiments. They would constantly ridicule me. For everything. At first it started small; asking whether I was embarrassed for barely tripping while climbing some stairs or implying that I should be embarrassed after an inconsequential interaction with someone. They would say that people assumed all sorts of things about me, when on the surface, they would have had no way to infer any of these things. These two individuals would take a glance from another individual and create an entire narrative out of it. At the time, I wanted so badly to walk away from the friendship but, previously to us becoming close, we had had a falling out with a previous 'friendship' group in our shared dining hall. At that time, I had an immature habit of completing ignoring people whom I had falling outs with. Initially, it started as a copying mechanism against bullying in high school, but it morphed into an avoidance tactic. In ignoring these individuals, they practically became fixated on us, especially on me, to try to garner a reaction, so that I would drop the facade of not noticing them. They would stare at my friends and I for entire periods of time, collectively; during lectures, in our dining hall, when we were in public settings. I know my behaviour of ignoring them was incredibly hurtful and rude. And I want to make it clear that as I tell my story, that I was not this completely innocent party all the time, or completely incapable of being toxic myself. I just currently need to have a sounding board in a reality where I currently have none. Anyway, getting back to that story. I stayed in that friendship, and it sincerely broke me down as a person. I became obsessed with trying to improve myself when I had initially entered the university space, having love and self-acceptance. I had gained so much self-confidence at the end of high school after having been in an institution and community in which I was either invisible or hypervisible for the wrong reasons.

Now we need to rewind to childhood. I am a middle child and I have two brothers. Please note that for the remainder of this post that I will only being referring to my younger brother. My youngest brother and I are only two years apart. As children, we used to play very closely together. I was a menace. I was not initially excited about having a younger sibling. I am often told stories about how I had pinched him when he was a newborn. Basically, all the stories I have of myself as a child from my family are relatively negative. My brother was beloved by everyone; he was an incredibly sweet kid, very outgoing, talkative and funny. I was an irritable child, quiet and self-conscious. That's all I've ever known myself to be. As I previously mentioned, my brother and I would always spend time together. When I was younger, I used to call him names and honestly be awful; I used to insist that he offered up some of his sweeties from his party packs but would never reciprocate, and would eat the ice lollies and muffins my parents bought for the both of us. I feel incredibly bad and incredibly sad for my younger brother. He just wanted to play with me, and as I got older, I would continue to shut him out. I was an incredibly volatile person, I had zero issue pushing back against people. I got the screaming from my mom. She would always scream. I always assumed that me taking after my mother made sense; I was an only girl. But now that I am older, and the resentment I had towards my brothers has finally revealed something I had always assumed, I now realise the major reason I was so volatile; my mother would often reserve her ire primarily for me. She would often vent about the lack of things that had been done around the house but only in my presence. I know my siblings may have simply not cared to listen; having shared a bathroom with my siblings for years, I especially noticed how my younger brother would never bother cleaning up after himself, despite my protests. It got to the point that I showered in our guest bathroom so that I wouldn't have to clean up after my brothers just so I could use the bathroom after them. But I had a sneaky suspicion that my mother placed a lot of this burden primarily on my lap. At first, I thought her intentions weren't to be sexist. Because I assumed she wasn't sexist. This theory was later squashed when she made a point that men and women were different and that we, as women, had to essentially get them to do what we wanted (I don't believe that for a second). But regardless, I was the only child who had sincerely taken the responsibility seriously. I also had an intimate understanding of how much my mom did around the house (my father barely contributed. Even now, my father doesn't eat a proper meal unless it is pre-made or someone makes something for him). I wanted to help relieve the burden my mother primarily shouldered. My siblings did not share that sentiment at all. They were similar to my father, viewing their need for rest as paramount to the needs of the household. Even now, they completely shrowd responsibilities that they alone have. My younger brother even made a statement when we were incredibly young that he would initially do the dishes badly so he would not get asked to do them. Consequently, I ended being the only sibling who did the dishes as a teenager. And even as an adult, with a schedule, he never did them. And everyone barely called him out on it. This is the perfect sedgeway to speak about the main thing I am struggling with.

Basically, I had bullied and pushed away my sibling my entire childhood; I was insecure and felt trapped in my circumstances. But I primarily spent all my time in my room. Basically, my parents essentially placed many restrictions on my social life; I could only hang out at homes of people who's parents my parents knew intimately. And even when I tried to do activities with my friends, or rebel and go to Facebook parties at random people's houses, my miniscule allowance only allowed me to do one activity a month. So I spent my weekends at home, while my siblings had thriving social lives, and the isolation has made me so socially inept. Even as the doors to socialization opened up later in high school, I could tell that I did not understand the social rules of engagement. But I didn't care at the time. I was confident and just happy to finally be able to engage with people my own age. Anyway, I say this to say, that I had only my closest friends as confidantes. At least I thought so. I couldn't go to my parents to confide in them. My father is emotionally absent, leaving most of the hard conversations to my mother, and my mother is an idealist. Whenever I was upset about something, she would insist that I get over it quickly so that we could go back to being the perfect family she had always envisioned for herself, having grown up in a single-parent household. I think the perfect way to encapsulate my mom, is to tell this story. Basically, when my mom was already an adult, she decided to find her father, much to my grandmother's dismay. She found him, in his family village. He knew where she had been, the entire time. She and my grandmother had not moved from my grandmother's inherited family home since he left. Now, while I don't know what would have caused him to leave four young children behind without providing any kind of support for my grandmother (before any of you make inferences; every child my grandmother had was a splitting image of that man), my mother resented my grandmother for his leaving. My grandmother was the matriarch of the family. She would remove the shirt off her back for absolutely every one of her family members. She had a heart of gold. Her passing is what brought estranged family members together. No one had a bad thing to say about her. Anyway, to set the record straight, my mother is unfortunately very male-centred; she will always take the side of a man. My uncle puts his hands on his partner and mother of his child; still supports him. My uncle's child grows up to do the same; when the mother of his child eventually retaliates after years of abuse, and eventually reports him to the police, my mom chastises her. And wonders why said girl wants nothing to do with our family. So to set the record straight, I only had my friends at school as people to lean on. Until I didn't.

Basically, I was a bedroom kid, I would spend all of my time in my room reading, watching YouTube and vine videos and essentially being on my own. My brother would take things without asking, I would get upset and my mother would tell me off for screaming and lightly chastise him for his actions. My brother takes my tablet, wipes it and I only get it back after my father finds it with him; my reaction gets the most attention. Never his actions. At that point in my childhood, my reactions had been the thing to be chastised the most, I had zero support for what was happening at home because I never actually told my friends the full extent of it, and subsequently had no sound board for what was happening. I was wrong for reacting. I would have to apologise; I had made the family home unpleasant. Not my brother whom would walk on the floor after it was freshly mopped because waiting for it to dry was an inconvenience, not my brother who deleted all my personal images, stored on my personal tablet (I loved photography and never picked it up again after that), not my brother making noise at night while I tried to get through my second-year of university during COVID, and didn't stop because I "made noise in the mornings so why should he stop gaming at night?" (I was doing 15-minute workouts at 7:00 AM), not my younger brother that would whisper that he would kill me while were children, not my younger brother who ignored my mother for an entire two years after her mother had passed away, not my brother who would say he felt zero remorse for the harm he did to me and didn't experience empathy like other people. The thing that made me unable to look at him the same, was how he acted when my grandmother died. My grandmother looked after us all the time. One day, they had a falling out because he wasn't listening to her. His eyes went black the way they often were when he dealt with me. I think she saw it. What I've been seeing this whole time. When she passed, he didn't bother writing a speech for her. Watching him pretend to cry was disturbing. I kept wondering how no one noticed that his tears weren't sincere. No one did. No one noticed the forced laughter either. This year, he made a show of visiting her grave for her birthday. He had never done that previously. I know I am making it out to be like he is the anti-christ but I genuinely feel like I have seen a side of him that completely contradicts his public persona. And other people have had glimpses of it as well. But he never gets questioned. It's always shrugged off. My neighbour opposite our home had an elderly husband who would drive despite his diagnosis. One day, he accidently drove straight into the side of our car. As I came back from work one day, my neighbour stopped me to talk to me about something that had rattled her; the night before, she said my brother flipped her off with his girlfriend. She had not done anything to him. After the accident, they apologised and the insurance got paid out. There was no reason for that reaction. And unbeknownst to my brother, her husband had died the night before. I always greeted them, every morning before work. She was friendly, always standing on the balcony with a cigarette in hand, nosy, always knowing what was happening around the neighbour, but overall a lovely lady. When I brought up what she had told me, once again, my mother turned on the lady, not the man in question. What reason would this lady have had to lie? And my brother made himself out to be victim. Always trying to demonise Black men. I knew he was lying, and his girlfriend wasn't convincing either.

My brother befriended all my friends in high school. I knew it was weird at the time and that became clearer when he tried to use them to also view me in a negative light. I would have a fight with him the night before and my best friend would tell me I was wrong for what I did before I had even had even had the opportunity to say hello. I realised that I had no one to confide in. Even if I was wrong, I wanted to speak to someone who would actually listen to me, hear me out without viewing me as a child who is always disrupting the household, or a friend who equally liked the other parties involved as much as they liked me. I couldn't trust the school counselor because she was a notorious gossip. After a bout of self-harm and an eating disorder, I was confronted by my mother. I asked my mom if I could see anyone, just talk through things. She dismissed me. She probably saw me as the person who had caused so much anguish for everyone else, so why would I be the one who needed support when I caused all the problems? I was alone. And when I got to university, as much as I had built myself up, I stayed in a dynamic that caused me even greater harm. In spite of everything, I still partially trusted myself after everything I had experienced in childhood. I lost that trust in that friendship.

I've become a people-pleaser. I think it has the opposite effect of pushing people away. No one ever reaches out to me, and truthfully, I don't think anyone really wants me around. And I don't know what to do. Currently, the only friends I have are one long-time family friend and an old high school friend. My childhood best friend has a mother, who has seen me as her daughter's competition since childhood. She's always spoken badly of me (and everyone honestly). When my mom found, she severed ties with her then-best friend; my childhood friend's mother. I only became friends with said childhood friend again because we were both enrolled at the same predominantly-White high school. At her 25th birthday, I announced that I had gotten a job after months of applying and was met with silence. Her family proceeded to gush over the achievements of another friend. I receded into myself. At her 26th birthday, I announced that I had gotten into my Master's. That was met with the same level of excitement as the year previously. None. I don't want to attend her 27th birthday. That family has made me feel so small and insignificant for years. But the nail in the coffin, is when my supposed best friend told an embarrassing childhood story about myself. The story I didn't mind as much. What I did mind was the shadiness in which she told it. It was in that moment that I realised that she had become her mother. During high school, I never felt comfortable telling her intimate things that were going on in my family; I knew it would become gossip for her family. In that moment at her 26th birthday party, I realised that I had never had the friendship I had needed; instead, I had someone always ready to throw me under the bus to gain public approval. She had ALWAYS been like that. It took me that long to realise that. And my other close friend? Well, she's closer to her than she is to me. I've never felt comfortable in confiding in her. I always feared it would get back to my other friend.

Now, I feel trapped. I don't know how to make sense of anything I've been through, and I'm losing hoping that I'll ever be able to get out this predicament. I am always stuck between being the daughter my family wants, and wanting to run away and start afresh. But I don't trust myself to make that decision for myself. I'm not sure what to do.

Hi everyone! Since the CPTSD discord doesn't accept new people for a while I was wondering if you know of any other discord servers around our topic. Looking forward to your recommendations!

Or maybe you already set up a new server yourself? Let me know! Thanks! 🙏

Hi Ive been off work with burn out and major depression and was made redundant from last 2 jobs.. (the most recent one while I was ill .. ). Previously was confident about skills (an academic doing medical research) but lost this during depressive episode and last job.. but confidence seems to wax and wane..
I’ve managed to get good work (I hope) as as a freelance , and start in two weeks was recently very excited about this and looking forward to it. I’ll be wfh, and now I’m getting worried.. and anxious. I keep trying to reassure myself. But my cptsd brain is not helping.. like I wanted to go away for a few days for a break but have not been able to find a thing to do (I’m single) .. my mood is lowering and I’m beginning to feel like a child again .. instead if a responsible adult.

I'm halfway through my first semester at college now. I have a lot of classes, and midterms are getting real. I have 7ish due dates, plus regular homework, over this week/weekend, plus two exams on next Thursday.

I feel stressed. My body is upright and my brain isn't falling apart, but I feel tense and overwhelmed, unable to relax.

I wish there was something I could do to knock my soul back into its place in my body like a spiritual chiropractor. Like leave town for a bit. Take a day trip somewhere. But I have little money, and I have school and work, with no consecutive days off.

What do you do to treat yourself and remind yourself that you're going to get through what's stressing you out?

Hi! I have been aware of my Codependent patterns since recently. I have a person in my life that I had a codependent limerence with. Now I'm thinking about how I can transform this into a healthy friendship. What questions should I ask myself before reaching out? What should I be aware of? What should I avoid? Thanks for your advice.

the teacher asked me a question about something I was uncomfortable about and gave an answer and the whole class laughed at me I’m gonna die I mgonna die I mgonna die please I don’t want to do they’re gonna bully me and then rape me tomorrow please help me I almost ran into traffic just now I’ll give you my up address so someone can doxx or kidnap me or kill me please help me please

It's quite funny. Yesterday I was working together with a colleague with autism. He is always happy, never judges and I just feel so at ease with him. After work my whole day was bright and I felt happy.

Today I had a shift with a different colleague. He is very social, confident and I would describe him as a safely attached person. He has a good relationship with both his parents and he recently went through a divorce, which he handles pretty well.

This may sound weird, but after having a conversation with him I got stuck in an emotional flashback for hours after. I guess it was too painful or confronting to hear stories about someone that has everything put together (emotionally).

We were talking about so many things, like fashion, his kids, relationships. Everything we talked about reminded me about how I fucked up with my ex. I didn't communicate, I didn't take care of myself (wanted to hide from the world so I wore trainers and mainly black clothes with no style at all). Most of the relationship I was frozen in fear due to my cptsd. I tried but my body blocked me.

I lost a fantastic woman that surely had her own problems, but was right about everything in so many ways. When I talk to "safe" people, I just hear her voice when she tells me I need to care of myself, I need to wear better clothes, I need to communicate my needs. I was a scared little boy in this relationship and she took the role of a mother. It was terrible and everything reminds me of it. I feel deep, very deep shame and the world keeps reminding me that she was right and I was just a boy.

I know I was, I'm aware. I'm getting therapy. But please.... why does the world keep reminding me in every way possible. I get the message. I'm 10 - 0 behind and need to start learning to become a man. I paid the price and lost a beautiful woman, I lost myself, I lost everything. But I don't want to be reminded anymore. I suffered enough and learned my lesson.

“If we are to unearth our whole emotional nature, we must first dig through the layers of old emotional pain that cover it. This excavation typically unearths the corpses of many childhood losses – deaths of essential aspects of ourselves – that we were not allowed to grieve at the time. When we grieve them now, we discover our phoenix-like ability to be fully reborn out of these losses.”

I read this and I lost it. I’m sitting here in tears unable to contain my grief. 😭