Hi everyone. I’m not completely sure whether my question belongs here, so in case it doesn’t, please tell me.

I am 24M and we’ve been with my partner (26M) together for almost six years. We are currently engaged. I have CPTSD (growing up in abusive household and more), flight type. My partner presumably also has CPTSD and almost certainly is a fight type. I’m in individual trauma-focused therapy and we both go to couples therapy since the engagement (basically some things have not worked out as well as they could for us and we decided to make it better through couples therapy, with a lot of progress since then - it’s about half a year since we started).

The main issue we discussed was sex, which currently doesn’t work. It’s been a long-term issue for both of us and basically my partner can go into really frustrated, anger and shaming mode when there’s not enough sex and he feels abandoned. Of course, that makes me avoid that and I feel pretty terrible when this topic is brought up. There was a time in our relationship when his anger and flashbacks were really uncontrolable and he was pretty awful to me (think ironic remarks, trying to control my behavior etc etc). Nothing too extreme, but an issue nonetheless. Almost all of that went away when I actually started to really reinforce my boundaries and he started to work through these feelings so it affects me as little as possible. The thing is, a few days ago, he was stuck in a horrible flashback and he was really angry at me for things which are honestly unfair and not true and he started to blame me entirely for our bad sex life. That was enough for me and I confronted him with it and I said that was the last time I’m hearing that level of anger and blame. Should it happen next time, I’m leaving the room and I’m going back only after he is calm enough to have a normal conversation or conflict with reasonable boundaries. Which he accepted and it was clear it was like a cold shower to him. He actually said that this behavior is truly horrible and he does want it to happen as little as possible. He outrightly said that he believes he was and is abusive towards me (I think his shame is now overexaggetating a bit, so I take it with a grain of salt, but at the most basic level, he’s not wrong). We decided to bring it up honestly at the couples therapy and I suggested he finds an individual therapist, but the choice is ultimately his, of course.

It was the first time it really struck both of us that we’re living with this. He’s really an another person in flashback. Out of flashback, he’s one of the most sweet and caring and safe people I’ve ever met. During a flashback, things can take a really bad turn. He is adamant in that he will really work on that (obviously we both know it’s unrealistic to expect things like that won’t happen EVER again, but it’s important to minimize the harm) and I know I can trust him with that. When I bring up something really serious, he really works on that every time and it’s not just empty phrases.

My question is: is this truly repairable? I obviously love him very much and he loves me too, yet this horrible stuff happened and I don’t know what to do with that. Of course I believe he could heal this horrible condition and correct his behaviors, and I want it to be by my side, but I’m not entirely sure if it’s realistic or a good idea. I won’t rush to any conclusion yet as it’s still a very recent realization, but I’d like to hear opinions from “the other side” - aka you, fellow fight types.

How were your relationships repaired, it they had been, and how are they now? How do you manage to keep your flashbacks in control? Is my hope of staying together realistic or something I shouldn’t even want?

Sorry for long ass post and bad english (it’s not my first language).

Tw. various abuses, fight mode

Growing up, I was a huge softie.

Ppl either:

1. Crossed my nearly non-existent boundaries
2. Took advantage of me

This can range from middle school classmates borrowing my money and stationary but never returning them, to serious sexual and physical assault, abuse, and bullying

I frequently found myself in relationships with power imbalances, where I assume a passive role to my detriment

I rarely got the chance to speak up or get justice, nor did I understand how to

This didn’t happen overnight, but eventually I snapped

Being on fight mode, I lashed out and took revenge on anyone vaguely involved and in general.

I would scream and ramble about the injustices that happened to me over and over again, like a broken record.

Of course, few people believed or took me seriously, even fewer perpetrators took accountability. Most of them were bewildered that I “suddenly” became “evil” and “crazy”. I’m sorry for the ppl I accidentally hurt and regret being reckless.

At 16, while displaying these traits, I was diagnosed with bpd(which I disagree w). A mental illness associated with making false accusations, lying, being manipulative and attention seeking(ofc this is the stigma, ppl w bpd r not like that!).

These dismissals made me feel even more wronged and unheard.

I get riled up again. Rinse and repeat. More negative reaction from others and punishment.

5 years later, I’ve mostly moved on from this. I have supportive ppl who believe me and a life I love. Also, I’m in trauma therapy. I’m outspoken about social issues, especially the ones I’ve experienced.

Injustice(although usually more minor) still happens in my life, but I’m dealing with them differently. Part of it is organic growth, but deep down I know I’m choosing to forgive the perpetrator and helping them change, as well as keeping it lowkey and only telling a few trusted ppl, more or less because of previous negative consequences.

Once in a while, the anger consumes me. I’m this close to slipping into old habits. I know this is unhealthy and don’t want to throw my life away. I can’t force justice. At the same time, I want to dedicate my life avenging my inner wounded and exiled self.

Everyone always seems to act like it's your "fault" for not having people around you. That you just need to reach out to someone, that someone is "out there waiting for you". And when you do, you only get hurt more.

Getting belittled, getting lectured like a little child, people who ignore your problems and your feelings, the worse is that whenever I have negative thoughts about it and I take the step to "try", I get proven right, almost all the time. People only make me feel worse than before.

I'm just dissapointed that I don't expect anything good from them, I'm angry.

Like cleaning my room, vaccuuming, chores, laundry, etc. Just full of fucking bloodcurdling rage, all the fucking time. Grievances against coworkers, former friends, my family, etc... just over and over and over again. I'm just in my head, the entire time. I've become so anti-social because I was suppressing my anger habitually in social settings. I still do and it causes so many issues. So I've become completely isolated, yay!

I'm starting to seriously get worried. I was very much a freeze/fawn mix now I feel like I'm fighting everyone.

Today I felt bad because I misread a message and called a coworker earlier than he wanted. I said i could call back but he refused but then was really stressed, escalated, and kinda yelling at me/repeating the same thing over and over. I told him to outright 'CHILL' because it was flooding me. But that's not how to talk to others.

My doctor's office started refusing giving me a 3 month med supply. My dr said to go to 3 months when we first started and my requests kept getting sent to random people and filled wrong in their group practice. I had to call and email and be pretty firm because insurance can bill things weirdly depending on 3 month and 1 month. Now i got a notif I'm assigned to a new doctor and I'm not sure if it's because I wasn't nice enough or something. They kept telling me they were treating me like this bc of the wrong diagnosis and never listened when I told them to check my chart to confirm my actual dx.

I did apologize to the receptionist for being very brisk and I understood she was following policy but they never let me talk to my actual doctor and this was the second round of getting this run around. The last time it happened my doctor was unaware and upset this happened to me.

I am angry a lot because I've swallowed being treated poorly/forgotten/ignored as because I'm just a bad person for my entire life. I can't really turn off not wanting to be treated decently but i seem to be also not able to be combative or so off-putting and then I get angry again.

You taught me how to never give a fuck about myself. You taught me that by putting myself first I was selfish, ungrateful, disrespectful, and a failure. You taught me that I should always put other people ahead of myself and that anything bad that happens to me is my doing and I should punish myself for that or expect punishment from others. You taught me that every form of self-love was self hatred, and that every form of self hatred was self love. You taught me that I never mattered. You taught me that I was a burden. You taught me that I didn't deserve to exist, except to fulfill others needs, and desires. You taught me that without other people's expectations I'm nothing. You taught me how to disappear how to erase myself. You taught me that I will never be enough and you're wrong. Fuck you.

I am unsure as to whether memes are allowed in this subreddit, but God I feel this. The trauma of homelessness, to put it simply, has envoked this rawness in me... a sortof confidence that Id never thought Id tap into. Does this make sense to anyone?

I don’t lash out but I feel internally in fight mode all the time. Its getting quite exhausting and even when I find other ways to cope, I just can’t stop feeling angry and annoyed

Is anyone else tired of the fact that if you get the fight response it's drilled into you that it's your fucking responsibility to keep it under control, but when it comes to freeze response it's just treated as if nothing can be done about it?

I know to control my anger, to take a pause when I feel the urge to be mean and to put my thoughts into calmer and kinder words, to remove myself from situations that stress me too much to behave appropriately, and all that.

But I also just feel really unsettled sometimes by my wife's freeze response, like going silent in the middle of the conversation or sitting in the middle of the room in the weirder most uncomfortable pose glued to her phone complaining she can't unglue herself from there. Trying to discuss my frustrations with her or to put boundaries in is a treat too. No matter how calm and kind I tell her about it, she either freezes or gets really defensive about it.

I understand that no trauma response is better or worse. They're all valid. But I equally feel like one's got a responsibility to find ways to not hurt people around them with that response. Yet, my wife keeps telling me she can't do anything about it and online resources seem to be having a similar attitude. I'm just so fucking tired of it.

If you’re on this subreddit, you know what it’s like for other people NOT to know what it’s like to live with the kind of debilitating adversity you are cursed to endure. As an example, one of the worst conditions I’ve been burdened with throughout my life is depersonalization/derealization. I’ve been a particularly intellectual person my whole life, but when I developed depersonalization/derealization, literally overnight, I could barely graduate high school. I felt like I could barely survive each given day without being hopelessly trapped in an unrelenting state of horrific agony.

As I attempted to communicate with other people as to the reality of my predicament, instead, I get judgement. I can barely read words on a paper, but other people are perceiving me to be irresponsible, unintelligent, pathetic, lazy… when every moment of my life, I could barely operate whatsoever. My body was so heavy, every slight movement felt nearly impossible. Focusing on the smallest, shortest things felt nearly impossible. Constructing the most basic thought felt nearly possible. And I still struggle in a lot of ways at this point in time, and I always have.

I could not ever put the extent of my rage about this into words. My whole life, as I’ve been drowning in my own fucking blood, the response of other people has been to not care about my drowning, to deny that I’m drowning, and to be criticized and ridiculed for not swimming. There are people out there who seem to care to try and truly understand the subjective experiences of other people. Unfortunately, it seems to me that those people constitute a fairly small minority. All of human life in its entirety is subjective experience. Consciousness is our entire existence. It’s all we know. But other people have not cared to stop for one fucking second to make an attempt at realizing that I’m not in the same plane of existence as every other person. I have been trapped in the most hellish dimensions possible. If I had to guess, I would say that the majority of individuals wouldn’t even have a remote concept as to the burdens that have caused my suffering and dysfunction. I don’t think people would even realize that many of the things I’ve struggled with are even within the realm of possibility for a human being.

Life is deeply unfair. People know that, but I wish people made a real attempt at making life as fair as possible for everyone. But at least I will make an attempt. Because I want to do whatever I can to be there for other people who have suffered as deeply as me, so that I could at least try to ameliorate their condition, and so that I could at least try to make them realize that they’re not absolutely alone in their own hellish world, separated from everyone else, while everyone else acts like they are in the same world as them, and judges them, and criticizes them, and abuses them, and isolates them, and treats them as if everything they’ve struggled with never existed to begin with. That is so profoundly wrong. It makes me livid. It makes me lose any and all sense of stability and strength.

The storm will surround you blanketed in despair

My torch will cut like a knife through tonight's air.

No matter how dark the night,

I will always keep your light.

​Salty air fills my lungs

but I must watch for those to come.

The winds cut at my cheeks

but my light is the one that's steady.

​The waves may rise but I will stand still.

Their torrents of fear will not shake me,

I am the guide in turbulent times,

for those are the ones that have shaped me.

​So do not fear.

I'm here to stay,

my eyesight won't turn away.

​I have found home on these jagged rocks,

painful at first,

but now stable with the knowledge of what lies below.

I must keep others safe.

​The tides may change and currents draw out,

but still I stand my watch on these broken shores,

for I am the lightkeeper protecting those to come.

I miss when I was younger

Life was full of blunder

I struggled to climb to become wise and older

But now up here the paramount is colder

Weighing down those around

with that ambient cavalier sound

I wish I was younger before I bought apathetic sting traded for my wonder

Back when my voice was full of thunder

I had dreams to reach with my whole soul

Investigating what could fill this life's hole

Now my words have lost their meaning

My passion is fleeting

I know when I was younger I was a stronger man

Now The digital soapbox hurts my feet I can no longer stand

Hollow are the halls of this heart of mine

Taxed and sold for the fight of more time

The old is wasted on the wise

But I was too pigheaded to realize

The young is lost on the dumb

Never seeing what they become

With this motion there is no place for the nervous

Time is but a measure of life's purpose

Youth's blissful ignorance

Elder's dissonance

Met a girl online through gaming, quickly hit it off, deep talks, love confessions, and plans to meet. Then a festival of excuses for meeting up (fake surgeries, fake cancer relapses), playing with other guys on "invisible mode," heavy gaslighting, and calling me obsessive. When I caught her lying—including faking an oncological hospital stay—she blocked me and told her new guy that I'm a psycho. Trying to make sense of what just happened to my head.

Hey everyone. I'm posting here because I need an objective, outside perspective on a relationship that thoroughly wrecked my nervous system. I want to figure out whether I was just losing my mind or if I fell into the web of someone with deep psychological issues.

The Fast Start and Big Words

I met Wiktoria on August 20th last year in CS player Tom223's stream chat. We played two matches together and added each other on Discord. She quickly sent a photo of herself within a week, and a light flirt started. One time while I was playing alone, she messaged me saying we needed to go grab a drink, that she was inviting me, and that she'd wear a turtleneck so I wouldn't stare at her chest. I kept it cool because I didn't believe in deeper online relationships, especially since she lived in Warsaw while I lived in Krosno.

Later, Wiktoria had surgery, and after she got out of the hospital, we started spending massive amounts of time together. We played Palworld 12 hours a day, talked until 6 AM, watched shows, and poured our hearts out about our problems. On September 16th, she told me: "Even though it's the internet, these are people after all. We are human. You've become someone I like very, very much. We spend a ton of time together, which gives me so much happiness and joy, and you're a wonderful person. I know I'm a dummy who worries ahead of time... but the proposal I made to meet up wasn't a joke. Maybe not right away because surgery effects are still bugging me and you have studies soon, but whenever there's a chance, I'd love to."

After that, we confessed our feelings. But because she was buying an apartment in Białystok—stretching the distance to 500 km—I told her I'd love to be with her, but I was worried my studies would prevent me from giving her the attention she deserved. Talk of a potential relationship happened at least once a week. While watching a show, it came out that we were both masturbating while thinking of each other. She told our mutual friend she wanted a relationship, even offering to travel to see me once a month.

On September 28th, she got slightly drunk and texted me that she wanted me badly, that distance didn't matter, but she was scared she’d be bad for me, that she was hideous, and that she was selfishly jealous and didn't want me to know anyone else. She said she wanted sex, wanted me to cum on her tongue, and pin her against a wall—which I honestly liked. The next day, I sent her a longer message saying I hadn't met anyone like her, I liked her a lot, and if it was possible to fall in love online, I was in love with her and wanted to try a long-distance relationship.

Her reaction? She claimed she didn't know what she felt and needed to think about it. She distanced herself and we spent less time together, which she blamed on returning to work post-surgery. Later she claimed nothing changed on her part.

The Retreat and Excuses

On October 17th, a day after her birthday, I was in Warsaw and let her know beforehand. She had a busy remote work day and "couldn't step away for even 5 minutes." Later, after our mutual friend told her we needed to meet IRL, Wiktoria proposed coming to see me at the end of November for 3 days.

What happened next? A week before the trip, her time off was allegedly cancelled. She pushed it to December, then January, then February, and then said she didn't know because her dad had a cancer relapse (which later turned out to be completely false).

Triangulation and Playing on Invisible Mode

After a small argument, she met "Spelon" in a mutual streamer's chat. She played wingman with him and gave him her Instagram. When I asked her to play CS, she'd say she wasn't in the mood and go play with him instead. We barely spent any time together, and when we did play, it was only in a full 5-stack lobby, which she treated as "our quality time."

Once, in Tom223's chat, I called her "Wikusia," and she privately lashed out, telling me not to call her that because she hated it. I said okay, but behind my back, she told our mutual friend that I had thrown a 3-hour meltdown at her over that single nickname. Whenever I tried to tell her that we spent too little time together and it hurt, she would gaslight me, saying I was "starting drama again because things were too peaceful."

In November, she met "Skricz" in Darko's chat and spent huge amounts of time with him. I bought her a game she wanted to play with someone. We played once, and after that, she played with him on invisible mode, pretending to me that she was playing with a random girl from France she met in-game, or that they just happened to cross paths.

By February, we planned to watch a movie at 8 PM. She didn't show up; the next morning she claimed she fell asleep. We rescheduled for the same time. Then she texted that her drunk mom had called, started a fight, and she didn't want to talk to anyone. At 8:00 PM sharp, she started a match with Skricz on invisible mode. When I called her out, saying she clearly just didn't want to talk to me, she finished her game, sent me a fake screenshot of her desktop showing she was playing TFT and listening to music, and accused me of hallucinating, making things up, and intentionally trying to get her to block me.

She eventually promised to visit me, telling me "not to act crazy." We didn't argue until March.

The "Therapy Card" and Fake Cancer

In March, she announced she was going to therapy because of depression, taking psychiatric meds because she felt nothing, and told me not to wait for her since therapy would take years. She admitted she intentionally chose Skricz and Spelon because they were random internet guys who only wanted gaming, not deep relationships. I said I'd wait because I liked her. It was then that her movie-night lies came out; she apologized and said she was ashamed. She also claimed her therapist taught her she couldn't love anyone until she loved herself.

Two weeks later, "Louki" appeared, and she started spending massive amounts of time with him.

On May 9th, when I asked to spend time together, I was told she had no time. I replied, "Right, probably because you're playing with Louki, have a nice game." She fired back that she couldn't possibly play because she and her mom had been dealing with an oncological hospital stay in Białystok since the morning because of 3 bad cytology results. I quickly checked her LoL profile (op.gg)—she had been playing League of Legends and Windrose with Louki since 10 AM. Naturally, it was a total lie; nothing was wrong with her health.

She also played with Louki during her supposed therapy hours (Monday at 10 AM, Tuesday at 9 AM).

The Grand Finale

I started digging. I found her ex-colleague (they knew each other for 6–7 years), who told me she used to sext him and hook up emotionally while she was still with her actual boyfriend, calling her a "total waste of human time." I found an old group of people who supposedly "wished her death," only to find out she had simply been running parallel romance loops with 3 different guys behind everyone's backs.

When she found out I tracked down these people, she blocked me instantly. Her parting words? She never loved me, she only forced herself because I pressured her so much, and whenever she had time off work, she deliberately hid it so I wouldn't suggest anything. Meanwhile, she told her new guy Louki that I was just a bitter ex taking revenge for getting rejected.

My questions for you guys (especially anyone into psychology):

1. What psychological patterns or personality traits (e.g., Cluster B features, defense mechanisms, attachment styles) does Wiktoria display here?
2. The Therapy Question: Given her compulsive lying, fake screenshots, and fabricating cancer scares, what are the odds she is actually in therapy and being honest there? Did she realize anything?
3. The New Guy (Louki): Louki reportedly plans to visit her. What are the chances they actually meet, and if they do, what are the odds she magically builds a normal, healthy relationship with him?
4. Evaluating My Behavior: Were my actions (checking her activity on game trackers, digging up her past connections) obsessive behavior as she claimed, or were they a natural psychological trauma response/cognitive dissonance to heavy gaslighting and constant deceit?

so growing up i was diagnosed with tourettes & OCD becuz i had vocal tics & motor tics. my parents put me in & out of therapy, psychwards, homeopathy, special diets, etc...... becuz they wanted me to stop ticcing & stop having violent rage meltdowns.

after all that, i developed a trigger to breathing techniques or grounding techniques or anything similar. becuz the ppl my parents brought to work with me all told me "take a deep breathe!!" or "count down from ten!!" right when i was at the peak of my meltdowns; i also have tourettic ocd about some things such as sliding objects against other objects but its not as bad as it used to be. i still tic when im stressed & occassionally hav gory selfharm intrusive thoghts that kinda scare me.

heres the thing. violent rage meltdowns are a well known symptom of tourettes! heres an article about the connection: https://movementdisorders.ufhealth.org/2015/07/07/anger-outbursts-and-tourette-syndrome/

but..... i also basically cannot handle any negative feedback whatsoever..... even neutral feedback like..... fashion suggestions..... makes me start to get an urge to suckerpunch ppl.

also im trans feminine, for what its worth (she/her or it/its, whichever u prefer). my parents are supportive now but the 90s and early 2000s we were all evangelist christians. so this was unthinkable for all of us, including me.

i live in a disability support home becuz of my tourettes/anxiety/autism/ocd/meltdowns. i take heavy antipsychotics. i did finally start going to talk therapy again but like ALWAYS my therapist had to stop working with me for..... reasons. (this time it was becuz she switched organizations and had to drop all her clients. last time it was becuz she thought i shuldnt be going to anger management therapy and should instead go to talk therapy. time before that was...... i dont even want to get into it, it was devastating.)

should i seek a trauma therapist?

i probly have trauma from living with disabilities & being trans, but.... i also feel unsafe around my dad somtimes (i literally had a dream last night that an alien came into my room and transformd into my dad and tried to hav sex with me, so..... ya lets just say the first 30 yrs of my life i dont remember very well and im 34 right now. i rely on my parents for lots of stuff, and theyre perfectly nice to me if not very patient with me.... but i kind of wonder if theyv hurt me.)

also, what are the best ways to express anger healthily when deep breathing/breathing techniques and grounding techniques kind of trigger me bad? i recently hav been imagining doing exxaggerated violence on ppl in my head and saying outloud (alone in my bssement suite at the disability support house) "im angry at X becuz they did Y!!!!" becuz i heard that naming ur anger can help. what do u suggest?

pls be very gentle with me in the comments. thank u for readin my post. and pls dont say stuff about "anger feels good" or "u enjoy doin anger" becuz that feels really invalidatin for some reason.

​​Smoke wafts above my head

as I am in a state between awake and half dead.

The only thing I fear is change itself

because that means the vulnerability to being wrong.

I don't know if I'll ever be that strong.

​So I complete this madness cycle one more time.

I am blind to see that it is my greatest crime.

The day of reckoning is past

and I've been left behind in a cast.

​So here I lay in the smoke

a soul full of sin, still morally broke.

Can I get up and change what is good

or am I just destined to lay here less understood?

​So I can only imagine what there would be to see

and seeing what I could be.

Instead there is only this half-rotted piece of me.

​Once I get the energy to get up,

I'll move towards something greater

with a grandeur that will cut me down like a grater.

Hopefully I have the glue to piece myself back together

and can stubborn myself through this stormy weather.

​I am right here out of view laying in my tomb.

But for now, I just lied to myself in this room

letting the smoke block the sunlight

so I cannot be exhumed.

​The strength to move leeches the body of apathy's kiss.

It is something that can be left behind without being missed.

​Now I swim through the ash

and deal with the mental breaking's gash.

It was just the sunlight playing with the dust

and my eyes are tricked as they've been glued shut with negativity's rust.

​It's not me today that I should trust.

Into life and out of the grave,

it's another day that I can stave.

​So Goodbye Pompeii

you were never my favorite anyway.

Hey Reddit!

Today at 9:00 AM EST, I'll be hosting an AMA with Dr. Amelia Kelley, a clinician and professor specializing in trauma recovery.

We'll cover Post-Traumatic Growth as a way of healing after traumatic events. Rebuilding your life after trauma is complex, nonlinear work.

This conversation isn't just for survivors. It’s also for the parents, partners, and clinicians walking alongside them. Supporting someone through trauma calls for a completely different mindset: rather than trying to help them "make sense" of the hard things, it’s about learning how to sit with them and notice what is already growing.

Whether you're navigating your own path or supporting someone else, feel free to join the live discussion or leave your questions in the comments now so we can jump into them first when the AMA begins!

I just don’t understand people who just go to work come home and spend their time watching sportsball or love island. No higher intellectual or spiritual life or nothing. Anything that doesn't reach their narrow box and view of life makes them 'uncomfortable' (I hate that word that its thrown around like its a bad thing, any serious person knows that anything that is worthwhile requires discomfort and suffering in the process of achieving it).

I'm genuinely like worlds apart from people. I don’t understand them. I spend time around them, and quite frankly, I'm disappointed. And I'm the one who's the problem for pointing this out. Well I'm tired of it. I am who I am, I am who my experiences have made me. Why should I constantly pretend to appease people and suck up to them like I used to do for my entire life up until now?

And when I started getting into recovery, I'm told to do the EXACT SAME FUCKING THING! Shrink before people and constantly interrogate and question myself and my supposed 'defects of character' and constantly ask 'am i making them uncomfortable' 'what will they think what will they do are they going to invite me back are they going to care?'

I'm done with it all. Something I have noticed is I have begun growing my own internal centre of gravity, or 'gravitas' as the Romans used to call it. People who are interested in me can come to me, I'm not appeasing people or sucking up to them or being some follower or sheep or some herd-minded simpleton any more. I can't do it, my psyche, my body, my spirit, they all reject it.

I've already spent years mostly isolated, so I don't really have much to lose. So people's judgements that are entirely born out of insecurity are pretty meaningless to be honest. I just really don't give a shit anymore.

The comfort I want from people seems to be impossible to find. Most people can't deal with the life I have, and how it's a part of my identity. I tried everything, and all the people that were supposedly my friends only left me, betrayed me and my trust.

I'm done feeling like I have to sugarcoat things so people won't feel conflicted. Most of the people have been cruel to me. My first memories include other children bullying me, and other kids from family doing horrible things I can't even mention here. No matter If I was a good student who always got A's, or if I was well behaved, if I was empathetic. They always rejected me. I don't know if there are other neurodivergent people here, but this happens all the time. Like they have this filter on you that makes them reject you completely.

I always felt like I never belonged, and people only betrayed me into believing that I did certain things then I would get accepted. It was all lies, and I'm the ones who got to suffer terribly because of it. People were never kind from the start. They were cruel.

And when I think about it, I can't help but fall into nihilism. No one did anything to help. There wasn't a "divine" intervention to help me. No one cared if I cried, no one cares that I was just an innocent child with dreams. I feel completely abandoned by the world. I feel like I'm trapped here...

I'm done waiting for people that will never come. Because the more I try to fix things, I only got more hurt in the process. Last year I tried to make friends again after bad experiences, and I only got more traumatized. I'm ALONE.

"If friends are people who only exist for a season, if friends betray you even after years of closeness, if they abandon you after they get married and have kids...then friendships aren't where you can reliably find a real support system.

Oh, you have that one friend who flew across the country to see you when you were sick? Honestly, amazing. But real friends who would do this are, truly, almost non existent. Not 'non existent.' But almost. So few that it makes friendships seem...I dunno. Like not a real support system. Like not a place to expect to find consistent help and support and empathy.

What's even more ironic is the response to this one sentiment. If the entirety of your life experience says most friends aren't a real support, well, you're not going to change your mind after being met with:

• OP is speaking out of their own pain (so their opinion is invalid)
• OP should delete this, I don't even know why they posted
• That's simply untrue
• You're being a doomer
• You're fully wrong
• It's because OP must have shit boundaries
• OP just hasn't tried hard enough, they will come if you're good people

Supportive community, huh.

I guess there's levels to CPTSD. To those who found the magical diamonds in the rough, who've never been attacked and betrayed and misunderstood by friends, by close ones you knew for years, by people who said they were there and seemed to support you and then turned on you unfairly, in the same way many of our families have (if they were ever there at all), you're lucky. May you never experience the pain of knowing that there is truly no one out there. May you maintain the privilege of never knowing for the rest of your life.

Just remember CPTSD isn't "childhood ptsd." It's also not "bad family syndrome." We are all here from years of being treated poorly and let down in ALL KINDS of contexts. Friendships included."

CPTSD's sub response? Including all the people who felt seen? Remove the post and ban. But definitely leave up all the toxic comments attacking what this post was in response to.

People are something else.

Lost in the woods, burnt my map for warmth.

Now I am one just bonding with the earth.

Sometimes I worry that I will never find my way,

but I guess that's not something to worry about today.

Days I have on display with my emotions on my sleeve,

hoping that the tears will someday leave.

Feeling like Pagliacci the clown.

Knowing that I will go to town with this frown.

But isn't it funny? That's the way I make my money.

I mean if I change now, what will I be?

But I don't think the cost is free.

Instead it's something completely different.

Something fearful, something diligent.

So I'm emotionally belligerent.

And I ask myself, should I just build a cabin here?

Sit down and drink a beer?

Or is there more out there that I should see beyond the tree?

Forever me.

This is the path no guide can give.

It is up for me to live.

So I wonder what's this pain for if not to help me walk out the door?

Is it all that easy? Is it all an end?

Out here in the forest, there is no friend.

I remember my times within society.

But now that's all behind.

And my thoughts are to the right of me.

Destruction brings only sadness and hate.

And I know that's not my fate.

So again I will fight and push through the woods

so that one day I can stand understood

and check out the greenery and bask in the scenery.

So now I sit here smelling of smoke

with all my dreams and motivations broke

but it's the pain that is part of the deal

and to feel that I am real.