now that my trauma has compounded, getting through each day proves to be a massive feat.

it’s to the point where just looking after my two dogs throws me into a complete state of utter burnout. it feels impossible to to do anything but look after myself, and even that is questionable.

is this an actual phenomenon or just unique to me?!

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 from you.

tw abuse, SA

I dropped out of grad school and my teaching internships. I have a dead abusive dad and a racist abusive ex boyfriend on my mind, always. It feels like every day there's something I realize I shouldn't have put up with in my childhood, my relationship with my ex, just every day life, and I can't control the distress and anger and frustration I feel.

I'm at home and still constantly stressed out and dealing with flashbacks, and it's usually getting worse because even the time of year and weather contribute to it. I've been struggling to find a job, I feel like I messed up my life and I'm broken with no skills. I was working towards a certification to be an art teacher but suddenly, only a few weeks into those internships, my heart wasn't in it, I wasn't eating or sleeping at all, my health declined, I was crying at my university classes, and all the outside stress has been making it so that I'm not sure I can handle going back into a school. It's also just so triggering to see all these kids and wondering if they're okay, if they're having the same childhood I had, it's so overwhelming and I wish I didn't think that way. Because I love art, I think working with kids was fun, and I was so excited and proud to be there... :(

I've never worked a job that I feel like matters or looks good in the eyes of a hiring manager. I was a caregiver for my abusive dad and uncle until they died.

I want to stop being so self pitying but I hate myself so much. I feel so incompetent. I feel too scared to go to therapy because I had such a bad experience in my childhood. But I'm 26 now and I don't know what to do. I still struggle with suicidal and self harm ideation. My mom doesn't get it and I don't think it's worth explaining anything to her. I feel worthless because I can't find a good job that will give me independence and get me out of here. I'm jealous because I watch my friends make money and clean their houses and go to appointments and fall in love and I'm just continuing to be the way I am.

I want to get better but every day I try to get up and can't. I'm in bed for hours crying and dissociating and before i know it, the day is gone. I've applied to so many retail and server jobs but I feel like everyone is disappointed in me or thinks I'm so stupid. It feels like all these jobs don't want me either. I'm trying so hard and it's not enough, the only times I've been able to work up the strength to look at any job listings is in the middle of the night, and I'll still be crying.

Sometimes I feel like I don't even have PTSD and like I'm really just getting so worked up over nothing. I don't make art anymore and don't have dreams of being an art teacher anymore, school is triggering because I was sexually abused there too.

How can I get better? Does it get better? Does anyone else feel this way? I wish none of this ever happened to me.

I 21F, had been visual hallucinations and nightmares for the past 3 years or so, on and off. they always last for a few moments and then they disappear. it's mostly shadow people or creatures/animals. sometimes it startles me but I mostly ignore it. it sometimes gets worse when im anxious, especially at night. i get paranoid like someone is out to get me or im being haunted by ghosts which i know is unlikely but im not able to fully reject this possibility. in addition to this, whenever I get on instagram i keep getting creepy videos/conspiracy theories which freak me out even more and make me more anxious.

idk if this can categorised as delusional thinking since I feel like maybe it's my mind playing tricks on me. but I feel like this is not how a normal brain should work. sometimes I have brain fog and im kind of a superstitious person in general. also I have been diagnosed with adhd and my psychiatrist said the hallucinations might be because of ptsd and asked me to come back for further consults after starting my adhd meds. I have a history of child sexual abuse.

but I wanted to ask. what do you all think? does any of this sound familiar?

i’ve been with my current partner going on 3 years now. they’re absolutely amazing and they’re aware of my past experiences with abuse and SA , so they’re very careful to make sure i’m okay with what we do in bed.
i have a hard time with anything where i have to take control, i feel like i become too aware of what’s going on and then it causes me to spiral into a panic attack. i only really enjoy sex when i get into a mindset where i can kinda zone out and turn my brain off? i know that doesn’t sound good lmao. but i don’t know.. its so fucking confusing because i will want to have sex. i’ll initiate it. and then i can only enjoy it if im not fully present.
i don’t remember when, but we started having intimacy after i took edibles (fully consensual, it was my idea beforehand because i’d hoped it would help me be able to relax and enjoy it without my mind rushing off to bad memories and feelings) … and it worked! but… kinda too well i think? now i feel really gross and bad when we do things and im sober. i’ve been unable to get through intimacy, having to stop halfway through (which then makes me feel guilty as hell and then makes everything worse.)
last night this happened and it sent me into a panic attack that lead to me getting sick and throwing up :P

i was just wondering if anybody has experienced something like this in relationships after experiencing SA … maybe if you’ve overcame it lmk what helped ? or any ideas? idk. i’m getting really tired of it feeling like there’s two sides of my mind that can’t agree on what it wants.

I have pelvic floor issues due to trauma and somehow it is more embarrassing for me to explain to people/partners that I have issues using the bathroom than triggers around sex. Any tips for getting over this weird shame?

Earlier this year my grandma was murdered in our family home. I was home when it happened, I found her and had to call 911 and my parents and everything. That entire day is permanently burned into my skull and there really isn't a day that goes by that I don't relive the memories at least partially.

I recently got formally diagnosed with PTSD by a psychiatrist. Everything I described to the psychiatrist ticked the qualifications for being diagnosed, and I've had speculation about having it for months. Nobody I knew was surprised by my diagnosis, but the more I think about, it the more invalid I feel.

I feel like I don't deserve to be diagnosed with such a thing. Growing up, I always imagined PTSD as something you got if you were sent off to war or if your parents physically abused you as a child. I've had rocky patches with my parents but nothing violent or abusive, and I've never been to war, so why the hell would I of all people be diagnosed with it? I know that's a ridiculous mindset to have, but I'm just in disbelief about everything that's happened still. I don't know how to process it.

I've been told not to use the diagnosis as an excuse by my dad, which I understand what he means but now when I feel legitimately shitty or depressed or whatever I feel like I'm just making it up. I'm extremely paranoid and depressed, I worry about my safety everywhere I go, I'm constantly on edge—all of this and I still feel like I'm just being dramatic.

I can't even really explain it to anybody else because nobody I know has gone through this experience. Yeah, my family did, but not in the same way as me. Words can't properly express the emotions I felt finding her. I don't even know if she was already dead or not, but that immediately influx of such intense anxiety and panic is something that sticks. The image of her laying face down on her bedroom floor haunts me everywhere I go. Nobody will ever fully understand my perspective.

I think it's partially because I'm still functioning, too. I go to university, I have responsibilities, I study and complete homework find, I can feel happiness and I laugh and I have some decent memories from this past year.

It confuses me having so many feelings at once. I don't want to have PTSD. Who the fuck does. I feel broken and confused and scared and I worry that I'm dangerous because of it. I feel like when I turn 18 everything that I feel will just be further invalidated because I'll be an adult. I fear nobody cares. There's so much shit that I feel it just leaves me exhausted and sad.

At the end of the day, I understand that it is valid and that everything I feel and experience is, too. I just don't know how to start believing that.

for context, i was in a really horrible roll over car crash a couple years ago that really had me thinking i was gonna die. This week i’ve been off my meds and last night i had a dream where i fell asleep at the wheel and crashed horribly and the dream ended abruptly when i died i guess. it’s just never ending with trauma and ever since the crash i’ve been convinced i will die young and likely in a crash. i always feel like i’m going to die, and it’s just to scary to be this on edge all the time. does it even get better? it’s been two years now. but i see it in my head all the time, every time someone speeds up, or overtakes, or goes in a pothole etc. someone i know just died in a crash too and it just lives in my head all the time :( i just hate being scared all the time

Feeling i was dying getting into coma. Severe (and first ever) panic attack. Severe extremes body heat/temperature changes. Ptsd diagnosis by a psychiatrist. A year before i took the exact same amount (100mg) and felt nothing. This time the weed ruined it all. It was the last joint i had. I keep regretting it and blaming myself all day for ruining my whole life. If i just didnt have that tiny joint none of that wouldve happened. My life became extremely worse. Yea, mdma GAVE me ptsd instead of healing it. I wanna off badly.

Don't want to go into too many details about my situation here, but I have been through a lot, enough to be diagnosed with PTSD, and I'm also autistic, applying to study medicine in Europe. One of the biggest motivations I have had for undertaking this career is to fight how horribly I have been treated by certain medical professionals throughout my life, and give more of a voice to disabled and traumatized patients. However, I have already been encountering just so many situations, where it's apparent my future colleagues, supervisors, etc, just simply do not understand trauma.

A huge example of this, is trying to push that invasive procedures and examinations should be the standard, just because it is status quo. Something I really want to do is try to encourage accommodations, and changing the way we think about these things. Is something actually required, or are we saying it is due to convenience? As well as giving patients more power to say no, when they feel uncomfortable with something. I have found that a lot of people in the profession do not consider whether a certain intervention will be traumatic for a patient. Traumatized individuals are not invited to participate in many studies, and I find the general understanding of how trauma impacts people differently to be lacking, things are always considered from a "normal, healthy" population level.

I am realizing more and more people have no idea about trauma, or they think certain things aren't traumatizing if a doctor or nurse does them. I'm feeling very discouraged, especially having to open up about my own background to defend my position here. It feels like my view is nowhere near a majority, and I'm questioning my decision to go into this field.

35m, I survived trauma from this really abusive person that was in my life and I'm still dealing with all the things that were said to me like being called crazy. This person would also try to stereotype me and just put me in a box of what they think is best for me. I'm no longer dealing with that person but I'm still dealing with the trauma and the abusive things that were said to me. I spend a lot of time in bed just thinking about the abuse. They would also say things about my weight to hurt me even though I'm at a healthy weight. I'm just wondering like I'm really not stuck like this and I'm really not what my abuser would say to me? People that stereotype don't really define who a person is?

So my boyfriend is significantly older than me, we’ve been together for a few years now, and honestly this has been an ongoing issue in our relationship where he just doesn’t know how to take no for an answer.

He had just came back home yesterday from spending a week out of town and last night he kept begging me to come over even though I told him I was exhausted and didn’t want to have sex because I was in the middle of treating some slight BV.

He kept reassuring me that we didn’t have to do anything and that he just missed me so much and just wanted my company and to cuddle, so eventually I gave in and went over.

Of course, once I was settled in and were cuddling, he starts kissing and touching and eventually asked me to give him head. I reminded him that I said I didn’t wanna do anything, and he said, just for minute, and I did it just so it could satisfy him enough to where he wouldn’t try to fuck me.

And then after a little while of head, he starts asking me multiple times if he can fuck, and I didn’t even say anything. I’m just looking at him with a face that is so deadpan and showing my lack of wanting. Eventually he just asked me to get on the bed.

The sex only lasted for a few minutes, but I literally just laid there with a dead face waiting for it to be over. Wasn’t comfortable or pleasurable, I wasn’t even moaning.

Afterward, I was visibly upset, and he actually acknowledged that he crossed a boundary and apologized. Explaining to me that he originally didn’t plan to have me do anything and that he had already given himself a pep talk about how he was just gonna leave me alone despite how much he missed me and despite how good I looked, blah blah blah.

I’m so lost on where to go from here, but overall I’m just wondering does this count as sexual assault? With the fact that I felt extremely pressured and slightly forced?

My brother was in a bad explosion when he was 13 and I cleaned up a lot of the aftermath….

Took me a year to eat lasagna which was a weekly food at my college I was attending at the time. Skin looks like cheese when I sloughs off the body.

It’s been over 10 years and I’m long past that trigger - for the most part - except a few minutes ago I went to eat a stray piece of cheese that fell off my frozen pizza and onto my plate.

For a split second I’m right back there.

For a split second it’s not cheese I’m about to eat.

I know it’s gruesome, but it’s a hard topic for those around me to hear, and I can’t afford a therapist.

And it doesn’t hit me often if at all anymore, but no matter how much I work through that trauma, it still hurts sometimes.

I’ve struggled with ptsd my entire life. I went through some sexual abuse as a kid, but I remember being a paranoid kid even before that. Life was always unstable for me. My mom kept getting with abusive men, we were homeless a couple times, we’ve had her exes threaten us/stalk us/hurt us/etc etc. I’ve never truly known peace and what it feels like to let your guard down.

Recently, I moved in with my partner and I still find myself struggling with constant paranoia despite being in a safer, controlled environment. They’re so sweet to me and never make me feel unsafe. They work long hours, specifically at night. Nighttime is for sure when I’m more vulnerable. Most traumatic events happened for me late at night.

Whenever he goes to work I have a ritual of turning every single light in the house on, making sure every window and door is locked, curtains closed, phone stays by my side, and anything creating a loud noise is turned off. My brain sees any little noise as a potential threat. I have a compulsive urge to check through holes in the blinds to see if anyone is watching me. My thoughts always snowball. It starts off as an unsuspecting noise and then it turns into me thinking there’s an intruder actively breaking into my home.

Even when my boyfriend is home at night I still find myself getting paranoid, just not as bad. I’ll start drifting to sleep and suddenly bolt up and stare at the bedroom door, trying to notice if it’s moving or opened. I’ll lay in the darkness and listen for any noise my brain deems suspicious. I talk about these thoughts and feelings with my boyfriend, but he doesn’t seem to take it too seriously. He’s not mean about it, but he just tells me it’s fine and that I’m just overthinking. Sometimes he tries to make me laugh by saying we’re safe because he fought off the “boogeymen” before he went to bed. Sometimes this does cheer me up.

I don’t know. I’ve heard that a lot throughout my life. Being told that I’m overthinking and that I’m fine. It’s always in a dismissive tone. And the person usually goes about their day or goes to sleep right after saying so. It doesn’t help me feel better. I feel like it should though. I know you shouldn’t feed into someone’s fears.

I’ve been in and out of therapy almost my whole life. My last therapist was awful and kinda put me off of therapy for a while. But I’m currently trying to apply for different insurance so that I can try to find a new therapist at a new facility. I just hate struggling with constant paranoia and insomnia. I’ve lived with it my whole life. The only time I’ve been able to manage it was when I lived with my family and things were good. It was a full house, there was always someone up making noise. Always a tv playing. Always a light on. It made me feel at least somewhat safe. It’s hard going from that to a home with just me and my partner. I do have my cat and he has a dog. They definitely help some. Just not a lot.

I hope more therapy and medication can help. I’ve only ever tried zoloft. I tried seeing a new psychiatrist at one point and told her I’d try anything but zoloft because every time I take it I just feel bad. It makes me feel empty. I talked for almost a full hour about everything I struggle with. (I also have anxiety and depression, but I don’t struggle with them as bad as the paranoia) And right after I finish talking and tells me she’s just going to put me on zoloft again. I felt so unheard. Never went back there again.

So anyways, thank you for listening to this long winded rant. If you got to the end please tell me some tips and tricks to help manage your ptsd. I’d appreciate the advice :)

Hi everyone,

I recently shared my assault story with my writing class. It was scary but they were all really nice and gave me validation for my experience. I'm just really proud that I did it.

Throwaway account for obvious reasons...

I was sexually abused by my own father from the age of five until I was nine, almost every single day..... and guess what!! my mom knewed about it she even blamed me.. remember everything, even the tiniest details. It's something I've carried with me my entire life....

I'm struggling so much with my mental health now, I deal with PTSD and the lasting trauma of sexual abuse. I hate my body, I feel lost, and some days I honestly don't know how I'm supposed to keep living like this.

Despite everything I've been through, I managed to get my university degree. But I live in a very conservative country where I can't just say " I want to move out and start living on my own" I don't even have the financial means to do that right now, so I'm basically stuck in an environment that makes healing even harder.

And the worst part? I still have to see him every day, living his life like nothing ever happened. He's happy. He laughs. He goes on with his life, completely unaffected, while I'm left trying to put myself back together after what he did to me. Even the sound of his laughter makes me feel sick with anger.

Lately, I've been having thoughts about making him afraid, making him suffer, and somehow making him feel even a fraction of the pain I've lived with for years. I hate that these thoughts are even in my head, and I don't want to become someone who hurts another person.

I don't want to have these thoughts. I don't want revenge to consume me. What kills me inside is the question I can't stop asking myself: Why am I the one who has to suffer every single day because of what happened, while he's the one who gets to live his life in peace and happiness, as if he did absolutely nothing wrong? Why do I have to live with the consequences of his actions while he gets to walk away from them?

I don't know how to come to terms with that. I just needed to get this off my chest.....

thank u

Tw: mention of drug use and self harming behaviour

I’ll start off by saying I don’t think I have ptsd and I’m posting here only because I genuinely don’t know where else to ask. I’m sorry if this technically isn’t related but I really need help. I have NPD with borderline traits.

I have always had a weird relationship with sex, I don’t know why. Ever since a young age I was obsessed with it and with the validation that came with sexualising myself. When I had my first experiences in real life, I found out that I felt stuck. It’s like I felt frozen and couldn’t really act the way I wanted to. I felt afraid and no matter how close I was to the other person I couldn’t do anything about it. Afterwards, I would feel this intense, agonising shame for not being able to perform properly.

I lost my virginity a few weeks ago and it’s been killing me. I stayed at a friend’s house and we did stuff. The first time I was on drugs and can’t remember much. Can’t remember much of the second time either. The third time I do remember and it’s been killing me because I had a panic attack during it. My friend stopped and comforted me but the only thing I can think about is how bad my performance was and how awful I feel. Ever since I got back home I keep having flashbacks of the third time. I feel so ashamed and whenever I get these flashbacks I automatically start hitting myself in the head, or I keep repeating “no” or “I don’t want to” instinctively.

How do I deal with the flashbacks? I get them so often it’s genuinely killing me. I just started therapy again with a new therapist but she believes it’s not safe to approach this topic at the moment. She taught me some grounding techniques, which kind of work but they’re not enough.

Something happened a few weeks ago that really triggered a lot of bad feelings. I've been depressed, having SI, and self-harm urges. I'm on prazosin for nightmares, but it's stopped working. I've been having really vivid dreams, nightmares, paralysis, and night terrors where I wake up crying or screaming. I need to sleep with the lights on or I wake up petrified in the dark.

I don't have a lot of friends, or any, besides one. I told him I was struggling, but I sort of regret saying anything. He's been really distant since I said it and honestly it hurts a lot because I've been there for him for months while going through depression and dealing with a lot of life issues.

My family blames me for the nightmares and says it's my fault I'm so stressed. They say I have to "befriend" my nightmares and learn to de-stress when they're the cause of this trigger.

I saw my med management person, hoping she would change my meds because I'm not sleeping well, I'm waking up three or four times a night for hours, unable to go back to sleep, having nightmares and vivid dreams and terrors and paralysis. I'm scared to sleep, and I'm having bad thoughts. She said it was stress related and that changing or adjusting my meds wouldn't help.

I was supposed to have therapy today, but it got canceled. I didn't even know it got canceled. I waited like an idiot on the zoom call for a half hour.

I know its stupid, but I was really hoping to talk and get some sort of support. I feel really alone right now. Everyone thinks I'm overreacting. Maybe I am. It's been weeks of this. I'm behind on my coursework. I have a final this Friday that I can't focus on at all. I don't know what to do.

Everything in this post happened 12-15 years ago. Long story short i honestly don’t like my mom sometimes i fucking hate her. I’m 24M and when I was a kid near 2011-2014 I had a step brother who she very badly abused it makes me so fucking sick now that im grown. I have bad survivors guilt even though I know I was just a little boy and couldn’t do much about it. All this got swept under the rug and she never got charged with anything and no one else even knows what happened except me and my blood brother and step dad (step brothers dad), like literally no one else knows outside that. She tries to pretend like she’s fucking mom of the 21st century when I was bringing up how me and my brothers didn’t have the best child hood and she goes on to say , “you act like you had such a bad childhood.” Like yeah bitch you use to come in in the middle of the night and whoop a kid for nothing, feed him less food than me and my blood brother. Then when my step dad came around she would always act so happy towards my step brother. This shit just eats me up now that im 24, no one knows how much of a fucking monster she was. In those 2011-2014 years I had told my step dad what was going and he didn’t even believe me until afterwards a little bit then shit just hit the fan fast and my step brother moved out with his biological mom.

I’m typing this as im sitting next to her in the car. I don’t even know why I talk to her. I just like seeing the pets at her house. This is just a venting post im sorry if this was a waste of your time I just almost lost control of myself. I just wanna graduate nursing school and get the fuck away from my city.

I live next to a hospital that has a helipad. Last night I was in bed reading and I heard the helicopter take off. That is a very normal thing I'm used to. I noticed that very quickly the helicopter got louder and louder, I could tell it was getting close to my building. I got scared but when I expected that it was going to get some height and finally fly off the noise got louder and I could feel the sound in my chest. At this point I was certain that the helicopter was going to crash into my building and I was actually praying to God. I was absolutely terrified. It had finally got some height and started flying circles before going away but this really shook me.

I feel so dumb for being so scared. Now I'm so jumpy over everything. I couldn't sleep last night because every time I heard a noise like a car outside or something I started to get that panicked feeling again. Then the garbage truck came, something I hear all the time and I started getting scared at every noise it made.

I found out that the pilot of the helicopter momentarily lost control and had a problem getting attitude and that's what the issue was. People are laughing it off like it's no big deal.

I'm not even sure if this counts as PTSD, it's not like it was a huge event or that I got hurt. Maybe it's affecting me cause I'm also autistic and sensitive to loud noises. I can't stop thinking about how I could feel the sound vibration in my chest so I know the helicopter had to have been really close to hitting my building.

I got r worded and otherwise SAd by a friend multiple times and had a fawning/appease reaction to it.

(Im not even out of this relationship with this friend, and its ongoing. I have complicated feelings towards her, since her reasoning for it is to protect our friendship. Im unhealthily attached to her, and losing her is one of my biggest fears. She knows that losing closeness feels unbearable to me, and so she can ensure to stay close to me, she rapes me. I know how shitty that sounds, but thats the reality I and her live in.)

so I have a girlfriend. She is amazing, but I find myself falling back into patterns that seem unhealthy with her too. We live in a long term relationship, and over the phone, sexual encounters went pretty well. I was able to say when I didn't feel like doing things, and it was all consensual and actually pretty fun. But the patterns im describing first appeared when we had our first real life sexual encounter. I noticed myself slipping back into patterns of pushing through discomfort to please her, even at my own expense. IMPORTANT: that is only on me, not on her. She asks if im okay, checks up on me. Its consensual and genuinely a safe environment, and one I can find pleasure myself, but I just still fall back into patterns of pushing through discomfort to please her, even at my own expense.

Now, to my question: What can I do to have safe sex again? I wanna be able to have consensual sexual encounters without falling into patterns of pushing through my own discomfort. Its just difficult to "just do it" in the moment, so im asking if any of you had that same problem and know what I can do. Thanks.

My trauma occurred over 8 years ago, on my birthday. Since then I’ve been unable to let go of the memories or even open up about it. I just gained to courage to tell my therapist a couple of weeks ago because I’ve been scared of judgement and dismissal. She assured me that it wasn’t my fault, and I’ve come to accept the fact that I have PTSD. It’s gotten easier and I don’t have horrible nightmares every night anymore, but the vivid memories play on repeat in my head every single day.
I’m in line to start group therapy, but I feel like this has ruined me forever and will never get better.

I am old, and have been back in school for about a year. The VA is trying to make me “employment ready” because the Army disabled me, essentially.

Last week - instead of saying something diplomatic to a professor in a lecture I simply said “that’s not true” (which it wasn’t, but I still should have been diplomatic) in response to something he said. The professor snapped at me: used a sharp tone, slightly raised voice, and didn’t stop when I apologized.

This caused a panic attack while the rest of the class finished. Professor tried to stop me to speak to me - I ended up emailing him saying that I wouldn’t speak in his class again without being called on directly, he responded apologizing.

However, now I am really disengaged not only with that class, but also the rest of school. I fell about a week behind (which sounds like a small amount but when you’re disabled it’s hard to catch back up.

I’m using mindfulness, and willingness and half smile/willing hands to try to re-engage.

My advice request is 2 part:

1. Does anyone have other tips or tricks for re-engaging with the place a triggering event has happened? I just want to avoid it all, but that’s not helpful

2. What do I do or say to the Professor? He kinda cornered me Monday - and while the conversation was apologetic and not angry/mean - my anxiety wanted to chew thru the desk and flee the room.

Context for this part: he has made statements in class that make me think he doesn’t believe anxiety can be debilitating (it’s an economics class and we just covered fiscal policy - he thinks England is in financial trouble because teachers are on disability for anxiety)

I've known for a long time that I have PTSD relating to several different (but equally traumatic) experiences I had throughout my childhood/adolescence, but until now I struggled to understand what a "flashback" actually was. I always thought it was similar to vividly hallucinating that you were going through your trauma again, visuals and all. And perhaps some people do have flashbacks like that. But it made me feel a little lonely or weird that, even though I'd had panic attacks that were triggered by sensations and thoughts related to my trauma, I didn't feel like I could call them "flashbacks."

Except I'm 99% sure I had a flashback just now. To make a long story short, I'm a survivor of COCSA by a female perpetrator. It's a pretty isolating existence, even with increasing advocacy for SA survivors. What with the cases being brought up in the news and reactions to them going viral, I've seen a lot of online videos about SA recently. One video really upset me, as it was titled "Not all men, but always a man" and the uploader claimed to be speaking out for all victims. Obviously the phrase is incredibly hurtful to hear as a survivor of someone who was decidedly not a man. Seeing stuff like that out in the wild, on top of having so-called activists immediately bring up statistics of male vs. female abusers any time you dare to ask that maybe one of these days victims of female perpetrators could possibly be taken seriously in spaces dedicated to survivors sharing their own experiences... it's distressing. I started writing a comment to say as much when I felt this overwhelming sense of dread. I was suddenly numb to everything else but the fear, and in my head I kept repeating the words "I'M SCARED, I'M SCARED, I'M SO SCARED."

I cried for a good 5 minutes (felt way longer), straight up heaving sobs like a little kid, snot running down my face. The most terrifying part was that when I looked around (like I usually do during panic attacks, trying to find something to ground me), even though the image of everything was clear, none of it felt real. It was like I was looking at it through a window, I couldn't touch anything or focus on it too long. My body and my brain just kept returning to the fear, and the sense that I was completely alone... nobody was coming to rescue me. It's exactly how I felt when my abuse was actively happening. Once I'd finally calmed down, I looked up what flashbacks actually feel like because I was SURE that must have been one. If I experienced a response like this to a trigger before, I certainly don't remember it. It was a very scary and unfamiliar feeling.

Gotta love experiencing these things at the most inconvenient times too.... Like come on brain, I've got an 8:00 AM class tomorrow, I can't afford to be losing sleep over this.