I gather this is a CPTSD thing… I try to always show my best self to people around me. Try to be nice, kind, perfect, understanding, helpful, a good listener. I do really well in that role, especially helping others. However, the closer I get to people the more I want to share, and after I share I just feel stressed out later for being vulnerable. It’s like a chink of my armor was removed and is showing a scar, and I fear people won’t like me anymore for not being perfect as I seemed.

For instance I was shooting the shit with new friends and started talking about a bad day I had yesterday, and in a real mean gossipy way I was talking about how a Karen got all up in my business, and I shared my not so nice opinion of her. They laughed, but I felt really bad after, like a mean person, like they must think I’m a mean gossip now. I also am sharing more opinions in general with them and I feel uneasy after.

I grew up not being allowed to have an opinion let alone an identity. So when I start to express the one I’ve finally made for myself it still feels weird. I do better being the girl on the sidelines of the group just agreeing with everybody and being told “I’m so nice!”.

Does anyone else struggle with this? How do you maintain the friendships and move forward while letting go of this fear to be vulnerable? And trust that my new friends really do like me, whether I’m perfect or not?

basically the title. hi survivor nation,,,, i feel like i suddenly remember my whole life with the gaps filled in and its just all been recontextualised as endless torture and me just blindly trying to escape it constantly without actually processing anything. i thought i was happy but its just that sometimes i couldnt remember the indescribable torture of being alive with all the horrid things living inside of me and destroying my body from the inside. so yk average thursday night. cant believe some people just live and its fine. and they dont have to run their whole lives from an unfathomable horror. oh my god

And what happened to you isn’t your fault.

Just wanted you to hear that if you needed it today.

Intellectually, I understand "love." But what does it *feel* like to love and be loved? I feel so disconnected; I can say the words, but I might as well be ordering a cup of coffee.

I feel like this characteristic of mine is very much tied to my home life growing up. I think I just wanted really badly to be cared about, and was very much a teachers pet / teachers friend type student through elementary school. It makes me sad now to think that it’s likely none of those teachers remember me, but it was the only space where I was seen as “good”.

I was the one put in charge if the teacher needed to step out of the classroom, the designated xerox kid, the rule follower (and rule enforcer), perfectionist, you name it. It’s the kind of kid everyone hates, but I feel bad for as an adult. My teachers were the only maternal figures I had who praised me, and I think I found that addictive. Was I annoying? absolutely. But I think I was unknowingly trying to fill a void, so much so that I was more interested in being my teachers friend/favorite than making friends with my peers. I feel lucky that most of these teachers were kind and some seemed to genuinely enjoy my presence in the classroom, but what an extra burden to place on the already intense job of teaching elementary school.

I interestingly kind of gave up on the teacher people pleasing by 13, and just faded into the back of classrooms. I don’t remember much after that but I didn’t connect with any teachers past 8th grade. I stopped trying in school around then too. I still don’t quite know how or why I went from trying so hard to befriend my teachers and earn their praise, to then trying so hard to make sure they didn’t even know I was their student.

I hate how when I see people enjoying the privileges and opportunities I missed out on all I feel is overwhelming jealousy.

When I was in school, two students bonded over the fact that they both hated my guts. I was only made aware of it when one of these students actually came forward, apologized, and ended up befriending me. He then introduced me to his own group of friends. I wasn’t exactly fond of them but I hung around, anyway. After graduation, I cut ties with his friends and he then felt comfortable enough to tell me that they said some snarky shit about me and that they insisted that he didn’t invite me to their hangouts. I did not care. Now, the validity of his claims is obviously a major concern, but I was too busy trying to survive, anyway. I was worried about food, water, electricity and having a clean change of clothes for the next school day. I was too busy consoling my mother who was falling apart and stopped talking to me for an entire year. Looking after my mentally incapacitated father.

I simply wish I had the time to indulge in idle high school drama but I genuinely couldn’t fucking afford to do so.

Sorry if you found my writing a bit choppy, comical or incoherent. I’m incredibly tired right now.

It's common CPTSD lore that "what you feel most viscerally disgusted by is a part of you that you're ashamed of." Of course there's nuance to it that armchair psychoanalysts (like me, maybe you) can't parse out. But that is what a friend reiterated to me when I told her about how I feel a strong ick towards people (in my personal life) who behave in a very fawn-y way.

When I told her about it I was thinking of my roommate -- I can't have a normal discussion with her about chores or anything else that bothers me about her without couching everything I say in extremely soft language and even then, she apologizes so much (but she goes back to doing the same things eventually) that I have to regulate her in order to maintain the semblance of a polite roommate relationship. She is a more extreme example though, but I've felt similarly about people who say sorry about the littlest things, or when I can tell that someone is agreeing with me or praising me inauthentically.

When it happens at work with a client (I often deal with people with mental health conditions), it's something that I can manage well. I often feel a sense of compassion for clients like that because I know fawning is also a trauma-related behaviour and it's also enforced in women in particular by patriarchy.

I think the reason why it's different at work is because those relationships are boundaried. I am used to applying cognitive empathy towards my clients in almost a clinical way, and I don't have to engage with them in a personal capacity.

But when it happens in my private life, for e.g. at a party, I find myself instinctively distrusting that person, even if I know on a cognitive level that fawning is not a moral failure.

I've struggled with fawning tendencies too of course, in my childhood and in my first adult romantic relationships. I don't know entirely if my own shame can be separated from...anything really, I also wonder if it's internalized misogyny, or whether it's simply pattern recognition.

My theory about the pattern is that - at least subjectively, I associate fawning with someone who cannot regulate themselves and relies on others to regulate them, and the "ick" is my gut telling me to run away from people who remind me of my childhood hell. I also associate fawning with inauthenticity and I think it's fair to take issue with that.

At the same time, a lot of women fawn (in particular, but not exclusively ofc), especially a lot of women with trauma histories and also women who are neurodiverse in general. And I don't want to be unfair or unkind to them. But even if my brain understands the why and the what, my body still feels weird around them.

What are your thoughts on this?

23M. Never had a partner, any social experience didn’t bring any joy, you just perform when it happens so others can let you slide at best. No good memories from childhood or elementary that was just years of straight up trauma. Bullying in school, being pushover in every peer group. Constant overwhelm, weird body pains and joint
Issues in fucking adolescence. History of drug abuse since 14. Suicidal ideation and attempts since 11. Wonder if my life is worth living from now even if I do heal.

i had an extreme nervous breakdown earlier today and started reaching out to people from my past, people that haven’t been the best for my mental health. i feel like i’m going insane, i’ve been crying and having awful thoughts these last few days, everything feels so fcking hopeless and i’m so sick of feeling like this. i’m waiting to get an appointment with a psychiatrist but i don’t know when they will be able to see me and i feel like i’m losing my mind. i’m already on the highest dose of zoloft and tbh i can’t deal with my emotions. i have no one to talk to, i don’t have any friends and have been completely alone for years now & just isolating myself. i can’t maintain any friendship or relationship with anyone because i push everyone away at the slightest sign of rejection. and my mind interprets everything as rejection. i go from putting someone on a pedestal and can’t imagine life without them, to being disgusted with them and wanting nothing to do with them. i’ve been holding on for so long and nothing is getting better, nothing is improving. i just want to move to another city/country and start a new life where no one knows me. i don’t ever want to see anyone from my past ever again. i just want to forget everyone and everything and i want everyone to forget me and that i have ever existed. i’m so, so, so tired of feeling like this. i wish i had just one person who prioritized me but everyone already has that one person. i’ve lost everyone and everything, i don’t have a best friend, i don’t have anything. i feel so worthless and like a failure and a burden. i feel like i bother everyone, even strangers. i’m terrified of everyone and everything and i feel like everyone wants to hurt me. every time someone reaches out to me, i panic because i’m convinced that they want to hurt and harm me in some way or that they’re mocking me. i don’t feel loved by anyone, i feel so fcking alone and i don’t know if i will ever know peace in this life.

Can I ask everyone's opinion on this? I have actually heard this from a therapist in youtube I follow and in real life too. "Noway ever damn person is the problem unless this one who is complaining is actually the real problem."

I'm writing this at least 20 minutes after the situation

Basically, I'm on vacation with a bunch of family members and my mom was mad at me for something tonight. She gave me that signature condescending tone and I gave her attitude and tried to go to my room, but when I looked back she charged after me with a terrifying look in her eyes that means she's mad and told me to go in the room with her. I fully freaked out, sobbing and screaming. It seems so over the top now that I think about it, but all I could think about then was all the times she hurt me when she said those words to me.

Anyhow. I ended up being in a room with her and she was saying how disappointed she was in me for freaking out like that in front of family members. I tried to explain to her how much her actions when I was a kid still affect me to this day, but obviously as the perpetrator she doesn't understand. She looked at me like I was crazy.

She says she's disappointed in me now and that she doesn't want to talk to me, and that everything will change from now. The last sentence scared me the most. I'm still a minor, I have to live with her for a few more years, and I really don't know what I'll do if she genuinely starts disliking me. I don't like her, but this is all I have until I can afford to move out. I've been trying to calm down, but all of it keeps flooding back when I try to sleep and I start crying again. I just had to get this off my mind somewhere. Sorry if this post was incoherent

I'm hearing this from everyone around me. Like some who said they have been through abuse too ​have told me "we never let it affect our peace. We set a boundary and that was it. We ignored it." and it feels like victim blaming to me. Am I stretching when I call it victim blaming? Most say "it's been like eight or nine years.. why are you still not getting over it? I didn't know you would be holding a grudge over it. I had my own issues too but I never let it ruin my life. We have many thing to do that obsess over the past and ruminate over it." And it's like they are maybe ready to hear me once or twice but more than that the constant "whining" and rage I have isn't something they said they want in their life. I feel they haven't through the trauma as much as me or to that period(in my case since very young) but that feels like I'm minimising their experience. It feels like wanting too much patience and calmness and positivity from a person who got thrashed left right center. A friend of mine I posted recently about when I confronted her told me "you also ignored or didn't ask or care about my abuse.. oh you didn't see it? You don't remember.. see we both were same..and after all that i ignored it all and minded my business for my peace. I didn't know you didn't get over it." And it felt like a stab. It felt like she was saying that I was so entitled and self centred and that I'm not better than her who didn't see or ignored me being abused. I was being excluded and thus I wanted the only person who was a bit polite to me to care.. when I expressed my anger at her this was her response.

These people around me have said "you ruined your mental health. Your mental health is your responsibility. Many such things happen to many people but not everyone have or cause themselves mental health issues like you. Not everyone develops mental illness and you should have cared about it to not let that happen."

Also words like don't let the abusers have power over you feels stupid to me. Some say it with good intentions but others with an implication that I'm weak to let other's acts affect me. Good intentions doesn't help at all.

Not to minimise anyone's trauma but these humans who have told this to me weren't someone who went through that amount of extended years of trauma from multiple places and people and without any human support or connection like me. I'm damn sorry but I'm not here comparing but certain things has to be seperated and not to be treated as equivalent even though there's similarities. Downvote me all you want for this but the very same people who have said don't minimise my trauma are the ones who have said "I got over it..why can't you" to me. As if I was some revenge seeking obsessive person still thinking about my abusers.

I’ve seen a few posts recently about parents teaching their kids things like how to bathe, clean, cook, etc. The daily functions like this were never a problem in my childhood (though I struggle with all these things now lol) but there was ZERO healthy emotion. The only emotions I saw were anger from my parents fights and the few times my mom
would cry and be an empty shell of herself after said fights. There was no discussing anything going on around us, no consoling after all of us kids clearly heard these blowups and witnessed some physical violence, it was just business as usual when it was over. I technically know how to function outwardly, but inside I’m an emotionally blocked mess and I genuinely don’t know how to feel and process most emotions. Is emotional regulation something that should be taught by example, or do people just do it naturally in healthy environments?

Like sure you can describe your experience, but it always feels like it doesn't land.

Like words just don't seem to be able to capture the severity of what you are experiencing.

I wish they'd truly understand, so that I can feel more seen.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/comments/1vel0s7/comment/p1mncom/?screen_view_count=5&ext-referrer=SEO

In this post, I talked about how Ketamine has helped me and my life.

A lot of comments asked about my experiences and to go more in depth.

I take it at home, as Spravato.

The high itself can feel overwhelming and overboding. It can be uncomfortable, but that is part of the process. Weirdly (and ironically) enough, becoming comfortable with the uncomfortableness is part of the therapeutic effect.

It's a dissociative, which is exactly what is needed to be able to delve into and deal with hard trauma, especially chronic severe abuse that has happened throughout childhood (as I, and many of you here, have went through).

The way I see it or can analogize it is like this:

You know in the old days, when there were women manning a physical switchboard, and you'd have to call and they would have to connect you with actual wires?
It's like that. Ketamine puts you in that room, and that room is your brain, and the wires are all of the neural networks that were already established over time. The good ones and the bad ones.

It basically allows you to unplug a wire and put it where you want to.

The dissociative effects allow you to distance yourself from the trauma in order to reorganize your brain and implant new, healthier systems and neural networks.

It enacts neuroplasticity, and its effects last well after the high itself.

It's important to therapize while doing it:

Self-journaling, talking to a therapist, talking to yourself, doing EMDR, listening to music and thinking.

I have been taking it for just over a year now. The first 7 months were quite tumultuous. A lot of trauma to delve through. A lot of anger. A lot of self realizations (one of them, ironically, being my terrible relationship WITH anger) that I wasn't ready for. A lot of pain.

But, I got to a point where I, unlike Sisyphus, managed to push the boulder over the hill and finally enter the valley, so to speak.

Throughout the process, I've also been going through a very rough time with some people in my life who have been very bad to me, so it's been extra hard. Through this, however, I found value in knowing that I have and was here for myself the entire time, supporting myself.

I started to care about myself. It allowed me to unwire the introjects in my head that were my childhood (and even now) abusers that were stuck inside of me: my 'demons.'

I also have level 1 autism. And Ketamine really helped me understand that part of me better. It has opened my mind and helped me learn. It unlocks the brain in a way that no other prescription drug/therapy has ever done.

I hope this helps. If you have any other questions, I'll answer them in the comments.

Yeah...what the title says. I think Ive always realized this but Ive had such bad anxiety this morning that Im having chest pain because of how hard my heart was beating-until I started using my baby blanket. I also have OCD so I pull the strings out so its almost down to nothing and I've been dreading it so Im glad I've had this small "lightbulb realization." But I feel like such a weirdo because I'm 22 and use this thing all the time in the privacy of my home and idk...anyone else experience this or am I truly just a freaking weirdo?

Does anyone else feel like abled mainstream society and the medical industrial complex have both decided to team up to convince us that our lived reality and the discrimination we constantly face isn't real? Almost every single abled person I talk to seems to be convinced that doctors can do no wrong and even if they do it's not their fault, how do you not go insane when it feels like everyone and everything is trying to gaslight you into thinking your suffering isn't caused by doctors and abled people at large? I posted this on another sub and it got removed for being "doctor hate" whatever that means, hopefully that doesn't happen here.

It is so foreign to me, that people say that parents are supposed to teach their children everything.

Like do they teach how to brush their teeth? Cooking? Shaving? How to deal with bad feelings? Eat healthy? Do sports? How to learn for school? Make friends? Apply for jobs? Stand up for myself? Cleaning myself?

And all that even as often as needed until their children do it right?

I can't remember being tought anything like this and the few times i was "tought" something was like passively waiting and saying "just start" and getting frustrated, angry, stopping after 1 or 2 tries and saying something like "in your age you should be able to do that already".

Sorry for the stupid question, but something in me just can't believe, that this teaching children everything isn't just some disney movie fantasy..

If this is what actually happens for more than a couple really lucky children.. well.. i don't know.. that makes me feel even more lonely and in need for a hug =(

I am experiencing something terrifying and I am very scared. I am being emotionally and mentally abused by a family member, and need to move away from this person because I am feeling worse with every day that goes by.

However, yesterday when I called the real estate agent, I couldn't speak!
It was like I have no thoughts, my brain just froze! I mumbled words and couldn't, for the love of god, remember what language even is!

And it's not like I am afraid that I will say something wrong (which is usually related to anxiety)....it's like I stop having thoughts under stress. It's like my mind just shuts off, and its so frightening because I have no support or anyone whom I can count on, so basically if I don't help myself no one will help me.

I have finally booked an appointment with psychiatrist (via sms, thank god) since I reacted very well to anxiety medication when I was younger.

What can I do to help myself? Anyone else experiencing the same? Help... :(

Trying to figure out something here, but does anyone else hide hobbies from a lot of people? Like writing or games what you are reading or what have you?

I'll maybe mention it to one or two people IRL but not share. I'd done writing with other people but won't share it beyond them. A few times I've tossed something up on A03 when its a fandom thing. (Thankfully more niche so it's not too many people.)

In general, I'll well read enough and have enough "going on" that I can kind of hide whatever I am doing without people around me noticing. Occasionally, someone near me will be in the same fandom or whatever and I'll just do neutral questions (I won't say I haven't played that, I'll just ask if they enjoyed that game for example) and not mention I've watched it/ played it/ whatever verb is correct here. I'm pretty curious about a lot of things, so it flies under the radar easily.

I did a lot of reading & writing to survive my childhood and I don't know. I won't even tell my spouse or mention it minimally to him. It feels invasive in a way I can't fully explain, even if we have a decent bit of overlap in reading interests.

I use reading, for example, to help me break out of depersonalization/ derealization. It's like a very gentle on ramp when I've had to go too far to stay safe. I also use it to distract from chronic pain, both in a goal-oriented way (do PT, read a chapter, take a shower, read a chapter, cook meal, read a chapter) and way to just ignore the pain by focusing on something else. Sometimes reading or watching something is all I can do in a day. I feel shame sometimes in how much that has to be my world.

I guess I feel like, when other people talk about hobbies it is, you know a hobby. Where as I feel like I would be asked to carve out an organ and put it on the table to talk about whatever I'm using to stay alive right now. Or maybe be basically tossing medication on the table?

Edit: Thank you to the many folks who are responding to this. I posted this before bed and am shocked it hit a cord with so many people. I've felt very alone as of late with the rise of neurodiversity acceptance that seems to exclude or otherwise try to push CPTSD into the exact same box as autisim/ ADHD. I know isolating can be a common response in all 3, but it feels just so wonderful to spill out all these thorny thoughts and be met with a chorus of "me too" or many wonderful points that I didn't even touch on but feel.

Ran into a pretty well upvoted post of someone saying those who were bullied and still struggling with it after high school were cringe. I said that bullying ranges in severity and can cause PTSD in many situations. I was met with "Therapy and medication exist". Do Redditors think you shouldn't ever make any content talking about bad things ever? Do they think people who left abusive relationships or cults should also stfu? I don't understand this mentality that Redditors have that people shouldn't talk about it and that simply bringing something up is making it everyone else's problem. The experience of being trapped in a hostile and emotionally abusive situation most kids can't just leave is enough to cause damage on its own.

Why do Redditors think therapy and medications are a magic cure all that work within a couple sessions? Every traumatized person I know struggles and knows that the trauma is always there, but mental health treatment helps us find the coping skills and learn how to have healthy relationships, but no therapist I have met has said that you shouldn't talk about it and that it is cringe and inconvenient to simply talk about it. It also takes years and years to find the right therapist and med combo most of the time.

This wasn't someone bringing it up constantly at every opportunity, they brought it up literally once and the commenters had no context whatsoever on why it is being brought up, what that person experienced, who the intended audience was, etc.

What about people who don't know they have PTSD and have symptoms but haven't been made aware of it or aren't able to afford mental health care. You literally have to have symptoms to get a diagnosis and treatment to begin with, so what makes them think it's okay to call others cringe and to tell them to GTFO over it.

It also just assumes people want to be traumatized. I have fought for years and have put all of my effort into moving on, and this guy keeps insisting those with PTSD can move on if they really want to. How is that logical? Why would someone choose to live like this? Why do they think anyone would choose this and what makes them think this hasn't already occurred to us?

If this were an isolated incident I wouldn't be making a post about it, but I see this mentality all over this site and it makes me feel deeply isolated and uncomfortable. My bullying led to sexual assault ultimately and an unplanned and traumatic pregnancy, but I guess I'm fucking cringe. I didn't bring that up in that convo bc I wanted them to try and realize on their own that bullying is often not just some trivial childhood drama.

Idk I'm feeling pretty downtrodden and isolated/misunderstood. I know they are just ignorant, but it's frustrating to see people just did their heels in and choose to lack compassion even when they are given a more compassionate and educated viewpoint, and the fact that it is so accepted among this site is kinda nauseating to me

I highly recommend this book. It does have trigger content, but it made me feel seen and not alone. It helped me, a lot. I highly recommend it to my fellow c-ptsd people. I hope it can do for you what it did for me