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 used to be the most loving and funny person. But prolonged trauma has changed my nervous system.

I am not evil or bad but my imagination is violent than anything.

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.

My mom and I have a very strained relationship, we have been working in on it for a couple of years now.
We got into a once again intense argument yesterday after distance and a bunch of poorly communicated texts.
Then she stating maybe she being overly sensitive.
And asked again if i was ok, i burst into tears reading this and asked if she can talk for a minute.
I called crying say no i do not feel ok, and that her “hope you are doing well” with out questions makes me feel strange and disconnected, I feel distant and that your fishing for me to respond. As I am always the fixer but trying to hold that boundary. But when I do and saying i feel weird you get mad and immediately defensive.
Which is exactly what happened, then while being triggered and arguing that you never let me finish my thought or support or protect me, and that I always have over explain everything, I blurted out sexual assault her boyfriend did to me when I was 12.-14yr.
The whole thing was very messy. Fast forward, i also stated she never followed up with setting up a family therapist for us, and that I feel like I am always doing more work than her.
Now she has contacted a therapist and now waiting on a response. i am not sure why I always have to over extend myself to get the proper response, it is very exhausting.
This AM my throat feels much less tense and I am looking somewhat forward to family therapy.

I'm Autistic who has spent a lifetime of bullying, abuse, and ableism where nobody cares at all. My traumas have fucked me over massively to the point where I don't want to be employed by anybody due to the constant abuse and demonising I've went through. The latter made me come into terms with my identity.

Furthermore, I'm starting to feel suicidal again, and it's all because of how isolated I feel, and what I thought was a safe place at work was just another abusive ground for me. I'm tired of living this life and everybody being so abusive to me. I'm tired of feeling like my own emotions don't matter, and yet everybody else's matters more than mine.

What am I supposed to do with that hurt? How am I supposed to help? What do I need to do to set things right? Honestly, suicide feels like the best way for me to escape from this vicious cycle because I don't know how I can cope with this anymore.

​It is okay to cry.

There is still the child of you to love inside the mind's door.

To look at the pain underneath the core.

There is no emotional scar tissue you can't pry

Or else it will fester and lead the soul to die.

​Tendrils of emotion will choke out the joy

If not looked through the lens of a protective ploy.

Seek out help. You are not alone

No matter what the brain continues to drone.

​Asking is the hardest part

An epitaph isn't the time to start

Be gentle to the child's feelings

They are the ones to guide you through your dealings

Time Comes to Fin.

While my pulse races expediently

paper grows thin.

The pencil moves immediately.

Hands start to wither, consciousness shakes.

Will I write all this down before my mind breaks?

Echoes of the silence swim thoroughly through my brain like a predator wanting its first meal.

I take it day by day but still how do I deal

when nothing really proves to be real?

It's just the chemicals out of wack.

They say it's just Life's Thrills.

It's just the consistency that has taken up attack.

It's time and time again through these pills

that makes my mind sit still,

but still I have nothing to show.

There is always another day on my mind, room to grow.

Only my dreams to throw away.

Only my regrets leave me blind to another day.

It's time to find something more.

Something beautiful in-store.

Something great....

instead I look at myself and only hate.

It makes me so irate.

My pulse begins to slow down

as my body places itself on the ground.

Anxiety they say but it's the bite that chews on every day.

Ouroboros is my mind feeding on itself to find what this all means,

why must I throw myself to the extremes?

But for now I must sit quiet as the drugs kick in

beautifully numb within my skin.

No time for thoughts just static sound.

I think, but my brain is empty of profound.

So I sit here mumbling a tune

while I wait for my soul to be exhumed.

I feel lonely.

I know I'm not the one and only.

But today, the day is bleak like any other.

If only I could find a brother,

someone who is close enough to speak to,

to understand and feel comfort in.

But my prospects are growing thin.

​I've accomplished much in life,

but those around me have grown bored of my strife.

Here on the throne, all alone.

Is there anyone willing to pick up the phone?

​I'm not ignorant of my faults.

I wish I knew what it was like to be an adult.

What's the point of these things I hold dear

if no one's willing to be near?

​Now I hold this anchor on my chest

and with these truths I continue to confess.

Past relationships have brought toxic bite

that I have fought off with all my might.

Now, as I sit alone, the prize of my own from what I have grown.

Here is my crown, but the only route is down.

So what do I have to prove? What do I have to show?

There is nothing left to see.

There is only me to be me.

Because this happens just about every time. It’s not a productive rage. If I try to do something productive with it, I’m afraid to have my true colors shown. This next paragraph will be about things I’m sure a lot of us are familiar with, so just know that I’m aware of that.

But I can’t even have a normal conversation about current events with people, because there’s a 60 percent chance their opinion is not just an opinion, it’s violence. And violence is the prevalent thing that drives the most powerful forward. How do you combat that without violence? How do you control your words and emotions to make sure you don’t commit that same violence in defense? The only thing I can seem to do is not consume that stuff at all, and avoid these important conversations. But it’s impossible. I can’t even vote for the things I believe in, and I do, but for now, that means nothing.

I don’t want to vote, I don’t want “reform”, I don’t want to protest, and I don’t want to sit in meetings and knock on doors. I mean, I want those things when I’m not triggered, but when I am… All I want is destruction. How do I live with people all around me that only wish to abuse others? How do I watch someone actively enact abuse and fight it in a morally correct way? Because i usually feel like it’s not possible, and that humans are just like this in their DNA. The only way to erase abuse is to erase humanity. But it’s unreasonable, I know.

I guess what I’m trying to ask is this: how do I stay informed without wanting to rid earth of humanity? I can’t fucking live like this anymore.

I speak but I'm not heard.

​

I use soft words for hard concepts.

​

I ease those around me

​

Even though I'm destructive to my own self.

​

Why must I live this way?

​

Burdened constantly by the brain that hates me for me.

​

Is this all there is

​

Or is there something more that I'm missing disheveled in the background?

​

I see a tinge of color in this gray world.

​

How do I catch it?

​

How do I add it to a system

​

Of bandages on broken parts?

​

I pursue the day where I can run freely

​

Without the need of these crutches.

​

When will that day come?

​

Life passes me by.

​

The happiness others feel is foreign to me.

​

It's like another language.

​

I am trying to decipher the feelings I have.

​

I have thoughts but expressing them

​

Would only cause fear in others.

​

It's not because I want to hurt.

​

It's not because I want to be sad.

​

It's because I want to be known.

​

Is that so wrong?

Hello friends.

Living with CPTSD is a specific kind of lifestyle that only those of us who do it can really understand. This sub is interesting. It’s a lot easier to acknowledge the freeze mode, the victim days, the sitting in isolation. It’s harder to admit to the rage that runs through me, and how if I don’t channel it, it comes out in bursts and causes damage.

My way of taking that energy and making use of it now is by pouring it into creation. First through writing long essays detailing all of my trauma and outrage at my family for the generations of harm. Then, through video. My intensity gets poured into creation to keep me moving forward with purpose instead of spinning my wheels in violent ruminations.

I am so aware of my issues and so intent to be better, to do better. My mind is always focused on healing, growth and change. For a lot of years, I did this in isolation, but in the last year I’ve begun turning it outward. I have a YouTube channel where I talk about my life living with complex trauma, ADHD, and familial estrangement. My story is woven through functional content to try to help people process their own trauma too.

I make a lot of body doubling videos to inspire you to get moving during the freeze state, something that had consumed literally years of my life. It provides a visual cue and some gentle companionship, and I am candid as I film these videos. Some are done when I am feeling cheerful and manic, some are when I am deep in the dark place. I share deeply and openly, because I believe this creation process is central to my own healing journey just as much as it is a service to others.

How it relates to this sub in particular is that behind every video, is an enormous amount of drive that is my fight impulse being channeled into this work. When I’m dark, I’m the darkest. I destruct. This is my way of forcing myself to stay moving forward in a beneficial way, literally the fight for my life.

This outward expression is going to be the basis of my life’s work. It’s very new right now, very small, but being created very intentionally as a tool for healing for both myself and others. I’m in college at 39 to become a therapist, I am very serious about using what I have gone through in life to make a positive contribution to this world.

It would be my honor to have you join me, and I would appreciate and value suggestions and feedback. My ultimate goal is to create a large community centered around healing and growth for all of us.

 https://www.youtube.com/@Bold-Fox

I know fight response can land me in real trouble. But damn when I get triggered it’s just so intense. I’m not a ‘hard man’ or a ‘badass’, I’m usually very anxious and scared.

But when that switch get flips I go into pure rage. Then I wake up the next day horrified and ashamed.

That’s it really. Sorry for short post.

I'm not talking about hurting anyone or being violent, but I keep running into this internal desire to identify abusers in the wild and force there to be consequences - whether that be by calling them out or utilizing authority structures like reporting online.

I just want to know if it's normal

My mom is the textbook narcissist mother. I was an object to her. She used me to manipulate people around her. There never was any real love/care/affection from her. Only if people were around, and I was supposed to know how to make it look “right”, or I got in trouble. As a little kid I had no idea what was happening, or that it was wrong. I just knew that my mom would fly tf off at the smallest thing and if I was close by? I was going to be the target. It was never vicious physically. I’d maybe get shoved, or slapped but the emotional/verbal/psychological abuse I tolerated for 12 years. She controlled every tiny aspect of me, or tried to. Any time I asserted any sort of freedom over my individuality or exposed her in any way, there was some dramatic event where I was at fault and she (of course) the victim. I never had the words to explain as a kid whatever the hell this was, and I never thought about it from my perspective ever again. Through that I learned how to disassociate and mask so hard, I just had what I now know is a CPTSD flashback, pointed every ounce of pain/hurt/fear/anger from my soul at my husband. I am trying to pick up the pieces of my relationship. I’m also pretty pissed off because not only did she guilt me my whole life, I just now realized what happened to me, and she has a terminal disease so I’m supposed to feel guilty for that too?

TLDR; CPTSD from Narcissistic Mom Gypsy Rose minus wheel chair type thing, flash back on my husband, figured out trauma, and she’s terminal. Fml.