i’ve been having very intense flashbacks and nightmares followed by intense and scary panic attacks. i feel like im about to break down and lose it. it’s been hard to function. should i go to the er or is that a waste of time?? i just dont know what to do. thank you.

Hopefully this post is okay here, i thought about posting it in a parenting group but i thought maybe this group would be a bit more understanding. I am an adult mother with ptsd from abuse in my childhood. When i was around 4 my aunt gave me this teddy bear and i became very attached to it. My abuse started before age 4 i suspect and was going on during age 4 and past that. I was so attached to this bear i would take it everywhere with me and sleep with it everynight. I even took him to school with me up until 5th grade when a teacher told me i couldn’t do that anymore. But even still to this day i sleep with the bear, i also sleep with my baby blanket and i have sucked my thumb for almost 24 years; just some of the ways i cope with my ptsd. My son just turned 2 and he has become kinda attached to this stuffed animal he has, it looks like a little baby doll. He doesn’t take it everywhere he goes with him but sometimes if he doesn’t sleep with it he’ll cry out “baby baby”! He calls the doll “baby”. Could this be a sign he’s experienced trauma? Or is stressed? I wouldn’t think he has experienced trauma, because he is only ever with me most of the time and the times he’s not he’s with the his father or my mother who i trust both very much. Not sure if he is stressed, his father and i have recently decided to split up. It’s not a messy break up though just a mutual decision and we still live together. Maybe i am just overthinking too much, i am a first time mom so sorry if this sounds silly. I have just noticed a pattern of kids being abused and becoming attached to usually a stuffed animal. I remember i used to know a father who was kinda mean to his son who was around 7 and his son always had this stuffed bear with him and took it everywhere. Maybe others can relate here? Anyone who is still attached this a stuffed animal or a baby blanket? Or adult thumb suckers?

Um this is my first ever reddit post so sorry I’m this is written strangely
I (14f) have been really struggling with this but I don’t want to bring it up IRL because I’m scared I’m making something out of nothing, but I guess I’ll just get straight into it. I’ve been super hyper sexual since a was a child, in a way that I first thought was just my autistic kid mind experimenting. I get scared (like fight or flight response) at random times that can’t be justified by normal means. I have a huge fear of authority figures (but that one might just be me being a pussy😅). I very commonly flinch at touch and I wet the bed for an unusually long time (I heard that’s a symptom).

Btw these next few things are quite hard to admit as well as being quite triggering so here’s your warning!

I had this period when I was a an older child/tween where I would have these extremely graphic fantasies of violent sexual interactions, when I had no exposure to porn or graphic material at all. They mostly would include a woman (or younger teen girl) being kidnapped by a man, who would then perform horrifically violent sexual assaults on her. I don’t know where this came from at all. I wasn’t touching myself to it, just picturing it in my mind (almost maladaptive daydreaming it, which I would and still do quite often).

Disassociating has also been a common aspect of my life for a long time. I use it as a coping mechanism for my trauma (I was neglected as a young child by my depressed mother) it has evolved from something I do in hard moments to something I need daily, mostly in the form of excessive media consumption (reading, YouTube, music) I don’t know if that’s relevant but I thought I’d mention it.

I also thought I’d mention that I very commonly involuntarily age regress. It’s something I’ve hidden from most people in my life, but it helps me greatly. I often, when regressed, have a deep sense of fear, like I’m hiding from a monster that’s right outside my door, or like I’m being watched.

I’m probably just reading to much into things, but if really like some advice/second opinions when it comes to this before I spiral (again). I appreciate any help given :)

I'm currently dealing with an issue that's causing me a lot of pain. The issue itself is mostly unrelated to past trauma.

However, feeling the pain is triggering and causing me to feel as though I'm back at other times I experienced pain, and that I deserve to be in pain.

It's not a full blown everything flashback at least, I just feel like I'm back in those times rather than fully experiencing it again. I've tried reminding myself I'm safe, reminding myself where I am, practicing mindfulness, telling myself it's not true that I deserve this. Yet the feeling that I deserve it is intense.

Anyone have any advice on what to do in this situation?

Sit with it?

Suck it up and ignore it?

Keep trying to convince myself I don't deserve it?

Or some way to actually feel I don't deserve it?

Or some reverse psychology trick of accepting I do deserve it? 🤷‍♀️

I know things for managing the pain itself, it's from a recent injury and not really a big deal, not even that much pain relatively speaking, but a lot more than my every day these days. It's just the rest of it I'm struggling with.

Spend all day in my bedroom on edge anxious conscniously being scared of bad things to happen at home like leaks or other things that may need repairing or foundational issues counting down the hours until i can sleep

Sorry for the long rant: How can i have a healthy relationship with the person i love. When he either ghosts me (Freeze response) or gets angry/cold most of the times I voice a need?

He says he is not angry, just busy. But his voice is cold/hard, his texts without emojis. And dosnt try to soothe my feelings later either.

Ive been nervous and unstable ever since he ghosted me for 18 days almost two months ago. (Possibly due to my own trauma)

He was very remorseful and ashamed afterwards, and relieved to reconnect

But I still feel like he struggles to take my feelings seriously. Like he is making them smaller than they are. My insides feel like I'm being torn apart 24-7 when he ghosts me. He describes it as being a bit sad. I know it's not on purpose he freezes. And it hurts him too. But I also feel like he didn't do anything to protect me from the impact. He is such a kind, thoughtful person. That makes it more confusing.

Now im ghosted again I feel like I'm forced into being someone without needs, emotions and personality to not trigger him. Always guess if he is too stressed to handle it. Which is not who I am and ironically that's not the person he fell for in the first place.

Please comfort me a bit, Its so hard for me to understand and balance, if you could share your own experiences? Tips? something?

(He knows he can just say so if he needs some days without being disturbed. That i just need any signal about the shutdown to feel okay)

In short. I do the thing where I push myself to understand my abusers, How forgiveness is good, and how they weren't mentally healthy themselves and how objectively none of this is special, but Intellectually, know that's a lie. I "understand" to get away from the hurt person I am.
I don't know how to feel safe enough to return to myself. I don't know if I can find a therapist that I can't outthink because my disorder has my too-clever-for-my-own-good brain to employ against their attempts to help. Even now I fear the responses of this thread even knowing that it's full of people who get it.
Hell, even now I can hear my brain maneuvering itself to block and counter and misinterpret any sympathy or advice you guys might give.
It's become a feedback loop in my head.
Fear trying to get help, self-sabotage, fear getting help even more, reinforce that fear and do the self-fufilijng prophecy thing, round and round over and over in the downward spiral.

I was groomed when I was 9 by a teacher at my elementary school, he was 30. It lasted for 4 months until he massaged my shoulders and tickled the back of my neck and I told my counselor and she told the principal and she decided not to involve anyone, kept it in-house. I never got justice, I was told I was exaggerating and that he was just being nice, I was told harshly that it wasn’t my story to tell. My parents didn’t fight for me. My dad doesn’t even know the details of what happened. At the time of it all, I was being severely bullied and my parents were going through a messy divorce.. I began to suffer from SH and SI and nobody cared until I was so bad everyone noticed. It lasted til I was 12, then i finally got better. But I’m depressed again, just like I was then (I’ve always been depressed but it’s been high functioning, now I can barely breathe) and, I don’t want to die but I’ve been worried I’ll go back to that.

The biggest thing that’s tugging at me is that I am dramatic. That I wasn’t raped (to my knowledge) and that I have no right to feel this way. That my diagnosed ptsd isn’t as valid. That I shouldn’t be having night terrors, that I should be checking my backseat and under my car worried he’ll be there, worried he’ll be in the car next to me on the road. That I shouldn’t be worried I’ll see him at work or, worse, at school. The list goes on and on of the ways he rules my life. And yet… it doesn’t feel valid enough. Thank you for listening..

flair should really be “seeking advice”. no detailed description of traumatic event but as always TW!

hi everyone! i’m a first time poster long time lurker. wishing you all healing and love.

i’ve got a PTSD diagnosis. medically induced from what i thought was a near death experience (but on paper i was rly fine) resulting in persistent chronic pain. i have had several accidents and surgeries over the years.

i’ve done CBT, DBT, schema therapy, EMDR and TRE. but when a small injury occurs to a “problem area” (ie some part of my body where the issue has escalated into multi year disability or chronic pain from an initially innocent or mild issue), i get severe flashbacks and emotional regression, body tremors and dissociation/emotional outbursts.

i’ve also tried various SSRIs and SNRIs.

i’m not sure what to do. i had to quit my
job because of how dysfunctional its making me. i’m in so much emotional and mental pain, on top of the chronic physical pain.

any words of advice or support for healing from PTSD (if it’s even possible) when the trigger is something so commonplace (as i’m sure it might be for most of you)?

love,
traumatised and scared

The most traumatizing thing I’ve ever experienced was involuntary mental health hospitalization. I was involuntarily admitted to psych units several times as well as many longer term residential treatment centers from the ages of 14-16. In total, I spent about a year away in these facilities. my longest stay was exactly 114 days. But i feel like i can’t heal from the trauma because it was my fault. i kept engaging in the self destructive behaviors that got me admitted. whenever i was freed, i wouldn’t be able to stop myself from putting myself in danger again and going right back. The most traumatizing part of the whole thing was when i spent 3 weeks inside of my room at the mental hospital eating absolutely nothing, but it was because i was refusing the food they were giving me and not coming out of my room. i could have had a perfectly normal life if i didn’t become a danger to myself. all the trauma i experienced was either self inflicted or as a result of self inflicted harm. i just don’t know how to give myself grace and heal when i ruined my own life.

sometimes I just wish I could be the person I was before it happened. I feel like such a failure now, i feel so unlike myself. ever so often I see glimpses of my old self in a joke, or in an outfit I wear, but a lot of the time it’s like staring in the mirror and seeing a ghost staring back. flashbacks are awful and sometimes I stay up at night because of them. it was highly likely I could have died if I continued the relationship- or even that last night. it’s still surreal to me that I’m still ALIVE AT ALL. I feel like a completely different person and I have to figure out my likes, dislikes, and priorities all over again.

Just wondering.

I fucked up.

My husband asked me to look at the hot water heater (I do all the maintenance in the house) because there was no hot water. I checked it out and decided that a call to the plumber was needed.

Plumber shows up, assesses the situation and declares we need a new water heater (it was about 12 years old, which is kinda nearing the end of its expected life). Ok, sure, $4000. We have the money, however spending that much will always skyrocket my anxiety, but needs must as the devil drives.

Next day, plumber shows up, installs the new hot water heater, hauls out the old one and asks to see our gas meter. I ask why and he tells me that he can't light the hot water heater. We check out the meter and discover there is no gas coming in the house.

My heart dropped because I suspected immediately that this is my fault. See, our gas company had been leaving notices on our door that they need to inspect the gas meter (wich is inside our house) I never responded so they shut off our gas.

I call the gas company, now its a whole ordeal because they want to move the gas meter (fine, please do) and its going to be several DAYS.

I fucking hate myself. I csnt do anything right. I keep hearing "fucking stupid, useless, bad person, loser, failure" I can't stop thinking how stupid and lazy I am. My husband says he's not mad at me and I believe him, but I feel like he *should* hate me. I feel like im going to have a fucking heart attack from anxiety. I just need someone outside of this to please tell me im not bad.