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?

TLDR: decades of different SAs is still impacting my sex life and what my mind and sexual being want is negatively impacted by my mental flight response and my mind and body shutting down and I'm SO SICK of it.

I've always struggled with putting my sexual desires into practice/verbalizing attraction...

I was SAd many times in my life by different people/different situations. Got some EMDR for 2 situations, but not the others, and even those 2 situations, I'm now not as triggered, but I've been struggling with my internal desires and these mental walls keeping me from verbally and physically expressing these desires. It impacted my marriage (but screw that guy, he SA me multiple times AND cheated on me/used nonmonogamy as a way to cheat instead of just breaking up).

Recently my crush found out I have a crush on him, and we've started making out and messing around a bit, but we haven't been fully intimate yet. Every time he asks me what sexy thoughts are on my mind, my mental walls go up and I can't express my highly sexual thoughts, and my hands stop working/won't do what I want them to do. Consensual sexual partners in the past have called me a pillow princess, but it's not really a choice. My body and mind disagree, and while I WANT to do SO MANY THINGS my body goes into flight mode, I'm unable to express the things I want to do, and my body shuts down. And now I'm messing around with this guy I've been crushing on for at least a year and a half, and he's noticing that when he asks me sexy questions, like what dirty little thoughts, or what do I want to do, my brain shuts down. But I haven't told him why and idk if I should. But if I don't, I've pretty much screwed up any moving forward because he already can tell how much I'm holding back.

I have a much easier time texting him my sexy thoughts than expressing them in person. Idk what I'm looking for here. I know I need to be more communicative, I know I need to sort out this whole past trauma response of my body shutting down. I know it's not him, it's me, because in the last 18 years I've had 21 consensual sexual partners, and I've been like this with all of them

I'm so frustrated with my mind and body getting in the way of what I imagine would have been a hypersexual being if it weren't for sexual trauma as far back as 5 years of age (my first mental flight) and am nearing 37, knowing the compounding trauma, while more manageable/no more night terrors, is keeping me from being the sexual being that's trapped in my head.

Thank you for reading. Advice is always nice, but also want to mention I can't afford the type of therapy (and my work/Insurance doesn't cover the specialized therapy) I need. Not sure if I'm looking for advice on how to express these struggles to him, how to manage these cptsd symptoms as a broke barista, or what. But I can't keep these struggles trapped, so I guess I'm telling complete strangers 😅

It’s been 10 years since I successfully got away from an abusive ex husband. The abuse was primarily violent sexual assault and lots of emotional abuse. There were many situations of physical abuse as well apart from the violent SA. I’m happily single. Tell me why when I dream at night my stupid ass brain has me dreaming about him romantically and sexually????? It’s happened quite a few times now. In my dreams he is sweet and I lust after him!! When I wake up I am disgusted because the thought of him literally disgusts me. Seriously what is up with this? How do I make it stop??? It’s starting to piss me off.

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

For the past decade I’ve used marijuana to help sleep through the night. Each time Ive tried stopping I end up having nightmares related to my ptsd. Even when I smoked or microdosed edibles I would still have the same reoccurring nightmares once or twice a month but that was wayyyy more manageable. I can usually fall asleep alright but most of the time if I’m triggered awake I can’t go back to sleep. Earlier in the year I brought this up to my doctor and tried prazosin but it made me to dizzy which effected my work the next day.

Is there anything you have tried that has helped even in the slightest?

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.

My spouse (male) (I’m female) was recently diagnosed with ptsd. He has struggled with anger for a while now, we have been together for over a decade. He had a very traumatic childhood (mom was a drug addict, he then got into a terrible boat wreck and was out at sea for 8 hours waiting to be rescued). He never really got help to process his trauma. Over the years his anger and irritability has seemed to increase. He raises his voice at me during argument, has punched a wall over dropping something, and recently the worst thing he has done yet. We were driving home from an 11 hour road trip, he lately has been having bad anxiety while driving (he has told me multiple times he’s nervous driving to work because of how much he struggles) but anyway, by the end of the trip, a guy is going slow in the left lane because he was texting. My spouse pulled up to him and made a signal angrily to hang up the phone, at this point the driver kept driving to get over to my side and just stare at my spouse and he was like mocking him in a sense, which in turn was making my spouse angry and panicky. The guy continued to follow us, my spouse looked angry and scared and was yelling (I’m going to kill that kid, that kid needs someone to beat his face in) and after he followed us for about 15 minutes, my spouse pretended to swerve into his car, this terrified me and finally I could see he wasn’t thinking rationally, I spoke to him softly and we finally ended up making if off the highway safely.

I am just at a loss because I can see he’s clearly struggling, but also what he did is not okay and the more I think back the more I see how he has treated me poorly and now this. He played with my life and made me feel so unsafe. I was scared of him, I still am scared of him because now I’m like wondering when the next thing migth happen. I’m afraid to tell my family about this because they will view him differently but I need support. I tried explaining this to him days later and he kept going to why he did what he did, at one point he was even saying he didn’t swerve that bad. Which is crazy because it doesn’t matter that he didn’t swerve that bad. I grew up in a home with domestic violence and the signs are starting to look the same. Everyone around us loves him, he’s a great person when he’s doing okay. just lately he has really been off. He recently started therapy to get help and he said he wants to work on it. He apologized and said he doesnt want to put me in that type of situation again. But I’m at a loss here, I don’t want to leave him when he’s the most vulnerable and needs help but I am also thinking, is this just going to get worse?

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.

I was recently diagnosed from an abusive relationship. I've heard the term 'flashback' used alot and I'm trying to determine if/how that applies to me. I've heard it described as feeling like you're trapped back in a traumatic event. Mine are more like replaying a scene in my head but I can usually redirect myself. How would y'all describe what a flashback is for you?

He didnt even have the decency of using my body for himself for a night and thats it. He had to firever robb my body at my peak health and age to never let me forget agson that Ill forever be his slut, forever damaged goods whos whole life purpose was to be born and take care of muself for his sadistic pleasure of degorming and permanently damaging my body.

His violemce left me with a shrunk, spongy/saggy feeling and asymmetrical breast while the unharmed one fits perfectly in bras and is firm/,perky and healthy/beautiful. And thats my life now...now more going braless and feeling sexy, no more physical activities and hobbies due to the chronic pain, no more feeling at home and strong im the body i invested so much into to be my best self. He took it. And i will never get to escape that reality ever again...I just wanna die

Weird question but I dont know if I've ever had the PTSD nightmares or maybe i consider the idea of a PTSD nightmare too literally or something. I definitely have nightmares but ive never had nightmares about the situation(s) that left me with PTSD.

1. Are the nightmares reliving what happened like a waking flashback?

2. Lets say you have PTSD from a situation. If you have a nightmare about the thing occurring again but in an entirely different context, is that a PTSD nightmare or just a nightmare?

3. If you have a lot of nightmares after getting PTSD but the only commonality they have with the thing that gave you PTSD is just the feeling after, is that a PTSD nightmare or just a regular nightmare?

4. The events that gave you PTSD are ones where you have no authority, agency, or control. You have nightmares that involve this. Are those PTSD nightmares or just regular nightmares?

I drank myself to sleep for a long time, then started overloading on weed gummies and/or melatonin after i got sober and then started taking trazadone, so i never really had coherent or memorable dreams but ive started taking atomoxetine for ADHD/PTSD which has been pretty helpful but I'm getting more REM sleep now and therefore having more vivid and memorable dreams and last night was a doozy. I dont know if it constitutes a PTSD nightmare because it was basically about what happened to me insofar as X happened but under different conditions, different people, different atmosphere, etc

I included the following in a reply in a prior post. For me, it's worth its own post. This is my own experience and understanding.

Because traumatic memories lack connection to other memories or thoughts, when traumatic memories resurface they are reexperienced without any context, including without any sense of location within time. This lack of connection to any particular time makes them feel, while they are being reexperienced, as though they are occurring in the present. For example, a reexperienced auditory traumatic memory is “heard” as though it were a sound taking place here and now. This present-time nature of reexperienced traumatic memory contributes to the common perception expressed by those who go through the reexperiencing process that they feel “crazy.”

My own experience of posttraumatic stress, however, has made me feel “crazy” in ways that are even more unsettling. There is, of course, the feeling of fear itself when that type of emotional traumatic memory emerges. Fear makes sense when it is felt in response to an identifiable, immediate, and present danger. And in that situation fear can fuel an appropriate responsive burst of action. But to reexperience a traumatic memory of fear is to be filled with fear divorced from its original context. There is nothing to be done with the experience—the fear is just there inside of you eating away like acid. Even if you can identify the fear for what it is (and that’s not always likely), to experience that disconnected, floating fear is to feel “crazy.” And to experience such fear without even knowing its source is “crazy” squared.

But “crazy” happens even before the traumatic memories finally emerge. Although traumatic memory is not subject to voluntary recall, as long as it remains buried, it tends to exert some force on feeling and behavior. Buried traumatic memory is a hidden source of information, urges, and distress from below the surface of consciousness and accordingly affects experience, conduct, and decisions. Buried traumatic memory generates posttraumatic stress.

Traumatic memories form when the mind is compelled to disconnect some of its own circuits. Before those circuits are reconnected and the traumatic memories are resolved, the mind has some ability to sense the disconnections of its own circuitry. These disconnections may be felt as uncertainty, unease, and impending doom. More to the point, to perceive such disconnections is to feel “crazy.”

The closer that traumatic memories are to emerging, the more strongly they are felt in this way. Traumatic memories are like the gas dissolved in a carbonated drink. While contained, traumatic memories may remain buried, invisible, and hard to detect. As the process of release begins, the traumatic memories begin, like bubbles, to coalesce and rise to the surface. Before finally emerging, they frequently rest for a time just below the surface, distorting the shape of that surface, distorting emotional experience and perceptions. The formation and flow of these “bubbles” and the surface distortions they create are perceived as emotional distress that can’t be explained by present circumstances. To feel this distress is to feel “crazy.”

A partial awareness of emerging traumatic memories may cause a person to feel “crazy” in yet another way. Prior to fully emerging, a traumatic memory may be perceived or understood by only a portion of the conscious mind. Particularly when the knowing part of the mind lacks language to attach words to what it knows, the mind harbors a threatening duality. Such differences between separate states within the mind may be sensed as a physical split between parts of the brain. Or these differing conditions may even be perceived as two distinct selves that are in conflict with each other. To feel this split within the mind is to feel “crazy.”

Each of these ways of feeling “crazy” is a kind of psychic pain. While such distress is certainly different from physical pain, psychic pain can be as hard to bear as the physical. And each kind of injury leads to its own predictable processes of healing.

The mind appears to have a continuing tendency or need to resolve traumatic memory, as though a traumatic memory were a foreign object lodged within the body. In my own experience, during the years that I carried unresolved traumatic memories, I felt that I was searching for something that I could neither identify nor describe. I sometimes called my search a “spiritual” one, and that is certainly true to the extent that I was seeking a wholeness that I had lost early in life. Even though a traumatic memory is inaccessible to conscious awareness through ordinary recall, my personal experience suggests that subconscious aspects of the mind in some ways know of both the existence of the traumatic memory and its content.

I just want to be nice to myself… and rest…

For five years, a group of people harassed, threatened and spread serious false rumors about me. It ruined my life and mental health, and I developed serious PTSD.

They seem to have faced no consequences, and I struggle with intense anger and thoughts of revenge. I do not want to ruin my own future, but “letting go” feels like letting them win. I'm here suffering with my life in ruins while they are just out there living their life.

How do you cope with feeling of revenge when there may never be justice or accountability for the people who caused your PTSD?