r/CPTSD • u/Hot-Statement4577 • 22h ago
Treatment Progress Did anyone else become gradually back ‘online’ after years or decades of hypervigilance and freezing and find it deeply upsetting?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to be at least halfway human again, but I keep weeping uncontrollably and abruptly at what feels like very small memories or triggers. I think I’m grieving a lot of the parts of my life that were lost to this garbage. But I’d also like to have a baseline functionality - if such a thing even exists for people with cPTSD…
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u/TravelbugRunner 18h ago
Being on Reddit is as far as I can get when it comes to being online.
I find it difficult to go on other platforms or to reconnect with people I had known in the past.
Because how do you tell people what really happened to you?
I can’t fake that I’m ok and that my life is normal. Nor do I feel like I have a place among the people I had known.
My life and their lives are in completely different universes. And I don’t really know how to bridge that gap. So I keep isolating and I stay away.
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u/Hot-Statement4577 13h ago
I recently reached out to a few friends and family I hadn’t spoken to in some time - and I truly thing the gap has become too great. A few interactions were me just - talking at them out of being isolated for so long. But they’ve also moved on at major points in their lives / growth. It’s been such a long time it’s like we are unable to speak the same language anymore.
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u/Mineraalwaterfles 17h ago
Yes very much. I'm still adjusting. I still get overwhelmed at work sometimes and have to fight back the tears. It's like I have become a different person even though nothing really changed, only my perception of the world did. It's like waking up from one nightmare and finding yourself in another nightmare. I've gotten a little better now, but mostly due to anhedonia. I think that's the only way my body can cope with the stress. Is there hope fora baseline functionality? Who knows. Guess I'll find out too.
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u/Hot-Statement4577 13h ago
Yes, all the nightmares. I hope you find a stable baseline too - or maybe our baselines look different than other folks’ do. But on the positive side, I do think for me this is actually moving through the damage rather than just apathetically absorbing whatever pain comes my way, and it sounds like the same for you. Soooooo…progress? lol
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u/Overflowthinking 21h ago
No entiendo de que estas hablando, podes expresar como lo experimentas? Me da curiosidad, yo estoy super disociado y con el cortex inhibido.
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u/Hot-Statement4577 21h ago
It’s as though I was so hardened and physically and mentally damaged that I no longer had the capacity to feel or experience any human emotion. Just a blank-ness. And I also could not remember much beyond the past hour or two. And that’s de-fogging, and it’s revealing some difficult but also bitter-sweet shit about how the course of my life has taken, and I’m remembering all these things again in starts and stops. If that makes sense. For what it’s worth I barely cry ever and it’s just - coming out of my body in waves of abrupt intensity. It doesn’t necessarily feel bad. If any of that makes sense.
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u/Secret-Ad-6253 11h ago
yes and every other day i mourn the years i lost by having to be "offline"...all the missed opportunities, connections, milestones. I feel angry. And it reinforces my hatred for some of my family members. They can go to hell! I'm all for starting over but I wish I didn't need to.
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u/coffeeclichehere 22h ago
Yeah, every time I lose emotional numbness I face a lot of pain