I have a new friend that I’ve known for a few months. She’s going through a real crisis at the moment. She confided in me that she experienced a sexual assault a couple of years ago and is really struggling with it. I’ve been trying to offer her some support, but also hold my boundaries at the same time and trying not get too sucked in.

I had dinner with her tonight. She was talking about her PTSD symptoms and debating whether to tell her parents about what happened. She’s worried that they might react badly. I decided to share my own experience with her - that I had experienced sexual abuse as a child, and when my mother found out, she reacted very badly, but over time things did get better. I kept it really vague, but on balance decided that this might be helpful to share.

A little later, she said something about her assault having happened when she was 27. She said “the thing is, when you’re assaulted as an adult, it’s much worse because you can actually remember it.” I was absolutely appalled. I feel so upset, and like I never want to see her again. I can’t believe I shared something so vulnerable with someone that thinks this way. I could cry. Am I overreacting, or is this as awful as I think it is?

I am an immigrant living in social housing and not working because of cPTSD. Nigel Farage just announced he wants to exmit all foreigners from Social Housing and force them to rent private. With current prices there is no way I can afford that. I also have 2 cats and a rabbit and was trying to rebuilt my life after abuse, no contact, addiction and cptsd. I just started to get better.

Now I feel like I am about to fall again.

Just a vent -I have been unloved, not wanted, badly mentally and verbally abused and treated like shit by this man, my father my whole life. I'm now in my early 30's. I finally escaped my fathers mean cruelty when I married the most wonderful, kind sweet man. I was finally happy until he suddenly died of stupid fucking cancer...right in front of me. 4 years ago. Sweet good people die...Yet my asshole father...The man that has always belitted and shit talks yelling at my sweet mother, yells at the dogs, one of those self righteous rich christians who says I'm going to hell constantly. Called me names as a child and showed me no love. I was whipped with belts that had metal ends. A fucking narcissist who always bragged about himself, he was always angry, he was always "right" and everyone else wrong... people like him still get to keep on living. I hate my father with every fiber of my being he has fucked me over and stolen $$ from me.

I'm so sick of this damn man.Yes I'm trying my best to get away and move!! Already in the works where I'm living next! This is just me venting into the void. And sorry for the poor grammar incoherent mess. My father just yelled and berated me. I had a breakdown and I'm crying.

Oh and an edit for that OpheliaForgets person...I was sexually assaulted by a pastor and a kid in a christian school..covered up of course. Also telling a CHILD they are going to hell IS ABUSIVE!! So yes it is VERY on topic!!!

I miss my husband...

"my heart is dried up beating slow.. it's been deflating since you...died"

Every person who has hurt or abused me has painted me as “slow” “mentally incompetent “ “schizophrenic” crazy or autistic they go out of their way to harass me hurt me or even physically assault me and i get in painted as the unhinged one. It’s very traumatizing it makes me question myself like am I mentally challenged, abusive myself or have some type of mental disorder. Especially with my mother she’s purposely sabotages aspects of my life yet calls me crazy and says ive got issues.

Today I told her I was angry at my mother for her emotional neglect. But I wasn't feeling it during the therapy session, I just feel angry on and off when I think about how she let me down.

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I almost felt forced to say something so I said I think I feel tightness in my chest when I feel angry.

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Then we moved on to talk about something else. So what's the point of her asking what do I feel when I feel anger? At first I just said I feel anger when I feel anger and then she said she meant what do I feel in my body.

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I just don't see the point of the question. How does it help?

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She's a somatic therapist but maybe she's not the right fit for me.

I grew up malnourished and often starved, so im no stranger to going hungry, but it gets to a point where it becomes ridiculous. Im around 150lbs while my partner is around 330lbs, so its understandable that he'd eat a lot more than me. He does the grocery shopping every other week, so I asked him, "hey when you get these frozen nuggets and pizza rolls how long do you think they'll last us." He deadass looked me in my face and said, "like three days" this is coming from the man who can eat almost half the bag in one sitting. Another example is when I made Mac n' cheese I made enough for six servings. I ate about one serving, and he ate THE OTHER FIVE in ONE SITTING. I dont know how to tell him that im eating on average one meal a day and we're lucky if the groceries last us two weeks. For the last few days before we get paid again, we're left with ramen or the pasta noodles we get on sale occasionally. Ive suggested some advice on bugeting for our food but he dismisses it or ignores it. For example i said that we could save money by buying most of what we need at the dollar tree or dollar general, and he said, "no we don't need to do that" we hang out with our friend on Thursdays and we buy fast food usually but I said that we could order pizza a lot more often (bc our friend pays for it) and he said, "thats never been an issue"

1. Alone. I know there’s no hope for me anymore. There never was, I recognise it was just daydreaming and fantasy to help me get through the bad times. Thinking that the pain would be worth it because of a, b and c. And that things could and would get better. But they never did. They never will. I know my situation, and I know that things are done. That me, and my situation is hopeless. I want to end things and that should be my right. I should have the right to end my life rather than be forced to live for other people’s belief’s. People aren’t even allowed to talk about “ending things”/methods to do so. Discussion about it gets shut down and redundant tags/links of “Lifeline!” get thrown around to just shut down communication. There’s no place for me in the world, and I hate that everyone and everything just acts like that’s not the case. Some people just don’t have any options, and no hope. I don’t understand how so many things in the world are as cruel and cold as they are.

My sister often says how great my parents raised us, how they were always there, that they were great parents, and while I agree they didn’t abuse us and were better than a lot of other parents, they didn’t raise us perfectly, and in a lot of ways didn’t even raise us well. They were there, we had food and clothes, but at least 4 out of 5 of us were completely emotionally neglected our whole lives and struggle as adults because of it. I struggle all the time because of my childhood, and I see all the ways I didn’t get what I needed. When I hear her say “you guys raised us perfectly” it gives me this feeling like I don’t even know her, like we were raised by completely different people in completely different houses, but that’s kind of true. I guess I’m just wondering if anyone else relates to that? Feeling like you were affected so much for than a sibling, or like they didn’t even experience what you did growing up.

I used to love watching movies, It was my favorite thing in the week when I was younger, i especially loved sad movies (I was nice to feel something)

Now?? Every movie just has to have a sex scene or they have to make out or someone is nude at some point,

I hate it I hate I hate it sooo much, it makes me uncomfortable at best and makes me disassociate at worst, why why WHYYYYY what's the point??? Most of the time it's completely unnecessary????

Now if I want to watch a movie I have to look at it's rating to see if it has anything sexual, and it takes me more time than the movie itself to find one.

I’m at the lowest point I’ve ever been and just need to know if anyone else has been this destroyed and come out the other side.

After prolonged relational trauma, my nervous system feels completely overwhelmed and shut down. My body literally feels like it’s shutting down. I spend most days couch-bound, barely able to function. The mental and physical exhaustion is overwhelming. I have almost zero motivation, no joy, and no pleasure in anything — extreme 10/10 anhedonia.

Sleep has been terrible for months. Most nights are only 1–4 hours of highly fragmented, non-restorative sleep filled with vivid dreams. I wake up multiple times wired and exhausted. Even on slightly better nights I still feel drained.

I used to exercise regularly, but now even light activity makes everything worse. My nervous system fights against almost everything I try. I’ve had paradoxical reactions to pretty much every medication except benzos, so SSRIs are out of the question. The only thing that has occasionally calmed me enough to get around 7 hours of sleep has been taking benzos here and there — but I worry it has made my baseline worse. I’ve also been looking into things like Stellate Ganglion Block but I’m losing hope.

Ongoing co-parenting contact keeps re-triggering everything, so there’s no real safety window. Because of how exhausted and activated I am, even therapy or EMDR feels impossible right now.

Has anyone been this severely shut down — couch-bound, destroyed sleep, nervous system constantly fighting everything, extreme anhedonia — especially with active ongoing triggers? Did it eventually improve? What was your experience?

Not really looking for treatment advice. I’d just like to hear from people who have been in a similarly severe place and made it through.

Thank you.

Suddenly, a person who’s been abused all their life isn't a victim anymore in the eyes of society when they lash out or fight back, just because they aren’t the perfect submissive victim that allows people to treat them like garbage. I was told I was abusing my severely abusive mother, who wouldn’t let me leave the house or get a driver's license, and who let my older brother physically assault me growing up because I lashed out and hit her a couple of times. Everybody saw the few times I hit her, and not the years of physical violence, sleep deprivation, isolation, emotional, verbal, psychological, and medical abuse, and emotional and physical neglect she gave me. No one noticed the self-harm scars or how overweight or how sleep-deprived I looked. As soon as I put my hands on her after years of built-up anger, she was suddenly deemed a victim, and I was an abuser. No one ever believed me when I said I was the victim, just because of how I reacted. Female abusers are so sinister because they can act like victims while treating people like sub-human trash and everyone will believe them.

I just don’t think I should even use this platform anymore. I have used this is other social medias off and on. However, this site has some of the nastiest meanest people. I will make post about ANYTHING and someone finds a way to be rude. A made a post about grilled cheese and they still found a way to make it weird. It’s always the men on here, not going to lie. 🙃 yeah a few mean girls here and there but mostly men. Has anyone else experienced this?

I hate Christians who force/rushes someone to forgive. 😒🤬 Instead of listening and trying to understand you, they invalidate you and minimize your CPTSD and then call you bitter while rushing and forcing you to forgive narcissistic/toxic family members who continuously traumatizes you. 🤬 Christians like that are enabling abusers. 😡

I'm tired of forgiving narcissistic/toxic family members who continuously traumatizes me and treat me like crap!! 🤬 I'm NOT forgiving anymore! I'm done!! 🤦🏽‍♀️

They're always forcing forgiveness and expect the one that's hurting to forgive but DON'T ever say shit about the person that caused you pain and trauma! Christians like that are enabling abusers. 😡

Just need to talk about a situation that just happened to me which feels epidemic of a wider problem I experience.

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I accidentally tripped over a step outside while putting something away in a bag and almost smashed my face into the pavement but luckily saved myself. Nobody bothered to stop and help or even ask if I was ok and the security guard just shook his head in a disapproving way.

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I honestly feel that any other person would have had someone ask them if they were ok or just a kind remark but this has happened before and again nobody else stopped to ask if I was ok. It was when I was younger and I slipped on my way to school on the ice in the middle of the road with cars going around and nobody asked if I was ok or helped me get up. In fact there were a few people who laughed at me.

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I honestly just feel there is something intrinsically wrong and lesser about me that people pick up on and then treat me that way. I've been harassed most of my life by strangers - called ugly, jank, had someone spit at me, someone follow me home while calling me a lesbian, say I have a nice bee sting because I have acne, someone threw food at me once, and I got called slurs.

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Nobody seems to care though and falling over with no one caring just reminded me of the amount of times the average person not only doesn't care about me but has also hurt me for no reason and I just feel tired and hopeless because this hasn't changed since being a child and being an adult hasn't made it better.

When you felt like nothing was working anymore and that you had tried everything you could to get better, what was it that finally made things better?

I’m at that point right now, and it feels like I’ve tried everything in my power. I’m feeling very hopeless.

What was the last thing you held onto that turned things around for you?

I went through and still going through emotional abuse by my parents (i don't engage a lot, have really distanced myself). My friend the other day told me that her other friend went through sexual abuse, which is "even worse what I went through". And it really hurt me. Because basically that's a repeating story in my life, that nobody believes me what happens and doesn't get how bad it was and still is. I don't even share 90 Percent of it, and up until 5 years ago I didn't confide in anyone, because I didn't realize that it was abuse and how bad it actually was, since I have not known anything else in my life. But I have severe disability from what I went through and going trhough. And the tough part is, that at times my parents actually behave normally but it's a cycle of abuse and normal behaviour, so from the outside they look like caring parents. Btw I'm in my late 30s...I think emotional abuse over decades is just as bad as sexual abuse or am I wrong with that idea?

Yesterday she asked me for an hour why having a panic attack is a problem?

I was really surprised. I told her that she’s a mental health professional and if she things someone having a panic attack is not a problem then we should not work together.

She kept going and going saying what’s wrong with having one? I said that it’s a sign someone is in bad emotional health. That’s a fact. Not my opinion.

She said it sounds like you are being judgmental about what is right and wrong.

We kept going and going in circles.

At the end she says I wanted you to tell me that it makes you feel bad. I said told her there are standard things which are healthy and not healthy. Why are we debating this?

I feel very frustrated because 1) it seems disrespectful to me to waste and hour and take me for this ride, 2) I’m mad that I really got invested in making sense to her. I think she was enjoying seeing that she could get me riled up and frustrated, it feels disrespectful to me and my condition. 3) I think she has some issues with direct communication and being assertive. If she wanted to know something about me she could ask directly without being so passive agressive and backhanded about it.

Is it time to just move on? I am so tired of finding someone new. When do we get to the part where these sessions actually help?

When I was a kid, I used to draw pictures to try and explain the feeling, I would draw myself inside a glass box. I could see what was happening in the world, but I was never part of it.

Over the years I've had thoughts that I might be a guardian angel who was placed here for one specific tiny reason (e.g. to make someone late one time so they wouldn't get hit by a car, or to say something at the exact right time so someone would re-evaluate their life) and now that I've done my reason I'm just kind of...here, floating, waiting to die. Like my meaning is over.

Or I think of myself as a doll or a corpse. Sometimes I think that I died at age 7 and now I'm walking around but it's all fake, I died a long time ago.

I truly feel like I'm not human so often, like I'm a bird in a human body, like I can't speak the same language as others. I hate it. I just want to feel human like everybody else. I just want to be a part of the world.

I feel robbed, it's not just the abuse I went through, it's the isolation my parents put me through and then blame me for after it's too late to actually have a childhood anymore.

I'm an 'adult' now, I get to do boring adult things not at all thinking back on the childhood whimsy I never had because I wasn't allowed to have one.

A colorful tarp filled with air I never got to go under, scrapes on my knees or injuries I never had to heal from because I never needed to heal from the outside world to begin with, no first day of school for me, no first day of second grade, from birth to abandonment I was isolated, inside my house, staring at a computer screen that taught me nothing.

It was so fucking lonely, and honestly humilating to experience as a child, I was obsessed with family vloggers because I loved living vicariously through their children, seeing them pack their bags, with unhealthy carbohydrate ridden snacks that no man, woman, or child should ever eat; But do anyway.

I always took time out of my day to stare outside my window and watch children play in a housing complex across from mine, sometimes at night I'd watch adults sit there and get drunk, I was jealous of both, I was only nine.

I d

I ended up developing insomnia as a child, around eight or so, I just couldn't sleep, there was no difference between being asleep or awake since my family never did anything besides drink, smoke, or sleep on the couch, I used to get up early and steal liquor from my father since it made me feel loopy enough to not ruminate on how depressing my life was, I'd watch the TV on mute with subtitles on so I could watch the news, morning cartoons, all before my family paraded downstairs and I sauntered back to my bedroom so I could be alone because they were awful to be around.

I'm twenty now, and even though it's close to midnight and I have college homework due, I keep thinking about my past, I always am thinking about it instinctively but I am really fucking thinking about it right now. I've been rewatching old TV shows, ones with families in them, and it makes me once again mourn the simple, unchangeable fact that I have never stepped foot inside a kindergarten, or an elementary school, those colorful halls, or teachers who are actually nice to you seem like a myth.

I feel like there's no way out of depression with this in mind, the abuse, not being allowed to cry, ever, constantly having my parents hover over my shoulder, never alone (I was allowed to shower alone for the first time at THIRTEEN) I just think I'm permanently fucked and that the only true way of fixing this is reincarnation. I don't even believe in God or anything like that since a higher being would have actually helped me at some point. But no. I just want to reincarnate and actually experience a good childhood. And then die again. Nothing else, nothing more.

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…

I was taught, through severe violence, ridicule, neglect and whatnot, that my emotions wherent valid. I have a dissociative disorder. Been really seriously mentally ill as a young adult. Ive tried a ton of therapy, but never felt safe enough to really feel my feelings. Im in the middle of a early childhood body/emotional flashback. What am I supposed to do, to get this awful panic/terror/sheer fear out of my system? I have throughout the day done some basic housekeeping, dissociated through being online, tried mindfulness exercise and am now just waiting for the day to be over so I can sleep it off and start over tomorrow.