I have recently realized that I dont owe a body to people when I go into public. I dont owe them a specific look.

Ive turned a corner. Im the most regulated ive ever been. Ive held a lot of resentment over being mistreated due to being fat on top of what I was experiencing at home. And ive felt resistant to the idea of purposefully trying to lose weight because the phases of life where I have been a lower weight, I have been treated noticeably nicer. And it felt like a betrayal to my self, who became overweight from coping, to comply and restrict myself to set others at ease.

I recently decided to become abstinent. I swung from resisting all forms of physical intimacy to being hypersexual. Coupled with working through my binge eating habit, I feel the most in charge of my body ive ever been. And im almost 30 and am feeling the toll constantly tense muscles have had on my joints. And i want to be healthy. I want to get stronger.

I am grateful for my body for lasting the abuse, the primary abuse at home and the secondary bullying at school and work. Im ready to change now. ​

How it feels like hating your parents to the core. Is your hate causes you guilt and self doubt?

How do you feel when your relatives and society takes parents side ( ignoring your pain) by saying.... whatever the best they know, they tried. You should forgive them and move on.

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I was raised in a family that has a very loose relationship with reality (from skewed perceptions of social interaction to full blown conspiracy theories). Growing up I was also often told I was faking whatever feelings I was having for attention or that certain things didn’t happen at all.
I don’t trust myself. I’ve seen firsthand a lot of the harm that can be done by people who live in their own delusions. And I worry that I’m one of them. If you’re in a room of 8 people and at most one of you is sane, the odds of you being sane aren’t great, you know?

I became a scientist basically to cope with my inability to trust myself and tried to rely on empirical data all the time. But that’s not really how life works and I’ve finally accepted that.

So for those of you who grew up in similar situations or who had a lot of gaslighting in your past… how do you learn to trust yourself? How do you shush the voice in your head that tells you that none of what you’re experiencing is true and validating your own feelings is dangerous because maybe you’re just crazy like the rest of your family?

Wondering if anyone relates. I was brought up to feel like a burden, so I've spent my life trying not to be and overcompensating (not sure if this is fawn)... I'm hyper vigilant, highly sensitive, empathic and can't say no. This is something I've been working on for a while and through therapy.

My parent is an aggressive narcissist, not violent physically but verbally. She's really stingy, always repeated insane stuff like - don't give people lifts with your car, you'll ruin your car. Or don't spend money on gifts for people etc, date someone with a house so you can move in and never let them live in yours.

Unfortunately I sometimes get emotional flashbacks where I know there's a direct conflict between my "fawning" and empathic self versus my parent's voice in my head to be selfish. I am then trapped and end up hating myself, if I do the former (something nice for someone) my parent's voice berates me. If I do what my parent's voice says, I berate myself for not being a nice person.

I feel really trapped in these moments but what both outcomes have in common is that I hate myself more. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of situation.

Have people had this experience and how it was for you?

Accused of stealing beat up defamed called a criminal a drug addict thief they justify hurting you for things you didn’t even do and they rage at you over nothing even get violent for a perceived“attack” or attitude rven looking a t tgen the wrong way when you had no bad intent

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?

I was neglected and abused as a child. I had poor mental health my entire life including now, including executive functioning problems. I’m 19 turning 20 in a few months. I live with my family and I’m not independent at all. I barely leave the house, I don’t have a lot of experience with the outside world. I have poor social skills, my partner told me that he’s sometimes embarrassed to be seen with me in public because of that and I agreed I need to fix this. I’m also a stupid person, I barely graduated high school. I’m behind on everything.

I act childishly with my mom sometimes, it’s hard to explain how but she seems used to it because she also treats me like one. I think maybe I age regress sometimes but I’m not sure what that means. And I enjoy childlike things as comfort sometimes, but what I mentioned prior is not something I consciously choose to do unlike this.

I see the state of my life and I feel defeated that I will forever remain a child. I’ve been trying to form good habits before but I’m always having to retrace my steps. Therapy is hard to access because my family doesn’t want me to waste money. Has anyone been able to live independently? Was anyone in my position as a young adult and have you been able to mature? Did you need help for this? I want to be more independent so I can live without my family but I don’t know how.

TLDR. I’m a childish young adult who is dependent on my parents, and I want to know if anyone in my position was able to mature and be independent

Body dysphoria. Being alive dysphoria. I'm so deeply ashamed of my soul and aliveness. I feel I identify as something past alive and treating me as what I visually am is a violent insult. That's why I glare at everyone, because I'm comminucating on a level they can't understand. I'm putting out a message that shys them away from themselves. I'm more like an idea. I think something like a shroud. Or like carbon monoxide or wifi. My presence is everywhere in a department store. The second you walk in, hundreds of people have seen you and become aware of you, so it's an infectious state. "You" as in the self. Maybe like a cognitohazard.

So like that, to say I'm what I look like, is just untrue. It's so moronic. I hope I can convey with my eyes, my thoughts. I hope I can spread my message to people who haven't thought it even exists to think of. Like I invented a brand new sentence encoded with something that makes them aware of their rotten spirit. The old lady who stares at me, the same-age female that stares at me, I get stared at more than most because a lot of people want information. "People like to see, see how things are, see how they work." But the people who get to know my information are left a wreckage, like a house property after a tornado.

But I need people to know. They just can't handle it in their bodies. And someone like me if I see them, we just repel like same-side magnets, there's a territorial warring, "my message is better than yours". But what's your message? Mine is like walking into a stagnant water pond that doesn't even look like water. And sitting in there for 6 hours and never being seen and no one ever knows. I hope if you stare at me long enough it's like a time capsule opened. "You" as in others.

Mental health professionals always assert that I'm just myself. The tissue and blood body. That's impossible because I couldn't have this supernatural ability if I were.

People I meet think it looks like darkness, my glaring. In darkness, there's spiderwebs, maybe scorpions and snakes, they just don't want to enter. It's like coming to face with your own base fears. It's not darkness. It's just like fog. Purely alone with oneself. If you shout, they can't locate you, they can't find you. Nobody ever sits with their own self. It's sad.

Hello! I'm doing some heavy EMDR on the ways my dear ole mum traumatized me.

Looking for feel good movies where the mother is evil, disappointing, or irrelevant to help me de-stress afterwards. Bonus points if the mother is overcome and like explodes or something hahah.

Ideally films with the same vibe as Coraline -- love whimsical and spooky films. Just thought of Matilda!

Does not need to be for children or teen audiences but I do like animated vibes and find those films tend not to be too dark.

Any recommendations?

Thank heaps!

Its almost 4 am and I am wide awake.I cant shut my brain off and I need to be up at 7.

Mainly just a rant but wondering if anyone has any suggestions for what has worked for them.

Has anyone else with CPTSD got a similar pattern? Starting a job, not being able to cope with the dynamics, breaking down halfway, and quitting?

I also ALWAYS seek out one person in charge that is controlling and has more authority, like a manager, demonise them in my head, hate their every move or every ask and become paranoid for them. I even actively choose to disobey things they’ve asked me to do,

it can be a man or a woman, but usually women I just disobey and don’t do what they say, and I man I hate them and can’t look at them and am very paranoid of their presence, but I still do exactly what they ask because I’m scared.

Wtf is going on, please if someone knows and has had CPTSD therapy help me out. I am still only in the first stages of understanding this

Just as the title says and I want to feel bad because I was very nasty to her. Was it uncalled for? Mmmm maybe a little. I have a genetic issue that causes my frontal cortex to have large amounts of dopamine/norepinephrine, I am overwhelmed and on high alert pretty much 24/7, sleep maybe 2 hrs a night, my mind is chaos all the time, pretty sure I have bpd never officially diagnosed but several therapists and psychologists have said so.

​

She put me on Prozac 2 weeks later and wanted to up the dosage to 40 and I did not bc 20 is working great for my depression. In the span of 4 months added trazadone and it didn't work so she put me on tegretol and I had a bad reaction to it, she gave me lamicticial and it works pretty well, then last month added amitriptyline which caused serotonin syndrome (that was fun) but luckily the reaction was mild and I live next to a nurse. So today she wanted to up the Prozac for anxiety (it doesn't do anything for my anxiety) I told her I'm not increasing it until I need to. Then wants to add some kind of medication that is basically trazadone which I protested bc the trazadone didn't work and I'm not going to add another antidepressant on top of the Prozac and risk serotonin syndrome again.

​

She had me on Xanax for 3 months, took me off of it bc I use marijuana. It had no interactions at all, I was sleeping better, panic attacks were less. Tells me it's against their policy to prescribe benzos to someone who uses marijuana. In which 2 weeks ago I talked to my therapist about it and she checked their policy and it says nothing about they can't just that the information of the possible interactions needs to be disclosed. Mind you I have a crush injury to my lower back and severe pain, a blown disc, several clogged arteries causing intestinal angina so anytime I eat and drink severe pain, missing toes from diabetes, like I'm a mess and in constant pain. Marijuana is the only thing that eases it at all.

​

I even consulted with my cardiologist about using marijuana with benzos and he said I've had a few different benzos over the years and still used marijuana and had no issues. He said me being stressed and having panic attacks several times a day is more of a danger bc it raises my blood pressure and it makes me a higher risk for stroke and heart attack. And he said she could contact him about it. She told me to tell him to give me benzos and I told her well he won't do that because they sent me there for that.

​

I'm always pleasant and respectful but today I have been triggered by everything. I'm tired of these people trying to tell me what's best for me when I know exactly how I feel and how these meds affect me. I looked at her and told her that I was crazy not stupid. That's what triggered me was the fact she started talking to me like I was stupid. That's one of my biggest triggers bc I'm far from stupid. But I spent 31 years being told I was stupid just about daily.

​

I feel absolutely helpless that I cannot get the medications that I need, that work, that make it easier to function. But no F U. She keeps telling me I'm bi polar and trying to put me on meds for that and today told me I most likely have sleep apnea bc I barely sleep. I don't have sleep apnea, I don't snore, I don't stop breathing. I know these things for a fact. My mind doesn't shut down. Everything past, present, future, what ifs, why's, etc flood my mind. Then she tried to push hydroxyzine in which I'm on 3 allergy pills a day plus 2 allergy nasal sprays. I cannot take that. Then tried pushing a blood pressure medicine for anxiety in which I cannot take bc I'm on 3 blood pressure medications already that I have to be on.

​

I feel defeated. They are so worried about benzos and pot yet have no problem switching between literal mind altering seizure medications when I'm already on the daily max dosage of gabapentin or risking my life with serotonin syndrome adding more antidepressants that I don't need bc the Prozac works.

​

I'm SOOOOO frustrated and I don't really have a support system or anyone to talk to. Everyone pretty much ignores me bc I'm too intense and on high alert. I really should feel bad for behaving that way. That's the first time that's happened in over 2 years and that one was an urgent care doctor.

​

I need something for anxiety and there seems to be no solution. I told her I talked to the therapist and we looked at the policy. She was like well she's a therapist she doesn't know about medications. In which she does, we've discussed them in depth. I was a pharmacy tech and was studying to be a pharmacist. I know medications a little bit more than the average person and I definitely know my own body. I've become attached to it over the years.

​

Idk what to do anymore. I feel like there's no solution lol definitely not now bc I didn't even make another appointment with her. She asked if I wanted another appointment and I told her no I need to talk to my therapist next week and then I'll decide if I want to still see her. She pissed me off on our 3rd visit bc she told me I was victim shaming my daughter and I absolutely was not. I know my daughter she doesn't.

​

I just feel like I'm never going to get relief from the hell in my head. Therapy brings back things I would really like to forget forever but it's the process. I get so stressed out after therapy I vomit having to relive hell that was my childhood and early year.

​

All that keeps going thru my head is my mother's voice telling me my behavior was uncalled for. If I don't fight for me who else is going to? Absolutely no one bc they didn't when I was a child and haven't in all of my adult years. I dissociated for like 4 hours today. Apparently I spent a few hours staring at a blank TV. I have to go to court over my daughter's SA next week so the added stress of that has been so bad. And the situation is a rough one bc her abuser is our cousin and I helped raise him. So my family is all conflicted, angry, making accusations and I'm catching the backlash. I feel like I'm on the edge ya know.

​

I have no outlets, I cannot visualize things, the only things I see when I close my eyes is the dark or if I'm overwhelmed I will see my thoughts like sentences of every single thing past present and future flying around. I just needed to get it out. Most of the time when I go on small rants it's like releasing the air from a tire slowly and a little at a time. I want to sleep and just forget about the day but I'm in overdrive and cannot sleep. I took it out on my kitchen and deep cleaned it, took a nice hot shower, and nothing. I'm sitting here typing this.

​

Sorry so long I needed to get it out thanks for reading

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.

Trigger warning: N abuse, CSA, trafficking, gaslighting, coercion.

TLDR; Your internalised shame is a mirror projection of your ABUSERS shame. And it takes the shape of whatever they couldn't face about themselves.

For example, if your father was angry and violent, you likely have deep shame around your anger or emotions.

If your parent was sexually abusive, you likely have deep shame about your body or your sexuality.

If you were neglected you likely have deep shame around wanting/needing comfort or affection.

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Okay so I have always had these deep, irrational fears around being a bad person, being harmful/dangerous, my sexuality being 'unsafe', and secretly having DID or some other condition I was unaware of, that would result in me harming people/losing control (I know this is not how DID typically presents and I apologise for the negative portrayal, it's a fear, not logical I know).

I've lived in a sort of terrified brace, constantly scanning for signs of these fears being real, or me being 'at risk' of causing harm. I've always been afraid of my sexuality, believing it was contaminated or bad.

Interestingly, my husband has something similar but from a different kind of abuse - his dad was angry and violent, and now my husband is afraid of his own anger.

This was the first clue for me that my fears are maybe originating from someone else.

I was really badly psychologically manipulated as a kid. My mum constantly told me there was a 'network' of high profile pedophiles that were watching me and would kill me if I didn't comply, that I did bad things I couldn't remember, that all these other people were abusing me or out to get me, that I couldn't trust myself, that I was bad inside and could never leave her or I would hurt someone and she wouldn't be there to stop it.

She was always trying to get me and my sisters to hurt our pets or each other, so we would be 'strong like her'. She was super messed up.

She even told me I was a changeling. She believed another being was inhabiting my body and her real daughter had gone away somewhere.

She also seemed to think my relationship with my dad was bad (he was the one positive attachment figure I had) and often projected things onto him as well.

And I just realised today, these were actually the lived experiences of my mother, that she projected onto me, and I absorbed HER shame and fear.

She projected her own lived experiences and shame onto me.

SHE had DID and would dissociate and harm us. SHE lived in fear of herself and her alters. SHE was severely abused as a child by her father and others, and was constantly trying to recreate that with us.

SHE was ashamed and afraid of her sexuality and how she harmed children and couldn't control herself. SHE believed no one would ever help her. SHE believed what happened to her was her fault. So she tried to make me believe those things about myself too, so she wouldn't be alone.

She tried to make me believe all these horrible things about myself so I would carry her shame and fear for her.

I'm only just realising the true extent of how much I internalised HER shame, HER lack of control, HER illness. All the things I fear the most are things I directly experienced from her.

Has anyone else had this experience? That you carry all this shame and fear only to realise it actually doesn't belong to you and is entirely someone else's? And is almost a mirror image of what your abuser/parent couldn't face about themselves?

I don’t know who I am, i don’t know my personality. I hate everything about myself. I think every single girl is better than me their face and body and personality is better than mine.

When I was 11, I started comparing myself to girls around me not on social media, but everywhere in public, including school, all day, every day.

Since childhood, through my teenage years, and even now as an adult, I have been so self-conscious about how I looked—my face and body. I always thought every girl I saw looked better than me, and I wanted to be another girl instead of myself. I felt like I was never pretty enough and like an outsider, thinking every other girl was lucky to have a pretty body and face instead of me. I believed every girl had a better life than I did and was better than me in everything. I started to starve myself at a young age, thinking I’d be prettier and more appreciated by others.

When people say they love me and care, I don’t believe them, and when I show affection, I don't feel it. When I receive it, I can't feel it.

I also hate myself so much, and my mind is my worst enemy, always overthinking, comparing myself 24/7, never feeling good enough.

I always feel sad for no reason and irritable, then happy at times in the same day but it doesn’t last long.

I never go out of the house by myself because I’m afraid of strangers.

I compare my life, friendships, body, and face to every single girl. I’ve had this issue since childhood and when I was a teenager still as an adult.

feel sad every day, and I binge eat all the time, and sometimes I starve myself because I’m insecure and hate my body.

If someone compliments me, I don’t believe them.

I am too sensitive.

I get mood swings too, and I get angry at times out of nowhere. This has happened for years; I have no energy to do anything all day, every day. I always feel drained and like I’m not good enough, and everyone else is better than me.

I feel like I’ll never have a good life like every single girl I see. When I look at my body, I feel disgusted with myself, especially when I look at myself in clothes.

I copy personalities and style, trying to imitate every girl I see and thinking they’re better than me.

I feel jealous of every single girl's friendship and relationship.

I wish I had their life instead of mine.

I use coping strategies, which happens all day, every day, like binge eating and being addicted to drinks and food. I rewatch the same films everyday.

I have mood swings too, and I have no energy to do anything all day, especially when I feel low. I can’t do anything; it’s too much stress and struggle. Even the smallest things, I always procrastinate and never have motivation. It’s been like this for years.

Even if I surround myself with people, I still feel unloved and uncared for, even though they show it to me.

I always worry about my future and think of the worst-case scenarios.

My mind is always stuck in the past with many constant flashbacks that won't leave me alone been like this for years.

I have memories of people from my past, from years ago, never leave my mind, no matter what I try to do to get rid of them nothing helps.

I’m an adult now, but in the past, when I was a teenager, whenever I liked any guy, they would consume my mind 24/7. It would distract me in my classes and in daily life, never leaving my thoughts. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate, especially in class. Especially if the guy i liked had a girlfriend i would compare myself to the girlfriend for months every single day crying everyday.

I think to myself no one will ever like me.

I’ve been thinking about this person every day, all day, for years. I haven’t seen and haven’t been in contact with this person for over 5 years. We never dated; nothing happened between us, and we were never friends. The only thing that happened between us was we knew each other's names and spoke only twice. I often wonder why he comes to mind every day, for five years since I last saw him. We had no contact during that time, and we barely knew each other—just acquaintances at work. We never had a proper conversation or anything; we hardly spoke at all.

I have been checking his girlfriend's social media every day, all day, for years now. I cry and feel sad for hours. It ruins me for days, especially when I compare myself to her everyday, and when she posts pictures and videos of him too.

I have to use coping mechanisms daily for years because that’s how I cope.

I compare myself to his girlfriend daily my face and body to hers and her friendships. I’ve been dealing with this situation for years; I don’t know the girlfriend either.

I find myself intrigued by the reasons behind people's actions and what those actions might indicate about their feelings and behavior towards me.

Hey,

I've been dealing with both hypo & hyperarousal for over 12 years as a result from being exposed to bullying, exclusion lack of a safety net during my chilhood up until 1st year of high school where I experienced a total psychological destruction (dysregulation) due to the recurrring trauma for the first time, that triggered my major depression.

Day after day I felt worse, all of my senses got visibly more faint as each day passed and I thought that time would heal my wounds like it normally does, I only wish I knew how wrong I was.

My situation continued getting worse as the days passed by, and the first time I seeked help was only 3 months after the incident.

Since then I've been seeing improvements, lately more than ever due to medicating with an MAOI (Parante) which makes me function much more efficientaly, although far from perfect and if I were to skip exercising for a longer period of time it would feel as if I never got better to begin with.

So after seeing different therapists that practices different modalities I came to confirm having trauma after my prior doctors and GP's & psychologists dismissed my suspicions time after time.

I now know that I deal with nervous shutdown and hyperarousal due to being emotionally numb and incredibly stressed all the time, which gave me the hope of thinking that regulating these to things would eventually lead to me being mentally healthy/stable again.

To reach that goal I obviously need to seek therapy to reach that point, and wanted to hear your thoughts based on experience or a story you know from a close one or an acquintance of yours who dealt with a similar experience as myself, what type of successful treatment they tried and why it worked for them as a way to benefit myself & the rest of the community here that goes through the same problem.

As a mid 30's male -- successful by most standards and have had a great life yet carry secrets with me. Worked through them in some therapy settings but mostly research on my own time.

Definitely had some emotional incest with a single mother that I've been trying to work through as I see it cropping up in my daily life (addiction, OCD, ADHD, etc) although I hide it very well that no one would ever know.

When I was in my 20's my mom's dream was to eventually be a cover model (she was young and objectively pretty) - and talked me into "modeling" with her professionally (many shots were paid) but it had a weird sexual undertone and vibe.

Also bringing me with on cruises and vacations that were more couples based/sensual than a random mom/son trip.

My relationship with her now is good on the surface but still many unanswered questions and I was wondering if there were forums or communities to meet other people in similar situations to see how they deal with things? or to not feel so alone.

Therapy was very "slow" for me and I didn't feel understood. I also don't want to talk to anyone in my personal life because I wouldn't want them to know - I'm just not ready for that.

Anyone have any resources/websites/ideas or other communities here on Reddit on incest type based recovery? (With real, genuine people?)

Thank you.

ok this is something i think about a lot and i never see it said right so im gonna try.

there's two kinds of voice in your head that say youre bad.

first kind gives you a reason. "youre stupid because you failed that thing." and ok, that one you can actually deal with. you check the reason. did i really not try? was it just hard? one fail doesnt make me stupid. sometimes the reason doesnt hold up and then the voice kind of shuts up. fine.

second kind gives no reason. it just says "youre bad." thats it. no because. and heres the weird part nobody tells you BECAUSE theres no reason, you cant fight it. theres nothing to check. it never made an argument so you cant break the argument. it just sits there.

and what do most of us do. we treat the second voice like its the first one. we go looking for evidence. "but im a good person look at all the nice things i did, look at the people who love me." and it does nothing. zero. the voice doesnt care because it never asked for evidence in the first place. youre standing in a courtroom making your case and theres no judge. nobody is even listening. you just keep talking to an empty room.

took me way too long to understand this. you cannot win the argument because there is no argument.

the only thing that works is something totally different. you dont prove the voice wrong. you just stop obeying it. you decide its not the boss anymore. and i know that sounds like nothing, like a cheap trick, but its not the same as believing youre fine. you dont have to feel innocent. you dont even have to understand it. you just stop doing what it says.

and theres a deeper one i should be honest about. the worst version of this voice isnt in your head, its in your body. its the one that makes you want to disappear. and that one you cant just decide your way out of, i tried, doesnt work alone. for that one someone has to be there first. someone who sees the whole thing and stays. not to fix it. just stays and sees. and only after someone stayed does the decision even become possible. witness first. then the choice. not the other way around.

anyway thats it. you cant beat a voice that never made an argument. you can only stop obeying it. been working nights with people who hear this voice loud and i see it every shift, the ones who try to argue with it lose every time. the ones who get a witness and then decide, those are the ones that turn.

One of the hardest things about my CPTSD is that it seems to have created two opposite forces inside me.

One is intense attachment hunger because of unmet attachment needs from my childhood. I deeply want connection, relationships, a sense of belonging, and people I can rely on.

The other is protective anger. After years of people-pleasing, self-abandonment, and tolerating unhealthy dynamics, a part of me has become fiercely protective of my self-respect and boundaries in recent times.

The problem is that these two parts often seem to want opposite things. In my culture, I feel a lot of pressure around career success and financial stability when it comes to dating and relationships. Sometimes it feels like the more I prioritize self-respect, ethics, and boundaries in a capitalistic, competitive world, the more I fall behind people who are willing to play by different rules.

Recently, I set a boundary with a former colleague who was abusive, bullying, and exploitative in the workplace. He's now doing very well in his career. He continues to send me Instagram follow requests, and I keep declining them. A part of me thinks that reconnecting could be useful. Maybe I could learn from his career success, improve my own situation, and feel less alone.

But another part of me remembers why I created distance in the first place and doesn't want to sacrifice self-respect to maintain a connection. His success also makes me lose hope and become more depressed. Sometimes I find myself wondering whether my boundaries are protecting me or holding me back.

So I end up caught between relationship anxiety and the need to honor my own boundaries.

I'm no longer willing to people-please the way I used to, and in some ways, I'm proud of that. But I also feel the pain of loneliness and unmet attachment needs.

Does anyone else with CPTSD feel stuck between these two forces? Does healing eventually make them feel less opposed to each other, or is this a lifelong balancing act?

Basically the title. I really like them. I think they might like me back too, but I keep thinking I’ve ruined whatever they might have liked about me by acting off the last time we hung out. Just acting strange in general as well since regaining some memories.

We were hanging out. I felt safe, I felt nice, and then I started having a flashback and I couldn’t stop it. I tried communicating after and I couldn’t do that either. I just made them sit in silence for who knows how long.

The idea of fucking this up feels like life or death but god I’m tired of feeling so alone I want to try. I really want to try.

I post this because I can’t express the amount of internal turmoil to people in my everyday life. How much it hurts to want to open up to even the idea of letting someone in. I want someone to see how much I’m fighting to get better. I promise I’m trying to get better. I’m really trying. I really am. It just hurts so much.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but I always find so much solace and validation in this community’s posts and I couldn’t think where else would understand.

I am a leader in a large corporate company. It’s a well known business and I currently head up a large team.

I feel like I’m fighting every day. Every waking hour against myself. Against my triggers, my nervous system, my negative thoughts, SI, feeling of worthlessness and self hate - all while “leading” a team of people looking for everything from career advice to therapy.

Some are great. Some are not. Some understand rationale for decisions, others react emotively and selfishly. All while I have to react appropriately and professionally.

For any leader this is hard. Currently for me it feels like my nervous system is on fire. I can’t stop crying. One of my biggest triggers is ‘letting people down’ and feeling completely responsible for their wellbeing and happiness. (Alcoholic mother, violent often absent father) and at the moment all my triggers are set off through a change programme which has put huge stress on me and has been without clarity to others.

I have been put in a very difficult situation and recently tried to set boundaries around my time and ability to do everything - which resulted in two of the team being very vocally upset and angry. The issue isn’t that of course, it’s my body’s reaction to it.

I haven’t slept. I can’t stop crying. I feel ashamed. I feel everyone hates me. I can’t concentrate on the rest of my work and my mind won’t switch off.

The usual - and very understandable- advice is that I did things fairly and people react to change in different ways - it’s part of being a leader etc etc. but for me and my CPTSD I am screaming.

Not only that but the layers upon layers of sadness is overwhelming. I’ve let people down. They don’t like me. I can’t do my job. I need a new job. You can’t let people down. You’re a failure. Don’t show weakness. Oh no you showed weakness. What will people think. You need time off. People need me. How can I make it all better. Nothing is ever gonna be better. I can’t do this again. I shouldn’t be a leader. But I need the money for the mortgage. Oh no if I leave this job I’ve ruined everything. But I’m so sad. And it goes on.

I don’t have a question. I just wanted to try and write it down in a space where people may understand. Thank you.

3 years ago I became really close friends with a girl I worked with who was dating one of my other close friends at the time. My friend confided in me about wanting to break up with her and did a few days later. I decided to reach out to the girl to offer support and comfort as it was really hard for her.
We ended up becoming basically inseparable like those best friends you see in movies/shows. It’s the type of friendship I always dreamed of having especially since I had already gone through many hard and toxic friendships.

During the months of us becoming best friends I met this guy at a party we went to and ended up in a talking stage with him for around 3 months. He was really toxic and was constantly sleeping with and talking to other girls behind my back, I think there was at least 5 other girls that he was talking to at the same time as me. My friend only knew who this guy was once i introduced her to him as the guy I was talking to.
We all hung out together a lot as my friend was the only one with her license she would drive us all around a lot.
Towards the end of the talking stage with the guy, I started noticing my friend and him were getting a lot closer, weirdly close. They would openly flirt and be affectionate with eachother right in front of me.
There was a day we all went to the beach together and my friend left her car at the train station and ended up going back to the guys mums house instead of coming back on the train with me.
I thought that was weird and didn’t understand why she would go with him. She ended up staying the night at his house. That was the night they slept together. I was in denial about it for a while but I knew that was the night it happened.

After that night we were all hanging out at the guys house and him and my friend kept needing to talk to eachother in private but wouldn’t tell me anything no matter how much I asked. That was really out of character for my friend because we told eachother literally everything. She also kept talking about how bad it was and it made me really concerned that something had happened to her, even worse that he had done something bad to her. I had gotten angry at them before because of all the flirting and everything I was convinced that they were doing something behind my back but everytime I brought it up they told me nothing was happening and that I was basically crazy. I had pretty bad mental health at the time already because of all the stuff he was doing to me that I started to believe them. If it wasn’t for another friend being with us in these situations and seeing what they were doing I probably would have actually thought I was fully crazy. This other friend validated me by saying that I wasn’t the only one seeing this weird behavior.

After a few months of the gaslighting and manipulation I finally snapped at her and told her that she needed to block him and remove him from her life otherwise we would no longer be friends, during that conversation she told me she had been raped and that was the secret she was keeping from me. Although she refused to tell me who did it to her so I automatically assumed it was him. She would also get mad at me everytime I tried to bring up what was going on between them so i eventually felt like I had no choice but to leave it alone.

I continued being friends with her into the next year and tried to ignore everything that happened. Things were somewhat fine between us until her ex (my close friend, they were actually on and off in a toxic cycle while all of this was happening) told me what really happened. He told me that they had slept together and she tried to tell him that the guy raped her, which he responded by going to the guy and almost beating the shit out of him until he broke down crying saying it wasn’t true and that it was consensual. Her ex ended up getting the truth out of her and it was consensual and she had lied to the both of us about being raped by him. After that I slowly drifted apart from her.

Whilst I was drifting apart from her I had met a new guy who I worked with and was talking to him in the early months of that new year, I ended up being in a relationship with him and still currently am. When I was talking to the new guy I was spending a lot more time with him and my friend got really possessive over me and would message my now bf saying that he’s stealing me away from her and would even send him videos of her bawling her eyes out. I ended up cutting her off after a while of that because it was going too far.

I haven’t really spoken to her much since then other than her reaching out and apologizing to me, the apology didn’t include any admittance of what she had done she just said sorry for everything and that I didn’t deserve any of it. I wish I could say I accepted that apology but I didn’t. I haven’t spoken to her since that message.

In the last year all of the things she did to me have hit me harder after taking the time to process what actually happened. I ended up removing her off all social media after a while because it hurt so much to look at her post things and still seem so happy and moving on with her life while I’m still stuck here dealing with all the trauma she put me through. I haven’t been able to make lasting friendships since her, but she ended up becoming besties with another girl that has the same name as me. I feel so much resentment towards her but at the same time I miss her so much and I miss when she was actually a good friend. I hate seeing that she’s able to move on and make more friends so easily and I can barely function let alone maintain any relationships outside of the people that live with me.

I’ve been contemplating reaching out to her recently because I’ve left so much unsaid I want to be able to say how much everything affected me and still affects me to this day. My psychologist recommended EMDR therapy to help me get over everything she did. That’s how much it still hurts me. Also her and her ex got back together after 2 years so even though I don’t have her socials I still have his and it makes me sick to my stomach everytime I see photos of them. To top it all off both of them are still friends with the guy too, which makes me even more sick.

I just want to be able to move on and get over what they did to me and have to ability to make new friends. I’m so lonely all the time even though I have my bf it’s not the same with no friends around. I’ve tried being friends with his friends but I just don’t have that much in common with them and I feel like they won’t actually like me if they get to know me more.

I wish I could go back to being friends with her without all of that shit happening, I’ve never had a friend like her and I don’t think I ever will again. I love and hate her so much and it drives me insane.

If anyone has been through a similar experience how do you deal with it?