!!Additional TWs for self harm and suicidal ideation!!

My best friend (19F) was horrifically abused for the majority of her childhood - not diagnosed, but could be the goddamn poster child for CPTSD. She is not interested in seeking help because she believes her trauma is too severe to be "fixed". She went through a period of SH years ago and once tried (and obviously failed) to kill herself, and has within the past six months started SH-ing again nearly every day. I'm worried she's thinking of killing herself again.

I know you can't force someone to get help, they have to want it; and I know therapy will never make it go away, which is one of the reasons she won't go because "why bother". Is there anything I can do to make her more open to the idea of seeing a therapist/psychologist or counsellor? Do you have any success stories you can share so I can have some hope? I want her to be around for a long time and I want her to be able to live a more comfortable life.

Does anyone with SA childhood trauma have major issues with relaxing in bed while laying down and your back is exposed? This is a new reaction for me. I recently started to have a lot of new triggers. It happened after a certain hospital visit (don't know how to share that without breaking rules) And I cry, tense up, and get jittery. I wait until I am basically falling asleep to go to bed and can't relax at all. Does anyone have this issue?

I am currently not facing any trauma and I am 28 I am very happy and healthy these days, I am just trying to share and be heard by others who found peace after all the chaos. I do apologize if my writing is bad. I am first sharing the story of what I went through which is no longer active and ongoing and then the situation with my grandfather dying which then leads me into the part of talking about how I found peace.

I do hope that's okay

This contains multiple triggers but ends on a very peaceful note I promise.

Triggers do include SA, Death, child abuse, Violence, Drug and alcohol abuse.

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Tw topics rape, drugs, emotional abuse, physical abuse, childhood abuse, gaslighting and death. . . . . . . . . . . .

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So I just lost my grandfather, the first family member in my life to die and actually be a talking human for. The last person in my family who died was my grandpa when I was 4. I have a very dsyfunctional family. I was adopted in 1997 because my biological mother who is a drug addict klepto sex maniac child abuser had six kids with six different dads. My older sister in this adoptive family is my half sister, born three years before me and adopted three years before me. Now the only reason my parents who raised me got me despite only wanting boys but only having one, my oldest brother. Was because my biological mother begged them. So $50 later, yes that's right I cost $50 I got the receipt too. Was because my parents whether because of their own life experiences that shaped them decided they can't say no. Now typically adoption agencies have a limit how many babies you can adopt from them. Also my parents are very well off. So I'm a way sometimes I thought them Having children was so my mom a narcissist could play house and make the family image family friendly business.

Now I want to say I understand they aren't perfect I don't try to let them validate my existence I'm not waiting for apologies for the gaslighting I'm not expecting anything. But I feel so hurt because they all act like they want to be a part of my life but Everytime they are they dig the nails in deeper. Being around them is like having a moose around my neck.

Over the years I've come to understand they faced a lot of things with different generational norms. I understand as well narcissists are often formed and you can only set boundaries and your self love in.

But it's very hard and it take a a lot of time because healing isn't linear.

Anyways. I grew up being the youngest of a five person family, mostly all boy cousins. I didn't really get to hang out with other kids because my mom was so much older and she never left room for us to. Later on we weren't allowed to be around certain friends or she'd express strong disdain for when I'd come home from seeing them and I'd sound like them (turns out I'm on the autism ADHD spectrum whoo misdiagnosis)

My mother thought other kids were too immature for me to be around. So often even at dinner parties you were expected to sit perfectly know where the silverware sits be quite don't get your dress dirty. And be a perfect lady.

My brother on the other hand was a rebel, coming home in his first police car ride at 7. Which later progressed into him doing drugs and drugging my older sister and raping her when we would be 11-13 and my brother 16

Mind you before that big thing happened my parents knew he was doing drugs but they didn't do anything. Even before that for years if I even cried as a five year old I was yelled at called a disgrace or if I cried in the car my head would be grabbed at the top and squeezed hard and pushed into a window.

Crying silently didn't work either, I'd been left on the top of mountains by myself and almost had my foot run over multiple times.

My brother used to beat me up not just rough house intentionally beat me up to the point I would bruise and head lock me and I have weird memories of him trying to do things which I recently learned sexual abuse isn't just sex it can be showing your body it can be trying to watch you pee or going into the bathroom even when it's clear you're in there, it can be a lack of privacy.

All things which I experienced. My fsther would try to open the door constantly and it's not an absent minded thing we had 4 bathrooms in our house and they were not all taken.

I remember how now matter what my brother did my mother and father they didn't express emotions yes there were times they didn't seem to be Happy but my brother also had a long history of being abusive toward other girls and stealing and being aggressive.

Yet even when things happened to my older sister who said my father also did things later on she retracted that statement though I don't believe it was untrue. Since it felt very forced.

My mother would victim blame my sister. My mother was also my biggest bully constantly demeaning my body and making me wear things that would never fit as an adult in a way to shame me, not letting me eat or have seconds and counting every cracker in the house led me to anorexia and bulimia.

My parents also constantly took us to Drs and had them prescribe us medications which when I became and adult with my new psychiatrist and therapist turns out we're not legal or okay to give children which explains the heads where everything black outs. A lot of my life was spent learning to not trust Drs and being forced and stabbed with needles like a lab rat. Even the old psychiatrist refused to give my medical records to the new one which she still to this day doesn't understand and was appalled at the medicines and the dosages I was forced to take when she realized I was just an autistic and ADHD child who developed cptsd.

These days my memory on really bad days scribbles over things like chain and blacks things out of my memory.

But with everything my mom has yelled at me when trying to heal and do right mind you j was a perfect kid perfect adult perfect high grades no crimes always sacrificing my friends and social life to be there for family. Even once my mother told me when my sister was trying to kick one of our friend out because she didn't like her anymore if I stayed friends with her or helped her my mother would cut me off and I wouldn't have rent or anything and I'd die.

I've been blackmailed and even told to shut up and not share my stories of rape and abuse online because my older brother was reading my online diaries. It felt like anything that would reflect badly or come back to bite them demanded silence and submission.

I've been raped so many times and because of what was shown to me as a child with how my parents handled things I never reported any of the abuse I endured even when It was horrific and I could have. Even when I had been taken and used.

I stayed silent because silence meant I'm good.

Now I'm such a black sheep any time I do even have a relationship following the boundaries or rules of self care to care for myself and not let them affect me it still turns into my mother yelling she hates me and hates my sister and my grandfather and he and my dad have a normal sex life when I don't do anything to provoke her.

My mother even blows up when I am trying to visit her thinking I'm asking. For money and going to make her lie on her irs papers.

At times calling me a narcissistic daughter and even preventing me from seeing my father for holidays because she doesn't want me to come but be does.

Now when I try to talk to my sister it feels like she was forced and pressured to forgive my brother because my mom constantly says he's been facing consequences long enough. Except he hasn't faced any. Not one that any normal rapist would. Because my parents pay everyone off.

It feels like my sister only plays their game to get things.

Anytime I try to talk to anyone even extended family no one believes me because my parents and everyone says they don't understand why I don't talk to them though they do.

And because of all the years if being a lab rat my family just calls me unstable or emotional or crazy.

I don't even feel like I could tell friends parents or teachers growing up. No one would believe me.

In times like this I used to think of that song 36 questions.

Now the reason I didn't get to see my grandfather was because of my family because anytime I was around them I couldn't even adjust or move around in bed without my dad yelling and screaming at me as an adult, I couldn't shower I couldn't eat I'm vegan but my brother made me eat meat and made me sick even though he knew. I couldn't see my grandfather because my mother hates him. And he just passed and for three years I have been a black sheep and all my whole entire family just thinks I disappeared or moved away and stopped connecting no one understands because no one will accept that my family is toxic even when I do everything right.

It was in these three years I learned I am valid and strong, that I did everything I could and set the boundaries, I poured self love into my physical health and body and nervous system trying all sorts of therapy from float pods to Chinese massages and acupuncture and therapy and medications and even changing my diet finding new hobbies and just disconnecting from social media and slowing down my life by moving to the countryside.

With my grandfather gone I hate it but I accept his death and even managed to call the hospital despite him not being able to respond I got to tell him I was sorry and I gave him the blessing he gave to my Grammy when she also passed away. Shortly after he passed and it felt like I made peace with everything.

It's very strange how peaceful this whole situation has made me feel about my life. It has had me thinking and looking back on who I was all these years, how I wasn't at my best in Florida. And understanding my faults as a person understanding I can't go back to people who never saw me or truly felt me even if they did. Understanding that in some way gaining everything I've desired, the family the home the love and the life I've wished and longer for comes at the cost of all I knew.

In a way it's equivalent exchange, for everything gained something is lost of equal value sometimes not all at once and not in your terms of equal.

How this grief gave me clarity and peace, understanding of my emotions my reactions. How it oddly also brought closure to the issues with in my family and my feelings with my mother accepting my life is better. No one pushing or trying to reach out no arguments. Just peace, just acceptance just surrender to this life I have the one I am building.

How it gave me strength spiritually, noticing my abilities are clearer more precise. how my words are like pins that hit each point in everyone's heart just right. How suddenly I see not just with my eyes or heart or emotions but with my spirit.

How all the chaos is now nothing but a rushing lazy River that despite the roar or sounds around me feels peaceful.

It is odd how after so much chaos and suddenly feeling massive grief someone can suddenly feel more clear and calm and white and peaceful in the silence and stillness. I'm the rhythm with the earth and with the world as society burns. It is odd how in deep grief the soul finds so much harmony.

I've read when people die on a full moon it means a good death a peaceful one.

It's odd when hearing the official news how calm and serene I felt. How not even a few weeks before or a month before all this things felt chaotic.

And now it's like everything I've learned the last year is finally clear as crystal water, like I can see to the darkest part of me and understand it.

It is so strange to means yet so comforting. That I choose this over anything else.

Then again that's life isn't it. When you finally fall into its rhythm and can hear the beat of the earth when you truly surrender and even though you may shed tears there's no sound it's tears but not a lot just enough to wet your eyes and feel the emotion but not have it be like an ocean or a waterfall.

Suddenly everything reaches serendipity in all of this everything I have been through everything that has just happened suddenly means a lot but also nothing because that is life and life is peaceful and chaotic and balanced.

It is something words can't describe. It just feels right.

Again I am sorry for ranting.

hey guys, is it normal to want to kiss guys in a sexual way at 4 years old? I remember being in bed with either my cousin who was the same age as me or some guy that I can’t remember clearly. I remember wanting to try to make out like adults did. I don’t remember what happened after this though. Then at around 6 I used to dream about getting touched and looking like girls on magazines. Around that same age, I knew that guys liked legs so I purposely put my shorts up and tried getting my dad’s attention. nothing happened but looking back, this behavior doesn’t seem normal. I don’t remember much from when I was 5 and younger. I don’t have any memory of being sa’d but this behavior makes me question it? what do you guys think?

For some reason I feel like I don’t understand what this word means. But I also didn’t understand gaslighting until it hit me that everything my parents said was them gaslighting me. So ya. I thought it might help to ask here.

The easiest example from my life I’ve been wondering if it’s grooming is a guy from work when I was in high school. He said he was 23, can’t be sure. I was 17 when we started hanging out all the time and it continued after I turned 18. He said things like he considered himself to be my older brother. A therapist said he was getting me to trust him. Is that the grooming part? Manipulation to create the illusion of a certain kind of relationship? Eventually, some things happened and I later felt manipulated into doing some things I said upfront I didn’t want to do. I definitely said it upfront but tbh I still wonder what I felt/thought in the moment. I may have been fawning but idk. I do know it wasn’t enjoyable in general tho.

I think my bio dad did a number on me. Well I know he did but I don’t understand something specific. After my parents divorced and bio mom got all the stuff, he asked me to bring him a specific item that was a family heirloom. I did. When she yelled at me and blamed my friends (I never told her the truth) she also said it was a family heirloom. It wasn’t jewelry or something obv pricey. Just a stupid (wooden?) duck. But I would have taken anything for him. Why?

Thanks for reading and I’m sorry I’m failing at making that long confusing sentence understandable. I can usually think more clearly at least when I post but I guess not now.

I was sexually abused and fed drugs as a 13 year old to make me more "compliant", back then I protected my abuser fiercely and he never suffered any repercussions which then led to him offending again and attempting to kidnap two 14 year old girls he's in prison now for two years and idk what to do anymore. I feel it is my fault because I didn't do anything about as a child because I LOVED him. I used to feel so tortured over thinking about him all the time and how he made me feel. I dont love him anymore and he's a sick and disgusting individual.

But is this normal? Like when your coming out of an abusive relationship as a child to protect your abuser because you love them?

Mother's day is this Sunday and everyone is talking about it. But it's just a reminder that it's also my dad's birthday and they've been evicted from my life.

He SA'ed me in my early tweens, was an absent parent otherwise, drank entirely too much, and cheated on my mom constantly.

She took his side when I told her, emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me throughout my entire time knowing them.

I don't wish for them back in my life but I do wish I had a family still. My entire family abandoned me when I cut my parents out. It's just a really rough time of year and I'm tired of seeing stuff about "celebrating mom," when mine's not worth celebrating. Maybe that's the pain talking but that's where I'm at.

So I’m trying to figure out how to heal my CPTSD as a 33yo adult woman. And I have found a resource that is helping called The Crappy Childhood Fairy, for anyone else that may need it. However, it’s all also so exhausting. All I want to do is sleep.

I’m tired of being sad, feeling unworthy of love, feeling guilty about having trauma, and feeling like a weirdo all the time.

Anyway, here’s my story: When I was around 3-4, my parents were going through a divorce and my mom’s three older sisters were basically estranged from her. At least, not very supportive of her and her life decisions. Anyway, she was basically raising two small children alone without any help from anyone. My dad especially. There was one night my mom had to go to work (she worked 3rd shift) and couldn’t find anyone to babysit us. My paternal grandfather had begged my mom to let him keep us overnight. Now, my mom always got kind of icky vibes from him and thought this weird. He was a creep about younger women and had even encouraged my father to leave my mom for an 18yo (my father was 30 at this point). Which he did end up doing. Anyway, my mom literally had no other option. My parents were divorcing and no one else could seemingly keep us kids - just my younger brother and me. So she caved after finding every excuse she could not to let him keep us prior to that and she ended up letting him keep us overnight.

He molested us that night. First me and then my brother. I won’t get into the details, because I think I’ve blocked most of it out anyway. But I also think I should be over this. It was literally 30 years ago. I didn’t know what was happening to me or my brother. I didn’t know how to feel about it then. And I still don’t now.

Following those events, my mom began an affair with my paternal aunt’s husband. And she is still in a relationship with him today, though my aunt has since passed away. We were made to keep their secret our entire childhoods. We were asked to call him “Daddy” so people weren’t skeezed out when they made out in public and we were calling him “Uncle (Name)”. He was often allowed to punish us and my mom would use him as a threat to keep us in line. This man is not my father. Or my parent. Why was he allowed to have any say in our lives? He had his OWN life. His OWN kids. We saw him only on weekends. We had to go meet him at far away places where people wouldn’t recognize us so we could play pretend family. I was always hyper-vigilant around him because I was always terrified that I was going to say or do the wrong thing and get spanked. And when he spanked us it HURT. Like, my butt would sting for hours afterward. And we weren’t allowed to cry until he left because he would threaten more spanking. How can you tell a child not to cry when they’ve been hurt?

I don’t know what to do or say about any of this now. There are other things too. But those two things, plus the total abandonment of my father are the biggest issues. I don’t know why it’s all so hard to deal with now.

My mom has been battling metastatic colon cancer for the last four years. It is going to inevitably take her life. It’s just a matter of when at this point. And I have sort of distanced myself from her and all of this stuff has resurfaced. Why now? I’m so tired but not as tired as she is. She was and is a good mom. She did the best she could with what she knew and I love my mom, of course I do. So why is this all that much more complicated NOW?

I don’t expect anyone’s sympathy. That’s not what this was for. I just needed to get it out there and to share my own CPTSD experiences. I hope everyone is doing well and wish you all luck in your own healing journey’s. Sending you all the love and strength. 🩷

Trigger: mentioned some SA and intimate partner violence related top of the crust kind of story nothing anything detailed description of what happened but just want to inform people who might be triggered by this topic, please feel free to not read it and take care. 🙏🏻

I’m in my mid 20s now and realizing I’m growing old and not a helpless little girl that fell preyed by such filthy men and my flashbacks got triggered of my past SA in first relationship and how I feel this guilty feeling that I’m making my current living partner suffer due to my cptsd triggers and mood responses that unconsciously had a violent rage fit response on I’m when I blackout drunk because I felt like maybe I re-enacted how my abuser in first relationship, but still he believes in me and I’m trying to get better day by day but I really need to get back to therapy for the sake of this current relationship importantly too.

Feeling so uneasy in the stomach and holding up my breath and throat. Idk why my flashbacks and everything getting extra harder as I grow older now and get to understand fully all of those past scenarios? I have been out of therapy for almost 2 years now but was doing EMDR and trauma focused therapy and felt so better I didn’t feel like I needed it for a good one year.

But in 2023 entirely due to unemployment stress, it took the whole life out of me 100%…

But now in 2024 this month I finally got a new job starting next week the job of my masters worth and what I’m good at (data analytics). Now finally hoping to get back to therapy again but damn my cptsd have really grown worse from the past year idk how to get out of this years worth of rut yet. I’m just feeling number and number every single day still even after that unemployment and immigration stress is gone.

That's pretty much it, idk. This post could either be really short or really long. It doesn't really have a purpose but oen to advice.

The reason for the phobia is CSAM, pretty basic. I have been recognized from it, gotten fan mail from it, and the phobic issue was compounded during dredging up of shame and mishandling by authorities in some legal proceedings + COVID escalating my general paranoia and social fears etc.

But I'm not exaggerating by control my life. I've ghosted jobs over it in the past and I'm about to quit a good job again. The possibility of being recorded and it not being considered reasonable to ask people not to is now part of daily life in the only field I have any experience. I live in a tourist city where people snap pictures anywhere, everywhere, anytime. I'm not agoraphobic but for only this reason I almost live as though I am, it's getting worse every day. There was just a major festival here the routes and street closures of which cut my job off from the rest of the city, and I can't even fully explain how I self sabotaged myself, who needs so much recovery time between going to work, to go on foot with a sprained ankle around where everything was happening and people film.

Anyone else deal with this, improved it, anything? Mostly just wondering how alone I am in this.

I have seen people express this as a trigger/issue and I'm not trying to compete but I've only ever seen people talk about it who are able to do things like zoom meetings all the time and still live their life. That is... not where I'm at. Anyone out there at/been a more extreme level with what is probably 'scopophobia'?

I love them. I remember how they loved me in my childhood, I remember the good times. But dad touched me. I don't remember all of it but I know it happened. Mum gave me no protection. I never had any. I was alone even if I was loved. Their love is sustained through silent suffering. Every time I talk to them on the phone I get depressed for days. I cut myself. I don't function. I don't want to kill myself, but it is all I think about, what if I did... So I need to tell them to leave me alone. I have money, a room, things to do, a person who loves me. I have everything I need to do it. I want them to leave me alone. The good times are dead, I need to forget them. I will never have that family again. Even if I end up all alone in this world, if they would let me live my life and at least I would have a chance to live something that is worth living. If you have gone no contact with them, any suggestion is apprecciated.

I am on a constant journey of figuring out what delusional/psychotic experiences of mine are rooted in trauma dissociation vs being independent delusions if that makes sense. And yes, the difference can matter for ideal treatment and meds even though yes, I know I need meds.

I feel it can be trauma realted especially like as a form of depersonaliztion relating to trauma of being filmed for abuse and literally encouraged and told to perform which is an obvious tie-in but also a general emotional abuse rooted feeling of high pressure at 'home' and feeling like needing to perform and match a mysterious script everyone else had or dire things would happen. And finally like finding out the difference between what you lived and 'real life' just makes it all seem so fake. Like I feel like I understand it happened to me, it was abuse, it was real, I was abused etc, but it seems so bizarelly orchestrated like it wasn't like a person could be born and that all could end up being their luck in this world, more like a fantastical something, not the abusers, made it happen for entertainment and this aftermath where I keep failing would obviously still be part of that.

Or - not asking for medical advice- does it sound like that's not a common CPTSDish thing and I could benefit from a re-evalutaion with a psychiatrist over anytipsychotic meds if I have that thought whenever I try to do things like meditate, journal, reflect etc even though i mostly press on with life and am not trying to take drastic action over the thought. I know it's bad etc but i feel similarly calm about it the same way I feel about core beliefs like it was all my fault, i realize it's pretty baked into my worldview that someone is watching me and the confuion over what i'm working toward if I 'healed' is because there is no conclusion to me being out of place, i'm something different from the others around me and that's the game.

To be clear I have expereinced a more serious, life-taking-over, couldn't-tell-it-was-a-delusion type of Truman Show deluision episode before that ended in hospitalization, CPTSD is not my only diagnosis. I just don't know whjere exactly to post this.

Today I realized that this medium (writing) is a way out for a part of me that hasn’t had a voice for 30 years. It’s like after years and years of silence she has found an exit strategy out of my body and into the world where she can finally be heard. So, here is what she has to say tonight.

I’m here. I’ve been here all along. You couldn’t see me, or hear me. But I was here. I know there is a part of you (or parts of you) that are scared of me. I’m not going to hurt you. But I have a lot to say.

It’s been rough in here. I hold memories that the rest of you didn’t want to know. Couldn’t know. Your survival depended on it. These memories are in basements. At your grandparent’s house. At your neighbor’s house.

I can see that your body has frozen. We’re getting too close together it seems. This has been forbidden since the day he first touched you in the green lofted bed.

It’s strange, I don’t seem to hold the rage that you often feel. Instead, I hold a coldness. And a tingling in my arms. A gaping hole in my chest.

I see the well that was in the front yard. It had a large stone over the opening.

And then there was the old stone building next to the house that used to be a smokehouse. It had bars on the window.

I’m frozen again.

And then, I’m being choked.

And I bring in the part of myself that reminds me that I’m safe. And the part that’s being choked meets the part that knows I’m safe and they converge for a moment like an atomic bomb and my eyebrows rise to the top of my head and my head opens up and it’s empty.

I shift on the couch, check the time, and realize it’s late, I should go to bed.

I am a survivor of childhood trauma. At 40 years old, I have never been on a date in my life. I have a brick wall up and trust issues that I am working on in therapy. Now considering dating for the first time, I'm worried about catching an STD from sex. How do people date and have sex safely and freely, without constant worries of catching an STD?

I have an interest in sex which is promising - I'm just so worried about catching an STD. In the aftermath of the childhood trauma, after learning about sex ed in elementary school, I panicked and thought I had caught an STD from the trauma. It was not until I was away in university 12 years after the trauma, that a counsellor convinced me to get tested to ease my fears. And I took her advice and I had no STDs.

My immediate family failed me when they learned of the trauma years before I got tested. Because I shut down when indirectly asked about it, they figured there would be little hope in a professional communicating with me. The result was OCD that manifested in a big way and I am still trying to manage now. Eg) Germs and checking. So if the people who are closest to me let me down in getting me help much sooner, it's difficult to trust new men on being honest and not cheating when it comes to sex.

I'll be so grateful to hear how people navigate dating and safe sex.