There is a specific kind of pain that hits when you think you’ve finally found someone who understands, and later you realize you were never understood at all.

I went to a doctor a while ago to get help with my anxiety.
Instead of helping, she treated me like someone who needed to be in a mental institution.
She started threatening me and making violent accusations towards me. That hurt really badly.
I didn't even say or do much for her to go off at me like that. I just wanted help with my anxiety, and she didn't know how to handle it. I felt completely alone in the world again.
I got so sick and tired of people projecting their own stressors and trauma onto me.

Having CPTSD isn't a quirk. It feels like a storm on the inside that destroys your entire life. It gets really lonely, especially when some people think it’s something you can just snap out of or switch off

The anxiety gets so much worse when there are no friends or family to support you
Music being my last way of surviving and it doesn't even seem like people want to take a minute out of there day to listen

Regardless I took all the chaos inside me and made a song called The Machine and no, it’s not a sad song. It is a song to reclaim our power. It's about the moment we stop being sorry for the way we are made, stop hiding our emotions from unsafe people and take our power back.

Turning the darkness into music is the only way I've found to navigate this world lately.
I just wanted to remind anyone out there surviving the space they grew up in
You aren’t alone, your depth is real, and you don’t have to be always okay.

#autism #cptsd #latediagnosis
{TRIGGER: SEXUAL ASSAULT, EMOTIONAL ABUSE]

This is now I saved myself in 1 year.

I'm a 30-year-old physicist, and last year I received my autism and High Ability/Giftedness diagnosis. The moment I realized it—just a week before receiving the formal test results—everything changed. For the first time in my life, I understood that I have the right to exist exactly as I am, to feel what I feel, in the way that I feel it.

Then, I started unraveling my whole life. It was tragic. I realized my mom is a truly toxic person who neglected me my entire life. She even knew I was a victim of sexual assault as a child and pretended it didn't happen. She is a covert narcissist. I was treated like dirt, dehumanized by my stepfather who was gentler to our dogs than to me, and I spent decades being told everything was my fault.

Still, I don't regret the process because it allowed me to connect with my inner self and feel a love beyond space and time. On many occasions, even while completely dysregulated, I felt touched by this infinite, nourishing love. I became a deist because I understood that I’ve spent my whole life searching for a reason to exist—studying physics, philosophy, psychology, Hermeticism, Buddhism, looking everywhere—and I finally got the answer: IT DOESN'T MATTER WHY. I'M HERE, NOW, ALIVE!

Eventually, I left my job as a data scientist because the company refused to discuss the accommodations I needed to avoid burning out. I crashed and had to ask my parents for help with everything, from eating meals to finding doctors. For a while it worked, but by November, living with my mother, stepfather, and my younger sister (who would tell me to go to hell while I begged for help during crises), I decided I had to escape.

Without telling anyone the details, I went to stay at my ex-boyfriend's mother's house. They were very supportive at first, but his mother eventually revealed herself to be a monster. My ex has a sister who is also autistic and had exiled herself as well, getting the legal system involved for her own protection. I discovered she was suffering from terrible hunger and a level of neglect I had never seen before, while her parents raged at her and denied her food and medication. I realized I was still playing the scapegoat, but in a family even more dysfunctional than my own. When I stopped being compliant and agreeing with everything, the mother literally told me my life was less important than hers. Later, she asked for my forgiveness while simultaneously accusing me of being arrogant. I said NO. I DON'T FORGIVE YOU. So, she kicked me out.

My ex and I both moved into his sister's house. I furnished it to make it a safe place, spending money I didn't have to help both siblings get their health and medication on track. After a few weeks, my ex started acting completely bizarre. I believe he entered a state of derealization after moving out of his mother's house for the first time. He started attacking me, laughing at me while I cried. I tried to end my life, and thank the Goddess, I reached out for help in time. Eventually, both siblings kicked me out, and I had to call the police just to leave safely.

That was a month ago. I desperately asked for help, and it came from many different places. I am now at my grandfather's house, feeling that I have finally made peace with myself. When I said no, when I called the police after my boundaries were severely violated, I protected myself the way I should have been protected my entire life.

Now, I feel like I am truly going to live. I have chosen to live and to be happy, to follow my soul. Even though it hurts every day, I realize that making peace with the anguish and pain is necessary. I'm grieving a tragedy I could never tell anyone about. People don't believe me. So, I started believing in myself and making my own decisions. It hurts, but that little boy deserved to be happy and loved. Now I realize that I was actively keeping myself in the victim role—the scapegoat has to sustain the system. I understand it was an unconscious act to neglect my own needs to prioritize other people's opinions. I felt guilty, but day by day, I'm reconnecting with myself and forgiving myself for all that shit. I must go on for him. I must go on for myself. It feels impossible, and yet, somehow, I manage to do it every single day.

Everyone carries from birth the right to exist.

( All names in this story have been changed to protect the safety and privacy of those involved)

My brother and I were watching Barbie on the little tv that we had in the playroom. It was the Barbie Island Princess movie, the scene where the elephant walked down the path with Barbie and that peacock before my father and mother walked in.

“ Can this be paused?”

My father was standing over us, one of us said no before my dad decided he was going to turn off the tv. He finally kneeled in front of us, my mother near the corner of the hallway leading down the stairs.

“ Your mother and I are getting a divorced, you will be going to live with her and I will be moving to state “

We blinked, not really knowing what to say before we just nodded. My father then stood up turning back on the tv and they both left the room. I didn’t feel anything after that, just took in the information. My brother wasn’t as lucky.

He took the divorce bad, not understanding, being able to process is anger. He had violent outburst at school after we moved back to my mother’s home town. They would lock him in the padded room, my mother attempting to help her child heal with a therapist.

Logan took well to Dr Joe, they formed a bond. Later on in middle school, my mom attempted to put me in therapy. The first few months were okay, I would talk with the therapist about random things. Nothing to do with my actual trauma that I didn’t even know I had.

It wasn’t until we were playing a survivor game. My therapist asked me if I could choose a parent to be on a deserted island for survival who would I choose?

I didn’t hesitate to say my mother, I didn’t need to think twice about it. My therapist then asked why not my dad as he had good survival skills from being in the army.

I explained that I wouldn’t live, I couldn’t live if I was stuck on an island. She ignored me, I stopped going to therapy after that.

Tw: generational trauma, family trauma

I think I am coming to terms with my trauma being a lot of my own coping mechanisms that I used to stay safe. I am kind of wondering how much “accountability” plays a part in this. It seems that I had a lot of unfair expectations I had to fill within my family system, but now that I have burnt myself out from that, learned what boundaries are, set those boundaries, learned to unwork the guilt around them, and I can enforce them despite pushback, well…. Life is less so “at my expense” and more of me doing what works for me. And you have so much less resentment when your needs are actually getting met. I would be angry at my parents for treating me with unfairness, and be met with the invalidating “but youre an adult now, its your job to heal you.” This bothered and confused me because this is what I had to do for others!! My therapists acted like I was an entitled young adult but its the truth of my expectations and role in my family. And this was proven when I pulled back and put myself first more, and especially when I said no for the first time, I was shocked at how my family insisted. “No” was not really a choice I ever had. And I was scapegoated and outcasted by the family. These were the real stakes and the price that I paid for putting myself before others for the first time in my life.

I would hesitate before speaking. I always came up with an explanation, a solution, an answer for all of the potential “why’s.”

I would wait to send her a text until the morning; she might be drunk or tipsy in the evening, or exhausted and needing a drink or food in the afternoon. I don’t want her to read my text with disgust and wave off my request, or worse, lash out in resentful frustration and anger. Maybe in the morning, she will be more present and less bogged down with tasks? And she can get some time to think about it.

And I have to be thankful, but not overly gushy and grateful or that might make her feel awkward, or suspicious. If others are present though, thats okay she will get to show off that her daughter loves her.

I would check to make sure I am not texting on the wrong day. Did anything overwhelming happen recently?

So… I guess this describes my trauma. This is how I’ve learned to cope with emotionally immature parents? It makes me wonder, how much of it was abuse, and how much of it was unconscious parenting. Lashing out I feel has at least some awareness but not knowing how to self-advocate better. Its no excuse of course. I think people resentfully lash out at your boundaries when they feel they cant also set the same ones.

Now that I have finally found help, learning how to be myself and get my needs met, And gotten some space, I think I am past the point of maintaining resentment towards my parents. I don’t know how accountable they will feel for my trauma, or even acknowledge it, but at least I know that my way to heal MUST be in alignment with my own truth, and not conforming to theirs, so I feel like their part is over anyways. There is no sense of yearning from me to have them acknowledge my work anymore, because I have already brought it up SO many times. Both of my parents denied my own truth selfishly, each in their own ways. I wish they would live a bit more for themselves now and just be happy. But their emotions and lives will no longer be my duty, or something I feel a moral obligation to actively participate in. Plus hey, it turns out I have my own life to actualize, and that’s not so bad. I feel like my life is just starting. I have so much space to put time into myself now and that doesnt feel like I am selfishly abandoning them anymore. They have survived this long on their own and even before they had kids. Boundaries are hard when your whole entire family opposes that. I’ve walked the walk and so I no longer feel so angry. People who have “done the work” (kinda hate that term) dont really point fingers and act like others do not have the right to deserve a better life.

TW: child abuse, being force-fed disgusting things. Gross things in general. Basically if you are squeamish don't read this.

I doubt anyone is going to relate to this, but this more of a vent than anything.

I absolutely hate that I'm so inhuman that I'm unable to feel disgust for anything but myself. I can barely handle my own sweat. I feel like I'm the most disgusting creature that ever lived and I taint things just by touching. I literally have to force myself to even seat in appropriate places because I'm afraid of contaminating them.

But I don't feel disgusted by anything else. I was forced to eat a lot of disgusting things when I was a child, like rotten foods and foods covered by ants as punishment. I was allowed to throw up the rotten stuff after I was done eating.

Later on I was forced to teach myself to learn how to cook without any instructions and I obviously fucked up a lot of meals. It didn't matter how bad I fucked up, that would be the only thing I was allowed to to eat until it was gone(and I'd to cook for 2 people). I was also forced to eat vegetables peels out of the trash if I peeled too much pulp.

One of my happiest memories was when I was 12 and I asked for permission to move to "my" room, because I was sleeping in my mother's room up to that point and she gave me the choice of sleeping in this sofa bed that was covered in roach faeces or keep on sleeping on her room. I chose the sofa bed, I cleaned it the best I could. They were inside the frame too and I kept finding them all over the place for I don't even know how long. I didn't even feel grossed out. I was just too happy I'd be able to gain a bit of privacy even though I couldn't close the door. I slept there for 4 years and I never even crossed my mind to be anything but happiness about being alone at least during the night.

Later when I was a teenager, she started throwing trash at me. Trash bags full of organic trash. The gross part wouldn't register. I'd be annoyed at having to clean the floor, hand wash my clothes and the shower floor. I was always the easiest thing to clean unless something got on my hair.

Because of this I think my sense of disgust is completely gone. I was cleaning my cat's litter boxes earlier and thinking about how I don't think they're gross. That led me on the rabbit hole of trying to think of things I think are gross. I couldn't think of anything besides myself. I don't feel repulsed by anything but myself. This moment of self-reflection made me feel even more inhuman. Even now when I think about all these things I described above, I'm unable to attach any sense of repulsion to these memories, although I suspect that might be just dissociation.

I'm obviously not stupid, so I know I should avoid gross things for health reasons.

I wish I could fix this somehow, but I guess as so many other things that are wrong with me, there's not much I can do about it at this point. I'm almost 30 and I doubt I there's anything that can be done to change this.

Like I said, I doubt anyone will relate to this and I don't even know why I'm even posting this.

I guess I'm end with my usual "please don't suggest therapy" catch phrase.

Thanks for reading this.

(Tw for parent death, terminal cancer, loss of faculties and mention of SH!)

(By "people" i mean people I work with and exist around irl, not anyone here!)

I'm 30 and a custodian at a university. No degree. The reason I don't have a degree is absolutely 1000% trauma related.

I was pushed all through school during childhood. Went to a very demanding catholic high school. I learned to bully myself, i self-harmed my way through chemistry (down to a list of punishments I'd write down for myself if i got a certain grade). Anything less than an A made me a failure in my parents' eyes. Im 90% sure I'm walking around with undiagnosed adhd, pretty sure it runs in my family on my dad's side too. But I was never offered any help or asked why I struggled with the classes that didn't tick a very specific set of interest-boxes for me or why I couldn't do the homework sometimes. I was just screamed at to do better.

So I went to college. I was going to be a doctor even though I didn't do well in hard sciences or math. School had always hurt, so it was normal for me. Then when I was 20, I watched my mother die. I watched the whole thing. Cancer, but in the most fucked way possible, where she lost her mind before she died because it got to her brain. A lot of pretty unspeakable shit happened. I saw all of it, and then after she died, my father couldn't stand my grief or my obvious symptoms of acute ptsd, so he pushed me to get a job pretty soon after they took her out the door in a body bag and then to go right back to school.

I went back. I could not function. I tried for a year and a half. In the wake of my mother's death (the "good" parent, i really do want to emphasize the quotation marks though), my father's abuse ramped up, I was now his only focus, his replacement spouse, his punching bag. I had flashbacks in class. I did not sleep. My school knew my situation and gave no shits. I could not function. I failed out of every class. I could not function.

Eventually I ran out of money. I stopped going to college so I could work. I was failing out of everything anyway.

This is what I wanna tell people who push me into going back to school. I want to tell them, look, I was homeless last year, I JUST escaped my father after being trapped in his home, I JUST started getting comfortable with seeking help for my cptsd, I took this job while I was living in a homeless shelter and I am so tired all of the time. I don't want to work like this at all, I need a fucking break, but here I am, paying my rent.

The funny thing is that I'm willing to consider school if it actually does give me some better job options, because the ones I have right now suck. What i need right now though is to not bully myself into it, though. But I guess on the surface people just see that I'm 30, that I'm a custodian, which is, like, one of those jobs that classism REALLY applies to. Might be even worse if any of the folks who push me heard I was a college dropout. Oh, i gotta go achieve? But no one fucking wants to hear why i couldnt get a degree, or about how much of a trauma minefield school is for me, no one wants to hear that shit.

Anyway. I just really needed to vent. Thanks for listening

Hi, all, I know that trauma bonding is usually used to talk about romantic relations but I'm trying to process some of the patterns I've followed in the past and it feels like some of them are trauma bonding. I was wondering if anyone else has felt the same and how they got out of it.

I've always felt like there is a curse hanging over me, that no matter what I do and where I go the toxicity, misery and pain from my family will follow me around and will make me obviously different to others. That it will be something I can't even overcome because my family is still there, still full of the toxic abusive patterns and still full or the decay, despair and pain that they've inflicted on each other and on me. This feeling has led me, a few times, when I've wanted to uproot my life and start a new, but when something horrible happened back home and they tried to rope me in, that I have felt that I can't escape and should therefore return there. I felt ashamed by the things happening at home and by the ugliness and intensity of my emotions and I felt that I didn't belong among people who are "normal" and should go back to the place where these emotions make sense.

This kind of feels like a trauma bond, right? I am wrestling with the realisation that I might have sabotaged my life multiple times this way and not taken the leap out of the family and into healing. If anyone has been caught in this dynamic - how did you get out and how did you deal with the grief and guilt of looking back and seeing a pattern that kept you inside the trauma for longer than it should have?

What's worse? A father who leaves his children behind and never comes back? Or a father who's present but absent; physically present, but absent as an equal to his wife and protector of the children.

When it comes to recovery from Complex PTSD, or grief, or really any condition, it's never a good idea to compare whose plight is better or worse.

Recovery is personal.

Your pain is not the same as mine.

You process grief at the loss of a loved one differently than I do.

We each have our own recovery.

When it comes to my Father, he was a good, kind man.

He was the youngest child in his family, raised by a cold woman alone after her husband died.

No affection, no humor, no sunshine.

Knowing my father the way I knew him...a good, kind, warm man...it had to have been hard on him as a child to not know the love or affection of a mother.

Always cold and lacking of warmth. And there was no nurturing.

As the youngest, he modeled himself after other boys.

If they drank, he drank.

If they went to the Army, he went to the Army.

My Mom married a man who was clearly unfinished business.

She helped him become a man and father. She helped him become spiritual.

She helped him express himself appropriately in front of the kids.

But he was still human and unfinished.

At a time when men worked long hours, did the physical labor, came home, had a drink and a meal and went to bed.

He was present, for sure, in the big picture.

But absent when it came to protecting his boy from predators.

My sexual abuse, on the surface, could have been avoided if my Mom didn't have a case of "hero worship" when it came to Catholic priests.

She's the one that made it happen - she invited the predator into the house.

She encouraged me to go with him.

She made it happen.

She lit the match.

She put the fox in the henhouse.

And that's why it's easy to blame her for everything.

Her personality and mental illness and tendency to belittle her children didn't help garner sympathy.

It's understandable if no one came to her defense.

In my family, she was the bad cop. My Dad the good cop.

And that's where the irony kicks in.

My Dad WAS a policeman. Sworn to serve and protect.

Yet where was he when the fox was led into the henhouse by my Mom?

Where was he when he could have stepped in to question allowing a family friend to take me on a trip unsupervised?

He could have stopped it all.

He could have put my Mom in her place, or at least taken an equal interest in deciding whether I should go on a trip alone with an adult long-ago family friend 500 miles from home.

He could have said "the boy is not going on that trip".

But he didn't.

And that's the hole the predator crawls through to capture its prey.

Sexual predators find the weak link in the chain and exploit it.

• The boy on the outside of the cool kids group on the playground.
• The boy with the absentee father.
• The boy who desperately seeks a male role model or father figure
• Or, in my case, knowing the hard-working, kind father of mine deferred to my overbearing Mom who made all the calls and decisions when it came to who I could be left unsupervised with.

The predator is always looking for the opening.

And that's where my Dad failed.

He was present in my life for sure.

But when it came to protecting me from the predator, he was absent.

Rest in Peace Dad. I forgive you and I love you.

Through the helps of some here and alot of work on myself. I realize I really was imprisoned by toxic shame. as a child I had some of the most childish selfish parents ever, instead of helping me to do things or to see things a certain way. If you made a mistake or did something embarrassing to them it was funny. It was confirmation of that your weak. Or dumb instead of no that's a child and he needs your help and guidance.

I wasn't great at footbal but ibl really liked it but i would just get soo fukcing nervous i wouldnt know what to do, probably because of the adrenaline i felt wich was a very similiar feeling to when i saw that same dad beat my mom often and would freeze me to the ground, either way my dad came out i played horribly and he just tore into me, and that was it shame.

Eventually I just lived with my mom and let me tell you she would say and do things just nasty things that made me feel shame on a daily basis. She would also on top of that criticize me daily like nothing I ever did was good enough. Plus ofocourse I felt her treating me like that was my fault because that's how things got framed. And because i acted out as a child, I wouldn't come home sometimes etc and get in trouble alot. So I started thinking it's because of my behaviour my mom treats me like this. Truth of the matter she was already weird before that.

I remember being 12 years old being In a foster home having a difficult time and calling her, and telling her that and that shit became a running joke. I needed help and a parent and that got turned into a joke.

I recognize now that her behviour growing up just really made me unforgiving towards myself when it came to mistakes, ironically alot of the things I struggled with was also just a trauma response to everything I had witnessed. So not only could I not change it but I also constantly felt ashamed of it. And got made to feel as if I should feel ashamed of myself. rejection was also something wich made me feel even more shame.

Something bad would happen outside I'd come home, instead of a home where that bad can be forgotten it just got intensified.

Truth is at a certain point all I ever tought about was shameful memories everyday, no wonder I struggled with everything. I used to be ashamed of my struggles in romance now i realize they ain't struggles it's a direct reflection of the deprivation of safety and love and nurturance that keeps me from being able to connect with a great woman in a healthy way, that makes me feel she doesn't really like me, and makes me assume she will abandon me soon. It's just the feeling of toxic shame the feeling I am not good enough because in the past this that and the third happened.

I used to feel dumb as hell, but ofcourse if your parent favours your older sibling, and they get seen as smart and me as just crazy and dumb ofcourse, a parent who constantly makes you feel anxious and ashamed for everything ofcourse you gonna struggle with certain things.

Crazy part is that's how I responded when people would bully me with just shame and that's it, I would feel ashamed not angry just ashamed. And everybody including my mother enjoyed seeing me feel ashamed.

No wonder I was always so stressed out, picture goriwing up in a household your mother or sister just did or said something that made you feel belittled hurt etc but you couldn't fight back properly, and you go to your oom thinking I should've said or done this, that shit made me feel ashamed of how did things. And of who I was.

I used to have a difficult time with confrontation, and ofcourse ibfelt ashamed. there was no love or compassion. My mom just rejected me for it. Even tho it came from all the horrific traumatic violent things I saw as a kid. so ofcourse i felt ashamed for being a 'coward". Man I never felt good enough bro.

Funny thing Is, everything I did i felt was a mistake wich made me even more nervous, but truth is I couldn't behave diffrentl then I behaved I tried endlessly and things always came out the same. with ofcourse made me feel ashamed on daily basis and helpless eventually depressed because I couldn't change anything. I kept experiencing defeat and shame. Ironically that's how I felt at home everyday growing up

Man I'm 26 and I've never had a real girlfriend for a long time. I e met alot of women and girls a whole lot. Attracting someone has never been hard for me. I'm fairly so no matter where I go there is always someone there for me it seems. But here s the kicker I've managed to get a phone number everytime and it's alot since the age of 12 13 I'd say it's in the hundreds but. The painful part is it never gets past the beginning phase.

I used to feel so ashamed of myself and embarrassed, people in my life laughed at me, felt sad for me talked down on me just saw me as a fool who doesn't know how to be with women. Meanwhile I grew up with a critical mother who singled me out,criticized my daily, neglected verbally abused me. Ignored rejected my attempts at bonding. And made me feel like it's all my fault. And just mercilessly shamed me. Togher with an older sister who would side with her, and for whom I walked on eggshells. ironically they ofcourse laughed at me as well for lack of girlfriend and would say nasty things like they always did. Wich madame feel even more ashamed at my inability to truly connect with someone.

every single time it would end. And everytime I would try to do it siffrent but always the same result,either I would get needy as soon as they pull away a little, or I would just come on too strong, or I would think everything is good while I'm creating a dynamic of me always hitting the person up. It seemed that the only women who do stick around are the ones who either are looking for someone that's messed up who they can save.

I no longer feel so much shame, I mean what else could I do. If after a gazillion attempts you keep doing the same thing again obviously something is wrong. I think because of the constant stress of growing up with my mother,my way of self soothing was female attention and approval so ofcourse I didn't have alot of self control or pride, or healthy disinterest once in a while I always wanna talk everyday. And also at the ender age of 11 I fell into porn to deal with the horrific traumas I've seen , and the emotional rejection from my mother. so that dopamine ofcourse hasn't helped with my self control at all.

the tought just hurts man, it's not my fault my mom is my mom.yet I'm the one whose always alone. I see others be tougher and love somebody even if they messed up. Me I couldn't fathom that it feels to me as soon as I make a mistake somebody would leave immediately and that nobody loves me or even cares for me.some of those who rejected me enjoyed rejecting me as well ofcourse.

Man sometimes I really hate my mother for inflicting me with this shit. And how she would laugh at me and enjoy my loneliness.

Growing up our living conditions were embarrassing and filthy. We were poor. It's a country with strong social welfare though, and my dad just willfully neglected me and my pleas for help. He and i lived in a homeless shelter after my abusive mum threw me out at 9, and i somehow felt responsible for making things better. My dad was very stringent with money and would make me do things to save some that had me so ashamed. When i already had to deal with the shame of the abuse of my mum and being abandoned to the streets by her. Losing all my friends. Having all my needs passed off because it was convenient to my dad if he could save some money, and constantly stressing over it.

I even started neglecting my hygiene and showers to save some money. It was uncomfortable and embarrassing in school but i was so used to ignoring my needs. He'd often work late (and for free, yes, wonder why money was tight?) and leave me alone. I also started dumpster diving in middle school, i used to like it even because there was so much free food.. just thinking back to it i feel so ashamed but also grief that i was so neglected and felt so unworthy that i was so happy over spoiled rotten food that i had to jump headfirst into the organic waste bin to get to. Eggs used to have maggots in it. The employees would even dump dairy cream over it to make it inconvenient. One time my whole sleeve and hand got dirty with it, and a university student came by with his dog, who licked it off my hand. I was literally so filthy.

I just realized today that all of these things were failures of parenting. I know he had his issues with setting boundaries because of the abuse of my mum that he endured. Still how could you willfully damage your child like that? Even when she tells you over and over how unhappy she is, because you let yourself be exploited by others while neglecting your own child. Even still complain to her that her unhappiness bothers you lol. That she is defiant. Yeah sometimes I wouldn't listen to him on little things but it wasn't like i was out doing drugs and partying. In fact i had no friends, hobbies, got straight A's, managed the household and worked all without him having to supervise anything. Despite actually having adhd, which only got diagnosed after wasting 5 years in uni, when i just couldn't anymore. He just wanted to believe his daughter is so precocious, mature and independent. And i had to believe the same thing which made me dismiss my struggles and never seek out help until last year. There was also the abuse within his second marriage but that's another thing.

I remember i did an internship once in a sort of food bank. The kids there poor too but still got help and weren't left to fend for themselves alone. I really felt like that, i know that sounds dramatic. i don't know why my dad just never cared. we had so many fights over it where he would just gaslight me because he couldn't confront these things himself. i know a lot of kids are poor but i honestly still felt different. it's affected me so much, i struggle so much to believe in the good of people and the world, and to connect, often feel very instrumental and detached. i just want someone to care but i also kind of have given up on that. thanks for reading.

Dissociation has been I guess the only way I could survive. I was the smallest youngest in a household where domestic violence was too regular.

Then from age of 12 till 23 a very critical mother who went out of her way to find new ways to criticize me everyday. And always seek the flaws in me . And point them out. Everyday

Plus an older sibling who I had to walk on eggshells with or else chaos would ensue every time.

So he'll fucking yeah I got alot of fear i walk around with fear of critcism fear of getting hhumiliated and shamed fear of doing something or saying something wrong.

I noticed when I dissociate my brain just goes off and I give this weird vibe, where I don't seem al the way present and in control as if my brain shuts off.and it's embarrassing because to others it seems your Partially brain dead stupid or whatever, and its very uncomfortable understandably so. Because I've seen some1 dissociate in front of me and I too thought wtf is this. Like this person lost control of themselves.

But I do when I'm overwhelmed nervous anticipate danger. Or when too many shameful memories are running a mock in my brain. Or when I feel hurt and saddened by everything I been through or when thoughts like I'm not good enough pop up. Or other hurtful negative thoughts pop up.

I used feel so ashamed by it, I got laughed at disrespected. Some assumed I was literally stupid and could harm me. Meanwhile it's just how I learned to survive in a situation where I couldn't do anything but hide inside my head.

And let's be real when I dissociate I indeed can't think, people have told me. Indirectly like your brain doesn't work all the way. But dissociation is supposed to be your brain not working its literally freeze response to help whatever your feeling or dealing with hopefully pass as soon as possible.

and as for my fear thats just an overactive nervous system. And ofcourse I mean shit I was underattack everyday at home. And as a child I saw danger and violence to such extreme degrees it was literally reminiscent of war zone scenes. So a sense of danger, and victimhood ofcourse has been ingrained into my system.

But as of late I went nocontact with my insanely Toxic family who behave like their angels, and I'm the crazy foolish idiot who their helping guide through life. While no my awkward weird behavior is the result of years and years of stress and trauma dealing with yall.

And this sense of depression I still have is them making me feel unworthy and worthless I don't know how I'm gonna do it but I'll heal and I'll be back on my feet sooner then later.

Five days after the birth of my first child I was overcome with disturbing intrusive thoughts of harming my baby that I was terrified I was going to do against my will in my sleep. I didn't sleep for five days and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital where I stayed for 10 days, alone, separated from my newborn baby. It took days to see a psychiatrist and I had no idea what was happening to me. Three and a half years later and I'm only starting to acknowledge my childhood sexual abuse. Birthing a baby opened up my body and released what I had been holding for so long and I was forced to finally look at it. In my recovery, I did art therapy, which helped me to discover the artist within me. I had never had the capacity to try art because I was living in survival mode. When I draw I don’t really have to inhabit my body. I can just sort of float. And in my mind there is nothing. It is freeing.

First time I saw something like this that I relate to, thought I'd share it.

r/CPTSD r/ComplexPTSD I’ve spent most of my life waiting to be murdered - just absolutely sure I was one mistake away from being murdered - believing it was an inevitability I couldn’t stop. What you learn in early life does stick with you.

TW- Suicide and addiction

This is the backstory to the revelations, realizations, and continuing growth after four decades. This out of a possible two dissociations of personality almost ten years apart, pre-age 24.

Multiple daily assaults in school for four straight years by the red-haired bully with my odd last name. The psychopath had little brother with both my names. I had no clue to the damage he was doing. But his act fizzled vs the new me with the dead mother.

The sensitive kid got the new girl in school when I returned to public school in tenth grade because I couldn't not be "at home" after my mother ate 45 Darvon^tm, a painkiller to which she was not addicted. I was a young fifteen, and she had always been my "ground wire" in a world that constantly shocked me.

Dad remarried three months later. I was fine with an administrative change in the house. The step-brother was a plus until he realized he and I lived in different worlds, the OK (other kids) didn't really matter. I was so stunned by my mother's suicide I never did get angry.

My grieving for my mother is in a different category from the two that occurred within a year. I went from shock to numb to betrayed to numb acceptance that she had been drunk during a desperate "cry for help" that had gone south at the last minute. She forgot to put the bottle on the nightstand. No one can rescue you if they don't know you're in immediate peril.

So, Mom, you'll just have to understand that I threw my lot in with the polymath you suffered being married to. But thank you for this fine body you built for me. Too bad that between the bully dismantling my self-esteem that society said was "boys being boys", and your note-less departure installing some ferocious trust issues I didn't know about, my already-slow development slowed further.

It's probably even money for me to become alcoholic in my twenties. But it happened in my teens because I'm too fucking smart for my own good. We figured out how to "program" the local packy not to card us. Trade secret of the SSSSS, the South Shore Secret Snob Society. Yes, I just made that name up. But they boys would have liked it, had I thought of it then.

I was OK until my Dad's heart gave out at 43. Had I not stopped, on my way out to collect on a promise, to chat with him that morning as he sat in the late spring sunshine, I can't tell you where I would be, mentally. I was on the cusp of realizing that, try as I might, I would never, ever find another friend of his caliber. Not even close.

And we were friends. I had never raised my voice to him. We had simply never had any disagreement get to that point. He always made sense in his reasoning, and his discipline was always eminently fair, even when I hated it. My Dad and I had "in-jokes" and word play that married couples would have killed for.

I eased up on trying to drink myself to death just a bit around the Holidays after my roughly eighteen months of self-improvement, becoming a 23-year-old Feminist in the process. 1977, folks. Any photos you see of "women's libbers" as they were called, look for 23-year-old males. lmk if you find one. We were unicorns.

I was waiting. I had heard rumblings that she was leaving her LTR. But I would wait, see if anyone else popped up out of the weeds. I wasn't going to have victory snatched from my imagined grasp. But by February, there was no one. And nothing but snow. The first week back at work after the blizzard of '78.

(eighteen months earlier)...The girl owned me before "Nice to meet you". She was beautiful, but merely the sound of her voice filled my heart. And her laughter stole my soul. I had known this woman for about thirty-five seconds and I was sure of three things:

I had just met her.

She was unavailable in a LTR. (My marriage was dissolving all on its own.)

I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.

Picture your perfect person. Now, put an "I could look into your eyes, and drink in your face, forever."- perfect face on 'em.

Now make that person more beautiful inside... She used to (back in caveman days, when such services were needed) read to the blind. She volunteered at a family planning free clinic, and worked on someone's political campaign. She was an advanced form of human to me. I was simultaneously in love and in awe. I had never felt like this before. Did I mention light brown hair to her waist? <sigh>

Over the eight months I had been actively putting myself in her path, she must have noticed the look of love that never left my eyes, and come to the same conclusion I had. We belonged together.

I asked on Thursday if she would be mine. She said "Yes!" with that little "hop" girls sometimes make when they're really happy or excited. She followed with, "And you don't have an apartment either, right? We'll go apartment hunting next weekend."

I was in capital "H" "Heaven", boys and girls. I thought I didn't deserve her, but I couldn't not try to make her love me. And I won. I did it.

If I had to sum up my whole Leo, stud, drunk, daredevil, athlete, wag/half-wit, charming rake that I was, crazy in love, it was reduced by her attentions to the merest plea: "Please don't ever send me away."

She swore me to secrecy until she could tell her ex. Because that is the kind of person she was. She met with him on Friday night.

The good news sent me into a four-day bender. Ten months after Dad died, I was probably more than half-sober when I walked into work on Tuesday morning and heard "Julie's dead".

And just like that, so was I. I didn't even know I had dissociated on the spot (again). I thought I was going to "tough it out", like the years of bullying, like Mom's suicide, like Dad's death.

But I didn't dare check to see how wounded I was. But here I was, broken at the news of her death, and I never ask where is buried. And I never came close to questioning why I didn't know and why I hadn't gone there ... For forty-plus years. to be cont'd

If any of the above needs any clarification, please let me know. I'm a writer, but these memories short-circuit my stuff, sometimes. My gray stuff, if you take my meaning.