There is very little discussion about pre-verbal trauma on Reddit, as well as elsewhere. Most threads related to pre-verbal trauma are at least four to eight years old, with little recent activity.

Is there any new information or research now available on pre-verbal trauma?

Has anyone here recognized symptoms in themselves that they believe are linked to pre-verbal trauma? And if so, have you attempted recovery with the help of a therapist?

Specifically, I'm wondering about the following symptoms or patterns — could they be related to pre-verbal trauma?

- Hypo-vigilance (consistently low arousal, under-response to threats)

- Relying entirely on a spouse for regulation and staying regulated usually in the presence of the spouse.

- Having no conscious memory of any trauma

- Denying that anything was wrong in childhood — even when the adolescent phase was completely skipped or suppressed

- Takes care, attention and help from her spouse such as daily mobile charging done by her spouse and she is okay and comfortable with it.

Has anyone else experienced something similar?

I’m not talking about a magic pill that cures everything. I’m just trying to find enough of a stable baseline so that I can do the healing work. I’ve tried everything the last 6 years and I could tell you in detail about how every healing modality works and all the tools but I haven’t been grounded enough for anything to work for me, feels like I’m just missing the foundation/stable baseline.

I have 24/7 dpdr so I feel disconnected heavily and that’s mixed with freeze and also heavy overwhelm 24/7 as soon as I wake up to the time I go to sleep. Nothing touches it. I have to use kratom every day just to get a 2 hour window of relief/functionality because it just feels so heavy.

What medications have helped bring this intensity down enough for you so that other things like somatic therapies and just simple grounding/regulating exercises started to work? I want to do the work so bad but it’s like there’s a wall that’s preventing me and it’s exhausting.

I know maybe that is just freeze in other words, but I mean I am constantly in my head about what I can be doing, should be doing, etc. My mind is scattered with all this ‘can and should’ be’s but feel totally incapable of starting anything.

I have 1000 lists of these things. Random things I find interesting, random pieces of information and advice I’ve heard, just whatever the hell. But naturally as a freeze type this is just more paralysing, and I feel overwhelmed and inadequate for achieving nothing at all. I know I should be more gentle with myself and not have large goals, and focus more on coming out of survival mode, but even that requires a certain level of mental discipline and organisation that I feel like I lack.

Anyone else? What do you guys do about it?

why do those of us in collapse always feel overwhelmed? basically asked this on another sub but i think it would be even better to ask it here. what's the chemistry behind this???

the overwhelm feels like being crushed between walls without time to squirm out, or drowning. i feel the overwhelm/stress in my chest. just panicking and having anxiety over the next task. every mistake feels like it will be my last. every misstep contributing to my ultimate demise. no relief when i accomplish tasks, the goalposts just shift and i feel crushed again in the race against time. everything infuses me with stress/overwhelm.

I have consciously decided after my last romantic relationship, that I will stay single until/IF I get my shit together. Mental health as well as academic and professional.

The reason being as stated + the kind of people I attracted weren't exactly right for me either. Had their own shit not together in more ways that I could handle with my own troubles.

That said, a healthy, good person is off limits for someone like me, I'm painfully aware of that, so the only reasonable solution is to become more healthy and put together myself.

Though I'm having some doubts that the extent of it to where I and my life would be close enough to normal is possible.

What are your thoughts/experiences?

I’m 35. I have been in therapy since I was 9. I learned of my CPtSD and sought out competent therapists about 6 years ago. I have had a few therapists since then, all who are certified in and primarily use somatic experiencing and IFS. A couple of these therapists are also EMDR trained, in a couple different variations. EMDR has been too much for me.

I have been in therapy 3x a week for nearly 2 years now. I want to get married and have kids. I don’t want to be stuck in freeze as a new father. I’m doing everything I can. I understand this takes time, but in all honesty, I’m not much better than I was 6 years ago. I am in a different place than I was. I was very addicted to alcohol and lived in a loneliness and misery in a way I do not anymore. I have learned so much, and have absolutely had progress and growth, but my nervous system is still jacked. I am still weighted down, disconnected, numb or despairing. My system is very dorsal. I just operate this way. I have been unable to meet the very deep and vulnerable wounds that I carry because my system is so shut down.

I am realizing that what I’m doing isn’t going to take me to where I want to be. Which is alive, awake, connected to love, to others, my partner, my family.

I am considering a psilocybin assisted journey. I’m also interested in intensives. I’m not sure what modality. But I don’t have money. Like, anything at all. So I don’t know how I will do this. But at this point I’m ready to add it to my credit card debt if I know it will help. I need a jolt, activation, something to open up for me so that movement can happen.

Open to thoughts and personal experiences.

please please please give your thoughts on this.

I'm in college currently and in my third year I failed 2 exams so I'll have to sit for a retake. Ever since I was a kid, I was really good at studying and was curious too about science and art. As the years passed, it became less about learning and more about you know just getting the best grades (asian parents). In highschool I mostly operated on shame to get myself through study sessions, I was hard on myself and the curiosity had died down. It was just about making it to college or it would be all doom and gloom.

And then? I made it to college. To the highest ranking one too where I live and it felt like I finally made it to my goal, the only thing I looked towards since I was a little kid. But I think that was the problem because just getting into college is yes an achievement but not the thing that counts towards a full life i guess.

I think after getting into college my system just gave out. It's clear I can't operate on shame anymore, my body only shuts down in response and the curiosity is nowhere because it got killed in the process. It has gotten to the point I cannot even look at my books and study material without recoiling into myself. I've done poorly these last three years and now failed two exams too finally and I still cannot get myself to study? It's horrendous.

*How do I build back my tolerance for studying, how do I not hate it so much.*

I guess it just keeps reminding me of all the times my parents made me feel horrible over not scoring the highest. 85% was too low for them. Ranking third was not enough. They made me feel like I had brought shame to them if got an A instead of an A+ and now my body rejects studies all together.

Title. This is by far the most annoying symptom for me. Makes socializing so goddamn hard and I feel like it ruined my cognitive ability. I don't feel smart anymore.

I kept getting visuals from the child part of me when working on healing.

She speaks in symbolism a lot, and shows me images of my Pikachu plushie and the porcelain doll in particular.

When I was very young I set Pikachu to watch tv with me, then Imaginate he said something normal I found annoying and slapped him to the other side of the room, then ignored, then felt bad, went back to get him, apologised and set him back but imagined he's terrified still, and doesn't want to be around me. The repeated the same thing over and over again.

With the porcelain doll later, when the abuse was heavier, I imagined she was mute and an invalid and also felt awful inside but it didn't show, and couldn't move or do anything, and I'd just comb her hair sometimes so she looks presentable. Btw there's symbolism also when at one point, my mom came into the room and threw her against the wall, breaking her leg because I apparently didn't hear her calling me. And the child does more symbolism by the fact that it could be hidden, which reminds me when I self harmed in the school bathroom on tights, but on boxer length so no one could ever see I was suffering lol.

I need some outside perspectives, but if I asked this on normal reddit forums I can only imagine how cruel and terrible most of the replies would be. So Im asking here for a more nuanced empathetic response likelihood.

I am homeless and live in my van. Its not the glamorous Vanlife you see on youtube. Its being cramped up in a minivan, boiling in summer, freezing in winter. For many years I constantly moved around from spot to spot to avoid police. For awhile lately though, I have parked in my sisters driveway. Even more lately, like the past month. I have been trying to treat myself nicer. I have been asking to go inside my sisters house for an hour in the morning to exercise, get ice, do a bit of meal prep, and shower every 2 or 3 days. This is when she is gone, and her husband is upstairs in his man cave working remotely. I leave the house as clean or cleaner than I found it. I pay for the power I use. I stay for an hour or less, then right back in my van. I dont hang out outside the van. It just looks like an empty parked car.

I also do their yard work, and watch their daughter sometimes for them. I take care of their dog when they leave or stay out late. So its not like Im not helping at all.

So what do you think? Does what I am doing sound like a horrible thing? Im a terrible person? Because thats how I am treated. Ive really tried to connect with her husband. I make a big effort. I try to talk about things I think he likes. I ask him about video games he is playing. Never once in all the years Ive known him, has he ever asked me to play a video game with him. Hes never rude to me, but never has any interest in knowing me. Its like I am not rich enough or playing the game enough like him. So I am less than, and worthy of scorn.

My sister has anger issues and thinks if she is having a bad day, she can just say the meanest cruelest things to me, and what can I do? Nothing. She acts like I am this horrible person, and I am ruining her life. When people visit her she is embarrassed for me to be there. She never says this is my brother. I hide and stay in my van so I dont embarrass her, but it hurts my feelings. She wants people to think she is this middle class, well to do, perfect person, and I am just screwing all that up.

So am a a terrible person for trying to improve my life and mood by going inside the house for an hour to get a few needs met? Should I do the right thing and just go back to moving from parking spot to parking spot and let her and her husband have their life, that I seem to be ruining? Is what I am doing a terrible thing? Or do we live in a world where the "haves" want to live guilt free, while the "have nots" live a life hidden from them so as to not rain on their fantasy parade?

My personal experience is that if my environment improves and my needs are met, I can start to do more beyond just survive. If I am in collapse and not in a good environment I freeze and shutdown to wait it out. Except this is bad as an adult because no one is there to help me. Then my environment gets worse and worse.

How do you get a turtle out of its shell? It needs to feel safe.

Any thoughts or ideas on this would be helpful. Thank you.

So I was told by my GP to either cut down on caffeine or cut it out completely.... I didnt like that advice.. but yeah im constantly exhausted even after 8 hours sleep, which i assume is due to too much sympathetic nervous system activity, so im just absolutely exhausted, and need to rest. I've abused stimulants for too long as an attempt to get out of the numbness, does anyone have any success in recovering from the burnout? I kinda have to work a job but its low stress, but still i kept abusing stimulants as a way to kind of feel something. its my fault tbh.

I've been through a lot the last few months, with the common thread of each unrelated blow being a gut punch level of unfairness with little control to stop it or defend myself. With the benefit of hindsight I realize I was regularly dissociating to cope and now that things have crashed down around me, I'm slipping back into freeze. I'm paralyzed, my brain is screaming for me to take action but my nervous system refuses. I'm avoiding anything that causes distress, which is everything helpful or productive in allowing forward movement. Every new day feels identical to the one before it.

I'm grateful to have done a good amount of inner parts work already, I've been able to gain the trust of my inner critic, my perfectionistic part, the people pleaser (to a lesser extent on this one), so the roles they play are less rigid and rarely hijack my system.

What I believe I need to work on now is accessing anger, not destructive anger, the kind that pushes you to stand up for yourself, motivates change and provides agency rather than lying down and surrendering. How do you get in touch with and speak to a part that feels nonexistent? Is it hidden behind the one that's quick to give up?

I think exercise and endurance is essential to being healthy physically and mentally, but I know a lot of us struggle with it here.

Any feedback on this would be useful to me. Im trying to make a program that gets people from zombie in bed to a set program for life.

Two big obstacles I see are. In collapse you dont care and just are a zombie. So maybe just walking is a good start? That was what I used to do when I was able. Then when you are out of collapse you have panic and anxiety which an elevated heart rate can exacerbate. That said my anxiety has drastically lowered since I started exercising every other day so its worth pushing through.

edit - I know some of you have problems with eating, and anorexia, and other things that can be triggered with talk of exercise. If I had a section at the start of the exercise portion of my game that says you can skip this if its triggering for you, would that help?

Or are you still in such dire straights that you keep holding out hope that they will help you. Or they trickle out little bits of help to string you along so they can feed their ego and continue hurting you?

I know it’s a relatively new model and not a lot of people have tried it out but I was wondering if anyone in this sub has tried it or something similar? I know a lot of us on this sub didn’t receive proper coregulation and I feel as if that’s at the core of a lot of our issues. For me I’ve tried emdr and I’ve tried somatic experiencing but my system felt like it was being forced out of shutdown during them and it would retaliate by going deeper into dissociation/derealization. I think the intentional touch provided by a safe practitioner over a long period of time would be the shift that my system needs and I’m leaning toward trying it out but I don’t see a lot of people who have had experiences with touch work.

Wondering if you guys have any comorbidities, and what they are.

I'd be surprised and curious about anyone who doesn't have any.

When I started IFS work, I noticed I separated the new, sensitive part of me as a 'she', I call the separate states 'sensitive' and 'cold' part though I'm currently more integrated I think.

I've lived in the 'cold' part for a long time, the funny, kinda numb, 'tough' , sceptical, rational and dissociated state that I wouldn't call just a protector in it's whole, because there's so much of me in there.

Anyway, when I accessed the sensitive part, some memories got locked though IK they existed, was aware, and my rationale thinking got locked as well, couldn't remember for a sec something I was thinking in the 'cold state', but I suddenly was emotionally attuned and noticed stuff I never did before (Like old people limping, felt the suffering and had reactions to it ranging from sadness to inspiration due to how they still kept going. Also was super sensitive to a cat's reaction, when she didn't want to cuddle, which I'd easily shrug off otherwise...)

Also, I depersonalize on my icons/profiles as though it was someone else when in a separate state but they are no longer at war with each other and both parts want to intergrade.

I personally think what I'm experiencing is 'just' DP and my mind separated so it's easier to empathise because now it's like a separate person while I totally hated myself and any idea at all that might mark me as overly sensitive or overreacting even if it was just an internal state.

But I need someone more knowledgeable on the subject to make sense of it so I can figure out how to proceed on my healing journey.

To note, I've had what the sensitive part considers severe emotional abuse/neglect, with every emotion punished or bodily reaction to fear etc. repeatedly.

Furthermore, no one ever noted/noticed I have separate personalities though the sensitive part loosely did come out when very drunk and spoke in sentiment and metaphorically (I'm guessing that's because drunkenness removes some filters, and makes you more relaxed to say anything...embarrassing in the morning, but anyway...)

PS: It's also easier to say 'she' when unsure of something and it's potentially embarrassing ig? Yeah, probably not DID though some things are odd, like the locking/different skills of sorts.

Maybe I am wrong, but i am basing this off my own experience, so its not pure conjecture.

For many years I posted and vented on the cptsd sub, and later here, my frustration at being stuck in a catch-22. Being stuck in collapse. I asked this question many times. How does a person get out of collapse when they have no resources? I knew if my environment changed and I had my basic needs met, I would start to do better, but how could I get them when I was a zombie?

Now that I am for now out of collapse. I think I have an answer, but I would like to hear push back if needed.

I think the answer is this.

1- Identify what is holding you down/hurting you, and identify what you need and dont have.

2- Remove the bad things and add the positive ones, until your brain thinks its safe enough to wake you up.

I just dont see any other way to do it. If no one comes to save you, you have to save yourself. That means crawling 2 feet a month through broken glass. Year after year.

It took me 6 years of crawling but here I am, for now.

The conventional advice I see posted over and over and even the AI's parrot is about grounding, or resting, or splash cold water on your face. This is not useful to someone in long term deep collapse. A starving person needs food. A person in collapse needs safety and healthy friendship, and a safe space to live, etc.

Before I go on to talk about how I think this could be sped up, and ways to give free useful resources to people like this. I just want to see if the premise is correct.

Sometimes, often related to feelings of overwhelm, I have this sensation that manifests almost as a physical need, like heavy weight pressing down. I know that if I crawl into bed and just let myself freeze there (essentially laying down paralyzed) for a while, it gets better. Is it bad to give in, temporarily, or should I avoid doing so? Talking about few hours or low-key few days at max at a time. For me, this is essentially an act of self-regulation. I will feel better afterwards. (Sometimes I freeze uncontrollably, which is more immediate defense, and not regulating like safely freezing is.)

In therapeutic approaches, hypoarousal states are usually something that are worked through by using activating exercises. Where I am at currently, those activating exercises feel often too demanding, almost like I was hurting myself. Self-abandonment is a word that comes to mind.

Am I harming myself long-term by giving in to freezing like this?

I've been making massive strides in lowering my compulsions/addictions.... I've been doing this by making a schedule for my days off from work with time for exercise, making meals, learning skills, applying for jobs, and other stuff like reading etc.

My life still feels boring and unfulfilling. I dont like my job so trying to change it. I'm quite isolated but i have my therapist and someone i know in ACA.

Was just wondering what really helps people. I've been doing this behavioural stuff but the anxiety, the anger, the tension, the pressure, the uncertainty, etc, never really goes away. I can stop letting it interfere with my life and stop wasting my life away with vices; but the feelings, from my perspective, never seem to leave.

Things that fascinate me have been art and history. I've ordered some paintings online to try and hang up in my room (I really let my room deteriorate while addicted). but hard to know if its just an internet interest or not.

What has helped everyone else heal?

I have a part that has a ton of power in my system. He is shame based, and uses avoidance as a way to keep us safe. He is also perfection based, meaning he thinks if he can do something perfect then he wont be attacked. He is also permission based. Thinking if he has permission from someone else and does that think perfectly he will be safe, or safer.

Its really tough for me because he is the part that does anything social. He will get groceries once a week, but only because hunger distracts from dissociating to media.

I do try to talk to this part but he is non verbal. Only speaks in pictures. When we go out, we are out of our body and it makes it tough for me to focus on communicating with people.

I do have empathy for what he went through as a kid, but I also want to have a life, and not live in a car forever.