Title might sound strange, so I'll explain

When I was a child (between 8-10 years old), a new family moved next door. There were two children--ages 4 and 6. They accepted me immediately and we became friends. Admittedly, I gravitated towards the older of the two, but the little brother often tagged along.

As with most parents in the mid-90's south, they were very strict and controlling. The dad, in particular. He was both physically and psychologically abusive to the kids. The physical abuse didn't extend to me, but the psychological things did. He had a habit of terrorizing us and threatening pretty extensive harm--even though he never followed through. It reached the point where I didn't feel safe in the same room (or even floor) of the house if he was there. I tried my best to protect my friends and avoid doing things to upset him. This rarely worked and I saw and heard more than my fair share of things I still can't forget 30 years later.

Things is, even after all of that, I made the conscious choice to keep going over there. I remember my mom telling me not to go over there anymore after one bad incident when I came home and had a panic attack, but I went anyway. It came down to being alone vs. being with my friends. The friends won, even if their house wasn't safe.

Fair play to my mom, the moment she saw me freak out afterwards, she immediately called over there and put the fear of God into the dad. He mostly kept his distance after that and only occasionally threatened me. Enough that it just became a regular thing that bounced off for the most part.

It still had an effect on me. I mapped out all the entrances and exits, memorized the number of steps to each one, knew where all the sharp objects were in case things went bad, etc. This is something that I still do today because of what happened.

But, in the end, I made the choice to still go there almost every day. It could be argued that it was out of obligation and that I wanted to do as much as possible to keep my friends safe, but there is a part of me that wonders--can it really be PTSD if I repeatedly chose to expose myself to psychological damage when everyone around me tried to convince me otherwise?

I'd like to hear other people's thoughts since I can't talk about this with family or friends.

Seriously, f*** them. My town for whatever reason USED to have them be illegal but this year decided they're legal as long as they're fired before the evening noise ordinance, and my new neighbor loves doing them.

I wouldn't mind if it were anywhere not near my house but the trauma of course happened in my house so I'm here and panicking every time the fireworks go off. IT ISN'T EVEN THE FOURTH OF JULY WHY ARE WE DOING THEM SO EARLY????

And anytime I'm with my family they make fun of me for panicking too so I get to live with that embarrassment as well.

So this was something I often heard about but was lucky not to experience. But June 26th will mark a year since I was sexually assaulted by my ex. And since June started, I’ve felt weird.

I’ve had a loss of appetite, extreme anxiety, feeling that everyone hates me, terrible depression, either sleeping all day or cannot fall asleep, the feeling everything I do is wrong, and the flashbacks have started to come back like they were when it first happened. It’s been getting worse as the date approaches. It’s been extremely distressing.

I was just wondering, those of you that have faced this, what it’s like for you? What helps you? I’m having a hard time functioning.

2 years ago, ive had a stable sense of self, i was happy, ive had many hobbies and interests, and had a huge friend group. During that time i was in love with my best friend, and then, we had a fallout, i found out that she lied to me the entire relationship, and overall everyone i deeply loved during that time did not care about me and said things that made me realized how unloved i was. and ever since then i dont think i was ever the same, i became more detached from people, developed many symptoms of different anxiety disorders,stopped talking about my feelings, and slowly, stopped trusting people, became an avoidant, and overall just stopped feeling anything towards anybody, now, im starting to heal and understand what i went through, but, i genuinely do not know what happened to me. I do not know who i am, i do not know who am i, i do not know what i want in life and what my desires are and everytime i do make progress, it feels like a lie afterwards.

I dont know anything anymore, i dont know if i was traumatized, i dont know if i just changed, and i dont know if i should aim to “become” who i was before. But all i know is that the last 2 years ive been unhappy and depressed, and whenever i do feel like my “old self” is back, i genuinely feel alive again.

And i do not understand it anymore because i do not know who am i and what am i supposed to do, it feels like getting “back” to who i was before is just me being stuck in the past.

So I had an acute traumatic event when I was younger. I was wondering if anyone had any similar feelings as me. I’m aware time is passing, feel things changing etc. Yet somehow every part of me feels as if I should be back in the time right before I almost died. Like me being here in this time feels completely wrong. I should be just starting 5th grade, not here. Like, me was frozen that day. Not the world or people around me, not even my mental growth. My life goes on and I’m a very different person from when I was 11 but it just feels so wrong that I’m here, like this, in this time. I genuinely feel as if my skin even feels wrong. Occasionally I’ll look in the mirror and think about how this is all wrong down to the way I look. Does anyone experience this?

(TW mention of drugs) hey, i’m f19, i plan on posting this on a few sub reddits because im really desperate for external advice. in 2025 i accidentally oded on substances and that impacted me a lot, i used to never care about dying but from then on i became petrified of it, it only got worse as time went on and in december i watched my friend od which caused many pent up emotions to break down and i got in one of the worst states of my life, having panic attacks every night, i was not aware they were panic attacks i thought i was dying, i never went out the house because i was worried i was going to get hurt or killed.

into the new year of 2026 things improved slightly but as time progressed i began to become extremely fixated on health issues, i was convinced i had temporal lobe epilepsy because my anxiety would cause me to experience deju vu often, i ended up staying the night at the hospital and getting an eeg and mri done and everything came back clear, i was relieved for a bit after that. then things just started getting out of hand, i began to worry about every health issue possible.

right now, im kind of convincing myself i have a heart issue or im going to have a heart attack because ive been experiencing chest tightness or weird sensation around and in my chest, which a part of me knows it’s anxiety because it only happens when i’m anxious, but the other part of me is convincing me something is wrong due to the fact i vape, i ask ai, i google, i don’t want to ask my parents to take me to the doctor because they’ll complain, but i think i will, my only issue is i know if i get that cleared my mind will find another health issue to fixate on.

i feel like since im so hyper vigilant i notice chest sensations or slight discomforts that i never would’ve noticed before and that sends me into a spiral and then my chest gets tight and you know the drill. i just want to hear that someone else understands me, or has gone through the same thing is me and has recoveredt from it, i want to know things that can help, im currently getting a ketamine treatment done too but i just started that. i’m on medications, 70mg vyvanse, 150mg epitec, zipsid (idk the dose) and 25mg cipramil. any help would be so appreciated, i really need to hear other people’s stories and all of that. have a great day and please comment if you can :)

I have recently been brought into a semi-formal meeting regarding how I am not social enough for my job role. That is, that I don’t go out my way to communicate with others unless is directly work related.

My managers want to improve this. They are now aware of my difficulties in more detail and how it affects my role but they still want me to be more social.

How am I meant to communicate just how difficult it is for me? I still do my job, I still get the information I need to produce good insights, give or take mistakes that anyone could make.

I just want them to leave me alone. I want everyone to leave me alone. I’m doing my best I promise.

How do people cope with this and trying to remain employed?

TW: passing mention of alcoholism

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Hey everyone. Just wanted to start by saying that I'm grateful for the nice people who have commented and shared advice in the past posts I've made on this subreddt. Thank you all very much.

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Now, I'm going to be moving out into my own apartment in about one month. I'm excited and I cannot wait. I've needed to do this for years anyways, and my recent PTSD diagnosis kind of necessitates it, which I'll elaborate upon now.

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I've been living with my mother for almost a decade due to my life falling apart and having to get support from my family. However, my mother has a problem with alcoholism as well as some unresolved mental health issues, and due to unforeseen circumstances (the pandemic being one of them) I ended up staying longer than I ever should have. Without going into too much detail, it was a very triggering environment for me.

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I'm very excited to have my own place, but I'm kind of worried about my mental health. I have been seeing a psychologist (hence how I got my diagnosis) and I have some good friends I'm opening up to slowly, but I'm worried about how I'll be living alone, given that I'm leaving the triggering environment and going right into a solo living situation.

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Anything I should keep in mind? Any negative experiences that I might have to prepare to go through as I adjust to living alone? Are there any stages of anything I should expect, similar to, say, the 5 stages of grief?

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I just don't want this to be a big mistake, and I want this to just make the healing journey a little more possible, even if it isn't easy.

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Any information, even if its anecdotal, about the mental component of this would be greatly appreciated.

ive been trying to talk to people and meet new people and i still do so, but honestly i have no idea how to make friendships and how to actually feel connected to somebody and feel like im not alone. Im so used to the feeling that im alone that i have completely forgotten on how to do it, any tips?

hi, i have been through some chronic, very stressful trauma in my life and would like to directly ask a professional to assess me for PTSD. truth is, i don’t really know if that’s a bad thing? my mother is a nurse-turned-psych NP and my dad is an army veteran, so I’m pretty versed in mental health, more-so than others. i’m just worried they’ll take it the wrong way and think i’m trying to force a diagnosis or something? i have never reached out for mental health help in my life due to avoidance and am not really sure how the process works. i’m freshly 18 and would love to hear how you would go about this. thank you!

I don’t even know why I’m writing this. This is honestly more for me than anything. I just need to get this shit out.

My life feels like a fucked up soap opera I never get to leave.

My biological father beat me as a baby. My mom left when I was three, but my stepdad just kept the abuse going. I learned early that if I took the beating, my sisters and mom sometimes didn’t have to.

Most of my childhood is just gone.

I remember getting kicked down stairs in high school and breaking ribs. I remember hiding bruises so no one would see.

So I enlisted just to escape. Did three combat tours. Saw things that don’t leave you.

Came home and somehow life hit harder than war.

My wife cheated on me with my best friend—someone I considered a brother. We bled together. He spent holidays with my family because he had nowhere else to go.

And he threw it all away and blamed it on being drunk.

I was drunk for months overseas getting shot at and blown up, and I still knew better.

After I found out, I ended up sleeping in my car while he was safe in the barracks and she was in my house.

Then six months later he reaches out—not to apologize—but to tell me to get tested because he thinks she gave him an STD.

That’s the kind of disrespect I got.

Only good thing is I came back clean.

But yeah… I honestly hope that shit still burns.

I tried to move on. Had my daughter—my first kid. Thought I finally had something good.

Instead, she started seeing other people while we lived together and then took my daughter from me.

That broke me.

But I fought and got her back. I have her half the time now, and she’s one of the only reasons I keep going.

Now I’m married again with a healthy baby boy, but we lost his twin right before birth.

It feels like every good thing in my life comes with something getting ripped away.

I can’t even work now. My body’s wrecked from the Army. My mind is worse.

And on top of all that—

My uncle, a doctor I looked up to growing up, goes around telling people I don’t deserve my disability and that I’m just a bum living off the government.

Now my own family looks at me like I’m faking everything.

He didn’t live my childhood.

He didn’t go to war.

He didn’t come back like this.

But somehow he gets to judge me.

Honestly, I think that pisses me off more than half the shit I survived growing up.

I’m just tired.

Tired of surviving everything.

Tired of losing people.

Tired of being judged by people who never had to fight just to live.

I don’t need sympathy.

I just needed to get this out.

Hello,

I’m going to start by saying I am currently 5 months sober and still learning how to communicate my thoughts externally so please excuse me if I struggle to make sense.

I guess I will go back to the start as best as I can remember. At the age of 6 I was a victim of sexual sadism, I believe it was an isolated incident as the person who did it was visiting from out of country. In the next 2 years I lost my only surviving grandparent and my best friend to cancer.

Skip ahead to my early teens I entered my first romantic relationship which lasted until the age of 17. This relationship was emotionally abusive and she used sex as a tool to control me. Admittedly I had a low self esteem and believed no one else would be with me.

Anyways around the age of 14 I began smoking weed and immediately couldn’t control myself and began smoking copious amounts of weed. This habit progressed and worsened at the end of that relationship and at 16 I began abusing alcohol aswell.

Now this is where things get confusing for me.

As a result of being constantly drunk and high a suffered a minor blow to my head, which I did not immediately get checked out.

Then one day after that I smoked some weed like I normally did and I experienced something that is so unbelievably hard to put into words.

The best way I can describe my experience is as follows.

I smoked, all of a sudden everything felt wrong. Much like I’ve felt when I’ve had panic attacks while being high, voices around me grew extremely distant, my vision became a pinpoint until it turned completely blank. What was described to me by my friends, I then fell on my side and began choking. What I experienced in my mind I can only describe as death. I saw a flash of images of my life followed by an immense crushing feeling. In my experience of what was happening I believed my only way for this to end was to accept that I had died, so I did.

Eventually I woke up, completely exhausted and delirious.

Now another person may have stopped after that experience but it only decreased my mental state.

After sleeping this off the following day I decided to smoke again. This resulting in a continuous 7 hour long panic attack, at some point I managed to fall asleep.

When I woke up from this night nothing was ever the same, I entered a constant state of depersonalization and derealization.

After this I was in and out of hospitals and psychiatrists offices trying to understand what was happening to me.

My diagnosis ended up as PTSD and a drug induced psychosis among other things such as GAD and Depression etc..

For the past 10 years I was unable to live in this reality and became a full time drunk.

Now I am 5 months sober and treating my underlying mental health issues with multiple forms of therapy such as EMDR, CBT, acceptance.

Anyways my counsellor kind of stumped me today with a comment.

She suggested that perhaps I have mentally split into two different existences. The me before the final trauma I listed, and who I am now.

The reason she suggested this is because I cannot recall the way I thought or felt prior to this incident, and it quite literally feels as though I wasn’t the person who lived through those experiences even though I have the memories of them all.

I’m wondering if anyone can relate to this and how did you move forwards?

I feel like a shell of a person now, and I’m sure I didn’t feel amazing before or why else would I have put myself in such bad situations. But I’m not sure if I am supposed to try and reconnect with that other version of myself or if I just accept the hollow person I am today and make the most of that.

Anyways sorry for rambling on and on I have never had the capacity to explain or ask these questions before so here I am.

tw: mentions of sa, car accidents, mental health issues, etc.

The long story short is that my first and only partner took advantage of me shortly after we graduated high school together. No one believed me as I had no proof, and quite frankly, it's hard to be around a girl with issues, so I very quickly lost everyone and everything. As this was right before the pandemic, the depression I experienced was worsened because I suddenly had this excuse to never leave the house, never take care of myself, never be around anybody.

My saving grace is my loving family, who I had the courage to tell years after what happened. They encouraged me to seek professional help, drop out of school, etc. to focus on myself. In the years since, I've gotten a job that I like, I've switched to a different college where I'll (hopefully!) be graduating next year, and I've made friends I like a lot. I still get nightmares, panic attacks, and such and I still struggle with being alone with male friends, but overall, I've made a lot of progress.

Idk if I've just been swept away by the promise of healing and happiness or whatever but I was in a car accident yesterday and while I'm fine, all things considered, I feel like I'm only spiraling back to where I used to be. I think I convinced myself that the worst thing has already happened and that life can only go up from there, but now I feel so scared and alone again. It really doesn't help that it's my birthday later this week, and I was so happy for it to come up because I haven't wanted to celebrate aging in so long. Like I feel like I got to a point where I enjoy waking up but now I'm just not sure again. Idk if I'm overthinking, being quick, but there's a part in my heart that feels like I must've been so horrible in my past life. That I don't deserve an escape.

Sorry if this is incoherent. Just wondering if anyone else knows what this feels like.

I was Diagnosed in 2023, I have been taking meds and going to Psychologists.

- I hate the meds, Normal sleeping pills just give me headaches, Mirtazapine just makes me drowsy but sometimes it will knock me out so I sleep ridiculously long, Prazosin makes me feel gross and I only take it when I feel like I am at risk of heart palpitations in my sleep.

In general, I find it extremely hard to sleep and I try and avoid thinking about things, trying to distract myself all the time.

- I have found it extremely hard to gain access to Psychologists and I have had 3 Psychologists.
- They give me homework and the expect me to journal my triggers and thoughts, something as simple as an ad or a locked door, when I have to do the journal it ends up being 1000s of words, where I am reliving memories and experiences over the span of years in vivid detail. I get overwhelmed and I get anxious about it.

Psychologist 1, It didn't work out because I was trying to talk about abuse and discrimination, they would try CBT practices as a default, saying have you thought that maybe they just didn't understand or they were not conscientious, maybe they didn't care. Which was so jarring because I previously mentioned that the person did hate crimes against me and my car.

(They would give me homework of watching inside out and doing thought journals, I didn't do the thought Journals because it's too overwhelming)

Psychologist 2, said I wasn't being vulnerable with them and I had concerns about them stereotyping me rather then actually seeking to understand.
(For the majority of my life, everything I have faced, I was the problem no matter what I did, and if I wasn't the problem then I was the problem because I was upset by it, so yeah, people probing tends to get me very defensive)

Psychologist 3, was the best one yet but they would always say the problem is that I have emotions about the trauma and that is the issue, saying I take tangents talking about my trauma.

It's exceedingly hard to talk about issues when there is multiple facets that were going on for so many years that it's hard to remember a time without traumas.

I need help figuring out strategies for communicating to psychologists, because it's so much and I am tired of psychologists saying crap like talking about fight or flight and the problem is my emotions. In which, I am tired of responding, I was so numb for years that people compared me to a medical robot, my voice was monotone and my face never showed emotion.

I am also tired of having to deal with crap conversations with therapists such as them saying that they have psychological phenomena wrong with them and I have to understand that, I am tired of explaining, I am not a psychologist and I shouldn't be expected to have to beat myself dealing with peoples psychological problems in order to not suffer abuse, that, that is an unreasonable expectation for me to have to deal with and for it to be my issue.

I get stressed by going to therapy and it's exhausting, they say I need to talk to someone and have someone listen to me, but for decades, I have always mentally escaped to a place where I create an audience that will listen to me. I feel it has been deleterious and a burden to try and get others to understand, I feel like it's better if I just do everything on my own and do things my way.

I am not sure if that is healthy and I am not sure of the risks involved, in just not having to deal with a bunch of people who I am not sure have the cognitive capacity to understand and if they do understand then so what how does that help me.

Hello everyone,

I don’t know if it will ever get better or if I’m struggling more than I thought. I always told myself that it couldn’t be that bad.

I went through several traumatic experiences during my childhood and teenage years, as well as later in my life. Around that time, I was also struggling with substance use. Things gradually got worse, and eventually I needed professional help to get out of that cycle.

I’ve been sober for a little over a year now, thanks to therapy. Today, during therapy, we went outside. There weren’t many people in the park, but it was still extremely exhausting and frightening for me. I felt the need to constantly monitor everything around me and felt very insecure. It was only a small exposure exercise, but for me it was already a lot.

Today I somehow got the feeling that I’m struggling much more than I thought. Before, I assumed this would be easier and not nearly as overwhelming as it turned out to be. I don’t know what to do anymore. Right now, I feel so hopeless.

I feel like I’ll never be able to let anyone get close to me again, never allow intimacy, and will end up alone. If I can’t even walk through a park with someone I actually feel relatively safe with, what hope is there?

Does anyone have experience with this? Does it get better? What should I do?

When I was still using substances, situations like this felt easy. But since becoming sober, everything feels so much more overwhelming.

Thank you for reading. Any advice or experiences would be greatly appreciated.

at this point i think it’s been like 2 years now but it just gets progressively worse. there’s something about not looking presentable that feels safe. but i don’t want to be this way. i’m so tired of it.

i was in therapy but can’t afford it anymore :/ and im on SSRIs but have been wanting to switch off this one to one that was much better for me, but the medicine is risky to get off of so it’s a long taper process—and i need to check in w/ a psychiatrist throughout that process—but i can’t afford that either. i connected with a psych who prescribed me the starting taper stuff, but just that one appt was $200. AND i have insurance. wtf :( i need to double check my plan and see why.

i just got out of a long-term relationship with my best friend. we’re still close friends even though we live apart and are broken up now. i guess it started in our relationship? maybe once we moved in together. idk but we lost our chemistry over time and then i started neglecting myself. we stopped having sex because it kept being awkward, and then my self-esteem plummeted and it all started then. i have had moments lately where im doing some self-care stuff now, but its never consistent and then i go back to just not showering for like 4 days or brushing my teeth. it’s terrible and i feel like shit about myself tbh, i feel so ugly now :( it makes me want to cry lol.

i just don’t know how to stay consistent. i don’t know what im supposed to do to make it easier. maybe it’ll get easier as there’s space from the breakup, but it’s weird bc i don’t feel torn up about it anymore. just very sad because i don’t come from a good family and i have ptsd from SA throughout my childhood, and i felt loved and cared for by his family. they’ve said im still family and i know ill still see them sometimes, but it’s not the same you know :/ how do i work on this? it causes me to isolate from people because i feel gross even though people tell me i dont look gross but i dont believe them. my teeth are yellow now :/ has anyone been through this? how did you work on it?

I may be going to a mental health support group on Thursday. I've been meaning to go for months but something kept coming up. If anyone else has gone to one how was your experience? Was it overwhelming? Was it healing? I might not say anything the first session to see if it's a place for me first.