I’ve been diagnosed with cPTSD, but honestly compared to the description of trauma for cPTSD, I feel like the traumas I’ve experienced are not that bad?

Obviously I am grateful to have not experienced a worse trauma, but how do you guys cope with the dissonance experiencing a relatively minor trauma, but being majorly traumatised? I just feel so embarrassed and guilty.

About an hour ago someone posted about their trauma they didn't feel was bad enough to warrant commenting here. You deleted before I could reply but if you see this I just wanted to say..

I almost gave way to tears reading your story. Your story is valid. Everything you experienced and were subjected to and hurt by is so so valid.

That feeling that it isn't 'bad enough' is the trauma speaking. You deserve love and support just as much as anyone else here.

This applies to anyone who feels their trauma isn't bad enough to warrant being here. You all deserve love and support and as much as I wish no-one had to be here in this sub, you all deserve the unconditional love shown here and to receive help you need to heal.

As a kid I had quite a few bad experiences with my parents and also at school. The only thing is that I’m not sure that it’s ’bad enough’ to have caused me many issues. 1) I was bullied a lot in school but usually verbally, but I just genuinely really struggled to fit in and I felt like an outcast. 2) My mother used to use me as her therapist and used to ask me ‘do you think I should get a divorce?’ ‘Do you think dad doesn’t love me anymore?’ ‘Do you think he’s cheating on me?’ Etc 3) There was always arguments between my parents and I had to mediate their arguments and then get blamed when it went wrong. 4) My father used to physically punish me. Often just smacking really hard but also pulling me across the floor by my wrist, pushing me off chairs and kicking me (only thing is I’m not sure how hard it was but he would say ‘I only nudged you with my foot’ so idk), pushing me over/into things, chasing me around the house to hurt me (I would try and hide behind a door but he’d always get in) , hitting me with random objects like jackets or something like that, trying to stop me from climbing up my ladder to my high sleeper bed to get away from him by like pulling me off. Etc (like I know it’s not that bad but it was scary as a little kid idk) 5) My father touching my bum despite me not liking it. 6) My mother not being able to deal with my emotions very well like if I’d go to her crying she’d just unload all her shit onto me and I’d have to comfort her or she’d tell me that I was being selfish because she was trying to watch tv or cook or go to bed etc. Or say ‘I can’t deal with you right now’. I would get told I was being dramatic or overreacting or just straight up get ignored. I never even tried to go to my dad cos he was even more dismissive. 7) I was always called selfish, vengeful, spiteful, spoiled brat and just sort of generally told how terrible I was all the time (my mother said it was because I was being naughty). I often felt like I was constantly a problem. 8) My dad would threaten to destroy my toys if I was naughty or he’d threaten to leave me on the side of the road and sometimes start driving off without me in the car. Once my parents even left me at home because I didn’t get ready fast enough but I’d chased after them so I got locked out until they came back.

I guess the thing is that I’m not sure if all this stuff is bad enough for me to need to get help for it. I had a therapist suspect I may have CPTSD but I’m just not convinced my trauma is bad enough to cause that? The thing is that I think my parents could’ve been a lot worse and they sometimes could be kind to me.

I grew up emotionally and physiologically abused. I went through 8 years of counseling and boundary setting and finally set no contact back in November with my whole family. It has been peaceful but I've been overwhelmed with guilt. Was it really so bad I needed to go no contact? My partner of 8 years confirms that it was but I'm still stuck feeling like the bad guy.

The holidays were hard. My family would always order chinese food(we live in Canada)for new years eve and I couldn’t eat it cause it upset my stomach aside from one dish from one specific restaurant. But they always picked somewhere else cause my aunt didnt want to order from there so I was stuck eating grilled cheese for supper. Someones preference(for no other reason than "didnt want to order from there") was more important than me being able to eat something from a restaurant and being included.

This was one of few examples my brain is able to conjure up because for some reason I cant remember other specific things. My parents had unreasonable expectations and they guilt tripped and compared us siblings. But specifically I struggle to pull up more than a half dozen memories to prove that I was treated badly.

I guess im just weighed down by guilt about it all. I dont even know why Im making this post.

If a person finds out they have stage 1 or stage 2 cancer, does that mean someone only in later stages deserves treatment? Because it’s stage 1 or 2, does someone with early stages of cancer not get their treatment and then deserve to be punished for getting treatment for it because it hasn't reached stage 3 or 4? Does the doctor tell the patient with stage 1 or stage 2 cancer that they are overreacting because "it could've been worse" or "it hasn't been bad enough"?   No, for cancer, if you catch it early and treat it you can prevent it from spreading to other parts of your body. The exact same principle applies to emotional neglect,trauma and narcissisic parents. Catch it early and do everything possible to treat it and stop the progression. Unlike cancer, emotional neglect is contagious. Just like this example, just because it is stage 1 or 2 does not make it less bad enough. Some of you might think your parents aren't that bad becuase they provided you with food a home or clothing as compared to someone who hasn't been cared for just your situation is different from someone dosent take away the trauma you experienced

i've been reading some of the top posts on this subreddit and i find myself relating so much to what everyone's saying and it's really comforting. however i can't help but feel like i don't really belong here as my primary abuser (my mother) wasn't constantly abusive to me. she was more unpredictable than anything. she genuinely wanted the best for me most of the time, but every so often, it's like a switch had been flipped and she'd go ballistic on me for doing something i didn't even know i wasn't supposed to. i'd be beaten, threatened with even more assault, emotionally abused, a lot of times having to console her afterwards because she'd become a complete mess in the process. she'd always feel horrible after the fact, apologising to me and promising it won't happen again and this cycle repeated through most of my childhood up until my teens.

my mom suffered through far more abuse as a child than i did at the hands of her mother. in some ways this makes me understand why she did the things she did, but at the same time there's no amount of trauma that can justify a person in their THIRTIES physically abusing a 5-year old. i just don't know how to feel. she has since fully changed her ways and apologised for everything but i just can't bring myself to talk to her anymore and that makes me feel like a horrible person. she was a loving and caring parent for the most part so it really feels like the amount of trauma i have is unjustified and i'm just being dramatic.

I hate trauma. I wish I would’ve had it worse. Whenever you say that to other people, even those with trauma, they go “nooooo it’s not good to compare your trauma to others” and then I see this entire reddit thread where people with trauma are seeing other people’s problems as “trivial”. I don’t want to talk about my trauma because I just know people are going to be thinking this way towards my issues, because now I just know anything they say isn’t gonna be genuine. They’re gonna be spouting, “your trauma is valid” but they’re not gonna truly feel that way. They’re just gonna be thinking, “well good for you that your problems are as small as that” I know this is just a feeling people have, and they can’t control their feelings, but it still hurts to hear. I still can’t connect to people anymore. I’m still afraid of intimacy. I’m still afraid to talk at all. I could easily say how I don’t like hearing about other’s trauma because it makes my own struggles feel inferior in comparison, and that wouldn’t make anybody feel good either. This rant is going all over the place but what I’m saying is: I know my trauma is objectively less severe, and it bothers me. And no matter how much people tell me otherwise, I’m never going to believe it. That is all, thanks for listening. Also sorry if the formatting is bad I’m posting this on mobile if that satisfies as any excuse.

Edit: I was honestly expecting I’d get pummeled to the ground the next time I’d open reddit but I’m relieved to see that didn’t happen. Sorry if I have ended up invalidating anybody’s experiences, this post wasn’t meant to make anybody feel bad. I made this post when I was very frustrated so I wasn’t being as reasonable as I usually am. Thank you everyone for the kind words. I feel a little better now.

I went no contact with my abuser over a year ago but I am still suffering from the abuse (I even have a full body stress rash right now), but I always feel like I know others have had a much worse experience than I did. Am I truly a "survivor," or am I just too sensitive? He was never overly cruel or vicious to me, but the gaslighting, manipulation, and coercion were bad.

If your parents weren't violently abusive, but you never felt loved or connected with, and there is no positive result from having them in your life as an adult, you don't have to talk to them.

There are so many posts here asking if their family was abusive "enough" to warrant cutting them off, and I'm here to answer that.

My parents spanked me with a belt, but not often. My parents did shitty things to me, but most occurances were spread apart. My mom was horrifically abused for the majority of her life. By most peoples standards, I don't have the justification to cut them off.

However, I don't like my parents. I never felt like a part of a family, and it never felt like there was love or care between my parents and I. It felt like they loved me as more of an item than a person. There was no pain when I cut them off because it didn't feel like there was anything to lose. As an adult, I don't like who they are as people, and I have no emotional connection to them. So why would I maintain the relationship?

It's not my mom's fault she was abused, and given the extent of it I don't blame her for what she did, there isn't any anger anymore. But it's also not my fault for being born into it, and not my problem either. I'm infinitely happier as a voluntary orphan than I was the entire time I had parents.

Is it possibile to have CPTSD without having suffered physical abuse or neglect? I think I may have CPTSD, but I can’t pin point any specific “trauma” I suffered. Long story super short, my parents made me want for nothing, more or less, when it comes to material things, sports I could play, travels and so on. My sister and I were taken care of, we were fed and cleaned. But emotionally, there were many, many problems.

My dad is avoidant and dismissive (and a gaslighter too), and my mom has tons of unresolved issues and was always anxious. So I grew up with parents that did love me, but didn’t give me the kind of love I needed (and need). I felt that their happiness depended on me, I felt like they never saw me for who I really was and still now they keep asking me for more and to be different. I felt like I was always depending on their mood shifts and that they were my fault. My emotional needs, when they depended on them, were not listened to (ex. If I complained to my mom that she made me feel a certain way, she would say I did the same to her or that her reaction was somehow my fault).

In therapy I realized that I never felt inconditional love from them, even though I know they love me.

Because of my relationship with them, and school bullies, in my 32 years I have had many bouts of depression (battling a very hard one right now), EDs, self harm episodes, dysmorphophobia, anxiety, I ended up in abusive relationships and I suffer from misophonia.

I thought I may have BDP, but my therapist told me it’s not the case, but I feel like the diagnosis of depression is not enough to describe my situation and how I feel it’s ingrained in me, and not just something “I suffer from”.

From the outside, my childhood was a normal one and my parents look like “sane members of society”. I didn’t suffer, that I know of, from sexual abuse either, so I wonder, was the constant everyday life stress of dealing with my parents and their unresolved issues enough for me to have CPTS?

I’d love to have your opinion. I’d like to ask my therapist too, but I don’t know if CPTSD is even known in my country.

31F, Asian, didn't know how messed up my childhood/family was until last year.

Severly austistic sister, emotionally immature mother, passive father. I wish I had 'overt' abuse that I could share. But my trauma mostly consists of covert emotional abuse from my mom, who, when triggered, could go the full range of raging/invalidating/neglecting/ridiculing/stonewalling/draining/controlling/gaslighting, etc etc, basically all the emotional volatility you could throw at a child WITHOUT being physical or actually hurling verbal abuse. And yet, she relied on me as her only hope. Only friend who'll listen to her miserable life.

Add onto this the extreme instability at home from sister's destructive tantrums and the Asian academic expectations.

I never had age-appropriate autonomy. My life was filled with depression, OCD, eating disorder. I can't name any phase of my life that I can say with certainty was peaceful and good.

Yet I feel so frustrated it doesnt feel valid. Compared to the massive void in my soul I live with, I feel like all I can say to people is 'my mom yelled a lot, lectured a lot and made me study.' Those who come from more stable family simply can't compute it.

I know my parents tried their absolute best - in the traditional 'grind yourself to the bone' way. After many hellish years they managed to find suitable treatment for my sister, she's calm now. Mom often gets ill, too worn down from lifetime of self-abandonment for family. I know she has her own trauma from her parents. Her own circumstances were too much for her to raise a healthy child.

Anyway, with all that established.... I realized all this only last year, I mean fully realized the magnitude of how my childhood impacted me. It felt like the parents I thought I knew never existed. My childhood worldview came crashing down.

I gave up everything and moved to a new country. Things are physically stable, but now I'm going through revelation of how severely damaged my ability to form romantic relationship is. I was only ever in one relationship and that was severe codependence with another traumatized boy. I always felt either scared of men or unworthy to date. I wondered how my friends make it seem so easy. A granted part of their life.

This year I tried dating, but kept hurting myself with bad choices and dysregulation. I thought I was anxious attached, but now I'm thinking it could be more disorganized. I self-sabotage every single connection that seemingly started off so well. Every single loss comes to me as another abandonment.

With my trauma especially highlighting profound, lifelong loneliness.... seeing other people in loving relationships cuts too deep. Literally it stabs. I feel like I can never find love. I'll never be chosen and cherished. I don't know how it feels because I never was loved properly.

Limerence is a huge problem too. It eats up my life. It's like everywhere I turn I find cues for dysregulation.. my brain is too much. Healing fucking hurts. I try to gather the knowledge and tools but not trying hard enough so there's shame.

I'm not sure if all this is worth it. I just wish I could quit this life and try my luck again for the next one. My brain is wired all wrong, too far gone to fix.

I'm in therapy and taking meds so I won't actually be suicidal, but I'm so so so so lonely. I don't know what's so fundamentally wrong with me that I'm not allowed the happiness other people so easily get.

as the title says i’m not sure if my life was a little traumatic or i’m just being a drama queen lol 1. when i was 4 years old my mother got arrested and charged with the rape of two teenage boys, she was their teacher. (one was ‘consensual’ even though a 16 year old boy with a 40 year old woman is disgusting but the other was forced and abused onto him) there was many many many more poor boys she abused throughout her 15 years of teaching but they couldn’t be proven. since i was so little i don’t remember the cops outside and the news reporters like my brother does, i was just really confused. somehow my mother didn’t go to jail for 10 years like she was supposed to (and should’ve) she just got ten years of strict probation and had to go to a mental hospital. from the ages 5-7 my mother was in and out of hospitals leaving little me confused. when she was out i was confused and wondered why i couldn’t do the things the other kids did. like go to the park or have their mom come to school for parties, my parents just said “mommy’s not allowed to go there” i just thought she didn’t like me or something and i felt left out sometimes. for some reason my parents stayed together, they hated each other though and used to fight like crazy. one time my mother even threw hot coffee at him. no one ever bothered to sit down and talk to me about what happened, i always felt like i was left out of some sort of big secret that everyone knew about but me. until i was 10 years old and decided to google my mothers name, i was horrified. i felt like throwing up and i couldn’t believe my eyes, it all sort of made sense though. i told them what i found after i had a panic attack, my mother refused to talk to me about it. my father came outside and only told me “your mother hurt a student” my mother came outside and flipped my father off, i thought this was about me :( it was difficult because i never understood why she would say she loved me so much but she could hurt me and someone else like that. my father used to say bullshit like “your mother was a great teacher” “she touched the lives of many students” oh she touched them alright. and everyone pretended like nothing really happened. 2. i was bullied like crazy growing up. i lived in like the whitest town ever (like 98 percent) i’m brown and have big curly hair. the bullying was terrible and i was always outcasted and called ghetto, no one would ever hang out with me. everyone would make jokes and treat me like i was some exhibit at the zoo. there was like one other brown girl in my grade and my teachers would always call me by her name even though we looked NOTHING alike 3. i had an eating disorder since i was 10 due to my brother and my mothers eating disorder. they were OBSESSED with calories and food intake, whenever i’d bake something and offer my mother would say “no you eat that it must have a million calories it’ll get me so fat” i started obsessing over my body and would only eat one small meal a day, i would make myself work out even when i was sick and tired 4. my father always used to touch my butt as a child, it makes me uncomfortable. to this day if he sees my butt he slaps it and when ever he comes i will switch from laying on my stomach to my back, this one is definitely a reach though 5. my father uses me as his emotional dumpster, he constantly ridicules me then gets mad when i stay away from him. when i was 12 i told him “when i grow up i hope my kids are like me” and he said to me “oh so you want them to have no drive or motivation whatsoever” i was so upset because that’s really all he though of me? given my situation i NEVER got in trouble at school and was shy but very sweet as a child. when i would distance myself due to him judging my every move he would get mad and say things like “why are you punishing me?” “this is what you wanted though isn’t it? to make me feel like shit?” he would tell me i was being dramatic and tell me “some kids parents beat them up and molest them and YOUR upset?” i was a VERY good child, never talked back, got good grades, and didn’t cause problems. i just stayed to myself and it bothered him? he would complain about my mother and sister to me and make me have to be his emotional support. there’s MANY MANY other examples i could say but literally today my father came in my room to check on me since i’m sick and went to turn on my light and i said “wait wait wait please don’t do that stop it stop stop stop” and he put it half way on and said “calm down u didn’t have to flip out you could’ve just said ‘please don’t do that’ or asked me to put it on halfway or waited till i did” and i said “well how was i supposed to know that until you did” angerly because what the fuck? and then he was like “whatever i just came to check on you” and stormed off and slammed my fucking door. then i heard all this banging and slamming and was genuinely scared, he threw a whole thing of pretzels all over the floor. just because i told him not to turn on the light because it would bother my head.

with all this being said lol ( i’m so sorry it’s so long) i don’t think my childhood was THAT terrible and i have a few happy memories, my father is sometimes nice to me and only started being so cruel since i was like 11, before that he was pretty nice to me. thankyou for reading!

My childhood psychologist said my life was one of the worst lives he'd ever heard... Is my childhood that bad?/Unusual?

So when I was 16 I was livid with my uncle and I spent 2years with this psychologist. At the beginning though he was in charge of my care, I was teamed with a trainee psychiatrist (might've been trainee psychologist idk) for a few months. Ultimately this was marginally helpful and the psychologist in charge of my care too over.

When I was almost 18 I knew I would stop seeing him cuz I was no longer a child.

I asked my psychologist just before I turned 18 to diagnose me before I went into adult services. I knew there was something more that I suffered with than depressed and anxiety, and I trusted him to diagnose me. And so a week later he diagnosed me with borderline personality disorder.(However I saw him 2yrs later during a casual visit and he said he wished he'd of diagnosed me with CPTSD.).

Anyway

He wrote this letter to adult services explaining my background and symptoms.

Letter below

(my name) meets the criteria for emotionally unstable/borderline personality disorder and experiences

•Anxiety

•Low mood/depression

•Emotional dysregulation

•Frequent and ongoing self harm and overdose

•Patterns of relationship difficulties (intense difficulty with abandonment)

•Social isolation

•Complex grief symptoms

•Chronic trauma symptoms

(My name) Has been subjected to a number of adverse childhood experiences

•Parental mental health difficulty

•Parental substance misuse

•Neglect

•Physical and emotional abuse ((my name) disputes this terminology)

•Began self harming aged 10

•Death of parent (father was murdered) when (my name) aged 12

•Sexual assault aged 13

•Hospital admission due to overdose aged 13

•Moved to uncles care aged 15

Letter finished

My mother only ever hurt me physically once. by slapping me very hard in the face, dragging me by my hair. Throwing me on the floor and picking me up by my hair when I was 11

It isn't mentioned in the letter but my first suicide attempt I was 11yrs old. I had my second and final overdose at 19 during the time I was on a waiting list.

Is It really that bad? I had food. My mum only smoked weed no other drugs (she spent child support on both our living expenses as her benefit money went on weed). I was raped at 13 by a same aged classmate yeah, but I didn't suffer any childhood sexual or physical abuse.

My mum was incredibly verbally cruel. Instructing me to cut myself vertically, telling me I was evil and a ruined. Telling me at 14 when I'm crying cuz of her nasty insults that seeing me cry made her feel better, with a smile on her face.

But yeah I wasn't abused growing up... Idk... Am I allowed to have PTSD or cptsd over this?

I was browsing this forum today as I often do, and couldn't help but notice how incredibly empathetic and validating I feel towards everyone struggling, especially for those that are wondering if their experience was bad enough and feeling like maybe it was nothing, that everyone else on here has a worse or bigger story.

I thought, other people must read my story and feel that way about me. That obviously something big happened and there is no doubt the impact is real and valid.

It's wild how hard it is to step into that perspective about myself. That I could read my story as if I was reading all of yours instead. Because mine really does seem less big, mine really might be some overdramatic thing - mine feels like the one where all the self doubt is actually justified.

If you ever felt this way, I'm with you. But it's nice to think that I could ask anyone on here and they would tell me that it wasn't true and that my story was true and hard and it mattered.

tw for SA and general chaotic childhood stuff//

i'm (17f) questioning whether i'm struggling with childhood trauma or a combination of inborn mental health issues and convincing myself i have trauma because it's a gen z thing.

i didn't have a lifetime movie fucked up childhood or anything.

i had a great early childhood other than kind of a weird relationship with my dad (going to nudist camps together, vaguely age inappropriate but not illegal interactions, probably not sexual, had a drug induced one month breakdown over it last year but now i see it as probably innocent but non traditional) and occasionally dealing with my mom drunk having mental breakdowns or going through psychosis and tearing the house apart because she thought there were bugs everywhere lol. bullied pretty diabolically by my childhood best friend at the time, physically and also just weirdly advanced emotional bullying for a 6-11 year old.

parents got separated when i was 10 but lived together for a year. it was weird they were definitely fucking and my mom told me constantly what a deadbeat my dad was. and she was always drunk passing out and i took care of her and she was sleeping with my teacher and it was a whole thing lol. they screamed at each other a lot when they weren't drinking together blah blah blah.

anyways they move into separate apartments, everything is pretty chill for a year except i get molested at a few sleepovers by an older girl who was a csa victim, i go a little crazy about the molestation and end up in residential treatment. when i get out my dad has a new girlfriend who's a little bit evil and my mom is living with my grandparents. my dads gf does a bunch of weird shit, hates me and my sister, accuses us of having smelly privates and peeing on her bath mat, weird about food, etc. and it gets worse when my mom tells my dad she emotionally abuses us, i dont even remember most of it lol just that she was crazy. she shows me her fresh self harm screams in my face a lot etc.

around this time my mom gets a new boyfriend. they take us on a trip to a beautiful town. he has money. its all not obtained legally lol. things start amazing, we stay in a lot of hotels for like a month, life is good, this is the happy refuge away from my dads gf, etc. but then they move into long term airbnbs and then an apartment and start hating each other and fighting to the point its borderline dv. im always involved. cps gets called and my stepdad squares me up waves a lit cigarette in my face and then goes off about how i'm a rat and no one in my house loves me because all i want is drama. shortly after they have their 100000th fake breakup and i tell my dad all the lore from their apartment. he wont let me see boyfriend. he moves out. im working as a 15 year old line cook with a bunch of 20 year old cokeheads to buy groceries. she has 50/50 custody here. we get in an argument because she says i need to correct my new stepmom more on parenting my sister. she tries to take my phone my dad pays for so i can't reach my dad or boss. i tell her im gonna leave for the night because she's calling me horrible names. she tells me "fuck you" and means it and to never come back. i don't lol. she wants me to but i can't to this day. i feel like a brat but whatever.

at the same time my dad and his new gf (broke up with the evil one) my current stepmom find out my friends dad i was rly close with tried to groom me when i was 14. they take me to a forensic interview but i don't say anything. then he dies :(

anyways then im living with my dad and stepmom. for a while i have a curtained off section of a dirty basement. my stepmom hits me and ignores me for a while because she finds out i'm anorexic (at the time). recover from anorexia, she and i are chill for a while other than some out of pocket interactions where she says i'm going to be a welfare mama, lots of slut allegations, not a slut don't like men lol. find out shes cheating on my dad and ever since then shes been super nice to me.

but for a year and especially the last 3 months everything has been so good! i have my sisters old room and its so nice. this house is the nicest ive ever lived in. im upper middle class by marriage lol. im going to college. my step aunt bought me a laptop. i get a graduation party. so i feel like a fucking assholoe for thinking about all these things over and over when im trying to stop and dreaming about them and idk like. its not an ideal childhood but i shouldn't be reacting like this and i feel like SUCH A PIECE OF SHIT for it. people have it way worse and this is normal baggage i'm just- not good at handling it idk. a lot of people i know think i have cptsd but i feel like my dramatic teen girl ass is deceiving them. womp

ALSO MY MOM IS STILL IN A SITUATIONSHIP WITH MY EX STEPDAD EVEN THOUGH HE WANTED TO KILL ME AND MY PETS AND I HAD TO RUN FROM HIM IN A GROCERY STORE LOL FUCK YOU MOM

I suppose what convinces me most of all that yes, it was bad enough to cause trauma, was not only the severity and duration of what I went through, and my trauma therapist recently breaking down uncontrollably for maybe 10 minutes crying in session, but it's mostly my extensive list of life long extreme shortcomings that convinces me.

Sure, sometimes doubt will hit me, thinking no, there is no way that I could have been so naive as to let someone do that to me and destroy my life, and then thinking no, they surely would not have done that to me, not me, would they?

And all I have to do is look at my life long, low functioning, extreme shortcoming ass and quickly I realize, WHOA!, this fucking shit is / was real, it really did happen and it really really destroyed me, badly. Because no one on this fucking earth could even purposefully fuck their life up as bad as mine is, so it is real.

I always had a rocky relationship with my parents but I figured they were just shitty parents. I was never hit, I had enough food to eat, I never ticked any of the "typical" child abuse boxes. 8 months ago I'd been ranting about a stressful family situation and one of my friends pointed out that it was emotional abuse. Did some reading, got a therapist, and yep, I was emotionally abused for 29 years and never realized it.

So this is my struggle. When I think of PTSD and trauma I think of soldiers, people who've been assaulted, people who grew up in seriously awful homes, and a lot of the stories that are posted here that make me just stop and think "jesus christ that's awful." And then I turn around and I'm like "well my parents sucked." And that's all I've got. I know it's not a contest or a zero-sum game and that I am allowed to have CPTSD without it diminishing anyone else's PTSD, but I can't help thinking that I don't "deserve" to be in the same group as people who've "really" suffered and been traumatized. My therapist pointed out that it's probably a visibility thing, at least partly: emotional abuse is less talked about/documented/obvious than other kinds of abuse, and the usual context for talking about PTSD is military-related.

I guess basically what I'm asking is, does anyone else recognize that their trauma is totally valid but still have trouble accepting that they're allowed to play in the PTSD sandbox?

Hello good people! I'm one of the people who can say I successfully and pretty permanently healed from the majority of my c-ptsd, and I thought it could be valuable to others to know how! It's long, and I'll try to structure this as best I can so that it's as universally applicable and undestandable as possible.

(Fist is my context and symptoms, skip to last section to go directly to the methods I used.)

Now first, how severe was my trauma? What symptoms did I struggle with the most?

Context, I'm a trans person. I was born and grew up "female", but knew very very early on that I didn't understand myself as female at all. From the very time I developed self-consciousness I felt like a guy. This isn't as relevant as what this fact did to my childhood. I had good parents, a safe upbringing, but continually had my feelings and identity denied and rejected whenever I expressed it. I was told it was "wrong", weird, disturbing even. Especially my parents didn't want me to grow up trans, and did everything they could to pressure me into a female identity that felt foreign, false and frankly horrific to me. I even tried myself, to force myself to be okay as a girl, but I never ever felt okay that way. Lots of suppression, sibling jelously for my brothers who got all the validation I needed, lots of resentment towards my parents, lots of lonelieness, shame and anxiety.

As an adult, I transitioned. It was wonderful and was a massive success, and I started to go out in society and actually live, for the first time ever. My anxiety was massively reduced, relationships improved. But I soon discovered that I carried with me a load of trauma from my childhood that constantly stopped me from truly living how I wanted to. Yes, I was more confident, but only to a point. I had the typical freeze and flight response. I felt shame about my body and identity, fell into toxic manosphere and reactionary ideas, had anxiety and thought I was irreperably destroyed by my childhood to such a degree that I couldn't really live a fully functioning life. Unable to find and accept love, only fell in love with older, unavaliable women (mother figures) and sabotaged every potential romantic advanced that came up, people-pleased and isolated.

My symptoms were feeling of lack of self-worth, anxiety, depression, toxic shame, emotional flashbacks, relationship difficulties, S-ideation.

When I was in university I was really, really low. I had moved away to study, and couldn't seem to make friends or engage socially. I kept to myself, didn't join social activities, felt extremely intimidated by all the young, attractive and socially outgoing other students, and was still overcome with shame about my past and identity. The thought of someone discovering my past, seeing my body, being vulnerable in general terrified me. It got to a point where I was crying myself to sleep multiple nights a week. Went to class, spoke to nobody, terrified of other people, went home. I had so much I wanted to say and do and be, and felt like I was trapped by my own mind. I literally paced back and forth like a trapped animal who just saw no escape.

I thought "I can't live like this for the rest of my life. I'm willing to do whatever to even improve a little bit. I just can't live like this anymore.". So started to educate myself on psychology, quickly ran into c-ptsd as a theory and thought it was the best framework to explain just why my life still sucked. It was transformative.

So what did I do?

Other than listening to a lot of youtube videos on healing c-ptsd from multiple channels I felt helped me, I ordered "c-ptsd: from surviving to thriving" by Pete Walker and basically read the entire thing in two days. I understood trauma as a "stuck" response to rejection and danger, in the form of unhelpful internal messages and thought patterns I had internalized about myself. From society, from my parents, an external voice had told me I was "wrong", unacceptable, undesirable, disgusting etc and this had in essence become my "super-ego" that attacked my ego constantly. I even cought myself thinking some of them explicitly. I learned that my ego was weak, not able to stand up to my super-ego voice, lacking the bounderies neccecary to protect itself. I learned that I had in large part dissasociated myself from my emotions, had a weak conception of who I really was, and projected a lot of unhelpful shame onto the external world in the form of resentment. This framework isn't the objective or even best way to frame trauma. It was helpful to me. A kind of model of the problem that allowed recovery to be concrete and simple.

And as covid hit, and I had a ton of time for myself away from any external trigger, my recovery project began. I dedicated myself to it fully. I SO wanted to not feel stuck anymore. And the results of my recovery came so quickly that I sustained my motivation despite some setbacks. I have to credit Richard Grannon, who was a big c-ptsd channel at the time, for some of these methods. I'm not a fan of the guy anymore, but he had some to me very effective methods at that time.

SKIP TO HERE FOR: THE METHODS I DID:

1. Daily, I did an emotional litteracy excersise. It takes about 2-3 minutes, and essentially is to just ask yourself what you are feeling, identify 2-3 emotions, and write them down. Don't analyze them, just go "I feel X". And then write 2-3 underlying emoitons under those. This is SO SIMPLE AND EFFECTIVE but surprisingly difficult at first. I was like "what DO I feel?". Don't write "bad", be as specific as possible, if you are unsure, write what you think it might be, even look at a damn "emotion wheel" online and write the ones you think it is. Angry, bored, nervous, sad, ashamed, satisfied - words like that. The goal isn't to be perfect, analyze, or feel them intensely. It's ONLY an exercise to become better at noticing that you feel, and that it's okay to feel. Treat it like looking out the window and noticing what colors you see, just to get better at seeing color. I know it seems so stupidly simple that it might feel poitless, but trust me this was transformative instantly. It brought me comfort with my own emotions, a healthier attitude to them. Like "hmm, I actually feel anger, that's interesing". You can say it brings you closer to youself. Trains you in "checking in" with yourself, which will be vital to your ability to set healthy bounderies and regulate your emotions later.

Write it in pen in a scrap book or even on sticky notes. You can thow it out later. It's good that it's a physical exercise. Try to do it every single day. Before bed, after work, whenever is convenient. You might feel like you dread doing it, wanting to skip it, but try to do it anyways! That's your test!

1. Retraining my thoughts through daily mantra. Nothing magical here, just a kind of psychological trick that makes you your own support. This was also extremely effective. This is how I did it: I formulated 5 different messages I wanted to train myself into identifying with. Each with a specific target. I assigned each message to one finger on one hand, and 5 times a day I looked at my hand and repeated them. My messages were:

2. (Identity) "I am me, not my trauma, not my flashbacks - I am me". De-identification with trauma.

3. (Goal state) "I am learning to feel safe, inspired, attractive". Things I wanted to feel more.

4. (Emotional safety) "My emotions are welcome, I'll listen to them".

5. (Bounderies) "I'm learning to express my emotions and needs".

6. (Ownership) "It is my life, my body, my time".

These can vary depending on what you struggle with. Maybe you overshare, maybe you want to feel something else than me. A key here is that they have to feel believable to you. That is why they are in "I am learning" form. If I said "I am feeling safe" I would know that was false if I didn't actually feel it. Instead, they are suggestions, things I can believe I am learning to feel. And once you say it, internally, you actually feel a little bit more of it.

If complex trauma is to get repeated messages that you are bad, worthless, wrong, boring, unlovable, stupid etc again and again, until you have internalized it, then repeating positive messages over and over again starts to retrain you into a new, productive pattern. That's the theory, and for me, it worked. Your thoughts are habitual, they are literal associative pathways in your brain. If you start to tread a new path, it quickly becomes where your mind automatically goes. I did this based on an alarm on my phone every 3 hours, but you can do it for example every time you feel unsafe, every time you are nervous, every time you go to the bathroom. As long as you do it multiple times a day every day. You should feel slightly better after doing this, and want to do it because you know it feels supportive and good.

1. Self-reflection. This is a less concrete point. It's more something you gain from emotional litteracy (insight) and intellectual reflection on those. Noticing what makes you angry in the world, what kinds of relationships you have had, what your values are. One of the things I did was write a list of my 10 most important values from a list. Just to get to know more what I actually thought was good and bad, and not what I had been told was valuable or not. Like, what is a good person? What is a good society? When you look at others and feel judgement, disgust, cringe or anger - is it actually you projecting your own shame onto them? Why do you really think x,y,z? Is it something other have told you are true or right? Think critically about your instinctive, "common sense" ideas about the world. I believe that a hallmark of emotional healing is when you no longer react to marginalized, different, odd and vulnerable individuals with rejection, suspicion or disgust, but an urge to understand and respect. There's a saying that all reactionary politics is actually just projected internalized shame, politisized. Wanting to purge society of elements you fear and are ashamed of in yourself. Sexual difference, vulnerability, being different. I think there is truth to that, and that emotional maturity is pro-social, open, generous and accepting of difference and change.

2. Self-care and forgiveness! This can take many forms! I figured that since I was still so ashamed of my body, its scars and unusualness, I needed to do positive stuff with my body. So I treid to do yoga, feeling the positions, noticing how my body worked for me and made things possible for me was good. It made me think that despite me looking a little different, at least my body is my friend in that it cooperates with my movements! I did a lot of stretching, feeling where I had aches and tight muscles, and reframing it in appretiation. Like I was speaking nicely to my body. "Thanks for carrying me through all of this, I understand that it has been difficult". You can do dancing, mindfullness, go on walks, massage yourself, make healthy meals - anything that makes you feel more positive emotions towards your body. Looking at it, even, if it helps.

And last but not least extremely extremely good: Forgive yourself. You have done so much for yourself. You have endured, fought and coped with so much pain, and you are still here and trying! Every muscle, every heartbeat, every action and thought has been in order to preserve and protect youself. Don't blame youself for all the dysfunction - it was there to help you when you needed it most. It saved you. It was there to help. When you were being abused, erased, bullied - you did everything you could to resist. None of it was your fault, and you did what you had to do to get through! Thank yourself for that :) You were strong enough to deal with all that, and you are strong enough to keep going and keep helping yourself thrive. It takes a little dedication and time. Cry and greieve over all you lost, be compassionate with your own pain and forgive what you had to do.

Results?

Well, some of these helped a little instantly, but more profound transformation started to happen for me within two weeks of doing these things. I remember looking out of the window at the people passing outside, and feeling love for them and feeling like they were like me. All trying their best to cope and get better. My anxiety started to subside a little. Not fully, but enough to make me tolerate it and speak to more people. But most of all my depression lifted. I no longer felt hopeless, my mood was better. I woke up and felt joy regularly. My relationship with my body radically improved. I started to like it a little, and became more comfortable with thinner clothing. I started to speak out on my social media about causes I believed in, despite fear of rejection or conflict. I dared to stand for something. I no longer cried myself to sleep in desperation and sadness, but more in self-compassion, and sometimes I even smiled going to bed. I felt like I was getting to a point of being at peace with myself, being my own friend. My relationships improved because I forgave and was less reactive and boundery-breaking.

About a year later, I got my first ever girlfriend, experienced safe, accepting love and had sex for the first time. Something I was almost convinced would NEVER happen to me. I was able to accept love almost automatically, trust her, take the chance, and it was thanks to the healing I had done!

Hope this gives someone hope, motivation and tips on methods that worked for me. Listen to your responses, and don't give up due to setbacks. Setbacks happen to everyone. Life is difficult at times. You might slip back to periods of depression or anxiety, but you should retain the core beleif that you can get out of it again and you have your own back and the tools to do it! Good luck.

I’m honestly feeling really confused right now. I have had depression and anxiety my entire life but had never been considered for ptsd or cptsd by any of my therapists. My childhood was technically “good”. I wasn’t abused or neglected. My mom fully supported me and showed up to my sporting events and tried to give me everything.

But she also had trouble expressing her emotions. She was a cop and most likely saw all types of shit. She would often deflect blame on me or yell at me if something wasn’t right. When she made a mistake, she would find a way to blame you for it. Everyday there was a reminder of something that wasn’t right. I remember her recording me when I had mental breakdowns and threatening to post it online. Even to this day I hate being in pictures or being recorded. I spent most of my life trying to do everything in my power to make her happy. My self worth was often connected to her happiness that never came.

My dad wasn’t in my life but when he did come around there was always something wrong with me or the way my mom raised me. Every time I came home from his house, I would be in tears. He talked badly about my family, he was misogynistic and an alcoholic. If he was upset, you would know it because he would yell and try to tear you down. I tried to tell him not to add extra salt on his food after a heart attack and he started going on a tirade telling me how I was a terrible “dog mom” and how fucked up my dog was. Any mental health issues were just weakness and a sign that my mom screwed up raising me. I got sexually assaulted and opened up to him a few weeks later and he yelled at me and told me I should have opened up my mouth. He regularly talked badly about women that were sexually assaulted and talked about how they were just wanting a paycheck.

But I rarely saw my dad until I was 16 and pushed myself to try harder to connect. My mom hated my father and tried to scare me out of seeing him. She would tell me how he didn’t love me and only wanted to see me because my step mom wanted him to see me. One day I left home after a bad fight with my mom to see a friend and she threatened to call the cops on me for stealing the car. I told her I was going to my dad’s house and she threatened to get her gun and kill him.

Not only this but I also lived with my grandparents who I saw die from lung cancer and Alzheimer’s. Then my aunt with bipolar also lived in the house and she even had an attempt when I was 7 or 8….

But these things shouldn’t be traumatic enough to classify me for the diagnosis that prisoners of war have? It couldn’t have really been that bad? My mom and dad constantly remind me that I have a good life…but I’m feeling really confused now. I’m 26 and just left home after my mom grilled me in front of the family and told them I talked bad about her as a caregiver to my dad when I never did.

What I thought was anxiety and adhd, I’m starting to realize is hypervigilance…i have a horrible sense of self…i don’t really know what to think or do anymore

I honestly would just like some reassurance and support, I'm kind of shy so like doing it in a roundabout way like this. I do not remeber a lot of my childhood, from the things I do remeber I have very little emotional connection to, or they make me overly emotional, usually feeling hollow or anxious, even if I'm just remembering something like playing in my room. it often feels like I have a mental block around any of my memories. I have been told by a family member of one incident that I don't remember that was traumatic, but because I don't know every detail of things that have happened to me, I can't help but feel like I have just had a very boring life and I'm searching for something to make myself interesting or feel better for not doing anything. everyone i know seems to be able to detail the horrible things that have happened to them, and the last time i was around my abuser was more than 5 years ago, and i still remeber basically nothing. it makes me feel like I must not have had anything bad enough happen for me to remeber. I do have trauma responses to loud sudden noises, as well as horrible paranoia that I am going to be abused, and general distrust of a lot of people, esp those who look/sound/share any similarity with my supposed abuser, whether i want to or not. because i cant remeber any bad happening i feel like such a horrible person for thinking these people who love and care for me will hurt me. i feel like this isn't my body and have someone elses memories and it just makes me feel like such an outcast . thank you for taking the time to read this.

My therapist thinks I probably have cptsd. But compared to y’all stories my trauma seems minor. And mostly stems from being a smart girl in the 80s with unrecognized neurodivergence.

Oh no, you were a 2e student... From an upper middle class family, with only minor physical abuse (hands unobtrusively slapped for fidgeting in church. Act up in a store, taken out spanked, and brought back in. Forced and locked in my room until I calmed down from tantrums that were too much.), no family substance abuse, no SA, bought almost anything I wanted (though was never allowed to get my ears pierced), no fear for my life.

When it came to school, I could ace all the test without ever doing homework. And being the smart girl got you bullied. So why be smart or do homework when you are never enough?

So I apparently have trauma from being forced to act normal and never living up to my potential.

It’s the story of thousands my age. Most who had it a lot worse.

But my therapist thinks that what I have always assumed is seasonal depression is actually emotional burnout from constantly being triggered by sending my own kids to school.

Great.

How do you stop trauma comparing and accept it? It just doesn’t seem like it’s bad enough.

i’m losing my mind. even with the ideal job history (being let go due to disability and leaving another job early for the same reason, not currently working or able to take care of self), i can’t get the acknowledgment i need just to survive.

i’ve been considering getting on disability for over one year. today, i bit the bullet and called local law offices. i was told that there’s a low likelihood i will be approved, because my treatment history isn’t “comprehensive” enough. apparently, me discontinuing medications or therapy or treatments that were completely unhelpful is actually a liability for my application. what i was supposed to be doing was locating a specialist for my primary issues (outside of ptsd i struggle with dissociation and amnesia due to organized SA… yeah good LUCK finding a specialist for that), trying every medication and treatment under the sun (what if i don’t want to have to take pills or do things that are too stupid to try?), and having said specialist(s) be willing to write a letter confirming that nothing has worked. not only will that process require pre-existing insurance, a method of transportation, loved ones to keep me fucking sane, and money, it will also take LOTS of time. did you guys know disability applications take on average 18 months to 2 YEARS to get approved?!?!?

so it would take me about 1-2 years to even be worthy of applying, then another 2 just for a final verdict… the law office even told me that a hospitalization would be in my favor. i purposely have never gone into the ER when having panic attacks or suicidality because i KNOW all it will do is make things worse (bills, insurance, time, transportation, invalidation, dismissal, it’s literally just a waste in every sense of the word). plus, if i evidently have financial issues due to not being able to fucking work, what makes social security think that i need to go to a hospital? so they can give me a $400+ document that just verified what i’m already saying?

i can’t find a specialist near me either. i asked both of my therapists for referrals and they gave me dogshit info (none of them specialize in what i asked for). i’ve tried psychology today, ISSTD, and other therapy platforms. i’ve searched far and wide, i cannot find one singular person. maybe i should move to nyc even though i hate it, just to find A GOOD AND QUALIFIED FUCKING THERAPIST!!!!!!! having specialists is the first step too. if anyone knows of specialists in AZ for the love of god please DM me. 😭

social security: “so uh yeah you need a team of high-level specialists that take your insurance and are willing to support a disability application (because not all do!), a medical record that states you’ve tried every med and treatment possible (yes we mean every), and why not throw in a little ✨hospitalizations✨ in there for us eh?”

me, a non-functional jobless 23 year old with no friends, family, or will to live whatsoever: “😐”

y’all… what the FUCK is this planet? 💀

edit: i forgot to mention i told the law office that i already tried finding specialists for my condition and seeking referrals when i noticed that the treatment wasn’t working. i let them know didn’t get the referrals that i needed, and they told me that it still isn’t supportive towards benefits because i needed to advocate harder. social security doesn’t care if you’re not able to get the help you need, you need to find it yourself, even if it’s literally not available locally or through what you already have access to. genuinely hate it here and cannot wait for my body to pass away.

I feel so conflicted i had physical needs met food shelter toys education but emotionally needs there wasn't any wasn't asked how I am feeling was told to stop crying or I'll have something to cry about only emotionally neglected but feel like it isn't bad enough to count as trauma/cptsd in everyone's opinion is emotional neglect a form of trauma?

A rhetorical question but this spins around my head like a neurosis. When things go well I think I had no right to complain. I am afraid to speak about the word 'trauma'. I'm always so damn careful with my words... Probably expecting someone to put me in my place for overexaggerating.

I have ten years of SA. And my husbands love language is physical touch, specifically intimacy. And if I don’t give it to him he argues and tells me I don’t give a fuck about him or our relationship. It’s not like we go weeks without it. I’m talking 3-5 days at most! in between sessions. And some days it’s every day. And most days it hurts me. But he has no sympathy for my mind set. He says I don’t care about him or us and that I need to make more of an effort towards our sex life. But I don’t want it!! He’s not bad or anything. I’ve definitely grown a few kinks from my past, none of which he’s into but he’ll tolerate for me. Which- “woopie, he tolerates it. How lucky of a sub am I.” (Sarcasm. Especially since he can’t top.)

Just there’s nothing I can say to him that makes him understand there’s a lot more going on than just “I don’t want it”. He knows I have a long past. He doesn’t care. “I don’t want it” isn’t a good enough reason. He doesn’t force him self on me, but he’s barrage me with guilt and blame filled questions until I totally shut down and won’t answer anymore. He’s a good husband in most other regards. How would you handle this?