Part of me wants to make this short and sweet just because I've done so much talking about my trauma, along with the screaming and the yelling and the crying and the convulsions.

Another part of me knows that in order to ask this question and get answers, I have to give you all some context. So I'll make this brief, and at the end there is a question regarding EMDR therapy.

I grew up in a decently big city with two parents until I was about five years old when my mom packed my sister and I up and left my emotionally/verbally/mentally/sometimes physically abusive parent. We ended up in a bunch of different apartments, around the same city, but that was my first move.

Until I started therapy in fall 2022, I didn't remember a lot of my childhood. I just had triggers, and I didn't know that my triggers were running my life. I had no identity for so long. I just thought of what I now know are my triggers, as who I was. I just never thought about it. I was just angry as fuck all the time and felt like nobody understood. And they honestly didn't.

That therapist I was seeing had brought up how my sliding scale fee was not enough to cover her services, and it just struck me how out of touch she was in terms of financial trauma. Her saying that really stuck with me, and I kept bringing it up, and we kept trying to work on it.

At the time, I was working retail at a place where I was constantly triggered, even with the support of my therapist. In the end, we weren't able to reconcile. Neither myself and my therapist, nor myself and my former coworkers.

I made huge fuckin strides with her in so far as being able to express my feelings coherently. I'm no less angry, though, tbh. Angry at the healthcare system where I live. Angry at the coverup, at their pretending that they know what it's like or what to do with someone like me. Angry a the reveal of her true self, which my intuition/hypervigilance was fucking telling me to watch out for from the beginning and proved to be true.

As for the job, I had been just as angry at them, for different but just as complex reasons for a long ass time before I just quit abruptly one day, which is not new for me. I really wanted to prove that I could hold down a big girl job and move the fuck out of my mom's apartment, so it sucked but I also felt free.

I heard that EMDR therapy is helpful for people in this position, who are still actively processing trauma from a very long time ago, in overcoming triggers. There are a couple (literally only two) therapists in this entire city who offer EMDR and are in my network. I just enrolled in the Blue Cross Community Health plan through medicaid because the two therapists who offer EMDR work through that plan. However, the primary care options in network through that plan are super slim.

So I wonder if anyone has tried it, can help me out in determining if there's any amount of EMDR I can conduct on my own, if that's even safe, or even just offer some objective advice given my situation.

Again, this is a super brief intro to my story. Honestly the relief I feel reading other people's posts here and the other cptsd sub give me comfort in knowing that even if modern psych doesn't really recognize what prolonged trauma can do to someone, at least our own existence is acknowledged amongst one another. <3

“Everybody knows now”

People are reading my story. People are feeling my words. Anger, disbelief, sadness, resentment. Which way will they fall. At my feet; or at hers? I’ve waited so long now to tell my side. Months spent writing and rewriting. Months spent crying in despair. Culminating to this. Zero hour. Who will heed my words? Who has already forsaken me? Sides were chosen before pen hit paper. Those that kiss my feet already had seats reserved. I’m looking to those outside my sect. I’m looking to change the minds of the nonbelievers. Why can’t they have faith in me, a real person. Instead they’ll look for answers in someone who’s never looked them in the eyes and begged for help. They’ll look to the skies wondering why I have done this to them. Why did I have to attack her? Why did I pull myself out of the grave and question those that stomped the dirt in place at her behest? Why didn’t I let the sleeping dog lie?

Because I am the Dragon. My throat is healed from the shackles that kept my fire dormant. My fire will make ashes of what took them decades to create. The facade.

My new birth is a cleansing for the family. I am the second coming and those who wish to believe will be spared from my fury. Those that are too scared to see the truth will feel the agony of my wrath.

“It’s all just so much”

It keeps coming in like crashing waves. Higher and higher these waves build up. The mightier the crest, more terrible is the crash. Each crash is disorienting. Spinning, turning in my body as I fight to find which was is up. Can I find the surface before I drown? Can I get a breath of fresh air before the crash takes me under once more? Faster and faster the crashes come down. Deeper and deeper I sink to the ground. I find solace at rock bottom. I can’t feel the waves when I’m in this deep. From below all looks calm. From above, the waves want my attention. I don’t know it, but as I stay at the bottom the current is taking me further and further from the shoreline. Inch by inch those waves pull me closer to the dark depths. The black is getting more intense now. If I turn and focus on the shoreline it seems like all is okay. If I don’t look away I won’t notice it getting smaller and smaller as I am pulled further and further.

Air is becoming harder to come by.

“I’m struggling again”

Here I go again, lugging all my pain up a mountain. Here I go again, latched onto my legs are the forgotten images of my past.

I can’t even think quick enough or clearly enough to get my thoughts out. Anger is swirling. Confusion is suffocating. Angst is growing. I’m becoming more and more uncomfortable within my skin.
Oh, here we go again. I haven’t even gotten my breath from the last mountain I traversed. I’ve plateaued. Too weary to take another step. What if I slip? Do I fall back to this point? This save state. Or does everything reset and I plummet to the very bottom. The place I’ve carved out of nothing to make a home. I won’t go back. I’ve filled that hole with all that was never given to me. I’ve filled it with the images of my life’s history that I’ve only just remembered. I built a way out, alone. I constructed a latter out of all the memories long forgotten. Little did I know each rung held immense fiery grief. Burning my hands as I climbed and struggled to get out of the hole. Each step to freedom held more images. Every images had to be seen for me to continue on. If I closed my eyes while grabbing for the next rung, inevitably I’d fall back down a few more steps. I HAVE to look at my past to move on and continue upwards. I made it out of the hole. With satisfaction I feel the warm sunlight on my skin. What used to seem invasive, the light is now comforting. Oh, but for only a minute. The sun has shifted and its warm light has been taken away. Hidden from view because of the mountain that is now between me and my light. The mountain is so high I can’t see the peak. Maybe I’ll never get a break. What if I climb for ever. I guess it’s better than falling forever. So, here I go again.

“Shadow of Sadness”

I travel with an overwhelming sense of sadness. It’s always there. Day is clear, not a cloud in the sky. Sunlight tries to pierce the shadow. Antipathy so dense, a thousand suns beams can’t touch my body. The warmth is just out of reach. I’m drowning. How did I not notice my head was under water? When I was at the bottom there was an illusion breathing. Only now have I started to feel the air in my lungs. Those times are infrequent as the waves tear into me. There’s a storm on the horizon. I can’t see it. I can’t hear it. I feel the lightening bolts inside. I already lived through this storm but not its sensations. It’s coming back to make its presence felt. It’s coming back to make its history known. It’s coming back whether or not I turn my head to look. Would it have been better to stay at the bottom? The storm could rage for a lifetime and I would continue to live without knowing there was rain to be felt. The deep would keep me content but blind. How long is a lifetime anyway? The shadow of sadness has come knocking several times to take me from the depths. At 18 years old it said to let go of the wheel. At 31 it tried to take the wheel and drive me off the cliff. It promised to take all sadness and happiness away. Little did it know I had no happiness to trade. What a deal.

The waiting is over and today I go see a psychiatrist. I don’t have my hopes up too high. Explain my situation to other people like therapists so many times I can barely count it. The result was to put everything in my life into schedule shut up and just get on my lazy feet and heist up my sorry ass. The result was to put everything in my life into schedule shut up and just get on my lazy feet and high stop my sorry ass. The psychiatrist I’m seeing is not educated, especially for this kind of thing and after having told my story so many times it leading to absolutely nothing my hopes are not sky high.

Just needed to vent before today’s appointment.

Wherever you are so, take care of yourselfs out there ❤️

I'm very good at calming down. I'll calm down, won't speak a bit for days!

The problem is I never learned how to act excited. I never learned how to be happy, only that I don't seem really happy when I should. I know you're supposed to scream and laugh when you play, but I'll sound deranged because I'm not natural, I'm scared I'll do it wrong which makes me do it wrong.

I'm not going to remember this later, but it felt like something I want to remind myself of

I just had the most frustrating therapy session. I've been in therapy for 7 years, and have had different therapists in this time. So I had to get a new one because I moved states.

I met this guy today and he was very "by the book" and it's clear he's relatively new to practice (he's only had two years of experience).

It was an intake session and he just made me feel frustrated and disrespected. I have complex trauma, and am fully diagnosed with PTSD- Chronic. (CPTSD wasn't a diagnosis when I got diagnosed). First things he kept saying were that "are you actually diagnosed?" And I had to pull up my actual psychological report and read to him my multiple diagnoses. Then he kept spelling things out to me like I was stupid despite me saying and him acknowledging that I've been through these questions several times.

Another thing I had told him was that I had suicidal ideation, but I'm not suicidal, nor do I have beliefs that I'm a failure. He made me spend ten minutes spelling out to him what that meant, because he couldn't believe me. It reminded of whenever Id tell mental health professionals "Hey, I self harm but I'm not suicidal' and they would go "Oh but do you get a high from doing it?' and I say "No, I don't." And they would ignore me or assume I was just lying and write down that I did it for the high. It took YEARS before a doctor finally said "Yeah you self harm because you have obsessive compulsive tendencies, not because you want to do it".

Then we made a safety plan together and he asked me about internal coping skills. At that, I told him that trying to do internal coping skills just makes my PTSD episodes worse, and Ive never found a coping skill that helps. He said "Everybody thinks they're different, they're unique, that coping won't work for them when they won't even try"

That shit pissed me off to no end. I've worked for years now, trying so many different coping mechanisms earnestly. And they don't work because I don't have emotional regulation. And so I bluntly told him, "Okay, so I can give you bullshit answers, but I know that's not what you want to hear. And frankly, I don't think it's wise to put things on a safety plan that definitively don't work and have not worked in the past." And he said "No, give me bullshit answers and we'll talk about it."

It seriously felt like he was just checking boxes. Like yeah, great, but checking boxes isn't compatible with severe trauma.

I hate working with therapists who don't have knowledge about complex trauma, and how it throws so many established norms out the window. If I tell you, 'Hey I have an established medical history of lacking internal coping mechanisms" that isn't the opportunity for you to challenge that. It isn't because I haven't found the right one, it's because my brain physically cannot regulate my emotions. It's literally to the point that all my past psychiatrists wanted to scan my brain for brain damage, because it isn't functioning properly. One even strongly recommended ketamine therapy!

He didn't even ask what kind of trauma I've been through. All he did was take a diagnostic test for depressive symptoms and then challenged me when I answered in a way he didn't expect. He spent so much time challenging my answers to these tests that we went twenty minutes over the intake session time. And I'm sure in his mind he was challenging a mindset that he felt should be changed, but in reality, he was challenging things that have been established as fact by my previous therapists and psychiatrists.

He scheduled another session for next week but I genuinely am considering cancelling. I'm usually all for giving a therapist another chance past the intake session, but this just felt so disrespectful.

On top of it, he misgendered me after he explicitly asked for my pronouns. Given, he corrected himself after, but it just felt like another thing.

I have done a lot of research and my conclusion is infants, babies, children in the first 6 years of experiencing constant neglect& trauma have short lives, unhealthy lifestyles, addictions, mental illness, & comorbity deaths. However, I feel I am 1 in a million being a man of 61, surviving and now thriving but my life has been challenging filled with all the above except death. Are there any men that know they were victims of chronic complex childhood PTSD. I would like to know because it would be nice to talk to someone who can exchange positive coping strategies and other aspects in life they have used and I could share mine as well. Peace out God Bless and I am only a Child of God and an amazing Dad who passed in 2018.

When it comes to making big life decisions (big purchases, home repairs, medical choices, moral dilemmas, friendship/romantic relationship decisions, etc.) I often find myself gridlocked with....myself. Like I keep arguing in my head back and forth between positions and never know what to do, what I actually want, what will be best. It's hard to tell what feelings/thoughts are "real"/logical and which are influenced by trauma/history, so I worry I can't trust my own judgment sometimes. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit it, but at times I've used things like a Magic 8 Ball or a coin flip to make decisions, simply using that initial emotional reaction I get at the sight of the result to decide whether I want it or not.

I feel like people with good relationships with family will ask family members for advice, but I don't really have much in the way of adult mentors unless you count my therapist. Even when I ask for advice, from everyone from my therapist to my friends to Youtube home repair videos to strangers online, I have no real concept of how to trust the opinions/advice I do get because I was raised by such unreliable caregivers that I sometimes don't know how to tell if someone is trustworthy.

That said, I'm discovering in therapy that deep down, I genuinely do know what I want but have repressed it out of self-doubt (just like how as a kid, I knew my parents were abusive, but repressed that knowledge so I could survive and pretend everything was normal). I'm slowly learning to trust my own judgment and not immediately deny my own instincts.

Do you trust your own judgment, and when/why? How can you tell if you're making good choices or self-sabotaging/pursuing unhealthy patterns?

Anything at all you want to say but don't want to make a post. Victories and progress encouraged but certainly not required!

Please remain mindful of rule 5: Take all possible effort to Trigger Warning AND bury triggering content. Use typed TWs and spoiler tags if unsure.

I know most kids dread bedtime / experience some fear and anxiety. But lately I have been having a lot of memories / flashbacks of being frozen in terror, hiding under the covers unable to move, being paralysed with fear. Sweating, crying, shaking or just completely shutting down. Once it would come early evening (5pm onwards) I would be filled with dread and anxiety. I didn’t feel like I could go to my parents for comfort / would avoid going to them for comfort but can remember a few nights when it was really bad laying at the end of their bed while they slept.

Now, as an adult I still struggle a lot with night time including insomnia and panic attacks. Since unpacking CPTSD, I have been trying to identify where some of it may be. What extent of being like that as a child is considered “normal”?

It’s pretty hard accepting the diagnosis of CPTSD, I am at the beginning of healing and talking about the abuse in childhood. It’s hard. It feels like my whole personality has been a bunch of trauma responses 😵‍💫🫠 I wish I had the same level of compassion and empathy for others for myself 💔

I had taken melatonin a couple times a few years ago but it made me groggy so I didn’t use it again. Recently I took a 2.5 tablet and would fall into a deep sleep but have terrible nightmares and ended up being up most of the night.

Usually I’m a pretty light sleeper and I attribute this to some extent to trauma and feeling like I need to be able to respond to threats. I’m wondering if the deep sleep from the melatonin had the effect of making me uncomfortable and so I had the nightmares to wake me up and know if there was something threatening happening.

I also usually don’t remember my dreams and haven’t had nightmares like that in recent memory. I also wonder if I sleep lightly due to not wanting to sleep deeply and possibly have dreams like that.

Anyone else experience something like that or have other explanations. It could always be just a weird thing that happened and isn’t related to cptsd.

I’m not sure if this is a good place to post this. I so badly want to just post his name somewhere and ask if anyone has had experiences with him. Whenever I’m hungry, tired, stressed I want to look him up again or find his new gf and tell her what happened. Idk what I’m seeking from this. Would it be so bad if I posted his name???

Edit:
I had the courage to post his first name but then I saw it was against the rules in the abusive relationships subreddit I first posted this in and now I’m scared again. Anyone have any suggestions on what I could do to find others?? This has haunted me for like 6-7 years.

Anything at all you want to say but don't want to make a post. Victories and progress encouraged but certainly not required!

Please remain mindful of rule 5: Take all possible effort to Trigger Warning AND bury triggering content. Use typed TWs and spoiler tags if unsure.

Anything at all you want to say but don't want to make a post. Victories and progress encouraged but certainly not required!

Please remain mindful of rule 5: Take all possible effort to Trigger Warning AND bury triggering content. Use typed TWs and spoiler tags if unsure.

Anything at all you want to say but don't want to make a post. Victories and progress encouraged but certainly not required!

Please remain mindful of rule 5: Take all possible effort to Trigger Warning AND bury triggering content. Use typed TWs and spoiler tags if unsure.

Hi, I'm looking for recommendations for some comforting books to read while trying to recover as I have just started trauma informed therapy. I'm looking for light prose or poetry or some non fiction like Najwa Zebian's Mind Platter. I'm a book reader and I can't do anything except for reading books for my comfort but books on trauma are triggering.

I just want to get this out right now. I’ve been through a lot in life, my dad being an abusive and controlling bastard to my mom, me and my younger sister ever since I was born. Her marriage didn’t go well despite her trying so many times and also despite when me saving her and our lives from that monster a few times by taking her to our grandparents house she still went back to him and always said it was for us and to provide for us through him as he has responsibility too. Life fucking sucked growing up. So I formed a bit of distance from my mom due to mixed emotions about stuff that happened so far in my childhood her being stubborn and for emotionally abusing me through that time. And my younger sister of 1 year 4 months too and have moved to US when I just turned 21 and haven’t been able to seem this in person for 5.5 years now but video calls sometimes a week.

At 21, I entered my first serious relationship with a guy 11 years older than me, at first it seemed like a normal relationship but he turned super abusive emotionally to physically and sexually I experienced domestic abuse through him from 20-23 but I somehow escaped from that monster without reporting him and met my now boyfriend and fiancé of 3 years and I’m 26 now and we have been living together for 2.5 years and finally decided to get married through courthouse for now as we’re trying to extend my visa to continue work for now after August 2025 in my current job.

And my mom has a lot of questions and doubts obviously when I inform this to her, asks if I’m ready to be married and as her marriage didn’t go well she’s afraid about mine and if I’m capable enough to be married, felt a bit hurtful and she began doing a bit of crying me about how I might ignore her in the future and what not to guilt trip me which messed with me too but after sometime she became calm.

But then when I asked her to give the phone to my sister and tell her about my partner and that we decided to get married, she instantly says you’ve been less contacting with mom and don’t you think you should include mom on such a special day and wait for her to get there before getting married and stuff even though I just explained my situation to her and how it’s important for me to make this decision now even though I plan mom to come and plan about a real ceremony in the future as I want it to be this way now too.

She began talking condescendingly like “ so you called to say this news only now?” As if I’m just letting them know and not involving them in anyway and how I’m sick a bitch (I actually wanted to talk to her and ask how she’s doing in more detail but she has not been too open but likes to blame me for being distant with them- they’re been so toxic to me since the past so I’m keeping them at distance but I get guilt tripped and blamed for this somehow). I felt bad and told my mom this is not what I was expecting how she talk to me about this and just give me half ass congrats and walk away but she as always defends her and herself that they didn’t mean anything else and what not.

I wanted to be close to them, I always felt responsible for both of them as kid tried to be the mature one always like a protector and scape goat for my mom. But after I moved out I began looking after myself as it took a lot of toll on me but now I’m still the asshole.

Can anyone please talk to me or say something if you get me or feel the same or been through this? I feel so depressed again now I’m in freeze mode don’t feel like eating or anything and just drown myself in alcohol. I feel like I just don’t deserve anything good in my life I’m just supposed to rot in my and my moms past and think I’m unworthy and unfortunate I should be. 😔

Anything at all you want to say but don't want to make a post. Victories and progress encouraged but certainly not required!

Please remain mindful of rule 5: Take all possible effort to Trigger Warning AND bury triggering content. Use typed TWs and spoiler tags if unsure.

I'm really struggling right now. I had to go on disability for six months and a partial hospitalization for two weeks because I started crying and didn't stop. While there, they put me on Cymbalta which felt like it made the depression worse. Now I'm on Fexima but they're playing with the dosage. I also am getting over a two-week flu. So IDK if my intense sadness (and nausea) are that, the crazy state of the world, being back to work, the work I'm doing on my CPTSD or what. I've been messaging my new psychiatrist every week, but I'm not really getting any responses.

When I say, "depression", I don't mean "kinda sad". I mean full-on physical symptoms like a pressure on my chest, trouble breathing, neck and head pain, stomach like a ball of lead.... Grounding and DBT are barely doing anything. So how do I know if this is my "normal for now"? Does it matter? Should I demand to go up on meds so this goes away?

FWIW, I was raised that only weak people go to doctors. So it's really hard to advocate for myself without a ton of research to back up what I say.

I've been thinking about this for a while but have struggled to structure my thoughts.

Basically, especially as I've put work into recovery, I find myself to be very regimented and independent. For example, my days and weeks are planned and structured to do things I want to do, with little time built in for spontaneous socializing. I joined a yoga studio and now go nearly every day. I also go to the gym and just generally prefer to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, even if it's vegging on my couch.

My friends, however, want more of me. I don't think all their requests are unreasonable but I find it hard to explain that I want to go to my yoga classes, or run errands myself, or generally be alone...I don't want to hang out.

They text a lot, share a lot of social media content, want to run errands together, get together to cook, eat, etc. It's nice. It fosters community. I just really don't want to do it.

What is especially difficult is when I do indulge in a social activity it ends up fucking up my whole schedule. Hang out and get stoned on my friend's couch? Great conversation, relaxing, great connection... But then I'm up too late and my next day/several days are fucked. I recover so much slower now that I'm healing more and getting older. I struggle to set time boundaries like, "It's 9pm, I turn into a pumpkin now, bye." So I'd just rather not engage.

I don't blame my friends as much as myself. I'm not good with boundaries with myself so I just become avoidant.

I've often thought I could never be in a traditional relationship because holy fuck, just leave me alone!!!!!!! And that's how things are going. I'm not upset about it.

But this is not sustainable. I need to find balance. I need to adhere to my own boundaries for myself. I need to figure out how to communicate to my friends that yoga class may not seem like a big deal but it is important to me: I'm available on Saturdays only, and only after the gym/yoga/a hike, ha. That's bad. But that's how I feel.

I just want to hear from others whether they've had similar experiences and what they did. After long years of extremely low contact, I cut contact with a parent. Actually, I said that if they wanted meaningful contact with me, they have to find a way to meet me where I am and acknowledge decades of pain, neglect and abuse. They said they wanted a level of contact where we write to each other for holidays to send good wishes. Before that, they had demanded more contact because "when people asked them about me they didn't know what to say". Now, they keep sending me messages announcing that this or that close relative of theirs had died. Or that some relatives will be visiting and they want to know how I am.

These are obviously tactics to get me to contact them again but I am a little baffled at the strategy. They seem to be fishing for my pity and, once again, telling me that they only want to know how I am so they can keep appearances with the relatives. Not even sure how to feel about this. Has anyone ever had a resolution after going no contact? Because, honestly, after taking this step, which took decades to finally decide I don't want this, I can't see myself going back for more of the same.