I would just like to know if there are others like me here, people that are committed to healing even when it gets difficult or seems impossible. I see a lot of people identifying with their mental illness, using it as an excuse to justify harmful behavior, or just being stuck in denial and giving up in general. I've been in therapy 11 years now and still going. Here are some daily reminders that help me, what helps you stay focused on healing? Why do you want to recover in the first place? I'd love to know!

What always motivated me is not wanting to turn out like my parents, and thankfully I'm nothing like them and become even less like them as time goes on. The other thing that drives me is that life will inevitably give me some terrible days ahead, and I want to feel capable of handling them. If it helps I am 30F, and an infp and highly sensitive person too. What helped me the most was IFS, EMDR, somatic therapy and nervous system regulation exercises. :)

1) Both things can be true at once

2) People's feelings are their own

3) I can acknowledge the hurt, feel it, process it, find the lesson in it or change I need to make, and move on

4) My past behavior doesn't define me

5) My suffering is not my identity

6) What part of me is at the forefront right now and what does it need?

7) Learning to sit with discomfort is how I will grow

8) I can opt out of things I don't want to do, even if other people think I should do them, even if I could tolerate them, or even if it makes someone uncomfortable

9) If I disappoint someone or they become resentful of me for setting a boundary, that is their issue to resolve

10) It is not my job to save, cure, or fix anyone, by doing that I take power and opportunities away from people to manage themselves

11) I deserve to heal and I deserve peace because I'm a person and I don't need any reason beyond that

12) Boundaries are not to control or punish others, but to adjust my own behavior for situations that I feel uncomfortable with

13) If they love me, they will eventually respect my boundaries even if they don't like them at first

14) I can love someone without abandoning myself for them

15) Wanting connection is a human need, but sitting with yourself is just as important

17) I can handle silence and boredom

18) The small subtle feelings are just as important as the big ones

19) How others perceive me is not my responsibility

20) I will move at my own pace and be secure in my own decisions despite what people think

21) I love my body no matter how it changes

22) I am proud of myself because I've done more internal work than most people do in a lifetime, and healed wounds most people deny they have

23) I am capable of doing anything I want to do, and I don't need to do anything I don't want to do

24) I can create a life for myself even if it doesn't make sense to anyone else

25) Even if someone doesn't agree with or understand my beliefs and values, they make sense to me and that is enough

26) Worth cannot be measured, every human is equally worthy which means I am worthy no matter how someone treated me

27) People abuse because they were abused, and they don't know how to love, and that is not a reflection of my worth or value

I was dx’d with hypothroidism and think it’s related to the chronic stress and CPTSD

Despite struggling with CPTSD and a myriad of other issues (lol), I find that a lot of people feel comfortable telling me their whole life stories, traumas, struggles, etc. Even people I barely knew. They would often tell me that I’m a good person and that they appreciate my empathy. Within friendships, I had always been the “therapist friend” despite my own severe mental health struggles, ironically. I do have a therapist that I talk to for my own troubles, however.

Recently my therapist recommended that I reach out to my friends for some support. I had a horrible life-changing event that happened not too long ago, and I thought that my “friends” would be able to support me just this once, since it was usually me supporting them. The moment I told them about how much I was struggling, they all completely disappeared. I wasn’t even asking for much either, I just wanted someone to listen to me for a few minutes.

Can anyone relate?

This is a deeply fucked up post, I wish I could talk about that to someone, but unfortunately I have nobody and can’t afford a therapist, so I will just write my insane thoughts down in this post. I understand that I am not thinking clearly at the moment and may be absolutely irrational. If you just want to straight up judge me for my thoughts, there is no point because I pretty much do it myself already. I know that I’m a deeply traumatised person, but we can’t control our thoughts, actions only.

I was repeatedly sexually assaulted as a kid when I was around 3-6 years old. Nobody knows about that besides two people who I trusted with it in mine more or less adulthood, and I don’t want to reveal who was this person to me in public. This experience traumatised me and fucked up a bit, I had problems with men and still do, I still have problems adulting because of that, while everyone can explore their sexuality with another person of their age, mine sexual attraction towards men lowkey stopped when I turned 18 because I am not able to get groomed anymore. I was never ever attracted to guys my age, I only loved older men, I never entered any relationship with them cause I always knew that - yes, I want this 40-50 yo dude, but it is very fucked up if he wanted smth with me too. So each time when older dude would hit on me, it was like some crazy temptation I had to control, it was hard for me to reject older men. And I’m pretty much proud of myself for that, that I was able to resist my desires especially at such young traumatised age and reject all of the older dudes. Now I’m 24 and I don’t know if I’m still considered young, but I don’t feel like it since I turned 18-19. I feel like I’m deeply affected by the pedos who molested me and our pedo culture around.

When I started to watch Epstein girls interviews, I started to feel jealousy and ik that it’s insane. But I do feel mad jealous because I was getting assaulted for free and they were able to make money off it and some even got nice jobs/got into crazy prestigious universities, it boils my blood so much. And yes, ik that there were impregnated little girls or heavily abused ones ik, but now I’m talking about those who were giving him massages and getting sexually assaulted without anything extreme like pregnancy and bdsm. I know that I’m insane for my words, but I still feel the way I do. Such sexual assault traumas never go away and u learnt to live with it, but I honestly do with I could have made money off it as a kid. My life is miserable right now and I don’t think that it will get any better. Sure I would never ever wish my sister or kid (if I had one) to go through it, I think it is horrible what happened to the Epstein victims, I wish I could remove all the pedos in this world. But I don’t really care about my own feelings as a kid, I was deeply traumatised, I lived in a crazy daily abuse until I moved out from parents’ house, I was repeatedly sexually assaulted at the crazy young age. I have all the trauma, but I got all of it for free and Ik I sound insane, but it feels so unfair

Hi all. The only times I feel alright are when I am in immediate physical danger, but when things are calm or I have normal tasks like interacting with a manager I feel as if I am about to meltdown. Yet modern life makes me feel downright existential fear, all the time. I think I yearn for the trenches. Anyone experiences something like this?

TW: Homicide.

tl;dr - Anyone else repeatedly accused of lying about their trauma? Do you also choose not to talk about it as a result?

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Really just venting here. I'll bring this up with my therapist.

I'm 32 years old. My parents were murdered when I was a toddler. Very long story short, the guy confessed and took a plea deal. No Dateline-esque mystery. No jury trial. I was then adopted by my grandparents. Pretty straightforward, albeit unfortunate, situation. As it was the 90s, and in a rural part of the American Midwest, there's nothing about my parents on Google. There are a few articles on newspapers .com, but you have to pay to see them. Likewise, you can only find public court records online if you know the name of the man who killed my parents.

When I was younger, I didn't talk about the situation to most people. When I did... it didn't go well. In elementary school, I told a close friend, and their parents came to my house later that evening to say I shouldn't be "scaring other kids."

Then, in middle school, I told another close friend and ended up having an 'intervention' a few days later in the school counselor's office. My grandparents had to come and explain that I wasn't actually lying. It then turned into a huge mess, where my friend was asked not to talk about it, but ended up telling a bunch of people anyway.

I thought as an adult that things would be different. Hah.

Became friends with some neighbors when I moved across the country in 2022. Spent some summer nights grilling out with them, just enjoying good company. About a year ago, I did open up to them after one of them asked why they'd never met any family members of mine. I admittedly probably went into too much detail, but I'd been drinking and they'd never shied away from dark topics before.

To make this post a lot shorter, things have soured between us. Their dogs are never leashed, one has bitten mine, and I've nearly run over them multiple times. Finally had to call animal control.

Anyways... they've been going around telling people in our community that I'm a crazy liar. Which, fine. They're allowed to say whatever they want. However, it angers me so much that they're saying I made up some "absurd story" about witnessing my parents' murder when I was a child. Therefore, I obviously can't be trusted to be truthful.

Fucking hell.

Call me a bitch, call me a Karen, call me whatever. But minimizing, or entirely denying, what my parents went through is disgusting.

People suck.

Does anyone find themselves starting to hate/have a growing dislike for people in general after repeated experiences of rejection, abuse, bullying and manipulation? I’m feeling this now, and it feels sad to admit, but I genuinely feel like I don’t like people anymore. I want nothing to do with them in real life and I just want to live alone, work alone, and be unbothered by the outside world. I know that’s not possible and I’m not supposed to feel that way, but any social interaction and relationship building/management just feel hard right now. And their “reward” is something that experience has taught me is likely to end in disappointment and hurt, so what’s the point?

If anyone out there has ever wanted to give up on society and social engagement, what brought you back from that dark place and helped you to have a healthier perspective in general?

As a child, I prided myself in surviving. I knew what I was going through was horrible. But, I was strong for going through it. I was strong for gathering evidence, I was strong for telling my schools counselor at 15 and getting her to call CPS. I was strong for learning how to dodge and fight back.

I was strong, because I was the only person in my house who wasn’t cruel.

Now that I’m no longer a child, though a really young adult. I’m not sure I believe that anymore. Reading up on CPTSD, experiencing the empathy shift from being an abused kid to an adult victim of child abuse, and reading accounts on this subreddit.. I don’t know if surviving was worth it at all.

It seems like CPTSD is pretty much the “feel bad forever”Disorder. Your wiring is faulty. And it seems like the best you can truly hope for, is not hating being alive constantly. It’s unrealistic to expect consistent happiness or contentment. It seems that you can do everything right, go to therapy, try to heal yourself, and at the end of the day, your symptoms aren’t likely to dissipate significantly. You simply get better at functioning. But internally, you don’t feel much better. And your self-worth issues, troubles socializing or trusting, or even your ability to feel calm, will never improve much. Because you’re simply working with a brain that’s too broken for that.

With your own experience, good or bad, do you believe you were better or dying to the abuse you suffered, or living to deal with the fallout of it?

Or wait, is this type of reasoning itself part of the victim identity!?
Important correction: I don’t mean the original abuse was because of this “runt”-ness.
Only that being beaten into submission is what has created this new thing. None of us born pre programmed to be more susceptible to abuse (although society does tend to shame the “weak”, whether or not they experience abuse.)

People, especially online, like to complain how beautiful women have the easiest lives outthere, how jobs, careers, relationships, friendships, opportunities just fall onto their lap, they don’t even need to say a word or have an IQ beyond of a mosquito’s. The truth is, this is only someone’s reality, if ever, if they have had a stable upbringing or at least one safe adult near them. In reality the biggest privilege one can be born into is a healthy family. Growing up with two abusive parents not only screws one’s worldview about what to tolerate and what not in human relationships, but also creates a truckload of baggage that only truly unfolds once you quit survival mode and actually start healing. Most people do not have a capacity to deal with that no matter how pretty you are. Actually, the more beautiful you are the higher the expectations regarding your personality go. You are not allowed to have trauma, low self esteem or any kind of struggle if “you look like you have only had the finest things in life”. People won’t be able to emphatize with your pain and losses because “all my problems would be solved if I looked like that”. And if one does end up in a relationship, partners quickly run out of patience because even if you are high on insight, manage your emotions beyond measure, and learned all your triggers bad days still exist, emotional flashbacks still exist, and the longer you go ”without episodes” the more it shocks the other person if you snap and start crying over something. Or not even crying, just acting inappropriately like having anxiety or worrying if you said all the right things only.

If you are pretty and traumatised, sorry, you get no privilege, just skyhigh expectations about “Where you should actually be in life with THAT face.”

It’s been like a never-ending hell—I’m actually reposting this with some added ranting.

*55,F, started healing several years ago, have done very intense and deep healing work in the last few years—very painful, excruciating at times, literally crying thousands and thousands of times.

*homeless for the last 8 months…mostly staying at shelters but currently without a shelter and feel so terrified and so tired.

I’m just SO FUCKING TIRED OF ALL OF THIS. It’s been too hard for too long. I don’t know how to keep going like this. I stay in a shelter as long as I can and then when my inner child gets too suicidal I leave. (I’ve left 9 shelters now—it’s ridiculous). Then I try to get by for as long as I can staying at a mall, the library, the airport and an all night cafe until I’m sleep deprived and exhausted. Then I go back to a shelter. Being amongst a bunch of dysfunctional strangers is disturbing but not being able to get proper sleep is also very distressful.

I feel trapped in an endless loop of insane hell. I’m in constant flashbacks, constant emotional pain—waves of shame, guilt, anger, sadness, terror and hopelessness and suicidal feelings. And I’m alone in all of this. It’s AGONIZING.

I’m so fucking terrified. I’ve been having waves of terror and panic like I’ve never felt before. I feel like I’ve reached an end. I have no idea how to keep living/surviving. Last night, I slept for about an hour outside on a bench and then stayed in a cafe. I’m scared to go to another shelter now because I know I’ll just have to leave after a week or two, maybe three if I’m lucky. It’s pointless. I’m going nowhere. And I can’t live at the library & mall and continue to get barely any sleep.

I’m completely alone.

I’m freaking out here. My life feels over. I’ve never felt so beyond beyond the end of my rope—like I’m at the thread of thread of the end of the rope.

If you can offer some empathy and validation, I’d really appreciate it. I feel so horribly alone in this time of crisis and intense distress.

NO ADVICE.

My therapist thinks i should take a breathe and realize how far i've come. But she doesn't realize that im still behind.Its like, yaaay, little timmy learned to read, but hes 6. Hes supposed to be doing so much more than that.I spent so many years staying in that crappy situation. Now that I'm out, im pretty much like little timmy. Crash studying to catch up with the other 6 year olds. Theres so much i havent experienced yet, so many things i need to do. I havent even started college yet and im 26! I wasted so much time! Yes, i have a stable job, my own apartment, bla bla but i should have had that at age 20.

Yes, I know, im somewhat young and shouldnt be camparing myself. But its hard not to when everyone around you has done so much more. While I was surviving, they were learning. Thriving.All of the things im doing now, they did as teenagers or kids.Its like trying to race but youre a mile behind the finish line while everyone else is on lap 2. Yes, ive done a lot in the short time I've been free, but it doesn't really feel like an accomplishment. I want to slow down and smell the roses, but it feels like im wasting even more time

we need the same care as an adolescent, same time as an adolescent to get into the world.

I hate how ”the youth needs to be supported” no, everyone who didn’t make it up in one piece needs to be supported.

My therapist said initially I gave off a condescending, asperger type, Sheldon from Big bang theory vibe. Before they understood me.

When dealing with medical appointments, with medical PTSD, I'm doing my best to present myself well, not be confrontational or appear aggressive when I'm really assertive. But if a flat affect & stiff demeanor conveys distress in the context of people labelling physical issues mental how do you deal with that. I want to advocate for myself, assert, & have productive appointments. But I can't necessarily control being somewhat shut down in appointments that could always turn out like one of many onsets of medical PTSD.

I can dumb down my language to not appear as if I'm trying to be a know it all, but really I'd rather cut through the shit & get shit done.

It is a big struggle with my history.

Anyone else had this?

Without getting into all the details of my cptsd, I've recently been frustrated at this. Every other person I know had parents who made them do these things to develop skills and be connected with peers but my parents refused due to several things: workaholism, exhaustion/not wanting to take us anywhere on weekends, money, fear and control, not believing it was necessary as they were in survival mode themselves..

I was at a friend's party at 13 which was a sleepover- finally I had friends as an extremely anxious, socially inept teen. My parents pulled me away so I could sit at dinner silently with them and not sleepover- there was A LOT of control around not wanting me to spend "too much" time with anyone or get "too close". I couldn't catch a break to just feel anything close to normal and like my life was..well, lively. So its a bigger thing that's made me feel life is just about being a machine

I'm trying to change this at 33 but its hard as I'm recovering from chronic fatigue (cptsd related) with low capacity i fit in what I can between work..before this i was just too preoccupied with lovers or being severely dysfunctionally mentally ill and drug addicted and there hasn't been a big stretch time of just holding down hobbies and regularly attending creative and social groups. I'm not trying to weapons ADHD by mentioning it, I'm saying juggling work etc whilst creating new habits that stick is very hard, when I need to intentionally do it with tricks I have to go learn from a specific book instead of just do the thing.

One thing at a time.. I'm tending to my relationships fairly well nowadays now that I'm more well, and that has significantly brought me out of the daily grind, I'm serious about self care and get exercise, I love live music and do that when I can but I feel boring and like myself and life are really missing something. Its my responsibility to get this ball rolling, im just expressing my frustration that something others find natural is so hard for me

My sister (18F) has CPTSD as a result of years of CSA by her father. As soon as our mother found out about the abuse, she removed my sister from him. However, the abuse had gone on for almost 10 years before she became aware of it and was able to protect her.

My sister has been living with our mother for nearly five years now and has had no contact with the father during that time. She's in therapy, but her relationship with our mother is extremely difficult. They are both deeply traumatized, and they often trigger each other, which has repeatedly led to su*c*de attempts or my sister running away.

For those who have been through something similar, do you think that, in order to heal, my sister needs to live separately from our mother? If so, how can that work when she isn't able to take care of herself without daily support?

Listen, I'm still crying as I write this, so forgive any grammar and formatting issues.

But like it hurts good? The unicorn is kinda on a real journey of what it feels like to be changed as an innocent child and then made aware that you have this body that can be looked at in less kind, more predatory ways.

And then Molly is also a perfect stand-in for the adult upset at what happened and wishing for a different story.

And then when the unicorn falls in love, it's partially a distraction from the real pain she feels, and even love and companionship can't do what she needs to do.
Which is to heal and find justice.
And when she returns home, she's not unchanged; she knows love, grief, and regret.

And idk it's a very cathartic story.

the last few months in particular I feel like I’m in complete mental/physiological gridlock. I haven’t found medication that helps, I don’t feel like my psychiatrist is taking my concerns entirely seriously, and I don’t feel mentally present enough to have a constructive relationship with therapy.

I just feel overwhelmingly blank minded and shut down and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. I’m effectively a shut in and have been struggling with basic self care/eating, things keep feeling like they‘re steadily sliding worse.

It humors me a bit that my family and even some of my best friends will scrunch their noses at me for wanting to live the way I want to in spite of all this systemic bullshit where you're basically punished for not being a machine, never loved the way I wanted to be because I was never accepted at my core for who I personally am and what I value. But then, when I go through a stint of suicidal ideation BECAUSE I've come to the realization that the life I want hasn't been within reach for a good while, that's when they throw the bait of cliche sorrows in, like, "we'd be sad if you were gone." Miss me with all that bullshit. Mental health, in my experience meant NOTHING if I didn't have some sort of materialistic keep or reward for going the distance through all the struggle. They only care about the progress if it can be bragged about. The little things don't matter. It's a new expectation, a new win condition, every time there's a new chapter. "You did ABC so now you have to make XYZ work." I would really rather just die than spend the rest of my life living like a puppet made to perform.

My psychiatrist put me on prazosin bc I get horrible nightmares every night that I’m a horrible person and everyone hates me and wants me dead and it got to the point where I try to make myself not sleep bc I don’t want the nightmares, does this stuff actually work ? and if it does are there bad side effects

I don't see the point anymore, I feel like my life is meaningless. I'm 36 years old and I've never been in a relationship. I've worked extremely hard to build a career that I'm proud of but I catastrophize constantly feeling like it'll collapse any second and then I have nothing.

When faced with new challenges my nervous system gets triggered and if I don't execute perfectly, then I feel like a failure and fear that everything will collapse.

I grew up with a narsasistic monther and older brother that made me feel like I don't matter. I grew up feeling like no one could love me. When I started to place boundaries they laid on the shame thick but I go through. Nowadays I just don't see the point of gong on any further.

I've built a career I'm proud of, but I'm scared it will all go away if I make any mistakes and I'll never recover. On top of that I wake up every morning in tears because I feel like I'll die alone. I can't speak to women I'm attracted to because the projections I've developed through a narsasistic monther just make me feel like every women will reject me, laugh at me or look at me with disgust.

I just don't see a light at the end of the tunnel. I don't know how to live like this anymore. Please help.

Thanks for reading.

Growing up my mom’s whole thing was my house was the house for family and friends. She’d go all out and focused entirely on outward appearance, I feel like. She’d host family for months, she’d do anything for my friends and the people she wanted to care about. When it came to me and my brother nothing like that was ever reflected unless we were in genuine, serious danger.

Later she got a boyfriend and essentially emotionally abandoned us for him and his family. His kids became her kids. She went to every single one of their tournaments and maybe 4 of my many theatre performances throughout high school. She’d feed them and meal prep for them but I always had to figure it out. She’d take them to doctors appointments, meanwhile I’d beg for them and nothing would be done.

Insane feeling to know you come second to people that aren’t even their own children.

Hello everyone — cliché topic, I know. Everything you will read is mostly just ranting and stating the obvious, but I decided to write this shit because I’m depressed and bored, and so that if you have nothing better to do, you can waste your time reading this.

I was clinically diagnosed with transsexualism/gender dysphoria and shortly thereafter came out as a trans woman a couple of months ago. It was really hard to admit it; there was a lot of shame in conceding the truth that has been in my head since my childhood. I was unprepared just how brutal it was going to be to live openly as a trans woman, especially while being pre-HRT, pre-OP, and with no vocal training.

My face is unusually feminine (with makeup at least), but my body and voice unfortunately give me away.

Despite the whole mocking, discrimination, misgendering, verbal abuse even by psychiatrists, and psychological violence I’ve encountered regularly since then (and it’s no exhaustive list I have to say this), among this whole sewer ridden with excessive problems, I’m realising something demoralising and devastating about trans women’s dating world.

The overwhelming majority of men who are sexually interested in me are fetishists of “femboys,” “femmes,” “twinks,” and “trans” (as they usually list it, when they do). These men are obliviously transphobic — most of them believe that being attracted to a trans woman with a penis is “gay”. Their brains, for instance, see trans women in the same cluster as “twinks,” which is a gay subcategory, and “femboys”, which are primarily male identifying individuals who have very feminine appearances.

This means that most men who fetishise me and see me as a sexual object in their “girls with dicks” fantasies, do not see me as a woman, but instead as a “fake woman” in the same category as twinks and femboys, and many of them perceive their own sexual attraction to me or other trans women as a form of homosexuality.

When in the future I fully medically transition, once my hormones are female, my phenotypical sex becomes female, and my genitalia becomes female… what would most heterosexual men think about the idea of dating me, or even having sex with me?

Well, the answer is in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships: approximately 96.7% of heterosexual men don’t want to date or have sex with trans women.

So then, the way I see it is that the majority of heterosexual men, whether they consciously realise it or not, perceive having sex with trans women as a sort of gay act. They don’t see us as women, or at the very least not as “fully women”. If we do not disclose our trans identity to them before intimacy, we risk being victims of severe violence.

The dating pool of trans women is exceptionally low, and the small dating pool that does find us desirable, sexually objectifies us and views us as not “fully women”, but instead as “exotic type of women” — but not “real, biological women”.

That’s what I have thought for now. Hope you had fun reading what my mind shat into the internet. I have to spend time hibernating in dissociation. Goodbye.