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#2
Other / Strange Occurrence: Deep Distr...
Last post by lowbudgetTV - Today at 05:59:21 AMI have been thinking about this lately, and it obviously often comes up when my mind wanders or I engage with things in life, but basically: I feel a deep... Negative Feeling(?) when I think about childish things.
It's the most vague statement ever so let me try to explain it.
The feeling is like a deep dread, depression, fear, pity, or something else along that through-line. It happens when I imagine something to do with "child-like wonder" or childish activites.
I've discussed it with my Therapist, but, well, we've been preoccupied with other more important things first and haven't really explored it (and it might be helped by other symptoms of my PTSD) but honestly it does bother me a lot. I like cute things. I like children. I like childish things. But when I think about the concept, the manifestation of a child being a child, my heart hurts and I fear it. I want to cry. I am filled with fear. Part of me also imagines an adult acting like a child and I am repulsed somehow, like a magnet. Yet still I am always drawn to these instances.
For example, what sparked this thought now to be brought to the forum is that I was trying to sleep and imagined a scenario. There is a child, wanting to play and talk about childish things. An adult is unable to parse the child and wishes to talk about high-concept adult things. The child merely continues on, as a young kid would, wanting to talk about a cartoon or play with dolls. Imagine if you would a four-panel comic made for humor about the disconnect of adults and children, but it plays in my mind as if it were a bad omen.
I think there's a lot to it. I think I fear breaking down into something people would be repulsed by. I don't do it anymore, but I do recall crying myself to sleep and imagining myself as a helpless young baby, desperately wanting a powerful figure to save me. I have not felt that need in a while, but these thoughts that come into my mind do distress me in a way that's similar. Another aspect is I fear the loss of intelligence, maybe autonomy? I have a lot of background experiences that give me fear of disability, dependency, etc. due to witnessing horribly sad scenarios in my life. Maybe I associate some things I do enjoy with some sort of stereotype, and my body is just unable to connect.
I would like to be more myself, which I think is a combination of cute and vulnerable but also with a love of power and intensity. It almost feels like that latter half has been present throughout my life and refuses to relent a bit. I want to be cutesy and romantic with my partner while wearing my mallgoth outfits! I want to hug a cute Sanrio mascot at the mall with all the other twenty-somethings and not disassociate, crying in the car on the way home because I was not present.
This was a real mind-vomit of words, but I hope maybe it resonates or you have advice?
I suppose my question or discussion topic is: does this sound familiar to you? Do you know anything or have theories about what this could be reflecting?
It's the most vague statement ever so let me try to explain it.
The feeling is like a deep dread, depression, fear, pity, or something else along that through-line. It happens when I imagine something to do with "child-like wonder" or childish activites.
I've discussed it with my Therapist, but, well, we've been preoccupied with other more important things first and haven't really explored it (and it might be helped by other symptoms of my PTSD) but honestly it does bother me a lot. I like cute things. I like children. I like childish things. But when I think about the concept, the manifestation of a child being a child, my heart hurts and I fear it. I want to cry. I am filled with fear. Part of me also imagines an adult acting like a child and I am repulsed somehow, like a magnet. Yet still I am always drawn to these instances.
For example, what sparked this thought now to be brought to the forum is that I was trying to sleep and imagined a scenario. There is a child, wanting to play and talk about childish things. An adult is unable to parse the child and wishes to talk about high-concept adult things. The child merely continues on, as a young kid would, wanting to talk about a cartoon or play with dolls. Imagine if you would a four-panel comic made for humor about the disconnect of adults and children, but it plays in my mind as if it were a bad omen.
I think there's a lot to it. I think I fear breaking down into something people would be repulsed by. I don't do it anymore, but I do recall crying myself to sleep and imagining myself as a helpless young baby, desperately wanting a powerful figure to save me. I have not felt that need in a while, but these thoughts that come into my mind do distress me in a way that's similar. Another aspect is I fear the loss of intelligence, maybe autonomy? I have a lot of background experiences that give me fear of disability, dependency, etc. due to witnessing horribly sad scenarios in my life. Maybe I associate some things I do enjoy with some sort of stereotype, and my body is just unable to connect.
I would like to be more myself, which I think is a combination of cute and vulnerable but also with a love of power and intensity. It almost feels like that latter half has been present throughout my life and refuses to relent a bit. I want to be cutesy and romantic with my partner while wearing my mallgoth outfits! I want to hug a cute Sanrio mascot at the mall with all the other twenty-somethings and not disassociate, crying in the car on the way home because I was not present.
This was a real mind-vomit of words, but I hope maybe it resonates or you have advice?
I suppose my question or discussion topic is: does this sound familiar to you? Do you know anything or have theories about what this could be reflecting?
#3
Recovery Journals / Re: the next step
Last post by sanmagic7 - January 16, 2026, 03:10:04 PMi'm suffering from stress flu today, it came on yesterday, so i don't have much energy, but i do want to thank DF, TBB, NK, and HannahOne for your cheering me on, giving me all that support, and letting me know this is what 'being heard' means, which any trauma T should already know and practice.
#4
Recovery Journals / Re: Desert Flower's Recovery J...
Last post by sanmagic7 - January 16, 2026, 03:06:17 PM
so glad for you! love and hugs 
#5
Recovery Journals / Re: Living As All of Me
Last post by sanmagic7 - January 16, 2026, 03:04:30 PM and for frank -
mindful can be a healing thing. love and hugs
#6
Recovery Journals / Re: Blue Sky Blooming
Last post by sanmagic7 - January 16, 2026, 02:54:33 PM i echo everything NK said. it can be so disheartening to not be able to predict, to ride the wave at a high only to be crashed in the next minute w/o knowing how or why. love and hugs #7
Recovery Journals / Re: Blue Sky Blooming
Last post by NarcKiddo - January 16, 2026, 01:34:21 PMIt's good to see you. And I am glad the reason you have not been visiting the forum all that frequently is because you are basically steady and things are going well.
I'm glad you feel better today. But you are not stupid for how you felt yesterday. These anxiety attacks/EFs really can appear as if from nowhere and are all the more surprising when we have been doing well for a while. Well done for calling in sick and for napping. You took care of yourself when you needed it and how you needed to. And if that involves binge-eating maccas then it does. It's not as if you do that every day.
I'm glad you feel better today. But you are not stupid for how you felt yesterday. These anxiety attacks/EFs really can appear as if from nowhere and are all the more surprising when we have been doing well for a while. Well done for calling in sick and for napping. You took care of yourself when you needed it and how you needed to. And if that involves binge-eating maccas then it does. It's not as if you do that every day.
#8
Symptoms - Other / Re: Schrodingers jealousy
Last post by NarcKiddo - January 16, 2026, 12:46:53 PMThank you to everyone for your input. As always, it is interesting just how many of us have similar experiences.
I don't remember much about my childhood, and probably less than most (non CPTSD) people. It's almost a total blank until age 5, bar a few very distinct memories. I can remember a lot more about the period from 5 to 10, which was the grimmest period in many ways.
More about this particular memory is surfacing but is sort of adding to the whole bizarre situation. I am sure it happened when we lived in a particular place which would have made me ten at the absolute outside, probably 9. Which meant S was under 5 and I cannot imagine why on earth GM wanted to take a child that age on a fancy holiday, just the two of them. But, whatever. And I know it happened before M took me on a holiday, just the two of us, to make up for it. I was definitely 10 then.
None of the facts are particularly important but I've just put them down because I have remembered them, in case I want to look back at this thread in the future.
What is coming back to me is that I categorically told my M I was not jealous of S about the holiday. I know I was jealous of S in some ways. Little kid ways, like how she was allowed to wear pretty dresses because she was pretty enough to wear them, so the beauty of the dress would not show up the plain-ness of the wearer. It was made quite clear to me that my clothes were chosen by M to hide my faults. I am pretty sure I never complained about this to M or made my jealousy known, although I guess a child under 10 is not going to be able to hide all feelings completely successfully.
And yet as far as I can recall, it was only this one occasion when M actually told me I should not be jealous. I think I may even have been quite pleased I could tell her quite honestly that I was not jealous. (I actually could not think of anything I wanted to do less than go on holiday with GM.) I probably thought this was a wonderful situation when how I actually felt aligned with how she told me I should feel. But instead of saying "good" and moving on, M really went to town on this jealousy business. There's endless possibilities, of course. M might have been jealous of the holiday herself, though she was terrified of GM. M might have thought that her instruction not to be jealous would cover all past and future jealousy and this was just a convenient moment to raise it.
It is certainly not the only example of Schrodingers anything, though. Bach's comment about the ultimate kid's birthday treat supposedly being a restaurant and a Broadway play resonates. Being taken to the ballet or opera was a great "treat" for me. As was being allowed to stay up for my parents' parties so I could dress in the smart clothes that hid my faults, be a waitress and hand the snacks round. I could make small talk to the adults and make sure I did not speak to them about any forbidden topics that I didn't actually know were forbidden. And I could find creative (but not rude) ways of getting out of normal conversations they started, like asking me what I thought about things, when I did know those topics were forbidden. Yippee!
I think this incident sticks in my mind because it was a time when I thought for a fleeting moment that there wasn't any dissonance. She didn't want me to be jealous and I wasn't. Only to realise she did want me to be jealous. But also she didn't.
I don't remember much about my childhood, and probably less than most (non CPTSD) people. It's almost a total blank until age 5, bar a few very distinct memories. I can remember a lot more about the period from 5 to 10, which was the grimmest period in many ways.
More about this particular memory is surfacing but is sort of adding to the whole bizarre situation. I am sure it happened when we lived in a particular place which would have made me ten at the absolute outside, probably 9. Which meant S was under 5 and I cannot imagine why on earth GM wanted to take a child that age on a fancy holiday, just the two of them. But, whatever. And I know it happened before M took me on a holiday, just the two of us, to make up for it. I was definitely 10 then.
None of the facts are particularly important but I've just put them down because I have remembered them, in case I want to look back at this thread in the future.
What is coming back to me is that I categorically told my M I was not jealous of S about the holiday. I know I was jealous of S in some ways. Little kid ways, like how she was allowed to wear pretty dresses because she was pretty enough to wear them, so the beauty of the dress would not show up the plain-ness of the wearer. It was made quite clear to me that my clothes were chosen by M to hide my faults. I am pretty sure I never complained about this to M or made my jealousy known, although I guess a child under 10 is not going to be able to hide all feelings completely successfully.
And yet as far as I can recall, it was only this one occasion when M actually told me I should not be jealous. I think I may even have been quite pleased I could tell her quite honestly that I was not jealous. (I actually could not think of anything I wanted to do less than go on holiday with GM.) I probably thought this was a wonderful situation when how I actually felt aligned with how she told me I should feel. But instead of saying "good" and moving on, M really went to town on this jealousy business. There's endless possibilities, of course. M might have been jealous of the holiday herself, though she was terrified of GM. M might have thought that her instruction not to be jealous would cover all past and future jealousy and this was just a convenient moment to raise it.
It is certainly not the only example of Schrodingers anything, though. Bach's comment about the ultimate kid's birthday treat supposedly being a restaurant and a Broadway play resonates. Being taken to the ballet or opera was a great "treat" for me. As was being allowed to stay up for my parents' parties so I could dress in the smart clothes that hid my faults, be a waitress and hand the snacks round. I could make small talk to the adults and make sure I did not speak to them about any forbidden topics that I didn't actually know were forbidden. And I could find creative (but not rude) ways of getting out of normal conversations they started, like asking me what I thought about things, when I did know those topics were forbidden. Yippee!
I think this incident sticks in my mind because it was a time when I thought for a fleeting moment that there wasn't any dissonance. She didn't want me to be jealous and I wasn't. Only to realise she did want me to be jealous. But also she didn't.
#9
Recovery Journals / Re: Papa Coco's Recovery Journ...
Last post by SenseOrgan - January 16, 2026, 11:53:04 AMQuote from: Papa Coco on January 12, 2026, 07:24:37 PMI'm feeling kind of glad this mess happened to me. FOr me
Yep.
I'm delighting in your post-traumatic joy Papa Coco. This life is horrifically beautiful. #10
Recovery Journals / Re: Dalloway´s Recovery Journa...
Last post by SenseOrgan - January 16, 2026, 10:58:13 AMI'm sorry Dalloway. The heaviness in your heart is palpable. I'm intimately acquainted with a similar state of being [as far as I can know, off course]. No obvious path ahead, while still ending up in the same spot with every turn taken. And knowing there must be more to the story somewhere, somehow.
One way of framing this, is that the system requires attention to something that's vitally important. It's contained in the very challenging feelings themselves. I've struggled with deep "depression" for decades. I've believed many things about it throughout the years. Most rhymed with "wrong with me" and "beyond repair". I was right. But not in the way I thought. Not even close.
In the saga of me, there is a path. With this kind of matter, I've found, it leads deeper inward. Deeper into the pain itself. There's no wiser, more loving teacher out there. She's making herself known in the places that hurt. It's all you.
Rumi said it better than I ever could in The Guest House.
Much love
One way of framing this, is that the system requires attention to something that's vitally important. It's contained in the very challenging feelings themselves. I've struggled with deep "depression" for decades. I've believed many things about it throughout the years. Most rhymed with "wrong with me" and "beyond repair". I was right. But not in the way I thought. Not even close.
In the saga of me, there is a path. With this kind of matter, I've found, it leads deeper inward. Deeper into the pain itself. There's no wiser, more loving teacher out there. She's making herself known in the places that hurt. It's all you.
Rumi said it better than I ever could in The Guest House.
Much love