Recent posts
#1
Recovery Journals / Re: Living As All of Me
Last post by Chart - Today at 12:25:10 PMQuote from: HannahOne on January 06, 2026, 11:03:13 PMMaybe, unconsciously, so I could kick any wayward priest in the behind if needed.It depends on the priest of course, but there's a much more appropriate place to kick them (imo :-)
Quote from: HannahOne on January 06, 2026, 11:03:13 PMI don't know how to bring all of this together, or how to begin to communicate it with another person. Today was certainly quite an epic fail. But maybe I just need a person who is not so locked down herself. My poor friend. May she find happiness, safety, peace, joy.I disagree that this was a "fail". To the contrary. Or maybe your objectives were different than what I understood. What a fantastic experiment you did. Everyone changes. Some a lot, others less. But change is fluid, and process isn't "on-off". We "transition" into new things. It's a learning process, like getting a doctorate. As we evolve, how great to pause and look back over our shoulder. There's nothing wrong with having one foot on each side of the river (so long as you're flexible :-)
Ultimately I believe this: it is "okay" for me to be 100% who I am at any given moment in time. So long as I am being "healthy with others", who I am and how/what/why... is okay. Anyway, the present moment will change and I have the future before me again. To change or not to change... interesting and beautiful either way.
I came up with a concept years ago. I've since heard the same thing in other forms, but I love this idea and fall back on it very frequently: 100% of Judgements are false. That is to say, "judgements" are opinions influenced entirely by beliefs and feelings. A judgment, viewed from another perspective or a different context easily becomes the reverse. I'll leave off a bit, but this idea gives me freedom. I can have my opinions AND see my "flaws" in those same ideas but still understand that that "judgment" is part of my "composed self" at that particular moment (now or whenever) and I can continue or change as I sense/feel in that experience I'm currently having called "life". I become "god" but a god who is only another part of a deeper greater truth.
Sorry, kinda rambled there... :-)
And I gotta say (admittedly a judgment on my part) I've run across a few Evangelicals... happy to hear you saw through it and got out. Huge win imo. Gotta love yourself for that.
#2
Recovery Journals / Re: The tipping point…
Last post by SenseOrgan - Today at 12:16:29 PMDear Chart, I hope it's not inappropriate that I'm happy for you. Not for you to be in pain. But for you to grow. To me, what you are going through, what you are allowing to flow through you, is what integrating our fragmented selves means. A good friend of mine calls this birthing yourself. I admire your courage and strength to go there, while holding down a job and being such a great dad for your children. Plus all the things you do every day to tip the scales. It's a lot to juggle on a daily basis. I take my hat of for that. I hope you can get your physical health stuff sorted out too. If only for the extra worry this would take away.
Yes, attachment trauma runs deep. It's devastating in it's own right to see the actual scope of it. Insights come with feeling the pain, don't they? I think that the movement towards the heart of the matter, is guided by a part of us that knows exactly what's up and what needs to be fully felt to welcome all of us home. I firmly believe that the truth is what sets us free. In the case of attachment trauma, a lot of it comes in the form of existential terror, despair, and loneliness. It's a leap of faith to trust the process, and to stick with that experience instead of escaping into story land. In it, you transform from an overwhelmed and terrified child into an adult who knows he can accommodate even that. Because he has gone through it. That's how we learn about life, and about our own powers. That's a potent prediction error, a liberating update of our programming around difficult emotions.
A big factor for many of us, I think, is the undoing of the aloneness with this. We're all going through this in one form or another. Just reading your journal is incredibly validating. It helps me to think of you and others here when I'm in the midst of this storm. I know you know. That's not a small thing for somebody who kenw nobody knew for most of his life. The journey is lighter with a travel companion. We have people who get it and who care now. I imagine all of us cheering for the scared fellow when he presses "post". He's wecome here. As is.
Thank you for sharing.
Much love
Yes, attachment trauma runs deep. It's devastating in it's own right to see the actual scope of it. Insights come with feeling the pain, don't they? I think that the movement towards the heart of the matter, is guided by a part of us that knows exactly what's up and what needs to be fully felt to welcome all of us home. I firmly believe that the truth is what sets us free. In the case of attachment trauma, a lot of it comes in the form of existential terror, despair, and loneliness. It's a leap of faith to trust the process, and to stick with that experience instead of escaping into story land. In it, you transform from an overwhelmed and terrified child into an adult who knows he can accommodate even that. Because he has gone through it. That's how we learn about life, and about our own powers. That's a potent prediction error, a liberating update of our programming around difficult emotions.
A big factor for many of us, I think, is the undoing of the aloneness with this. We're all going through this in one form or another. Just reading your journal is incredibly validating. It helps me to think of you and others here when I'm in the midst of this storm. I know you know. That's not a small thing for somebody who kenw nobody knew for most of his life. The journey is lighter with a travel companion. We have people who get it and who care now. I imagine all of us cheering for the scared fellow when he presses "post". He's wecome here. As is.
Thank you for sharing.
Much love
#3
General Discussion / Re: Letter to Gabor Mate
Last post by dollyvee - Today at 11:27:22 AMI'm glad you could relate to it Marcine.
It brought up a lot off relevant points and though it might provoke some discussion. I think his methods helped people establish a "new way" of thinking and looking at trauma, but when does that fall outside what is acceptable especially for people who have been dismissed by the established psychological institutions for a long time (ie how long it has taken for cptsd to be recognized as a credible diagnosis). Like the author said, it leaves a lot of "wiggle room" for what is and is not acceptable, or credible and potentially retraumatizing, especially when someone is making money off of it.
It brought up a lot off relevant points and though it might provoke some discussion. I think his methods helped people establish a "new way" of thinking and looking at trauma, but when does that fall outside what is acceptable especially for people who have been dismissed by the established psychological institutions for a long time (ie how long it has taken for cptsd to be recognized as a credible diagnosis). Like the author said, it leaves a lot of "wiggle room" for what is and is not acceptable, or credible and potentially retraumatizing, especially when someone is making money off of it.
#4
Successes, Progress? / Re: Post-Traumatic Joy
Last post by dollyvee - Today at 11:20:37 AMWell done SO 
Here's to 2026
Here's to 2026 #5
Recovery Journals / Re: Dalloway´s Recovery Journa...
Last post by Marcine - Today at 01:19:29 AM Dalloway = courageous, determined, forged in fire, honest, hurting, compassionate, beautiful!
#6
Recovery Journals / Re: Living As All of Me
Last post by HannahOne - January 06, 2026, 11:03:13 PMWell, today I tried for social connection. After agonizing over the invite, I went to lunch with an old friend from my former religion. My goal was to try to "be myself," and observe myself if that wasn't happening to try to figure out why.
If you have religious trauma, TW, probably don't read this post. Be well.
My friend is one I knew from the religion I have left. She doesn't quite know how far I've left. I haven't attended the church in three years. But I haven't told her I no longer believe in God. So how was I going to navigate this, as "the real me"? As "All of Me"?
It started with the clothes. What am I gonna wear to this thing? Our religion didn't allow women to wear pants. Was I gonna put on a long skirt? Little bit of a flashback looking at my old long skirts, I've tossed most of them. How about the long skirt I wore to my daughter's violin recital? Too much tulle, not modest to draw attention like that. How about the long satin skirt I got this Christmas? Too clingy, not modest enough. I decided to wear a long loose navy blue paisley thing, so modest, so unfashionable! but skipped the requisite virginal ballet flats and put on pointy toed boots with it. Maybe, unconsciously, so I could kick any wayward priest in the behind if needed. Added a "lady jacket" with it, a la Chanel, very mindful, very demure. But underneath the lady jacket, black lace. Haha. And a bracelet from my childhood, to remind me where I came from. I've come a long way, baby!
Thus attired, I proceeded to step right into it and upon greeting her I said "Oh my God I love your coat!" And of course in our religion we would never say "Oh my God." That is a sin. Oh God. Why did I say "Oh my God?" Poop! Dang! ARGH!
From then on I was beginning to dissociate. I had planned out what to order, because it's a fasting time, so I would need to eat vegan. With each concession, the skirt, the fasting food, the self-censoring of my speech, I disintegrated more. Smiling, nodding. She talked pretty much nonstop. Wild things I can't believe I ever entertained, about monks knowing her future, moving across the world to become a nun after she's widowed, superstitions about viruses, complaints about the decadent West (And she's a born and bred American just like me).... No judgement---well, ok, some judgement, but I respect her beliefs--I respect her right to have them. It was just incredibly alienating to try to wedge myself into them. And I felt I had no other choice. That's the part of me I need to work with. How could I give myself the choice next time? We don't even share common context, she doesn't read pop books, or watch TV, or listen to music except religious music.... there was nothing I could say that would make sense in her world. Jane Eyre, I could talk about Jane Eyre... but I never read Jane Erye... I'm reading a book about a Korean woman who lost her mother to cancer. But my friend wouldn't read a book by anyone who wasn't the religion. What to talk about, drawing a blank, another blank....
I spent the rest of the meal somewhere above my head. She gifted me a prayerbook and a beautiful icon. I still paint icons, but am conflicted about it. I don't know if I'll continue. This one was painted on a piece of petrified wood. Lovely. And yet.
Upon leaving she wants to meet up again. I don't think it's good for me. It's too triggering. I am disappointed that I couldn't stay more authentic to who I really am now, that I couldn't update her as to where I am. But like my parents, there's no room in her world for someone like me. It would cause her distress to know my real thoughts. She would be baffled or irritated or unsettled. And I don't want to baffle, irritate, or upset. I guess, if I'm honest, I didn't want to deal with her feelings about who I am. Am I being unfair, am I assuming? I don't think so in this case, she's such a true believer it's her whole identity. But at the end, it's me, I don't want to embody my identity if anyone is going to have a feeling about it.
I think I joined this religion in part to make it my whole identity, because I hated my identity. It was a repetition, I repeated my own trauma to myself. I was raised in a brutal, insane form of Christianity, complete with speaking in tongues, laying on of many, many heavy hands, exorcisms (oh yes, even of sad nine year old girls), and so. many. rules. Superstitions. Devils around every corner. Satan in my lunchbox. 88 reasons why the rapture must come in 1988. As a child being abused every which way, purity culture was agony nd the exorcisms never stopped the abuse, no matter how many hands, how many tongues or how much I prayed. So much trauma. I left at 18 and never went back.
In midlife I fell into icon painting, and from there the religion. At first there were no triggers, all the chanting a different language, the service the opposite of chaos, everything written down and planned. But eventually the rules got to me, so many rules, and I was never doing it quite right. I realized I wouldn't raise my kids in it. So much superstition. The skirts, annoying. Can't keep track of fasting days. Confess, try again, fail. Confess, try again....fail. Lost my faith. Left.
And now what. I want to be social. I want to have friends. I'd like to be part of a community the believes in something good. But not at the cost of all of me, the me who wanted God, the me who doesn't. The me who thinks the Mother of God is a beautiful idea and the me who thinks the idea is absurd on its face. The me who liked wearing long skirts that make me the shape of a bell with little ballerina flat feet, and the me who wants to wear camo pants and high tops. The me who was abused and the me who grew up and left. The me who had no choice and the me who does....
I don't know how to bring all of this together, or how to begin to communicate it with another person. Today was certainly quite an epic fail. But maybe I just need a person who is not so locked down herself. My poor friend. May she find happiness, safety, peace, joy. And my God, her coat! May she wear it with just a little bit of pride. No one has to know! Although she'd have to confess it....
Tomorrow, I will put on cropped jeans, tall boots, a striped button down and a big fuzzy sweater and I'll stomp around the doctors office, slump over to the cafe. We'll see how that feels, and who I might make eye contact with and meet, what context we might share, and who they will say that I am.
If you have religious trauma, TW, probably don't read this post. Be well.
My friend is one I knew from the religion I have left. She doesn't quite know how far I've left. I haven't attended the church in three years. But I haven't told her I no longer believe in God. So how was I going to navigate this, as "the real me"? As "All of Me"?
It started with the clothes. What am I gonna wear to this thing? Our religion didn't allow women to wear pants. Was I gonna put on a long skirt? Little bit of a flashback looking at my old long skirts, I've tossed most of them. How about the long skirt I wore to my daughter's violin recital? Too much tulle, not modest to draw attention like that. How about the long satin skirt I got this Christmas? Too clingy, not modest enough. I decided to wear a long loose navy blue paisley thing, so modest, so unfashionable! but skipped the requisite virginal ballet flats and put on pointy toed boots with it. Maybe, unconsciously, so I could kick any wayward priest in the behind if needed. Added a "lady jacket" with it, a la Chanel, very mindful, very demure. But underneath the lady jacket, black lace. Haha. And a bracelet from my childhood, to remind me where I came from. I've come a long way, baby!
Thus attired, I proceeded to step right into it and upon greeting her I said "Oh my God I love your coat!" And of course in our religion we would never say "Oh my God." That is a sin. Oh God. Why did I say "Oh my God?" Poop! Dang! ARGH!
From then on I was beginning to dissociate. I had planned out what to order, because it's a fasting time, so I would need to eat vegan. With each concession, the skirt, the fasting food, the self-censoring of my speech, I disintegrated more. Smiling, nodding. She talked pretty much nonstop. Wild things I can't believe I ever entertained, about monks knowing her future, moving across the world to become a nun after she's widowed, superstitions about viruses, complaints about the decadent West (And she's a born and bred American just like me).... No judgement---well, ok, some judgement, but I respect her beliefs--I respect her right to have them. It was just incredibly alienating to try to wedge myself into them. And I felt I had no other choice. That's the part of me I need to work with. How could I give myself the choice next time? We don't even share common context, she doesn't read pop books, or watch TV, or listen to music except religious music.... there was nothing I could say that would make sense in her world. Jane Eyre, I could talk about Jane Eyre... but I never read Jane Erye... I'm reading a book about a Korean woman who lost her mother to cancer. But my friend wouldn't read a book by anyone who wasn't the religion. What to talk about, drawing a blank, another blank....
I spent the rest of the meal somewhere above my head. She gifted me a prayerbook and a beautiful icon. I still paint icons, but am conflicted about it. I don't know if I'll continue. This one was painted on a piece of petrified wood. Lovely. And yet.
Upon leaving she wants to meet up again. I don't think it's good for me. It's too triggering. I am disappointed that I couldn't stay more authentic to who I really am now, that I couldn't update her as to where I am. But like my parents, there's no room in her world for someone like me. It would cause her distress to know my real thoughts. She would be baffled or irritated or unsettled. And I don't want to baffle, irritate, or upset. I guess, if I'm honest, I didn't want to deal with her feelings about who I am. Am I being unfair, am I assuming? I don't think so in this case, she's such a true believer it's her whole identity. But at the end, it's me, I don't want to embody my identity if anyone is going to have a feeling about it.
I think I joined this religion in part to make it my whole identity, because I hated my identity. It was a repetition, I repeated my own trauma to myself. I was raised in a brutal, insane form of Christianity, complete with speaking in tongues, laying on of many, many heavy hands, exorcisms (oh yes, even of sad nine year old girls), and so. many. rules. Superstitions. Devils around every corner. Satan in my lunchbox. 88 reasons why the rapture must come in 1988. As a child being abused every which way, purity culture was agony nd the exorcisms never stopped the abuse, no matter how many hands, how many tongues or how much I prayed. So much trauma. I left at 18 and never went back.
In midlife I fell into icon painting, and from there the religion. At first there were no triggers, all the chanting a different language, the service the opposite of chaos, everything written down and planned. But eventually the rules got to me, so many rules, and I was never doing it quite right. I realized I wouldn't raise my kids in it. So much superstition. The skirts, annoying. Can't keep track of fasting days. Confess, try again, fail. Confess, try again....fail. Lost my faith. Left.
And now what. I want to be social. I want to have friends. I'd like to be part of a community the believes in something good. But not at the cost of all of me, the me who wanted God, the me who doesn't. The me who thinks the Mother of God is a beautiful idea and the me who thinks the idea is absurd on its face. The me who liked wearing long skirts that make me the shape of a bell with little ballerina flat feet, and the me who wants to wear camo pants and high tops. The me who was abused and the me who grew up and left. The me who had no choice and the me who does....
I don't know how to bring all of this together, or how to begin to communicate it with another person. Today was certainly quite an epic fail. But maybe I just need a person who is not so locked down herself. My poor friend. May she find happiness, safety, peace, joy. And my God, her coat! May she wear it with just a little bit of pride. No one has to know! Although she'd have to confess it....
Tomorrow, I will put on cropped jeans, tall boots, a striped button down and a big fuzzy sweater and I'll stomp around the doctors office, slump over to the cafe. We'll see how that feels, and who I might make eye contact with and meet, what context we might share, and who they will say that I am.
#7
Recovery Journals / Re: The tipping point…
Last post by HannahOne - January 06, 2026, 10:23:26 PMHey Chart.
How profound to see your tears as lenses, as acceptance. That's a beautiful image, and true.
I can relate to the physical toll all this takes. The pain is real. I'm glad you are noticing the pain and trying to take care of yourself, even as you sling tiles!
"Every single time I write on the Forum, I feel a little voice in me that tells me I'm wrong, bad, egotistical and selfish. It's incredible. It's there every time." I feel this too. I feel more fear, that if I say what I think, I'll be mashed. Or paranoia that my parents will read it and be enraged. It's weird. I think it's an emotional flashback. I don't do social media for this reason, haven't published my personal work despite being a professional writer for years for other people. I think this is part of CPTSD, too. I'm glad you can overcome it and assert yourself anyway, say what's true for you today, feel what you feel, know what you know in the way that you know it.
Personally I benefit enormously from reading other people's journals. More even than writing my own is reading others. So, FWIW, I find it selfless that you take time to write here. But the emotional flashback is very real, and it makes sense to me that you would feel wrong and bad, that's how we were trained to feel from a very young age. We can all be bad and wrong and selfish together, writing about our experience of trauma!
How profound to see your tears as lenses, as acceptance. That's a beautiful image, and true.
I can relate to the physical toll all this takes. The pain is real. I'm glad you are noticing the pain and trying to take care of yourself, even as you sling tiles!
"Every single time I write on the Forum, I feel a little voice in me that tells me I'm wrong, bad, egotistical and selfish. It's incredible. It's there every time." I feel this too. I feel more fear, that if I say what I think, I'll be mashed. Or paranoia that my parents will read it and be enraged. It's weird. I think it's an emotional flashback. I don't do social media for this reason, haven't published my personal work despite being a professional writer for years for other people. I think this is part of CPTSD, too. I'm glad you can overcome it and assert yourself anyway, say what's true for you today, feel what you feel, know what you know in the way that you know it.
Personally I benefit enormously from reading other people's journals. More even than writing my own is reading others. So, FWIW, I find it selfless that you take time to write here. But the emotional flashback is very real, and it makes sense to me that you would feel wrong and bad, that's how we were trained to feel from a very young age. We can all be bad and wrong and selfish together, writing about our experience of trauma!
#8
Recovery Journals / Re: The tipping point…
Last post by Chart - January 06, 2026, 09:13:45 PMThank you HannahOne, Marcine, Armee...
And so I let them roll now. I've searched my entire life for these memories. I've begged god for them as only an unbeliever can beg a usesless god of whom he's never bought into. I revel in the stories that now float into my left brain... and boy are they coming. Not in mass, but more the subtle waftings of piano heard through an open window. But my ear is trained and I listen and pick up on it straight. I remember what was said, and more importantly, what was not said. I remember his tone of voice, and now understand why certain men have terrified me all my life, why I've never liked the actor Jack Nicholson, why ignorance coupled with insensitivity brings forth often severe anger.
But I need to say something else. The understanding I have found in the past two years has cost me a great deal. I am EXTREMELY low energy. I have a hernia now. I can no longer tolerate many many foods. Sugar plunges me into depression. My body hurts. I no longer have full strength in either of my arms and am currently in a bad way because I threw tiles up on a roof for two days. My wrists are currently out of service.
Realizing the extent of my trauma has been incredibly debilitating. I'm managing to work, but it is just the minimum possible. And I do very little else besides work, take care of my kids, and do my nervous system exercises, emdr and write on the Forum. (Is that in order of priority? maybe...)
And now I'm pooped :-) And one more thing... Every single time I write on the Forum, I feel a little voice in me that tells me I'm wrong, bad, egotistical and selfish. It's incredible. It's there every time. I overcome it, but it's still there.
Healing is the path, not the goal...
I deeply truly madly love you all.
Quote from: Armee on January 05, 2026, 02:37:46 AMI'm in awe of your ability to cry and feel, Chart!I have always felt... Only recently have I begun to cry. But I find the word "cry" inappropriate. I don't believe that's what I'm actually doing. For all appearances it's crying, but I'm slowly slipping towards an understanding that the tears are not only water, they are truth-understanding coming and settling into their rightful place. I am a (mostly) Pre-verbal Trauma survivor. There are no personal memories. I have stories and the amazingly off-cuff memories of my mother... I also have an older sister (who probably went a long way to dramatically minimizing my trauma, but she couldn't be the parent I actually needed, and she was as terrorized by him as I was). No, tears are the lenses through which I see more and more clearly what actually happened.
And so I let them roll now. I've searched my entire life for these memories. I've begged god for them as only an unbeliever can beg a usesless god of whom he's never bought into. I revel in the stories that now float into my left brain... and boy are they coming. Not in mass, but more the subtle waftings of piano heard through an open window. But my ear is trained and I listen and pick up on it straight. I remember what was said, and more importantly, what was not said. I remember his tone of voice, and now understand why certain men have terrified me all my life, why I've never liked the actor Jack Nicholson, why ignorance coupled with insensitivity brings forth often severe anger.
But I need to say something else. The understanding I have found in the past two years has cost me a great deal. I am EXTREMELY low energy. I have a hernia now. I can no longer tolerate many many foods. Sugar plunges me into depression. My body hurts. I no longer have full strength in either of my arms and am currently in a bad way because I threw tiles up on a roof for two days. My wrists are currently out of service.
Realizing the extent of my trauma has been incredibly debilitating. I'm managing to work, but it is just the minimum possible. And I do very little else besides work, take care of my kids, and do my nervous system exercises, emdr and write on the Forum. (Is that in order of priority? maybe...)
And now I'm pooped :-) And one more thing... Every single time I write on the Forum, I feel a little voice in me that tells me I'm wrong, bad, egotistical and selfish. It's incredible. It's there every time. I overcome it, but it's still there.
Healing is the path, not the goal...
I deeply truly madly love you all.
#10
Other / Re: How Trauma Affects Memory
Last post by Chart - January 06, 2026, 08:34:36 PMQuote from: Blueberry on January 05, 2026, 05:35:00 AMI'm with you on the horrible memory Chart, and it being a handicap in professional and financial life