Messages

Wow. This topic is a month old, but I'm new here and it really resonates with me.

I, too, enjoy dissociating. Frick, I do it every day. But I can't help but wonder if it has more to do with our personality. It seems like a lot of introverts are more susceptible to abuse. I have wondered, though - what came first, the abuse or the introversion? Hmm...

Anyway, I know for a fact that I'm an empath/Highly Sensitive Person/INFJ (MBTI, anyone?), but personality is some combination of nature AND nurture (or lack thereof?). I spend a lot of time in my head, arguably too much time. And dissociation is such an effortless, relatively safe, peaceful place to be during abuse/trauma. It's a womb-like shelter. In fact, the closest that some of us ever had as children.

Totally makes sense to me to want to go there, but the struggle I have is possibly staying there too long or at times when it's inappropriate. Like, when I should be asserting my boundaries instead.

Great topic.

Thank you both for your insight and warm welcome!

@Candid, yes, it does add an extra sting for sure. It doesn't help with my feelings of worthlessness and unlovability. I can't tell you how many times I've felt that that my main purpose for even being alive is to serve as a receptacle for other people's sh!t. I'd love to believe otherwise, but my experience won't allow for that.

I'm sorry to hear about what happened to you. It just makes me so angry that the responsibility for healing ourselves falls squarely on our shoulders when a) we're sorely ill-equipped what with our (C)PTSD and b) we never asked for any of this. Have we not been through enough already? That just pisses me off. That, coupled with the fact that I don't feel it (or I) would be worthwhile is what's stalling my healing the most.

But thank you again for your response. It does help a little to know I'm not alone.

Hi All, I'm new here and this is my first post. I have a question regarding childhood vs adulthood onset CPTSD. How do you tell which one applies to you?

I was diagnosed with PTSD less than a year ago (at 35) during my first appt with my then-therapist. At that time, I had only covered more recent traumas with her (2 in the last 7 years). A few sessions later, I divulged to her non-familial sexual abuse (1 of 3) I endured at the age of 15. I didn't want to tell her everything all at once a) because I'm always trepidatious with strangers and wasn't sure she could be trusted and b) because I didn't want to overwhelm her or feel like I was coming across as having an over- sensitive victim mentality. Our session ended with her giving me homework in the form of making a list of all the people who had hurt me.

During our next session, I turned my homework in to her and she just sat back, aghast, looked at me and said she was so sorry for me. I could tell she was fighting back tears. With this, she suggested that I developed PTSD when I was much, much younger. The abuse actually happened as far back as I can remember, first from my addict mom in physical/emotional/psychological forms. I stopped going to see my therapist a few months ago because...well, for a few reasons: money, religious differences, and an unwillingness/inability on my part to do the required work.

I can't help but wonder if she would've ended up changing my diagnosis to CPTSD, or if she even knows there is such a thing. Regardless, something tells me CPTSD is more fitting for my situation/experience.

But how can I tell whether the onset was as a child or an adult? It seems kinda obvious here, I guess, but I think the abusive pattern started at such a young age for me, and continued into and throughout adulthood, that I honestly have never known anything different. So how do you know when CPTSD truly started? Is there a point of singularity as a child (childhood onset) or is it a culmination of abuse (varying forms and perps) over the course of years where one particular trauma brings all the past traumas rushing back, like "the straw that broke the camel's back" (adulthood onset)?