Messages

Three Roses, I'm glad what I wrote helped you better understand cutting. Thank you for your empathy.

Marta, thank you for the hugs.

I've read what you've written, and I hear you. Your feelings are real and valid, and I can understand why you feel the way you do. Thank you for posting.

Sitting with you. If it helps, I'll put a soft blanket round your shoulders and offer safe and gentle hugs.

It helps. Thank you so much for your kindness and comfort.    

I started self harming when I was twelve, mostly via cutting and some burning. I did it consistently until I was about 19 or so, and have continued off and on throughout my twenties. It's the only thing that makes me feel like I have control over something. This is my body. Other people can hurt it, but I can't? That's how it's been throughout my life. When I choose the ways in which I want to hurt myself, people suddenly become diametrically opposed morally. But when other people hurt or control me against my wishes, it's fine.

I realize the healthy thing would be to oppose both harm directed at me from others and harm directed at me from myself, and I've managed that for periods of time before. But it comes back to this, always - it's my way of coping with triggers, I guess. Because it's mine. I have some scars that I made myself. At least I made them.

The intensity of emotion that precedes self harm for me is so intense that lists of ways to distract don't work for me. I can't distract. I have to deal with it, I have to express it, it can't be pushed away. I'm just inside it.

I don't feel it, when I cut. I don't even feel any physical pain. It's like my skin isn't really connected to me, though I guess it never fully has been anyway.

I had a conversation with someone important to me that triggered me. I can't tell if my feelings about our conversation are warranted or not. It's so messed up, because people told me, growing up, that I was irrational when I wasn't, that none of my feelings were real or legitimate or connected to anything based in reality. And now, because of the ways they damaged me through that, I don't know if I actually have become irrational or not. I can't tell. And I can't deal with it, I can't cope with the shame and horror from that. I can't have become what they always saw me as. I didn't used to be, I swear, and if I am that way now, I don't want it to have been my fault.

I'm afraid of close relations with people. There is a huge sense of threat inherent in them, a huge risk to my autonomy. It takes everything in me, sometimes, not to break the heart of the person I'm close to and disappear. I have spent a lifetime leaving every friend I made behind, sometimes even without saying goodbye.

I'm overwhelmed by the responses here. Thank you so much. It means a lot to have the empathy, validation, and belief of so many people. Though I haven't posted much on the forum yet, know that I believe and feel for all of you too.

it has so many layers to it

It was hard for a long time to approach anything that had occurred because of that. I was so trapped in it that it felt like nothing had occurred at all, if that makes sense. I didn't know how to escape the maze, how to decipher or understand anything, because my mental paradigms, my self, kept being shattered. I don't know if I truly developed a self to begin with. I know I could've had a life that was very different than this. I don't know who I would have been, but I was a smart kid and I think I had potential. There was so much I wanted to do and be. I realize that's how it is for most people, to some extent or another, because even beyond trauma, it sort of seems like the nature of life in general. I just don't know if my story will have a happy ending.

I wish that I didn't still have to fight, that my life could finally be about more than just survival. It's perpetually exhausting and I'm faced every morning with digging up the vestiges of my willpower against all reason, against all hope, so that I can suffer through another day. The only personality trait I'm certain I have is determination, and even that was acquired through circumstance rather than being an inherent quality. I'm used to pulling myself back up, alone, and I hate showing vulnerability because it became equivalent, in my mind, to weakness. This forum seems like a good place though, full of good people, so I'm glad to have discovered it.

Also, a question to the mod(s) - it's hard to escape the sense of panic posting the OP created, and I may end up wanting to delete the post at some point or another. Does the edit period expire after a certain time period on this forum, so I know to decide for sure before then?

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I think I may've reacted too strongly. Sorry Kizzie for directing that at you. Like Bach said, I'm used to being disbelieved and dismissed, so there's a strong urge to act self-protectively. I don't want to write off a place where that might not happen before even giving it much of a chance though. Thanks everyone for the welcome.

I think you're correct Lokasena that medical trauma is relational to a degree; it involves medical professionals who have authority/control over your body (as much as you or parents of a child allow), and there is the ongoing threat of pain even death.  One difference though is that typically those of us who undergo ongoing medical trauma have support which is not something survivors of abuse/neglect often have, plus the trauma is not meant to abuse/neglect the self/spirit even though clearly it is frightening, painful, leads to feelings of powerlessness, etc.

Interesting. I'm pretty sure very few parents would say their intent was to abuse or neglect their children. Does intent matter more than consequence in all cases or only when it comes to certain traumas? Medical trauma is not accepted by society as legitimate trauma. It's not regarded that way by doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, or even most therapists. So there is very little support and very little validation available, especially in childhood.

Everyone with CPTSD is welcome here whatever the cause       

Your welcome is very much appreciated, but I didn't come here to have a sh*tting contest over whether or not my experiences measure up to other people's or whether they even count as abuse or neglect. I understand there is probably a lot of support for the medical system and the way it functions here, as people diagnosed with CPTSD tend to be pretty heavily involved in and reliant on those systems for treatment and validation.

I apologize for sounding brusque and I appreciate the replies in this thread. I'm just looking for a place free of judgement, and I don't think this is the one. Best of luck to everyone here in their healing journeys.

I guess to me, medical trauma is inherently as relational as anything else. It comes down to how you're treated by doctors, who are people too, and who are prone to dehumanizing and abusive treatment in their own right. Even if they do act relatively appropriately, medical procedures are terrifying and painful, and children have no say or autonomy regarding their own body and often no way to communicate about how they're feeling, physically or emotionally.

I'll try to share my story in the general section at some point. Thank you for suggesting that. It's very long and complicated though and it feels risky to share it, because I have no idea the sort of judgement people will cast on me from it.

I'm a 27 year old with pretty extensive medical trauma that started in childhood and has continued into adulthood. I've noticed that medical trauma isn't listed as a childhood cause on any of the subforums, so I'm wondering if I'm the only one here whose CPTSD developed primarily from that.