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Hi Papillon,

Everything you have written is heart wrenching and cry worthy to me.  Please give your self a break and realize that the way you feel about yourself is only because it's the way you were trained to feel about yourself - no one is born feeling that way and you are deserving of so much more.

You wrote:
I want someone to yell, scream in my face that I'm wrong. To get my act together. I want someone to motivate me with shame. I don't know how else to function. Therapy has taken away my ability to motivate myself in that way. Systematically stripping me of unhealthy coping skills. Now I'm a newborn babe with all the pressures of an adult life, all the memories of a traumatic youth, and feeling utterly clueless as to how to comfort myself and navigate these deep waters.

The old programming we have received can be comforting because it's all we have ever known and therefore familiar for us to navigate through.  Feeling utterly clueless how to comfort yourself is a learned condition - it's exactly how you were wronged.  Speak to yourself with the kindness of the most beautiful mind you know.  All of the 'They know's' in your original post are awesomely symbolic of your inner strength.  There's a lot there to love and build on.

Raising the Rent

I didn't know you were camping out in here
It seems you've been here for quite some time
Your voice isn't welcome here anymore
F**k off out of here, this space is mine

Your accusatory tone and blaming ways
Omnipresent in these sullen quarters
Your constant criticisms, teasing and torture no longer veiled
I'm through fawning to your disorders

The economy of my soul for ever at risk
Transactions more complicated than a bank
All profits and huge margins on this emotional one way street
Wired direct to your empty bottomless tank

I'm raising the rent in here
And it's going to be too high for your rage

There's rat poison behind everything in here
It's amazing anything survived at all
The toxicity perverting all but the bricks
And I think it's ready for the wrecking ball

Smiles here - yes, thanks for posting.  Bang on.

Hi Samantha19,

It's great that the good cry left you feeling more self loving.  From what I understand about this CPTSD stuff is that being self compassionate to what you do is crucial.  These things we do to cope with stuff are learned responses to protect ourselves from harm - and we learned them because we were harmed.

It's possible that your reluctance to further communication with the guy you were interested in is a self protecting mechanism you adopted to prevent anymore 'abandonment' down the road.  In simple terms, 'if you don't get involved, you won't be disappointed'....  If this is the case it's likely your subconscious (inner child) telling you that it doesn't want more trauma.

Just a thought - maybe way off and I apologize if that's the case.

Thanks for this thread - I have tinnitus as well, so it's interesting to for me.  I am not on any prescription medication but I can certainly relate with the varied intensity.

Awesome stuff Three Roses and thanks for sharing.  Provides for a great reminder when we forget that great days are in front of us when the clouds are thick. 

This misogyny and misandry
Where it comes from I know not
But witness to I can tell
It's a place not far from *

At the height of my CPTSD I would twitch a lot whenever I had certain thoughts.  Most of these twitches were full body spasmic convulsions and some were just a sudden and very quick shake of the head or arm(s).  Since the worst of it where it might happen over a couple of dozen times a day I have had periods of weeks where nothing happens and I feel like I am on top of it.  currently, my situation is more difficult than it has been over the last several months and the twitching/spasms are remerging a couple of times a day.  These occurrences are usually when I have a shame based thought about something I cannot fulfill or something I should have done.  Has anyone had a similar experience and if so were you able to reach into the cause and ameliorate the response?

Hey NearlyMad - sounds like you are like the rest of us - extraordinary.   Perhaps been through more crap than you can even identify with.  I'm very new to the forum as well but I can assure you that you are in good company on this site.

fully relate healingjourney.  Even though it took me to first to realize my wife was NPD and then my mother, it took many more years for me to see the toxicity of some of my closest relationships including siblings.  Happy for you having a good day - much deserved.

Very much agree with all that has been written so far.  What has worked pretty well for me so far is trying as hard as possible to identify when it's at play and gaining traction - when I catch this I give it a swift 'F**k off out of here, you don't belong here.' It takes some work and it can be tiring (like so much of this) but it has given me great relief from when it was at it's worst.  I still try and stay as aware as I can each time it rears it's head I try and remember how important it is to be self compassionate.

My experience is that my nightmares and dreams are never obviously correlatable to real life situations.  however I have had a couple dreams that really impacted me in uplifting ways and I'm sure it's some kind of bridge between the conscious and unconscious (inner child). 

In one of my dreams (mentioned in another post) I defended myself to my father (not my abuser (co dependant)) about something I did bad and he finally listened to me after a far better articulated argument than I would have been able to do in the past.  The result was extremely powerful and I realized through my own personal therapy that I was standing up for myself and thus my inner child appropriately.

In a dream a couple of nights ago I was in a crowded place and everyone, including me, was lightheartedly laughing at some bad kid being admonished for something.  As I took part in the giggling, the boy turned into one of my child's friends that I really liked and is nice and totally innocent.  As he walked by us, he said, "I feel like such a dummy" and I realized that both were my inner child trying to reach me for support.  It awakened me to the need to pay more attention and perhaps rid myself of further fleas from my narcissistic upbringing.

There are lot's of nightmares for me in general and they are ripe with fear.  Usually, I'm surrounded by war in various locations and things are intense and dismal and then I wake up sweating.  Pretty sure my inner child is trying to reach me and tell me certain places/people/things are not safe.  This has made me more in touch with the extent of the fear I have on a subconscious level to a lot of stuff.  I try hard now to remember all I can about dreams and nightmares and then try to deconstruct them.

Thank you for this post Flutterbye.  I agree with everyone's responses and I don't have anything further to add, but it tap into my own frustration and anger how you were wronged.

woodsgnome, thanks for the Jeff Foster link.  All new to me and it made me tear up.

This thread is very validating for me - thank you all.  As a reader I am struck by the eloquence of all of your writings and I find it rife with deep emotional intelligence.  For sure there are many silver linings to having CPTSD and you folks are the embodiment of it.

Hi woodsgnome - I resonate with your writing and the prose is fantastic.  Reminds me of a good friend of mine, much appreciated.  Nice way with words you have.