Quote from: Blueberry on November 30, 2017, 08:43:52 PM
Welcome to the forum sibling
You've had many bad experiences, I'm sorry about that. But it's good to also hear that you see some positive changes and that you have a social worker who supports you.
As to your questions: "How do I move past these emotions and start living the life I want to? Has anyone here experienced any trauma or had plain unlucky times in their lives, and is fine today(as in, they can hold down a job)? What worked, and what didn't?"
All of us on here have experienced trauma, we have CPTSD. It doesn't have to be officially diagnosed. But that's the common denominator here. People on here are all at different stages of recovery. I don't know how many people here might say they are fine now. Some might say fine today as opposed to yesterday. That's more the way I look at life too.
I, for one, cannot hold down a job anymore and I'm not the only one. It's not my only criteria for recovery and health, but it is part. There are however other people on here who manage to work but are healing in other areas of their lives.
There's no single, quick, answer for moving past your emotions and getting on with life. You can read around on the website like here http://www.outofthestorm.website/treatment/ and of course throughout the forum.
You can also check here http://pete-walker.com/fAQsComplexPTSD.html for useful information.
Hi Blueberry I want to answer this before I go to sleep.
You are right about good and bad days - I have a habit of looking at my life in the big picture(too big, perhaps) and believe that I have to make up for the lost years immediately. Perhaps looking at it the way you do, I can be more at peace with myself.
I know the things I wrote seems outlandish on a forum about CPTSD. The reason I don't focus on my childhood in my post, is because I have tried to be my own therapist about it since I was 15 - so it would feel like beating a dead horse. What I haven't dealt with yet, is the disappointment I feel when I face the years I've lost, in spite of trying almost anything to achieve a better life.
The links were also very helpful, especially the one by Pete Walker - I'll save it to read on bad days. His talk about fight-or-flight is something I can feel happen less and less. The thing I'm nervous about is that my problems due to the past are things that can only be solved by waiting it out - and I feel like I'm too disabled in other ways to do that. Achieving normalcy and becoming independent is all I care about.
Even though you can't hold a job, it's still nice to hear about how someone else has experienced life after they escaped from the actual abuse. It's why I've been browsing this forum, and outofthefog for years(storm, I know)