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Despite having to be financially and just generally independent in life as far as basic survival, I have always had this feeling of inability to accomplish normal things.

I am 33 and simply cannot imagine being able to learn how to drive and pass a drivers test and feel confident enough to operate a massive piece of machinery without messing up and potentially  injuring myself or others. Does anyone else have an overwhelming defeatist attitude about fundamental adult responsibilities?

I have been seeing a CBT for a few months and she implied to me that treatment for my specific issues was out of her wheelhouse. I found an extremely qualified (like not just a google search but citations in scholarly articles) EMDR specialist and had my first appointment with her today and I am feeling so hopeful and comfortable with this therapist. Unfortunately, She is out of my health insurance network, which does not cover ANY out-of-network costs under ANY circumstances. (There really are not very many therapists at all in my network.) The catch is that it is extremely expensive. I can technically afford it, and I know it's probably the most important thing I should be focusing on right now. But it would also mean having to strictly budget every other aspect of my life. (Healthy food, appropriate office clothes that I need after losing weight recently, travel out of state to see my family, etc. would all be unaffordable.)

Does anyone know if a recent PTSD diagnosis might qualify as a reason to change my insurance policy before the next enrollment period? I think a higher premium would still save money in the long run. Again, ill pay out of pocket if I have to but if anyone has any tips or tricks for making it more affordable I would be eternally grateful.

I am aware that diagnosis is a no-no here. But I have been talking to my therapist about the way my mother's verifiable mental illness has affected me and my siblings and I feel that I have the symptoms of CPSTD and am uncertain about whether any of my experience could at least parallel the symptoms or if I'm just being hyperbolic. I'll try to keep the story short.

Growing up my mothers most pronounced disorder was hoarding. It's increased exponentially over my lifetime but started when I was around eight. (It coincided with her miscarriage and postpartum depression, as well as the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia of one of my brothers and my own diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. Her lack of support at that time was fully muted by her belief that these "tragedies" only affected her.

It was impossible to be comfortable in my own home and by the time I was in college it had reached third-world squalor. At this point my much younger siblings were my main concern. They mostly stayed with me and my older siblings. My dad became terminally ill when my youngest sister was only five. He was in hospice in the squalor until he died.

She spent the next year bedridden with grief and and often manufactured illness, offering absolutely no support for her children who had just lost their father.

My sister who was a teenager at the time endured an ongoing physical and sexual assault, was devastated and authorities were involved. I called her with concern that if she didn't let me clean her house CPS would take my siblings and I would never see them again. I was absolutely panicking and her response was that it was inappropriate for me to call her at night when her boyfriend would overhear.

Working 80 hours a week, I spend the hours usually observed for sleeping desperately trying to throw the floor to ceiling trash away, scrub away various molds on the kitchen, remove the offensive odors, etc. I remember cutting my leg with a broken piece of glass at the bottom of a trash pile, having to sop up the blood  with a dirty towel, all of the trash closed on on me and and fwas eeling absolutely helpless thinking at any moment my family would be completely removed from my life. Btw, she had flown to Spain for a vacation that week.

I think about that feeling of having no control over anything, a crisis created by someone I love who was showing zero insight into the gravity of the situation, or remorse.

I bring it up because my boyfriend has undeniably subjected me to prolonged cruel, and seemingly unnecessary pain. I have nightmares intrusive thoughts and panic attacks about his past descrepencies. I worry that this is actually a trauma response that I unfairly connect to the helplessness and panic about losing my family, because those parallels exist. Again, not looking for a diagnosis but I'm curious about if anyone can relate to this sort of relationship dynamic as an adult?