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That feeling keeps coming back. I'm not sure if anyone can help me. I've been letting words and thoughts slide out at in appropriate times. I kinda just do and think along the lines of whatever someone else thinks. I'm losing it.. Whatever it is that makes me an individual is almost completely gone. I don't know how to stop it, but I'm about to become a zombie.

This morning I woke up having an anxiety attack. I didn't expect to be in my bed in my apartment with my boyfriend and getting read to go to my job. It didn't feel real. I felt as though I was supposed to be back, there. The strangest part is that "there" is more like a feeling than a memory: trapped and suffocating. It freaks me out when I realize I'm not there; when I'm not in autopilot or feeding my need for constant distraction. Does this happen to anyone else? Does this even make sense?

Does anyone else experience the recluse? You want so badly to go out and enjoy the company of others; you get invitations do to things with others, maybe see a movie, go shopping, catch a pint at the pub, but it seems like the most difficult thing to do; to do anything. It's not just a lack of motivation; you have motivation to go experience life, but for some reason, it seems as though this unnatural force is holding you back, caged. You convince yourself you can't go; you come up with excuses because it's unexplainable and embarrassing, and because you of course feel as though you have to explain everything. "Intellectualization" probably something most of us with CPTSD know all too well. We understand why and solve the puzzle so we feel better about it. It somehow alleviates the stress, and I know I convince myself that it alleviates the pain (which it of course doesn't) even though it was a crap puzzle to begin with. I just want to do things without being whatever it is I'm being. I don't want to be alone, but I don't want to see people. It's confusing and contradictory. I miss out on playing in some pretty fantastic venues with bands I know because I can't go.

So, I'm curious if this is an emotional flashback. I'll be in the middle of a conversation, something will trigger me into something that happened/ was said, and I'm gone in that flashback, but as soon as something draws my attention back to the real world, I'm just emotionally numb and completely disinterested in the subject at hand. 

This is crazy. Other people feel the emptiness? The inability to make a decision that isn't based around 20 methodical steps in order to prevent more abuse? My whole life I've hidden, and now I feel like an empty shell, a hollow body. I had a purpose as a peacemaker, a protector, a scared little girl. I'm leaning who I am now. I'm developing. I'm learning of my own talents and abilities, but I don't know what I want. Usually, it's because I've not experienced much outside of the chaos. How do you guys deal with a partner? Mine has been with me for a little shy of 3 years, and Idk how to get him to hold me when I need it or understand that I'm a physically needy person? I have to have hugs, and kisses, cuddles, etc., he's working a new job and is out of shape, so his tired all of the time and shows no affection now. I don't know how to explain that it's the most important thing to me, and all he says is that I'm not listening to him. He said he's tired. He and I have had this conversation since before this job too. It's been an ongoing thing for a little shy of a year. Any suggestions?

So, as all of you clearly know, there comes a point in time where you need to connect with other people, and the intensity of just doing your day to day routine (which you still don't know how to manage) becomes too much to handle. I can't do this on my own anymore, and I need help. I grew up in a very violent, psychologically and physically abusive environment. My first memory is of my mother slamming my grandmother's head onto our kitchen table and the horrible sound of pain she let out as she held her wounded face. I was three years old. My mother and her parents raised me, all insane people, pulling guns out on one another, dragging people around by their hair, using religion as a manipulative tool to justify their insanity. i saw my mother put a loaded gun in her mouth, threatening to kill herself (usually with me to blame) on several occasions. As an 8 year old girl, I would take the billets out of her gun and hide them. I've been punched, slapped, spit on, clawed, degraded, threatened, tormented, caged, forced to say racist slurs, and somehow I'm alive. Oh, I forgot to mention my mother's pill addiction, narcissism,paranoia, prejudice against religions, sexual orientation, skin color, ethnicity, etc, she refused to let me see my father growing up, listening on the landline during each conversation, she made me tell my dad I didn't want to see him, and I of course obeyed; he had no idea until I told him about one particular fight that made me realize I had no other alternative but to leave for my own survival. I was a few months shy of turning 18 at this point. My mother also visited a serial killer for years to get info to write a "book" so she could make a "movie" and be on the red carpet. My dad bought me a car when I was 16. He was afraid my mom would take it as her own so he put it in my grandfather's name, who then sold it; my mom and her dad both like narcotics. So, my only means of escape was sold out from underneath me. I wasn't allowed to do anything growing up. I lived in a poor neighborhood where most people were too afraid to call the cops on my family (my cousin was the sheriff, my grandfather a co, and my uncle a retired homicide detective who actually caught the serial killer my mother visited for 4 or 5 years until she attended his execution), not only because of our ties, but most were doing illegal drugs and other illegal things. My mother threatened to kill herself if I left her side (for any reason), or if I rode on a roller coaster, if I wanted to see my dad, see a movie, hang out with any friend. I had a boyfriend that she didn't know about (for obvious reasons) and I told her. She immediately accused me if being whore and destroyed everything in the house, hit me of course, cried and screamed that she was going to kill him and she couldn't go to jail. All the while, she was constantly moving. When she would sit she would rock back and forth, arms around her stomach, just screaming and acting like she was going to jail, because she was actually going to kill him. I thought she would lose it eventually, she'd finally snap and shoot someone, maybe even herself. My grandfather ended up pulling a gun on her andy grandmother, saying he was about to kill us all then shoot himself. I was in the next room listening (she had been pulled off of me, and I was then told to stay), waiting for the first shot. No one died. My mother blamed me, "look what you did, over a f***ing *******) she made me sleep in her room that night. She would spring up screaming for minutes on end and shouting about killing him and herself and going to jail, destroying more things that had yet to have been broken. After I eventually got out of that mess. My dad tried to help me cope with my past by having me get a job and go to church. I never saw a therapist. He did what he thought was right. He doesn't get it. I made a lot of bad decisions that led to a lot of alcohol, bad boyfriends, and a rape which led to a pregnancy and secret abortion) so.. I'm f***ed for life. I hated myself to begin with, and a fee years ago, I killed a life; if there's a * .. I must be in it. I don't know how to function. I have the double life of normal human by day and psychological time bomb by night. I've hidden pain all my life. It's oddly natural.