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Hello

I suppose this is a bit of a "does anyone else get this" post. All my life I have struggled with what feels like an outside force that destroys my motivation and ability to function. All I could describe it as was pain which came up when I needed to do something - whether it was something I didn't want to do like a chore, or something I did want to do like learn a new skill. Of course I spent most my life thinking I was selfish, lazy and spoilt and just tended to whip myself continually to get stuff done. Unfortunately it turns out this is not a sustainable way to live, and I ran out of energy.

I only really figured out what it is recently. Its like every day, when I wake up, I need a certain amount of positive connection with others before I can function. I need to speak to people I like, get some kind of positive reinforcement. Daft stuff like they think I am funny or like something I made, or I can help them with some topic or other. Once the 'tank' is topped up, the pain goes away, the feeling of being strangled, and I can do things. Last night for example I got back to a project I had started and stopped on because I felt happy. Then today, I woke up, felt awful, back to being strangled. And I cant do anything. When I try: Pain. Have had many many types of therapy, meds and so on. None of them really ever seemed to understand it, beyond unhelpfully labeling it an approval addiction / offering advice that didnt work.

Its incredibly frustrating because I know how much I can do and how much I enjoy the creative process, but my body just cant do it until I get that feedback. And of course, the world isn't there to give that to me all the time, people have their lives to live. It makes me feel like a balloon with a hole which I keep trying to inflate but it needs constant input all the time. And when it happens at work ... yeah. Not good

Any thoughts, similar experiences, suggestions?

Hello

I have always been rather meek and terrified of standing up for myself, with a lot of resentment that would build up and fester. Then something small would happen, the straw and the camels back, and I would shock myself so much I would run back under my shame rock.

Over the last five years or so, the industry I have worked in has exposed me to a lot of 'tough nuts', and TBH really didnt allow me to be passive anymore, I had to toughen up. But that was super hard and its been a long, long process. But I feel like I have gradually got more comfy with protecting boundaries, and not being afraid to say "piss off" when I need to even if it makes me feel tense as * and unpleasant for some time after.

case in point, today one of those annoying people who try to sell you things on the street came up to me. I said "No thank you I have an appointment", which is my standard line as I never want to buy anything, but dont like to be rude. This time though the guy looked at me and in a pretty condescending, teacherly tone said "who with?". In the past I would have made some weak * joke and felt like an idiot, but instead said "None of your bloody business!" and said a swear under my breath. A bunch of people turned round and looked at him. Was quite fun.

Its only small and probably something most people don't even think about, but that is so far from "me" that it really felt like progress. Not having to put up with people who don't respect boundaries, being able to tolerate the discomfort of standing up for myself. I still feel like someone is strangling my insides for an hour after, but at least I am doing it 

Biscuits

Hello

Do others relate to this, or have any experience working with it?

I have been reading Pete Walker's book and can really relate to his idea of needing to be "shiny" - that sense that you can only be loveable, of any value, if you are achieving or doing something incredible, due to growing up with the sense that just being normal somehow did not merit value. He also talks about the salvation fantasy, the idea of miraculously attaining this state where you are suddenly perfectly shiny all the time. In the absence of it is a profound sense of sadness, worthlessness and emptiness and a constant gnawing drive to fix yourself.

I know this has been a lifelong pattern for me, one which I feel intense shame and guilt over, even repress, but which is always there. Like a double layer of infection. The hardest part is knowing where to even start, or knowing what it would feel like for things to be different when its all youve ever known.

Worth pointing out at this point, I have had about 10 years of therapy and meds of all different kinds.

EDIT: I missed off the question oops

Biscuits

Just wondered if others experience this?

I seem to have a sixth sense for people who are dangerous or manipulative. Its like I meet them and there's that "tense violins in movies when the bad guy comes in" sound goes off in my head, its kind of paralysing, like a freeze effect. I've lost count of the amount of times now where I know immediately there is something wrong with a person, but when I tell others all they see is the charm, the confidence. This person is often a leader, a manager, a new addition to a group of friends or perhaps a boyfriend or girlfriend. When you voice your concern, friends or colleagues tell you that you are being paranoid or stupid. The last time it happened was a manager at work, who everyone thought was awesome, but turned out to be both lazy, manipulative and a fraud. I knew it immediately, but it took a year and half, and a number of destroyed client contracts and the steady breaking of trust with more and more people, before others would see it. Again, I was told I was paranoid when I said it.

You have to sit back and watch them begin to erode things around your friends, family or work colleagues and 6 months to a year later, they all start saying what a snake in the grass this person is. Is this something common in CPTSD or similar conditions?

Cheers for reading

Biscuits

Hello

Sorry for wall of text, I have tried to find a way to make it short and to the point but I feel I need to get this all in

I am new to the forum, hi to everyone. Quick rundown - I am late 30's, male, and like many I have had many diagnoses and years of therapy / meds. Recently a psychiatrist said complex trauma was a distinct possibility. I looked into it and it really fit for me. Broadly mine came from physical abuse, an emotionally corrosive environment, and later on compounded by divorce, bullying, assaults, accidents.

Therapy has helped a lot, but there is one issue that no matter who I talk to they cannot understand it, and in fact it usually makes people angry, dismissive and look down on me.

Background - in my family, sarcasm, criticism, shaming and public put downs were regular, and of course it was denied. When my sister did it to my mother, she looked destroyed and angry. If anyone did it to my dad, he would go quiet and simmer (against the background of being unpredictably explosive with hitting etc). If anyone did it to my sister, similarly it upset her but she had by far and away the most acidic tongue in the family. So, NO ONE in my family liked it, and definitely did not think it was fun. It was never just jolly, toughen-you-up banter.

I was the youngest. When it was done to me, I would get angry like kids do. But anger was, as Pete Walker says, the one thing for which the very worst punishments were reserved. If it wasn't a freak out or explosion, it was demeaning, shaming, "oh for god's sake, learn to laugh at yourself", or sometimes with my mum, an emotional collapse. She was extremely fragile, and so I also grew up feeling that teasing people and sarcasm both always hurt, and that if I got angry, I was a horrible person. When my sister was in her teens, this got worse and it felt as though she honestly hated me. She would go through my cupboards, find things out about me and subtly threaten me with them, or just outright tell people in front of me. It just felt she would do anything to paint me as a piece of *. From my point of view, i was 4 years younger and just wanted her to like me. I didn't know what I was doing wrong. Again this was all denied by mum (father absent by this point). Everyone had to pretend life was rainbows and unicorns (except for the times she was upset, and then we were support / audience).

Then of course, real life happened. Teasing, banter and its dark cousin, bullying. When it happened, it would unlock that old well of pain, humiliation, and then that sense of despair that came from knowing I was angry. It became this strangling, suffocating mix of stuck anger, humiliation, shame and sadness (which you're not allowed to feel, that's wrong too). On some level it feels like a betrayal - this person knows they are hurting me, maybe even wants to, but everyone behaves as if I am the one who is out of line. It seems different for a guy - you are expected to just "take it like a man".

Its still with me now. But to other people, its interpreted as being conceited, or thin skinned, or over-sensitive. "Its just teasing, its just banter". Sometimes it is, and I know that. I want my emotions to really know the difference, see the spectrum. But still that age old sore spot sits there and as hard as I try to hide the reaction, laugh along, make jokes at myself, exaggerate, bite back, smack talk, ignore them, walk away, change the subject ... it always eventually seems to escalate and begin to set off that internal sense of being hurt, and having no right to do anything - even that being angry at all makes me a piece of *. I just stop trusting, feel more angry and hurt, and then leave.

I've not had a therapist yet that could understand it or offer any help. I have an entire bookcase of cbt, assertiveness, jokes, banter, psychology, self help, schema therapy, psychoanalysis...you name its there and I've tried it. But as is so often the case with Complex Trauma, it has a power all its own. Regular people who have tried to understand it just get sick of me. It comes between me and pretty much every relationship I have and interferes with work. This is all against the background of the other causes of my MH issues. It feels like not only am I the only person who seems to struggle with this, but that even psychotherapy, psychology and psychiatry do not understand it. For years I was dismissed as having "characterological" issues, personality disorder, dysthymia.. whatever it took to get me to go away. My most recent visit to a psychiatrist removed all that. He does not believe I have a PD. Three therapists over 6 years also feel I do not fit the bracket of personality disorder.

I guess I want to find out if there are other people who feel like this, who have found the same frustration?