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I'm not sure where to ask this question. Please feel free to move it if there is a more suitable sub-board.

I am aware that CPTSD can make us feel younger than our actual age. Is it ever possible to grow "out of " that feeling?
I am struggling more and more among other people to have my behavior and opinion match my actual age (25+), and it is getting more difficult for me. I panicked because some of them actually commented on how childish I was. Combined with my paranoia and fawning response, I feel I'm just losing it in front of the others. I can't follow or catch up with conversations (I just don't understand the arguments people make, whether what they say is what they mean, why they are satisfied or frustrated); and with the things I thought I knew, my solutions and opinions are constantly put down as "naive" or "short-sighted". I don't think it was this bad before. Maybe it is just that my age keeps going up, but internally I'm always stuck at an earlier stage (I believe it's the twelve-year-old me for some reason)? But I don't even know how to work on it. When I ask myself the question about being a grown-up, I just don't know what it means any more. I used to think it means handling everything by oneself without asking for help, and hiding or even suppressing any emotion. I know these are messed up answers, but I don't have any alternative.

Does anyone know how should I start tackling this problem? Is it related to the inner child or something else? I thought inner child was the hidden self? But I am constantly feeling actually being a child. Every time I talked to someone in real life I just feel hopeless about my status, the constant disconnection from everyone else, feeling much younger and hence inferior to the "real" adults in my life. At this point, I think I can accept not being able to grow up at all, but I need to know at least how to keep pretending in order to survive. Any suggestion and advice will be greatly appreciated.

Camille

Trigger warning in general. I don't think anything graphic will be involved as I have close to zero memory from the childhood, but the language I use to describe the current feelings and some ideation may be triggering.

I started this post because I don't want to spam the board. I'll try to not delete the posts the second I made it. I hope it to be a recovery even though I'm not sure where I am now. There are a thousand questions rolling around my mind since the day I found the term cptsd, and it is like a ranch I pulled to direct my path to an unexpected direction.

I guess I will start with the 4F responses. After reading Pete Walker's book and talking to my T, I realize I cannot actually find my position. On the surface, I clicked with the description of flight (workaholic and shamefully proud of it) and fawn (please people out of fear) first, but I think fight is deep down in me and I am so very scared of that part of me that I use all the other responses to push it back and silence it. My T also suggested dissociation when I described some of my EF's. I felt I was doing some kind of role play all the time and switching between different characters uncontrollably but knowingly. It's almost as if I managed to separate my 4F response into four different personalities; I used to call them: angry man, aloof bystander, crying baby, spineless clown and vicious voice.

-- TW (language) --

Vicious voice is my IC. I often project it to have other people's face, voice and behavior, ranging from past abuser to a stranger on the street to even my current friend, the only thing that doesn't change is that the poisoned and electrocuted feeling it injects in me, and I will beg it until it leaves me alone after it thinks I have suffered enough. "For now", it will say. The best (sarcastic) part is that IC has convinced me that it is the only true friend I have. "You won't be where you are if not for me. You are lazy, stupid and ugly, the only reason that you have a spot to stand is because I have been pushing you to show you are of some kind of use. You will lose your place the second you stop listening to me and slack off." And every time I fear being abandoned by real people in life, IC will wander back and pretend it is hugging me from behind. "Now you see that I'm the only one you have. People leave you behind even when they promise they won't; they almost never remember their words even though they meant it the moment they said it. But I'm unlike them; I'm not going anywhere, and I only wish the best for you." So I hugged the voice back. I said, ok, lead me where I should be, do whatever you want with me. And the same pain came back, but at least it felt familiar and unchanged.

-- TW ends --

I've been rejecting IC since I know this is its name. I refuse to listen to it, and it got rampant fast. Instead of saying things next to my ears, it just keeps pumping fear. I'm constantly on an adrenaline rush, sweating and having sight blurred out. I fall back to the flight routine by working and working and only having time to sleep and eat, and still can't have the simplest task done. I thought I was going blind when I got so exhausted that I felt detached from my body. And I started crying, fearing that I won't finish up my work and will lose my position soon.

But even this, the exhaustion and fearful anticipation, are still better than the night, when I can't sleep and keep thinking how many choices I made were driven by the illogical fear and unnecessary defense; how I pushed people away even though I wished they could stay; how I truly have nothing in me and so afraid that eventually everyone will find out there is just a hollow core under my skin; that the only thing that can distinguish me from the others is this nothingness. Everyone else is colorful, melodic and lively; I'm colorless, mute, and merely undead.

I wonder what the end goal should be and looks like. I don't think I can recover the me before I was molded into this discordant shape. I was locked outside the sea of people the day I was born. I said, I love you, and please love me back, and the voice was so weak, and I don't even believe it came out of me, because I was never that brave to say it loud. I daydream that I am an alien, and one day other aliens will find me and ask me to go with them. When that day comes, I will pretend to be hesitant first but I will jump onboard quickly.

Should I try to be human again? Can I be human again? Like the ones that laugh and cry and dance and sing, the ones that don't need to pass any test or go through any redemption to breathe, to live, to love and be loved. Or will it be easier to just accept that it will never happen, that I will never be connected with anyone, to understand and be understood in a mutual way? Will it be easier to accept the condition as a terminal disease, and just move through life as it is? After all, isn't pain the only thing that proves I exist?

Edit: So ashamed I have to delete this. Thanks to all of you who tolerated me and offered precious advice.

Hi,

I'm new to both the forum and C-PTSD. Please forgive me for my grammar mistakes and bad choice of words as I'm not a native English speaker (I'll be happy to correct them if you point them out). Just a few days ago I found this site, and I cannot describe how much shock I felt when I mentally checked every single item on the symptom list. I have been in therapy for half a year, and I started it because I thought I have some slight anxiety and depression which (in my naive mind) could be quickly "fixed". My therapist has mentioned several times that I have certain responses that indicate I have experienced trauma. I was in denial the whole time to her suggestion, thinking that there was no way I went through trauma because I was not physically beaten nor did I have any horrible memory or visual flashbacks. I don't think I even "deserve" to mention trauma at all because my life was so smooth compared to many others. The kind of responses my therapist is concerned with (now I know they are called hyper vigilance, inner critic, dissociation etc.) was there as early as I had memory (and I thought they are pretty much who I am; I'm not traumatized because this is just me). As soon as I became aware of C-PTSD, however, I tried to face the possibility that maybe indeed I was emotionally abused or neglected, and those emotional memories actually started to show up.

* Trigger Warning *
I don't know if emotional memory is a term. I guess they are just EF's except I actually have bits of factual memory associated with it. For example, I remember I felt extremely ashamed when a teacher called my name and punished me for "disturbing the classroom", because the boy sitting next to me was pinching my arm and it hurt so much I started to cry. Or the time I wanted to jump out of the car when my father said I was useless waste and he had to clean up my mess for me every single time. Or all those times I would tell lies to people about how I agree with them because I was so afraid of being alienated (again).

One thing I am still baffled about is still the cause. Surely people have said nasty things to me when I was little, but I always had my mother, who practically brought me up on her own. And she was always the (only) one that I could go to. Sometimes I feel she is too strict, but nothing unreasonable, and we are still very close till this day. So I keep asking myself, why did I still turn into this disintegrated, incomplete mess? Why is her love not enough for me? Do I really have C-PTSD, since I am never ignored by her? On the other hand, the symptoms do not lie. And I cannot afford to think that maybe there were times that she was not there for me. I cannot afford that thought. If I lose her, I am done.

I am still learning more about this (and me). But I want to say I am really grateful to know that this place exists; that all of you exist. It's been a long time since I last felt there is hope. I hope one day I can find answers, and get better. I guess this could be the start.

Camille