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I've had a rough day. And a rough few days.
I've slipped back into what I can only describe as...a familiar, terrifying abyss of helplessness, emptiness and abandonment.
I got into it a few days back and it just won't shift. Talking to friends doesn't help. Going out for walks doesn't help. Cooking doesn't, reading doesn't, watching TV doesn't.
The only thing I can think of to trigger this is thinking I'll have some harmless fun perusing dating apps. After speaking with several guys - one after the other showing weird, flakey, bizarre and/or inconsistency and then ghosting - it just made me feel depressed again. Like I don't know what relational rules are afterall and hey presto, this is exactly what it felt like as a child. What is 'too much' to expect? How do people interact and actually get with and stay with others if these bizarre behaviours are abundant? I know, I know, dating apps can be fully of weirdos but even the not so weird ones displayed poor behaviour of follow-up. Is this what to expect and actually, any progress I make towards thinking toxic people who can't be relied upon is too high an expectation - and from there....was it actually acceptable for my neglectful childhood if people routinely behave in a flakey manner?

I don't know anymore. I'm finding it very tough to be alone but I don't want to be around others either - went out for drinks with a friend and it was such hard work thinking of what to talk about and worrying she may not be having a fun time around me. I just don't have the energy to not pretend to feel out of it.

Urgh.

There doesn't seem to be much here on this topic, so here goes.

My mum's insane methods of control and bullying included using her faith (Islam) to torture my psychologically and emotionally. She bullied me relentlessly about wearing the hijab starting from age 10. I really DID NOT WANT TO.
I have lost count of the amounts of times she had threatened and called me derogatory terms used to describe females who are sexually liberal - you get my drift.

She has delusions of grandeur when it comes to being associated with God.

There's so much...but I am so tired...this is all i can manage for today.

Suffice to say, I can't bear being around the religion these days - its too traumatising.

The path to healing.......a real see-saw.
Up one minute, down the next.
Its like I almost intuitively felt this would all come gushing out and the ride would be painful and purposely lived in denial all along, in fear of this happening if I did otherwise.

And now I have done otherwise by moving towards all the pain and my fears are confirmed. But what my intuition didn't tell me is what to expect beyond all the pain and overwhelm. This is where the unknown territory lies and I'm taking a big leap of faith here.

Although....my intuition is very clear and definitive when it comes to others in the same boat. I can see it clear as day. Work through the heavy blockages from your past, one day at a time, and be true to yourself...it will lead to fulfilment.

I'm just tired of the see-saw! I want to either be up or down for a prolonged period. Preferably up. But then again, I don't because I want to keep delving in and keep on healing....


Argh. Frazzled. 

trigger warning***

I can't stop thinking about how my sister used to abuse me. How this incest makes me feel so dirty, so damaged and like I am not like other girls. I feel like a fraud if I try to pretend to be like other girls. I am not one of them, my mind says. It says I am a girl whose older, disgusting sister sexually abused her. And if people knew the truth about me, they would be disgusted. I feel humiliated, ashamed and angry. I was 5 when it started. I remember her disgusting wobbly body and how her armpits smelt as she forced me into doing things i didn't want. And now I am convinced everyone will view me as a freak and disgusting.
I'm so angry! I'm so tired...how, HOW can i get out of this thought-process....please somebody help me

I'm trying to avoid the media a lot. But then I slip back into reading it because like many others, this quarantine period is causing me to struggle to get a break/distraction from CPTSD.

I've noticed I really get triggered by articles on Meghan Markle. There is a lot of speculation that she is NPD. Obviously can't say for sure if she is but her cheesy lines and over the top shows of being nice and kind and caring about the world etc whilst behaving hypocritically is a bit nauseating. But more than that, she seems to have drawn strict boundaries with her family and people who are accusing her of NPD keep saying things like: 'she heartlessly abandoned her sick, unwell father!' 'she drops her own family and doesn't care!'.
This is the bit that is triggering me the most. Once again, the masses just seem incapable for grasping the notion that cutting ties with someone's family isn't all black-and-white. I don't know about MM in particular, but myself and many of us from dysfunctional families have had to leave them behind. My therapist often used to ask me what benefit can be gained from keeping in touch with the narcissists in my family during the agonising days of trying to figure out whether I should go NC or not. And now to hear stories of accusing her being NPD and citing her ability to cut off her family as evidence of this?? Its made me confused and feel guilty and that I am in the wrong. But I cut them off BECAUSE they were NPD, not the other way around. And from what I've read online, lots of NPDs don't seem to get into the position of cutting out a huge chunk of their family, instead employing many tricks and manipulations to keep them in line and to source more supply from them.....

I don't know anymore. I wish someone could just tell me what to do. I wish I had never been born into a situation where all the variables could lead to me having such an awareness of NPD. Its disgusting and frightening as *. There isn't one part of me that wishes to know all about the hidden world where narcissists treat their own children so disgustingly - get me the * out of here. And yet, my whole life is still being bogged down and limited by the long-lasting effects of narcissistic abuse.

Sighhhhh

["In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations."]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but I couldn't find a specific section for reporting abuse.
**TW SA**

So after many years of wanting to do this, and an attempt in 2015 which I felt too unsupported and weakened to go through with, I finally gave a full video interview to the police about the childhood abuse from my past by my siblings.
It feels like I have been through an absolute rollercoaster ride of emotions in getting to this point. Guilt, shame, a feeling like I was betraying them, sadness, anger, fury, devastation.....I wasn't sure how I'd cope on the day. I've been accused of all sorts by my family, which seems to be quite common, from what I've read on here and from what therapists have told me, can be expected from dysfunctional families towards victims. I've been accused of wanting to rip families apart, and driving perpetrators to suicide, and 'you bring this on yourself by choosing not to forget...' and so on and soforth.

Well, no. That's the answer I came to. I did not choose nor bring any of this onto myself. I was 5, and a little child. That's the end of that one.
And I decided I simply must go ahead with this because I believe in truth, in justice and bringing darkness into the light. And even if things don't progress like that, these form part of MY core principles and beliefs and to not act on my own principles would be to continue fuelling my false self and my own CPTSD; the part of it that believes the world is unsafe, and that I have no voice, or needs, or right.

I have all those things. They are our birthright, whether others wish to grant them or not.
It feels a bit surreal. That this final determined act, would put a halt to the false, fake narratives my family sold me for years, in order to protect their own lives and ensure I carried the weight of trauma firmly on my own two shoulders. It feels like there the nail in the coffin for that long-ago part of me that lived in denial and hope, or a 'somewhat normal' family. That I could pretend my mum isn't all that bad, or that my siblings' behaviour and the family dynamics can just be papered over.

No. To believe in that would be to deny my inner child the true horror and trauma of what she went through. That isn't fair. And it would deny me of any hope of a better future if I were to carry on feeding myself lies.

The one quote which stuck me with me and urged me to carry on my fight for the truth is by Alexander Solzhenitsyn:

"In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations."   

I got a call a few days ago from a social worker informing me my sister who is in a psychiatric ward gave birth and that she is not doing so well with caring for the baby. That she just relies on nurses to look after her. The social worker said she was contacting all family members for assessment to see what support they could offer.

How could I even begin to explain to her all the complicated issues and my current relationship with my family due the past abuse? I haven't seen them in over a year now with limited, staggered contact that always ended in more of their horrible rages and manipulation and blaming me.
I am so stressed out and scared because now...there is an innocent newborn involved. My horrible family didn't bother to look after my sister when she was manic or to call for help, so apparently she ended up on the streets, with illicit substances, and got pregnant by a guy who immediately ran away when he found out she was pregnant. It used to always be me who would look out for her and have to take charge of getting her to the doctors or sectioned. This time she was picked up on the streets. It breaks my heart.

I just feel like I can't take anymore. To top it off, this is coinciding with the police ringing me about the abuse from my past I spoke out about to safeguard the baby and my sister, as the abusers are family members. The hospital are aware of this but apparently those family members are visiting my sister and her baby now. I've had months of CPTSD symptoms, constant disturbed sleep, depression and flashbacks with shame and guilt. I'm a shadow of my former self, and feel so hopeless and full of despair.

Its such a big, dysfunctional mess. There is not one single other family member who is capable of thinking/behaving responsibly or caring towards another.
Why can't things just let up...why is it one thing after another and another with no break or good news in-between?
I am exhausted in every way possible. I feel sick and stressed and frazzled and don't even know how I am going to respond to the social worker.
Do I offer help or do I continue to stay away, as my sister is hellbent on having the family involved in her life, which is extremely detrimental to my health? If I stay away, what about the poor baby? She hasn't done anything wrong and the thought of them starting the whole cycle up again with her makes me feel sick to my stomach.

I can barely look after myself at the moment. I can barely cope. The future seems hopeless and distressing.
I am racked with guilt, and with no idea of what is morally right anymore.
I can't take my mother's narcissistic manipulations or rages. At all. I can't stand my younger sister's copycat personality of my mum, and sense of entitlement and ease with which she lies and needs constant attention and counselling and helping to mop up her messes, and financial assistance. It goes on and on and on....

How on earth do I switch off from all this. How will I get through this and move on? What does the future look like? Will things ever get better?

I immediately got sick leave from work and travelled up to stay with friends.

It sounds a bit odd but I've been identifying some of my triggers as and when they happen and one of them has been when I walk past/into furniture stores. Especially used furniture stores where the items are quite old/antique-looking. It knocks the wind out of me and makes me feel this abyss of emptiness.....it just reminds me of having only myself and inanimate objects around me as a child that were safe and neutral. The living things in the house were either angry and ferocious or ready to shame, belittle and mock.
Old furniture...because we always had mismatched random furniture. My mum never, ever bothered to put any effort at all into the house. Once the ceiling collapsed through into the kitchen and she barely reacted. It was kept like that for weeks - i remember feeling so humiliated if/when kids around the neighbourhood would knock on the door to play because the kitchen was the very first room the door opened into...and there it was, as though a spaceship had landed through our ceiling, a big gaping hole with concrete and dust everywhere. I tried to clean it up as best I could aged 8, feeling anxious and scared that the kids would all start talking about the state of our house and then people would have even more reason to mock me.

I walked by a used furniture store last week and seeing the old furniture, in the shop that was closed, made life feel like it did when i was younger....completely devoid of hope, or any form of liveliness. Just this weird, cold empty feeling of nothingness.

Urgh and now I've just spent 5 days isolating. At first it felt good to rest but now it feels like im out of whack with the real world again.

This will probably be a very rambly, post - apologies in advance. Just felt I needed somewhere to just purge and let it all out after a few weeks of non-stop cptsd symptoms ravaging my mind whilst i sleep.

I took the day off work today and spent most of it curled up under a fluffy blanket, with TWO hot water bottles for extra comfort. I couldn't hack life today. My dreams have been persistent and non-stop. They've taken on a different turn.
Before they were violent, terrifying and life-threatening.

Now....they are some of my earliest, most painful emotions somehow dredged up. The kinds of emotions that were so painful at a young age, that I'd stop them by fantasising/reading/dissociating. Its like somebody has pressed the unpause button on the trajectory of those emotions and they are now finally free, and out with a vengence, demanding to be seen, heard, told, expressed. They rush through my mind in my sleep all the time. My ongoing therapy may have unlocked them, who knows. I'm trying to embrace it however, as an opportunity to work on and heal from these early woundings. Healing the 'inner child'and all. It hurts, though. So much.
I wake up and try to sit with them. Try to comfort myself and let them ride themselves out instead of distract myself ferociously, or shame myself, or rush myself into thinking of something else.

Some of my earliest memories seem more emotional rather than anything else such as something physical, or visual.

I feel like the first emotional feedback response I ever learnt and was ingrained in me was: you are unworthy, not to be seen, don't matter, an ugly little mutt of a child and don't deserve what other children deserve. They deserve to be sweet, and innocent, and care, and love whilst I did not.
I just somehow firmly believed this.
I remember feeling shame and embarrassment that I was 'thinking i was something special' by wanting to tell the dinner lady aged 5 my preferences for food. My mum used to always jeer and sneer at us kids if we had preferences. The idea that children had any sort of right to humanity was laughable and ridiculous to her.

The shame and emotions are all coming out more and more in my dreams, as I continue with my therapy. I suppose that was to b expected and I was pre-warned. Its jarring, however. it feels like I'm witnessing my own experiences from an adult's point of view and it feels shocking and horrifying. How a child could ever be made to feel as horrible and empty and alienated and invisible as I was.

I get visions in my dreams of the girls in my year group at school playing together after school. I couldn't join them. I didn't know what to do say or how to be acceptable to anybody at this stage in my life, aged may be 8. Being shamed, ridiculed, silenced and mocked was so regular but also so unpredictable: there was no pattern as to what sides of my personality i could show that would invoke such a response so instead it felt all-encompassing. All of me was unacceptable and i dreaded being shamed again and again.

I I had 5 older siblings, most of whom had picked up on my personality disordered's mum's tendencies and joined in on anyone younger than them. Having to contend with them was like having to deal with a pack of hyenas.
Only one of them was loving. He would cuddle me and we would sit and watch tv shows together, or discuss life. He died at a young age, however. Yesterday, he turned up in my dream. He was fresh faced and smiling and i jumped to him to give him the biggest hug.
The nicer flipside to some of the dreams from the past.

Vent post

I find myself realising more and more and more everyday I have been no contact with abusive family. I get furious and then feel despair.
How DARE they behave the way they did and I am living with endless nightmares and flashbacks?
People have suggested writing a letter and not sending it.

Well today I got so angry, I wrote a letter and sent it on instagram along with 2 paragraphs outlining abusive behaviour to my sister, who is a wretched human being. I then blocked her.

Yes, I know it is pointless to try to converse with narcissistic people about taking accountability. My therapist has said this, my friends who know my family have said this, and i know it too. Well, that's what the blocking function is for. She can read it and not have the ability to reply with her usual pathological lying and gaslighting. Isn't that what they train us to do anyway, not be able to have a voice? Why can't I tell these people exactly what I think of them? They have ZERO problem with telling others
I want her to know I know what her behaviour is and who she is. I'm too angry! I CANNOT believe what my whole life had been!!
This anger feels so FRUITLESS if there's nothing that can be done. Why can't I simply communicate how hurt I am to them and be heard and things talked out, apologies exchanged where necessary and resolution occurring?

What is the meaning of all this narcissistic nonsense and why was I born into it? It's like inheriting a more than full-time job from the time we have been conceived and after surviving the 'training' then have to go about trying to 'fix' and 'undo' and it doesn't make any sense!!!

And of all things, she calls herself 'ex-doctor' on her social page. And a bunch of other lies. She was never a doctor, she was kicked out of medical school when they got fed up of her dramatics and lousy attitude.

Venting post: it'll be lengthy and detailed as I find that the advice of 'talking things out in excruciating detail' to really be part of the healing for me. 

I've started to become aware of how much I structure and monitor my behaviour and responses around not putting others out too much.

As far back as my earliest memories, my mother acted as though even the most simplest of requests was a huge catastrophe, a big burden, far beyond any reasonable expectations....and obviously I got conditioned into her responses.

I remember I learnt early not to be upset or have any needs - I was taught quickly to shame and reprimand myself for being pathetic and stupid and weak and 'why can't you be like so and so who NEVER does this and who ALWAYS wins at everything..'. If I felt any negative emotion, I didn't even need her or anyone else to let me know how pathetic and shameful it was for me to have such a reaction, I started to do it to myself from as early as 4 - when I had my first memories anyway.

Its daunting on me now with horror how abnormal and abusive that is. How my wiring is so toxic. How much she and my older siblings reinforced her toxic responses over and over. Growing up, I thought it was cultural differences. The little children around me deserved not to be spoken to like that because they were part of a kind, nice, normal culture. My mum would even react differently to them. But I always had this feeling that I did not deserve to be treated the same as those other kids because I was from a different control - one that was more aggressive, loud, and scary. But it wasn't my culture. It was my family. They shaped my world view. And probably, their parents did the same thing to them, most likely. It was over the most basic things. I was heartbroken when my mum decided to lock us away from the world when I was 10, after my father passed away. I had my friends who now I definitely wasn't allowed to see outside of school because 'socialising is for heathens and whores' (my mum's words) and the religious community we were a part of was deemed 'selfish and hypocrites' for not supporting her more by finding us a house(?!) - her expectations and demands were through the roof and if people fell short, they were deemed selfish heathens.
I lost all my friends in that community and couldn't advance my friendships at school because she would shut down all invitations to parties and social gatherings.
I became terrified of showing i was having fun, or wanted to have fun. She said 'laughing is for sinners' and I felt ...wrong for wanting to have fun. Slowly it felt like only being depressed and miserable was acceptable and safe. I'm too scared even now to get too excited, even though I have plenty to be excited about.

I'm struggling with this because none of it makes sense and yet it was an unspoken norm in my head to: not want anything, not need anything, always show i am depressed as that was acceptable but not too depressed to be needy nor want anything.

Anyway...this is terribly exhausting. I've come to be aware of this since needing some extra time off and support at work - everytime my supervisor arranges a meeting with me or I ask for anything, I am in a state of panic, feeling as though she is about to huff and puff at any minute and see me as adding to her work schedule and burdening her. I become extremely fearful that she will send me irate replies and start to view me as a big burden - I have several meetings with different people lined up to arrange support measures and whereas this is really nice, I'm struggling to contain my conditioned response of having to have it all figured out by myself, and feeling embarrassed and a shame not to have done so, and the scariest thing of all: being told I am nothing but a burden and they want to be rid of me asap in place of someone who was one of those cute children who did deserve support and compassion...not me, the stray dog charity case.

Sorry for the long post but I feel so unsure that I am doing the right thing in reporting my colleague that I want to give the back story and details, in the hope that somebody can advise me as I am not sure I am capable of being rational right now.

So I started a new job over 2 months ago whilst still in the midst of my CPTSD coming back. One of my colleagues who was friendly and supportive seemed like a blessing. I had moved across the country away from my already-fragile support network and the CPTSD came up worse than it had ever done. He noticed several times I was a bit 'off'. He told me I could always speak to him. One day I couldn't keep it in and cried whilst walking to his car (he gives me lifts home). I opened up to him a bit about how horrible my mum was to me growing up and as a result, I had distorted ideas about many things about myself - my personality, my looks, my height.
His reply made me feel a bit uncomfortable, but I passed it off as cultural differences as I have noticed that men of his culture seem to have different...ideas about women. He said to me: 'you know I am married right? but I can tell you if i wasn't, I'd be trying it on with you right now, there is NOTHING wrong with how you look'. Maybe a misguided attempt to be helpful, but it made me cringe and wish I'd never opened up. I felt like he'd missed the point. It wasn't other people's opinions of how I looked that bothered me, it was how I saw myself.

Anyway, fast-forward a few weeks, he states on multiple times he 'wants to take me for drinks'. I feel uncomfortable with that and listening to my intuition (that's me attempting to put into practice the healing tools...), I always turn him down. He then asks me for suggestions on 'where to meet women' in my home city as he is travelling there for work. I was so shocked, as I had met his wife only a few days prior, that I tell him 'but you're married!'. He laughs and says he doesn't mean it that way(?!).

Anyway he then resorts to continuously asking about my love life and trying to give me unsolicited advice about where I am going wrong. That I shouldn't look for the 'perfect man'. I tell him politely I currently have bigger concerns than finding a man as I am trying to heal, thinking he would understand from our conversation in the car park. He replies with 'yes but it would help you to heal to have someone to cuddle'. He then goes on a depressing tirade about growing up believing in the perfect partner, than you become an adult and realise 'the girl with the perfect body had emotional problems' and 'the handsome guy is empty inside'. This makes me really uncomfortable and I move on to my next task hastily. I get called to assess a patient who has had a heart attack and wanting clarification on an investigation result, I ask another senior doctor who replies abruptly with 'sorry, but why are you asking me?' and 'don't you KNOW this?'. I get so upset at this point I bleep the guy assigned to help me - the guy making me uncomfortable - and he sees me in tears and unable to control my emotions at this point.

He then starts stroking my face when we are in a room alone together, laughing when I am trying to tell him I am upset, and saying 'i just want to hug you'. I get really angry at this point and tell him firmly 'I am trying to tell you I am upset and do NOT WANT A HUG, I do NOT want to be touched right now!' and laughs and says he wants to make me smile. He continuously repeats that he wants to hug me and i say NO angrily about 3 times. And then he states 'i want to get you drunk, let me take you out tonight'. I again repeatedly say no, and he goes back to stroking my face, asking me to smile and saying he wants to hug me.

I don't know whether its because he triggered something or not but I have spelt all weekend feeling shaken up, angry and hurt. I specifically told him 'I am upset and need help from my colleagues right now, I do NOT want a hug' and the way he just laughed and insisted on touching my face/wanting to hug me had me feeling like I was some kind of joke to him, or some little girl to be patronised.
Another colleague saw me distressed and insisted I had to speak to my supervisor. Which I did.

But...did I do the right thing in reporting the incident to my supervisor? Is it just a cultural difference? I'd tried to brush off the uncomfortable remarks before this final incident and had had a chat with him where we had shared our woes about fake colleagues and how they are nice to your face but horrible about you behind your back.....am I now a hypocrite and doing just that?

Sorry if this came out very long-winded and non-sensical, I am just scared about the repercussions of this and whether I did the right thing.

My mum is an awful being. I don't think I need to explain the atrocities of narcissistic parenting here, I imagine most of us are well-versed in all the ins and outs of it.

But....she's getting older now. Well, she's 60. But she has always been overweight and led a pretty unhealthy life and approx 2 years ago, I heard she had a heart attack. Apparently since then, she has started to go blind in one eye due to ignoring advice about diabetes for many years.
I am far away and no contact, after I broke down trying to handle her and my many siblings' many issues, one of whom is bipolar and who nobody in the family does anything about when she is in her manic phases. I was the 'saviour', who always stepped in until I couldn't do it anymore, as every time I get involved with trying to help, the whole family barge their way back into my life obnoxiously and viciously. I am a doctor and to a family of narcs, they seem to see me as a giant treasure trove of endless resources - money, time, emotional labour, listening to their manipulation and emotional nonsense and looking after their kids because they severely dislike having children.
I could go on and on.
The main point is, I cut them off as I buckled under the enormous amount of toxicity.

But...I can't switch off my empathy, even when I get angry and pretend I do not care. I DO care. I care a great deal! I just don't want to care under THEIR terms which they will ram down my throat if I dare to get involved again.

I worry about her health. I worry that she will suffer and the thought of her going blind makes my heart break. She would really enjoy knowing this, she would pull out all the tragic, eternal-victim game for all it was worth once she spots empathy: it would spill over onto how horrible her marriage was, how horrible having children is/was, how no-one ever gave her her just recognition and then onto the religious delusions of being God's special chosen person and on and on and on. I have calmly told her many times that I respect she has her beliefs but they are not mine and can she not tell me all her dark beliefs (she believes in her very own distorted version of religion). She doesn't seem to understand that other people having their rights is a thing.

But even though I've cut them all out, I worry! I have moments of panic and terror where I imagine she has had another heart attack and passed away (she refused to have the surgical treatment the previous time) and nobody is able to tell me because they are blocked and/or do not know my new number/address.
Will I regret it for the rest of my life?

People uneducated in narcissistic abuse love to say 'you will regret it forever more' or 'my so-and-so passed away, what I would give for a minute with them now...' - well sorry but in my case, its what I would give NOT to spend a minute in my mother's company.

During these moments of panic, I rapidly re-activate facebook, imagining the worst, and that my family have used flying monkeys to contact me (facebook messaging services stay active even after i de-activate my account so I would still receive a message once i re-activate). I imagine the horrible red notification symbol with the title of 'mum's dead'. And it fills me with terror. I guess there is still a part of me longing for a cure, longing for her to be 'fixed' so she can love me and i can love her back, the healthy, unconditional way (which will never happen).

What do I do? I've tried very limited, rare contact (once every 3 months, calling from a withheld number) but even then, within minutes, she is trying to lure me back in and crosses all kinds of boundaries and leaves me traumatised, angry and depleted. She KNOWS whenever I am trying to do anything to make things healthy and wants to sabotage it. I once tried to solve her many problems/complaints - one of them being how lonely it is, how awful it is to be away from her home country and how she has no-one and on and on and on - I found a drop-in centre for women of her faith and who speak her mother tongue and of her background and she turned to me and viciously said 'i know what you are trying to do, i WON'T let you 'fix' me' with a smirk on her face. SO STOP COMPLAINING THEN! She LOVES things the way they are even though she claims to be the world's biggest victim.

Its strange in my mind, I am so conditioned to it, that to this day, I can't view her objectively. In  my mind, she has the most awful pain ever, she is the most victimised person, whose suffering surpasses anybody else's and who is so tragic....

(I'm not looking for advice here btw - I have therapy appointments set up - just wanted a space to vent and be heard).

https://emdrassociation.org.uk/find-a-therapist/

I don't understand.

I feel terrified and frustrated.
Its like the world reacts to me like the people in my childhood did regarding my needs: you're on your own.
Except at least as a child, there wasn't the expectation of having to pay rent, maintain a job, and find the money to help you survive.

I come online and its terrifying to read: 'this will take a lot of hard work to overcome' 'this will take many years' 'you need to do x, y and z'. Don't people understand that talking to a c-ptsd triggered person is talking to a small, wounded child? How can a small, wounded child be expected to take care of all these things?
And yes i know i need to take responsibility but I have nothing left to give. I see friends who don't have c-ptsd get an abundance of help and support. Financial, emotional, physical. Me with c-ptsd? None of that and when I'm feeling lower, even more is expected of me to take care of myself because 'i have to take responsibility'.
This is HORRIBLY unfair and i feel resentful and so upset about it.

I want a therapist but I can't find the time because i work full-time.
Therapists in my area I looked up are 80-100£ an hour and I simply don't have that kind of money.
And when I look online, there are so many people who claim to have the answer to help heal, but I have to pay for this book or that book or that course or another course.

If I talk to my friends about it, no-one quite knows what to say.
It seems horribly devastatingly unfair that to be unfortunate enough to be born into a childhood like mine, means life will exponentially get harder.
It feels like no-one in society knows what to do with me.
I am so lonely and scared and feel like I am simply not worthy of or entitled to safety, security and love.
Because no matter how much a stranger who you are paying to see says it, or someone who wrote a book/developed a course repeats this, it comes down to: you are receiving money to say this whilst healthy people are entitled to it, free of charge, from those close to them.

And I have an exam on Tuesday. I can't handle all this right now. I'm sick of minimising, downplaying and ignoring.

I am upset, lonely and feel horrendous.

So after cutting out my family, I've been focusing on healing.
The last member to go - my younger sister who I'd falsely believed was very close to me - has been the hardest to cut out.
I had to, after she chose to victim-blame me for my ptsd around childhood sex abuse I endured.
Her response was revolting and she tried her best to 'get me back in line' by gaslighting, shaming and blaming me.

I was the person in her life who always mopped up her messes. Took on all her problems. Took the blame for everything.

She resisted this change after a therapist told me I needed better boundaries. Tried out new tactics to get me to fall back in line.
I didn't give in and blocked her, in the end.

Today I get a message from a friend of hers pleading with me to get back in touch and to 'put our differences aside'. Differences?! This isn't 'differences' what she really means is: can you pause on your new endeavour to have better boundaries for a minute and let me back in, the way things used to be.

The friend pleaded with me that I should talk to my sister because our other sister (who is bipolar) is now pregnant and she needs to discuss something with me regarding another family member.

I delayed medical school and had to repeat a year because of looking after my bipolar sister when she was on her manic phases. And after all that, and she was back to baseline, she simply left and went back to her old, dysfunctional habits, not caring one iota that my life had been turned upside down by the 6 months i spent looking after her. This bipolar sister wastes no time in parroting the narcissistic 'its all your fault' in times when I've been depressed and going through difficult things.

I am SO furious. I couldn't control myself and replied back to the friend tell her that none of that was my problem and that her dear friend - my sister - believes in victim-blaming childhood abuse, and that the whole family are narcissists and that I have PTSD as a result. I told her if I received a reply from my sister via her where it was filled with her typical shaming, blaming and gaslighting, I would report it to the police as harrassment.

I don't know what I should have done. After the anger, I am now rattled, nervous and can feel the empathy seeping in. Should I have heard her out?
I simply can't afford to. I am now working full time and a doctor and the job is hard enough, I don't have time for narcissistic nonsense and the effects that come with it. I actually NEED my sleep. I NEED my emotional and mental wellbeing.

How dare she! The AUDACITY! Her last message to me before being blocked was so vitriolic and she has the audacity to lead with 'please put differences aside' - no apology WHATSOEVER. I am stunned how anyone can have such nerve. If I had sent a message like the one she sent me, I'd be filled with so much shame and would be apologising and asking for forgiveness before I even THOUGHT about asking that person for help.

For goodness' sake 
I don't know what the right thing is to do.

I've been thinking of starting a journal for a while now. It seems like a neat way to sort of...consolidate all the fragmented parts of myself? And a good way to get things out of my head where the space feels so crammed, that the back of my head feels like its bulging with too much content. It has to be worth a shot anyway...

So I turned 30 this year. And graduated medical school, before moving cities to start my first job as a junior doctor. I remembered in my 20s, after leaving home at 18, being so unhappy and with such little self-esteem, that I just couldn't understand why life never seemed to be 'worth it' to me. It seemed to be full of so much pain. I was experiencing constant flashbacks, shame, guilt, over-responsibility for others, and deep self-loathing.

I escaped home at 18 by getting into Law school in a city far away from home. I had met a guy online at the time who lived in that city and he was of the same religious background as myself. I'd being raised to believe that marriage was a woman's happy ever after. I had no idea that my childhood was abusive, or completely wrong. I knew on some level it was defective and had felt completely miserable but...it was all I knew. I thought moving to be close to this guy I'd met online would answer all my questions when we got married and looking back, I was very excited about the idea of being accepted into a family, and forging a bond with his mother. I guess I was desperately searching for a surrogate mother as part of the package of being with 'him'.

So, aged 18, I stood up to my mum and told her I would be moving away to university and she could like it or lump it. My mother is controlling, narcissistic, abusive...to name a few. But I had seen with my older sisters that she would bow down to being threatened with the police, as she had attempted to deprive them of their freedom a few years previously and they had called the police to help them escape. I knew the shame of this would stop her from trying to control me physically. So she didn't. Instead, she stopped talking to me for months. It was so tense in the lead up to me leaving - there were months of utter silence. I decided I simply didn't care anymore, after years of a miserable existence under her roof. My sister encouraged me to give an apology - even a fake one - just before leaving to stop the tension. So with gritted teeth, I did that but stood firm in my decision to leave. I had already arranged for my own train tickets to my new city, but she then insisted my brother would drive me and she would come, too. I felt so guilty at this point. Why was she now being so nice?
Had I been too harsh all along?

Regardless, I shoved those horrible feelings of guilt and shame down and tried to focus on my fantasy of salvation that was about to start. I thought the start of this salvation would cure me of all those questions that plagued me. After all, I was finally close to getting married - every girl's happy ever after, surely? (A cocktail of disney movies + religious and cultural abuse towards females had resulted in this deeply-held, but equally deeply-flawed belief).


I've just realised I'm working my way backwards in my story. I feel like this would be more helpful for me, as it helps to 'uncover' things as I work my way retrospectively.

I'm having a really tough time of it since yesterday and really feel like I need an outlet for all the mess in my head right now. I feel full-on like my child self; helpless, in despair, panicky, depressed and filled with dread.

I get very easily triggered when someone isn't being soft enough in their approach to criticise me. Yesterday, at work, when I did my first assessment of a patient in hospital. My supervisor wasn't happy with it and made assumptions that I hadn't bothered to even talk to him (which I'd spent half an hour doing) and briskly said I'd just used his old notes. I froze up and didn't even defend myself. I started panicking and my heart was pounding - because at home, no-one cared what your defence was if they decided to attack you. She then continued to say I needed to ask him certain questions which got me irate enough to argue that I HAD and she demanded to know where I'd written it, so I showed it to her. She didn't apologise or admit she was wrong. This kind of attitude REALLY riles me up and triggers me no end. Since then, I got home yesterday and been lying around, miserable, with constant flashbacks and when I DO sleep, my dreams are about the flashbacks and narcissistic people.

Other triggers are when I have to admit to someone that I need some help/made a mistake and they get impatient with me. Yesterday was horribly triggering for me. I lost my bleep at work and was told to tell the same supervisor. It was written all over her face how irritated she found that. Then she asked: 'how did you lose it?' and i found that so nerve-wracking....the point is, its lost, if I knew the answer to that question, I probably wouldn't be in this situation without my bleep unless the answer to that question was I'd got caught up in a robbery and they'd decided to steal my bleep or something.

I'm praying for a bit of relief today, the flashbacks feel thick and heavy in my mind. 

***Trigger warning for incest sexual abuse***




I don't quite know what to make of what happened to me between the ages of roughly 5-7.
My elder sister (7 years older than me) and brother (9 years older) both used to single me out, take me on my own with them (separately) and undress me. My sister would simulate stuff on me and my brother would do things to me. They'd give me presents like a watch or gum to intice me to go with them. One time it hurt and I went to show my mum and she told me to say I had fallen over. She didn't ask how it happened or what had even happened.

The thought of all this now makes me so angry, humiliated and ashamed. I am really really sickened and disgusted by this. Many years later I confronted my mum and she (personality disordered) told me it happened because I am a girl and girls in this country are 'sluts'. I became furious and yelled at her before stomping out. She followed me and cried crocodile tears and told me that if she was so evil, i should report her to the police to get my justice. I felt bad for her and then got angry and told her, look how somehow you always make it about YOU.
Anyway, a nurse found out when I was in my 20's. Reported it anyway. The police interviewed me but my whole family turned my back on me and i felt too ashamed to tell anyone else. I couldn't face it all and told the police i wasn't ready to deal with it.
Another sister blamed the effect it had on me many years later as my fault, because i had a mind that 'doesn't forget' and i am trying to 'break up a family'.

I can't get over it. I feel like I've never ever had justice. I've always felt too scared and guilty everytime I take steps to address it: my family (mum and siblings) get angry and hysterical and somehow blame me. my mum once said my brother would likely kill himself if i continued with the police.

What do I do? I dont even know if this is sexual abuse. They were children/teenagers themselves...is it child's play? rape? what?? do i have a right to feel as traumatised by it? I feel repulsive, angry, humiliated and violated.It won't stop going round and round and round in my head.
And my family's reactions (who i have since cut out completely) angers me and traumatises me everytime i remember it.

What should i do? the police told me i can ring and quote a reference number to re-start the proceedings whenever i want. I really want to. My inner being is crying out for justice and to be ....i don't know - recognised as having RIGHTS.
Does this make sense/
please can anyone help me? I feel so alone and hurt in all of this.

I've been having dreams lately of my deepest emotional worries.

I just feel desperate to say this - type this rather - just to excavate the detail from being inside my head.

I dreamt of a girl in my high school who was very 'mean girls'-ish. She was blonde, dinky, cute with a dimple, but mean, vindictive, liked to put others down, and embarrass them for her entertainment.
I beyond loathed myself back then. Girls like her - to me - deserved a good life, and recognition, and validation of their feelings and having their needs met, because they weren't - ugly and loathesome like I was. They weren't as inconsequential as me, in my head.

Anyway. yesterday I dreamt she was doing her mean girls tactic on me. (I haven't seen her in about 14 years). I snapped back at her to give her a dose of her own medicine.
Then...some guy - maybe her father or uncle or somebody - came to me to explain that I had to understand her reasons for being mean, and that she didn't really mean it, and she had emotional wounds and hurts to justify her behaviour whereas me fighting back really hurt her and I shouldn't do that and I'm the one in the wrong. For not being the bigger person, perhaps?
Thats the point at which in my dream my blood ran cold and i felt so much shame and self-loathing. Who did I think I was to defend myself and think I didn't deserve to be a target of her cruelty? Who was I to stand up and shake up the status quo that she = cute, pretty, bubbly and interesting whereas I = awful, a stray, a nothing. I'm only here to take it - take on difficulties and it was my lot in life to DEAL WITH IT alone and in terror, whereas those people could and should be defended, supported and validated and have their needs met.

This dream has scared me so much that my inner critic is so...maybe irrevocably twisted and brainwashed beyond repair. I wish I could go back to being able to logically argue against my inner critic so even if I didn't believe it emotionally, i could reason it out. These days, I can no longer do that. Now, not only do I not have my emotional reasoning/capability, I feel like the stress of everything has compromised my logical reasoning -  a tool I relied on so heavily and which worked so well. Now I feel naked, without armour, all my defences stripped.

Where to go from here?