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I feel like no matter where I am, I just don't fit in.
It hurts on so many levels.
I don't fit in. I want to. I want to connect, I want to belong. I know I'm having an extended flashback right now but that's knowledgeable is not helping me today. The tools I have are not helping me today. Even the memory of feeling like I did belong on Sunday isn't helping.
How do I help myself feel like I fit in?  Words are hard. Communication is one of my sticking points- many reasons for that - and it just keeps me feeling more isolated.
My m, I've begun to recognize is a covert narcissist. She would say things like, "they don't like you because you're too pretty and too smart. Just smile and try harder," when I begged her to tell me why the kids at school hated me. 
This is one memory I've had my whole life but never put to emotions. I knew it, but didn't feel it.
Others have crept in along my healing journey.
I know it's her undermining me, but again, that knowledge doesn't help.
I enjoy learning, figuring things out, problem solving and knowing the why has generally helped me navigate my life.
The thing is, when it comes to emotional stuff, knowing what isn't the same as knowing how.
It hurts to feel left out. It hurts to feel like I don't belong. It hurts and I don't know what to do about it because - I can't teach myself that I'm worthy of human interaction. Only other people can do that.
On the other hand, only I can take the step to try to trust enough to see if I'm okay just the way I am.
What do you do when you feel similarly?

I'm so scared to "mess things up," that I think I'll just get started by being honest about that.
I'm currently undiagnosed but when I read about relational trauma, my symptoms fit like a glove. It's interesting to me that so many of us seem to use the same phrase.  It's the one I used, at least, even before I'd seen anyone else use it.
I don't have safe enough relationships irl, at the moment. I'm hoping I can find that here.
It's my greatest hope and, therefore, my greatest fear.   
I'm terrified that I'm going to act out. That I'm going to need to post here and hurt someone inadvertently, or show my immature side, or I really don't know...
Potential tw




I was in therapy at 40, for "fibromyalgia", anxiety, and my therapist would only say "trauma".  This therapist recommended that I ask my mother for a break. After a few more months, I finally did. 
My mother had been upset with me - I had figured out (again) that she didn't love me, you see?  She couldn't love me because she didn't see me, hear me, or know me. I called her on it, believing that she would hear me, and try to change.  I was raised to believe that she knew and believed in therapy, 12-step, and wanted me and my brother to be able to "break the cycle." 
She relapsed (alcohol) when I was 16, got sober when I was 17, made amends, and we moved forward.
She encouraged me and my brother to go to Alanon and therapy regularly throughout my life.
I'm so confused- even now - why would she encourage us to get help when she didn't really want us out of her control?  It was another mind game is all I can think of.
It was 2 years later that I began to see that she not only didn't love me, she was deliberately cruel and manipulative. Someone asked me if I'd thought about her having a personality disorder. It clicked and finally, I began to see the truth.
End tw





I'm closer to 45 now and I'm not sure I'm ready to connect, but I do know that I want to.
My story is very long so I'll just end for now.
I'm grateful to all of you for being here. Jazzy, thank you for your Welcome Guests post. Kizzie, thank you for moderating and creating this group. Others, for privacy I won't name, thank you for sharing. You have helped me normalize myself more times than I can count.   
Psychology isn't evil, it's helpful, but, for me at least, it's been used against me far too often.  My own mind uses it against me. Even down to the 13 step flashback management. I've found that - here - there are ways around that trap in my mind. I'm relieved and grateful.
For support, this is the place I need to spend my time right now. Finding acceptance with where I am and who I am in the moment.

I've come to realize, slowly, that I do (did) not make my own choices.  I model my behavior after those around me. At work, it's my lead worker. When I'm on my own it was a mix of psychobabble that I believed and learned from my covert n-mom, plus either trying to please her, trying to escape her, or rebelling against her.  The final mix in was the independence I held to firmly and the stuff I picked up from my husband. When I realized that, it was extremely frightening.  I didn't make life choices, I did what I was told, or rebelled against it.  I have no sense of self worth at all.  That is how "they" were always able to take things from me.   "They" was anyone who I felt knew better or more than I.  Things could be my beliefs, my thoughts, my private thoughts, I'm not putting my finger on it just now.  I went to my therapist and told her excitedly about my epiphany. I asked her how to teach myself to trust my instincts.  She did so by refusing to answer me directly, pushing back when I stood firm, and not answering my question.  I said, "direct question, direct answer T,". I as so proud of myself.  I told T that nmom had manipulated me into my 40's and I did not want my trusted T to do it to me too.  She didn't budge, asked me to return this week.
Yet, I lost 3-4 days again and it took me another 3-4 to remember where I had been, healing wise, after that session.  I realized the next day that she had been keeping me in the fog for over a year. The pun isn't intended but it works too.   Now I've lost another year to another manipulator.  I still don't care yet that's she thought she knew best.  This T denied me the right to make informed decisions by not answering my questions over and over.   I don't trust her and I won't see her again.  That's all over explaining, as I tend to do, to say is this, learned and subtle behavior modeling some kind of attachment disorder?

 
I have intermittent but overpowering social fears that can keep me from even opening this forum for a few days.
I don't know, since many probably also share my difficulties, whether to post in the checkout area or not. I understand it to mean more than a few days of a break.  Is that the understanding of the forum?
Thanks

I am not sure what I need to do for myself.  Sunday and again today a 15 yo asked my to call cps on his behalf.  He is not in immediate life threatening danger, but I know all to well how the invisible wounds fester.  Nobody saved me. 
I am drowning between the desire to rescue and the need to protect myself.  I cry for the young girl I was. 
I have work today and need to leave.  I want to stay home, practice self care and cry.  I will, however, be going to work.
The dissociative symptoms started immediately.  I came to this forum because I began to panic after I was alone again.  "How do I take care of myself today?"  "What do I need to do?" 
I'd started this in the bad day section but calmed some so now it's here.   
I hurt. For me, for my ic, and for this young man.  I believe that I may be catastrophizing.   I do not know this young man's future.  I hope that him knowing that I and my spouse care will help.  I see something along the lines of is he going to suffer like I do now?
  I think I'm going to remind myself to stay in the present today.  Predicting the future leads to misery for me.    I hurt so badly right now.  It is so frustrating to intellectually know one thing and emotionally feel something else.  Thanks for being here. 
Do any of you have recommendations to help me balance today?  I want to work, but I also need to stay kind to myself. 
Sorry it's so rambling. I (hope) that is understandable, given that is why I post here.   I don't like letting people see me like this irl. I need a safe place to just be.   I am going to visit the porch of healing today.   That will help.  Yes, I feel needy for reassurance.  Is "——" okay?  I'm crying because, even here, I am using others to judge myself. 

1/6/2020
Today I am grateful that I watched the resiliency video this morning.  I have struggled with mdd my adult life. Treating myself for depression is different. I had to brow beat myself into doing things to get well, such as friend visits and getting out of bed. The last couple of years have been hard. I recently realized that I'd been listening to advice for people without trauma and pushing myself so hard.  Watching that video validated my instincts. I have begun to be gentle and understanding toward myself, when I can, 🤣. 
I want to remember to take my trauma into consideration before accepting that I'm doing it wrong because psychology today says so, for example.

Hi,
I am so pleased that I found this forum. I've been actively experiencing symptoms since 6/2017. I found the site Out of the Storm over a year ago.  I was looking for an explanation for what I was experiencing.
I know about ptsd and flashbacks but I didn't know about emotional flashbacks.  I printed out Pete Walker's article on how to deal with them and went about my life.
I found this site again just about a month ago.  It seemed brand new to me. (My memory issues are one of the symptoms I have yet to find peace with.)
I am grateful to find a place that feels safe to me. I am grateful to know, finally, that what I experience makes sense given my life.  I am not experiencing neurosis, "going crazy," I am experiencing cptsd symptoms. 
Thank you to those who started this webisir and forum.
Thank you to my fellows on the path toward self love and wellness.  Or, as I'm beginning to accept, the life journey to self love and wellness. It helps me just to know I'm not alone.