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I am not listing this under the 'illegal' section, because I have a medical marijuana card in my state and I believe my experimentation with cannabis is honest and legit. Over the years, I've tried various anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds.

It wasn't until a few months ago, my therapist recommended CBD. So I tried it and had good results. I proceeded to get my medical card and am now trying various strains of cannabis. Most notably, there is a strain called ACDC which is non-psychoactive (in that it does not produce the 'high' typically associated with high THC content (ACDC had 1 part THC to 20 parts CBD). 

In addition, I am trying to use another blend that helps with sleep.

I am only at the beginning of this experiment, but I wonder if anyone can talk to any of these issues:

1)  Feeling like I'm doing something 'wrong' even though I am a) Working with my therapist AND looking for honest feedback from my wife AND b) Honestly looking for what is supportive.
2)  Looking to balance ease and 'taking a break' with avoidance and checking out.
3)  I notice that some fear seems to turn off with cannabis and something primally social seems to wake up in me when I use.  It's like a part of me that got shut off from years of abuse gets reactivated in part. I seem to learn something that I can take with me when I am not using.

Any thoughts or honest advise on INTENTIONAL use of pot would be appreciated.  I am using a vaporizer and planning on making tinctures so I'm not actually 'smoking.' I just want to stay honest about the whole process but I'm struggling a bit to get over a sense that I shouldn't be feeling good or that I'm doing something wrong (maybe this is misguided...).
   

Wow! Thank you all for such thoughtful and helpful replies. The memories that I do have are coming up a lot in day-to-day life and are indeed destabilizing--just reinterpreting things that are obviously terrible sounding if you say it to someone else but we're just normal for me.

These replies to my post remind me to be patient. I have had so much anxiety and deadness and depression for my whole life. Now that I understand more,  both a hopefulness and urgency to move on. 

Many thanks!

I have a lot of fog regarding my memories of certain periods of my life. And I know that's common for people with CPTSD.  This journey is fairly new to me since I only this year (I'm in my mid-forties) I discovered how I sugar-coated my past (my older brother looked at me in disbelief when I said something about our time at home and he proceeded to tell me things I didn't remember -- I had was the youngest and particularly targeted.

I just read in Pete Walker's "The Tao of Fully Feeling" that "Real forgiveness depends on the adult child clearly remembering the specifics of her parents' abuse and neglect. ...Unremembered and ungrieved traumas block the tender feelings that are the matrix for feeling forgiveness."

I'm still not sure what there is to remember. But I FEEL the resonance from living through years of shock and dissociation. My memory has always seemed worse than anyone else I know. What happens if you simply cannot remember? I do remember enough to know things were bad...unsafe, stressful. I remember the state of shock.

But how to proceed without being able to remember more?

I've read some other posts in this section about what to divulge to one's children. I am considering saying some things to my kids; here's why:

I never did before, because I built my life around denying it. Somehow, I managed to compartmentalize and ignore much of my pain and acknowledgment of abuse and neglect. I just thought I was an anxious, depressed, semi-crazy person who could keep it all sort of in check with a regimen of a lot of exercise, meditation, careful diet.... Only problem was, that if I let go of any part of that, I would find myself having suicidal ideations and bouts of anxiety and depression that just took all my energy.  So, only this year did I stumble on to having to face the past and the roots of all the anxiety.

I realized that I want to share some more with my daughters about what is 'going on with me.' But I really DO NOT want to use them to process or GET sympathy. It really is about them. But I am realizing that sometimes in the morning, I might have a few tears and I think they feel I'm hiding something -- not just natural. I talked to my wife about this and she thinks it would be good to say a bit more to them. So I want to be real and conscious with them. But I don't want to get triggered into saying things that are too much for them. So I want to have some guidelines for sharing authentically, but in a way that also respects their innocence.  I think the "keep it simple stupid" principle applies here and I can just say "even when a lot of time goes by, you might still feel sad about things that you never got the chance to be sad about before." 

Lastly, maybe in all of this I might share the gift of not holding "negative" emotions as taboo. Maybe that would be good for them. I know for me, it is hard to keep up the facade of always being up-beat. I may need to find some more space and time to grieve. As a busy parent, it's hard to do that on schedule ("I will grieve today after dropping my daughter off at gymnastics"). It doesn't work that way. It comes up when you're around people and get triggered and feel vulnerable... My wife left town for a week recently. I cried that morning. That felt embarrassing.  I used to not even miss her when she left, and now I cry the morning she leaves.  So much shame and I still feel selfish and small and defective for having to navigate so much emotion that's never been let out.

Hi eu!   

Yes yes!!  it's the epiphany of the 'feel' that opens the door ... then we see the hot coals that we must walk over to reach the cool grass on the other side.... those bleedin' coals.  Seems to me the most horrendous double whammy to have been through it, and coped and bottled it all up so efficiently, and then have to feel it all again - and no wonder sooooooo many people avoid this for a lifetime.... BUT walking those coals, works.

It brings hidden benefits, such as learning true patience, true persistence; it grows your courage, your honesty, your self respect... etc etc... so maybe it is actually all some brilliantly designed assault course with a genius plan, and not just a horrible mess of human stupidity.  Probably! 

I have become a champion for 'negative' emotions... and feel very sorry for them.  As natural and healthy responses that have been stuffed, ignored and given such a terrible name... when all they were/are doing is trying to protect us and restore us to our natural state of peace.  So.. your anger, your agonies..... I salute them, and bow ... mother nature knows exactly what she is doing. 

If you feel that inner pull to retreat into a healing cave... then that is where you will have the space to allow the energy and emotions to emerge...an encouraging wave from my shadows, to you in yours.... x

WOW! I've never been able to talk about stuff before and really be understood. There was always a subtle judgment or just not understanding and offering greeting card advice. Sometimes, when someone offers trite, albeit well-intended advice, part of my gut screams, "NO, I cannot just look on the bright side! My soul has ached since I can remember and my own parents didn't even care about me. Life has never felt like a safe place for me since I can remember!" My gut says that, but I say, "I really appreciate that perspective and see what you're saying."  But you see, there is hidden judgment in their advice. Because their advice suggests I don't have the right, wholesome intention -- that I'm just being stubborn about not being positive. I've struggled my whole life just to be normal and look on the bright side. And I hated myself for not being able to do it ("WHAT is WRONG with ME??!!!")

I thought this forum would be good for information. And I thought it would be like Facebook where everyone is sarcastic and all knowing. But now I am finding some surprising healing in finding someone who deeply speaks this language and has something beautiful and true and helpful to say about it. So deep bow to you. So much gratitude.

woodsgnome...thank you for your beautiful post.  I so see the wisdom what you are saying about now. Some soul searching I'm doing right now is this:

I've spent years practicing Buddhist meditation and deeply studying the teachings. I found a deep appreciation that, in many ways, the stories we hold in our minds and bodies are, indeed just stories. That is to say, a past no longer exists except in our body/mind.  At some point, I realized I could have the audacity to feel free and not 'believe' otherwise.  I had some meaningful break-throughs.

But even though meditation, yoga, great diet, and an exercise routine helped quell the anxiety, as soon as I strayed from my perfect routine, would feel anxiety get out of control immediately. It started to feel like I was a slave to practice because I HAD to do it. And I was spending more energy than i was getting back just to fend off anxiety.

And then, by some grace (and another painful life event) I discovered that I had been utterly ignoring a lot of pain and stored trauma.  Even though I had practiced meditation for years, I didn't see this...I was just trying to manage pain. And so hear I am, now, inviting the story back in. I know it does not define me, but I have to feel it and know why I am in so much pain and have so much anxiety and fear. And looking at the painful story of my life, I do not have to blame anyone, but I can be mad as * and let myself be human and feel anger.

So NOW...it turns out, is the time to deeply feel what we feel. I don't have to wait until later for life to start. But I have to be willing to feel the pain of story that won't seem to go away otherwise.

I realize that I've strayed for your response. But it has been such a powerful area of learning for me lately.

Thank you both for your replies. I have to say, it felt surprisingly reassuring that someone out there is kind and is taking time to share in other people's journey.

[feel]

I'm in my mid-forties and am only now really acknowledging how afraid I am of people.  I can feel these "negative beliefs." The problem is, I can understand conceptually that they are just beliefs. But emotionally and even physically -- the truth of the world seems to say that I am not one of THEM (people) and that I don't belong here. I don't FEEL like life is a good thing.  Its not the thoughts I think but the way things SEEM to be.

My progress lies in the fact that part of me is starting to see that these are just beliefs and distortions that come from a lot of pain and not the way things really are. But it feels like it will take so long to actually change the conviction of not belonging here.

So today, I decide to commit to patience.  I am engaged as a dad and enjoy being with my family. But I don't have any friends I see on a regular basis. I would like to change this, but I don't want to contrive and sometimes it seems like too much work anyway. I just don't feel like I have anything to say.

This is sounding so regressive. You would never know I would write this kind of thing if you worked with me.  But it is the emotional truth that I've only hidden in shame for too long...

I am working with a therapist a few times a week now. It just seems like there's too much to address as soon as I would like.

Peace all.

Also, if you can recall examples of things that were said to you that 'second-guessed' you or 'amended' what you did or said, or just plain doubted you, this is a good way to know that this covert type of psychological abuse really did happen.

YES! My step-mother would say things like "You rotten little brat, I can see right through you...you want everyone to believe ___ but I know you really ____." If I cried, she would often say things like, "Please, I can see right through those tears, you may be fooling everyone else, but you're not fooling me."  At this point in my  journey, even thinking about her too much makes me lose track of my confidence.

When I signed up for this forum, I had no idea how deeply insightful posts would be. I am so grateful for your comments, Blackbird, Blueberry and Three Roses. It feels so much saner to hear people speaking a language I relate to.

I read these responses and it is so helpful and stimulating. I know I'll re-read tomorrow! 

Thank you again.

First off, if your "friends" did say something to your parents, that would be a boundary violation for me. You don't say if you asked them not to say anything, but that should have been understood without spelling it out.

Also, it occurs to me that maybe your stepmom is just posting martyr-ish things because mother's day is approaching and she's prepping her family to give her the attention she craves. Maybe it has nothing to do with your request for information. (I'm hoping.)

I repressed many memories, sacrificed them on the altar of family peace. They don't go away. Like the tiger cub thrown in the proverbial basement, they're howling for attention now and throwing themselves at the door of my conciousness - but now they're full grown. It would've been easier to deal with them years ago.

It's so confusing, trying to figure out what to do. I know you don't want to hurt anyone, but sometimes the truth hurts. After all the lies and all the silence you were forced to submit to, you owe it to yourself to speak the truth. That truth will allow you to bring more health into your life, and will help end the legacy of lies, secrets and shame before it's passed to the next generation.

Reading between the lines and drawing from my own experience, I would bet that you have been trained to think of other people's feelings before your own. "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." We learned saying things out loud and calling attention to the truth only brought us negative attention. We were indoctrinated in the ways of silence and codependency.

If you want to change your life, rattle that cage! Let your truth resound from every direction! It doesn't have to be anyone else's truth but yours. No one else has to validate the things your body is telling you it went through. No one else has to agree with your memories. And you're not responsible for how its received by anyone else!

And by the way, I'm sorry for the loss of your mom. It would have killed me to have lost mine, and not even be able to talk about it. Gigantic hugs to you! Stop being so strong for everyone else - this is your show now.

I just have to say thank you again for writing this. Today was a hard day and I went through a huge conviction of self-doubt which is so confusing at times.  There is a real fear that there is something dishonest in me -- even though I can't SEE the dishonesty, I feel like I know it's there. The conviction is so strong, that I can't even believe or reason my way out of it at times. It's so uncomfortable at the time because I feel like some sort of monster who is capable of even deceiving myself.  Tonight, I read your post again and it helped so much. Thank you!

Three Roses, thank you so much for your response. It really touched me -- everything you said. Rattling the cage...I may have to work on that for a while :-), but I will!

My c-ptsd just came to light about a month ago. I'll leave the details out here, but I have discovered that processing the abuse and neglect I suffered was a very strange elephant in the room/oversight.  I am now stunned by the pseudo-relationship I've provided my father and his wife for so many years. I left that home in 1989 at which time I was told I was living * to live with and wasn't welcome back. Our semi-estrangement ended and we held congenial phone calls a few times a year with no emotional content. My father has never been to my house and he has seen my two beautiful daughters (ages 12 and 14) only a few times at weddings we all attended and at one other picnic at a family members house (a few hours). I am realizing I've given them this comfort of never having to address anything -- it's like nothing happened. There was so much emotional abuse and a good amount of trauma (will leave it at that here). And I now see that this is typical of those who experienced abuse -- it just didn't seem like a big deal -- never thought to call it abuse. But if anyone told me about these things happening to them, I would cry for them. Or if anyone ever did this to my daughters, I would protect my daughters with my life from that kind of treatment. But a lot of the times it is still hard for me to think of it as abuse when it comes to me.

So now the question...I recently reached out to a few people (who also know my father and step-mother) trying to remember some things and really (at the time) validating what really happened. And I 'm pretty sure someone told my dad and his wife because, even after years of not calling me, now they are trying to call.  And my step-mother has posted a bunch of martyr-type memes on FB.  They could never tolerate anything that suggested they weren't just good parents -- my father just shuts down but his wife attacks and is a master at making people second-guess themselves and she accuses you of being selfish and unloving. I think my dad just can't process the guilt -- he cheated on my mom when she was dying with the church secretary. And then we moved into a family with this family with a lot of mental illness -- across the country -- my dad was remarried four months after my mom died and we never spoke my mothers name. So many bad things happened.  So I don't expect that we'll just be able to make sense to eachother--my father and me (and his wife).

So now, talking to them seems impossible. I just freeze. And I know I don't have to, but I also don't want to hurt them or do say things that they can't process. My step-mother has some mental illness issues and my father just has too much blood on his hands to be able to hear anything.

I don't know if I ever want to go back to the every 6-month 15 minute conversation to restore the illusion of relationship to give them that peace so they can tell their friends about their grand-kids. But I think what I fear most is that I will turn on myself because I don't feel strong enough to keep my frame of mind and not just believe I'm making things up. I'm working with a therapist, but that still happens -- I lose my ground when I think about them.

I wanted to just put this off, but I can't because I dream about and can't sleep. And thinking about it seems to slippery.  If I don't reach out, then I am already creating some issue that I don't feel ready to address. Because I believe they can only relate on their terms. But it feels too painful not to give myself enough weight in this world to not just pretend anymore. But also don't want to hurt people who have their own fragile peace in older age (I'm 46, mad dad is 79).

I want to buy myself some time, but the only way I could do that is to talk to them. Which makes me queasy now.

I don't know how to begin to navigate this just yet. Posting in case someone has suggestions...And yes, I am working with a therapist who I see multiple times per week.

I would like to share something that became a little clearer after my post and upon more reflection. My question came from a neurotic mindset associated with fear, avoidance, and confusion.  When fear, confusion, and anxiety are present there is a highly increased desire to know but a greatly decreased capacity to figure things out. Seems like a dirty trick to me 

I'm Starting to see this pattern where I can simply identify when a neurotic mind state is present with anxiety and fear... I know that trying to answer some question intensely is a false lead -- not the scent I should be following.  The real trail to follow is just being with whatever emotion needs to be felt and accepting the current experience with kindness and patience.  This is a process, because when a neurotic state comes and I'm feeling the conviction of self-doubt, that sounds like "blah, blah, blah."  But little by little, when the ground sort of collapses and I don't know what to believe, I'm starting to at least recognize -- "This is a distorted state and I know that because there's a bunch of fear and anxiety or numbness."

I so appreciate both of your responses. It seems helpful just to be able to talk about this to others who've experienced related/similar issues. I love the expression "CPTSD is an injury not an illness." I have started to write down things I remember. I have also begun to discover that some things don't sound like abuse because they were my only frame of reference -- and I also adopted a sense of unimportance. But I have two beautiful daughters and if anyone treated them that way, I would do everything in my power to protect my girls -- that helps me to identify 'abuse' or 'neglect' -- the things that I would never in a million years do to them. I think it will be helpful to write these things down -- a collection of 'How I know it was abuse and neglect.' I don't have any interest in a victim role -- I just want clarity and want to part with the things that keep me from being fully alive for myself and my family.

Thanks for the welcome and the suggestions.

[What do you do when you can't decide and trying to know for sure just makes you neurotic and makes you spin your wheels?]

This is my first post.

My therapist has told me I have been one of the clearest cases of Complex-PTSD she has ever seen.  I had thought I had pretty much processed things from my past, but I ended up in counseling after my wife had an affair (we're doing well now but still working on it).

I guess the affair flared things up and then my brothers recently told me that my step-mother was particularly cruel to me -- singled me out and 'poured her rage into me'. They told me "I don't think you realize how bad you had it."  That stirred some things up and I've already been pretty raw in working through the affair and working to renew my relationship with my wife. It has been more than strange to be in my mid-forties and to suddenly be a person who is less stable in terms of emotion and mood and even what I believe about my life. It's been a wild ride.  I do remember that there were some stereo-typically traumatic events that happened when I was a kid, but I don't remember some of the things my older brother said.

So I'm a bit disoriented because I'm starting to understand a lifetime of anxiety, depressive-ness, social issues... from a different angle. From the outside, I don't think people would know much because I've worked really hard to be pretty normal. But I flip back and forth between having a conviction that my long-standing 'symptoms' really can be explained because of emotional abuse and neglect and having a conviction that I really am embellishing or exaggerating so that I have an excuse or a story or to get attention.   I say 'conviction' because it sort of over-rides whatever facts may be available at the time. It doesn't help that I feel so different than I did not too long ago and it's confusing how everything could just emerge so strongly now. And a few hours or a day later, I don't even relate to what had been such a powerful conviction in a few hours or a day before.

I'm not looking for some reassurance that things really did happen or it really was 'bad' in a way that would warrant my symptoms, because no one reading this knows. But I want to ask if anyone can speak to this:

What do you do when you can't decide and trying to know for sure just makes you neurotic and makes you spin your wheels? I'm trying just to relax with not knowing for now, but then the question comes up... How important is it to KNOW that there was mistreatment or 'abuse'? It feels like the answer helps me know something about how to proceed. Or does it? Is the course the same either way?  My therapist says confidently that this isn't mental illness -- I've asked because it feels that way sometimes -- like I'm just a little crazy. But what if it's just some other anxiety or mood disorder and I buy into a story that just misses the mark?

What do you do when you can't know -- FOR YOURSELF -- if you're just exaggerating and embellishing or if you can really rest-assured and use the diagnosis to move forward with a new understanding. I want to be sure I'm not fooling myself and that I haven't fooled my therapist.

Can anyone say why it matters to know (if there was 'abuse and neglect') for sure and what to do if you can't stick with being sure?  Ideally, we are just present and feel what we feel without judgment. But interpretation seems to matter too.

I don't want someone to just tell me "Don't doubt yourself!" Because I do doubt myself (and am not consistent) and I just want to know how people handle really not knowing when knowing would really help (or am I asking the wrong question in trying to be sure.)

Many thanks. I tried to keep it short...