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Writing helps me a lot, when I do it consistently.  I mean, any form of communication, really, is helpful.  When I can communicate, I am OK. 

And not only that, but I had to find a specific format that works for me.  Writing in my journal, to myself, doesn't help one bit.  I need an audience, so I blog anonymously and post about it on Facebook to get some response from those who care to read.
Lately, I've been writing in letter format to an anonymous friend, inspired by The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and I'm finding it's giving me more space to express myself than writing to no one in particular.  It's also allowing me to be more indirect with my feelings, which makes them way easier to express.

And music too.  Playing music, singing, listening to it with others can do wonders for me sometimes.

Right on, EliseB - I felt a lot of resonance reading your words.

I love coding!!!  I started off in middle school, taught myself BASIC, then progressed from there.  Now I'm into any and all languages, my most recent discovery and love being Clojure.   After being in the Object Oriented world for such a long time, discovering LISP blew my mind...especially considering it's one of the oldest computer languages.   It just makes sense to me.

Yea, same for me.  Way easier to give than receive.  If someone's giving me unconditional love, they're automatically suspect...by default....been learning to give in slowly...

Hi ah - thanks for your post and welcome to the forums!  I'm new here myself.

I wanted to respond to the sentence "I wish I could believe there was a life after abuse but for me, I think there isn't."   When you've had as much abuse as you describe, how do you possibly get past that, rebuild a positive self image?   I have no clue.  I can certainly empathize with that feeling, that sentiment.  I'm four years or so into more consciously dealing with the abuses that happened to me and while I've made a lot of progress, some days I still wake up and have that feeling.  Crushing, overpowering, world ending, too much responsibility, how do you even manage anything at all?

So I wanted to say that believe it is possible to recover from terrible abuses and complex trauma.  Even to say that, I feel like I have to protect my trauma, to assert it, to acknowledge that it's easier said than done, and to protect your trauma, because I don't know it, the extent of it, I haven't lived it, and so who am I to say it's possible? 

I'm slowly accepting that I'm a human like everyone else, and in that context I am allowed to share my thoughts and feelings. I'm also slowly accepting that trauma is the default lens through which I will understand life and see it till this lifetime is over.  But I can also build myself some corrective lenses, some thought glasses, so to speak, in my habits and my thought patterns.  And I can help others.   This is becoming my purpose: to take the wealth, the depth of pain and turn it into something that others can find useful (writing, art, music, etc.), so maybe others or the next generation doesn't have to go through as much of the ringer.  I have to believe this way, because I don't see any other choice that ends with me being happy and healthy.

Hey Justin - welcome!  Glad you found this board - I found it recently myself and am grateful for its existence.  Also really starting to learn about / accept CPTSD as a name for this thing I got.  I still have yet to check out Out of The Fog, but intend on doing so to learn more about the FOO side of things.  Have a good one.

Hello everyone - wanted to introduce myself.  My partner recommended this site and it's been a great find.  Yesterday I browsed around a bit and found way more hopeful avenues than I could count.  I also chuckled to myself over how complex the structure of this forum is and how maybe that's reflective of the underlying thing.   I don't know, I find comfort in that.

Anyway, I'm not gonna get too deep into my story other than to say that I have childhood sexual trauma in my past in combination with emotionally abusive parents.  The trauma memories were repressed until my early 30's around which time both my psyche and my life exploded.   A few years later, I'm now much more sane and happier, but it's up and down, of course.  I've only recently accepted that the symptoms, the struggle, I have is best described by the label Complex PTSD - my therapist diagnosed me with this a while ago, but language didn't mean much at the time.  I've also recently realized, accepted that I'm not alone in this.  And that's immensely comforting and empowering.

I'm really trying to focus on helping others with this as I've run into the brick wall of trying to manage my trauma all myself all the time.  If I'm in trauma land exclusively for too long, that's all I see - so my intention is to reach out and help others.  To connect that way and relate.  To look outside of myself.  And so that's why I'm here.  To start processing some of this stuff with other humans, with yous, to start trusting, to start lending a helping hand.

hey movementforthebetter - I empathize with you here.  My FOO wants a normal relationship with me but doesn't want to deal with my emotions at all.  I make a lot of the effort.  They just want to stay safe in their bubble.

For me, I had to document a conversation with my parents via email in order to see what was going on: when I visit, I get caught up in the reality blackhole and leave feeling powerless.  This happened recently, the email conversation and it was rough, took me a couple weeks to process the thing, just now coming out of it.  But now I can see the dynamic.  Now I know for sure that I'm not crazy.

And part of seeing that for me is knowing that as much as I'd like a closer, healthier relationship with them, it's not healthy for me to be around them.  And so I've set a boundary for myself that I will limit how often I see my parents, how often I make the effort - and if I do see them, we will visit on neutral ground, restaurants, etc.  I've always gone down to visit for the holidays, but this year I will not.  I'm only hurting myself by doing that. 

I'm much better off in the long run having space from them and having clear boundaries for myself about how and how often I will interact with them.

Hello - I'm new here.  Wanted to reply to this because your post helped me discover Trauma Recovery University.  I had no idea that existed, awesome!

And also wanted to add that I find it hard to accept healing, love, too - from anyone, even people I've known for a while.  My denial of help can become automatic after a while and it takes real work on my part to overcome that quicksand of sorts.   It's a real tough place to be and so far usually ends with some sort of emotional eruption.

Anyway, glad I joined this forum and grateful for the new youtube resources!!