Messages

Foggy, I am glad you found this site.  Making that first post can be challenging.  I was a nervous wreck when I was trying to make my first post here.  And I still find it takes a certain amount of courage every time I post even the tiniest message.  But it has gotten easier over the months, and it has even become rewarding to be a part of this warm and supportive group of people seeking a safe place to share parts of our lives that we usually have to hide.

I am so sorry about the "atom bomb" event in your life.  It sounds quite devastating.  I hope you will keep coming back to the site and will eventually be able to share more details with us.

All the best to you and lots of hugs.          

Hi RebelSiren, your story is so sad.  I am sorry you have had so much pain haunting you, pain you certainly never deserved.

What you deserved as a child was love and tenderness and nurturance.  And you deserve it now,too, as an adult.  I hope you will keep coming to this site so we can keep reminding you of that.

My favorite book on this subject, one we discuss often here, is Pete Walker's "CPTSD From surviving to thriving."  It is full of information and compassion, and I find it a comforting companion as i deal with the damage done to me in a childhood that resembles yours.

Big hugs to you            

Welcome, shells79.     

You have survived an incredible amount of trauma in your life.  And after all that, I imagine that it would take some time for meds and therapy to help you feel better.

Certainly you deserved far better in life.  You deserved to be loved and treasured and protected, and you still deserve all that, of course.  You deserve to be surrounded with peace and safety and love.  You deserve peace of mind and relief from all the memories.

On this site people often find a bit of comfort and empathy that helps them feel less alone in dealing with great pain.  Also there is a lot of good information from a lot of people with a lot of experience with cptsd.

I am so glad you found this site.  I hope you will stay in touch, so we can keep reminding you that you totally deserve safety and peace.  All the best to you and big hugs.            

Welcome, Jimena.      I am so very glad you found this site!  I have found it to wonderfully safe and encouraging.  Like you, I have felt very alone and unloved and full of despair.  Like you, I find this time of year difficult.  The dark cold days.  The family holidays that bring up triggering memories of my childhood.

But here on this site, I feel comforted by the presence of other people like me.  I hope you will find comfort here also.

There is some helpful information in the guidelines for members.  Please read everything that sounds interesting to you.   All the best to you!   

Tired,that is really interesting.  Do you think it is a flashback?  Maybe triggering the release of stress hormones?

Are you able to get yourself out of it, or do you just have to wait for it to pass?

I am yet one more person with those kinds of chores hanging over my head.  When I am feeling semi-rational, I try to break a  big chore (pay the bills) down into smaller bits (pay one bill only).  Getting just one tiny thing done sometimes even generates enough energy to do one more tiny thing,etc.

One time I was able to become a loving elder to my inner child and showed her how easy it was to clean the kitchen and how much better she would feel then.  But I've had trouble repeating that.

It's so good to read that you are doing more good things to help yourself.  Each step forward, no matter how small, is so important, so congratulations.     

(like the old joke 'the light at the end of the tunnel? it's the express train heading towards you'... the old ones are the best    )

Thank you, arpy1.        I do love gallows humor.   

A bit of raucous guffawing can help keep me afloat.  Or even just a rueful grin can give me a few seconds of relief from the chaos within.

Welcome chairmanmeow.  How wonderful that you are even alive at all after being "last straw homeless in Chicago in the middle of winter" !!  How wonderful that you found this site!

Gosh, the vividness of your words has reminded me of my own past stuff, rather powerfully.  Plus, I am moved by your having survived such a crashing hard fall in life.  "Hard earned knowledge," yes!

When you are ready, I hope you will share more with us, in your own inimitable way.

Big hugs!           

Welcome BigGreenSee123, it sure sounds like you belong here.  Everything you say makes perfect sense to me, sounds very familiar.  A formal diagnosis is not necessary to be on this site.  If you feel like you fit here, you probably do. 

Everyone here has a lot of experience feeling "anxious and agitated and unfocused."  You are not alone!   You deserve to feel safe and at peace, and this is the site where we remind each other of that.  I hope that reading around here will convince you that you are not struggling in isolation.

Big hugs to you     

I agree with the others that you owe that therapist no explanation at all.  If I were in that situation, I would call when I knew the phone would be sent to voicemail, when no living human would answer, and I would merely tell voicemail that I am canceling the future appointment. 

Welcome, TheGirlWhoWasMe.  Your name is a story in itself, vivid and succinct.

I hope you will feel safe here, able to be yourself, to find your self.  For me, this site is about coming in from the cold world of pretense.  This place is about the self-compassion we are trying to create in each other.

As perhaps you already know from reading around the site, we refer often to a book by Pete Walker, "CPTSD: From Surviving to Thriving."  I consider it the best explanation of the many aspects of CPTSD, and by far the most compassionate.  Pete has cptsd himself and has extensive experience with people like us.

I agree with arpy1 that your determination is wonderful.  Please take good care of this self of yours that has survived so bravely for so long.  Big hugs   

it seems to me that despite all the social changes of the last few centuries, humans are still basically tribal creatures.  i still reckon that we, like many people who suffer with mental health, are a minority group, a sub-culture, in the same way that my husband's physical disability put our family firmly into the disabled subculture. becos ultimately we are different, we struggle with things most others take for granted. becos we see life differently. becos of all sorts of reasons. we are in so many respects, 'Other'. we are different from the rest of the Tribe. which makes for uncomfortable social interaction with us.

yes, I agree. 

For me, the way I was raised to feel, being different from the "norm" is a source of shame.  Of course, I don't believe the shame is deserved.  So for me, digging out from that shame is something I have to keep working at.

Actually, being part of a sub-culture, being here on this site, is a big step forward.  Because previously in my mind I was a sub-culture of one, totally alone in a sea of "normies" and closeted "others".

Hi Ami, I am glad you found this site.  What we do here is share information and support as we each try to deal with the consequences of CPTSD in our lives.

It does sound like your depression and anxiety are likely just symptoms of the cptsd, as they are for many of us.  It often happens that events in adulthood will trigger memories of previous extensive abuse.  For some of us, this changes the course of our lives.  And that sure can be difficult to deal with, as I know personally.

Your story reminds me a lot of mine.  I also had a huge breakdown, became unable to work, and had to apply for disability.  It was an extremely traumatizing experience, and I also felt a sense of great shock that the professionals could not help me more.  Also, it is very complicated to negotiate the public health and social service system, and my brain was already totally frazzled by all the depression and anxiety, so I felt completely overwhelmed.

The humiliation was huge, especially when I ran into people I had known in better days.  And there are not many significant others who can weather so much chaos in a relationship.  So you have my deepest sympathies and empathies as you work on staying afloat.

Right now the most important thing is to obtain disability.  When I look back on my own experience, I would say that trying to comport myself with dignity was a mistake, because I failed to communicate how desperate and terrified and brain-foggy I was.  But then I had an appointment at the Social Security office the day after I had been released from a 72-hour hold at County Mental Health for being suicidal (back in 1995).  (I had even chopped off my own hair real short during the previous weeks of despair.)  When they handed me forms to fill out, I just got hysterical right there in the office and thank heavens there was a sympathetic employee who helped me with them.  When they sent me more supplemental forms to fill out, I called them up and got hysterical again, because I could not think well enough or deal with the trauma details well enough to write a coherent sentence.

Being hysterical in public is deeply deeply humiliating, and I don't recommend it.  But too much composure will work against an applicant for disability, IMHO.  And anger, although a perfectly logical reaction to the situation, will also work against the applicant. 

You have worked very hard in life, and are continuing to work very hard, and you do not deserve to be in this current situation where you find yourself.  You deserve safety and peace and respect.  You deserve protection and love and compassion.  You deserve for all your hard work to be rewarded with success and recognition.  You deserve many many hugs, Ami !   
       

No one has actually asked me the question that Woodsgnome posed here: "What was your childhood like?"  But I am sure it would leave me stuttering and changing the subject. 

There are other similar questions that I deflect, such as "Where are you from?", and "What did you do before you retired?", and "Why did you never have children?", and "Why did you move so often?".  And so many more.

I agree with arpy1 that this does make me "part of a social minority just as surely as if you are deaf, or in a wheelchair."  I do feel a sort of affinity with people who are coping with the challenges and isolation of a physical disability.  But I still fear that they would not feel an affinity with people like me.

I also feel an affinity with people recovering from cult experiences.  The whole concept of the damaging narcissist really resonates for me!  It does sound remarkably like my FOO.

A lifetime of being the FOO scapegoat has made me sympathetic with civil rights issues, too.  During many of my darkest times I found inspiration reading about the struggles of Jewish people in the Nazi era and about the * survived by slaves in America.  Also emigrants from unrest and poverty in Central America, and refugees from war in Syria, and Sudan, and so many other places.  Not to even mention the many people with issues like mine who are struggling to stay alive on the street.

Perhaps an excess of empathy is a disorder.  Maybe it is a neediness for acceptance, I tell myself sometimes.

I do sort of think of people as being divided into two main categories, those who have been through * (or are still there) and those who are blissfully clueless.  As stillhere's friend said.

Yet my shame for who I have been still persists.  So this site really helps me because we remind each other that we do not deserve shame, that we deserve to stand upright, that we are lovable even while we are in this pain.