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Oh dear Mourningdove, I am so sorry you feel stuck in a place that is constantly triggering you.      Maybe you need to tell your T that instead of helping you the advice to get out and meet people in a place that holds so many triggers for you is actually making you feel worse.

It would be like going into a hospital or doctor's waiting room without a mask when your immune system is depleted - not  good idea. I say this because I had cancer and no-one looked askance at me when I wore a mask and gloves because the chemo had reduced my immune system to rubble.  I think CPTSD does the same thing to our nervous system so reducing  stress makes sense.

FWIW imo isolating to some degree there may be in fact represent self-care in the face of too much trauma rising to the surface at once.  It may be actually be what you need to do to calm your system so that you do have energy for recovery.      

I cried a lot at first Riverlad   .   You feel like you're crazy and so alone with this stuff and then suddenly you find out you are not crazy or alone.  It's a relief and kind of scary both at the same time or at least it was for me.

Welcome to OOTS 

Time to rest and regroup 

No problem Woodsgnome I did get that. By the way, religion never played much of a part in my life or the development of my CPTSD, but like you I have a well tuned hypocrisy (or &^%*) detector that goes off a lot when religion enters the mix. I often have the same reaction to politicians 

Anyway, just wanted to post that I haven't forgotten about editing the guideline I have just had a busy week of writing a lot for my job and don't quite feel like tackling it yet.  But I will 

That's a good explanation Dee     I've found is that an EF involves a lot of emotions and is not necessarily attached to a particular memory or thought, in fact for me I most often have to dig to find out why I am feeling so intensely. 

An intrusive on the other hand doesn't seem to come with the same amount of emotion, it's more like ruminating about something, a thought or thoughts that keep popping up and like Dee says you have difficulty chasing it out of your mind.   

I don't know if this is a good example,     but for me it's like hearing a song over and over in your head (ear worms I think they're called), and listening to heavy metal full blast.

Hope this helps and doesn't end up muddying the waters further 

Glad to hear you're both doing better JDog!      and   

Lovely of you to share this with us Wife#2, thank you 

I find wrangling with the Inner critic to be exhausting at times too MFTB, it's like "Oh shoot, wish you hadn't said/did that, now I am going to have to deal with both my Inner and Outer Critic for the next couple of days!" 

Some things do roll off me more easily in the past, while other things still trigger me into that whole cycle so  to you, it's a royal pain to have to manage I know. Hopefully it will help your IC and OC to fade a bit that you do love the job.

Hi and a warm welcome to OOTS Moose    I just realized as I read your post that I don't know anyone yet IRLwho has CPTSD.  Is the person someone you can talk to about having the disorder?  If so it could really be  a mutually beneficial resource 

Welcome Angelica     

Sorry to hear you both have abandonment dreams too - not surprising though is it?

I had an issue with my NPDM yesterday (we're LC vs NC so her behaviours still seep into my life to an extent), and lo and behold last night I dreamed about being abandoned by my H again.  Very disturbing in one way - I could feel the fear and pain, but revealing in another - I am deeply afraid of abandonment/loss and for a very good reason.

In the situation yesterday with my M she abandoned my cousin who had just learned her own M only has a few months to live, in favour of getting some attention for herself from my cousin.  She did this over and over to me growing up and as an adult until I figured out what she was doing.

So the situation with my M arises during the day and boom I have an awful abandonment dream about losing the one person I love the most in this world - doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what the dream really relates to. 

Is there anything positive in this?  Well, kind of.  I don't know that I could acknowledge this fear when I didn't know I had CPTSD or that my FOO were/are NPD'd. And when you can't see/feel it consciously, you can't deal with it. I do think that now that I am revealing my fear in my dreams hopefully I can deal with it more openly and it will decrease, fade over time.

Yes, in most if not all cases you would need a diagnosis and that may be a bit of problem given that Complex PTSD has not officially been identified as a separate construct from PTSD in either of the two main diagnostic manuals most organizations use (see here - http://www.outofthestorm.website/the-diagnosis-of-complex-ptsd).   

That said, PTSD is in both manuals and CPTSD does share three major symptoms with it (see here - http://www.outofthestorm.website/symptoms/) so it's a relevant diagnosis, just not completely accurate.

So my cousin emailed tonight to say her mother has been diagnosed with a brain tumour and is only expected to live a few months. Very sad news to be sure, but what upset me even more was that at the end of the email my cousin said she had called to tell my M the news, and that she was worried because my M had taken it hard. She asked me to touch base with my M to make sure she's OK.  (It isn't my M's biological sister by the way, it's my F's sister). Really?

My covert NPDM is that good that my cousin probably doesn't even realize that my M ended up centre stage in what is a difficult time for my cousin and her family, that she should be receiving comfort not worrying about my M.  Sad, sad, sad that those who have NPD often trade on tragic situations to direct attention their way.   

Anyway, tks for reading my little rant, now I am going to take a deep breath and let it go to the universe because there are much better ways to use my time and energy. 

I hope you're doing okay Sanmagic.  Sending much support   

So we're having a healthy, respectful discussion about something that caused some conflict - nice change from the environment we grew up in isn't it!?   This is what recovery is all about so first off     and     and    to us!

Tks Woodsgnome and Tea for also weighing in. Tea I wish members could have individual language filters, that would allow members to screen out language that offends or triggers them such as Woodsgnome's reaction to language associated with religion.  Unfortunately, this platform doesn't have the capacity to do so.    

I did look into having a rant sub-forum a bit more. It was at Out of the FOG and did not go well as the Site Manager's post about removing it talks about below.

The idea of a venting board was actually tried about 10 years ago at the previous incarnation of OOTF which was called "The Nook". The new board was called "Ranting and Raving". It only lasted about a month though before it was shut down because the moderators found that the amount of anger being expressed on all the boards - not just the "Ranting and Raving" board - suddenly started to rise exponentially creating a ton of extra work for the moderators to try to contain it.

We've got a section of our posting guidelines called "Dealing with anger" that has rules about what is OK to say/not say here for a similar reason - it's amazing how quickly a thread changes tone after a poster calls their significant other a jackass.  If the mods don't catch it within a couple of hours there will be half a dozen other posters using even less attractive terms in the same thread and within a day or two there will be multiple threads peppered with name calling. It quickly becomes a slippery slope and a huge job for the mods who have to decide "if we allowed Joe to say this don't we have to allow Jane to say that?"  It's far easier just to say "no name-calling"

There's also been quite a bit of psychological research done over the past few years on the subject of whether venting anger is a good or a bad idea which is really interesting. Most of the research says that expressing anger feels good at the time and gives you a catharsis but - sigh - it also gently lowers the threshold for feeling angry next time - a bit like the way a beaten path slowly forms in the grass after you walk over it enough times - eventually that path becomes "the way".

Turns out our brains work the same way - developing new connections every time we choose to think, speak or act in a certain way in response to a situation. Each time I vent - even in a safe place like this - I reinforce the habit and increase the likelihood I will feel angry and potentially vent in a not-so-safe place later. The path forms a whole lot faster if lots of people walk on it with you - hence a board called "venting" becomes a catalyst for anger - that probably explains why the "Ranting and Raving" board became a problem so quickly.

On the other hand, research also shows there is a ton of good in accurately describing a situation you are in and how that makes you feel and combining that with talk about healthy, constructive choices you can make in response to a situation that initially makes you feel angry. Talking or writing about what you feel and connecting it to healthy responses takes more mental effort - a bit like trying to start a new beaten path in the long grass at first. If you do it enough times eventually there's a new path where you want to go and like magic the grass starts to grow over the old venting path. Eventually it's just easier not to vent.

So please do use our board to describe how you feel - that's what we're here for - and describe what has happened to you - that's reality. And also talk about healthy responses to unhealthy situations - that's the magic.

So as OOTF experienced there is a tendency for posts which allow name calling/swearing/rants to catch and then spread throughout the board, not something we want I don't think.  I like his suggestions about expressing anger but in a healthier way (i.e., describe feelings but also look for ways of moving out of the anger), so I will see if I can edit the offensive language guideline to reflect this and what we've talked about in this thread thus far, and then will post it here for feedback.  In the meantime, if you have any more feedback about the issue plse do weigh in here or send me a PM.