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I second what keepfighting said. Right now, while you're having so many flashbacks, your levels of energy are very depleted. It's amazing what a lack of energy does to our worldview. It's just a lot more difficult to keep up anything like an optimistic (or even just realistic) view of things. Even just simple lack of sleep or physical pain can make people slide off into a depressive, desperate mood. So like keepfighting said, the thing to do right now is recover. Then later, once you're a bit better and the world (hopefully) looks sunnier, you can always sit down and think about the issue again.

Thanks for saying that.    And I feel like that a lot. It's the rule rather than the exception, sadly.

Hi outercalm, and welcome! Ugh, I hate doctors, too. When I was pregnant the first time, it was awful - very intrusive. I felt like a car that's in for a check-up. For my second pregnancy, I picked another gynaecologist and a midwife who were a bit more respectful. It was surprising how a little thing can make a difference. My touch aversion is usually less strong if people act respectfully instead of controlling, if they're calm and courteous and seem friendly, if they briefly explain why they're going to touch me, and if the whole set-up seems more like we're a team and less like they're above me in some kind of hierarchy (so for example they readily answer my questions, and they give me the feeling that I can voice my objections or fears).

Oh good, not just me then. I'm sorry to hear that your evening with your friends was so fraught. How good that they hugged you in such an honest and warm-hearted way. So at least you could break through the illusion then.

I hate that kind of feeling - like I'm once again the odd one out, watching the "other kids" laugh and be all confident and strong and decisive. Growing up with a depression is the pits.

Hi David, pleased to meet you and welcome to OOTS! I hope you find something here that helps.

It's brilliant how aware you are of your Inner Critic. I'm having a much harder time to spot the workings of my own IC. A lot of times, I'm only spotting it afterwards, which is annoying.

Oh, absolutely. Who do they even DO all that for? Kids don't give a toss about sophisticated dishes or pristine cleanliness.

Glad to hear that you're feeling a bit better. And you're very welcome to stick around. 

Exercizing for a ridiculously short time is actually one component of a self-motivation technique. This one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique  Several published writers do it, too: you can't write all day, but you can write for ten minutes. So they put your timers on and they write for ten minutes. Then rinse and repeat, if possible. If it isn't possible - well, at least you wrote for ten minutes, which is a lot better than writing for zero minutes. I've found that method very helpful. It's nearly always possible to motivate myself to do something for ten minutes.

About repressing those memories - hm, I keep on losing sight of things sometimes. But once you've seen the truth, it's often easier to rediscover said truth than it was to discover the first time around. If you want, and if it isn't triggering, there's always the possibility of taking a few notes about what you remembered. Even just a few brief hints might later be enough to jog your memories. Or you could write a letter to yourself, and just write down what you wish to remind yourself of if you get stuck in your old headspace again.

I'd like to pick your brains about something. What do you do after you've had a flashback? Is there anything specific you do to recover, or soothe yourself, or work through the feelings the EF brought up?

I thought this might be an interesting topic to talk about. I'm only just starting to be kinder to myself. In the olden days (up until a few weeks ago), I used to just feel relief, push the flashback out of my mind as soon as possible, and beat myself up with guilt and shame about not handling things better. And it occurs to me that this isn't the most helpful thing to do. So now, after a flashback, I'm trying to squish my toxic Inner Critic and be kind to myself. I'm also taking things easier instead of pushing myself too hard. That's a start. Well done, me. But I'm sure there's a lot more.

Of course, sorry. How could I.   

No_more_guilt, it's very good in you to want to support us. Thanks.  But it's also very okay to need support and to wait a while before offering any support back. Really. Truly. Honestly. It's very, very okay. After I'd messed up my knee, it was other people's turn to offer to carry my stuff while I tried to figure out how to hop about on crutches. There's a time and a place for helping, and for asking for help. Imagine having the flu. While you're having a high fever, it's very okay to NOT make chicken soup for other people. This is the same. There'll always be someone here who needs support - plenty of time to do that later, once you're feeling better. Now is your turn. Relax. Breathe. You're doing great.

No_more_guilt, I'm glad you're feeling a little better now. And it's like everyone else said, it's absolutely run-of-the-mill normal to repress memories.

Or to have memories, but just as a collection of facts, like something you read in a newspaper that happened to someone else. So there's this detachment, like it didn't happen to the real you at all. You can't remember any details, or you don't have any sense at all of what it felt like back then. That happened to me, and when I talked about it here, someone else said their memories are like that, too.

Another thing I heard here several times is that we have all the clues, but we don't really get the full picture until much later. We've been so influenced by our abusers into thinking it's all normal, we're treated well, nothing to see here, move on ladies and gentlemen, 'abuse? what abuse? nooo, she's just being oversensitive again'. In short, we've been subtly brainwashed. So we have the clues, but we don't pay attention to them. Or we interpret them wrongly. A text I read said it like this: "We take our traumatic childhood, we bury it, we plant daisies on it, and we stick a sign on top saying 'Butterfly Fun Dream Land'". There's a therapist who wrote a very acclaimed book about narcissistic mothers, for example. One would think such an expert saw through her own mother at once, eh? But when she began to realize what her own childhood had really been like, she'd already been a therapist for twenty years. Two decades! So for the rest of us, there's really nothing to feel self-conscious about if we do take a while to really, really realize what precisely has happened to us.

This is actually a side-effect of abuse. Our own voice has been silenced. Our opinions were sidelined. We were taught to not feel, to not see, to not speak out. We were systematically weakened on all fronts. So that's why we're often so blind towards the truth: because this blindness is what the abuse did to us.

But you're still in there. You're starting to break out of all that now. You're determined to get better, to stand on your own two feet and to see things clearly - it's all in your user name, isn't it?    You were able to break through your fears and ask for support, which is an achievement in its own right. I'm amazed you were able to do that while in the middle of a flashback! I have that fear of asking for things too, and I usually just cave. So kudos to you. 

Right now, you're in so much pain. This is so overwhelming. But it will get better. Did you ever see the Shawshank Redemption? It's a bit like that. Some prisons take a long while to get out of. And the escape means we may have to patiently hack away at walls, crawl through suffocating tunnels, and wade through sewers full of sh*t. But at the end of it, there's air and freedom.

So there's really nothing to feel self-conscious about. We're all in the same boat. Be kind to yourself, and give yourself time to recover from your flashbacks. They take up a lot of energy, so if you can do things that relax you, or that are fun, or that feel rewarding and nurturing, it's an excellent idea to do those. Will you keep us posted as to how you're doing?

Hey, it's alright. It's okay. If you're in trouble and need support, you can always say so. No worries. 

This means my relationship with my H only started because I was running from the truth.

Strictly speaking, it means nothing more than that your ex told you to see a therapist and your husband didn't. There could be plenty of other factors involved. Maybe your ex was urging you so much it felt like pressure, and you simply weren't ready for it yet (as happens sometimes with CPTSD), so you wanted someone who felt non-pressuring and safe. 'Running from the truth' - if you put it like that, it sounds bad. But was it really that? So many of us are talking about how CPTSD-truths need to be confronted in tiny, tiny portions. Too much truth at once can flatten us. Wanting to distract ourselves can be a very sane and healthy thing to do.

Also, CPTSD is often created by situations or people who try to control us - to take us over, more or less. And anyone who keeps on urging us, who keeps on wanting to talk us into something, who doesn't accept our no... it can feel like they, too, are trying to control us in an abusive way. It doesn't have to feel like that, but it happens, sadly. So there's yet another reason why your ex-boyfriend's urging might have made you want to run for it.

Also, I'm assuming that your husband has plenty of other good qualities except from his not-mentioning-therapists-or-crappy-families habit. Maybe you simply had good taste?

Be kind to yourself. Trust yourself. You're okay.  I wish you all the best, and I hope your flashback will stop soon.

Hi Sandals! Glad you're back. 

Glad to hear you're feeling better, Rrecovery.    Your way of using tension as meditation-fodder sounds really really interesting. I'll have to try it out. Thanks for sharing this.