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Wow really glad to have found this thread at this moment. I just posted in the same section of this forum about similar, related feelings. I also experience extreme nostalgia sometimes for this idealized version of what was honestly a terrible childhood with abusive parents. I get angry or ashamed with myself because I want to stop loving them and missing them and feeling special or interesting or prideful about the insane adventures (more  like nightmares) my parents put us through. But at the same time I feel resistant to letting it go. It's like I don't want to stop wishing or hoping or pining even though I know they will never be different people and my childhood was never a perfect childhood. I think the idea of finding other sources of nostalgia is a good one that I will try, too. Love and strength to all of you.

I think one of the worst parts of being no-contact with my whole family is the fact that I feel completely taken out of context. Chaotic as it was, abusive as it was, traumatic as it was, those are still my roots. And now that I have made the decision to surgically remove myself from my family unit (truly my best chance at survival) I feel perpetually uprooted. And so I bring up my trauma in conversations inappropriately, or I read books about dysfunctional families, or watch them on TV. It's all I want to think about and talk about, because if I stop thinking about it or talking about it I will lose my context. And that context is important to me. I have this (probably inappropriate) pride about being raised the way I was raised and exposed to all those crazy things. It made me resilient, a risk-taker. It also made me anxious and depressed and full of triggers, but it's what makes me ME. I think about spending the rest of my life this way, removed from my context, and I feel deep despair. But the idea of going back to them fills me with even deeper despair.

I have found other context and other chosen family and other community, but it still feels temporary. It doesn't feel as unbreakable as family. If starting tomorrow I went without seeing my friends for ten years, I would move on. But I feel I will never fully move on from my family roots. I hear them calling out to me, all the time. And I try to love my family in my own way, far away and without them knowing. I will love them all for the rest of my life, if we never speak again. I wish that I wouldn't. I'm just so frustrated and jumbled and tired. Forever going around in circles.

I just wanted to make a post making clear my deep gratitude for everyone on this forum. I have tried online support forums in the past (before I knew I had C-PTSD) and I have never felt as seen, heard, and understood as I do here. I feel like I receive more than I give in this group as I am in the early stages of my recovery - but I look forward to sticking around long enough to provide the same insight to others that I have found here for myself. Thank you all for that.

Hi bogan, YES!! I definitely consider my eating disorder to be symptomatic of my C-PTSD diagnosis. I know for me that my disordered eating began in childhood, when my parents would call me fat and disgusting regardless of my size or eating habits. When they weren't berating me, they were neglecting me - and I began to develop emotional binge eating out of feelings of being unloved and uncared for. I am so glad my post has been able to bring you some comfort in that regard.

Before I came into therapy for my C-PTSD I would vacillate between extreme highs and lows - during the highs I would operate extremely productively and during the lows I would have periods of chronic daily binge eating and severe acid reflux. Now that I'm in therapy I feel like I'm a low-level triggered state pretty much at all times, and I feel like my binge eating disorder has become a constant (if slightly reduced) state. I brought my eating disorder up to my therapist only once, but in her response I could tell that she wasn't very equipped to help me with this particular issue. I've been trying to find a supplemental resource for my eating disorder, like an eating disorder informed nutritionist or counselor, but none in my area take my insurance. I'm wondering if anyone here has tips for coping with disordered eating when triggered or working through heavy stuff? Thanks!

Just wanted to share a quote that really helped to clarify things for me in a fragile moment the other day. I was messaging a close friend about some despair and helplessness feelings that were coming up for me as a result of feeling like I wasn't being seen/heard by others when stating my needs. She sent me back this quote to encourage me to continue being my own ally even when others don't/can't/won't:

"With every act of self-care your authentic self gets stronger, and the critical fearful mind gets weaker. Every act of self-care is a powerful declaration: I am on my side, I am on my side, each day I am more and more on my side." - Susan Weiss Berry

I  am in my mid 20s and I've been single (no dating no nothing) for four years. The last time I dated someone roughly coincides with the last time I spoke with my FOO. I am sure these must be related but I'm not sure why or how. I don't have any problem making new friends and I have a lot of great close friendships. I still experience attraction/interest in others romantically but the second they show any reciprocation the feelings shut down entirely. I experience a great deal of fear and shame and come up with a million reasons why I shouldn't get involved with them.

Now that it's gone on for so long I feel it getting built up in my brain and it feels more and more impossible to get past. I think part of it is just feeling so fragile as I try to figure out myself and my trauma. I think I also have an image of myself as being an intense person with a lot of needs and burden on a partner. When I imagine trying to go on a date with someone, I feel like I will be weird and "not fun" and embarrassingly inexperienced. In my mind I hope for a deep friendship that grows into a relationship - someone who gets me and knows my history and will know how best to support me, and I won't have to worry about being intense or boring because we will already have a friendship base to build from. But that doesn't just happen, or at least it hasn't thus far. I also fear that if I were to be in a relationship I would fall into toxic/abusive dynamics like I used to before. A romantic relationship has been built up in my mind as this massive threat to my safety and stability. It doesn't feel like something fun or easy - just a trap for more trauma and revictimization.

If anyone knows where I'm coming from and got past it (or is dealing with it right now) I would love to hear from you. I feel so stuck and I'm not sure how to crawl back out.

Occasionally (usually when I'm particularly stressed or anxious) I experience this horrible phenomenon in my sleep. It happens as I'm falling asleep but not quite there, and I will begin to see this rapid mental slideshow of unsettling images. It's usually a mix of bad memories, things I'm afraid of or stressed about, and grotesque/disturbing images that I've seen in movies or in the news. Sometimes I pass through this phase quickly and am able to redirect my thoughts more positively and fall asleep. Often these days I leave my TV on to play some lighthearted sitcom and it helps keep my brain from going to this place. For the last few days, though, I feel like I'm seeing these horrible flashing nightmare images all night and never fully falling asleep. Then during the day I feel so exhausted I begin to feel like I'm living in a dream - it reminds me of the feeling I get when I'm disassociating during a particularly stressful situation. Does anyone else experience these nightmares? Does anyone know if there's a term for it, or a cause, or a treatment? I am going to my therapist's office tomorrow but feel like I should schedule an appointment with my primary care doc as well in case there is something more to it. I've never experienced it this often or intensely and the sleepless nights are beginning to accumulate a bit too much for me to function. It also makes me fear that I'm mentally "unraveling" in some more permanent way. Please let me know if you have insight into this! I am at my wit's end.

Hi, chiming in to say that I totally relate to this thread! Just sharing my experience:

I couldn't get through college because I would just reach points where I felt frozen and couldn't get out of bed anymore, and then end up tanking the semester and feeling worthless over it. Worked a lot of wage slave jobs for a long time just trying to afford my existence without any family safety net to fall back on and the stress of making ends meet made me so overwhelmed all the time. However, I've always felt an intense pull toward working with people who have trauma of their own - helping others satisfies the grief in me that no one ever helped me when I needed it. I've managed to land a salaried position doing work with trauma survivors and it's nice because I have control over my own schedule and can work from home when I need to. And the people I work with are trauma informed and don't blink when I assert my needs.

Now when I can't get out of bed I can give myself the time I need to get back on my feet, or rearrange my schedule and do my work in the middle of the night when I actually have the energy. The flipside though is that I am dealing with a lot of secondary trauma and even though my work days are satisfying they leave me feeling very exhausted and unable to do much else outside of the job. I know that I probably won't be able to do this work very long term because I imagine I'll eventually reach a point of no return on how much secondary trauma I can take on in addition to my own stuff. But it's nice to work with other trauma survivors - their trauma might trigger me sometimes, but their strength rubs off on me too.

A year ago I decided to adopt a dog. I thought having a dog would help me to 1) get out of bed every morning because I have always been better at taking care of others than myself, and 2) improve my mental health by giving me purpose and emotional support. Having her this past year has been really amazing in a lot of ways, but I was interested to find that it has also been incredibly triggering at times. When I'm having trouble with her or when I'm feeling so exhausted, I feel 11 years old again - alone and helpless as I try to care for my younger siblings while my parents work long hours. There are times when I have scared myself with my capacity to feel hatred for my dog during those moments of overwhelm - frightening to me because it reminds me of the contempt my mother sometimes showed for me. These moments are very rare and brief, but they give me a glimpse into how my mother might have come to treat me so abusively. When I feel that anger and resentment toward my dog, I wonder if I would be an abusive parent and it makes me feel like a monster.

With the help of my therapist, those moments with my dog are more and more rare and I feel like I'm finally learning how to love and be loved in an unconditional way. These days I love spending time with her so much and she has so much trust in me and no fear. I feel like I am unlearning all of these abusive patterns of behavior and unlocking this other way of being and it's so encouraging to think I might not become a monster after all. And I know that dogs and people are different, but as I was walking her this weekend I had an epiphany - my mother never experienced unconditional love. And she never got to practice it, because she was a single mother making minimum wage with multiple children by the time she was in her early 20s. She had (and still has) untreated PTSD from her own lengthy trauma history. And as her first born, I took the brunt of that lack of experience in showing love. As a child I either felt like my mother was my best friend or my biggest bully - never my parent. I really believe things would have been different if she had known unconditional love, and if she had been given the opportunities to treat her PTSD like I have. Her life would have been different if she did not have to be responsible for so many living things before she was ready. I am one of 11 siblings - I can only imagine how triggered she felt every waking moment of her life. I am grateful for this new understanding of her experience.

Anyway, just some things I've been thinking about.

Thank you for this post! I 100% relate. I have only recently started connecting this aversion I have to my CPTSD. I also get very anxious at unannounced visitors, or even just hearing the mail man come in the front gate to put my mail in the box. I also have roommates and when I hear them coming home at times other than their usual ones I feel myself freezing up. I had cops, social workers, abusers, etc. in and out of my home/school/etc as a child and I'm definitely starting to think it stems from that. It's hard because I know it can be detrimental to my friendships, when folks stop by to see me and I am so uncomfortable and awkward until they leave. I've even had completely friendly but unexpected encounters that make me instantly burst into tears. I'm trying to be more vocal with my loved ones about my needs in this area even when it feels silly. I'm also trying to teach my brain how to recognize my home as a "safe space" more often. My therapist says that these anxious reactions served a purpose in my childhood to help me  be alert in those stressful situations. But now I need to train my brain that those situations are in the past now and I can relax a little bit more in the safe space I've created for myself. Sending love and solidarity your way!

Just stopping in to put words to some things I've been feeling. I've been in therapy for a year now for my C-PTSD, and I've reached a point where I've seriously committed to my healing. I read all the books my therapist recommends, I practice the techniques, I write in my workbooks. Slowly, slowly, I am seeing improvements in myself. I'm starting to feel like I can really get past this and someday experience a different kind of life.

But some dreams are hard to leave behind. I notice that I still have these movie magic fantasies of knocking on my dad's door, of being let in, of standing in front of him successful and strong. And in this fantasy he is proud of me and he is sorry for everything and ready to begin his own healing.

Or I have this fantasy where I call my mom on the phone one day, a decade or two from now. I buy her a house to live out the rest of her days, because she is still poor and struggling. We talk on the phone once per week after that, catching up on each other's lives and exploring our past harms. And we achieve some kind of closeness.

I need to come to terms with the fact that the future will not meet my fantasy expectations. There is no amount of success or wealth that will suddenly make them love me the way i deserve. We may reconnect one day, but it won't be like in the movies. In fact, it may go badly. And they may never pursue their own healing. I wish I knew how to let those dreams go, but it's a hard kind of grieving. And because the future hasn't happened yet, my mind likes to wonder and imagine.

If anyone has tips on how to close the book on these dreams, I would be very grateful to hear them. Sending love to you all.

I am no contact with my FOO and have been for at least five years. As of a few months ago I have had limited contact with one of my youngest siblings (who is still a minor teen) but I have been considering cutting that off again as he has consistently not respected the boundaries I communicated with regard to contact with the rest of the family (feeding them information about my life, passing on unwanted messages).

Anyway, last week the brother I've been in limited contact with texted me to tell me that our other brother (early 20s) was in a serious car wreck. His skull was cracked, spine destabilized, arms and legs crushed. In the texts he was urging me to come up to the hospital and support the FOO because my brother might not survive. I didn't go, for a lot of reasons. I didn't even respond to the text, just trying to process everything. Anyway, he pulled through the critical stage and is still in the hospital getting reconstructive surgeries. The brother who texted me continues to guilt me about coming up to the hospital.

As far as I'm concerned, nothing has changed. I still want to be no contact. My family is not a part of my support system and I am no longer a part of theirs. Furthermore, all of the attempts at contact my family has made over the last five years have included the same abusive tactics that drove me away in the first place.

I guess I'm just writing to say that this is the biggest major tragedy that has struck my FOO since I went no contact. It was super traumatizing to be getting these texts and seeing pics of his car all crunched up in the news with the jaws of life pulling him out. It's terrifying for me to think of what his life is going to look like as he recovers from this. But it's been a pivotal learning experience too. I learned that, even in the darkest hours, I feel confident that we are better off apart. And I learned that my life won't go totally off the rails anymore when my FOO is in crisis and calling on me to do something. Hopefully next time something terrible happens (there will inevitably be a next time) I will feel more prepared.

I have been no contact with my entire biological family for the last five years at least due to abusive behavior, boundary violations, and aggravated stalking from my parents. I have always felt a great deal of guilt and pain for leaving behind my siblings (who are still minors), and was half elated and half terrified a couple months ago when one of my siblings reached out to me. We met for coffee, became friends on FB, and have been exchanging text messages. He is still a teenager but is having some realizations of his own about our family and wanted to speak with me about how I escaped.

Anyway, fast forward to my birthday over the weekend. I get a text from my brother asking how my birthday is going and I sent off a friendly response outlining my day. He then responds by saying "I'm at mom's house right now, she says happy birthday too!" While I was deciding how to respond, he sent me a screenshot of a Facebook post from my mother talking about how much I hurt her and how badly she misses me, playing the victim etc etc. I responded to my brother "Thank you for the birthday wishes! But in the future I would appreciate not being shown any messages or posts from mom. I have made the decision not to have contact with her, and that includes seeing things like this."

He then wrote back a long post about how he "can't take being in the middle anymore" and how "I know you think mom has boundary issues or whatever" but that I'm tearing the family apart. He said how he just wants his sister back, and for everything to be okay again. His message totally destroyed me emotionally, because I already feel so much guilt about my siblings and now it felt confirmed. But I also felt angry that he was saying all of this to me on my birthday, and that my mother was likely the one manipulating him to do it. I wrote back to him that I don't want him to feel in the middle either and that whatever contact he decides to have or not have with me is his decision and I would love and support him anyway. I told him that he wasn't responsible for "making it better" and that his only responsibility was to his own happiness. But I also said that I have a responsibility for my happiness, and a right to my boundaries and that I wasn't going to change them for anyone but me.

He hasn't written back. I feel pretty heartbroken, but I know the pain he must be feeling from both sides and I don't want to put him in the same position I know so well. I just wish he were free from her manipulations, and that he weren't being made to feel as if this is his fault or in his control. I hate that he feels like I am the one "ruining the family" but I also know that's just because of what he's hearing from our parents. I just feel so sad all around. But at the same time I feel a little relieved - I was so so afraid about what would happen when one of my siblings came looking for me, and whether all the boundaries and progress I have worked so hard for would just crumble for them. But I kept my boundaries firmly in place, even if it hurt so terribly not to place myself between him and my mother. It's just not my place anymore. Their relationship is up to him now.

Just writing this in solidarity with other people out there who might be hurting over how their other family relationships suffered when cutting off contact with an abuser. It's so so hard, but every day we continue to make choices in favor of ourselves we get a little stronger.

I wake up every day feeling either empty or overwhelmed. I go to my job feeling either empty or overwhelmed. I'm in check out at the grocery store feeling either empty or overwhelmed. I do my laundry feeling either empty or overwhelmed. I meet friends for dinner feeling either empty or overwhelmed. I try to fall asleep feeling either empty or overwhelmed. It's exhausting, I'm exhausted, I just want to maintain basic feelings of safety and belonging in this world. Everything is so close and just beyond me. I want to so badly to reach out and touch something.