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Hi, BeHea1thy,

so sorry you got stood up this morning - so frustrating!

I am glad you'll have a few hours 'off' tomorrow. Please treat yourself to something really nice - you deserve it!

How are you doing, healthwise?

Best wishes and lots of  , kf

Tough times don't last forever - tough people do

maybe my Outer Critic started as a self-protective measure, and if he thinks there's danger, he becomes super alert and trigger-happy.

Very interesting point. I think you're on to something... moderate amounts of OCr are probably even healthy. It's when the OCr rises to be the Hulk that it gets in the way. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case right now for my OCr: The Hulk has risen and I need to somehow shrink it asap for my own good. No idea how to tackle this... 

I am so much more susceptible to EF's, tears, massive waves of sorrow when I am really tired.

Chicken --- egg.

I had asumed that the upcoming unemployment caused the EF which then caused the insomnia, but it might easily have been the other way around. Honestly, I am still very new to recognizing EFs and ICr and OCr and everything else connected to CPTSD and I do not recall whether the insomnia or the EF started first. They do seem to complement each other in a downward spiral, though. 

Right now, I really wish I could catch up on some sleep. I am so afraid that my over-inflated OCr will cause me to drive people away while they're really just trying to be nice. My judgment seems to compromised at the moment when it comes to human interactions which makes me very insecure and my OCr even bigger.... *sigh*

I am suffering from insomnia at the moment - caused by the still unresolved job situation of my h. I haven't had a full night's sleep since the beginning of december when it became apparent that h would soon be out of a job and nothing new on the horizon.

Lately, I've started to notice that I am more easily irritated by quite normal behaviour and cannot tolerate much - good or bad. I also find that I am unusually critical of people ('unusual' as compared to my normal feelings towards others).

Is this common or am I imagining things? Does insomnia really wake the OCr up?

Hi, Ali,

pleased to meet you on this  forum! 

I am very sorry that you've had such a tough time of it lately and I am glad you're fighting your way back to feeling better. 

Have you checked out Pete Walker's site on CPTSD yet? http://www.pete-walker.com/

Best wishes and hope to see more of your posts here!

kf

But you still have to be ready to leap in and prevent disasters. So you spend at least half a dozen years primed to jump in and fix things. Constant repetition paves new neural pathways. Which have then to be unpaved again once our kids are teenagers.

Very true.

I feel a bit ashamed that I hadn't noticed that her needs had changed - totally went by me. Well, at least she's told us at some point (... delivered in the typical teenage fashion...   ). We learn and grow - and are always one step behind our kids in their development  .

Now that I've had time and a bit of emotional distance to think things over, I believe that my biggest 'mistake' was that I told her everything I've learned over the past two years about manipulative behaviour and how to deal with it in one go - and that was counter productive. (I also tend to do that when talking to my h about relationshippy stuff [friends, family, workplace] --- it's just so much information stored up and when I open my mouth, it flows out and never stops...)

Hi, Cat,

wham --- you've hit many nerves in your analysis! It never ceases to amaze me that though our experiences were individual and different in many ways, the patterns are so recognizable and the impact was so much alike...

Getting over the whole learned helplessness thing is very tough. I am still afraid to take active steps to alter a situation and often go into 'freeze' instead. I guess we missed a few developmental steps in puberty - like your kid (and mine) is taking now in negotiating more freedom and responsibility for themselves. (By the way: You have my fullest sympathy in having to deal with the way teenagers reset their boundaries --- it's very exhausting, everything is a big drama and in the end you as a grown up are fighting hard to keep yourself from behaving like a teenager yourself ... ). Well, at least our teenagers get to grow up and gradually take on more responsibility for themselves, whereas we were diliberately and selfservingly kept young and helpless and obedient.

Hi, Annegirl,

I'm afraid I do not have anything that might help you.

Sending you a  .

Do whatever is necessary (and possible) to keep yourself and your children safe. 

kf

Not a parent, but I think it's admirable of you to listen to your d and provide her a trustworthy space to talk about her challenges. I have friends who are parents, and I can tell how heavy their hearts are when their children are experiencing challenges.

Thank yo so much for your validation. 

I think it's time I bought Brene's book.  I love her TED talks already and your description has made me want to order the book as well. 

I am not a parent either, but I think you just setting with her, and validating her feelings, being there if she needs you...is all you have to do.

I know you're right but it is sometimes really hard to sit quietly in the backround. Last year, my d had an accident on her way to school. Broke her nose and had a concussion. The first few days were bare survival - lots of sleeping and lots of pain meds. It broke my heart to watch her check her cell in vain for a message from one of her friends at school - asking her what had happened, wishing her well, any sign of sympathy. Turns out that this girl had told everyone in school that my d hadn't been in any accident at all but that she had had an argument with 'girl' and invented the story of an accident to avoid 'her'. So when d returned to school after a week and it was fairly obvious that she had been in an accident (...a broken nose is kind of hard to miss - it's right in the middle of your face and was sporting lots of colors  ) - still none of the kids approached her, asked her how she was doing or apologized for not texting. I guess most of them were a bit ashamed for having believed the made up story and didn't know how to behave. D got support from us and from the teachers at school but the lack of support from her 'friends' still hurt her - and it also permanently altered her relationship with her former bff who was also a participant in this 'game'.

Absolutely. Something I find especially valuable for your daughter is that you (very clearly) try to respect her - from what you write, it seems that you did your best to really listen to her, and that you respect her decisions. You're not diving in from up above, telling her how to fix this or giving the brisk kind of "good advice". That's what my mother did when I had toxic friends as a teen: she'd listen for a little while, and then she'd give a very brief bit of advice, done. It just made me feel even more stupid. I'm thinking - if you show your kid (as you do) that you enjoy her company and that you respect what she says and that you're interested in her thoughts, that might go some way towards counter-balancing the poison her "friends" spew at her.

I'm afraid that I did fall into the trap of giving too much advice. Not like your mom - but I do have a tendency to keep on talking when I should stop. That's why it's a good thing that she stood up for herself and asked us to give her more space.

The 'new rules of communication' that we agreed to about two weeks ago seem to be working fine: She is actually more open instead of less about a variety of things, not only painful things. H and I agreed that the message we want to be sending her is mainly along the lines of "You deserve good friends", "you deserve to demand good lessons" and "you deserve to stand up for yourself"- and not go into details so much any more....

I'm a mother two, and I know all this is easier said than done, alas. Sometimes I'm thinking that motherhood means working very hard until you fail in a way that everyone can hopefully live with. It's so hard. I'm trying to teach myself that I'm not actually responsible for making my kids happy for the rest of their lives. But it's so tempting. And if I'm honest - if someone hurts my kids, I want that person's head on a pike. Not literally. But there's this wish to pack my kids away to safety and go "HISSSS" at whoever bothers them.

I totally understand what you're saying: I never knew I had anything of the tigress in me until I had kids....

Watching your kids struggling with toxic friends.

There's so little you can do as a parent - they have to defend their own place in the group and develop the skills not to be a doormat by trial and error themselves.

When they are little - until about the end of primary school - you can still interfere as a parent if need be, but once they've become teenagers, it's essential to take a step back and let them handle it themselves.

Our d has been on the receiving end of a smear campaign for some time now. She asked us specifically not to try and interfere and let her handle it her own way. We've now agreed that she can talk to us about whatever she wants whenever she wants - if she tells us up front whether she wants our help, our advice or just a person to vent to, we will act according to her wishes.

Taking a step back, watching my beloved d get hurt and fight her way back up is incredibly hard for me. The urge to prevent her from coming to any harm - emotional or otherwise - is still very very strong. I try to trust that it'll make her stronger and help her develop the skills to fend off these kind of people that  work for her.

Anybody else feel/felt that way? I'd love to hear experiences from other parents!

[never ever]

Hi, bheart,



For what it's worth: Your (former) t sounds like a narcissistic d1ckh@#d who uses his counselling practise to get lots of primary N supply. Truly: The fault is NOT with you, in any way, and though t sessions often put you through a lot of turmoil emotionally, shame should never ever  be an emotion with which you leave the session. Truly: None of it was your fault nor your doing!!!! He is just one bad apple and neither represents all counsellors nor all Christians. You deserve better than this! 

I am so sorry you have to deal with this now on top of everything else.

(By the way: When I stopped t last year, I took a small present for my t to the last session - a tiny box of the Belgian chocolates that were the first step out of my depression and served as a lifeline for me for a while. It was meant as a nice token present and she was genuinely pleased about it - no awkwardness at all).

Hang in there and post away here! We're here for you as best as we can. 

Best wishes, kf

Interesting and promising research:

http://www.neuroscientistnews.com/research-news/study-identifies-two-genes-boost-risk-ptsd

Let's hope this and other studies will eventually lead to beter meds and treatments for (C)-PTSD sufferers. 

Hi, fmh,



I am so sorry that you are having such a tough time now. It sucks.

Your symptoms remind me of a severe depression I had last year in the wake of maltreatment by my (former) GP. I pretty much lost interest in everything including food at the time, too. In desperation, I contacted my old t and she helped me through it.

The other thing that strikes me in your story is that you moved to a different climate than the one you were used to. Depression is sometimes linked with darkness and for some people a certain light therapy that can be applied at home helps to alleviate the symptoms. Someone from my gym class really benefits from it. It's worth asking a t or a doctor about....

Sending you warm and sunny thoughts and lots of  .

Best wishes! kf

Hi, noname,

nice to meet you on this forum! 

My conclusion, with the above information in mind, was that the only thing that will put a stop to my own family dysfunction will be a strong will to do so.  Without that, probably nothing would stop it, and my kids, grandkids, and great grandkids would one day think about how my dysfunction led to their own.  I vowed that would never happen.  From that point forward, I vowed to stop the dysfunction, for the sake of my kids and grandkids. 

So anyway, I thought I had it all figured out.  The day each of my children were born were the two best days of my life! 

When I was told that I had cptsd, I was beyond crushed.  I suddenly wondered if I was even capable of being a good mom.  And wondered if I was in denial that I was actually harming my kids?  It was too much.  I lost my grip for a brief period.

I regained my grip, with new information, and I and my kids have benefitted from it.  I now know what demons need to be fought hardest, and which ones are just a nuisance.  My will is stronger now that I know what I'm looking at.  Before, I was just fighting the ghosts of my childhood, without a clear view of how those ghosts were penetrating my kids life. 

I remain hopeful about the outcome for my kids!

I am totally on board with what you're saying here: I was and am determined that the cycle of abuse stops with me and will not be passed on to my children.

Here's a thread about this subject you might find interesting: http://outofthefog.net/C-PTSD/forum/index.php?topic=183.0

I truly hope and believe that our efforts to break the cycle will not be in vain and that our children will not be burdened with the same FOG that weighed us down. 

Kudos, kf

Hi, morph!

Talking about the beach when there's been barely any sun here all week - I call that cruel! 

I read Pete Walkers book last summer (incidentally, by the pool, not the beach  ) and it was so overwhelming (...can't think of a better word for how it made me feel). It's just quite a lot to take in - and the steps you need to take towards recovery take time and practice and some of them are painful and tiresome...

The good thing about recovery, though, is that it's not so much a case of '2 steps ahead, 1 back' but you can also think of it as a spiral: Even though you revisit different parts again and again, you are no longer the same person you were the first time around; you've dealt with some aspects already and are ready to take on the ones that were still too raw and painful last time around...

when I found out about complex PTSD but now I feel or can see so more clearly what is wrong in my life that it all looks a bit daunting - almost impossible.

I just hope that I'm on the right road at last because it looks like a long one starting off with a long tunnel.  Its all a bit emotionally draining and I've only just started scratching the surface.

Do you remember that episode from 'Friends' where Rachel and Joey read each others favorite books and Joey has to put them in the freezer when he finds them too emotionally disturbing/draining? - That's basically what I did with Pete Walkers book after a first quick read through it: Put it in the proverbial 'freezer' and treated myself to some relaxing books for a while before I took it 'out' again and began to proceed in baby steps...

Who knows, if you start your journey through your own personal tunnel, it might not be as long and dark as you think - and you don't have to feel alone because many of us are right there with you. 

Best wishes!

kf

Hi, Elly,

the only advice I can think of is: Go with your instincts! If answering her call makes you uncomfortable, there's probably a good reason for it and you have every right not to take a call without feeling guilty about it.

Here's a link about narcissistic female friends that might be helpful: http://narcissisticbehavior.net/the-typical-narcissistic-woman-as-a-friend/

I have been burned by female friends and didn't understand how and why - and this article helped me get some perspective.

Kudos to you! 

kf