Recent posts
#1
Recovery Journals / Re: The tipping point…
Last post by dollyvee - Today at 09:19:53 AMHey Chart,
I just want to clarify that I'm not encouraging you to let go of your fear. I think it's always something we will have in us, but perhaps our approaches on how to manage it will change with time. Maybe it's how does my fear shape the choices I'm making towards my health and well being, which might be directed by fear, or perhaps another way of putting it is child consciousness? For example, is the approach I'm taking now towards my health furthering the struggle I endured as a child, and not coming from a place of adult consciousness?
I hope you spend time with your little four year old. I can only imagine that a young boy growing up without a father would have to find ways and ideas of having to be "big and strong" with no weakness to exist in the world.
Sending you support,
dolly
I just want to clarify that I'm not encouraging you to let go of your fear. I think it's always something we will have in us, but perhaps our approaches on how to manage it will change with time. Maybe it's how does my fear shape the choices I'm making towards my health and well being, which might be directed by fear, or perhaps another way of putting it is child consciousness? For example, is the approach I'm taking now towards my health furthering the struggle I endured as a child, and not coming from a place of adult consciousness?
I hope you spend time with your little four year old. I can only imagine that a young boy growing up without a father would have to find ways and ideas of having to be "big and strong" with no weakness to exist in the world.
Sending you support,
dolly
#2
Recovery Journals / Re: Marcine’s journaling forwa...
Last post by SenseOrgan - Today at 08:20:30 AMTo me, it seems you are honoring your actual experience in this moment. You are siding with you. This is the practice of validating your worthiness, which you were born with. Unworthiness is a coat we had to wear to protect us. It never did fit us. No other coat will itself make us worthy either. The person wearing it always was, already.
That insight can be very painful, if it felt like a howling void to be the one underneath the coat in relation to others. The howling void ceases to be that in authentic, safe, connection.
You are making that possible by showing up the way you do. That takes courage. And it wouldn't happen without love and respect for the one underneath the coat.
That insight can be very painful, if it felt like a howling void to be the one underneath the coat in relation to others. The howling void ceases to be that in authentic, safe, connection.
You are making that possible by showing up the way you do. That takes courage. And it wouldn't happen without love and respect for the one underneath the coat.
#3
Recovery Journals / Re: Post-Traumatic Growth Jour...
Last post by HannahOne - Today at 01:04:53 AMHappy New Year, SenseOrgan!!
#4
Recovery Journals / Re: Marcine’s journaling forwa...
Last post by HannahOne - Today at 01:03:02 AMHooray for not squeezing yourself into a mask, Marcine! Confidence, or "faith with oneself," and self-respect, can't be found when we have to play a role.
I can feel the courage in your words. No platitudes will do.
Reading your words, I see goodness, honesty, power, and vulnerability, which is its own kind of power, the power of the raw truth. And insistence on nothing less.
May that direct experience of your own inherent worth be yours.
Confidence, or "faith with oneself," and self-respect, can't be found when we have to play a role. I can feel the courage in your words. No platitudes will do.
Reading your words, I see goodness, honesty, power, and vulnerability, which is its own kind of power, the power of the raw truth. And insistence on nothing less.
May that direct experience of your own inherent worth be yours.
#5
Recovery Journals / Re: Marcine’s journaling forwa...
Last post by Marcine - January 01, 2026, 11:52:14 PMSelf-esteem seems elusive to me.
Defined as: confidence in one's own worth or abilities; self-respect.
Yeah, nope... I've no idea what that really means.
I used to have a crafted, well-oiled mask of effectiveness, efficiency, niceness, self-sacrifice, soldiering on.
That mask does not fit me any longer. I won't squeeze myself into it.
This tender, squirming larva is exposed, sans armor.
Affirmations seem ridiculous right now.
Reminding myself of how far I've come doesn't hit home.
The fact that others believe in me, depend on me, are proud of me is no panacea.
Intellectual understanding rings hollow.
I seek a direct experience of my goodness. Of my inherent worth.
Some way to fill the howling void in the very center of me, that I've run away from since forever.
I squirm.
Defined as: confidence in one's own worth or abilities; self-respect.
Yeah, nope... I've no idea what that really means.
I used to have a crafted, well-oiled mask of effectiveness, efficiency, niceness, self-sacrifice, soldiering on.
That mask does not fit me any longer. I won't squeeze myself into it.
This tender, squirming larva is exposed, sans armor.
Affirmations seem ridiculous right now.
Reminding myself of how far I've come doesn't hit home.
The fact that others believe in me, depend on me, are proud of me is no panacea.
Intellectual understanding rings hollow.
I seek a direct experience of my goodness. Of my inherent worth.
Some way to fill the howling void in the very center of me, that I've run away from since forever.
I squirm.
#6
Recovery Journals / Re: The tipping point…
Last post by Armee - January 01, 2026, 10:42:20 PMHappy New Year, Chart! 
#7
Inner Child Work / Re: This is new
Last post by Ran - January 01, 2026, 07:57:15 PMQuote from: Blueberry on January 01, 2026, 06:53:49 PMQuote from: Kizzie on January 01, 2026, 05:00:18 PMGood grief Ran, a 2 year wait for therapy,
It's not unusual to have a two-year wait here for therapy, especially trauma therapy. You know where I am Kizzie.
Ran, I'm in a continental European country too.Quote from: Ran on January 01, 2026, 01:57:38 PMLately there us a guy in my life. He knows about my inner child and cptsd. He is very kind and supportive. He kinda became the father figure. Not in a freaky way or anything like that. Mostly he's been trying to get my inner child out more. Make me play and have fun and smile. We even wondered if we have been good parents. It's kinda sweet.
That's lovely, Ran.
I've done a lot of inner child work too and I'm trying to think how I progressed in it. I know that reading "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron and doing some of the exercises was helpful. Also doing things like finger-painting and eventually foot-painting, neither of them being things I ever would have been allowed to as a child. There were a couple of years in which I spent a lot of time swinging at the park. Apparently, it's something that children almost need or at least it's very beneficial for them for regrouping etc so it was interesting to me how much I seemed to need it then.
It was also helpful for me to read books about child and adolescent development, basically parenting books, but with more modern ideas than my parents ever had. Also, acquiring a few new stuffies who are my therapy/healing stuffies, not childhood stuffies. If you build up a relationship with healing stuffies, sometimes just looking at them can help you find a solution, I have found, or just have a few impulses on what to do next, eg. play!
I don't remember doing much finger painting either. We did I guess try it in kindergarten. I'm not sure I liked it too much due to being quite sensitive to different sensory stuff. I didn't enjoy too much touching paint with my fingers and tracing it on paper. I did like art though and I am quite creative person. I remember when I was little and hospital due to my weak immune system I was forbidden to draw with markers, because I ruined the white sheets haha.
I do like drawing with markers, so I think I should try that more. I need to read that book. The artists way. I have heard of it, but never read it.
This gives me a good idea to grab some child developement books from library tomorrow.
#8
Inner Child Work / Re: This is new
Last post by Ran - January 01, 2026, 07:46:41 PMQuote from: Kizzie on January 01, 2026, 05:00:18 PMGood grief Ran, a 2 year wait for therapy, that's completely unacceptable! I don't know about where you live but here in Canada many therapists treat according to a sliding scale, what you can reasonably pay. It might be something to check.
Good to hear you have a friend who is trying to help you bring out your inner child. That's what I worked on first and it made such a difference that young me had some fun and began to trust adult me to look out for her.
Hope you're able to get some therapy earlier than 2 years and in the meantime, let your inner child have some fun. It's a balm to the soul or so I found.
I live in Estonia. It's pretty much standard here. Like to get to see any specialized doctor you must be ready to wait. I mean I lucked out with eye doctor appointment and got it to February, but it can be months and months, if not years just waiting for your turn.
And I'd go private, but those are too expensive for me. It depends, but it can be 100€+ per session and I'd need a lot of sessions. I just don't have that kind of money.
At least with waiting I have a chance to even get therapy.
I had no idea at first that this is what he was trying to do. Get my inner child out. It was unexpected when he told me. He was kinda pushing a lot of my buttons and my cptsd emotional storms got intense.
#9
Recovery Journals / Re: The tipping point…
Last post by HannahOne - January 01, 2026, 07:24:57 PM"Prediction error is nothing more than a name for something that helps to more accurately understand what "it" actually is. I had the same experience when I discovered the acronym CPTSD. For me, "Prediction Error is the element that allows me to define my EF in such a way that I have a little bit more elbow room to see and appreciate my inner children, the ones who suffered this process and the ones who are fated to repeat this suffering due to the neuronal necessity to "learn it or die"."
I only read a few posts so far Chart. I get not responding to all the comments on your journal, no expectation for you to reply. Just wanted to say good to see you working through your experience!
I so admire the PMR and exercises you do each day. This is something I have to start doing as my health is breaking down in various ways and I need to take the needs of my nervous system more seriously and put myself first. I am inspired!
Your thoughts on prediction error are so interesting. I work with abused animals and they make prediction errors too. They don't have language-making brains like we do so they don't have a story to drop, or shift, they're more in the moment. So in some ways it's simpler for them. I just have to keep triggering them to be in the present, prompting their attention to the here and now where despite their prediction, nothing bad is happening, and getting them to notice that. They more easily "retain" that new nervous system stance, maybe because their brain doesn't start making stories and meaning out of it.
I only read a few posts so far Chart. I get not responding to all the comments on your journal, no expectation for you to reply. Just wanted to say good to see you working through your experience!
I so admire the PMR and exercises you do each day. This is something I have to start doing as my health is breaking down in various ways and I need to take the needs of my nervous system more seriously and put myself first. I am inspired!
Your thoughts on prediction error are so interesting. I work with abused animals and they make prediction errors too. They don't have language-making brains like we do so they don't have a story to drop, or shift, they're more in the moment. So in some ways it's simpler for them. I just have to keep triggering them to be in the present, prompting their attention to the here and now where despite their prediction, nothing bad is happening, and getting them to notice that. They more easily "retain" that new nervous system stance, maybe because their brain doesn't start making stories and meaning out of it.
#10
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: Looking for hope...
Last post by Desert Flower - January 01, 2026, 06:59:05 PMHello Ray, I'm so sorry you're feeling so bad as a result of the way you were treated. I can relate to your feelings of hopelessness too. I also ask myself the question sometimes whether 'healed' from CPTDS is actually possible (imo 'healing' definitely is). We just want the triggering and the pain to be over so bad. I understand.
I was also reliving part of my trauma some two years ago and that threw me back into it all over again. It hurt so bad to be hit in the same spot again. And I think it's actually very common to be coping/ 'highly functioning' for many years, until at some point in our forties/fifties, we can no longer keep it up.
I recently read Janina Fischer, "a trauma therapist with over 40 years of helping survivors" ("Healing the Living Legay of Trauma") and she says (on page 97) that: "A life after trauma is not a life in which we will never ever be triggered again. It is a life in which being triggered is a nuisance, not a catastrophe or an experience of shame." So that will be it then. And that would actually be good enough, I think.
I'm wishing you all the best in your healing journey. I hope hanging out here will be as helpful for you as it has been for me. It has changed so much for me to know people here really understand. I hope it will for you as well.
I was also reliving part of my trauma some two years ago and that threw me back into it all over again. It hurt so bad to be hit in the same spot again. And I think it's actually very common to be coping/ 'highly functioning' for many years, until at some point in our forties/fifties, we can no longer keep it up.
I recently read Janina Fischer, "a trauma therapist with over 40 years of helping survivors" ("Healing the Living Legay of Trauma") and she says (on page 97) that: "A life after trauma is not a life in which we will never ever be triggered again. It is a life in which being triggered is a nuisance, not a catastrophe or an experience of shame." So that will be it then. And that would actually be good enough, I think.
I'm wishing you all the best in your healing journey. I hope hanging out here will be as helpful for you as it has been for me. It has changed so much for me to know people here really understand. I hope it will for you as well.