Recent posts
#21
Recovery Journals / Re: Blue Sky Blooming
Last post by sanmagic7 - January 16, 2026, 02:54:33 PM
i echo everything NK said. it can be so disheartening to not be able to predict, to ride the wave at a high only to be crashed in the next minute w/o knowing how or why. love and hugs 
#22
Recovery Journals / Re: Blue Sky Blooming
Last post by NarcKiddo - January 16, 2026, 01:34:21 PMIt's good to see you. And I am glad the reason you have not been visiting the forum all that frequently is because you are basically steady and things are going well.
I'm glad you feel better today. But you are not stupid for how you felt yesterday. These anxiety attacks/EFs really can appear as if from nowhere and are all the more surprising when we have been doing well for a while. Well done for calling in sick and for napping. You took care of yourself when you needed it and how you needed to. And if that involves binge-eating maccas then it does. It's not as if you do that every day.
I'm glad you feel better today. But you are not stupid for how you felt yesterday. These anxiety attacks/EFs really can appear as if from nowhere and are all the more surprising when we have been doing well for a while. Well done for calling in sick and for napping. You took care of yourself when you needed it and how you needed to. And if that involves binge-eating maccas then it does. It's not as if you do that every day.
#23
Symptoms - Other / Re: Schrodingers jealousy
Last post by NarcKiddo - January 16, 2026, 12:46:53 PMThank you to everyone for your input. As always, it is interesting just how many of us have similar experiences.
I don't remember much about my childhood, and probably less than most (non CPTSD) people. It's almost a total blank until age 5, bar a few very distinct memories. I can remember a lot more about the period from 5 to 10, which was the grimmest period in many ways.
More about this particular memory is surfacing but is sort of adding to the whole bizarre situation. I am sure it happened when we lived in a particular place which would have made me ten at the absolute outside, probably 9. Which meant S was under 5 and I cannot imagine why on earth GM wanted to take a child that age on a fancy holiday, just the two of them. But, whatever. And I know it happened before M took me on a holiday, just the two of us, to make up for it. I was definitely 10 then.
None of the facts are particularly important but I've just put them down because I have remembered them, in case I want to look back at this thread in the future.
What is coming back to me is that I categorically told my M I was not jealous of S about the holiday. I know I was jealous of S in some ways. Little kid ways, like how she was allowed to wear pretty dresses because she was pretty enough to wear them, so the beauty of the dress would not show up the plain-ness of the wearer. It was made quite clear to me that my clothes were chosen by M to hide my faults. I am pretty sure I never complained about this to M or made my jealousy known, although I guess a child under 10 is not going to be able to hide all feelings completely successfully.
And yet as far as I can recall, it was only this one occasion when M actually told me I should not be jealous. I think I may even have been quite pleased I could tell her quite honestly that I was not jealous. (I actually could not think of anything I wanted to do less than go on holiday with GM.) I probably thought this was a wonderful situation when how I actually felt aligned with how she told me I should feel. But instead of saying "good" and moving on, M really went to town on this jealousy business. There's endless possibilities, of course. M might have been jealous of the holiday herself, though she was terrified of GM. M might have thought that her instruction not to be jealous would cover all past and future jealousy and this was just a convenient moment to raise it.
It is certainly not the only example of Schrodingers anything, though. Bach's comment about the ultimate kid's birthday treat supposedly being a restaurant and a Broadway play resonates. Being taken to the ballet or opera was a great "treat" for me. As was being allowed to stay up for my parents' parties so I could dress in the smart clothes that hid my faults, be a waitress and hand the snacks round. I could make small talk to the adults and make sure I did not speak to them about any forbidden topics that I didn't actually know were forbidden. And I could find creative (but not rude) ways of getting out of normal conversations they started, like asking me what I thought about things, when I did know those topics were forbidden. Yippee!
I think this incident sticks in my mind because it was a time when I thought for a fleeting moment that there wasn't any dissonance. She didn't want me to be jealous and I wasn't. Only to realise she did want me to be jealous. But also she didn't.
I don't remember much about my childhood, and probably less than most (non CPTSD) people. It's almost a total blank until age 5, bar a few very distinct memories. I can remember a lot more about the period from 5 to 10, which was the grimmest period in many ways.
More about this particular memory is surfacing but is sort of adding to the whole bizarre situation. I am sure it happened when we lived in a particular place which would have made me ten at the absolute outside, probably 9. Which meant S was under 5 and I cannot imagine why on earth GM wanted to take a child that age on a fancy holiday, just the two of them. But, whatever. And I know it happened before M took me on a holiday, just the two of us, to make up for it. I was definitely 10 then.
None of the facts are particularly important but I've just put them down because I have remembered them, in case I want to look back at this thread in the future.
What is coming back to me is that I categorically told my M I was not jealous of S about the holiday. I know I was jealous of S in some ways. Little kid ways, like how she was allowed to wear pretty dresses because she was pretty enough to wear them, so the beauty of the dress would not show up the plain-ness of the wearer. It was made quite clear to me that my clothes were chosen by M to hide my faults. I am pretty sure I never complained about this to M or made my jealousy known, although I guess a child under 10 is not going to be able to hide all feelings completely successfully.
And yet as far as I can recall, it was only this one occasion when M actually told me I should not be jealous. I think I may even have been quite pleased I could tell her quite honestly that I was not jealous. (I actually could not think of anything I wanted to do less than go on holiday with GM.) I probably thought this was a wonderful situation when how I actually felt aligned with how she told me I should feel. But instead of saying "good" and moving on, M really went to town on this jealousy business. There's endless possibilities, of course. M might have been jealous of the holiday herself, though she was terrified of GM. M might have thought that her instruction not to be jealous would cover all past and future jealousy and this was just a convenient moment to raise it.
It is certainly not the only example of Schrodingers anything, though. Bach's comment about the ultimate kid's birthday treat supposedly being a restaurant and a Broadway play resonates. Being taken to the ballet or opera was a great "treat" for me. As was being allowed to stay up for my parents' parties so I could dress in the smart clothes that hid my faults, be a waitress and hand the snacks round. I could make small talk to the adults and make sure I did not speak to them about any forbidden topics that I didn't actually know were forbidden. And I could find creative (but not rude) ways of getting out of normal conversations they started, like asking me what I thought about things, when I did know those topics were forbidden. Yippee!
I think this incident sticks in my mind because it was a time when I thought for a fleeting moment that there wasn't any dissonance. She didn't want me to be jealous and I wasn't. Only to realise she did want me to be jealous. But also she didn't.
#24
Recovery Journals / Re: Papa Coco's Recovery Journ...
Last post by SenseOrgan - January 16, 2026, 11:53:04 AMQuote from: Papa Coco on January 12, 2026, 07:24:37 PMI'm feeling kind of glad this mess happened to me. FOr me
Yep.
I'm delighting in your post-traumatic joy Papa Coco. This life is horrifically beautiful. #25
Recovery Journals / Re: Dalloway´s Recovery Journa...
Last post by SenseOrgan - January 16, 2026, 10:58:13 AMI'm sorry Dalloway. The heaviness in your heart is palpable. I'm intimately acquainted with a similar state of being [as far as I can know, off course]. No obvious path ahead, while still ending up in the same spot with every turn taken. And knowing there must be more to the story somewhere, somehow.
One way of framing this, is that the system requires attention to something that's vitally important. It's contained in the very challenging feelings themselves. I've struggled with deep "depression" for decades. I've believed many things about it throughout the years. Most rhymed with "wrong with me" and "beyond repair". I was right. But not in the way I thought. Not even close.
In the saga of me, there is a path. With this kind of matter, I've found, it leads deeper inward. Deeper into the pain itself. There's no wiser, more loving teacher out there. She's making herself known in the places that hurt. It's all you.
Rumi said it better than I ever could in The Guest House.
Much love
One way of framing this, is that the system requires attention to something that's vitally important. It's contained in the very challenging feelings themselves. I've struggled with deep "depression" for decades. I've believed many things about it throughout the years. Most rhymed with "wrong with me" and "beyond repair". I was right. But not in the way I thought. Not even close.
In the saga of me, there is a path. With this kind of matter, I've found, it leads deeper inward. Deeper into the pain itself. There's no wiser, more loving teacher out there. She's making herself known in the places that hurt. It's all you.
Rumi said it better than I ever could in The Guest House.
Much love
#26
Recovery Journals / Re: The tipping point…
Last post by dollyvee - January 16, 2026, 10:58:00 AMLike NK said, what geese bonding time to share with your kids 
Geese = great
Geese = great
#27
Symptoms - Other / Re: Schrodingers jealousy
Last post by dollyvee - January 16, 2026, 10:04:48 AMHey NK,
To me, it seems like it doesn't have anything to do with you as Desert Flower pointed out, but more to do with her. It also seems like an attempt to pit you, or triangulate you, against your sister. They love things like this and it gives them the upper hand and "power" over other people. It's also very hard for me to acknowledge that this kind of manipulation would, or could be coming from people who told me that they loved me.
Sending you support
dolly
To me, it seems like it doesn't have anything to do with you as Desert Flower pointed out, but more to do with her. It also seems like an attempt to pit you, or triangulate you, against your sister. They love things like this and it gives them the upper hand and "power" over other people. It's also very hard for me to acknowledge that this kind of manipulation would, or could be coming from people who told me that they loved me.
Sending you support
dolly
#28
Recovery Journals / Re: Living As All of Me
Last post by Chart - January 16, 2026, 09:51:59 AMThankyou HannahOne! That was absolutely lovely. Frank is now a rockstar thanks to you.
#29
Frustrated? Set Backs? / Re: stuck in a loop
Last post by dollyvee - January 16, 2026, 09:51:35 AMQuote from: asdis on January 15, 2026, 08:11:39 PMWe're just at a point where we need someone to help us tackle this from all the same angles that we have to, and finding someone both willing and capable of that isn't easy. At the very least, we need to find doctors/providers that are willing to work together with each other to help us. We're working on it. It's just taking longer than we can really handle on our own
I'm sorry asdis and perhaps this is the part that is most triggering. Looking back over what's happened over the last 10 years, I think I was hoping that someone would have all the answers and sort it out, much like how I hoped FOO would be there for me in the way that I needed when I was struggling, but weren't. In a way, I had to be my own best advocate and learn as much as I could, and temper it with what the doctors could or couldn't tell me, and find someone that had more knowledge about what happening. It was really stressful. It wasn't until I started seeing the functional medicine practitioner that she eventually linked it back to mold (again, only part of the problem though and didn't touch on MCAS), but even that took a couple of years. Me having to fight for my health hasn't really stopped.
But what I was trying to say above is that some times it takes a while for the inflammation to die down and your body to stop becoming reactive to things. I cut out histamine in the summer and would fall asleep if I ate anything with tomatoes. Now, I had a pizza last week and didn't feel that. So, I think over time my body has processed the extra histamine that was there and allowed more tolerance though I'm pretty sure it will come back if I eat too much histamine.
Sending you support
dolly
#30
Frustrated? Set Backs? / Re: stuck in a loop
Last post by Blueberry - January 16, 2026, 04:19:35 AMAsdis, is there any chance you could get hold of pesticide-free fruit and veggies, so either somebody else's homegrown or organic, especially from small farms or small market gardens where you can trust that they are actually organic? I know that's a long shot but thought I'd suggest it. No need to justify yourself if not feasible because I can imagine all sorts of hindrances.
Before I knew I had cptsd I worked on my own ED both inpatient and outpatient. I remember back then I was a little underweight tho I didn't believe that, I was often exhausted, i had a lot of stomach pain and digestive trouble plus on the advice of my doctor at the time I was avoiding this food and that food and everything was getting worse rather than better... I saw a different doctor who did the 'right' tests the way dollyvee probably means and he really listened and I found out later that in his opinion I couldn't digest anything anymore in a figurative way. In my first inpatient stay in the ED group that's the kind of thing they said too, or rather they'd ask certain patients: What else can't you digest? Who else/What else are you allergic to? I had a nut allergy when I was admitted and based on various of my emotional reactions I'd say now that there was a lot of fear behind the allergy. In fact towards the end of that super-long inpatient stay, I tried out nuts and I had no reaction. In the intervening years whether or not I have a real reaction to nuts that I mistakenly consume depends on how emotionally stable I am. I never reacted again with the intensity of the pre-inpatient stay, and even if I had a minor itch, I could sometimes talk myself out of it. This isn't to say that allergies don't exist, because they do! But there could be an emotional component too. If it doesn't resonate in any way, just ignore all that. It's going to be harder with DID anyway. It would be wonderful if all your docs and therapists etc could work together to tease it all apart.
Anyway I hope you can feel a little lighter even with just writing it out here and feeling understood or semi-understood.
Before I knew I had cptsd I worked on my own ED both inpatient and outpatient. I remember back then I was a little underweight tho I didn't believe that, I was often exhausted, i had a lot of stomach pain and digestive trouble plus on the advice of my doctor at the time I was avoiding this food and that food and everything was getting worse rather than better... I saw a different doctor who did the 'right' tests the way dollyvee probably means and he really listened and I found out later that in his opinion I couldn't digest anything anymore in a figurative way. In my first inpatient stay in the ED group that's the kind of thing they said too, or rather they'd ask certain patients: What else can't you digest? Who else/What else are you allergic to? I had a nut allergy when I was admitted and based on various of my emotional reactions I'd say now that there was a lot of fear behind the allergy. In fact towards the end of that super-long inpatient stay, I tried out nuts and I had no reaction. In the intervening years whether or not I have a real reaction to nuts that I mistakenly consume depends on how emotionally stable I am. I never reacted again with the intensity of the pre-inpatient stay, and even if I had a minor itch, I could sometimes talk myself out of it. This isn't to say that allergies don't exist, because they do! But there could be an emotional component too. If it doesn't resonate in any way, just ignore all that. It's going to be harder with DID anyway. It would be wonderful if all your docs and therapists etc could work together to tease it all apart.
Anyway I hope you can feel a little lighter even with just writing it out here and feeling understood or semi-understood.