Recent posts
#21
Recovery Journals / Re: Post-Traumatic Growth Jour...
Last post by sanmagic7 - February 26, 2026, 03:05:12 PMdang, SO, it's all about the roots, isn't it! strong, healthy roots give way to strong, healthy plants. you know that, and perhaps others in that group will come to learn it as well.
i think a lot of us here didn't get the amount nor the type of compost we've needed to grow up strong and healthy. but, here we are, attempting to rectify the situation, giving ourselves as much compost now as we can tolerate in order to keep growing in a stronger, healthier way. natural gardening, according to our own needs. yep. love and hugs
i think a lot of us here didn't get the amount nor the type of compost we've needed to grow up strong and healthy. but, here we are, attempting to rectify the situation, giving ourselves as much compost now as we can tolerate in order to keep growing in a stronger, healthier way. natural gardening, according to our own needs. yep. love and hugs
#22
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Hi everyone
Last post by bluejayway - February 26, 2026, 02:26:42 PMHello,
I'm new here and new to sharing on forums in general. I have been reading some of the posts and am feeling quite emotional. I've known that I have CPTSD cognitively for years now, but I am only coming to terms with it emotionally and somatically in the last year.
Last year was very intense for me after receiving a late diagnosis of Audhd at the age of 32 while I was travelling around India for a year. I am working through the denial and relief, loss and joy diagnosis brings. Recently, I did safeguarding training for a youth mentoring role, and it triggered a trauma response, which has taken me 70 days to reach a firm footing in myself again. I have been having anxious, scary thoughts that originate from transferred shame from childhood abuse and neglect. Also, I think from repressed body memories.
For months, my identity has been clouded. It feels like the fog that surrounded me growing up. The kind that has kept me in transactional friendships, that I took for real and meaningful. I wish to break from these cycles. I'm here to find meaningful connections, to express myself authentically, and to learn to live with CPTSD and feel what reciprocity is like.
Thanks to therapy, art, music, poetry, nature, and animals, I feel stronger.
It has taken a long time to build up the strength to find this place and share something. It means a lot to me to be here.
I'm new here and new to sharing on forums in general. I have been reading some of the posts and am feeling quite emotional. I've known that I have CPTSD cognitively for years now, but I am only coming to terms with it emotionally and somatically in the last year.
Last year was very intense for me after receiving a late diagnosis of Audhd at the age of 32 while I was travelling around India for a year. I am working through the denial and relief, loss and joy diagnosis brings. Recently, I did safeguarding training for a youth mentoring role, and it triggered a trauma response, which has taken me 70 days to reach a firm footing in myself again. I have been having anxious, scary thoughts that originate from transferred shame from childhood abuse and neglect. Also, I think from repressed body memories.
For months, my identity has been clouded. It feels like the fog that surrounded me growing up. The kind that has kept me in transactional friendships, that I took for real and meaningful. I wish to break from these cycles. I'm here to find meaningful connections, to express myself authentically, and to learn to live with CPTSD and feel what reciprocity is like.
Thanks to therapy, art, music, poetry, nature, and animals, I feel stronger.
It has taken a long time to build up the strength to find this place and share something. It means a lot to me to be here.
#23
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: New here - I want to ackno...
Last post by TheBigBlue - February 26, 2026, 01:51:19 PMHi Doug, welcome 
I'm really glad you found your way here.
Naming that trauma affects you every day - especially when you've spent so long pushing through and functioning - takes a lot of courage. And it makes sense that neglect, even when it looked "innocuous" from the outside, could have such deep and lasting effects.
It also really stands out that you kept going: working, learning, finding therapy that helped, and eventually returning to something you loved to pursue a PhD. That doesn't erase how hard it still is - the fear, the paralysis, the loneliness - but it does say something real about your resilience.
I'm glad you're here, and I hope this can be a place where you don't have to pretend you're not struggling.
(if that's ok)
I'm really glad you found your way here.
Naming that trauma affects you every day - especially when you've spent so long pushing through and functioning - takes a lot of courage. And it makes sense that neglect, even when it looked "innocuous" from the outside, could have such deep and lasting effects.
It also really stands out that you kept going: working, learning, finding therapy that helped, and eventually returning to something you loved to pursue a PhD. That doesn't erase how hard it still is - the fear, the paralysis, the loneliness - but it does say something real about your resilience.
I'm glad you're here, and I hope this can be a place where you don't have to pretend you're not struggling.
(if that's ok)
#24
Recovery Journals / Re: The ramblings of an abused...
Last post by TheBigBlue - February 26, 2026, 01:35:52 PMReading this, I want to share something from my own history - not to compare or interpret, just to put it alongside.
I was also mislabelled as mentally retarded and speech-impaired as a child, and I was hospitalized for enuresis (bedwetting) at age 8. Those labels were treated as facts, not as questions. No one paused to ask what was happening to me, or whether I was okay.
Today, I'm high-functioning - I'm a professor - and when I finally understood what happened to me, including the harm those labels and interventions caused, I grieved deeply. Not just for the pain itself, but for the absence of curiosity, care, or protection. The failure wasn't in me; it was in a system that explained symptoms instead of listening to a child.
I don't have a neat conclusion. I just wanted to name this here, because what you wrote touched that place very clearly for me.
(if that's okay)
I was also mislabelled as mentally retarded and speech-impaired as a child, and I was hospitalized for enuresis (bedwetting) at age 8. Those labels were treated as facts, not as questions. No one paused to ask what was happening to me, or whether I was okay.
Today, I'm high-functioning - I'm a professor - and when I finally understood what happened to me, including the harm those labels and interventions caused, I grieved deeply. Not just for the pain itself, but for the absence of curiosity, care, or protection. The failure wasn't in me; it was in a system that explained symptoms instead of listening to a child.
I don't have a neat conclusion. I just wanted to name this here, because what you wrote touched that place very clearly for me.
(if that's okay) #25
Recovery Journals / Re: Post-Traumatic Growth Jour...
Last post by NarcKiddo - February 26, 2026, 12:55:13 PMThat's a wonderful update. In particular that you can be puzzled, and they can be puzzled, and that's OK. You aren't taking it as a rejection. Maybe one or both parties will find it less puzzling over time but it's no big deal. There is mutual acceptance and that is so important. And so rare, for the likes of us. I am really happy your compost project has had such excellent results.
#26
Recovery Journals / Re: The ramblings of an abused...
Last post by NarcKiddo - February 26, 2026, 12:33:28 PMQuote from: GoSlash27 on February 26, 2026, 05:03:05 AM(Slashy) speaks a great deal, and he is difficult to understand.
There is an alternative interpretation, Slashy, which is that the content was difficult to understand as opposed to the delivery. It is possible that you were referencing things they knew nothing about or did not make sense to them at the time? Or that as you came out of the catatonic state you arrived in your content was jumbled? Just throwing this in there in case it helps as you work through this.
Sending you love and support as you process all of this.
#27
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: New here - I want to ackno...
Last post by Dougm - February 26, 2026, 08:53:31 AMHello, thank-you for your lovely replies. Like others I have read on here I am not quite sure yet how to reply. But your replies and recognition have meant something. You are right that I am also looking for understanding and support, and to feel seen just a little bit. It gives hope to the possibility of opening up in real life with someone.
#28
Recovery Journals / Re: The ramblings of an abused...
Last post by GoSlash27 - February 26, 2026, 05:44:15 AM And so the new timeline is as follows:
-Everything correct up until hiding in the motel.
-Mom ended up imprisoning/ neglecting us in a 2 bedroom apartment.
-Mom abandoning us with a good caretaker
-Caretaker can't afford to keep us, gives us to CWS.
-I arrive in the shelter (McIntyre/ Lawnvue Acres) catatonic, then with a speech impediment.
-Released to the care of my father and grandmother
-Grandmother falls ill, left in the care of "Miss Pat". Abuse.
-Bounced between mother (neglect/ imprisonment) and "Miss Pat" (abuse).
-Abandoned by mother, left with Miss Pat.
-CWS called.
-Subsequent timeline correct, but a year out of date. McIntyre Shelter, Foster home, reunited with mother, brother, and grandmother.
Everything in orange was edited out, the ends spliced together.
-Everything correct up until hiding in the motel.
-Mom ended up imprisoning/ neglecting us in a 2 bedroom apartment.
-Mom abandoning us with a good caretaker
-Caretaker can't afford to keep us, gives us to CWS.
-I arrive in the shelter (McIntyre/ Lawnvue Acres) catatonic, then with a speech impediment.
-Released to the care of my father and grandmother
-Grandmother falls ill, left in the care of "Miss Pat". Abuse.
-Bounced between mother (neglect/ imprisonment) and "Miss Pat" (abuse).
-Abandoned by mother, left with Miss Pat.
-CWS called.
-Subsequent timeline correct, but a year out of date. McIntyre Shelter, Foster home, reunited with mother, brother, and grandmother.
Everything in orange was edited out, the ends spliced together.
#29
Recovery Journals / Re: The ramblings of an abused...
Last post by GoSlash27 - February 26, 2026, 05:03:05 AM Disturbing snippets from the file...
" 7/8/74 (Slashy) has either a hearing problem or is mentally slow. (redacted) is uncertain, but believed he was to be tested for evaluation (redacted) did not know where testing was to be done."
How awful was my experience that they found me in that state?? I would have to have been catatonic!!
" 8/21/74 According to to Mrs. Homind at Lawnvue Acres, (Slashy) is also doing very well. There has been no bed- wetting with (Slashy), although, as with other children who were out of diapers, he has awakened once or twice in the night and taken to the potty. He seems to be in good health and is toilet trained. (Slashy) speaks a great deal, and he is difficult to understand."
My clear baritone delivery and deliberate, perfectly clear diction was a hallmark of 2 year old Slashy. My dad used to relate the stories of me doing it and I remember it vividly from my end. "Daddy? I didn't say I was thirsty, I said I was hungry". I was so messed up I had a speech impediment??
"This case became known to CWS when (mother) abandoned her children and (father) took over their care and placed the children in his home under the care of (Miss Pat), a long time client of CWS whose children had all been placed by CWS, all but one in institutions. This was a very inappropriate placement which occurred in approximately September of 1974."
I have exactly one evening's memory of Miss Pat, which I have related previously. Yes. "Inappropriate" is putting it mildly.
" 7/8/74 (Slashy) has either a hearing problem or is mentally slow. (redacted) is uncertain, but believed he was to be tested for evaluation (redacted) did not know where testing was to be done."
How awful was my experience that they found me in that state?? I would have to have been catatonic!!
" 8/21/74 According to to Mrs. Homind at Lawnvue Acres, (Slashy) is also doing very well. There has been no bed- wetting with (Slashy), although, as with other children who were out of diapers, he has awakened once or twice in the night and taken to the potty. He seems to be in good health and is toilet trained. (Slashy) speaks a great deal, and he is difficult to understand."
My clear baritone delivery and deliberate, perfectly clear diction was a hallmark of 2 year old Slashy. My dad used to relate the stories of me doing it and I remember it vividly from my end. "Daddy? I didn't say I was thirsty, I said I was hungry". I was so messed up I had a speech impediment??
"This case became known to CWS when (mother) abandoned her children and (father) took over their care and placed the children in his home under the care of (Miss Pat), a long time client of CWS whose children had all been placed by CWS, all but one in institutions. This was a very inappropriate placement which occurred in approximately September of 1974."
I have exactly one evening's memory of Miss Pat, which I have related previously. Yes. "Inappropriate" is putting it mildly.
#30
Recovery Journals / Re: Post-Traumatic Growth Jour...
Last post by TheBigBlue - February 26, 2026, 04:50:49 AMThat is awesome