Recent posts
#21
Family / Re: Left out
Last post by Gromit - February 27, 2026, 08:14:09 PMAn update:
I attended the funeral and the wake, everyone was very nice but I am not sure I will see anyone again until the next big event. My cousin does stay somewhere locally and was staying for a couple of weeks, he had hinted that we must spend some time together after the funeral whilst he had wife were here, maybe that went out the window as her sister was also with them. Quite relieved really, I am not a fan of family gatherings.
Interestingly, my mother has not sent a thing since my uncle, her brother, died. No Christmas card, no birthday card for my son. My husband was concerned. The celebrant at the funeral said that my mother had a link to watch the funeral so she is obviously alive.
It is a little curious that she has not sent anything, she has kept up with that despite our estrangement.
Whether she only sent things because her brother encouraged her too or whether it is some other reason I will never know.
I attended the funeral and the wake, everyone was very nice but I am not sure I will see anyone again until the next big event. My cousin does stay somewhere locally and was staying for a couple of weeks, he had hinted that we must spend some time together after the funeral whilst he had wife were here, maybe that went out the window as her sister was also with them. Quite relieved really, I am not a fan of family gatherings.
Interestingly, my mother has not sent a thing since my uncle, her brother, died. No Christmas card, no birthday card for my son. My husband was concerned. The celebrant at the funeral said that my mother had a link to watch the funeral so she is obviously alive.
It is a little curious that she has not sent anything, she has kept up with that despite our estrangement.
Whether she only sent things because her brother encouraged her too or whether it is some other reason I will never know.
#22
Recovery Journals / Re: Living As All of Me
Last post by TheBigBlue - February 27, 2026, 07:48:53 PMI would love to have an answer, but I don't.
What you wrote - the robot mode, the spacing out, the sundowning, the loss of faith in all the frameworks that used to hold you - that doesn't sound like "doing suffering"; it sounds like surviving another wave with the tools that are left.
If you find an umbrella that actually works in this storm, please hand me one too. 👀🔍🌧☔
In the meantime, I'll sit here with you in it - just two soggy humans scanning the horizon and looking for it together. ☔💛
What you wrote - the robot mode, the spacing out, the sundowning, the loss of faith in all the frameworks that used to hold you - that doesn't sound like "doing suffering"; it sounds like surviving another wave with the tools that are left.
If you find an umbrella that actually works in this storm, please hand me one too. 👀🔍🌧☔
In the meantime, I'll sit here with you in it - just two soggy humans scanning the horizon and looking for it together. ☔💛
#23
About Complex PTSD / Re: What is Complex PTSD & How...
Last post by Kizzie - February 27, 2026, 06:36:56 PMFeb 27th - Here's a new video "Trauma: It's More Complex Than You Think" - a presentation by trauma researcher, clinician and psychology professor Dr. Colette Smart from the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.
Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuKHO0vHEa0
Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuKHO0vHEa0
#24
Recovery Journals / Re: Living As All of Me
Last post by HannahOne - February 27, 2026, 06:17:04 PMIn ACT and DBT they talk about circles of suffering. How there's the original trauma and then how our responses can add to the suffering. This could become self-blame, but it can also become a way out. Depends on how you look at it.
I notice ways of being in myself that are adding to my suffering. I have the original trauma, resonating REALLY hard right now. Unfortunately. It's a bell that is easily rung and then I'm vibrating with it in my teeth for weeks and weeks. My jaw hurts, my bones hurt. I can't see straight.
So what do I do?
I isolate. I stay in bed and stare at the wall. I guess I'm spacing out. I think about what I need to do that day, and I activate some part of me to do the things. A bit robotically. Make the sandwiches, feed the beasts. And then back to bed. Once I'm in bed I think about what I'll have to do next and I shut down until that time. When the alarm goes off, I robotically get up and do the next set of things. The kids are very active right now, one in school and a part time job, one in school and several activities so they are like ships in the night, stopping home at 4 pm to get refueled (sandwiches!) and then off again, coming home before bed. I greet, hug, I can be a mom. But then back to bed and spacing out. I'm sundowning at 8-9pm, I get anxious, everything feels smaller and darker and I don't want any demands. Twelve hours of fitful sleep. I wake up with my eyelids glued shut. I know winter is making everyone stir crazy. I'm also doing suffering. I'm doing the thing I do to avoid the pain I carry. I'm creating more suffering, more problems, leaving problems unsolved. It's not great.
For a good period of months I was undoing it. I was doing clothes, going out, talking to people, taking more clients, making art. I was undoing all of that.
The last few weeks I am doing it more and more. I'm doing something I don't want. I can't seem to undo it. I don't have what I need to undo it right now and I don't know how to get it. In the past I feel I was much stronger in many ways. I had a lot of energy to go get the things I needed. To do, in the outer world. To go get what I needed, to seek and find, to plug into things and create energy, create a home, a community. I created many communities.
I don't know why but I turned 50 and I can't do it anymore. Some of it may be the pandemic, I know everyone is struggling right now to create community. I fear some of it is post-traumatic decline catching up to me. Even though I was in therapy for 30 years and worked so hard, I was always at the cutting edge of the latest trauma therapy and the therapist was always building the plane as we were flying it, going to get more training, let's try this, let's try this, and I tried it all. Some of it helped for sure. Some of it was retraumatizing. And also I'm just a little jaded now. I've jumped through all the hopes. Sure, let's play DBT. Let's play CBT. Let's play NARM. Wanna play EMDR? Sure I'll move my eyes/hold your tappers/go with it. Wanna play Gestalt? Sure I'll talk to a chair. I was game, I'd try anything.
Now? Eh. I mean sure. Let's play psychodynamic and talk about countertransference. Yawn. It's like someone else is "doing" therapy and I'm just watching going, "eh." I CBA.
for many people midlife includes a loss of faith. Check. I used to be very religious, I was raised in a crazy religious stew. I spent years straitening if out, got a degree in religion to fully grasp the field, tried this one, that one. Religion helped me survive, it gave me a sense of meaning and justice and a purpose, a sense of safety, a Sky Daddy to replace the earthly one. A community. It gave me so much.
Now? Eh. I'm ok without it now. But without faith in religion, and without faith in therapy, I'm not really sure what to have faith in. Who to have faith with. How to go forward just me, naked in the storm? No sky daddy, no earthly therapist mommy. No supervision. No vision. No community. No meaning, justice, purpose. No shelter in the storm.
I notice ways of being in myself that are adding to my suffering. I have the original trauma, resonating REALLY hard right now. Unfortunately. It's a bell that is easily rung and then I'm vibrating with it in my teeth for weeks and weeks. My jaw hurts, my bones hurt. I can't see straight.
So what do I do?
I isolate. I stay in bed and stare at the wall. I guess I'm spacing out. I think about what I need to do that day, and I activate some part of me to do the things. A bit robotically. Make the sandwiches, feed the beasts. And then back to bed. Once I'm in bed I think about what I'll have to do next and I shut down until that time. When the alarm goes off, I robotically get up and do the next set of things. The kids are very active right now, one in school and a part time job, one in school and several activities so they are like ships in the night, stopping home at 4 pm to get refueled (sandwiches!) and then off again, coming home before bed. I greet, hug, I can be a mom. But then back to bed and spacing out. I'm sundowning at 8-9pm, I get anxious, everything feels smaller and darker and I don't want any demands. Twelve hours of fitful sleep. I wake up with my eyelids glued shut. I know winter is making everyone stir crazy. I'm also doing suffering. I'm doing the thing I do to avoid the pain I carry. I'm creating more suffering, more problems, leaving problems unsolved. It's not great.
For a good period of months I was undoing it. I was doing clothes, going out, talking to people, taking more clients, making art. I was undoing all of that.
The last few weeks I am doing it more and more. I'm doing something I don't want. I can't seem to undo it. I don't have what I need to undo it right now and I don't know how to get it. In the past I feel I was much stronger in many ways. I had a lot of energy to go get the things I needed. To do, in the outer world. To go get what I needed, to seek and find, to plug into things and create energy, create a home, a community. I created many communities.
I don't know why but I turned 50 and I can't do it anymore. Some of it may be the pandemic, I know everyone is struggling right now to create community. I fear some of it is post-traumatic decline catching up to me. Even though I was in therapy for 30 years and worked so hard, I was always at the cutting edge of the latest trauma therapy and the therapist was always building the plane as we were flying it, going to get more training, let's try this, let's try this, and I tried it all. Some of it helped for sure. Some of it was retraumatizing. And also I'm just a little jaded now. I've jumped through all the hopes. Sure, let's play DBT. Let's play CBT. Let's play NARM. Wanna play EMDR? Sure I'll move my eyes/hold your tappers/go with it. Wanna play Gestalt? Sure I'll talk to a chair. I was game, I'd try anything.
Now? Eh. I mean sure. Let's play psychodynamic and talk about countertransference. Yawn. It's like someone else is "doing" therapy and I'm just watching going, "eh." I CBA.
for many people midlife includes a loss of faith. Check. I used to be very religious, I was raised in a crazy religious stew. I spent years straitening if out, got a degree in religion to fully grasp the field, tried this one, that one. Religion helped me survive, it gave me a sense of meaning and justice and a purpose, a sense of safety, a Sky Daddy to replace the earthly one. A community. It gave me so much.
Now? Eh. I'm ok without it now. But without faith in religion, and without faith in therapy, I'm not really sure what to have faith in. Who to have faith with. How to go forward just me, naked in the storm? No sky daddy, no earthly therapist mommy. No supervision. No vision. No community. No meaning, justice, purpose. No shelter in the storm.
#25
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: Seeking Support after Extr...
Last post by Kizzie - February 27, 2026, 06:06:49 PMHey Seeking to Survive, a lot of new members feel as you do so not to worry.
There are a lot of guidelines in place to ensure members treat each other with respect, tolerance and kindness. They came about because early on there were a lot of trolls who joined just to make trouble, and also members who did not quite know how to behave toward others (which makes sense give trouble with relationships is one of the symptoms of CPTSD). The first threatened this community and the latter disrupted it, thus the guidelines. You need not fear putting a foot wrong or needing to write perfect posts though. If something crosses the line I will edit your post and send you an email explaining why.
As for the size of the forum, it is large and takes a while to feel your way around, but as it is for survivors of complex trauma with complex PTSD, the sub-forums are meant to capture the complexities of what we live with. If you go slowly as others have suggested I think you'll feel comfortable fairly quickly.
There are a lot of guidelines in place to ensure members treat each other with respect, tolerance and kindness. They came about because early on there were a lot of trolls who joined just to make trouble, and also members who did not quite know how to behave toward others (which makes sense give trouble with relationships is one of the symptoms of CPTSD). The first threatened this community and the latter disrupted it, thus the guidelines. You need not fear putting a foot wrong or needing to write perfect posts though. If something crosses the line I will edit your post and send you an email explaining why.
As for the size of the forum, it is large and takes a while to feel your way around, but as it is for survivors of complex trauma with complex PTSD, the sub-forums are meant to capture the complexities of what we live with. If you go slowly as others have suggested I think you'll feel comfortable fairly quickly.
#26
Recovery Journals / Re: Living As All of Me
Last post by HannahOne - February 27, 2026, 06:00:41 PMSanMagic7, isn't overthinking such a witch? I exhaust myself!
#27
Recovery Journals / Re: the next step
Last post by sanmagic7 - February 27, 2026, 02:31:12 PMfeeling better today, like i got some good sleep/rest during the night. up and down. it's going to be a lovely spring day today, then back to winter temps. i don't mind, i'm so glad to be back to where there are definite seasons. living on the northern west coast gave us a modicum of seasons, but kind of like shadow images. not quite there, not quite not.
#28
Recovery Journals / Re: Post-Traumatic Growth Jour...
Last post by sanmagic7 - February 27, 2026, 02:28:14 PMjust wanted to respond to what NK said - manure can also be full of toxic chemicals, heavy metals, and harmful bacteria that the animals ingest, and even if it's well composted, antibiotics and all the rest can pass thru the animal and be found in their manure. so, yeah, toxic possibilities abound. we're living products of that, aren't we!
#29
Recovery Journals / Re: Activating myself
Last post by sanmagic7 - February 27, 2026, 02:15:14 PMwell, blueberry, i spied another 'should' in there. personally, i think anything that enriches the mind, such as learning another language, is extremely important for the brain's well-being. i think it's a form of self-care, actually. and i can't think of anything more useful or beneficial to you or the world than to exercise your brain and gather in another culture thru language. just my thoughts.
along w/ that, it brought to mind my lifting weights. is it anything 'useful'? well, to my muscles, cells, mind it is, which means that i'm going to stay healthier longer while i'm on earth. healthy people, whether in body or mind are our best bets, don't you think? for sanity and peace.
so, as far as i'm concerned, a big ol' POO! on FOO! and their narrow-minded thinking about what you should or shouldn't be doing. i once heard that if we do something that makes us happy, at least one person in the world will feel happiness in their lives. is there a better gift we can give ourselves? love and hugs
along w/ that, it brought to mind my lifting weights. is it anything 'useful'? well, to my muscles, cells, mind it is, which means that i'm going to stay healthier longer while i'm on earth. healthy people, whether in body or mind are our best bets, don't you think? for sanity and peace.
so, as far as i'm concerned, a big ol' POO! on FOO! and their narrow-minded thinking about what you should or shouldn't be doing. i once heard that if we do something that makes us happy, at least one person in the world will feel happiness in their lives. is there a better gift we can give ourselves? love and hugs
#30
SOT - Sense of Threat / Re: Visceral revulsion when ar...
Last post by dollyvee - February 27, 2026, 08:47:23 AMNK, as an outsider, to me, it looks like you are perhaps seeking a "logical" explanation of why you don't like being around your m when perhaps you just don't like being around her, and you don't have to defend, or explain that. That's how you feel and it's valid. There are of course outcomes, not consequences IMO, of choosing to go with your feelings. These outcomes were presented to me as "the final answer," or no other path growing up because what I actually felt didn't matter.
I was often over "written" and over looked as not mattering. For example, the last xmas I spent with sgf, where he took a necklace from me (not what he did in his mind, but that's essentially what it was), and had zero interest in what I wanted. "People" (oh there's always people, but I think this is my gm's voice all along) would say that they're old, you have to allow them some grace because they can't change etc, and you know what, they were doing the same things when they were younger because it suited them. I think I tried telling him that that's not what I wanted to do, and it didn't go down well. Or I didn't say anything about the necklace because I knew how that would go, him feigning innocence and me feeling guilty. These are all really hard outcomes to face (ie me having to acknowledge their actual behaviour as well). Maybe I knew that saying something would only make it worse, since that's what I grew up with? I don't know. So, I didn't tell him I was going to stop answering his calls, and that's what I did. I feel better, but also "bad" I guess in other peoples' eyes. Is/was it the right thing to do? I don't know, but I feel better not having to manage someone not caring what I think.
Sending you support,
dolly
I was often over "written" and over looked as not mattering. For example, the last xmas I spent with sgf, where he took a necklace from me (not what he did in his mind, but that's essentially what it was), and had zero interest in what I wanted. "People" (oh there's always people, but I think this is my gm's voice all along) would say that they're old, you have to allow them some grace because they can't change etc, and you know what, they were doing the same things when they were younger because it suited them. I think I tried telling him that that's not what I wanted to do, and it didn't go down well. Or I didn't say anything about the necklace because I knew how that would go, him feigning innocence and me feeling guilty. These are all really hard outcomes to face (ie me having to acknowledge their actual behaviour as well). Maybe I knew that saying something would only make it worse, since that's what I grew up with? I don't know. So, I didn't tell him I was going to stop answering his calls, and that's what I did. I feel better, but also "bad" I guess in other peoples' eyes. Is/was it the right thing to do? I don't know, but I feel better not having to manage someone not caring what I think.
Sending you support,
dolly