Recent posts
#21
Recovery Journals / Re: The ramblings of an abused...
Last post by NarcKiddo - Today at 11:26:32 AM
We're beside you as you wade through this morass.
#22
Recovery Journals / Re: Papa Coco's Recovery Journ...
Last post by NarcKiddo - Today at 11:24:54 AMQuote from: Papa Coco on Today at 12:12:20 AMThree weeks ago, I had found forgiveness. Today I've lost it again. Doesn't make it any less real three weeks ago.
I think this is a really interesting observation, and thank you for making it. And I like how you likened it to sunshine in Seattle. Enjoy it while it lasts. Maybe what you were enjoying was a level of peace. You don't ever have to forgive them (fully or at all) and some things are not forgivable long term but maybe they are temporarily. You deserve peace and I hope peace comes more often.
I am sorry you are feeling lonely, even in the company of those who love you and are safe to be with. I've had that feeling and it's hard to navigate.
I'm also glad that you love you. It's been a long time coming and I think it's important you keep reminding yourself and telling us. It's a huge development that likely needs its foundations cementing often in the early days. We love you too.
#23
Recovery Journals / Re: Papa Coco's Recovery Journ...
Last post by TheBigBlue - Today at 08:46:31 AMReading this, I was struck by how many layers of loneliness you're carrying at once - not just being alone, but being unsafe with others, unseen in your pain, and having to hold distress by yourself for so long.
Your words helped me think more deeply about loneliness as something much broader than "lack of people." I wonder whether some loneliness isn't for example about lack of love, but about never having had distress safely held long enough for the body to learn it doesn't have to stay alone. To organize my thoughts I wrote something up that was too long to include here, but here is the link - in case it resonates.
Your words helped me think more deeply about loneliness as something much broader than "lack of people." I wonder whether some loneliness isn't for example about lack of love, but about never having had distress safely held long enough for the body to learn it doesn't have to stay alone. To organize my thoughts I wrote something up that was too long to include here, but here is the link - in case it resonates.
Quote from: TheBigBlue on Today at 08:00:22 AMLoneliness is not one thing. ...Thank you for putting this into words. Being witnessed matters.
#24
Recovery Journals / Re: The ramblings of an abused...
Last post by dollyvee - Today at 08:28:13 AMHey Slashy,
I just want to say that I have been reading your entries and what you wrote. I'm sorry that you had to go through that at such an early age. It breaks my heart to read that, but you also made it out the other side and are a strong, capable adult processing what had happened.
Sending you support,
dolly
I just want to say that I have been reading your entries and what you wrote. I'm sorry that you had to go through that at such an early age. It breaks my heart to read that, but you also made it out the other side and are a strong, capable adult processing what had happened.
Sending you support,
dolly
#25
Recovery Journals / Re: Papa Coco's Recovery Journ...
Last post by dollyvee - Today at 08:22:30 AMA big hug PC 
(and this is coming from someone who is not feeling very huggy right now).
You don't have to apologize for anything, you don't have to be sunshine and light all the time and take care of everything for everybody. This is your authentic self and I'm here for it and, given all the things you've been through in your life, it's no wonder that you feel this way sometimes.
As an outsider, it could just be your self calibrating what's going on after years of hearing the negative scapegoat story, where for the first time you are looking at not being that person, and not being that fawn. Again, given all the things you've been through in your life, it makes sense that these feelings would be coming up. You had to be alone your whole life to survive because of how people treated you. I remember once that my friends from long ago suggested to go out for my birthday to dinner, and I was physically astounded that they would be there and want to do that. And I still haven't gotten over that feeling.
In Fawning by Ingrid Clayton, she talks about a client who finally had all the blinders come off in an abusive relationship that she was in, and had a whole nervous system reset (what I'm calling it - she needed to take time off of work etc because her reactions were so strong). It's not easy to do these things, and when you're doing it you can support yourself in as many ways as you need. Somatic thereapy 2x a week? Seems excessive, but why not? Just an example, but you get it. Maybe part of you is still fawning by setting up the campsite and doing cooking for everyone? It's a very "normal" thing to do, but perhaps there was a part that didn't feel like doing those things at the time, but felt compelled to do them, and there was some self-abandonment in the process, which led to those feelings?
I have also been reading Mother Hunger that NK has talked about, and it sort of goes into how important the bond is between infant and mother, and the kinds of feelings/aches/longings that can happen if the baby is not supported, protected, and nurtured. Given what you have said about your m, it might make sense of some of those feelings as well (though she talks about mother hunger directed towards women, I would think that to a certain extent those feelings would also come up for an male infant, but not a psychologist).
Sending you support,
dolly
(and this is coming from someone who is not feeling very huggy right now).You don't have to apologize for anything, you don't have to be sunshine and light all the time and take care of everything for everybody. This is your authentic self and I'm here for it and, given all the things you've been through in your life, it's no wonder that you feel this way sometimes.
As an outsider, it could just be your self calibrating what's going on after years of hearing the negative scapegoat story, where for the first time you are looking at not being that person, and not being that fawn. Again, given all the things you've been through in your life, it makes sense that these feelings would be coming up. You had to be alone your whole life to survive because of how people treated you. I remember once that my friends from long ago suggested to go out for my birthday to dinner, and I was physically astounded that they would be there and want to do that. And I still haven't gotten over that feeling.
In Fawning by Ingrid Clayton, she talks about a client who finally had all the blinders come off in an abusive relationship that she was in, and had a whole nervous system reset (what I'm calling it - she needed to take time off of work etc because her reactions were so strong). It's not easy to do these things, and when you're doing it you can support yourself in as many ways as you need. Somatic thereapy 2x a week? Seems excessive, but why not? Just an example, but you get it. Maybe part of you is still fawning by setting up the campsite and doing cooking for everyone? It's a very "normal" thing to do, but perhaps there was a part that didn't feel like doing those things at the time, but felt compelled to do them, and there was some self-abandonment in the process, which led to those feelings?
I have also been reading Mother Hunger that NK has talked about, and it sort of goes into how important the bond is between infant and mother, and the kinds of feelings/aches/longings that can happen if the baby is not supported, protected, and nurtured. Given what you have said about your m, it might make sense of some of those feelings as well (though she talks about mother hunger directed towards women, I would think that to a certain extent those feelings would also come up for an male infant, but not a psychologist).
Sending you support,
dolly
#26
Symptoms - Other / Loneliness in CPTSD Is Not One...
Last post by TheBigBlue - Today at 08:00:22 AMApologies for the long post (again). But this helped me to organize my thoughts and feelings.
Most people assume loneliness means lack of people.
But loneliness is not one thing.
Loneliness comes in different forms depending on which developmental need was unmet and during which developmental window. Multiple forms can coexist in the same person.
In CPTSD, loneliness most commonly reflects lack of safety, holding, and/or self-continuity - and these are distinct problems requiring different forms of repair.
Below are distinct, literature-supported types of loneliness. (list might not be complete)
1. Social Loneliness
Not having enough social contact or companionship, and lacking a stable sense of belonging within a group, community, or social network.
Mechanism: This reflects reduced activation of social affiliation and reward systems (dopaminergic and oxytocin-mediated pathways). In CPTSD, social contact alone often fails to relieve distress because the primary deficit lies upstream in safety or attachment regulation, not in social availability.
This is about quantity of contact, not safety, attachment, or self.
2. Emotional Loneliness
Being with others while one's emotional states are not accurately perceived, mirrored, or responded to, resulting in a felt absence of emotional resonance.
Mechanism: Early failures of affect mirroring impair the development of emotional recognition and validation. The nervous system learns that emotional expression does not lead to relief, so emotional closeness feels empty rather than regulating.
Unlike social loneliness, people are present - but emotional resonance is absent.
3. Attachment Loneliness
The absence of a felt, dependable attachment figure, i.e. someone whose availability is experienced as stable enough to calm distress; this is regardless of whether one has partners, friends, or family.
Mechanism: In insecure or disorganized attachment, the attachment system remains chronically activated because proximity does not reliably deactivate threat. The system seeks closeness, but proximity does not reliably reduce distress or create a sense of safety.
Unlike emotional loneliness, this is not about being understood - it is about absence of a reliable attachment target.
4. Nervous System Safety Loneliness
A persistent bodily sense of being unheld, unsafe, or unsupported, reflecting a nervous system that does not encode calm or safety as a baseline state, even when emotional distress is absent.
Mechanism: Chronic absence of co-regulation prevents proper calibration of the autonomic nervous system. "Being alone" becomes biologically encoded as danger, independent of conscious emotion or thought.
Unlike attachment loneliness, this operates at a pre-relational, physiological level.
5. Self-Continuity Loneliness
The absence of a felt, continuous inner self that carries experience across emotional states, leading to emptiness, inner absence, or a sense of not fully existing; sadness, despair, or other intense emotions can sit on top of that void.
Mechanism: The self forms through repeated cycles of distress being held and returned to baseline ("serve and return"). When distress is endured alone, emotional states remain unlinked, preventing the formation of a continuous, coherent felt self.
Unlike safety loneliness, this concerns identity continuity, not arousal state.
6. Developmental Loneliness
A sense that essential developmental experiences never occurred, such as reliable protection, guidance, emotional support, or the opportunity to develop within the safety of a child role.
Mechanism: When caregiving functions are absent during sensitive periods, core capacities (self-soothing, trust, agency) fail to fully develop. Adult experiences cannot automatically compensate for skills that were never constructed.
Unlike self-continuity loneliness, this reflects missing developmental scaffolding, not fragmentation.
7. Existential Loneliness
A pervasive sense that life lacks meaning, purpose, or reason to continue, reflecting difficulty integrating self, relationships, and future orientation into a coherent sense of "why."
Mechanism: Meaning emerges from a stable self interacting with a predictable relational world. When self-continuity and attachment are compromised, meaning cannot consolidate, producing existential emptiness.
Unlike developmental loneliness, this is about future orientation, not childhood absence.
8. Relational Hypervigilance Loneliness
Feeling alone in the presence of others due to ongoing threat monitoring, where vigilance, self-protection, and anticipatory defense prevent settling into relational safety or connection.
Mechanism: Trauma prioritizes threat detection networks over affiliative systems (amygdala–salience dominance). Presence of others increases cognitive load and vigilance, preventing relational rest.
Unlike emotional loneliness, this is not lack of attunement - it is active threat anticipation.
9. Embodiment / Touch Loneliness
Feeling disconnected from, alienated from, or hostile toward the body, such that touch, care, or physical comfort does not register as safe or relieving.
Mechanism: Early deprivation of safe touch disrupts somatosensory and interoceptive integration. The body never becomes a reliable source of safety, leading to alienation from physical presence.
Unlike nervous system safety loneliness, this specifically concerns bodily connection, not arousal regulation.
10. Witnessing Loneliness
The pain of suffering that is unseen, unnamed, or unacknowledged by others, leaving experiences without validation, relational containment, or integration.
Mechanism: Witnessing is required for meaning-making and memory integration. Without it, experiences remain isolated and unprocessed, reinforcing loneliness even in relationships.
Unlike emotional loneliness, this concerns recognition of suffering, not emotional exchange.
Why multiple forms of loneliness overlap in CPTSD
Most people with CPTSD experience multiple, overlapping forms of loneliness simultaneously, because different developmental injuries disrupt different layers of connection and selfhood. These layers do not substitute for one another, so repairing one form of loneliness does not automatically resolve the others.
Loneliness is not a single construct. It maps onto distinct neurodevelopmental systems, each with its own sensitive periods:
• attachment and co-regulation
• somatic safety and bodily belonging
• self-continuity and identity
• relational trust
• social belonging
• meaning and purpose
In typical development, these systems are built hierarchically and in parallel, supported by caregivers through thousands of repeated serve-and-return interactions, meaning distress is expressed by the toddler, held by another nervous system, resolved, and returned to safety - again and again.
In developmental trauma, this process is disrupted unevenly:
• some systems are impaired very early
• others develop only partially or in compensatory ways
• none fully stabilize the others
The result is that multiple unresolved loneliness states coexist in the same person.
The key principle: injuries don't cancel each other out
This can feel like a paradox, but you can have:
• a partner → and still feel existentially alone
• friends → and still feel unsafe
• community → and still feel empty
• meaning → and still feel untethered
• competence → and still feel unseen
This is not contradiction. Each loneliness type corresponds to a different unmet developmental function, and these functions are non-interchangeable.
- No amount of social contact repairs nervous-system safety.
- No amount of meaning repairs self-continuity.
- No amount of attachment closeness repairs early bodily alienation.
What research supports this
1. Attachment research
Early attachment disruptions predict chronic internal loneliness even in later secure relationships. Adults with developmental trauma often report "feeling alone even when loved."
Key point: Later relationships do not automatically repair early attachment loneliness, because the nervous system encoded "aloneness during distress" as baseline.
2. Affective neuroscience
The neural systems governing social pain (including anterior cingulate cortex and insula) overlap with physical pain circuitry, meaning:
• loneliness alters baseline threat perception
• loneliness can persist despite social presence
This explains why people can feel profoundly lonely in company.
3. Development of the self
The self is not a narrative. It is a felt continuity across emotional states.
That continuity forms only when:
• distress states are held by another
• those states resolve
• the system returns safely to baseline
• and this cycle repeats reliably
If distress is repeatedly unheld:
• calm-self and distressed-self never integrate
• each state feels like a different "world"
• there is no internal companion who remains present
This produces self-continuity loneliness, which:
• cannot be fixed by people
• cannot be fixed by meaning
• cannot be fixed by achievement
This is why overlap is so common: self-loneliness persists regardless of other connections.
Typical overlap patterns in CPTSD
Common combinations include:
• nervous-system safety loneliness + self-continuity loneliness
• attachment loneliness + bodily / touch alienation
• relational hypervigilance loneliness + witnessing loneliness
• meaning / existential loneliness layered on top of safety deficits
Many CPTSD survivers identify with four to six types of loneliness simultaneously!
Why overlap often becomes more visible in therapy
This is often alarming. As therapy reduces borrowed safety (enmeshment, hyper-responsibility, fawning, external regulation), previously masked loneliness layers surface. Thus, people often think: "I'm getting worse."
What is actually happening:
• a compensatory structure is gone
• underlying injuries are now detectable
This is not regression, but resolution becoming possible.
Takeaways
Overlapping loneliness types are:
• expected
• developmentally coherent
• not a sign of severity or failure
They reflect:
• early and repeated aloneness during distress
• partial adaptations that kept you alive
• a nervous system that learned to survive without reliable holding
And crucially: The presence of one form of connection does not invalidate the reality of other loneliness forms.
A brief note on repair (by no means complete)
Because these loneliness types arise from different developmental injuries, they require different forms of repair. No single relationship, insight, or technique addresses all of them at once.
Very broadly:
• Social loneliness responds to access, inclusion, and shared activity.
• Emotional loneliness responds to accurate mirroring and emotional responsiveness.
• Attachment loneliness responds to repeated experiences of availability during distress.
• Nervous-system safety loneliness responds to co-regulation and autonomic settling.
• Self-continuity loneliness responds to having distress held and resolved over time, allowing states to link.
• Developmental loneliness responds to experiences that support agency, protection, and being cared for without role reversal.
• Existential loneliness responds to meaning that emerges after safety and self-coherence are present.
• Relational hypervigilance loneliness responds to environments where vigilance can gradually soften without penalty.
• Embodiment / touch loneliness responds to safe, consent-based bodily experiences that restore the body as a place of safety.
• Witnessing loneliness responds to having suffering named, acknowledged, and held in another's mind.
Importantly, repair is layered, not linear. Addressing one form may uncover another that was previously masked. This does not mean progress is lost - it means deeper levels are becoming accessible.
For many with CPTSD, the first repair is not "connection," but safety. Only from there can connection begin to register.
[P.S.: For myself, I feel like 4-5-3-6-9 clearly apply (primary), 10-7 partially (secondary) ... and 1-2-8 not so much]
Most people assume loneliness means lack of people.
But loneliness is not one thing.
Loneliness comes in different forms depending on which developmental need was unmet and during which developmental window. Multiple forms can coexist in the same person.
In CPTSD, loneliness most commonly reflects lack of safety, holding, and/or self-continuity - and these are distinct problems requiring different forms of repair.
Below are distinct, literature-supported types of loneliness. (list might not be complete)
1. Social Loneliness
Not having enough social contact or companionship, and lacking a stable sense of belonging within a group, community, or social network.
Mechanism: This reflects reduced activation of social affiliation and reward systems (dopaminergic and oxytocin-mediated pathways). In CPTSD, social contact alone often fails to relieve distress because the primary deficit lies upstream in safety or attachment regulation, not in social availability.
This is about quantity of contact, not safety, attachment, or self.
2. Emotional Loneliness
Being with others while one's emotional states are not accurately perceived, mirrored, or responded to, resulting in a felt absence of emotional resonance.
Mechanism: Early failures of affect mirroring impair the development of emotional recognition and validation. The nervous system learns that emotional expression does not lead to relief, so emotional closeness feels empty rather than regulating.
Unlike social loneliness, people are present - but emotional resonance is absent.
3. Attachment Loneliness
The absence of a felt, dependable attachment figure, i.e. someone whose availability is experienced as stable enough to calm distress; this is regardless of whether one has partners, friends, or family.
Mechanism: In insecure or disorganized attachment, the attachment system remains chronically activated because proximity does not reliably deactivate threat. The system seeks closeness, but proximity does not reliably reduce distress or create a sense of safety.
Unlike emotional loneliness, this is not about being understood - it is about absence of a reliable attachment target.
4. Nervous System Safety Loneliness
A persistent bodily sense of being unheld, unsafe, or unsupported, reflecting a nervous system that does not encode calm or safety as a baseline state, even when emotional distress is absent.
Mechanism: Chronic absence of co-regulation prevents proper calibration of the autonomic nervous system. "Being alone" becomes biologically encoded as danger, independent of conscious emotion or thought.
Unlike attachment loneliness, this operates at a pre-relational, physiological level.
5. Self-Continuity Loneliness
The absence of a felt, continuous inner self that carries experience across emotional states, leading to emptiness, inner absence, or a sense of not fully existing; sadness, despair, or other intense emotions can sit on top of that void.
Mechanism: The self forms through repeated cycles of distress being held and returned to baseline ("serve and return"). When distress is endured alone, emotional states remain unlinked, preventing the formation of a continuous, coherent felt self.
Unlike safety loneliness, this concerns identity continuity, not arousal state.
6. Developmental Loneliness
A sense that essential developmental experiences never occurred, such as reliable protection, guidance, emotional support, or the opportunity to develop within the safety of a child role.
Mechanism: When caregiving functions are absent during sensitive periods, core capacities (self-soothing, trust, agency) fail to fully develop. Adult experiences cannot automatically compensate for skills that were never constructed.
Unlike self-continuity loneliness, this reflects missing developmental scaffolding, not fragmentation.
7. Existential Loneliness
A pervasive sense that life lacks meaning, purpose, or reason to continue, reflecting difficulty integrating self, relationships, and future orientation into a coherent sense of "why."
Mechanism: Meaning emerges from a stable self interacting with a predictable relational world. When self-continuity and attachment are compromised, meaning cannot consolidate, producing existential emptiness.
Unlike developmental loneliness, this is about future orientation, not childhood absence.
8. Relational Hypervigilance Loneliness
Feeling alone in the presence of others due to ongoing threat monitoring, where vigilance, self-protection, and anticipatory defense prevent settling into relational safety or connection.
Mechanism: Trauma prioritizes threat detection networks over affiliative systems (amygdala–salience dominance). Presence of others increases cognitive load and vigilance, preventing relational rest.
Unlike emotional loneliness, this is not lack of attunement - it is active threat anticipation.
9. Embodiment / Touch Loneliness
Feeling disconnected from, alienated from, or hostile toward the body, such that touch, care, or physical comfort does not register as safe or relieving.
Mechanism: Early deprivation of safe touch disrupts somatosensory and interoceptive integration. The body never becomes a reliable source of safety, leading to alienation from physical presence.
Unlike nervous system safety loneliness, this specifically concerns bodily connection, not arousal regulation.
10. Witnessing Loneliness
The pain of suffering that is unseen, unnamed, or unacknowledged by others, leaving experiences without validation, relational containment, or integration.
Mechanism: Witnessing is required for meaning-making and memory integration. Without it, experiences remain isolated and unprocessed, reinforcing loneliness even in relationships.
Unlike emotional loneliness, this concerns recognition of suffering, not emotional exchange.
Why multiple forms of loneliness overlap in CPTSD
Most people with CPTSD experience multiple, overlapping forms of loneliness simultaneously, because different developmental injuries disrupt different layers of connection and selfhood. These layers do not substitute for one another, so repairing one form of loneliness does not automatically resolve the others.
Loneliness is not a single construct. It maps onto distinct neurodevelopmental systems, each with its own sensitive periods:
• attachment and co-regulation
• somatic safety and bodily belonging
• self-continuity and identity
• relational trust
• social belonging
• meaning and purpose
In typical development, these systems are built hierarchically and in parallel, supported by caregivers through thousands of repeated serve-and-return interactions, meaning distress is expressed by the toddler, held by another nervous system, resolved, and returned to safety - again and again.
In developmental trauma, this process is disrupted unevenly:
• some systems are impaired very early
• others develop only partially or in compensatory ways
• none fully stabilize the others
The result is that multiple unresolved loneliness states coexist in the same person.
The key principle: injuries don't cancel each other out
This can feel like a paradox, but you can have:
• a partner → and still feel existentially alone
• friends → and still feel unsafe
• community → and still feel empty
• meaning → and still feel untethered
• competence → and still feel unseen
This is not contradiction. Each loneliness type corresponds to a different unmet developmental function, and these functions are non-interchangeable.
- No amount of social contact repairs nervous-system safety.
- No amount of meaning repairs self-continuity.
- No amount of attachment closeness repairs early bodily alienation.
What research supports this
1. Attachment research
Early attachment disruptions predict chronic internal loneliness even in later secure relationships. Adults with developmental trauma often report "feeling alone even when loved."
Key point: Later relationships do not automatically repair early attachment loneliness, because the nervous system encoded "aloneness during distress" as baseline.
2. Affective neuroscience
The neural systems governing social pain (including anterior cingulate cortex and insula) overlap with physical pain circuitry, meaning:
• loneliness alters baseline threat perception
• loneliness can persist despite social presence
This explains why people can feel profoundly lonely in company.
3. Development of the self
The self is not a narrative. It is a felt continuity across emotional states.
That continuity forms only when:
• distress states are held by another
• those states resolve
• the system returns safely to baseline
• and this cycle repeats reliably
If distress is repeatedly unheld:
• calm-self and distressed-self never integrate
• each state feels like a different "world"
• there is no internal companion who remains present
This produces self-continuity loneliness, which:
• cannot be fixed by people
• cannot be fixed by meaning
• cannot be fixed by achievement
This is why overlap is so common: self-loneliness persists regardless of other connections.
Typical overlap patterns in CPTSD
Common combinations include:
• nervous-system safety loneliness + self-continuity loneliness
• attachment loneliness + bodily / touch alienation
• relational hypervigilance loneliness + witnessing loneliness
• meaning / existential loneliness layered on top of safety deficits
Many CPTSD survivers identify with four to six types of loneliness simultaneously!
Why overlap often becomes more visible in therapy
This is often alarming. As therapy reduces borrowed safety (enmeshment, hyper-responsibility, fawning, external regulation), previously masked loneliness layers surface. Thus, people often think: "I'm getting worse."
What is actually happening:
• a compensatory structure is gone
• underlying injuries are now detectable
This is not regression, but resolution becoming possible.
Takeaways
Overlapping loneliness types are:
• expected
• developmentally coherent
• not a sign of severity or failure
They reflect:
• early and repeated aloneness during distress
• partial adaptations that kept you alive
• a nervous system that learned to survive without reliable holding
And crucially: The presence of one form of connection does not invalidate the reality of other loneliness forms.
A brief note on repair (by no means complete)
Because these loneliness types arise from different developmental injuries, they require different forms of repair. No single relationship, insight, or technique addresses all of them at once.
Very broadly:
• Social loneliness responds to access, inclusion, and shared activity.
• Emotional loneliness responds to accurate mirroring and emotional responsiveness.
• Attachment loneliness responds to repeated experiences of availability during distress.
• Nervous-system safety loneliness responds to co-regulation and autonomic settling.
• Self-continuity loneliness responds to having distress held and resolved over time, allowing states to link.
• Developmental loneliness responds to experiences that support agency, protection, and being cared for without role reversal.
• Existential loneliness responds to meaning that emerges after safety and self-coherence are present.
• Relational hypervigilance loneliness responds to environments where vigilance can gradually soften without penalty.
• Embodiment / touch loneliness responds to safe, consent-based bodily experiences that restore the body as a place of safety.
• Witnessing loneliness responds to having suffering named, acknowledged, and held in another's mind.
Importantly, repair is layered, not linear. Addressing one form may uncover another that was previously masked. This does not mean progress is lost - it means deeper levels are becoming accessible.
For many with CPTSD, the first repair is not "connection," but safety. Only from there can connection begin to register.
[P.S.: For myself, I feel like 4-5-3-6-9 clearly apply (primary), 10-7 partially (secondary) ... and 1-2-8 not so much]
#27
Recovery Journals / Re: Marcine’s journaling forwa...
Last post by Marcine - Today at 02:59:39 AMSO,
Always a yes to Krishnamurti's teachings.
Thank you for the kind feedback.
I have no actual comprehension of the concept you are referring to "there are people who actually like your company because of what makes you you."
Does not compute
So in response to your question, it is a challenging idea to me... quite
I'm working at the level of this quote from the Stoic philosopher Hecato:
"What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself."
He wrote that about 2,000 years ago. (What's a couple thousand years between friends
)
Learning to befriend myself= treating myself with kindness, honesty, curiosity, understanding, patience, and some good-natured, well-deserved teasing
And that includes calling out the
when I word too much, in favor of the direct experience of living 
Gotta go
Always a yes to Krishnamurti's teachings.
Thank you for the kind feedback.
I have no actual comprehension of the concept you are referring to "there are people who actually like your company because of what makes you you."
Does not compute
So in response to your question, it is a challenging idea to me... quite
I'm working at the level of this quote from the Stoic philosopher Hecato:
"What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself."
He wrote that about 2,000 years ago. (What's a couple thousand years between friends
)Learning to befriend myself= treating myself with kindness, honesty, curiosity, understanding, patience, and some good-natured, well-deserved teasing
And that includes calling out the
when I word too much, in favor of the direct experience of living Gotta go
#28
Recovery Journals / Re: Living As All of Me
Last post by Marcine - Today at 02:09:44 AMTo be loved and to love.
To receive and to give.
Resonating in the energy field, indeed, HannahOne
To receive and to give.
Resonating in the energy field, indeed, HannahOne
#29
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Support and Recovery
Last post by Mamatus - Today at 01:28:05 AMHi everyone,
I'm in my mid-50s and have had a long, high-functioning career in the creative world. I grew up in a home with severe emotional abuse from as early as I can remember. For most of my life I've operated with strong perfectionism and a deep drive to achieve, in hindsight, probably searching for validation that never quite sticks. No achievement has ever really felt like enough.
I have a big family, including a disabled child, and a very supportive wife. Over the past few years my career has faltered — partly due to industry changes and a physical injury that slowed me down, but mostly from burnout after holding myself to exhausting standards for decades.
Financial pressure and the weight of responsibility have led to what feels like a collapse. I'm still functioning, but nowhere near my best. I also had a difficult, months-long reaction to medication recently and am now transitioning to new ones, which has been destabilising.
I'm working with a therapist and have strong support at home, but there's a lot of time between appointments, and many days feel bleak and heavy. I'm hoping this forum might be a place to connect with others who understand long-term patterns like this and the process of rebuilding.
Thanks for reading.
I'm in my mid-50s and have had a long, high-functioning career in the creative world. I grew up in a home with severe emotional abuse from as early as I can remember. For most of my life I've operated with strong perfectionism and a deep drive to achieve, in hindsight, probably searching for validation that never quite sticks. No achievement has ever really felt like enough.
I have a big family, including a disabled child, and a very supportive wife. Over the past few years my career has faltered — partly due to industry changes and a physical injury that slowed me down, but mostly from burnout after holding myself to exhausting standards for decades.
Financial pressure and the weight of responsibility have led to what feels like a collapse. I'm still functioning, but nowhere near my best. I also had a difficult, months-long reaction to medication recently and am now transitioning to new ones, which has been destabilising.
I'm working with a therapist and have strong support at home, but there's a lot of time between appointments, and many days feel bleak and heavy. I'm hoping this forum might be a place to connect with others who understand long-term patterns like this and the process of rebuilding.
Thanks for reading.
#30
Recovery Journals / Re: Papa Coco's Recovery Journ...
Last post by Papa Coco - Today at 12:12:20 AMJournal Entry for Saturday, February 14
Trigger warning: I'm not in a good space right now. This journal entry is not a happy one. I'm deeply depressed and I just need to write about it to try and ease the pressure as much as I can.
Loneliness. It's the top topic of my life this week. Sometimes it's so crushing, I feel like I'm about to reach my maximum capacity for containing it at all. I feel like if it gets any worse, it'll become more than I can handle and I'll implode.
And fear. When I feel alone, I feel more vulnerable to attack. It's in our biology to feel safer in numbers. We are community animals. Tribal animals that surround and protect each other. So I have to choose whether to be crushingly lonely alone, or hypervigilantly watching the micromovements of the people I'm with to be sure I'm ready to protect myself from my protectors if they turn to attack me, as my FOO and friends and peers have often done.
Two fear centers in the brain: One of being alone, and the other of being with someone. It's a conundrum with no solution.
In my attempts to find, identify, and embody my "authentic self" I'm learning that being a fawn is the opposite of being authentic. I don't know who or what my authentic self even looks like, but I know that as long as I fear being attacked for being me, I'll never find that authenticity.
If the choice is to suffer under crushing loneliness or fear the people I love, I guess I tend to choose the loneliness. The devil I know. The pain I'm accustomed to dealing with. Loneliness itself isn't fear. Fear happens when I'm alone and someone knocks on the front door, but if nobody bothers me when I'm alone, then loneliness is less painful than fear. So I choose loneliness.
I can't remember the last time I had fun doing anything. My biggest issue today is this crushing, crushing loneliness. I don't know what to do about it anymore. I have an amazing wife who loves me unconditionally, and I'm so happy to be with her I can't believe how lucky I am, and still, this loneliness is at the soul level. Even with her at my side, I'm lonely. I love that we are included in the race day events for my grandson's car racing sport, I cook for everyone, and set up a real nicely equipped campsite for the day so we can rest and enjoy a snack and some conversation, and the whole time I'm with these people who love me, I'm lonely. Wishing I could go home and do nothing somewhere safe where I have nobody to keep an eye on. Worried that the other grandparents who have more money than us are judging us because we don't have a fancy trailer or all the spare parts we need, because we can't afford them. Are they laughing at my walk? My voice? Are they being nice to me because they have to? As a little boy, I would ask my mother, "Why do you love me?" And she'd respond with "I'm your mother, I have to love you." Is that what's happening at the track? Are people being nice to the stupid old man because they have to? I know that's not true, but my heart and my head seem to have two totally different perspectives on my social interactions.
I know how I got here. I know how and why my churches, FOO, and friends were able to terrorize me into becoming this skittish, fawning, lost, lonely soul, but even so, I can't make it stop. I can't find my way out of this crushing loneliness. I can sometimes find a few weeks here and there where I feel like I've ascended from this pit, but those weeks only last so long, until I oscillate back down into a freefall where I have no choice but to come to terms with the fact that I can't find simple joy and fun anymore.
My grip on the past is just too strong for me to release. I still feel guilty for every mistake I've ever said or done. I still feel like my little sister's death was partly my fault for not saying what she needed me to say during the days before her suicide. I can't let go. I try everything. I sometimes think I'm accomplishing it, only to be shocked again when all of my past comes washing back over me from out of nowhere again.
I realized yesterday that I was trained to be this way by a family that never forgot anything I ever did wrong and never remembered anything I did right. They would make their own bad decisions, have problems, and then tell me that all their problems are my fault from something I'd said or done years earlier, and that they made that bad decision because, back in the past, I somehow made them make the bad decision. (I'm getting nauseous as I write this). I can't let the past go, because I was taught to be ready to feel shame for everything I've ever done. That nobody ever would let my past go, so if I forget how stupid I used to be, I'll become stupid again when they remind me of how stupid I've always been. That's how I was raised and I can't seem to break free from it. Even when I try to stop fretting the past, someone reminds me of something I did 40 years ago, and it floods all back over me again. All of it.
The one truly positive thing I have to report today in the journal is that I no longer hate myself. I don't trust that others don't hate me, but not because of who I am. People hated me because of lies they were told by other people. I know that now. I have digested that now and it's a fundamental part of me now. I don't hate myself anymore. I STILL feel loneliness, fear, shame, pain, etc., but I don't hate myself. I see this for what it really was: Abuse. I became what abused people become. That is not my fault. If anything, my survival has shown that it's true; my family chose their strongest child to put the weight of the world onto. I'm in pain because I'm strong enough to handle it. My little sister didn't survive the pain of being in this family, but I did. I feel no guilt for that. So, even when I'm in pain, I still feel love for myself. That's a new thing and a very good thing.
I'm glad my FOO is gone from my life, but I still struggle to get them out of my head. This is the shrapnel that's still flying after the family finally blew apart 15 years ago. I left them, but their ghosts didn't leave me. I suspect that I need to accept that their ghosts never will leave me.
Three weeks ago, I told you all how I'd finally found forgiveness for my FOO. Today, I'm retracting that claim and reiterating: I HATE THOSE PEOPLE! I really do hate them. Maybe as I oscillate between feeling okay and not okay, maybe forgiveness is something I can do sometimes. Enjoy the feeling while it lasts here and there. Like sunshine in Seattle. Enjoy it while it's around and keep the umbrella handy for when the clouds come in out of nowhere. Three weeks ago I enjoyed a sense of forgiveness for my family. Today that feeling is gone. Doesn't mean it wasn't real, right? Three weeks ago, I had found forgiveness. Today I've lost it again. Doesn't make it any less real three weeks ago.
I'm sorry for how dark this post was. I just need people to witness what I'm going through as a sort of validation. Unwitnessed pain is far worse than witnessed pain. I'm not hiding my depression. Hiding it is just making two problems: 1) I'm depressed and 2) I'm depressed alone. By sharing it, I only have one problem. I'm not alone anymore. I'm lonely, but I'm not alone. Normies won't understand that, but I do. It's a trauma thing.
Trigger warning: I'm not in a good space right now. This journal entry is not a happy one. I'm deeply depressed and I just need to write about it to try and ease the pressure as much as I can.
Loneliness. It's the top topic of my life this week. Sometimes it's so crushing, I feel like I'm about to reach my maximum capacity for containing it at all. I feel like if it gets any worse, it'll become more than I can handle and I'll implode.
And fear. When I feel alone, I feel more vulnerable to attack. It's in our biology to feel safer in numbers. We are community animals. Tribal animals that surround and protect each other. So I have to choose whether to be crushingly lonely alone, or hypervigilantly watching the micromovements of the people I'm with to be sure I'm ready to protect myself from my protectors if they turn to attack me, as my FOO and friends and peers have often done.
Two fear centers in the brain: One of being alone, and the other of being with someone. It's a conundrum with no solution.
In my attempts to find, identify, and embody my "authentic self" I'm learning that being a fawn is the opposite of being authentic. I don't know who or what my authentic self even looks like, but I know that as long as I fear being attacked for being me, I'll never find that authenticity.
If the choice is to suffer under crushing loneliness or fear the people I love, I guess I tend to choose the loneliness. The devil I know. The pain I'm accustomed to dealing with. Loneliness itself isn't fear. Fear happens when I'm alone and someone knocks on the front door, but if nobody bothers me when I'm alone, then loneliness is less painful than fear. So I choose loneliness.
I can't remember the last time I had fun doing anything. My biggest issue today is this crushing, crushing loneliness. I don't know what to do about it anymore. I have an amazing wife who loves me unconditionally, and I'm so happy to be with her I can't believe how lucky I am, and still, this loneliness is at the soul level. Even with her at my side, I'm lonely. I love that we are included in the race day events for my grandson's car racing sport, I cook for everyone, and set up a real nicely equipped campsite for the day so we can rest and enjoy a snack and some conversation, and the whole time I'm with these people who love me, I'm lonely. Wishing I could go home and do nothing somewhere safe where I have nobody to keep an eye on. Worried that the other grandparents who have more money than us are judging us because we don't have a fancy trailer or all the spare parts we need, because we can't afford them. Are they laughing at my walk? My voice? Are they being nice to me because they have to? As a little boy, I would ask my mother, "Why do you love me?" And she'd respond with "I'm your mother, I have to love you." Is that what's happening at the track? Are people being nice to the stupid old man because they have to? I know that's not true, but my heart and my head seem to have two totally different perspectives on my social interactions.
I know how I got here. I know how and why my churches, FOO, and friends were able to terrorize me into becoming this skittish, fawning, lost, lonely soul, but even so, I can't make it stop. I can't find my way out of this crushing loneliness. I can sometimes find a few weeks here and there where I feel like I've ascended from this pit, but those weeks only last so long, until I oscillate back down into a freefall where I have no choice but to come to terms with the fact that I can't find simple joy and fun anymore.
My grip on the past is just too strong for me to release. I still feel guilty for every mistake I've ever said or done. I still feel like my little sister's death was partly my fault for not saying what she needed me to say during the days before her suicide. I can't let go. I try everything. I sometimes think I'm accomplishing it, only to be shocked again when all of my past comes washing back over me from out of nowhere again.
I realized yesterday that I was trained to be this way by a family that never forgot anything I ever did wrong and never remembered anything I did right. They would make their own bad decisions, have problems, and then tell me that all their problems are my fault from something I'd said or done years earlier, and that they made that bad decision because, back in the past, I somehow made them make the bad decision. (I'm getting nauseous as I write this). I can't let the past go, because I was taught to be ready to feel shame for everything I've ever done. That nobody ever would let my past go, so if I forget how stupid I used to be, I'll become stupid again when they remind me of how stupid I've always been. That's how I was raised and I can't seem to break free from it. Even when I try to stop fretting the past, someone reminds me of something I did 40 years ago, and it floods all back over me again. All of it.
The one truly positive thing I have to report today in the journal is that I no longer hate myself. I don't trust that others don't hate me, but not because of who I am. People hated me because of lies they were told by other people. I know that now. I have digested that now and it's a fundamental part of me now. I don't hate myself anymore. I STILL feel loneliness, fear, shame, pain, etc., but I don't hate myself. I see this for what it really was: Abuse. I became what abused people become. That is not my fault. If anything, my survival has shown that it's true; my family chose their strongest child to put the weight of the world onto. I'm in pain because I'm strong enough to handle it. My little sister didn't survive the pain of being in this family, but I did. I feel no guilt for that. So, even when I'm in pain, I still feel love for myself. That's a new thing and a very good thing.
I'm glad my FOO is gone from my life, but I still struggle to get them out of my head. This is the shrapnel that's still flying after the family finally blew apart 15 years ago. I left them, but their ghosts didn't leave me. I suspect that I need to accept that their ghosts never will leave me.
Three weeks ago, I told you all how I'd finally found forgiveness for my FOO. Today, I'm retracting that claim and reiterating: I HATE THOSE PEOPLE! I really do hate them. Maybe as I oscillate between feeling okay and not okay, maybe forgiveness is something I can do sometimes. Enjoy the feeling while it lasts here and there. Like sunshine in Seattle. Enjoy it while it's around and keep the umbrella handy for when the clouds come in out of nowhere. Three weeks ago I enjoyed a sense of forgiveness for my family. Today that feeling is gone. Doesn't mean it wasn't real, right? Three weeks ago, I had found forgiveness. Today I've lost it again. Doesn't make it any less real three weeks ago.
I'm sorry for how dark this post was. I just need people to witness what I'm going through as a sort of validation. Unwitnessed pain is far worse than witnessed pain. I'm not hiding my depression. Hiding it is just making two problems: 1) I'm depressed and 2) I'm depressed alone. By sharing it, I only have one problem. I'm not alone anymore. I'm lonely, but I'm not alone. Normies won't understand that, but I do. It's a trauma thing.