Recent posts

#21

Announcements / Re: Thank You

Last post by SenseOrgan - December 16, 2025, 07:09:40 PM

Thank YOU Kizzie, for your dedication to this safe haven!

#22

Recovery Journals / Re: My journey so far

Last post by Chart - December 16, 2025, 06:52:16 PM

Thinking more about the holiday blues. I think that the extreme contrast between the idealized Christmas and the reality in my home as a child made the longing for soundness even more intense. I lived in a bubble of unkindness, violence, and sheer terror. Christmas was never a happy time. That was my reality. Everything else around me told me that I was abnormal. My holidays never resembled the Currier and Ives ideal. A hallmark moment in our home was when someone didn't wind up in the hospital.

Every song spoke of happiness, joy and peace. The music was sentimental and left a lingering sense of longing. Now, I don't know how many people felt the same as me. I'm sure there are plenty. TV shows always had some astoundingly touching Christmas story. Some miracle occurred, some need was always met. The message was that Christmas produced miracles. Everything bad became good.

As a kid I was on the outside looking in. I never had a Christmas miracle, no happy music, no sentimental reunions, everything I experienced was the exact opposite of that. The happenings at Christmas were no different than the rest of the year, but during the rest of the year I was not bombarded with promises of miracles and happy endings. As a child I believed the stories, or at least intensely longed for them.

Those feelings of loss precipitated by the season were profound. At no other time of the year did I experience that compounded loneliness. That sense of loss stays with me along with the memories, fear, and sadness. I may never rise above this, but I believe it can get better. I'm not living there anymore, though someone forgot to tell that to the part of me that suffers this time of year.

Little2, I believe you are mourning. This sadness is the child that was never allowed to be a child, that had to grow up fast, stay awake and aware, always be on guard to survive another day. That loss is what comes back every holiday season. Your post broke me up. I literally wept for fifteen minutes. I know now that my first four years of life were like this, constant terror, periods of peace and calm lasting not more than three or four days. I still have no memories, real, solid, of that period. But when I read someone else's history, when it resonates like that, I know that I had something like that. My pre-verbal trauma has been manifesting my entire life. But as of two years ago, I have entered into mourning. I have taken that inner child and I now hold him in my arms. Sometimes we cry together. I have to say, he doesn't want another childhood. He remembers only confusion. But what he does want, and what I've started giving him is Love. I feel what he feels. I know what he knows. But I also know more. I know we are deeply deeply wounded. And my way out, my savior, my happy ending... is tears. I cry now. I cry and cry and cry again. I hold nothing back. I find tears coming at least once per day. I cry while driving. I cry in public. I cry when I see, hear, feel something that resonates... and there is so much that resonates... A women carrying her child in her arms... A smile from a stranger... A memory that cuts into my thoughts like betrayed hope.

Little2, I do not believe our inner children want to change the past. I do not believe my inner child wants another childhood. My inner child wants MY love, MY recognition... Now, he wants and needs it now. The past is the past. Nothing can change those events, circumstances, memories. But NOW is something else, and the healing I'm finding is in tears. I mourn daily, and with each salty tear I feel a little lightness, a shift, a child that takes a deep breath after holding his anxiety for too long. I find release in the love I know is with "us" now.

I believe there is a happy ending. The happy ending is now, this moment, this family that I have. The sadness of the past needs it time to be seen, to be felt, to be acknowledged. But the miracle is there, it is coming. But I will not let the child I was cry alone any more. I look at him and tell him, I say to him, I speak to him... I know. I know what you went through... You are one tough little dude... But you don't have to be brave anymore. I'm here, I'm strong, I'm good. And we are one.
Hugs to your inner child, just like hugs to all your loved ones. The happy ending is coming. But it's not an ending, it is a beginning.
 

#23

Sexual Abuse / Re: Self-abandonment since CSA

Last post by Kizzie - December 16, 2025, 06:13:53 PM

I hear you DD.  Betrayal runs deep but I hope now that you know you will allow yourself not to care so much about others and start caring for yourself. 

#24

Recovery Journals / Re: Post-Traumatic Growth Jour...

Last post by SenseOrgan - December 16, 2025, 05:34:54 PM

sanmagic7
Yes that sense of freedom, I know that too. Even during this visit it was mixed in. For the real thing, you need to be on the road huh? Toured in a camper van with a friend for six months or so in the past. Even though I don't drive, I got a good taste of that freedom. Thank you for your support. I have a few plans lined up to connect in real life. 

Canto Ostinato 'ligconcert® ' by Sandra & Jeroen van Veen, ‪@Ligconcert‬

#25

Recovery Journals / Re: starting over

Last post by SenseOrgan - December 16, 2025, 04:40:20 PM

YES!!! 

Just in case... I had a mild version of tingling/pins and needles in my fingers and toes. It took me a very long time to link it to the multi vitamins I was taking. Even though I knew about it and specifically choose ones with a relatively low dose of B6 in it, it's highly likely to have been the culprit. No vitamin pills, no issues. When I take them again for a while, it starts again. Good luck with the consultation today!     

#26

Recovery Journals / Re: starting over

Last post by sanmagic7 - December 16, 2025, 02:48:08 PM

thank you so much, DF, SO, chart, and TBB for your well wishes and your hugs.  they meant so much to me when i came here and saw them.  honestly, what a wonderful bunch of people.            

i think it went as well as possible for my D yesterday.  the woman who did the assessment seemed to get all the right notes out of my D's story and tears.  in the car afterwards, my D told me what went on, what each of them said, then asked me if i thought she could've said anything else - she had time to make additions by phone cuz the assessor wasn't going to turn her report in till today - and i was crying by that time, told her she couldn't have done better.  previously, i'd always had some little extra thing i thought should be included, but dang, i think she nailed it.

next she gets x-rays of her hands cuz her fingers still tingle and no one's ever been able to find the cause, but they are partially numb so even a cleaning job is out of the question cuz she can't exactly 'feel' things, hold things properly w/o extra exertion, etc.  that's later this week.  and she has one more of these things, i can't remember, to go thru, but she should know by march.  pins and noodles until then.

and i have a phone consultation w/ a T this morning, and i'm really nervous.

#27

Recovery Journals / Re: Marcine’s journaling forwa...

Last post by TheBigBlue - December 16, 2025, 02:42:18 PM

(If that's ok)

#28

General Discussion / Re: CPTSD from childhood abuse...

Last post by Chart - December 16, 2025, 01:55:47 PM

Hello Noraw, welcome to the Forum. I'm happy to make your acquaintance and sorry it is under such difficult circumstances for you.

I'll just quickly add my two cents. Everyone has given great information. I'll just mention two other major subjects you will also eventually want to look at and possibly explore. Very simply, body work, known also as Somatic therapy. Peter Levine is the big pioneer of this one though many many others have followed up on and developed his core themes.

I personally am deep into Polyvagal Theory and working with my Vagus nerve on a daily basis. Irene Lyon is very interesting (for me) in this branch of therapy.

Finally, Attachment Theory can also be very helpful when trying to unravel what is "happening now" in relation to "what happened then". I might be wrong, but I believe nearly 100% of trauma experiences touch either principally or in some significant way the attachment process we all experience as babies/children/adolescents.

Sending hugs (if that's ok) and support, chart

[Abitbroken]

#29

Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: New here

Last post by Abitbroken - December 16, 2025, 01:42:20 PM

Pete Walker's book "Complex CPTSD: from surviving to thriving"

I agree on this, but just to let you know Abitbroken that you can check Pete Walker's website because some of the book is there. In case you want to read around a bit before buying. You can also search his name here on our website, you'll find discussion.

Here's a thread discussing Pete Walker and emotional flashbacks, also often abbreviated on the forum to EF: https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=2589.msg16300#msg16300 PLus other threads on EFs, Sticky-ied at the top: https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?board=57.0

Thank you Blueberry - this is very helpful. I will definitely have a look and check the links out - thank you for taking the time to link this for me.

There is a lot to figure out - and it is mind boggling to me, in how I seem to relate to almost everything I have read so far, and realising that not everyone else feels and thinks this way - It has blown my mind talking to people I know that they don't feel emotions physically primarily and are able to just have a thought or a feeling and give it a label. I had absolutely no idea until this week, so it's shocked me a bit that I have wrongly assumed everyone felt the same for the past 46 years! Not realising that not everyone feels nothing or overwhelmed, not everyone has a conscience which beats them to a pulp internally... Nope

Lots to think about (well, lots MORE to loop round and round on!) Thank you for your advice - it is very much appreciated

[Hope,]

#30

Recovery Journals / Re: My journey so far

Last post by Little2Nothing - December 16, 2025, 12:00:49 PM

Hope, thank you for the encouragement.  

Chart, I'm looking forward to your comments