Hi (maybe TW?)

[meanwhileup]

Hi. 40-something from the UK here. I've just joined the forum and been looking around reading the resources for the last couple of weeks. I've not been formally diagnosed with CPTSD but for the first time I think I've discovered something that finally makes sense of who I might be. I'm really looking for a place to explore more about what I suspect about myself and people who might understand and share their wisdom with me. Apologies if I'm oversharing, I can delete if it's too much.

I've always known that my childhood was "unconventional", but I've never really been able to disentangle from it's chaos to understand what "normal" is supposed to look like. Basically I grew up in a loving home, but with a mother with severe (undiagnosed) mental illness, crazy religion, and a father who cared, but basically was out of his depth and enabled all of my mother's craziness. My whole childhood revolved around my mother's illness - whether she was bedridden for months, seeking spiritual enlightenment or hospitalised with psychosis. I could never escape. I just learned to be hyper-vigilant the whole time and read the situation and try to fade into the background and not make things worse.

I feel a fraud because I've never had a "breakdown" and have learnt to always hold myself together, but inside I'm crushed. I'm so lucky to be married with children, but I've no idea what a "normal" relationship should be like and have no reference points for how I'm supposed to feel in certain situations. I just spend my time trying to hold onto stability and peace and it's so exhausting. It's only now, having couples therapy with my wife that I've been given the space to actually stop and understand how much prolonged trauma there was in my childhood and how much my actions today are in response to trying to protect myself from reliving traumatic events from my childhood. Is there a way to unravel yourself and work through things?

[Blueberry]

Hello meanwhileup,

Welcome to the forum   You don't need an official diagnosis to be a member here. Nor do you need to have had a breakdown, although lots of us have.

I'm sorry you had a difficult childhood. Children can be traumatised by neglect not just by abuse. Even if the neglect came through parental illness - still not enough of your totally normal childhood needs were met.

It's a very supportive forum here, I hope you'll find that too.

Also don't worry, I don't see any oversharing in your first post or even a reason for a trigger warning tbh. This forum is very gentle, if you overstep, especially as a newbie but for all members really, nothing bad is going to happen to you, your post will be moderated a little and you'll get a PM but no flashing red lights or other triggering stuff.

[Kizzie]

Hi and a warm welcome to OOTS Meanwhileup, glad you found us.  As BB posted you don't need an official diagnosis to be here.  If you have the symptoms of CPTSD and went through abuse/neglect you are welcome. And as you read you'll see too that you haven't overshared.  Really the only thing we ask (see the Member Guidelines) is that members don't go into overly graphic detail because we are survivors afterall and it can be triggering.

BB has also said it well about neglect which is right up there with direct abuse because we feel alone in the world with no-one really looking out for us, unsafe and unloved, and that is soul crushing to be sure. 

It sounds like you are doing exactly what you need to - therapy which can validate what's going on inside and help defuel it, and being here where you can say what you need to without anyone judging. 

I hope you find OOTS a safe place to be and that it helps you look at all you endured as a child and carried into adulthood.

[Cascade]

Welcome, meanwhileup!

Thanks for telling us about yourself.

I've no idea what a "normal" relationship should be like and have no reference points for how I'm supposed to feel in certain situations.

One thing I'm desperately clinging to is the idea that we get to make our own relationships from here on out.  I tried a new relationship about six months ago and fell flat on my face, which was one of the triggers that fed into my current emotional flashback (EF).  Anyway, if I ever try again, I will use Pete Walker's tools for lovingly resolving conflict, below.  I even see how some of them apply to my own inner conflicts.

Also, recovery involves feeling how we feel.  I believe that reference points for how we're "supposed to" or "should" feel simply don't exist.  We feel what we feel, then we get to choose what we do.

Thanks for being here,
  -Cascade

Tools for Lovingly Resolving Conflict

by Pete Walker

• Normalize the inevitability of conflict & establish a safe forum for it. Discuss and agree to as many of these guidelines as seem useful.
• The goal is to inform and negotiate for change, not punish. Punishment destroys trust. Love can open the "ears" of the other's heart.
• Imagine how it would be easiest to hear about your grievance from the other. Say as it would be easiest for you to hear.
• Preface complaints with acknowledgement of the good of the other and your mutual relationship.
• No name-calling, sarcasm or character assassination.
• No analyzing the other or mind reading.
• No interrupting or filibustering
• Be dialogical. Give short, concise statements that allow the other to reflect back and paraphrase key points to let you hear are accurately being heard.
• No denial of the others rights [See Bill of Rights, www.pete-walker.com]
• Differences are often not a matter of right or wrong; both people can be right, and merely different. Be willing to sometimes agree to differ.
• Avoid "you" statements. Use "I" statements that identify your feelings and experience of what you perceive as unfair.
• One specific issue, with accompanying identifiable behavior at a time. Ask yourself what hurts the most to try to find your key complaint.
• Stick to the issue until both persons feel fully heard. Take turns presenting issues.
• No interrupting of filibustering.
• Present a complaint as lovingly and chargelessly as possible.
• Timeouts: If discussion becomes heated either person can call a timeout [one minute to 24 hours], as long as s/he nominates a time to resume. {see 1 below}
• Discharge as much of accumulated charge before hand as possible.
• Own responsibility for any accumulated charge in the anger that might come from not talking about it soon enough.
• Own responsibility for accumulated charge displaced from other hurts. {See 2 below}
• Commitment to grow in understanding of how much of the charge comes from childhood abuse/neglect.
• Commit to recovering from the losses of childhood by effectively identifying, grieving, and reclaiming them.
• Apologize from an unashamed place. Make whatever amends are possible. Include your intention to correct your behavior in the future. Explain your extenuating circumstances as evidence that you were not trying to be hurtful.

[Papa Coco]

Meanwhileup

Welcome to the forum. I join in with our peers here that an official diagnosis is not required. If you've been reading about C-PTSD and you know that you fit the attributes of it, that's all that matters.

You said that you had a loving childhood, and I just want to comment that I also did, but that love, like yours, was peppered with mental illnesses and narcissism by some family members, religious leaders of my childhood and even friendships that I'd made with people who were not, at all, good for me. Coming from a "loving" childhood that was also fraught with confusion and coercive or mental gaslighting leaves us growing up confused. I used ask "HOW can I have trauma disorders when I came from a loving household?" It took a while for my therapists to help me see that I am not at all an imposter. The neglect and abuse I suffered was hidden under the name of love. The damage done to my self-image was absolutely real. I am not an imposter, and I don't believe you are either.

It's very common in most of us to begin our journey of healing by first having to accept that our own abuse or neglect really was severe enough to drive a lifetime of trauma triggers. Nobody has trauma triggers if they didn't have trauma.

I sometimes like to think of it like this: Two people sitting in a hospital waiting room, both with a broken leg. One person's leg was broken by a serious war or a serious attack, while the other's leg was broken by falling while having fun playing with friends. My question is: Who's leg deserves to be cleaned and casted, and which one deserves pain meds and a 6-week healing period with a pair of crutches? The answer I come up with is, both of them. A broken leg is a broken leg, no matter how it happened.

So it is with our right to be aware that we lived through something, no matter what it was, that has formed a trauma response to life that is just as serious as anyone else's.

For myself, and many others, the more we accept the trauma triggers as something we have the right to talk about, the more we see just how serious our childhood traumas really were.

I'm very glad you found the forum. I'm sorry to read about the dynamics of your young life, and the confusion it causes in you as you learn how to process what it means to have a normal family today. As far as I'm concerned, if we love our spouse and children, and if we are able to show them that we love them, that's about as normal as any family can ever get.

Welcome to the forum!

[Little2Nothing]

Welcome Meanwhileup I sorry circumstances brought you here, but am glad you found OOTS. 

[meanwhileup]

Hi. Sorry thanks for the kind words and welcome. I'm kind of still lurking at the moment and trying to read through everything.