Hi

[musicforever]

Hi everyone, I've been moved reading other people's experiences here. I've not been diagnosed with CPTSD but I tick pretty much every box. It's hard to explain how I got here: anyone observing my parents from the outside would probably think they were salt of the earth types. And indeed, I do think they did their best, albeit from a rather moralistic, almost puritan, standpoint. But after many years of therapy, trying to come to terms with how bad my relationship with myself was, I've come to believe (and feel the truth of it in my body) that there was a deepest rupture between my me and my parents when I was very young, pre-memory. Obviously I can't describe what happened because I can't remember, but I suspect my mum might have had postpartum depression (I cried really a lot until I was 2, apparently). Whatever the reason, I was left with a haunting sense of inner wrongness, a belief that I had no right to the consideration I gave others, constant low-level anxiety, and a crippling sense of humiliation at any slight social misstep. I exist on 2 levels - both genuinely enjoying my friends and yet underneath never really trusting or becoming properly connected to them (with one or two exceptions). It's like after good experiences with people the tide comes in and sweeps everything away, and I have to start again from scratch the next time I see them. There's a profound mismatch between my outward life and my inner one. I self-medicate with chronic internet use. I go to addiction meetings to keep a lid on this as at times it has really felt overwhelming. The meetings feel like a supportive community.

Having said all that, things really have improved in some ways. I'm much less paranoid than I used to be, for example. I manage my everyday life a bit less chaotically than I used to. I'm finding performing anxieties (I'm a musician) easier to manage as the years go by. But deep fissures remain. I haven't yet found the self-love to truly tackle my self-destructive behaviours whole-heartedly - I try to deal with addiction more for my wife's sake than my own. Sometimes I just really want to say "To * with it" and tune out life and sink into my own little hellish world, but that has serious implications for how I relate to her, so I don't go all the way there. We're seeing a marriage counsellor who is excellent and helping us both recognise what we are contributing to the underlying dramas in our relationship. But if there was one step I could will myself to take, it would be to register deep down that I'm worth looking after for my own sake, that I'm not worthless. Isn't the brain a strange organ? I can fully recognise the valuable contributions I make professionally and personally, but somehow my body and mind won't take them in. I'm scared by what this "To * with it" side of me is capable of. I don't want to destroy my marriage. But I struggle just to exist in my body; this constant anxiety is so wearing. I find tai chi and slow walking a little helpful so I try to do those when I remember.

So that's where I am at the moment. Thanks for reading. I'm glad to be joining this community.

[Hope67]

Hi Musicforever,
Welcome, I'm glad you found your way here.
Hope 

[Papa Coco]

MusicForever,

Welcome to the forum. I find it to be one of the most supportive things I have going now and I hope we are able to give that support your way as well.

Good to hear your marriage counselor is helping!

[NarcKiddo]

Welcome. I'm glad you found us.

I can identify with the feeling of having had pre-memory abuse. I also have vivid memories of ongoing emotional abuse, but the pre-memory stuff is particularly hard to deal with. My family was outwardly marvellous.

I wish you well on your healing journey. It sounds like you are taking excellent steps along the road already.

[musicforever]

Thanks everyone!