Introducing…

[c_is_for_contempt]

Hello,

I'm new here.

I haven't had an official diagnosis of C-PTSD, but have had a psychiatrist allude to it fitting. My sibling has also had more experience with therapy and they're the one that brought this to my awareness at all. Likely because one of their therapists figured they fit the description.

I've been in and out of therapy for the past 10 years and haven't yet found one that feels like one to settle with, but I hope to find one eventually. For now, I don't think my heart is in it. That's part of what brought me here. (It's deeply hard to trust anyone and to talk about my feelings without having my hand hover over the panic button for the portcullis to drop hard.)

Grew up in an emotionally tumultuous home. Abusive father and depressive mother. Post-divorce, my siblings and I lived with mom but I think she was unraveling and I became a target (I'm like my father... in ways that aren't also necessarily bad but you get it). My childhood has been hard to reconcile with and I've only been on this path of recovery for about 10 years. Before that, denial was survival.

While I have a cocktail bar of issues I wish weren't there... I have a lot of displaced anger and severe self hatred I'd really like to focus on currently.

It was a burnout and subsequent mental breakdown in ~2017 that forcibly put me on a more earnest path to reconcile with it all.

[Kizzie]

Hi C and a warm welcome to OOTS.  So sorry to hear you had a breakdown in 2017, it's takes so much of our mental and emotional energy to deal with our trauma on top of all that life as an adult throws at us. I'm glad you found your way here as the community is quite  caring and supportive and there are a LOT of resources all throughout the forum and on the web site.  If you have a question there's likely an answer somewhere here.  Many of us find it a relief that others get whatever we're talking about rather than experiencing raised eyebrows or confused stares like when we speak about our trauma to non-survivors.

The first thing I remember reading that stuck with me and gave me a lot of peace was something Dr. Christine Courtois wrote, "It wasn't you, it's what happened to you." The other thing along similar lines is what many in the trauma field speak about; that is, our symptoms are reactions or responses to abnormal stress, not character defects as most of us have come to believe, the nasty things we have internalized.  We're not lazy or overly sensitive or shameful or worthless or selfish or any of the things we took away from our trauma.  We are wounded souls who did not deserve to be treated as we were. 

A few things to hold close on those tough days.   

 

[Papa Coco]

Welcome to the forum C,

I certainly resonate with the displaced anger and self-hatred. I deal with those as well.  I have so much love to give to myself and others, but my anger and self-hatred keep boiling up and ruining my chance at just enjoying a restful, happy state of mind.

Kizzie said it best. This site is a compassionate, understanding community of survivors. We all have different stories, but on the same topic. We seldom need to explain ourselves, and we never have to defend our irrational fears, our shivers and shakes, to each other, because, even from different backgrounds, we fielded similar reactions and responses. We had different crashes, but we all ended up in the same place.

I'm glad that you found this forum. I hope it's as helpful for you as it's has been for me.

[c_is_for_contempt]

Thank you, Kizzie and Papa Coco 🥹😮‍💨

[Kizzie]