Just joined, happy to be here

[Chart]

Hello everyone, boy am I glad to be here. Have started reading and relating and already am feeling a wonderful connection... I am not alone... thank you all. I am sorry we are suffering, but the realization that all this is not just me helps beyond words. I have tears coming as I write. I am 55, born and raised in the US but living in France for the past 22 years. I have struggled with CPTSD since my conception. My biological father was a violent man who abused me, my mother and my sister until my mother finally left him when I was four. I received my first punch while still in the womb. I have lived in fear my whole life. Everyday I wake up with a ball of stress in my stomach. It has always been this way. Six months ago I had a major flashback and broke up with my girlfried in a crisis of anger and indignation. Four days later I crashed back down to earth in realization that I was now completely alone, getting older, struggling with my work and health, and no one I could connect with or receive understanding from. I felt guilt, shame and most of all an overwhelming fear of the precarity of my future. I laid in bed for three weeks. I tried finding a therapist. I did research on the internet. I discovered CPTSD for the first time, and the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. Christmas was a *. I have three kids and spent the whole time trying to maintain my composure and not constantly cry. Somehow I made it through but am still struggling horribly. The pain and depression are constant. My mother once told me she hid under my bed when I was one or two years old to escape a beating from my father. I have no direct memories of this period of my life, but I know from my mother and sister that the house was an inferno of screaming and yelling and violence. During this period I was mostly horizontal being an infant in his crib, and this is why I think I wake up every morning, my entire life, with a ball of terror in my gut. Like a switch, instantaneously, when I get up on my feet, the fear dissapears, lingering only as a queer souvenir of something I cannot fully remember. I have much more to say and tell but I will leave it there for the moment. I need help, but also hope to give as well as receive here. I thank you all in advance. It's time for bed in France and it's back to work tomorrow morning. But I hope to see you all again soon. Thank you again for this forum and this opportunity to connect. It means so very much to me.

[Papa Coco]

Chart

Welcome to the forum. No one should ever have to deal with the childhood you dealt with. Your story tugs at my heart. I'm glad you found this forum. And I'm glad to hear you are learning about C-PTSD.  It's usually at the core of a great number of our emotional AND physical struggles. Treating the trauma reactions makes more of a difference than just treating each symptom as if it is not connected to everything else.

Welcome to the forum and I hope it brings you some sense of connection with others who understand the complexities of living with this condition.

[NarcKiddo]

Welcome, Chart. I'm glad you found us.

[Heartly]

Welcome, Chart.  I'm glad you found us.  I'm sorry you had the experiences you did, but there is hope.  This is a supportive group of people who really understand what it's like.

 

[Little2Nothing]

Welcome Chart, glad you found us. 

[Bermuda]

Welcome to the forum. We're good people here and you're not alone.

[Chart]

Thanks everyone! It feels so nice to be welcomed.

[Kizzie]

Hi and a very warm welcome to OOTS Chart. Really sorry to hear how much you are struggling. I think you will continue to find being here is helpful because you are not alone anymore, everyone here gets what you're talking about, and there's lots of info and resources. 

By the way, I have that same reaction of all the fear disappearing as soon as I put my feet on the ground and get up from bed. Apparently it may have to do with something called Cortisol Awakening Response which I just learned about from another member. Higher levels of cortisol in the morning mean I wake up with fear and anxiety and so I can't just lay there.  I've found when I get up it tends to go away, I think because for me being in control of myself and my day helps me. Here's one article but there are lots more - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.17.343442v1.full

[Blueberry]

Welcome Chart and Hipper

[Chart]

Welcome Chart and Hipper

🐓🐓🐓🐓

[Blueberry]

 

[Armee]

Welcome here Chart. It's been really nice to find a place where the things I do and say make sense. I hope you find a lot of peace here too.

[Cascade]

Everyday I wake up with a ball of stress in my stomach. It has always been this way.

Lately, I had a vision of the ball of stress in my own stomach as a bunch of huge bolts.  I'm also new here, and introducing myself today changed the bolts to a messy, knotted ball of rubber bands, not neatly wrapped like buying off the shelf, but a clump that will seemingly never get undone.

My future is always precarious.  Thanks for being here with me.

[Chart]

Hello Cascade, welcome. I find your imagery very interesting. If you can change the image easily, experiment with other stuff, like a warm yellow sponge. Something soothing perhaps. My technique of late is just to stay close to it as much as possible. Let it be and be with it. No encouragement, just recognition. And I repeat in my head, "You are not in danger now." Often what I find is delayed results, like the next morning the fear intensity is significantly diminished. Anyway, the trauma of my infancy always comes and goes. But I am now back in it 100%. Really really hard but I'm putting my money on these new techniques (nothing much worked in the past). I don't know how it will go but I really want some serious healing now. I'm investing in my future and suffering like * now. What will it give? I'll keep ya posted

[Kizzie]

You know I had the same kind of knot in my stomach for years and years until I went No/Low Contact with my family.  When I look back now it's because I finally could breathe and think and feel without all the narcissistic chaos that was/is my family of origin. I had actually forgotten about it until I read your posts. It's taken some time and work but at least I've managed to banish that awful knot so keep on going.