Emotionally Underdeveloped?

[ajvander86]

You know from what I've been reading about in regards to cptsd, toxic inner shame is a corner stone of the affliction.  Shame is a strange one for me because honestly for the longest time I was always sort of hazy on what exactly the word meant in relation to what I was feeling.  You know, like the actual feeling of shame itself, it took me a while to realize that I have been living in intense shame my whole life and didn't even realize it. 

So being 'seen' by people and the intense fear of attack, rejection, ridicule etc I now believe was connected directly to having a bunch of shame come up for me or perhaps even an emotional flashback.  Maybe they are one in the same thing.  But recently I've been realizing that as I've avoided many social interactions and opening up over the years, combined with not knowing how to open up intimately with others or to fully express myself due to intense fear of a paralyzing emotional flashback popping up, that I am now over ashamed about being emotionally stunted. 

You know, like on the inside I'm emotionally equivalent to a child and I try my hardest not to let anyone see it.  Can anyone relate to this as well?  I guess since we're sort of all in this together in this support forum with cptsd, I'll open up a bit with you all.  As a 31 year old male in relation to females, I find that I am attracted to them but there is also a need in general for the love and attention that I did not get from my mother in relation to them.  So like my interest in relationships with women is in part to try to indirectly get my emotional needs met. I'm realizing this more and becoming more aware of it, and so I hide that part of myself as much as I can too.  Honestly I avoid relationships like the plague because I don't want to be seen/I don't want to hurt anyone due to my emotional unavailability anyway, but a large part of my shame is feeling like I'm not really a 'man'. 

In other words and to sum it all up, I guess you could say that I really feel like a big child emotionally.  I do desire that intimacy and connection with others, but there is also a neediness that is hard to stop if I open up those flood gates you know what I mean.  I know it's the fact that I never received any love or adoration from my mother at all, and while I'm working on getting my emotional needs met in healthy ways, how long is it going to take for me to age emotionally to catch up to what my actual age is?

Honestly I really hate this cptsd garbage.  I don't know, maybe it happened for a reason.  Any thoughts on this particular subject would be appreciated, thanks everyone.

[Rainagain]

Your post really resonated with me.

I have adult onset cptsd which is slightly different.

BUT

I have a dear friend who has childhood cptsd due to the death of her mother and lack of nurturing from then on.

She is probably my best friend in the world, but we don't see each other often.

Neither of us knew we both had cptsd when we met many years ago. We support each other when we can.

Childhood cptsd in my limited experience is exactly as you describe, there is a need to fill a nurture deficit void.

I saw it in her as having a hole in your cup, no amount of kindness could fill the cup satisfactorily, and the perceived deficit causes distrust, pushing people away, passive aggressive behaviours.

My friend has relationships with people who are bad for her, people who don't bother to try to nurture her or give kindness. Low self esteem allows her to accept mistreatment. But when people try to give her kindness it isn't sufficient anyway. She seems to reject it or not recognise it.

I am not judging, she is one of the few people in real life who understands me, she is flawed but magnificent to me.

Its the hole in the cup that needs repair. I just don't know how it can be done.

[woodsgnome]

I think the therapeutic term for this is 'arrested development'; where one's emotional roadmap was cut off at a certain point.

I've known it well. Relationships? Needed 'em, sought 'em. At least I used to; my fear levels are so high now I tend not to even bother trying. But even when I sought them, I'd try not feel too needy or eager and show more of the side that indicated 'well, I don't want to seem too needy'; in fact, my neediness was almost desperate, but I was also scared to fully show it. So I'd defeat my own purpose, leave others wondering where I stood or if I truly cared, and hit the road back to the familiar place of abject loneliness. Awful in one sense, but it's how I'd learned to survive.

It's almost worse to understand this, but at least it dampens false expectations. Meanwhile the only true fix I can relate to is re-orienting one's entire life. It's like having a brain injury and having to re-learn from the inside out, bottom up. It's like dropping a vase and either throwing it out or patching it together somehow; hoping for the best but highly unsure it'll work out.

Disappointing? Sure. But it's what we have to deal with sometimes; and in some cases more than others. I guess the saying 'hang in there' applies.

[sanmagic7]

how long will it take, aj?  hard saying.

i think that the fact that you recognize it and are working on it is in your favor.  are you working with a therapist?  if so, and it's someone who understands such emotional stunting, i would guess that you'll get there sooner rather than later.

best to you with this.    if you want it,

[ajvander86]

@woodsgnome

Yeah it does feel like everything is broken and has to be rebuilt from the ground up, from scratch.  Not only that, but with little to no help from others, and many times trying to do it blind folded or in the dark. 

I've rebuilt a lot of myself and in doing so it gave me a very intricate and in depth understanding of my self and 'the' self at the same time, for which I am grateful.   But if I had a choice to go through all of this over again I wouldn't do it. 

[ajvander86]

@sanmagic7

You know I've worked with many therapists of varying degrees in the past, but none of them were worth a damn, and I mean it.  The truth is at this stage in the game and in both having cptsd and learning methods of coping/healing from it I have gone way beyond what the vast majority of therapists are capable of or even taught in schools.  It's a shame, it shouldn't be that way.  Maybe it's time for a psycho/emotional revolution in the mental health field. 

So I'm currently not seeing a therapist but after reading Pete Walkers work about finding a 'good enough' therapist specifically for relational healing and one who understands trauma and cptsd, I am interested in ultimately finding a good enough relational therapist.  At the moment I have very little money and no insurance and no time to go traipsing around creation hunting for a therapist who actually knows what they're doing lol.  But I'll get there eventually I imagine.  Maybe I'll share some of the things that have been a great help to me in healing and managing my cptsd here at some point.

[Gromit]

@ajvander86
Actually what you describe sounds like familiar behaviour, in that, as a female, I have experienced this in men. For me it is promising that you recognise it & are sharing that.

Men I have been involved with tend to hide their neediness, it comes out as anger when I do something they don't want me to, showing I am independent. Whereas, it would be gratifying to know that someone needed you, without that aggression, playing 'hard to get' as if you are not needy gives the impression you do not care.

G

[kdke]

I remember reading a psychology article in regards to childhood and teenage abuse; usually, your emotional maturity will become stunted during the time when you've experienced the most trauma in your younger life.

For me, this time was during my teens. I was sexually abused when I was much younger, but I suffered prolonged, sexual, emotional, and verbal abuse during my junior high and high school years through a step parent and eventually my own mother. Therefore, I struggle a lot with my emotional regulation--which can sometimes be very reminiscent of how a teenage girl would process reality around her.

These things have gotten better with lots of diligence and labor on my part; we're talking years of never giving up and forcing myself past some towering, old barriers that I never thought I'd be able to overcome.

Emotional regulation is a dimension of cPTSD that many sufferers battle; and depending on when your traumas happened, I imagine regulating certain emotions can be especially difficult and many people might not fully grasp why. I've been judged by people for being immature in my emotions and talked down to for them. However, this is just an example of them having little sympathy; they don't understand, even though their distress over my past episodes is very understandable. You just don't speak to people that way. It's unhelpful and harmful.

One other thing that I think happens with this dilemma, and whether it's a residual effect or what causes the emotional regulation issues I think is moot, is this aspect: a lack of sense of self. From what I can tell you from my own experience, OP, figuring out my emotions had to be supplemented with building up my identity that I had been robbed of by my abusers. After my mother died back in 2014, I realized I didn't know who I was after I lost her. I had been so deeply enmeshed into who she was and her own life that on my own, I felt like no one. I didn't feel like I had any value without her. That's what abuse, narcissism, and enmeshment can do to a victim.

So it's been a process, and I hope that you will give yourself the time, patience, compassion, and consideration as you go through your journey. Best wishes.

[mourningme]

You know, like on the inside I'm emotionally equivalent to a child and I try my hardest not to let anyone see it.  Can anyone relate to this as well? 

I really feel like a big child emotionally. 

how long is it going to take for me to age emotionally to catch up to what my actual age is?

YES I can 100% relate. I am a 35yr old female who is a little girl on the inside completely dumbfounded as to who this 35 yr old person is that I walk around inside of....I have never met her  and I truly dont think I ever will.

I cant even say how many times I feel just like I'm a haux of a person....owning a house, having a job....driving a car....becoming  mother myself.....
None of this makes any sense at all to the little girl behind my sad eyes.  She doesnt even know who this adult person is. She just knows that her memories make the adults daily life crippling to hold up this fraud.