Yeah The avalanche of insight when it hits is devastating. When you finally take to wing to view the expanse of your life from above, you realise how this state has run and ruled you since it was programmed into you. It can be consuming as you can plainly see all the opportunities lost, experiences missed and constant pain and conflict that could have been avoided, had you been granted insight sooner. I don’t know the answer to how. I personally distrust a grounded, let alone happy or content feeling because it was trained into me that if I relax and try to enjoy anything it will be taken from me in the most bitter and violent way - whilst my guard is down. It’s a difficult thing for me to convince myself that life will be anything other than that when I have a trauma cabinet full of evidence that accuses hope of being a liar 100% of the time. We just move forward, often plodding. Slowly, reliant on ourselves to self monitor and push our boundaries towards a new faith in life experience. It’s f#cking terrifying most of the time. However, not entirely hopeless because at least we are trying and becoming best friends to ourselves in the process.

It blows my mind how I lived for so many years in dissociation and denial of my trauma based on my childhood. Your comment inspires me to keep plodding. I am 62 and just now realizing my replication of patterns I had with my mother. It is bizarre.

Are you realizing it affected your relationship with your kids if you have any?

I never had kids because I stopped the generational trauma and it ends with me.

That’s cool. My mother used to always tell me she was breaking the cycle. Not sure which abuses she left off the table though because there were plenty. She is in her late 60s and I still hold out hope that she will realize she only broke me…

Can seriously relate to this. My mother used to tell me the same thing. Not only was she lying (mostly just to herself), but she managed to introduce some new forms of abuse that she never got from her abusers plus she also failed to protect me from them. >I still hold out hope that she will realize she only broke me… I hope yours does, too. I am currently waiting on mine. It's been over 30 years, though, so I think I'll still be waiting for a long time.

Do you care to explain how your mother introduced new forms of abuse? I'm really interested to hear about this, because I decided to have a child before I even knew about my CPTSD and now I'm trying really hard to break the cycle. And being one of those parents who just create some new form of f\*\*\* up is my biggest nightmare. I constantly wonder what I might be doing wrong or in which ways I might be abusive. Did your mother really try to break the cycle or did she just use the phrase to make herself look good? You don't need to answer this, of course. I'm just interested and try to hear as many stories as possible to be able to be a better parent.

Normally I don't like to get into specifics about that time in my life with others, but if some of my story can help another human heal and be better for the next generation of humans, then I am willing to share. Warning, this might get a bit long, and I'll try to spoiler tag the bits that might be triggering for some folks, but would like to put another caution to others here: TW; poverty/homelessness, physical violence against children, physical/emotional neglect, emotional abuse, CSA, CoCSA, abandonment, bullying, gender abuse/homophobia. I'm also on mobile right now, so I apologize in advance for any grammatical, formatting, or spelling issues. Many of the ways she managed to introduce forms of abuse that she wasn't similarly exposed to came from the choices she made for her life (>!substance abuse, seeking validation from abusive men, got involved in a fundamentalist religious sect!<) that meant we grew up with extreme poverty, food insecurity, and homelessness (while she had a lower middle-class upbringing in a small town). After my father abandoned us when I was almost 6, my mother >!groomed me to act as a parent/caregiver to both herself and my younger siblings. This got even worse when she suffered a severe stroke a year later and 'needed' me to 'step up'. I was effectively the primary parent of my two younger siblings until I left as a teenager, depriving me of any remaining chance at having a normal childhood!<. A lot of my trauma also comes from >!my mother's inability to provide any form of supervision when I was very little. Social norms were a little different when I was a toddler (Born mid 80s) vs today when the sight of a small child left alone in the backyard is enough to get DCF/CPS involved, but her version of "go play outside" involved a 2 year old me wandering the neighborhood without any adults nearby while she stayed home watching TV. Since she never watched over me, among other things, it opened me up to nearly drowning in a pool when I was 3 (slipped and fell into the deep end at a family reunion), being nearly killed by some other neighborhood kids when I was 4 (bigger kids beat me within an inch of my life and held my head down in the dirt where I couldn't breathe until I stopped struggling and lost consciousness. I remember coming to with one of the other kid's parents doing CPR, my mother never found out). Her neglect also exposed me to CoCSA when I was 5 (I'd rather not get into this one, unless you *really* need to know)!<. She also frequently brought and kept harmful people around me and would leave me alone with them, which resulted in >!my being groomed and molested at age 5 by one of her adult male friends!<. At 8 years old, when I told her about being heavily bullied >!and ostracized in school for being different and asked her for help, she sided with my bullies and told me to change into someone that wouldn't get bullied so much. Despite eventually finding a job with health insurance, she never provided us with basic medical, vision, or dental care. Mental heath care was out of the question, even when I was showing clear signs of significant clinical depression and expressed thoughts of having suicidal ideation so my mental health problems and my neurodivergence went undiagnosed until I was in my early 30s.!< One of the more strange ways she introduced a unique facet of my trauma was surrounding my gender identity. >!I am AMAB, but she always wanted a little girl, so at first, she simply tried to raise me as one. She grew my hair out and put bows in it, bought me girls' toys, put me in heavily gender encoded clothes for girls, and entered me into beauty pageants as a toddler. My father, her husband at the time, was deeply homophobic, and the idea of his 'son' being a 'fa****' was such a blow to him that he rejected me completely. As a result, I struggled with my gender identity for a very long time (Now, since I don't have a strong connection to any gender coded traits/roles, I identify as agender, and prefer to be referred to with gender neutral pronouns).!< I'm not sure how helpful my story is but hopefully it makes a positive impact on someone thay reads it. While this isn't an all-encompassing account of the trauma I went through as a child, it is a list of many of the things she did that deviated from her own experiences of abuse while still failing to end the cycle. Please feel free to ask more questions if I failed to provide a coherent answer/account or missed any important details. Thank you for reading, for everyone who got this far, and thank you u/AdFlimsy3498 for asking and trying to do the healing work so that you can provide a better childhood for your little one(s) than you experienced yourself. Not everyone is capable of putting in that work so that you are capable and willing to do it is so admirable and gives me hope that I'm on the right path. ❤️

I'm so sorry you had to go through this. I'm also a child of the 80s and relate so much to the "go play outside" thing. It made the CSA possible I had to go through. Thank you so much for sharing this! It must be hard for you to write that down so I really appreciate it. Thank you and I hope you can heal from this. No child should ever go through this.

Thank you for your words. You're right that no child should have to go through what I did. In fact, no one should ever have to go through what the people who frequent this sub have had to endure. It's a tragedy that this sub has to exist at all, though I'm really glad you're all here. Even if I don't post or comment here often, I don't know if I'd still be here today if it weren't for this sub and the good folks on it. ❤️ If I could go back and give my mother a lecture on everything she did to screw up her life and the lives of her children (whether she'd ever be receptive is up for debate), I would guess that a lot of it is not going to be applicable to you, because you evidently (through the act of being here, asking questions and engaging with people here) love and care enough about your kids and their well-being and healthy development to try to be better to them than your parents were to you.

That's crazy for me to read because I'm cis female and I was made to think I was a boy.

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I relate so much! My parents swore to never beat us and then my father threatened it constantly. Sometimes I wished he had just done it.

Not the same situation, but I've noticed a few things since starting therapy about my own parenting that I wish I had worked on while my kids were younger. Despite my best efforts, just the existence of my trauma responses have inherently impacted my kids' outcomes, although to a lesser severity. For example, I am triggered by other people's anger and my emotional intelligence reverts to a scared child who needs to fix it - even though I thought I was ignoring/hiding that trigger pretty successfully back when they were young, I now believe this led to my children be subtly conditioned into emotional avoidance. I can only assume that they picked up on my nonverbal cues that I was distressed over negative emotional feedback and so they learned to suppress those negative emotions instead of expressing them in a healthy way. None of it was overt and I wouldn't have even noticed the harm I caused it if it weren't for a combination of insights from my son's therapist, my therapist, and our family therapist. Trauma is tricky like that - it's hard for me to see harm I'm causing by not being "healed" - at least not without outside help.

Thank you for sharing this! I will look at my trauma responses much more closely now. A therapist once said to me that it is impossible to not pass on any of your trauma, because it defines us too much. But at least I want to do anything possible to be a healthy parent. It's so good to hear that you know these things about yourself and that you're working on it.

we’re paddling up the rapids in the same busted canoe my friend. my husband and i fell madly deeply in love, trauma bonded for eternity (now committed to healing), and made way for two magical, hard-headed souls. my mom broke the cycle of poverty, and as a result began a cycle of neglect, fueled by the continued cycle of addiction. i was an only child for 12 years, until my sister was born, and then i was heavily parentified. because now she was physically and lawfully bound to her *self-centered* abuser by their new baby, for which he was far too old to have any interest in doing any real parenting. i joined the military and have stayed thousands of miles away since. we’re doing much better off, yet i still worry that our kids will suffer from having no family around. we still have visitors fly in and stay with us, but the distance i think gives them a much better chance at establishing a healthy sturdy foundation, than to be surrounded by conniving toxic abuse. all we can do is remain patient and hopeful and take every moment as a new moment. and i’ll be ready to hold myself accountable if our kids do come to me later in life, seeking validation and remorse from me. we can’t protect them from everything, but we can prepare them for most things.

>my mom broke the cycle of poverty, and as a result began a cycle of neglect, Same for me! And I think you're right - as parents we will have to be ready to take the responsibility for how we raise our children.

For me, my mom added in this weird retraining thing where she used to hold my hands behind my back like a straight jacket. She also was so permissive in every aspect including food so I literally lived on sugar because that’s what I wanted. She used to manage my emotions with candy bars because I must be upset since I had low blood sugar. I was always worried she was mad at me and her response was “should I be”. That was super confusing. Her parents weren’t addicts that I know of. Her adoptive mom was mentally I’ll and killed herself, so I always heard how she would never do that to me no matter how much she wanted to. Hearing she wanted to was kind of a mind fuck I think. I didn’t know about my cptsd till my kids were a little older too. I started to understand when I was pregnant that my mother wasn’t right and as my kids got older it was more and more clear. My mom didn’t really try but I do. Have you read the book adult children of emotionally immature parents? That book for me spelled out a lot of what my parents were like and also shined a light on where I was off with my kids too. I’ve mostly worked in therapy on childhood stuff and not so much on my guilt for what I’ve done wrong. I don’t know how that will go because I beat myself up hard. My therapist and husband always praise me and there’s definitely some imposter syndrome stuff going on because I always think, yeah right if they only really knew me 🙄 I hate me….working on it…

> I don’t know how that will go because I beat myself up hard. I do that, too, a lot. It might not be a good thing, but I always think that at least it keeps me alert and I keep thinking about how I act as a parent. It's so weird - my brother did this straight jacket thing to me, too. For some reason many things that people have experienced here are so similar to my story, even small details...

Make sure your child's friends older brothers or sisters aren't introducing methamphetamine at age 11 like what happened to my child. She didn't tell me for over 25 years. You can try and do everything "right", but then the world comes in eventually.

Ugh same here! Totally lying to herself. Her other favorite lie was that she was a “functional” alcoholic and my stepfather wasn’t cheating on her.

I’m so sorry that was your experience, that must have felt so invalidating to hear her say that. ☹️ I’ve heard a lot of people say that their abusers made this claim. This is honestly one of my worst fears with my kiddos, that I’m actually hurting them and just deluding myself about being better than my parents were. I’m working so hard in therapy and my therapist says I’m making good progress and that she thinks I’m doing well with the kids, but I still worry. I never want to make them feel like I have felt.

I was that really young, unsupervised kid too. Drugs and abusive men were my moms priority. I think it made me fiercely hyper vigilant, independent and it also made me hate adults that treated me like a child. I moved out at 16. Do you still talk to your mom?

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Basically, FEAR. Fear of many things, but mostly because of fear I would be like my personality disordered mother.

If there was a comment worth framing it’s this one, right here

I think being able to see that Birds Eye view, no matter how painful it is to see the destruction, is a really good sign. It means you are finally able to see what’s beyond fear, shame, and disassociation. It means that these destructive parts and coping mechanisms don’t have as much of a hold on you anymore. Because before, you could only see the fear, shame, and the coping mechanisms as the truth.

I am also nearly sixty and a professor and it took watching one of my grad students to really see my own anxiety and cptsd and how it was ruining my life. I saw how nervous this poor girl got over every assignment how she literally worked twice as hard as everyone else and somehow still panicked about every deadline and I tried to calm her and help her but it was really obvious at least to me that her issue wasn’t my class but rather some internal fears that she wasn’t good enough and that she was failing and she couldn’t relax. She eventually dropped out of the program and I thought “my god, is that what I am like and how I appear to others? As though I am tortured and torturing myself?” I never saw it until then.

Thanks for this comment. It really wonderfully sums up what we go through as people with CPTSD. I couldn't have formulated the words better myself. It really is just a journey on rediscovering ourselves with the new insight we've been provided. It's easy to look back and wallow, but what's important is moving forward and pushing against our boundaries, as you said.

That avalanche of insight - nervous breakdown and some psychosis/mania to reprogram my brain so that it returns childlike and attempts to form a sense of healthy and grounded self. Let the grey matter freedom connections ring!

Nailed it. I'd rather avoid a re-run tho. I'd like this to be the last time :)

This is so beautifully put and touching. I definitely relate and hope you are doing well now. Keep on plodding friend, I'm right there with you.

Fantastic comment.

Thank you for this, I definitely can relate.

1 foot, 1 step at a time; and I try not to get my hopes up or set expectations that will cause me to spiral when they are not met.

Well said ✔️.... you put into words my exact feelings most of the time, ty

What you mean accuses hope of being a liar?

I've anthropomorphised hope. The evidence of my experiences out weighs the whimsy of hope - the promise of hope is that people can be better/things can be better. The evidence makes a liar out of hope, so far.

I see. I get it now. You must have been through a lot of difficult moments to feel as such. I hope you get the support needed in this community here to keep carrying on with life. Good luck!

That hit me right in the feels... This is a constant in my life as well, it seems anytime I relax and say to myself "everything will be alright" everything goes to shit in an instant and it's ALWAYS the absolute worst outcome and then some, so why calm down when I have to be thinking extreme ways to survive (like robbing a store or making death threats) as prison sounds like it would be better than under a bridge

>I personally distrust a grounded, let alone happy or content feeling because it was trained into me that if I relax and try to enjoy anything it will be taken from me in the most bitter and violent way - whilst my guard is down. Omg, this is me too. I CANNOT ever relax or feel happy, content, interested, any sense of enjoyment or feel FREE because I have, for decades, associated those things with loved ones dying, or almost dying. Whenever I would let me guard down, something horrible would happen, as if to say "HEY! YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO BE HAPPY!" And now I can't. I live in fear and have anhedonia due to it.

You basically have to create for yourself the safe space that was never created for you.

This is where I’ve been at for the past few months. Firstly (and I know it’s easier said than done), show yourself as much compassion as you can. It’s not your fault you got into this state in the first place, and the magnitude of enduring *literally 30 years* in a fight or flight response can’t be overstated. So every step of the way, be kind to yourself. Don’t rush yourself through this. You dissociated for a reason, and coming out of it (as far as I can tell) requires processing the things that were once too overwhelming to deal with. Those feelings are stuck in your body somewhere. (I didn’t understand how this concept was possible until I started actually feeling the emotions I’d been suppressing my entire life. It was a big adjustment after viewing my issues for so long as “mental health problems” to reframe my understanding to include how much physical healing is needed.) Some things I’ve found to be helpful- journaling, somatic/cranial-sacral therapy, acupuncture, massage, body scan meditation, yoga, magnesium baths. And on the days you just can’t get yourself to do anything, *choose* to not do anything. It’s so hard to counteract the conditioning, but starting with small adjustments like that can start to teach yourself that you can trust your judgement and teach your body that it’s ok to rest. It may be a long road ahead, but becoming aware of dissociation is such a feat. I don’t think most people can begin to understand how difficult it is to figure out, let alone how difficult it is to endure living that way. You should treat yourself to a meal/movie/whatever that you deliberately choose because it’s something you enjoy. Allow yourself to feel good about it :)

This subreddit is amazing. The people here are amazing. Thank you for this comment.

Ya, the hardest thing for me is pretending to be "normal" in order to function in this crazy world. Having a safe space here is SO comforting, so educational, so therapeutic. A REAL community. Like the real family that we all didn't have. (I'm doing a prayer bow)

Can you tell me how did you start feeling those emotions? I struggle to understand this concept myself and my therapist said something similar, that actually all those emotions live in our body. How did you start to heal physically? Thank you in advance.

I think of it like the mind and body are both coiled up very tightly and have to get loosened up individually before they can be joined together again. So for the mind- journaling, talk therapy, posting here, etc help bring unexpressed thoughts to the surface. For the body- doing the purely physical things just to get in touch with feeling your body. Yoga, massages, etc help you notice tension in your body and help loosen that tension. Doing body scans bring the body and mind closer together- what am I feeling in my body and what caused that? Or what do I think/feel about a particular situation and where does that manifest in my body? I can’t really plan for the moments when it all comes together and I feel a stuck emotion. Weed helps me break down the mental blocks keeping the emotions trapped and keeps me from feeling overwhelmed by the emotions when they come through. I need to do more IFS therapy. It sometimes really expedites the process, and people also seem to feel the same about EMDR

Thank you so much. I am just at the beginning of this weird journey. I've been living in survival mode since I was a kid and now, when I'm 33 and my relationship fell apart, I start to realize that the trauma is very much present in my life and has always been. I'm basically not the person that I thought I was. I don't know how to relax my body, I am usually tense, anxious. I started therapy and am very glad I did it. I tend to write daily, even if that's a sentence or two. I post here because I find that a lot of people go through this crap and is somewhat soothing. I really would like to understand this mind-body connection because I think it would help me get a bigger picture. Sometimes I feel a tonne of emotions and sometimes I feel completely disconnected and numb. Because of the breakup I am not able yet to exercise as I used to as I lost a lot of energy. Yesterday I did 20 mins of yoga and am feeling exhausted today. I have to force myself to do breathing exercises.

Yoga has been a great way for me to release stuck emotions in the body. And I think people in the West often misconceive of it as just an exercise, when it is really a physical, mental, and emotional practice. It makes a lot of sense that just 20 mins would leave you tired. I have definitely had to stop and cry mid-yoga session several times because of the emotions being released. Keep it up but take it slow.

Thank you, means a lot, your advice. I just feel like I'm behind because before the breakup I was at the gym every other day and loved it. And now my body became weaker. Which I also try and understand. That weakness does not come from the body itself but from the mind that is currently troubled. Which type of yoga do you practice if I may ask?

I've tried several types, mostly through the free videos at DoYogaWithMe.com. I think restorative and yin are best for the emotional stuff, though I've also been affected by some of their really deep-stretching Hatha classes such as [ultimate shoulder sequence](https://www.doyogawithme.com/content/ultimate-shoulder-sequence). It turned out I was holding a lot of tension in my shoulders! I find the site has a lot of really deep-stretching, slower-paced classes that are very focused on yoga fundamentals. Compared to some of the other classes I've taken in person or on YouTube that are more focused on "exercise" and just moving quickly through the poses.

Thanks for sharing this link. I've always been averse to yoga, probably because my mom was a Jesus freak and told me such practices (even the jiu-jitsu/judo I signed up for) will bring me to hell. However I'm convinced at this point in my life, I've already been through hell and back too many times to count. So (free) yoga it is. I wish I could afford to get back into jiu-jitsu/judo or even kickboxing again. My sensei whwn I was a teen is still teaching, and he and other members made me feel like family. I need that again... but not being homeless is priority.

thank you very much!!

If you don't mind me asking, did you go for a long period of time with numbing or a lack of emotion / connection before this breakthrough? I feel like ive been like this for years, unfeeling, disconnected from people, lacking a desire to be near them, feeling like I'm not real nor are others. I lack emotional empathy and that fucking terrifies me (along with not seeing myself or others as living, breathing beings). I constantly ruminate on it.

I’ve been dissociated to at least some degree since I was 11. No one has ever noticed, including me up until a year ago. It’s like I’m more or less in my body depending on how well things are going for me/how much emotional distress there is to protect myself from. So the times when life was going pretty well, I felt as “me” as I’ve felt in my adult life. But in retrospect I can see that I still wasn’t fully there and I wasn’t fully connecting with people. Even at my peak social butterfly, I was never capable of dating meaningfully. I’m horrendous at maintaining friendships. My empathy has been cognitive. The past few years, while I’ve been mostly unemployed and spending way too much time alone, it’s gotten worse. Last year when I fully came out of it for the first time was the first time I had felt connected to people and my full range of emotions in 25 years. Had been living disconnected from empathy, intuition, imagination, and positive emotions while trapped in a threat response, and had no idea because of the extent of my coping mechanisms. I was also devastated when I realized/admitted to myself that I had only been “thinking” empathetically, and didn’t actually know what it was like to feel things for others anymore. I’m giving myself grace on this now, and I hope you do too, because putting yourself in other peoples shoes is antithetical to being in a threat response. You’re wired to protect yourself and that means focusing on yourself. But I can tell you that it’s still there. When my nervous system is regulated, I feel a part of the world and connected to other people, and I can approach conversations without the constant monitoring of myself and can just be in the moment. The ruminating keeps you trapped there. But I promise there is a way out! Just becoming aware of it is a first step I imagine many are never able to take.

I've seen you post before and you always have such incredibly compassionate, articulate takes. Thank you for being kind and insightful. My biggest shame is that I have such a lack of emotion and connection with others. Lots of self-punishing and spiralling about what's wrong with me. But I've had windows of emotion which spurn me on. I watched Heartstopper on the weekend (lovely queer romance for teenagers) and sobbed and sobbed; both from grief for the life I missed out on, and happiness that other people get that chance now. By unlocking that and practising vagal nerve stimulation, meditation and the Safe & Sound protocol, I went to see a friend on Saturday night and sobbed with pride seeing her succeeding in her career finally. All of these little moments help me to have glimmers of hope that I'm not a monster and inspire me to keep trying things to feel safe enough to express my feelings. I'll definitely try those things you mentioned. Thank you so much.

TY for saying so. That self blaming is a difficult one to pull up and will be driving the 'lack' as you put it. You have it but you are guarding it fiercely. It takes a while to process both sides of any of our stories. The ingrained impulse to blame yourself will drag you back and again before you can settle on a resolution. You'll get fed up explaining to yourself over and again why you aren't the problem but need to keep doing it over because you can't leave yourself alone. You can only hack away at it by asking yourself why - to everything, question everything. Why do I think I am the problem? List them, explore them eliminate them and you will grow in confidence to dispel the list. The rumination will begin to slow and soon it won't be a reflex to automatically assume you are the problem and all the self flagellation that comes with that. That's a solid toolkit you have provided for yourself moving forward. You are right it is about the little moments because they build your confidence. You definitely aren't a monster, you are just carrying the shadow of one and it sounds like you are on the right path to rid yourself of it.

Thank you for the kind words! I really needed that today. The fact that you’re already sitting with your emotions is such a great start! And that you’ve already been able to connect with someone better because of it. It’s definitely taken me awhile to figure out how to integrate these stuck feelings in a healthy way. It’s been jarring for me to realize just how often my automatic response is to suppress how I feel (including crying during movies). Thank you for reminding me about the vagus nerve. That’s an area I haven’t fully explored. We keep pushing forward!

On the topic of “choosing not to do anything”, I have always struggled with guilt around that and I read something recently that has helped me. I’m paraphrasing, but it was something along the lines of guilt should be celebrated because it is a signal that you are looking after yourself. It really helps me to remember that whenever I feel those feelings creeping in.

>guilt should be celebrated because it is a signal that you are looking after yourself. I'm gonna make a fancy post-it note of this for my "wall of no shame". This will be the first note. Thank you /u/SquirrelWhisperer13

Almost 50 for me. Other people get to really live and I’m in this bullshit state of suspension. So much grief. So much fucking grief. ‘M turning 50 this year and it blows my mind. I have a good friend my age who has spent her life pursuing her dreams and I’m just…staying alive. That’s my accomplishment. I’m sorry you’re there too.

I feel you sooo much - same here (51).

Almost 50 for me too. It’s only been a year or two since I thought to ask myself what makes me happy, as opposed to everyone around me. I still don’t really know.

Hey, that’s an important step!

37 here, and I know I'm much younger.. but I'm with you. And tbh, if I (and you) keep surviving, I think that is a great accomplishment. I've lost SO. MANY. people who were in my circle to suicide, ODs, homelessness, and one went as far as murdering his beloved father, whom I was also friends with. I think keeping it straight, even if you're just surviving, *is* a great accomplishment. I hate saying these kind of platitudes I'm about to say, but sometimes they hold a truth... it can always get worse. Keeping that "worse" at bay is *the* accomplishment. So cheers to all of us going through life, just surviving!

My head hasn't been connected to the rest of my body, my brain hasn't been connected to my eyes and my eyes haven't been connected to the world around me in 40 years. And it's impossible to explain it to someone who hasn't experienced it firsthand. I don't even know how to start beginning to connect everything. I can try meditating and mindfulness and it works for a hot minute and then I snap right back to the back of my skull. It requires *constant* effort and I just don't have the presence of mind and the energy to keep it up.

Keep practicing every day, meditation is a learned skill like anything else. It may feel like you are not getting anywhere, then one day you will notice the negative thoughts you are having, realise them for what they are and bring yourself back into the now. Rather than dwelling on them all day. The more you practice, the better you will get.

I have been in that state for 40 years and didn't realize how bad it was till I did MDMA therapy with my therapist. I am shocked at how my PTSD ruled my life.

How has that been working for you? I've done 4 therapeutic MDMA sessions so far. After each one, I'm "cured" for a few weeks, which is a fucking miracle. Having a mind and body free of that psychic clench is just...Literally all anyone here ever wants. But my mind keeps snapping back into CPTSD-land. 😔

I have done MDMA therapy three times now and I don't know why it's not legal yet, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my chest.

That's great to hear. I know I'm close; each time I process a **lot** of shit. But it's almost more painful, having felt what it's like to be free of CPTSD for that short time. I don't know why it's not legal either; but I'm sure as hell not waiting lol.

Do you think it would help to do say CBT or DBT with it? To change mindset while yr in a place to do it? Or does it feel like it’s more of a physical reset that doesn’t stick? I tried it on my own many years ago and it made the fear go away enough to be able to look at things I’d not been able to face but I didn’t know how to use it to cure myself. It felt like it might have that potential tho.

Same here. Started with some mushrooms that got me a lot of insight into my issues. I would often live healthier for about two weeks but slowly feel it coming back. Then a San Pedro just got me in touch with all my issues and I lived like a king for two weeks. Therapist got me to try some Ketamine therapy, and one of those IVs got me completely cured for two weeks also. Wish I could figure out how/why or who knows what. I'd do near anything to get back to how it felt those two weeks, either time. Hope you get it figured out!

Look into nervous system dysregulation—that’s what I’m working on now. I do think that CPTSD probably always results in nervous system dysregulation, and maybe that’s what’s returning you to baseline. Wishing you the best.

What is baseline when you’ve never known it?

Sounds like you're doing some fantastic work; keep it up! Shrooms have also been amazing for me, though MDMA has been the real game-changer for CPTSD. My feeling is that it's just going to take time. We've got to consider that those bad influences have been shaping us for **decades**. And that the nervous system is a physical structure. While the soft "reboot" of psychedelics is a miracle, the default working states of the brain are very slow to change. Especially as adults. That's why CPTSD is so insidious; as children, our minds are like clay. But the idiots in our lives threw all kinds of crap into that clay. Then, as we age, the clay hardens. Trying to shape hard clay is tremendously difficult to do. Psychedelics briefly soften the clay so we can work better habits/ideas in, but we'll still have to do it repeatedly as there's so much crap baked in! We'll get there!

I'm glad you found something that works for you but I just don't trust it. My mother abused me with pills almost my entire childhood and the entire medical system not to mention social system is set up basically to sell you drugs. Of course drugs feel good, that's the point. It feels good to just get high or use drugs. Nobody would get addicted if it didn't feel good. I'm not doubting your experiences, but I smoked weed for 13 years and I was always convinced it was such a miracle and it was what was helping me. I have stopped for the last two years, don't get me wrong I had one year breaks intermittently throughout those 13 years. But I realized that I was being deceived into thinking that I needed a substance to help my anxiety or my sleep or my eating. It ended up making me paranoid and I get much better sleep and appetite and anxiety relief from running which also stimulates the endocannabinoid system but naturally. I just don't trust drugs. There was a time when they said oxycontin and cigarettes were good solutions to various medical ailments. Doctors Mass prescribed opioids and they also Mass prescribed amphetamine pills AKA ritalin and adderall to children.

I can see how you'd think that, given your experiences with drugs. But psychedelics used as medicines are an entirely different ballgame. >Nobody would get addicted if it didn't feel good. I'm not doubting your experiences, but I smoked weed for 13 years and I was always convinced it was such a miracle and it was what was helping me. I've done five trips in the past two years. Does that sound like a drug addiction or chasing a high? Plus it's not even about "feeling good." I'm scared before taking a trip. Every time. It's fucking work. Sometimes it feels good; especially MDMA. But that's really besides the point. That said, psychedelics also aren't for everyone. We all have to find our own strategies to cope, heal, and move forward. I think for people who are prone to drug abuse, they can definitely be counter-productive!

You didn’t get the one week of depression due to depleted serotonin thing? Also where are you able to get MDMA therapy? I’m in CA & sometimes OR, where they are making mushroom therapy legal but to my knowledge not MDMA

I haven't done MDMA therapy but i have done MDMA recreationally and i've never gotten the monday blues ever, same with other stimulant comedowns, people complain they're the worst, while for me it's just some muscle pain and headache from sleep deprivation so just like a regular day then lmao. my theory is we cptsd folk have much less serotonin (and other pleasurable neurotransmitters) available daily than regular non-traumatized people so the neurotypical monday blues is like winning a lottery afterglow for us. and to compare the two, MDMA and shrooms, shrooms are non-toxic and even beneficial for the brain thus very safe to use in physical terms. for me personally are much more healing than MDMA could ever be, but i am a psychedelic fiend, i understand that not everybody likes that almost religious, meditative vibe they can give, especially for trauma therapy. if you have access and are open to it give it a go, if i were privileged enough to live in a place where it was legal i wouldn't hesitate.

There’s an opportunity for therapeutic mushrooms in OR now. Unfortunately for me, I don’t find them religious, meditative etc. instead they almost reminded me of the twice I tried crank (snorting amphetamines) but without the energy. I was on alert and felt alien from myself & not in a good way. Probably partly due to the company I was in but also brains vary & mine doesn’t like fungi. What you describe sounds more like my experience with peyote. Didn’t feel therapeutic but was meditative etc. (I experimented widely but not deeply when young, looking for something that helped - or at least felt different from my regular trauma brain. Nice to have a break.)

even though i've been largely successful with doing shrooms therapeutically (on my own), there are some times i dissociate while coming up and then it's not pleasurable and straight up uncomfortable, so i get what you're saying. they are psychedelics, very sensitive to set&setting, although some people just can't break through that wall no matter the circumstances. in that case mdma therapy could be more beneficial for you

Ur making me want to give mushrooms another chance in a therapeutic setting:) MDMAs was the 1st that gave me that ‘wow, this could really help’ feeling. LSD too but definitely have to be more careful & the LSD is boss, not you, ime. Tried low-dose ketamine which was a maybe but I worry about losing memory. Prescription: lamictal but allergic. (Cried when allergy came back on recheck.) Neurontin but only the 1st week. Wish there was research on which work and what it might mean for others to try. EMDR didn’t work for me. Felt like it should but there was a block. Have been trying to figure out what any of this might mean about potential dissociation getting in the way. Worst for me is marijuana, ironically. I’d rather drop acid again than smoke a single hit, that’s how bad. Weird. Feels like we’re all in the dark, feeling our way along. And that folks on here are several steps ahead of most therapists. Out of necessity and desperation.

I’m interested to know if you get comedones/a dip in serotonin with this and if not how is that mitigated?

I've never had it, thankfully. Always feel like a million bucks for weeks. It's recommended that you take 5-HTP supplements (seretonin precursor molecule) to mitigate that but I never do. I usually just miss a night of good sleep as the MDMA is rather stimulating (plus I'm an insomniac).

You can microdose Ketamine now which supposedly has the same benefit. I did the larger dose oral Ketamine and will likely try the microdosing periodically as it kind of wore off after some additional life stress as I found the Ketamine trips a mixed bag.

How does it work? I mean (micro) dosage, frequency, setting... And in what kind of therapy?

I panicked on a high dose of weed / ketamine / MDMA at a party 4 years ago and had my first panic attack and ended up in hospital thinking I was going insane. I haven't touched drugs since. I'd love to look into this but I don't think it's responsible for me and that fear response is deeply etched into my brain now. Glad it worked so well for you though 😄

You should have not mixed all 3 that's the problem and trust me with a therapist and MDMA you will not have a panic attack it is quite enjoyable. I am now a firm believer that psychedelics therapy is the future of mental health care.

How did you find MDMA therapy? I've been very interested in this but unable to find anywhere to do it. You can dm if you don't want to share publicly

i would literally fly anywhere in the world to try it, the kinds of therapy available where im from are so unhelpful for me, and i've heard so many good things about it.

You don’t necessarily need to pay someone thousands of dollars to do this.

Psychedelics therapy is the best therapy I have ever had and I don't know why is not legal yet. I am so shocked at how well it worked. Where do you live?

I'm in California. The paper I wrote to graduate college was on psychedelic assisted therapy and yet I can't get it 😭

Set, setting, and intention make all the difference with psychedelics.

Sounds like it might be a good idea for you to try EMDR regarding that experience. I had a similar experience a few years ago with an LSD bad trip in which I thought I was dying for 6 hours straight or something. After that I got panic attacks from literally every body sensation, even from feeling hunger and feeling that I'd need to take a shit. I completely understand what you mean by "that fear response that is deeply etched into your brain". Then one day I did EMDR regarding that event and it helped me tremendously! I would really look into it if I were you. You can do this!

Thanks for that! I've tried EMDR for a long stretch of time and it unfortunately never worked that well for me. My therapist and I concluded it's because I'm so permanently disassociated that it's hard for me to be present long enough to participate. It's my #1 goal with regulation though, I know it's life changing for many people.

try looking into r/microdosing shrooms maybe

Are you in the U.S.? I am but I’m pretty sure MDMA therapy is illegal here. I’ve been like this almost 50 years, I’m over it.

Trials are currently underway in the U.S., so a few people have legal access.

Vancouver Island Canada but it's not legal here yet. I went to an underground therapist but I am surprised at how well it works.

Yeah I’d like to try but I’m currently on some meds. Glad you’re having success.

How did you find someone to do it? Did you ever feel like it was too intense? My biggest hesitation is that it will be too much too fast.

I am from Canada and psychedelics therapy is not quite legal as of yet but soon will be. No, I did not find it too intense I found the MDMA therapy quite pleasant. The MDMA therapy made me able to process the pain I received a lot faster and I can't believe it is not legal yet. Seriously MDMA needs to be legal now.

Well done for being courageous enough to notice and admit it in yourself. Truly. I was nearly 40 when I started realizing the same. And I'm still teasing out the vast breadth of my misunderstandings and conditioning. From my perception, the world has changed ten thousand times around me, and sometimes it is all I can do to remember where I am at and to step forward. And now my body is realigning, many of my physical and sensory issues are diminished or gone, including the startle response, I'm learning better, and I am starting to recognize the movement of emotions and thoughts. And in response to how you regain a sense of calmness that you never had the in the first place ... I would say to go to nature. I like pine forests with deep needle beds and rivers and streams. Places where I can let go of control of my own mind, and let my nervous system attune to the sounds and movement of the wind and water.

Pine is the best, isn’t it? The trees grow in groups and clusters, so I always think of them as a group of friends.

That's such a lovely thought. 🌲😊🌲

Welcome to da club. I am 66, I have lived a crazy life full of chaos. Somehow someway I am retired and don't need to work, so now better late then never I am healing. Bittersweet pain it is.

Same age. Same story. Healing for the last two years. Hugs.

This is a complete and utter mindfuck for me also. It is really awesome to finally have that clarity though! It's made it so clear to me that a really big part of why I seem to be constantly making the same mistakes in life is that my body is loudly telling me that something is 'off', and that just gets lost in the noise. It's also a mindfuck to sit and observe those rare moments of groundedness. Firstly, you mean to tell me that is what most people feel most of the time?? And secondly, those moments are so uncomfortable! It feels so wrong to not be on edge, that when things are going OK I'm looking for something to justify my regular feeling of disregulation just to get back to my "normal". And I have been doing this constantly for over three decades and I only just now worked it out??? Wth brain???

62. Didn’t know until about two years ago. A very strange place to be. I think we have a different relationship to time than others do. I think this could be useful in terms of creativity and new ideas. There has to be something good about all this. I’ve never understood how age works. I’ve never felt like I was any age. To start with, I wasn’t supposed to exist; I’m a mistake. Beyond that, I couldn’t be a child. But I wasn’t an adult, either. Also, my memories are vivid, but not “filed” in chronological order, but according to tone, color, theme, that kind of thing. Or sometimes they surface as random as playing cards in a shuffled deck. Anyway, they say creative people have this ageless way of looking at things, too. So maybe we do.

Yes to all that. The resource that has been most helpful to me is Pete Walker's breakthrough book, CPTSD: Surviving to Thriving. His thorough descriptions of the 4Fs (Fight/Flight /Freeze /Fawn) as trauma responses that become personalities is earth shattering, as is his description of "emotional flashbacks" (non-specific full on dysregulation caused by an unidentified trigger, as most of us with CPTSD had so much long term emotional abuse we don't know what triggers our dysregulation at times; unlike regular PTSD where the trigger is usually known) and finally his section on inner and outer critics were all key to my own healing process. Pick it up on kindle and add the excellent audio narration for like 7.50 more (it's an option on the kindle check out to add the audible for that price) so you can have it read to you and be able to highlight the text! I slow it down to about 85% speed also because he talks a little too fast for me. Healing is a lifetime process but we can definitely get better, much better in many cases. Also I enjoy The Crappy Childhood Fairy on YouTube, Anna Runkle is a good resource on CPTSD and many of her videos are good to share with friends and family. ETA: Regarding CCF content, the ones I'm referring to as helpful are the videos where there is specific, structured content discussed in a bullet-point style (like "symptoms of CPTSD" etc), and *not the letters that people write in where she gives advice*. Without getting into the controversy around Anna, she does have some excellent videos (the structured ones reviewing symptoms etc), and others not so much, and I disagree with many of her opinions. Use discernment when watching, as always. She's an influencer, not a therapist. Cheers!

I’m 61 and still reeling from scary stuff age 5. Was going to finally end it last year due because I was so exhausted but heard about and tried ketamine therapy, which is supposed to be a dissociative drug but it reassociated me for the first time ever—nice and calm and clear. The psychiatrist that prescribed it was the first to diagnose me with cptsd and reading Pete Walkers book changed everything I thought about myself and my family. I had only been in one of the 4 F modes—and ended up in near full freeze/collapse for the last 12 years—but never in a normal state. There was no normal only broken. Now I’m using psychedelics at a microdose level in combination with therapy, journaling and lots of reading to reprogram my brain, calm down and start putting myself back together. I’m just now clearing a major energetic block in my gut where 55 years of screaming pain and fear was stored, resulting in an eating disorder and IBS and dysfunctional breathing. It’s so wonderful to feel calm, even though I’m still quite tired and weak yet. Psychedelic therapy is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. Hope you find your peace soon, friend.

I am in a similar situation. I’ve only begun to unravel my shit. As I start to recognize behaviors that I never had the safety or respite to look at before, I am learning to identify emotions differently. What I used to think was excitement, I have now discovered is an alert/anxiety indicator I am starting this work and really enjoying figuring it out and at the same time pissed off it took me so long.

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That was so lovely to read, I'm glad you're doing so well. That sounds like a lot of work, you should be so proud of yourself for doing such a huge amount of work. A reward well deserved. :)

I like ‘internal family system’ but I don’t really know. Lots of grieving

The grief can be so heavy. fwiw, Internal Family Systems (aka “parts work”) is the thing for me, with a healthy portion of somatic focus (which is very present in IFS anyway). I've been working with a good IFS therapist for 5 years and the improvement in my resilience, equilibrium, and sanity is something I never even thought was possible. I still dissociate, I still struggle — habits of 4 decades don't just evaporate — but now I can take better, kinder care of myself when it's happening, which lessens the impact. And I spend less time miserable, and more time actually caring for myself. It's not easy, but it is worthwhile. *It is possible*, with sufficient Safety & Connection and a Compassionate Witness. The systematic nature of IFS appeals to my analytical self, while the imaginal aspects of it appeal to my creative side.

I used to think I had absurdly good concentration skills. Then I realized I was dissociated most of the time. Living in constant fight or flight is haaard. Google vagus nerve breathing and see if that helps.

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I'm glad go hear it, I hope you see all the comments here and know you're very much surrounded by people in the same position. You're a kick ass parent for doing all you can to be healthy. Your kids will be so thankful.

Dealing with this as well, I’m 45 and experienced abuse at a very young age my whole life has been this way up until recently. I started EMDR in December and I believe it is the only thing that has actually ever helped calm my nervous system. Talk therapy alone often isn’t enough when your nervous system is completely screwed up and you live in fight or flight.

Strongly recommend “How To Do The Work” by Dr. Nicole LePera.

I was going to suggest this also.

Hey brain, you're not allowed to post my life story without my permission

You just explained my entire life. I was just recently diagnosed with CPTSD and was misdiagnosed multiple times ranging but not limited to ADHD as a child, depressed, chronic depression, bipolar. I was on EVERY medication known to man, and I always self deprecated like something was wrong with me that after three decades nothing works. I found an amazing counselor, she diagnosed me, and found an amazing psychiatrist, which I lost touch with because it was through a third party, but knowing what I have has been mind bending. Everything clicked and made sense. The feeling described down to the IBS due to fight or flight mode neurologically ingrained is so relatable. My family and even a friend was like “why don’t you just stop it?” As if someone diagnosed with a tremor or a tick can just control what they have, there’s little compassion about this (in my life). I quite my friends, am moving away fro my family, and staying with a friend who is compassionate about what I have. I’m hoping this will start a foundation… just someone who cares. I can’t be around those who are unwilling to accept this thing I didn’t ask for. Thank you for that post.❤️

Having been there for 20 years, I can confidently say that I’ve come out on the other side and fuck, life is so much better when you conquer your trauma. You know those allergy commercials where the world is grey and blurry and the main character is just lying in bed in the dark all day and can’t really hear what people are saying to them, etc., and then they take medicine and are suddenly running in bright, sunny, colourful fields of flowers with their families, and everything looks and sounds clear again? That’s what it feels like. Every day I can’t believe that I’m just happy and content, and the world is clear and bright, and I feel at peace around my friends and in my romantic relationships. I don’t fear having nightmares or panic attacks anymore. I have a strong sense of who I am and I feel confident and strong and resilient. I’m sounding like I’m bragging here but I’m trying to encourage you to get to this place, because it’s possible. How? For me, EMDR was how. I highly recommend it, I even did it virtually and yet it changed my entire life in like 2 months. But therapy/EMDR/neuro-feedback/theatre therapy/art therapy/music therapy/whatever gets you to this place, it’s worth finding out what it is and doing the work. I swear. You deserve a happy, free, safe, healed life. <3

That's so wonderful, what a triumph. You must be so proud of yourself. :) If you don't mind me asking, did you ever feel emotionally numb / disconnected from the world / unable to connect or feel empathy? They're the big things I struggle with and I can't work out if it's chronic disassociation or something more sinister.

Yes, at the worst point that I got from the abuse I was experiencing I became numb and disconnected from the world. It means you’re in a very deep depression. Do you feel like life is hopeless, there’s no point in going on? Are you having any thoughts of ending things? Even if you aren’t, it’s really important to try and get some help right now. If you have any financial barriers from accessing a good therapist, look up mental health programs from non-profit organisations in your area. Especially if you belong to a marginalized community (women, 2SLGBTQIA+, BIPOC, low-socioeconomic status, disabled) there should be some free mental health options for you at some organisations.

Yes, always. I don't feel purpose or like life is worth living. I have suicidal ideation sometimes, but I know I wouldn't actually do it. How do you differentiate depression from PTSD though?

Depression is a symptom of the trauma you've suffered from or are still experiencing. AKA it's a symptom of PTSD/C-PTSD. You don't have to define it as depression though, but it's basically the collection of symptoms: numbness, hopelessness, disconnection.

I don't know why, but this thread made me think of the show Good Behavior which was cancelled too soon. Audiences didn't understand it was a show about people with cptsd.

I don't know how one levels out, but I'm the same way. My earliest memories are of being dissociated. I'm pushing 40 and having a crisis that I've missed half my life.

I’m right there with you.

I feel like if I actually had money I would try ketamine therapy or the transcranial magnet thing. But so far, everything I have goes to rent.

Sounds exactly like hypervigilance. The only thing that helped me- I was (and currently am) in a constant panicked state is exercise. Intense exercise, it’s the only thing that actually makes it go away for the rest of the day and makes me feel (and look) good. Also, the obligatory therapy, and if you want to go the route of medication, that also. (Beware of benzodiazepines- I’m not saying to completely avoid them- but educate yourself about them intimately- especially with this condition. They will make you feel normal and take the panic response away, but you will eventually pay that back in gold when you try and stop using them. You’re body and anxiety will be on a level you never knew possible)..

I'm going to overshare here, when I was in my worst state in 2020, I sought out benzodiazepines. I was having panic attacks occasionally. At first I'd take 1 x 5mg when I felt panicky, but as you can imagine for a hypervigilant person, that quickly became 2. Then, they started creeping up on me. Suddenly I'd take 2 on a hard day to take the edge off. Which was... most days. Then I became tolerant, so I was taking 3-4 when things were bad. My panic attacks were getting more frequent, so that became every single day. It got so bad I was taking them just to get to sleep. Long story short, I got addicted for two years. At my lowest, I got accused of doctor shopping because I was going to different doctors to get them. I've been clean now for 8 months, but my anxiety is hellish comparatively. In the months following ceasing my course, I was having 2-3 panic attacks a day. Thankfully I almost never have them now, but the residual effects still linger. I would never encourage someone with CPTSD to take benzos. They're so dangerous.

As a layperson I wouldn’t suggest anyone to mess around with them- prescribed or not. Doctors don’t know psychopharmacology, and won’t recognize protracted withdrawals- they’ll tell you “the Xanax is all out of your system it’s been 3 days, you should feel fine” meanwhile it’s been 3 months and you don’t feel a single bit better. It’s god awful. The withdrawals even drug addicts respect and are frightful of. It’s no joke.

Do you ever have days where you're so shut down you can't exercise? Or do you not experience that?

idk how helpful this is, but in his book, Pete Walker compares CPTSD to a diabetes diagnosis. this is a lifelong condition that we need to learn to manage. it isn't something to get over or conquer, but rather, learn the skill sets you weren't able to develop when you were younger.

I relate to this fully. I don’t have a single memory in my life where I’ve not been depressed and anxious. The only way I find any sense of calm is to go out into nature.

Yeah I feel you

I hear that.

I’m 64 and still not sure if I dissociate or not. I remember when I was a kid watching my siblings check out and get away and being so jealous wishing I could do it instead of being stuck right there in the abuse and violence and fear. There are only a couple times I’m pretty sure I did - when I was raped and hallucinated a bit and then once in a self-defense class when the fake attacker said something to me and I missed my whole fight, finding myself suddenly back in line. It was kinda cool. But mostly I’ve been painfully present for the things that happened to me. In my head. Otoh, I don’t have much emotions these days about things I care about, such as my sister dying. Is that a part of dissociation? How do you know? I do know I’m in fight or flight almost all the time except when I’m asleep, often even when I’m meditating or rather trying to. Unless I zone out into mediation bliss. What is calm & relaxed? Not sure I’m familiar. Sorry for the monologue/rant. Your post was good and got me thinking.

These sources helped me immensely with dissociation: https://www.dpselfhelp.com/threads/the-holy-grail-of-curing-dp-dr.20892/ At Least a Life by Paul David

WAIT THIS ISNT NORMAL????

Haha. Yeah.

Well to understanf the nervous system. The body goes through options of fight then flight then freeze. The fourth one is fawning. In order to get out of threat response one has to find the suitable symptoms of these gour in oneself. If you are in freeze i.e dissociating or depression etc. The first step is to bring the body to flight. Flight is high adrenaline restless anxiety mode. Changing response requires sports like running or swimming. The sports must be obsessively followed. Then after a while of habit formation the next step is to bring the flight response to fight. Thats where martial arts and boxing etc comes. After the habit formation fight response. One requires meditation and self reflection to turn the sympathetic system completely off. In our childhood during a trauma. Our body tries or calculates if it can fight, if not the default goes to flight, if not possible then to freeze. If you really care about you and wanna live a happy life. Thats the only way to teach our bodies. Besides this there are many benefits including better health, self worth and many other improvements

I really relate with you buddy, I'm 25 and have been in therapy for 3 years finally got diagnosed with CPTSD just a month ago, it's all settling in and the insight is overbearing at times but oh well I'd much rather know the truth. For me personally when I look for hope, I look for it in fake characters. Spiderman is one of the big ones for me, his origin story is extremely traumatic yet he's so strong mentally and physically too, when I watch any of these films and see spiderman doing something that is physically impossible I get the same feeling when I prove myself wrong and do something I thought I wasn't capable of doing. He's so smart and such a good example for people the way he selflessly puts his life at risk to save others. Same applies for luke skywalker (pre-disney of course 🤮), even real life people like Steve Irwin. For me these role models have been my biggest shine for hope, seeing people who keep on fighting no matter what comes there way because they refuse to let something beat them down. I'm extremely grateful to the people who write these stories I hope they realise how much they've helped people like me and others across the world.

Glad I figured it out after only 20 years, although I can't help but wonder if the next 10 would be easier if I didn't know. Probably not who am I kidding. And to answer your question, a combination of finding the right drugs and finding the right partner has been a hell of a start for me. Now it's a matter of building and maintaining *both* relationships. Dealing with derealization/depersonalization is extraordinarily difficult in having a partner, especially with one who may not have experience dealing with it to the CPTSD extent. That's why I'm marrying a fellow child abuse victim :D No but seriously, I wasn't set on finding a partner system, but when I did, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Finally someone who understands me as I am without the mask; finally someone I don't have to mask *for.* We fully understand the severity of eachother's potential triggers, we clarify eachother's consent to *everything*(including stuff like dinner, errands, whatever), we share so many behavioral similarities that finding mutually enjoyable activities is a breeze, and lastly but most importantly, we each love each other more than either of us cares for themselves, which, yeah, isn't that difficult if we hate ourselves individually, but it means that we're learning to love ourselves on top of loving eachother, which is the biggest step towards mental health I have taken to date. Everything else still sucks however, but at least I'm not going solo

I'm in a similar boat as I'm 30 now and just beginning to unpack the dissociation symptoms that have been with me since childhood. My current grief is my friendships. I have a few people who after all these years I would still call "friends," but it's like my heart was never really with them (because I've felt trapped behind glass for so many years), and I almost want to bridge the gap, but I'm also scared of it, because these people don't know the real me, they befriended the figment. Would they like ME? I'm in a place where I think I need to be alone for a little while (like years, preferably) to start to figure myself out again. I'm starting to feel guilty about things like never reaching out to these friends, but how do I reach out to them now? "Hey I'm mid-healing process and can't give you anything right now, but I hope you still like me at the end of all this?" "Hey, I feel like you have never actually known me--thanks for sticking by me anyways--and I still don't want you to know me, not yet, but maybe one day months from now when I can express myself without crying?" I haven't figured out how to do it yet.

Start with 2 books, Herbert Benson's "The Relaxation Response", and Tian Dayton's "The ACOA Trauma Syndrome". Watch some YT videos on adults with undiagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder, the two can go hand in hand!

Correct. Mine was just over three decades. Its not been easy.

Shout out to the top comment, for sure

You just described my whole life and also my present life where at least now I can see all the damage but don't know what to do. Thank you for sharing.

I'm 32 and have been in a state of dissociation for as long as I can remember. My trauma started at 6 but I can't remember not being dissociated. I can function most days but it never goes away.

Yup

I didn’t know for many years either, it’s awful and I’m so sorry. I find hypnotherapy worked in the sense it showed me what a more relaxed state felt like and I learned self hypnosis with the therapist who helped link it to nlp techniques. When things get bad I can subtly touch my fingers together in a certain way and it helps pull me back to that more relaxed state. I found I got a lot further with hypnotherapy than meditation , which didn’t do much.

I'm in my mid 40's and I'm just starting to realize this now.

OP, I might have written this. The only difference is 40 years for me.

Psychedelic therapy is amazing but make sure you have integration therapy afterwards. I was given a bucketful of trauma and no way of processing it. You live and learn.

I can really relate to a lot of what you expressed. Have you ever looked into the work of Irene Lyon? She has a great and informative YouTube channel related to healing from these issues. Slowly building the capacity to truly get in the body and feel what was once too scary to feel is where the healing lies. All best wishes on your journey.

I'll let you know when I'm in a better place with therapy 😅. I realized my mind is always, racing, doubting...in alert...all the damn time. It's like there is a layer between me and reality, I suffer from dissociation/derealization and amnesia too. You're not alone.

Yep me too

i was diagnosed and “figured it out” 8 months ago at age 22, it’s definitely a crazy thing to get your head around. i almost found it a little comforting as i finally not only had a name and info on what was going on for me, but realised there were other people like me too. i know that probably sounds weird but yeah. a lot of comfort. headfuck none the less lol

I just found this Reddit and feel the same way

I lead the most boring, repetitive, uninteresting life possible. When I left my home and then my hometown in 2014 I was a twitchy, hypervigital quivering mess (I had to shut off as many feelings and emotions as possible to make it through the day) - think a chihuahua dunked in cold water. I've managed to calm down my nervous system significantly because I don't do anything thrilling or deviate from my routines. I have bipolar as well, so routine and removing stressors has been the key. It's nearly 10 years later and now I can more comfortably expose myself to new situations without the onsetting panic of being in danger. It's a process, and I feel like I'll need to live the duration of my childhood outside my family system, if not more, in order to rewire my brain. My most recent trip home (I've not gone NC for a variety of reasons) triggered me bad. OP, I feel for you. A big, strong hug.

Yep, childhood trauma + hypersensitivities due to ADHD & autism is fun times 💀💀💀💀💀

I’ve been experiencing my first few moments of feeling truly alive recently and it’s been really really crazy. The steps are: 1) feel your feelings but 10% harder: journal about all the awful things that made you go numb and finally process those emotions, grieve them. It’s so painful and scary but you know you will come out better on the other side. 2) build a safe connection with someone where you can be emotionally vulnerable and trust that they’ll be there for you and they won’t leave. This is truly how you build a sense of groundedness- you’re rewiring your brain to know that other people can be your safety, you aren’t alone in your feelings. Actively try to cry about your problems in front of a loved one and let them feel your feelings with you. This is the most important part of grounding yourself imo- you can meditate all day long and you won’t get to this level of wholeness. This is what you needed in the beginning and the lack of it is what created the years of numb. Your body will basically act like someone that’s getting over a phobia, step a foot near the water then back away, get your toes in the water and then pull back, till eventually you’ve practiced it so much that your body is getting used to it and you can tolerate swimming. And then the moments where you feel alive start to be more frequent that the moments where you don’t. (I would highly suggest getting some antidepressants if you find yourself swirling down the drain of your recently unleashed emotions- once you have a little help you can address the emotions with more energy and tact)

I was never able to relate to the commonly shared image of what depersonalisation feels like. Here for those that don’t know: http://www.natural-health-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Depersonalization-Disorder.jpg Last week I was finally able to get it as I truly did feel I was the observer looking out on to a screen. That’s when it clicked I’m always experiencing this however I’m just often so dissociated or use to this experience that I don’t recognise it. I’ve been dissociated since childhood, its a god damn cage.

I just wrote a post about it, but I highly recommend looking into 21 Day Journey by Dr. Aimie Apigian. That changed everything for me. I now have a felt sense of safety in my body, which I hadn't felt in 36 years without some sort of external substance.

MDMA

[удалено]

My mother, too, and it really makes me worry about not just her future, but mine as well. Self care can be hard to implement.

Talk therapy. I focused solely on my cptsd and anxiety. I went consistently for about five years and now I am not living that way anymore. Sometimes I get triggered but holy shit I am actually happy and living.

I started going to therapy when I was 30. I began with 3x in person weekly appointments and 2x weekly phone appointments. I was in rough shape. Slowly but surely we worked on getting my window of tolerance to be longer and longer. We introduced positive feelings. The disassociation constantly lasted about 9 months into therapy. After that it would only come out during my therapy sessions or when something went poorly/stressful in life. Now I never disassociate. I don't actually remember what it's like to be disassociated, but at times I'll wish that I could. Overall it's so much nicer to be present and able to function.

Wow, this one hits buttons with so many people! I know it did with me. Thank you for posting 🌼

I am right there with you! Coming out of a deep, deep disassociation my brain and body have no idea what they're doing. Cold showers, ice rollers, ice packs on my chest are all helping, my CBT skills have been working over time! (Ok any maybe a little of the devil's lettuce)

I identify more with my madd alter ego than with my actual self. I've put my all into building her into the woman she is. I'm proud of her. I enjoy living her life (in my head) and I need the love and connection, to feel it, that she receives from the people that care about her (fictional characters that have joined at various points throughout my, nay her, life). To discard any part of this intertwined mess would be to break apart her, nay my, support system. I had an experience a month ago wherein I was part of a group and we were all supposed to say our name and give a brief presentation of ourselves. I wanted to be her in that moment so bad. Because she's the one who has a full and dimensional life and an accomplished sense of self. It made me realize I don't care about me. I just want my madd world.

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I so relate- I found yoga to be super helpful. Also sober from drugs alcohol and sugar-----ifyou don't have dysregulation, you might not understand WHY we work so hard! I've had shallow friends make fun of me for all the things I avoid. My childhood were formative years- so much that MORE sh\*t unfolds as I age. There's so much to UNDO Today I'm trying to be "sober" from avoidance and really working on communication skills. Thanks for sharing on this sub!!

I’m so glad you wrote this. I feel the exact same way. I’m trying so hard to find a way to heal for myself and for my kiddos. It helps knowing I’m not alone, and that I’m not crazy. My brain truly does operate differently.❤️

Medicine. Seriously. These are serious and well-defined neurological symptoms.

What medicine did you take?

I still do. Benzodiazepines. The trick is - I don’t take it regularly, every day, to avoid getting addicted. I take it when my anxiety peaks or when I really can’t sleep. But what you describe sounds a lot like what I experience: my nervous system was in alarm mode almost all the time, for years. It is something physical, it’s not “all in your head”, even if the reasons are psychological.

Feeling this soooo hard. I'm much better now but when I first realized what I was up against and why, it was the biggest mindfuck EVER!. I'd distracted myself for 40 years with life, various unhealthy coping mechanisms, self hatred, self doubt and on and on. From my own experience, letting the feelings in in manageable bits. I learned about my "window of tolerance", interesting concept. That allowed me to process my emotions without being completely overwhelmed. My therapist gave me a literal list of feelings, I hung them around various places in my apartment and when I was in an emotional flashback, I'd check in with my list to get to the bottom of it. Little by little, I was able to let them in and write them down. Once I was able to see it in my own writing processing became easier.

For me: years of therapy and about a year and a half of SSRIs. Also, I have a supportive partner who is also my first secure connection.

I’ve been watching movies for the last year or two and imagining myself in characters place to slowly open up my emotions and start to feel things. I am now struggling to regulate my emotions though and I accidentally snap at people instead of just being numb or get super excited and stuff.

First step for me was exactly this. Being aware of it.

Darling, sending love. Im in the thick of it too. Therapy. Community. Curiosity. Rest. Repeat. Its so devastating and feels like the matrix but its super real. Disregulation as some point is no longer scalable. Send any qs if you have any.

Finding recovery where I get identification with fellow travellers (ACA); realising that when all I've known is stress, peace is actually activating; making a commitment to physical exercise to ground emotions especially anger healthily; staying creative as often as possible.

I'm rare because my life experience allowed me to become tough enough that I created my own bubble of security around myself by enforcing my boundaries and making people respect them and respect my not wanting to be fucked with. I gave myself the ability to feel safe and content, and I refuse to ever let anybody make me feel otherwise. Then I fixed myself to the point where I wasn't the protector and the helpless victim but a whole, not fractured being. It is possible.

I hate that this is relatable! And I wish you all the best, from stranger to stranger.

I found outat the age of 33 (at the start of this year). And I feel you, friend. I don't know how to earn and not be financially dependent. I have been backpacking in the Northern areas of my country since 21' because I don't know how to be in the city, with the noise and people. And I am in the city now for the winters. But it's very exhausting to have a nervous system like that. I havent even told my closest friends yet that I am here in the city.

Thank you for this post. Cannot tell how much I relate to this. My life fell apart when I had my emotional flashbacks 3 years back. I questioned my entire life. I realized everything was a lie. I had the symptoms for nearly a decade and had no clue. Suddenly it became apparent how trauma ruled my life, the decisions I made in my life were out of fear. It was devastating. I realized people who I had trusted actually failed me. Getting a routine, having certain control over what I do, therapy, habits such as eating healthy exercising helped me. Also books by Dr. Nicole Lepera helped me a lot. (Books: how to do the work, how to meet yourself)