A support community for those affected by C-PTSD

As the community continues to grow and attract people who are just figuring this all out, we've decided to change the weekly thread focus to be more open and encourage newcomer questions and support. Please use this thread if you are seeking support or have newcomer questions. Want to see if your post topic has been discussed here? Type "subreddit:cptsd" after a search term in the search bar (ex. "friendships subreddit:cptsd"). Here are some common newcomer questions:

• DAE struggle with expressing anger?
• DAE struggle with anxiety/ depression?
• What are emotional flashbacks? How do I deal with them?
• How do I set boundaries?
• Was this (situation) abuse? Was it bad enough to be considered trauma?
• What books do you recommend?
• What type of therapy worked best for you?
• How to deal with relationship struggles/ anxiety/ fear of intimacy?

If you are new to r/CPTSD: Please check out the rules below, and for our mobile users who can't access the sidebar, more resources are located below the rules. These can also be accessed from the auto mod message that greets any post.

Keep the rules in mind when you post & comment:

1. This is a peer support community. Be a supportive peer.
2. Don’t ask for diagnosis, don’t diagnose others: Respect that you may not have all of OPs details and even a trained, trauma informed care provider cannot diagnose over the internet. So don't. Assume the context of OP as a CPTSD survivor or supportive partner of a CPTSD survivor.
3. No hate speech
4. Please be mindful about triggering content. Avoid graphic thread titles, and use [Trigger Warning], NSFW and/or the spoiler tag whenever appropriate.
5. No RaisedByNarcissists lingo: A lot of folks come from the RBN support community. A lot of us do not. To keep the sub inclusive to CPTSD newcomers and survivors of different backgrounds, use common language synonyms for RBN acronyms. There are some exceptions.
6. All content must be CPTSD related: Our lives, our struggles, and our victories with CPTSD.
7. No Self-Promotion: Don't sell stuff or recruit for studies and projects without explicit mod approval. This thread is an exception; in the Vents & Victories thread, you may self-promote blogs, videos, and other media you created.

BIPOC

We recognize that healing communities such as r/CPTSD are not exempt from the insidious impacts of racism, whether overt or covert (for example, invalidating, minimizing, or microaggressive comments made by those with good intentions). In these cases, we encourage users to report the comments as Rule #3 violations. Because of the subreddit's high profile and open nature, this problem will continue to be with us, and we therefore can only promise a "safe-ish" environment for BIPOC. Racial trauma will always be on topic here at /r/CPTSD, but BIPOC users that want a more closed space can make use of /r/cptsd_bipoc. Thank you to the mod team at /r/cptsd_bipoc for helping us write this verbiage.

Additional Newcomer Resources

• Crisis Resources
• Emotional Flashback 1st Aid Kit
• Grounding & Containment Tools
• An FAQ Guide to CPTSD
• Our Library of Books, Media, and Healing Resources for CPTSD
• Common Myths About CPTSD
• The 5-Steps to Find a Therapist Plan
• The CPTSD Wiki Project Index, while currently under construction, has all of the above information and regular updates on many additional topics you may find helpful in your healing journey

We have been getting a lot of users messaging the mods regarding not being able to make a post and/or needing a link in order to make a post.

If this happens to you: you have not been banned or had mod action taken against you!\*

There seems to be an ongoing issue with the Reddit Mobile App. This issue is causing problems when trying to post to certain subreddits. As far as we can tell, it seems to be completely random which subs and users it is affecting.

Suggestions would be to uninstall and reinstall the app and see if that makes a difference. Otherwise, posting from the website itself seems to be the only sure work around.

* In the event you have been banned from the sub, you would have received notification of that action.

I’m fully aware that I have to take accountability for being in debt. I didn’t know anything about money my entire life. I was never taught how to save, how to spend, how to invest. Nothing. I used shopping as a way to cope and got myself into debt because of it.

I never knew the concept of credit till I was about 25. I never understood the seriousness of taking out loans. I always thought I was smart enough to handle my finances, I was so wrong. I learned my lesson. However, I wish I was taught these things. I was never taught how to take care of myself. My teeth started rotting at 9 years old because I was never taught how to brush my teeth. (I learned after my first root canal at 10 years old).. but that’s just an example of many.

I just hate not knowing basic life skills. On top of dealing with CPTSD which is already paralyzing.. can anyone relate? P.S wish me luck on getting myself out of debt. :/

I'm not going to do anything to myself that would require a 988 number. I just want to vent. I'm not really in a good headspace right now. If I ever do end up doing anything, I won't post about it. I don't want to.

I keep feeling like suicide is my destiny. I was born to do it.

All these things I see others getting or having (comparison is the thief of joy), happy and OUT THERE in the world (you have no idea what they’re struggling with), all I can think about is what I’ve missed out on (ruminating will keep you stuck in the past unable to enjoy the present opportunities), and how it’s impossible in my current situation and status of the world to GET THEM (your beliefs are the only thing holding you back), etc, etc, etc, ad nauseam.

I can’t do anything because I can’t think. What’s in my brain AND what’s NOT in my brain as a result of what I’ve been through or haven’t been through. And I’ve had no control over any of it. This is life for me.

You shouldn’t have had to go through that

Really curious if you guys see a pattern with the people you fawn around. What type of people are they?

I just met two new people, and I realized I've been fawning over just one of them. I'm also ruminating about the conversation I've had with them.

I'm trying to figure out of why I fawn over her and not the other girl.

One seems extravert, confident and chatty. I have a thing with extravert people because my father also used to pretend he was this friendly outgoing goofball (he was not). But I've definitely met extravert people that do not raise this fawning response in me. I wonder if I'm being shallow or that something in my body is telling me this person is not safe.

The other is a bit more reserved but friendly. I wouldn't call her shy just not as out there.

Does physical appearence matter? They do look slightly different, I would call one more comform beauty standards but there is only a slight difference.

I keep thinking that after 4 years of the relationship ending, that speaking to him will give me some peace of mind but it never does but I still reach out. Why doesn't it ever sink in that this person covertly abused me, manipulated me, gaslit me hurt me for almost a decade. It sometimes feel like the abuse was not real

I want to challenge the negative notions behind behaviors and emotions like begging, desperation, bitterness, despondence, and jadedness, and laziness.

People who display these particular behaviorsand emotions are seen as less than, needy, manipulative, gross or deserving of less human dignity and basic respect.

To me, this is bullshit. It also seems based in the just world fallacy– a general belief that only good things happen to good people who deserve them, and misfortune only falls to people who ultimately did something to cause it. That bad things don't happen to good people and therefore if someone finds themselves in a position of desperation, downtrodden, isolated from support, and responds by begging for what they need, then they should not be given it as to not “reward their laziness and poor judgment”. This assumes that someone begging isn't actually doing so bad because if they were, they wouldn't seem desperate, but stoic and respectable somehow. It assumes that nearly everyone who is suffering without easy accessible support earned that misfortune, and those who are supported are so because they orchestrated the support they deserved to have before they needed it.

It assumes the world is fair and just and that there are no systems of oppression like racism, exploitative capitalism, xenophobia, patriarchy, or misogyny, or institutionalized abuses of power that could have contributed to anyone's undeserving’s misfortune without their additional contribution and therefore, guilt.

And it assumes that us regular-degular everyday people should ensure cosmic justice by refusing help, compassion, or dignity to anyone who is too desperately, in our righteous judgment, asking for what they need.

I believe the fact that society perpetuates this myth is a cause for compounding trauma and CPTSD. I see it most when people victim blame homeless, unemployed, and people in poverty (even if the person is from a poor neighborhood or country since birth). People also victim-blame abused children. They say "why didn't they report it? while at the same time not beliving children who do report abuse.

But the worst form of this is the form we do to ourselves, by blaming ourselves for our own misfortunes and by being closed to help that is offered out of shame. To me that's the most insidious. Because it's inside us. It's not our fault, but I do think it's something we can and should explore changing, if only to maintain our own internal sense of dignity and belonging to ourselves.

my boyfriend was sexually abused as a child. possibly around 3 years old and hes stared healing and processing his trauma recently. he just told me that he felt guilty for feeling better, and that he missed the feeling he'd get when he would send pictures of himself as a child, and that he missed feeling worse, so this morning while i was asleep he sent a picture to someone
i feel so incredibly betrayed but i dont blame him and id hesitate to say im even angry at him but i feel so so lost and i dont know what to do. i dont think this is his fault at all and i dont want to lose him but i just Dont know.

I don’t care that they’re mentally ill and “can’t help it” “can’t control my symptoms” “wasn’t self aware of my Npd at the time but I still can’t fully control my symptoms” “you’re abusing me for reacting to my abuse!” “You can’t get revenge on me for having a mental illness”

I. DONT. CARE.

You hypocrites abuse everybody around you for everything that goes wrong in your day but nobody can touch you????

My mother was never involved with me as a kid, she didn’t play with me and when I cried, she’d go outside and chain smoke to ignore my cries. She was a permissive parent who could have cared less about taking care of me and just let my verbally abusive father do all the work.

I seen this narrative pushed many, many times as if horrible mothers do not exist and all mothers are saints from heaven. My mother never acted like a real mother and was more like a person I lived with than a caregiver.

TW: Trauma/Graphic/Sexual nature . . . . . . . . . Is it a trauma response to just go with whatever is happening to you? Like, to just comply? My mind immediately goes to 'I don't want to upset them or make them uncomfortable so I'm just going to give into this and accept what's happening.' rather than assertively shut it down. Or even to play along despite not wanting anything to do with this person if being sexually harassed or even groped?

I tried meditation many many times and it never worked for me. Recently I read somewhere about body and mind connection and how connecting to the body may activate parts of the brain that can recognize what am I feeling. I never know really what I feel or when I am hungry or thirsty, unless it's when I am starving when haven't eaten all day. But I started paying more attention to my body, if I am doing something which doesn't require concentration I just tell myself to go back to my body, it wasn't helping as much. But then one day I tried seeing what is connected in my body and I saw my two halves of the body left and right split in the middle, they felt very different. I started searching how is everything connected and I started untangling so much shit, my gut was making all kinds of sounds and I started feeling this slight electric feeling and noticed parts of me I never noticed before. The body and mind connection is insane, my body is my brain, like I feel tension in my brain but it's really in my body and when I let go of it like letting go of right side of my body, the right side of brain loses tension. First win in a while, just wanted to share

It’s so ingrained in my belief system and core beliefs that even though I know it’s not true, it’s always sabotaging me

I'm almost forty fuckin years old and I still don't have one damned person in my life that I can depend on or go to when I have a problem or need to talk. Where are these people that are supposedly out there and will care about me? I just had to distance myself from one friend because they were filling up my inbox with misogynist shitposts just to irk me and then screaming at me when I voiced my distaste. A friend that I wouldn't even have if my the therapist that ghosted me hadn't pushed me into letting my guard down because they sounded like a good person🙄 I have no family to speak of, I have no friends, it's just me. It has always been just me taking care of me and I'm sick and fucking tired of pretending like it's ever going to be any different. It's not fair.

For context, for most of my adult life (and frankly though my teens as well) I was in long, committed relationships. Not healthy by any means, but they were usually very stable until they weren't. The last long term relationship I was in ended pretty horribly, though, and I never really recovered. I went into therapy, and did a lot of work, so theoretically I should be in a much better place. Right?...

Except, since then, all of my attempts at relationships follow the exact same pattern: I get close to a person and develop feelings for them (not quickly or intensely - just "yeah, I like this person"), we start dating, everything is fine for a couple of weeks, and then I just... Shut down. I see all of the issues with this person, conclude there's no way it would work, and lose interest, going back to "Ice king" mode.

I want relationships. I want a family. I don't understand why it's like this.

Is anyone else like this, or am I the only one that's this broken?

Dating seems to be a huge trigger for me as it brings up all those feelings of not being good enough, comparing myself, runinating over all the reasons I'm unlovable etc... I end up behaving so unlike myself - so pathetic and sometimes a bit neurotic. Its like I can see myself behaving in this way, and I feel repulsed with myself but cannot control it

They won't/don't want to accept that once you're no longer underneath their thumb when you're a capable adult.

So, there was this one time when my POS dad wanted to harass my mom by using my phone (since she blocked him on hers) and I was like, "no, you're not going to pull this when we're sick and on Christmas day out of all days of the year". Then he completely freaks out on me, saying all sorts of awful things and threatening to cut me off financially and never speak to me again. I was terrified, yes, (not of him talking to me because no one liked being around this guy) but I stood my ground and told him since he's acting like this, I'll help him make true on his promise by blocking his ass on every platform we interacted.

I fucking survived that rough period. I got a job, made my own money, didn't talk to that pos for a while. And guess who contacted me begging and sobbing a month later using a different number? Looking back at it, that was such a cathartic moment. I'm so fucking proud of my younger self for standing up to him.

She put current me in a better spot because of it.

I was talking to (arguing with) my father, and he kept going on about how he provides for the household and that because he's so manly he has managed to have a family. I'm not understanding this because I've lived with him literally my entire life and he's so manipulative and just a vile person in general that no one in the household except for him actually thinks that he's a good father or that the household in general is happy.

We talk about this all of the time, that he's childish and just makes everyone uncomfortable. Whenever he talks to people, he yells so loud and angry that you can hear it no matter where you are in the house, and whenever he walks, no matter how late at night, he stomps with what feels like all of his force (we both weigh the same amount and you can't even hear me take footsteps unless you're actually listening for them). Whenever we go out, he argues with the host, the manager, the server, you name them, he always thinks he's above them. He does his hobbies, and throws a fit when you try to placate him and tell him "yeah dude that's interesting, but please stop making me like dozens of one thing and clutter my room/the house/the backyard/the garage with it."

And it's just like he doesn't notice at all, he's has zero self awareness, which is genuinely amazing, because he's in his 50s and doesn't even have the slightest idea that he's an asshole? It's like he's still a child and he makes everyone coddle him emotionally. When he gets criticized, he just gaslights. If he's told no, he intimidates you and insists that you say yes. If you still don't say yes, he grills you, and starts personally attacking you, under the guise of advice, and him wanting the best for you.

I hate it because his behavior gave me lasting symptoms. I live with my parents right now and my heart is always pounding, and whenever I hear those stomping footsteps I fear they are coming to my room and I have to start gasping for air. Whenever he physically gets near me I start clenching my jaw and I'm always anticipating confrontation. I hate this

They didn’t go through a niche experience that affected their development to navigate the world in a different way

my abuser’s voice is constantly in my head and will not leave. she always told me shit like “are you sure he’s your best friend? it doesn’t look like it” or “you shouldn’t be the one to initiate because if he really wanted to hangout with you, he would have initiated and not you” about my own childhood best friend, or “would they really do the same?” which caused me to have validation issues with a lot of friends & feel like no one cares about me and will forget about me and now i’m definitely feeling that with people who basically became my family and it hurts so much. they always have shown and told me that they care and love me and see me as family too & miss me but i always still doubt it. when i moved two hours away from them and left, i for some reason thought that i was gonna lose them for good and never talk to them again & it made me cry. every little thing i see that reminds me of them because i miss them makes me emotional and cry and i feel stupid for crying and think they would never feel the same way. the validation issues get triggered when they cancel plans even if it was for a very valid reason. and i act like it’s the last time i’ll see them & the only time i’ll get to spend time with them even though i know it’s not and i feel so dramatic for crying and being so upset about it. i keep thinking that it’s only me who feels that way and wants to spend time with them even though i know it’s not true and it’s just so damn hard and exhausting trying to fight my thoughts.

TLDR; familiar negative emotions pop up randomly throughout the day, do you guys experience the same thing? How does it affect you and how do you deal with it?

Let's say you saw a scenery, everyday. Capture that same emotion evoked everytime you looked at the scenery, and that emotion is contentment. Now play that recorded emotion randomly throughout a day or weeks or months or years. No context, there's no logic behind it, the emotion just played in your brain whenever.

You may be watching a sad movie, then a familiar feeling of contentment plays, you don't know why, you don't know how. All you know is it's familiar, you've felt it before.

Now change contentment to doom, the emotion you feel when you get ignored (dejected?), bleakness, hopelessness, passive suicidal thoughts etc.

I realized it was happening only now when I recognized that CBT can't accommodate to how my emotions happens. My thoughts don't precede them, they happen irregardless of what's happening. I recognize that I do have distorted thoughts but this realization puzzled me. I'm planning on advocating Somatic therapy to my therapist bcuz it seems more of a body(?) issue than a thinking issue. Also I have flare ups of extreme fatigue and chronic pain so it's maybe connected.

But I'd love to know, do you guys experience the same? Are there some things I need to know about this? How are you affected by this and how were you able to deal with it? (You can just answer whichever) Thank you very much for reading.