He's been radio silent for nearly 6 months now. =(
I went to a gym a few times and ended up just walking around feeling disconnected from everybody. =(
But I'm glad it worked for you!
finding people who are deep and reflective and interested in any kind of psychological conversations will be a good match
idk, man. I've got a history of burning people out and being burned out in turn. =(
Yeah, it's challenging. =(
She's terrible. Switch therapists! =(
Also I have strange issues with my sexuality and body to the point that I’m 20 and have never kissed anyone,
You're not alone in that. I've struggled too =(
I’m disgusted by sex, and genuinely consider getting gender nullification surgery.
I recommend against that. If your struggles are based in CPTSD, shame etc., then it's possible to heal those things (with some other therapist!). I think it's better to keep your body intact so you can retain the possibility of healthy sexuality sometime in the future.
I think the left has more compassion than the right. More will to tax the rich and feed the poor. It speaks to those of us in difficult circumstances, which obviously goes hand in hand with CPTSD. The left is also more inclined to take mental illness seriously, while the right has a more "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" vibe.
Having said that, the left has flaws too.
damn =(
Also, I love your username. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201612/why-our-coercive-system-schooling-should-topple
https://nursingabc.com/upload/documents/Other_course_documents/SevenLessons.pdf
https://www.facebook.com/HudsonValleySudburySchool/videos/10155951019968804/
I didn't do anything wrong when I was sexually attracted to someone, when I saw an image of someone attractive
This strikes a chord. I felt intense religious guilt when I hit puberty. =(
Actually, the greatest community I ever had wasn't a "therapy" thing at all. It was a volunteer position where I spent 30 hours a week hanging out with kids and helping them with creative projects.
I also enjoy the brony fandom, which has a lot of kind people in it (though the fandom is smaller than it once was). It's really nice to have something positive to rally around so we're not just talking about trauma all the time.
Nobody wants to feel miserable. Not really.
Sometimes people think they deserve misery, but even then they still want to not deserve misery.
And that aside, sometimes a painful situation seems safer than an unknown situation, because what if the unknown situation turns out to be worse?
Consider that maybe the "solutions" offered to are incomplete. Maybe you need additional support to make those solutions happen.
To make an analogy, maybe you need to see the dentist, and there's a dentist right down the street. But you don't just need a dentist; you need someone to hold your hand while you're there, to help you face it.
I discovered benzos slow healing from PTSD
Can you cite sources?
It's nice to be validated in my decision to avoid meds, but I would like to know where you're getting this info and how broadly it applies.
In my case, the greatest thing I ever found was community. Therapists are limited. We need to feel connected in the real world in order to feel truly safe.
I feel like these are some critical life skills we never learned, things like "How to gauge the supportiveness of the people around you" and its followup, "How to find supportive people".
Likewise the world needs to learn "How to be supportive"!
sigh
I've joined the CPTSD WhatsApp
How do I join?
How do you form connections when you've been betrayed?
More and more I get the impression that loving community is all we've ever needed. It's way more important than therapy or journaling or reading trauma books. People need people.
I think I've shied away from this fact because it feels so risky. I can choose to read a therapy book, but as for making friends...that requires the other person to choose me too.
People can potentially hurt me. They can shame me. They can abandon me. I've been shamed and abandoned many times, and that saps my enthusiasm for meeting new people.
So then I deny my needs. I build some sort of rickety happiness with minimal social connection, and I tell myself that I'm ok, and then it all collapses when the next big stressor comes along. Either that or I look back on a year of "doing ok" and realize how little progress I've made and how much time I've lost.
Frankly, there's a lot of Toxic Positivity here. Therapists tell me "You're doing the work" and "Healing isn't linear" and all that, and on the one hand that's validating, but on the other hand sometimes it leaves me just pursuing the path I'm on instead finding a better path. Better therapists would have noticed how lonely I was and started brainstorming concrete ideas on how to fix that. They would have pointed out opportunities for social connection. They would have reminded me "You're socially starved" whenever I pretended to myself that I was doing ok.
IT WOULD HAVE MADE A DIFFERENCE!
Anyway, I know I need real connections but I don't know where to find them. It's so hard to try new things and meet new people when I don't feel like I can really trust anybody.
Can anyone relate?
I hear you =(
Look up mental health drop-in centers in your area. That might help.
I don't know how to respond to this. =(
On the one hand, I sympathize with you. You went through intense pain. Suicidal from the age of 8?? Lasting till you were 25? That's intense! Thank goodness you recovered from all that!
At the same time, I'm baffled to see someone make such a massive recovery when they've been through so much pain, because I haven't recovered in that same way.
Healed almost completely from my traumas.. they don’t affect me with the same intensity and don’t bother me
That's incredible.
(been working on healing since I was 21. 29 now)
I've been working on healing for 12 years, but I haven't come as far as you. I'm in my mid-thirties now and to a large extent life is just passing me by.
my parents paid for college and after I moved back in with them at 27, they let me live and do nothing.
Maybe this was the critical factor? My parents didn't let me come home and do nothing; they kicked me out of the house.
Healing was so incredibly hard. I can’t believe I’m fine now.
I can't believe it either.
I look back and it scares me how hurt I was.
I look forward and I'm scared that I'll never heal. =(
I burned out almost 20 years ago. I'm still burned out. I haven't really recovered. =(
Somehow, society is still stuck in this mindset that only Men can be predators and women are ALWAYS innocent.
Generally, I could rant hours on hours about how male survivors are treated by society and how sickening it really is.
Thank you.
Here's one person's experience: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcRUj8H3rc4
I hear you. =(
Community has been a key part of the human experience for thousands of years. Just imagine prehistoric people trying to survive on exercises and worksheets. It's ridiculous. =(
How do you actually heal? Therapy hasn’t “fixed” me and I’m struggling hard.
CPTSD