What I said in the title \o

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Hey everyone,

Seeing as many of us don't have access to actual therapy -for various reasons- I wanted to start a thread for sharing free online resources that we have found useful.

My personal favorites are mostly on YouTube.

Jerry Wise is a certified life coach and family counselor who has personal experience with difficult/narcissistic parents. He posts regular full length videos that I have found very insightful, validating and helpful.

Jay Reid is a licensed clinical therapist who focuses mainly on adult scapegoat children of narcissists. His material is incredibly helpful in a way that often brings up a lot of repressed emotions for me. I mean that in a good way, but it can get pretty taxing.

Patrick Teahan may already be familiar to most of us, he's a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with personal experience growing up in a very toxic family and he's an absolute rock star in this field. While he is slow to upload full length videos at this time, he has an impressive and immensely helpful catalog of previous uploads that have honestly done more for me than a lifetime of actual therapy has.

And last but not least, while technically not a free resource, there are so many links online to a free PDF of this book that I might as well share it here.

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson. I consider this a must read for pretty much everyone.

If you have found any resources that have been helpful to you, please share them in the comments!

PS I would like to advise everyone that there are also a lot of hacks (especially on YouTube) that are cashing in on the popularity of certain buzzwords, and that can be misinformed at best and downright predatory in some worse cases. The only ones I have shared are either licensed therapists or certified counselors for this reason. But always use caution.

Just trynna expand my support but not a fan of discord.

Hi there, I made this account today, I've always been pretty active in the CPTSD community on reddit, but I plan on leaving reddit entirely. So now I'm wondering if anyone is actually on here or if there's a different more active place I should check out.

Thanks for reading!

Anyone want to chat?

On Thursday, I met with a therapist who ran through the ACES inventory with me during our session.

It’s been a wild ride since then. Never have I felt so much validation and relief, and never have I wanted to get started with the healing process so much. At long last, there’s a name for what I’ve felt over the past 36 years, and more importantly there’s a treatment protocol.

I truly thought I was alone, especially after my encounter with a different therapist some 20 years ago. No one was talking about c-PTSD back then.

Yesterday I could hardly sleep, as it often happens. I let my emotional dysregulation (learned that has a name too!) run wild, intentionally, to pull together a list of all the traumas I faced. I could scarcely sleep until I had written everything down.

Just sharing my joy at being understood.

We're an upstart CPTSD support group on Signal messenger. We want to foster a warm and understanding community dedicated to helping each other navigate the challenges of CPTSD and related co-morbidities. Feel free to join us

https://signal.group/#CjQKIP8GyzRWSXqDboNWFn8D6XCkJhgT_tfuKBq6Cu9s_7xPEhBLytQ1tVZQrp066rz10bi9

CW: There is a transcript of a therapist talking to a sexual assault survivor towards the end of the article. No details of the assault are provided, but it may still be triggering to some. You can read up to "A case example of PTSD symptoms as a future-oriented survival strategy" and not see this content.

This is an important look at how trauma symptoms serve a purpose of warding off further trauma. This must be addressed during treatment, otherwise the symptoms may never fully go away.

I love this article because it addresses the magical thinking and locus of control shift experienced by abused children. If you are not familiar with the concept, read the paragraph titled "The locus of control shift."

This is an issue I have, I tend to stick to dating sites as intentions are out lined but saying that I still struggle in my day to day as I think people being nice to me male or female are presenting sexual interest, I was sexualized at a young age hense I have this unhealthy mind set.

Went on a date with someone, caring understanding and diagnosed with cptsd. We had a lot to talk about. Date went on for 8 hours, near the end we entered a very busy restaurant, I started have symptoms of anxiety, hot and cold flushes, heart racing, unable to talk or hold a dialogue, felt so uncomfortable, I randomly said about getting the food to go alluding to going home, I knew what I was saying and the connotations that went with it but couldn't stop myself. Its the next day and I feel so embarrassed, I continued texting her after the date and spoke to people about what had happened. I'm still dealing with the anxiety but think I stopped dissociating anyway

This hole thing has put me in a depression.

I want to tell her what was happening but idk if I should continue contacting her. I feel like a weirdo

Other forms of resources would also be appreciated.

Housework has been a longtime struggle for me. Its one of those things that makes overwhelm seem more overwhelming. I have been using a cleaning podcast ~11months. Just throwing it on in and doing what I can when i have the energy to has transformed my confidence in the ability to deal with my space. Even if its just to get started on the essentials. I hope this helps someone

I am experiencing a trigger. The difference is, I have more awareness now. Before my diagnosis, I didn't understand why I reacted to things the way that I do. I can remind myself to be gentle, slow down and take it easy. Breathe. It WILL pass.

…have you ever not been anxious every single moment of the day?

Yeah, me neither.

I'm wondering, why can't I be fun whenever I feel things are getting more serious with someone? Why can I just not be silly? Why can't I play and be goofish with those that matter to me? Why must I be so damn dead serious?