I’m a bit anxious right now and my PTSD is kind of triggered right now.

I was bullied for years because of my disability. I was told they never actually liked me. They knew it was wrong to hate me for my disability, but they did and “couldn’t help it”.

They said they didn’t want to be rude and discriminate, but they couldn’t help it. This lady “Belinda” said she used to despise me and only pretended to be nice but now she likes me more but still pretends to be nice sometimes. She says she doesn’t like anyone though but pretends to because others’ perception of her will change.

Belinda is kind of narcissistic. She lacks empathy and only really cares about her image. She will bully as she pleases if it doesn’t affect her image.

I told teachers about another woman Charlotte and even would tell more people like the police if it got worse. She is creating alternate accounts to follow me and find out my information.

Belinda goes along with what Charlotte does and everyone else in the group goes along with Belinda. They’re nice, just go along and are very people-pleasing.

I cut contact with Belinda and Charlotte but since the school is going to talk to Charlotte, I’m scared I made the situation worse.

My anxiety and PTSD are triggered like I said. All they wanna do is hurt me and scare me because I’m autistic. I’m a dog to them and my opinions don’t matter.

People are so cruel. They hurt me so badly, I hate them. I’m more sad and scared than angry, though.

I’m scared that these people will hate and hurt me more, that they’ll tell everyone they know how horrible, creepy, and disgusting I am. That they’ll believe them and no one will like me. All my friends will hate me too. Hopefully not.

I know they shouldn’t hate me over a one-sided story, but still.

Why would Belinda tell me she was fake if she wanted to hurt me? Is it because she already hurt me so I would know?

Today was such a shit show, man.

It was beautiful outside. I woke up feeling rested, maybe a bit sore from some physical therapy on my spine. I retired super young and life is pretty nice for me… now. Still, I got a weird feeling when I was putting on my socks, as if something around me was off. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

You know what’s fun on sunny days? Taking my two cats for walks. I got my lady cat in a harness, told her little sister to be patient, and walked out to the porch. My back was hurting all the way up to my neck (so much that I can’t turn my head to the right even now, late in the evening).

As I stretched and watched my ginger girl flop around in the garden, the unthinkable happened. The retractable leash slipped from my grasp, and it started chasing her. I was in a back brace, holding onto a railing, twisting my spine in a such a way that takes a moment to untwist. She shot off like a rocket, up my driveway and onto the back patio before I could even get down my steps to the sidewalk. The specialty-fit harness and leash, somehow, came off.

Panic. The next fifteen minutes were full of panic. She looped the house twice before disappearing under the back patio, and… I completely lost track of her. Fuck my life. I would die if anything happened to my babies. I tried to remove my headphones, back brace, and tangled leash, but I was walking too fast for my spine and looking everywhere and I THREW the tangled bullshit to the ground. One of my neighbors (the same guy who comments on my yard if I can’t rake; the same guy who once dared to move my trash cans so he can’t see them) started chirping up, walking toward me, making loud noise while I’m looking for my scared cat.

“NOT RIGHT NOW.” 😠🤚

He kept walking, switching gears like, “Okay, young man, but I’m just saying…”

“HEY!!!” 🫵😡 I might be rich today, but I am USMC infantry vet who grew up poor, abused, homeschooled under an elite class family, and when I couldn’t take that anymore I lived on the street. I became a mean-looking motherfucker on the hood streets of Houston, and then I became the real human wrecking ball as I traveled across the USA with hardly a cent to my name. My history of violence is long and awful, and I don’t like that side of me. “I TOLD YOU ‘NOT RIGHT NOW.’ WHAT PART OF THAT DON’T YOU GET? IF I SAY SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU SHUT YOUR FACE AND MIND YOU OWN DAMN BUSINESS, BECAUSE I’M NOT SOME NICE HUMAN BEING LIKE THAT. YOU GET ME?! BACK OFF, AND LEAVE ME ALONE, NOW.”

No matter how big you are, it takes a moment for people to realize they’re being shut down with malice. If Dwayne Johnson were to emasculate a dude by screaming at him, there would still be a pause and maybe some clap back before things settled. I’m no different. I’m a big dude and I know that I’m built like a truck with a mean face, but my neighbor still mumbled as he turned away. I waddled my painful spine to my garage to get a flashlight, and accidentally ripped my garage door off its hinges. The human sized doorframe for the access door just… ripped the fuck off.

My back lit up like a forest fire of pain. I kicked the stupid beams out of my way and got my flashlight. Within ten minutes I’d found my baby girl under the back patio. Within an hour, she came out and I hugged her, cobwebs and all. Within two hours, I’d rehung the doorframe (better than it was), and everyone got a bath.

I’ve now gotten into fully blown “fuck off” conversations with two neighbors. My block saw me throw a snow plow at a drunk handyman dude who walked into my kitchen to get my attention for a UPS delivery (a delivery from an abuser which I was refusing). My block saw me intervene with two separate brawls that made their way up my block last year. Now my block has seen me shout a man down and tell him I’m not a nice human being who talks to people.

fuck

I spoke to my abusive mum recently. She'd said she felt like I didn't like her, so I thought I'd tell her how I felt, outline what she put me through. I'm not sure if it was the best idea. She apologised but she also kept repeating "I'm only human". I'm also human, but I can't imagine ever doing to someone what she did to me. I don't know. I don't feel like it's a valid reason. I'm not sure how to feel. If her only reasoning is that she's "only human" is it enough? I don't feel like it is but I know I won't get anything more from her, and I feel like she expects it to be all good between us now. Would that be enough for you? How do I move on or at least move forward?

What I said in the title \o

Don't forget to use TW and spoiler blocks when pertinent :p

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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.