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I think the song I associate the most with my trauma is Waltz #2 by Elliott Smith. It has for years now, succinctly and viscerally reflected exactly how I feel about my mother.

"I'm never gonna know you now
But I'm gonna love you anyhow"

That's how I feel about my mother now. I will never fully know her or trust her again. She has ruined that by her own decisions. But I can still love her despite that, just not in the way a child usually would.

Best of luck today with new job! I hope the transition is not too hard, and that new income will provide some relief for you

I understand entirely the feeling - even before my abuser was in the picture, a lot of weird things slipped under my radar due to being a child and uninformed. I am wishing you the strength and space you need to process this. I feel like the actual hit of realization and processing always hits you at the worst time.

Oh jeez, it's been a minute. Life tends to distract me in many ways, but it is nice that I have a minute today to reflect a little.

Finally got off the waitlist for therapy, but only for the next two months as I will be moving up to another state to continue college after my gap year. My therapist can't provide services if I am out of state. God, I hate the lack of state reciprocity programs for things like medical care. It really chains you down in some ways. College is also just a weird state of being if you go out of state.

I really like my new therapist, she understands a lot and has already told me outright I need to stop trying to explain my feelings or pathologize them, rather just let me feel them as is. That's going to be an undertaking. We agree a lot on what trauma based therapy should be about, so that's a really good sign. I have a new therapist in mind for the state I'm in for college, but I have to call her in August to schedule. I hope she has openings I can work with. I have a lot of things I need to do for preparation, including saving.

On phone games for me and cJ, we've taken a liking to Shin Megami Tensei Dx2. It's already one of our favorite games, so having it on the go and having little daily tasks to do in game is really fun and a good distraction on the bus from our ugly thoughts. Keeps us from throwing a tantrum on the way home when we're tired.

Also thinking about having to go no-contact or at the very least minimal-contact with my family. I'm dreading it because I rely on them a lot financially, and I could theoretically not rely on them entirely, but I'd have to work myself to the bone to do so. I honestly may pick up multiple jobs again because I need to build up enough savings to be able to take on the brunt of going no-contact. God, getting a degree sucks. The only reason I'm really even continuing with it is because I have a massive scholarship at one of the most prestigious schools for my field. I have federal student loans, but no private ones as my grandmother pays the last out of pocket costs for me. I could probably try to save up to be able to pay the rest out of pocket, but I also am going to be getting top surgery (gender affirming mastectomy) next summer and will need to have funds set aside so I can stay with friends or sublet, and still help with groceries and stuff. I'm very lucky my Medicaid in my state covers these things.

Financial woes are one of my biggest stressors, because if I was independently financially stable, my life would be a whole lot less stressful from my abusers. They indirectly hold my support over my head as a way to keep me here and control me.

That's whats on my mind today. Felt good to get that out a bit. I'm getting a bit better with the whole random spending thing, but it's still a process.

I am so happy your H understands, and even though he made a mistake, you two were able to discuss the feelings involved and acknowledge each other's feelings. I think it is a good sign that your husband was able to reassess his own guilt after you told him that he shouldn't feel that way. My friends and I still struggle with that, but we are also all still figuring out out lives in our early 20s!

I also understand the feeling of having an emotionally engulfing parent, my Grandmother who raised me was very similar. Over time as I grew up, she became less nosy, but that's also because I stopped telling her when I was feeling depressed period. It is good however that you have a T and H that you have healthier boundaries with.

Content/Trigger Warning: Involuntary Hospitalization

Thanks for the kind words, I am relieved and feel reassured that I am not alone in my feelings. Thank you especially for the advice, NarcKiddo. I haven't really thought about activities my inner child would like, and how to meet both sides where we are at. I would like to take better care of my inner child, but I struggle to communicate with him. I think reading a comic or some manga, playing a fun quick game on my phone, or watching anime would be a good start, since these are things both my inner child and my current self enjoy.

I remember I enjoyed Sudoku a lot when I was involuntarily hospitalized at age 13. I got pretty good at it, since all my electronics and knitting needles were taken away from me. We basically got points at the end of every day for pretending to be not depressed or mentally ill in any way. I say pretend because hospitalization does not necessarily incentivize recovery, rather it incentivizes the motions of recovery to return to your freedom and autonomy. It should work in theory, but in my experience, it is incredibly oppressive. I bought a Sudoku book with my "good boy points" after my first week, and it kept me occupied in the slogs between forced meditation classes and meals I couldn't eat due to my ARFID.

I should play sudoku on my phone more, but I also have a game I like called Fate/Grand Order. I've been playing it since high school, and it has a lot of cute and fun anime characters based on historical figures. It's kind of silly and absurd. Our favorite character is Nero, but I think young cJ likes Abigail Williams too, since she is a young girl alienated from the world around her, who has dealt with abuse. Young cJ I always see as a little girl, despite us always identifying as male. At the time I was abused, I only was barely starting to understand my gender, and the rest of the world still saw me as a girl, so my perception of that time is that I was a young girl.

I woke up a bit early again today, and while I was a bit sluggish, I have gotten a better start to my day than when I oversleep. I think today I will try to bounce between doing work for my artist residency that I need to do today, and spending time for myself. I could always read more of Jojo Part 7, Steel Ball Run. QT has read it already, so I want to catch up with them. I am really happy they're enjoying Jojo's Bizarre Adventure so much, especially since I am the one who introduced it to them. It makes me feel happy and confident that they enjoy something I love and wanted to share with them.

Hope you all have a good day and restful weekend, big hugs and cups of warm tea <3

Hi everyone.

Even before my childhood trauma, I had been seeing a therapist and was prescribed Zoloft at age 11. As I was sent through various systems and skimming old psych eval after psych eval, I have noticed that I have been consistently recommended to be evaluated for bipolar disorder, but never properly diagnosed. I definitely agree with the bipolar diagnosis, as I have a family history of bipolar disorder and my experiences consistently align with some form of fluctuation between mania and depression. The only reason I am not self-destructively manic is because of my C-PTSD and the fear it has instilled in me. My current psychiatrist doesn't believe me, but a recent eval with a trauma informed psychologist and clinic have given me a proper diagnosis, finally. Once I move back to the state my university is located in, I will bring that eval to my psychiatrist there who trusts me and has known me long enough to actually believe what I say. I have not seen my current psychiatrist for even 6 months.

Anyways, onto my point after that context. Last spring, I was put onto Lexapro for a few weeks to try a new SSRI, as I had been taking Zoloft for 9 years at that point and felt diminishing returns even with a high dose and being co-prescribed a moderate dose of Abilify, an atypical antipsychotic. My psych then did some genetic testing with me that my insurance thankfully covered, so we could whittle down our options if possible after the Lexapro worked for only 2 weeks. Then my brain realized "Oh, this is just another SSRI, we know how to counteract that excess of serotonin!"

I started an SNRI, Pristiq, 50 mg XR, and have felt a lot more stable and supported by it. I also now take folic acid supplements, as I have a genetic deficiency in my folic acid production, which helps my medication cross the blood-brain barrier. After 2 months on Pristiq, I weaned off my Abilify, as I felt good enough to think "maybe I don't need my antipsychotics!"

That was very wrong! My antipsychotics helped manage my psychotic symptoms, as well as helped regulate my mood much more than the Pristiq did. I describe it as, my SNRI did the stabilizing of my mood and fine tuning of it, while my Abilify did the heavy lifting of either heightening or lowering my mood to an appropriate level. For a few months, I fell into what I describe as a paranoid and delusional depression. I started my Abilify again this past January, and I've been doing a lot better since. Because of the psychotic symptoms I experience under immense stress, and even unprompted when I am off my Abilify, and my mood swings, I would succinctly describe my pre-existing condition before my trauma as Schizoaffective disorder, Bipolar type. In addition, I have Autism and ADHD.

I suppose my question here as well is - does anybody else have any experience with medications that aren't SSRI/SNRIs for managing symptoms of depression and CPTSD? Any experience with mood stabilizers? How do your meds make you feel? I have a very poor frame of reference for this, and I'd like to know if treating my bipolar disorder with proper mood stabilizers and not just SNRI + Atypical Antipsychotics is worth a try. For greater context, I also take Adderall 10mg twice daily, as well as 100mg Testosterone subcutaneous injections weekly for my hormone replacement therapy. I was originally prescribed my Abilify to treat "irritability associated with autism" and boost my SSRI effectiveness, but discovered that the auditory and visual hallucinations I experienced also went away.

I wish you the best of luck with your new job. I can imagine how overwhelming all these changes must feel for you. I am sure your daughter is glad she is welcome home with you. Sending you hugs and hope for an understanding work environment. You deserve patience and care right now.

Man, the humidity sucks today. I'm a little annoyed with myself today. I spent more money on coffee and food than I should have. Money is a problem for me, because I don't make enough to be spending like I do when I have to also save for returning to university. It's really hard to listen to myself, I feel like I am ruled by my inner child sometimes.

Recently after reading and skimming through this forum more, I've realized that everytime I yell at myself or belittle myself for having bad Borderline/C-PTSD type thoughts, I'm just yelling at my inner child that just wants to be heard. But I also know I can't let my child self rule my emotions and my life. I'm not really sure where to start with listening to my emotions without judging myself or reacting negatively. My rational, wanting to be a functional adult and person brain absolutely hates my highly emotional inner child. To some extent, I know that is still me. But I have such a hard time even conceptualizing what loving myself should feel like. Feeling seen, heard, and loved by others is really important for me because I didn't get that growing up. I don't have anything to model self love off of. I am slowly learning, very beginning of it honestly, but jeez, it sure is hard. It doesn't feel right to love myself most of the time. I hope I can love myself a bit more tomorrow.

To the me that wakes up tomorrow morning, I love you and I hope you have a good day. I hope you can heal a bit more than I have today. Keep getting better day by day. Every past self of us wants to love our future self, so I hope we can collectively be someone we love.

I am going to try and journal privately about some of my other issues tonight. Just about my habit building and self care stuff. Maybe I should scan some important documents that I don't need to keep a stack of paper copies around of. Lots of thoughts as I get home from work today. Not enough time in the night.

I'm very happy for you being able to stay calm and respond in a way that didn't cause more stress for you! It's a really hard thing to do for me a lot of the time so I really admire you being able to do that. Thank you for trusting us with this victory, even if you felt like it'd bring more judgement.

Hi all!
Finally getting around to writing my history with C-PTSD. I'm a little reluctant to retread the explanation, but I'm sure I'll get more in depth as I post more. I went through trauma-based therapy and wrote a narrative when I was 15. That did little for the emotional effects of my PTSD, and just really made me okay with forgetting what actually happened to me. It was not very effective.

Anyways, I'm a childhood sexual assault survivor. My stepdad was verbally and sexually abusive, and assaulted me 3 times in a month when I was 11/12 ish, around April/May. I had a hard time remembering my age due to memory issues and classifying time by my grade in school instead of my actual age. CPS was called after I told a friend, and he was removed from the home for a week. During that week, my mother verbally abused me and guilted me into recanting my statement. Then in October, the police had found quantifiable enough physical evidence, and I was sent to live with my grandmother. She was controlling and emotionally abusive, but I still live with her. Without her, I'd be in foster care and not where I am today, so I am grateful for that. Court was spread out and delayed over the course of 2 years.

My stepdad was approved for parole in September 2022. I relapsed hard. I'm still recovering from a lot. I struggle with not having any reliable friends growing up, constantly being abandoned for being "too much" because of my trauma and symptoms. My mother was emotionally neglectful, even though we are on good terms now, I will not totally recover from the harm she has caused me for a very long time, if at all.

That's enough I have the energy to share for now, but I will at least write something positive to give myself something to look forward to. I am really excited to play more Etrian Odyssey tonight after work. I like video games, they're a nice escape.

Hope to see you all around.

Thank you all for the warm welcome and support. It means a lot to me. Light hugs are always welcome

Today I have work as usual, and this week we're closed to the public to do a deep clean and switch up our operating hours for the summer. Slightly dreading it since sometimes my work is tedious and I have a difficult time focusing without my adderall, and even then my work isn't fulfilling enough for me to want to prioritize it with my focused spoons anyways.

I like to describe my energy with spoons, but focused or unfocused spoons as a way of describing how my ADHD affects my energy levels. It takes 1 focused spoon to turn unfocused spoons into focused spoons, so instead of say using 2 spoons for one task, I have to use 3-4 spoons to properly focus myself. More if I don't have my adderall.

Had a bit of a rough night last night, but overall had a good time. Watched some anime with my best friend, QT. Cried a bit after we finished and were just chatting, but I felt better after I cried a bit. I felt bad that they were worried about me. They seem to think they aren't being a good enough friend to me, but they're my closest friend and they've done as much as they possibly can for me from across the country. I reminded them that they've already done so much for me as a friend (they had housed me with their family for half a year while I was sorting out what I wanted from college and my life.), and that a lot of my problems are personal roadblocks, and not them failing to be a good friend. I appreciate their support more than anything, and I've grown a lot and realized a lot just from my time living with them.

QT is probably the closest thing to secure attachment I have. Aside from T, who is a mutual friend of ours. I met QT through T. T has been my best friend since I was 11. I'm 21 now.

After work I have a meeting at my artist residency, and another resident and I are going to discuss color lithography inks to buy soon. I'm hellbent on a yellow ochre, since it can be mixed more effectively than a bright yellow, and can be tinted to print like a brighter yellow. I really love lithography, it's my favorite form of printmaking. I am excited for the art things I have to do after work today. I am anxious about work today, but mostly that I won't have the energy to do any of the work I should get done this week.

If I am low energy, I'm going to take my meds, drink some water, and try to get some protein in my body. I struggle with diet due to ARFID, so the little protein I get really makes a difference. If I get anxious, I will take my hydroxyzine and make some tea while I am at work. Once I get home, I will reheat my dinner and watch anime with QT like we do every Tuesday. We set aside Tuesdays specifically for watching anime together. It makes me happy that we both have this time set aside for each other. I feel loved, seen, and appreciated.

Overall, hoping today is productive and good, despite any low energy slogs I may hit.

TW: Emotional Neglect, Implied Sexual Abuse, Suicide mention, medications, Overdose mention, Benzo mention

When I was sad as a child, my mother usually wasn't there. She seemed too tired to care. Likely, she was quite tired from being a night-shift nurse and single mother. My father was busy doing meth with another woman in Wisconsin, the mother of my other half brother, P.

When I was around 5/6 years old, I can tell you two significant things about me. 1) I knew I felt like a boy inside. I described the discomfort in my body as exactly that. As an autistic person, that is the most explicit and direct way for me to say I am trans without knowing what being trans meant. 2) My mother started dating my stepdad, and married him after a proposal in Vegas. They met at a bar. He promised she'd never have to worry about money again.

We moved into a new house in the suburbs. At first, we lived in the northeast region of our city. They had a kid together, my half brother who I will call J.T.. My stepdad was very harsh and brutal verbally. He was not super physically abusive at first, but as I got older the play wrestling got uncomfortable and weird.

I have schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, but it mostly manifested in my childhood as weird voices and emotional dysregulation. I always felt I had to vie for my mother's attention and affection as a child. I would make her tea every night to try and get some affirmation from her. My grandmother was the more affectionate one, who raised me half the time from birth - kindergarten. I then started living with her right before my 13th birthday to today.

My mother just put me in therapy when I was around 8/9 years old. She didn't have the time or energy to deal with me. I was put on Zoloft, 10mg, at age 11. I would sleep through 1st period math class for a week until my psych told me to start taking them at night. I took Zoloft until I was 20, along with Abilify since age 14/15. Psychosis sucks.

When I was sad as a child, I'd cry, and over the years, I learned to not tell people why I was crying beyond "I'm having a bad day."

When I was visibly upset the other day (I had had a suicidal episode and panic attack after panic attack at work prior to stopping by the studio), another one of the artists (O) asked me if I was okay. I like them. O is nice and they're a lot like me. I admire their intaglio skills. I showed their work to my best friend, T, and T really liked it. T isn't easily impressed, so getting him to say he even likes something is an accomplishment.

I currently take Pristiq, 50 mg XR, Abilify, 2mg, Adderall, 10 mg twice daily, Symbicort, 2 puffs daily, Many supplements, and Hydroxyzine for panic attacks. I am glad my psychiatrist at the time of prescribing started me off with Hydroxyzine. I don't trust myself with benzos. I used melatonin 20mg+ every day after I got home from school in my Jr. year of High School, so I wouldn't have to be awake if I didn't want to be. I only stayed awake for the things I had to do to not arouse concern. Otherwise, I'd just sleep or lay in bed, doing nothing. I really did not want to be alive.

While it's been 4 years since I misused melatonin, (sounds silly, but my two best friends have said it counts because of my reasoning and frequency of use), I still do not trust myself with anything stronger. I fear if I were to start benzos, I would fall back into that state, and as my tolerance builds up, one day I'd OD by accident.

I do not want to die anymore. My emotional brain sometimes wants to, but rationally and in my heart of hearts, I would like to live. I have too many responsibilities to myself and others, and I don't want to leave a hole in my friends hearts. Even if I don't feel any secure attachment to my friends consciously, I know deep down that they are my friends for a reason.

Friendship is complicated, and I wish it made more sense. I wish I had friends growing up.

My name is just a slight alternative to my common username I use on other sites. Cyber Judas is the name of an MS-DOS game and the sequel to Shadow President. Both games are overdramatic political simulators, and the Judas part is a reference to my actual name. Since I'm really into computers and hacker culture, it felt appropriate.