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Thank you for welcoming all of us. That is so very, very rare; to the point that I have not heard it before anywhere at all.

Most people only want me when I am being who they want me to be.

Your last sentence brought tears to my eyes.   

Probably all of us here, whether dealing with acting-out personality shards or entirely dissociated alternate identities, probably all of us can identify with that sentence.   

Hi Cuthberta, let me add my welcome to the others.  I hope I am correct in thinking that DID stands for Dissociative Identity Disorder. 

Although I don't have DID myself, I have spent much of my life feeling like a  bunch of shards of different people were inside me.  Sometimes I felt my behavior was caused by these personality shards, that sometimes I didn't have control over this.  But I do remember what has happened at those times.  So I don't have DID.  But I certainly do sympathize with your situation.

You, and your others, are very welcome here.  I hope you will find this place to be safe and supportive, a refuge from the "real" world.             

Dear Broccoli, I hear your pain and grief.  You have had a long journey and you deserve comfort and compassion.

My own long journey also began around the age of 3 and has gone on for many decades.  I understand how exhausting the years of pain can be.  I am so sorry to hear what you have been enduring.  Some of us find it very hard to find the kind of help that we need. 

I am glad you found this site.  It is for people with cptsd seeking a safe place to speak the truth about their circumstances with this condition.  Here the goal is to support each other with compassion and whatever information we have gleaned in our search for healing.

Our frame of reference is Pete Walker's book, "CPTSD From Surviving to Thriving," which I recommend very highly for its compassionate discussion of the many aspects of cptsd.  And the Guidelines for Members here on the site can also be helpful for connecting with others here.

I hope you will stay in touch here and share more of your journey with us.  Please do try to take good care of yourself, as it what you deserve.  Big hugs   

Hi Gettingthere, I am so glad you found this site.  Good work on putting up your first post here!  That can take courage.  I was very nervous when I made my own first post, not too many months ago.

Please read around the site according to what you find interesting.  The Guidelines for Members has some helpful ideas on how to join in discussions here.

We are a group of people with cptsd who are "gathering" here together to support each other with compassion and empathy and whatever information we may have encountered during our journeys with this condition.  This is a safe place to speak the truth about one's experiences with cptsd, though gentle language is encouraged.  And we use trigger warnings to let others know when we are touching on a subject that could trigger certain issues.

For a good reference on how cptsd is often discussed on this site, try Pete Walker's book, "CPTSD From Surviving to Thriving."   It is a compassionate discussion of the different aspects of cptsd and an excellent frame of reference that we use quite often.  I personally recommend it highly because Pete's perspective has helped me lessen the shame and fear of my condition.

I hope you will feel welcomed here and will keep coming back!   

Hi GoodbyeKitty!  Welcome to this site for people with cptsd.

I am glad you have found a healing modality that helps with your own cptsd.  I looked it up online and found a video of a male therapist prodding a reclining woman in various places on her body, and that was too much for me,  because I have a history of childhood SA.  But different things work for different people.

If you read around the site, you will see that we have a wide range of experience among us, in what we were subjected to and in how and where we have sought help with our condition.  For me, what is special about this site is its dedication to everyone feeling safe as they seek comfort and information for dealing with cptsd. 

I hope you, too, will find safety and comfort here.  Big hugs 

Celia66, welcome to the site!  And welcome to the world of cptsd.  For me, being able to connect childhood treatment to adult conditions has been validating.  But  of course learning to cope with those conditions can be a long and complicated journey.  I consider my own cptsd to be a chronic condition, similar to diabetes type I in the the sense that it must be dealt with on a daily basis for the course of my life.

Coming to this site has helped reduce my sense of isolation.  We are all dealing with symptoms of cptsd and we can keep reminding each other and ourselves that we are worthy people who are dealing with the effects of long-term ill-treatment.  Being here has helped me hold my head up a bit more, to find dignity in my life and my daily efforts.

I hope when you read around this site that you will find reason for hope and for self-respect.  It is meant to be a safe place for all of us to deal with the cptsd and find a bit of peace.

Big hugs          

Hi Sunnidayrain, I am so sorry you are having such a hard time!  It would be a huge challenge for even the healthiest person to raise 3 kids with "severe mental health issues".  I can't even imagine how you are managing to do this on top of dealing with cptsd!  You must be a very brave and loving person!

It's good that your therapist knows about cptsd. 

I can really identify what you say about problems with concentration, memory, etc.  I have been having similar brain problems for some years.  Sometimes I feel so stupid.  And reading, which I used to do quite a lot, has become difficult because of the concentration problems.

I have been feeling better this past year and I think it's because I started taking some serious nutritional supplements.  The stress of cptsd can deplete the body of many nutrients, and that makes the brain malfunction, which of course makes everything harder. 

And coming here to this site has helped me a lot, too.  It is a place of safety where you can discuss your symptoms and issues and know that there are others here dealing with the same problems.  We can only comfort you and offer internet hugs    but a lot of us find that reducing the isolation this way is really good medicine.

I hope you will stay in touch here, in whatever way you can, even if it's only a few words at a time.  Sending best wishes and big hugs          

Hi Elizmorris!  I am so glad you found our site.  I was very touched by your explanation of the extreme situation you are dealing with in your life right now.

VeryFoggy was so wonderfully clear in explaining to you that  none  of us on this site are therapists.  We cannot diagnose anyone.  We cannot advise anyone in any way. 

This is a site for people who believe they have complex ptsd and are seeking to create a place for people like us to support each other with compassion and with whatever information we have come across that might be relevant to dealing with the condition.

As VeryFoggy says, "All we know is what we feel, just like you do."

What we have to offer you is our support, our empathy.  Though I myself am not a parent, I feel enormous sympathy for your situation, and I wish you the best on this difficult journey.  There are others on this site with experience similar to yours who might want to share that experience with you. 

Sending hugs and the hope that you will stay in touch so we can keep supporting you to trust yourself.   

Welcome to you, heatresistantwings.  I am so glad you found this site.  There are plenty, plenty of us here who feel clueless about how to act like a "normal person".  I myself have a long history of ruminative negative thoughts that were only helped at all by gabapentin.

So much of what you write sounds like things I have thought myself again and again.  I have often felt that people react to me with alienation and shock, even if they were therapists.  The world does often seem scary and hostile to me.

This site was designed to be a safe place for people like us to support each other with information and compassion as we learn to deal with the condition of complex ptsd.  We seek to speak to each other as we would wish to be spoken to as we share our own experience and knowledge with each other.  The Guidelines for Members is a good place to learn more about the site.

A recommended reading is Pete Walker's book, "CPTSD From Surviving to Thriving."  It has a lot of information about the condition and is written in a warm and compassionate manner.  Pete Walker himself has cptsd, and he speaks from long experience.  He has helped lessen my shame and fear.

On this site you will be free from "eye rolling and snide comments" and I do so hope you will find a sense of safety here.  I hope you will help us create a refuge here for people like us.

Welcome Brick!       I am sorry your childhood was so full of chaos and rejection and terror, but I am glad you decided to post here among so many others with stories similar to yours.  Yes, this is a place where it is safe to tell the truth about the dark years.

And you write vividly of the effect on one's adult years.  I could very much identify with your remarks:

"I've 'coped' for decades. Moving, moving, moving. A doormat. Helpless, entirely at others' mercy. Always in poverty. Financially and spiritually. I sought and found answers in literature and music. I lived out the invisibility and worthlessness that was programmed into me. I can see how my hunger for connection opened the door for abuse. Over and over."

I hope you will read around the site and make yourself comfortable here.  Our purpose is to support and comfort one another, and to share information on complex ptsd, as we all deal with this condition that so dramatically shapes our lives.

Our most highly recommended reading is Pete Walker's book, "Complex PTSD:  From Surviving to Thriving."   This book is my personal favorite as well.  It conveys a great deal of information about the condition and in such a warm and compassionate way.  And it fits with what I have learned along the way in my own long journey with cptsd.

I am looking forward to hearing more from you, when you feel like it.  All the best to you in your journey.   

Hi Lizzie, yes, I have had a lot of anxiety in my life, too.  And I still do.  Like DaisyMae, I get counseling and medication.  And I have begun to be very careful of what I eat, as carbs make me even more anxious.  Also, I take a lot of vitamins, nutritional supplements.

I have had to swear off alcohol (again!) because in the long run it just makes things worse for me.

I have read various books on the subject, and I do recommend Pete Walker's book.  I think the most powerful concept that has helped me is to comfort the Inner wounded Child in myself.  Beginning to feel compassion for what I endured as a child is what has helped me most.

You are certainly not alone in your awful anxiety.  I hope you will stay in touch here so that you will be reminded often that you are not alone, so that we all can comfort each other in our journeys.   

Hi MBKrypton, and welcome to the site.  It takes courage to post that first post!  I am so glad you spoke up!

Eventually the site set-up will make sense to you, as it did eventually make sense to me not too many months ago.  Please just wander around and read whatever seems important to you. 

Maybe read the Guidelines for Members.  It helps in figuring out what goes on here and how to participate in a gentle and supportive manner.  We are just a bunch of people with complex ptsd who are here sharing information and support with each other.

There is one particular book recommended on this site, and also by me personally.  It is "Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving" by Pete Walker.  It is a really good place to go for information about the various aspects of this disorder.

All the best to you in your journey, and big hugs   

Dear nmg, yes, it will get better.  It might take some time.  And the improvement might seem way too slow. 

Please try to take as good care of yourself as you can.  Perhaps your SO could help keep you eating properly?  Unexplained bruising could be due to inadequate nutrition.  And inadequate nutrition can also contribute to a worsening of one's mental state.

I hope you will stay in touch here, so that we can keep reminding you that you are brave and are making progress and  are worthy of love and safety and comfort.

Hi Oxygen, and welcome!  Please read around on the site on the subjects that feel important to you.  All of us here have CPTSD and are here to support each other as we learn how to deal with the condition.  The Guidelines for Members is a good place to start. 

Also, we recommend a book by Pete Walker, "CPTSD: From Surviving to Thriving," as a really good place to learn about the many facets of the condition.  I really like this book, because of its warm and compassionate viewpoint.

Complex PTSD is also known as complex trauma or developmental trauma.  Traumatic events in one's childhood can have a lasting effect on a person's mental health, such as the emotional flashbacks you describe having.  Come join us as we seek healing and peace in our lives.

All the best to you on your journey.   

Sasha, I am sorry you are feeling overwhelmed with negative stuff.  You don't deserve it.  You deserve safety, and also the sensation of safety as well as the actual reality of safety.  You deserve love and comfort and safety.

Sometimes it feels embarrassing to break down crying, even in front of one's own therapist, but I am beginning to find personally that it is the gut-wrenching kind of crying that helps me get unstuck a little bit.  It seems like the more I express my grief, actually squeeze it out of me, I can actually start to feel a bit of relief.

It is hard to be that full of grief.  I hope you will stay in touch here. 
Sending hugs