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I also experienced substantial trauma as a child and as an adult.  Is the onset time the important factor?

Me too.  Symptoms in general are so unique to the individual based on so many factors including age and personal experiences.  How two children in the same environment can be affected differently, etc.  If I remember correctly,  the excerpt posted about attachment therapy indicated it can occur from adult relationships as well.  Honestly, about the new boards, I felt excluded since mine started in childhood. I was not planning to post there.  Which is ok, since it helps others.

As a side note, I read an article about PTSD and why some soldiers come back with PTSD and others do not.  They found that those who do also had difficult childhoods.  I don't know how true it is or if it was an absolute, but thought it was interesting.

Thank you Sanmagic!  I feel good when a light turns on in my head, especially lately realizing 'hey, it's NOT all me' as I was usually left feeling.  I just wish I had learned it years ago, as I could have avoided being pushed down many rabbit holes. 

Radical,
I'm sorry for what you are going through with your T.  The hugs and then no hugs would have hurt me too.  Especially with no explanation or warning.  What you wrote in your last post is so on point.  The client at the very least needs to be able to trust there is authenticity from the T.  When there is not it can be re-traumatizing with child hood trauma.  I like SMs analogy of them being a guide from darkness to the light.  Mistakes can happen but when they do it is important to acknowledge them and clear them up vs blow them off or ignore them.  Otherwise our 'guide' could set off many triggers and lead us back into darkness which is harmful.  I am coming up on an anniversary of having gone through a very bad ending with a T and it was re-traumatizing.  I don't think many are aware of how harmful it can be for a client. I hope your situation improves. 

This may be a 'well duh' post since I'm frequently feeling these days, why didn't I see that before.  I have always felt that no one in my family cares about me, how I'm feeling and what's important to me. I'm there for them but when I need someone there for me I am alone.  No matter how much I do for them.  I'm at the point where I have given up and don't jump to help them like I did. I have to distance myself a bit, because I naturally want to help them, to the point that it is taken for granted and unappreciated.

What I realize recently, is when I talk about my feelings on a subject important to me they listen with a defensive stance and make it about them.  Even when it has nothing to do with them.  Since learning about my cptsd, my adult daughter even said "if you ever want to talk...about anything...I am here for you".  But when I brought up a subject bothering me greatly she made it all about her and did not care to listen to how or why I was bothered.   She was rude and hurtful.  I realized because she is my child she will always be listening to me as if it is about her.  But I also noticed my husband did the same, listening to me and making it about him in a very defensive way.  Thus the feeling, no one cares about my feelings or cares about me.  I'm now recognizing it and thinking it's a maturity problem (theirs) which also comes across as lack of empathy, at least where I am concerned. It didn't help that I had little self esteem and questioned myself.  Trying to share my feelings usually turned into argument, so it must be something I am doing.   Now I recognize the defensiveness when it happens and point out that what I'm saying is about me and not them.  It has helped me.

Hi sesame,
What you describe has been so normal for me, I never thought to ask about it. I'm glad you did.  I have never noticed how it shows on the outside, but just to speak up around people I don't know very well i am full of anxiety. I can feel my heart racing and am a nervous wreck.  Until I understood it as anxiety, not long ago, I just thought that it was me being 'shy'.  In a classroom or meeting, it felt awful when I had to speak up in front of others.  It has and does contribute to my isolation.

With People I know very well it is still bad when it is a contentious issue. Now that I understand my own issues better, I try to catch myself and stay calm as I'm saying something, even though inside I am everything but.  My husband would say, it's not what you say, it's how you say it and he would also comment about 'how my face looks'.  Most the time, He can't say that anymore and it has also helped me to make my point clearly that as much as he trys,  it does not get deflected back at me.  It is definitely difficult to deal with.

Hi havithall,
Thank you for sharing your video. Your truth.  It most definitely helped me feel less alone. I'm so sorry for what you have gone through.  You are a tough cookie indeed.  I mean that in a sincere, good way.  Listening stirred so much in me. Not that I endured the same but with some very similar thoughts. Thank you.

Getting 2016 behind me. Left with a tad of hope that 2017 will be better and a tad of motivation in doing my part to make it so.

I came across this web site that is a course created by a counselor that sounds promising.  He has 30+ years exp and it is based on a pattern he has seen in his clients who have psychological injuries from their childhood.  He gives a conservative estimate of over 80% of the population has them and is unaware.  Has anyone tried this?  I'm going to give it a whirl.  This is a link to the intro and the short video explains it.  No ads and no cost.

http://sfhelp.org/site/intro.htm

Here is an excerpt:

      Based on 36 years' clinical experience and study, this nonprofit site offers you a free 7-Lesson self-improvement course on how to understand and break this lethal inheritance and reduce major personal, marital, and family problems. Average adults are unaware of this cycle and its toxic effects. Are you aware of them?

  What Does "Break the Cycle" Mean?
The "cycle" is this: psychologically-wounded, unaware parents raise wounded, unaware kids. They grow up, choose wounded, unaware partners, and raise wounded, unaware kids - who repeat and spread the cycle and its effects in their society. For more detail, read this after you finish here.

[not]

I feel bad, as in pathetic and guilty for it, that I might have a form of C-PTSD that was not driven by beatings or constant put downs.

Perhaps my sense of self (this is what I am trying to grasp) was overwritten, not crushed. Subtle stuff. My anger was not allowed. I was supposed to be reasonable, grown up, clever. To have empathy.

I can understand this. With my F it was clear and physical abuse.  Long after the physical abuse is over the damage is still there because there is a ton of unspoken messages that is abusive and damaging that I carried for decades.  Emotional abuse.  The emotional damage from interpersonal relationships, a parent who harms and especially does not provide for emotional needs of their child,  should not be underestimated.

I had similar problems to what you describe with M.  It was unclear to me why I felt so protective of her in spite of her not protecting me.  Responsible for her.  She did not physically hurt me or put me down.  When I became a mother the feelings of love were there naturally for my child. It did dawn on me then, for the first time, my parents didn't love me.  But, It is very difficult to identify something you never got and didn't know you should have.

I learned this by reading 'will I ever be good enough' by Karyl McBride.  It is about Narcissistic mothers and I would have never put my mother in that category.  But she never put her children first even to protect them.  What I learned from that book  is the emotional needs that had not been met.  That I did not get.   For me,  Love, care, affection, safety, etc...  I have read that an overly enmeshed mother (the opposite of mine) can be as damaging (even more than) depending on what it is she does.  I have also read about emotional incest which was helpful for me.

The emotional abuse is the most harming part in my opinion.  Each person's experiences are unique to them and should not be compared to someone else's.  What hurts or affects us in certain ways just does, one persons injury is not more or less then another.  Identifying and understanding is what helped me.

I don't believe any child should be expected to act Grown up or even reasonable.  I'm sorry your feeling guilt.  i know I hardly ever expressed my emotions, internalized everything, and am just now trying to identify them for what they are.  It can be confusing.

As a small child my alcoholic father would demand that someone wash his feet.  There was usually a target, my sibling,  who would be demanded to get a pan of water and wash his feet.  At the time I had no understanding and stayed in a state of fear around him.  You never knew what was coming next.  The foot washing was nothing compared to his violence and abuse.

After escaping my childhood home I did not think much about my past and did not speak of it.  For decades.  Having had no relationship with my paternal side,  I searched my family tree.  He was the first son of a very large family including two minister siblings and my grandfather and great grandfather both ministers.  Primitive baptists, which is connected to this ritual.   I thought, wow, they never reached out to us.  All seemingly successful, I'm sure they had no idea they were related to evil.  My foo has been keeping in touch with them lately and THEY asked my FOO what was wrong with him.  My enabling M says "I told them he could not be trusted..with anything".  Yep....no validation...ever.  I guess any more then that would make her look bad.  I would have had lots to say.  Anyway, I just know something happened to him in his family and I will never know what. 

***could be triggering***
(A pic of violence)

I came across this video and really liked it.  It is more about explaining violence being preventable.  About our environment as a child and why people become violent.  Including a little history.   We know everyone abused is effected differently and most are not violent but the cause and prevention applies IMO.   The audio has one little glitch in it. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EHlvAm4huQs

Hi Kizzie. Thank you for the warm welcome.  I have not registered but have been reading at OOTF for a while.  It has helped me a lot also.  Especially the detailed info about various pds and other people's experiences.  They both are great sites.  Thank you for setting this one up and all you and the moderators do here. 

I can relate to this too.  Welcome dees. I am new too.  Your post has similarities to my life.  I have found lots of good info here and counseling has helped.  Pete Walker's book, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, also helped me.  I can only speak to my personal experience and having done lots of reflection  I have concluded a main issue for me is that I have never felt loved.   I tried to be there for everyone else I now believe from wanting to be loved.  Trying to earn it. At the time I thought i did it only because I loved them, but I had no limits to protect myself from being used.  It comes from a very primitive wound that I don't believe can ever be healed. Each hurt after by people I love is a direct shot to that core wound.  In doing for everyone else I neglected me and did not love myself.  I was internalizing everything, starting in childhood, believing something is wrong with me.  That  I was damaged, unworthy and unlovable.  Yes, for me it included a lack of self love.   It has taken an awakening to why I feel that way and especially an understanding that the behaviors of others was about them, their own issues and not me.  It has been very freeing to understand but I struggle with the sadness and stay pretty isolated.  I know the feeling of wanting to be alone.    I am though trying to take better care of me.  To love myself.  I don't know if this helps but I hope things get better for you soon. 

Thank you for the welcome mourning dove and three roses. Merry Christmas to all who celebrate.

Hello, I have been reading here for a while and thought I would join.  I appreciate all the good info available here.  I have learned lots in the past year and from reading Pete walker's book.  My life is making sense to me finally, but still with lots to learn.  I grew up in a very disfunctional home with an  abusive alcoholic f. I'm recently starting to recognize that my h has covert N tendencies. I say covert because I don't think he is aware.  I can finally recognize it at the time vs being pulled into his defensive circular arguments where I was left to feel unwanted, unloved, and that "i" was doing something wrong and never good enough.  I am now able to better address it.    The holidays this year have been harder then usual, so thought I would join in. Thanks.