Out of the Storm

Trigger Warnings: self harm,  depression, anxiety, anger(mine), abuse, etc.
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I'm currently at rock bottom.  I feel insane.
I also got angry today. I smashed a candle. I don't really do things like that, my anger tends to be turned inwards. I lied to my mum that I accidentally knocked it over, but I threw it.
I started crying on Christmas night because I feel alone. I have friends and family but I don't really feel connected. I'm most sad because I watched a Christmas movie where a boy and a girl fall in love. I have attractions for people and sometimes they do back, and it's going good, but I ruin it. I stop talking to them, I don't make the effort and that really hurts me. It's self sabotage because of my social anxiety, and perhaps other reasons, I don't know. But it really hurts because I'm making myself alone, because I'm scared. I don't want to be alone. I want to fall in love and have genuine connections with people. It's destroying me, feeling so alone.
I feel very depressed and hopeless right now.  I want to get better, I want to stop feeling alone, I want to be happy in life, I want to feel good enough etc. But that feels impossible.
I really am at rock bottom.
I'm not always this bad. But I'm rarely really good. I always have mental illness problems, which only seem to go away completely when I'm drunk or on drugs, so that's another problem. At least I'm not an addict, though I might as well be. I'm miserable enough.

What really scares me is the idea that I'll never get better. The general belief about C-PTSD and Social Anxiety seems to be that there is no complete cure. It scares me that I can always end up back in this scary, dark place. It terrifies me.
I have this yearning to be normal in a sense, but I'm glad for some of my differences too. I'm sensitive as *, I care about animal rights and human rights way more than the average person, and maybe that's because I know what it's like to be a victim, but I still see it as a good thing. At least I'm not racist, or sexist or contributing to the hurting of animals where I can avoid it, etc.
I most worry that I am a bad person myself. My little brother is really annoying and not so well behaved but I get really annoyed with him sometimes and I feel responsible like a parent, when really I shouldn't, for his well-being. I guess that's because I fear my parents are inadequate in their raising of him, but there's nothing I can do.
They don't seem to be as bad as it was with me though. Strangely, the levels of violence seem to have passed.
I've thought about going to A&E but the last time I went the waiting time was so long (5 hours, they said) I just went home. Great suicide safety plan that, huh?!
I've been referred to an organisation that will give me counselling, they help women who have experienced violence, but I'm obviously still waiting as it's a very recent referral.
I just feel like I'm falling apart now. It's not easy to hold it all together. I'm scheduled to go back to work in a week, and I can't quit because I will have to pay 10,000 pounds over the course of 4 years apparently, which I do not have. This was part of my contract because I am an apprentice. Bit of a disastrous thing to sign when I have mental illness, but I thought I could handle it. I wanted to handle it. Maybe I still will. Time shall tell. But I'm not really handling it, or life in general. I'm falling apart.
I need help, that's how I feel, but I'm not getting it quickly enough. I'm not getting enough help or the right help, that's how it feels.
I hope I get better soon. Even if it can't be cured I want to still get a little better, because how I feel now really is not good at all.

I'm sorry if you've read this and it's depressed you. It would depress me, too.
Hopefully, I'll feel better the next time I write. It shouldn't be hard.

Over and out :wave:

Hello Samantha, I am really sorry that you are feeling so bad right now.  In spite of it all I notice you have a depth of self-awareness that many do not have.  You know how you feel and the origins.  You know some of your positive qualities.  You care about your little brother.  And most important, you know that things will get better.  This is a terrible feeling right now, but it will pass.  At least that's what I hear you saying.  As to feeling alone I cannot hope to change or correct how you feel.  On the other hand I know that I too have felt incredibly hopeless, and that w/time & healing things got better.  There are many on this forum who've felt extremely depressed as well.  In that sense, you are not alone.  Thank you for reaching out here.  Perhaps this and some other sections of the forum could help you understand and move through this very difficult time.

I've replied to the personal message but thank you  :hug: This forum does help me feel more understood and less alone, so I will continue to use it.

Today is a lot better. I have these bad bursts of mental illness sometimes, and I definitely feel that happened yesterday. It was awful, but I feel a lot better today. My perception is very different depending on my mental state, I'm aware of that. Yesterday it felt like I had no hope, no connection to anyone, no happy moments, etc.
Not true.
I have had a lot of happy moments this year. I took a bath last night when I was getting panicky and I calmed down. Taking my nightly medication probably helped too, but yeah. Things aren't so bad. Yes, I struggle with social anxiety and life is really scary a lot of the time BUT I also have friends, I have hobbies, I have family who I love. I just can't feel all of the good stuff when my mental state is really, really low.
I just wanted to update.
Also, for consistency, some of my previous post has been removed due to guidelines that I wasn't aware of, my bad! So it might read a little weird.
I can be happy, though. That's the take away message. And I'm happy quite a lot for someone who is technically depressed. Good moments and bad moments, that's just my life right now. And sure, the bad moments really are BAD. But I'm all set up to get help with that. Right now, I'm just relaxing and enjoying feeling okay. My life is not going to miraculously become easy but I can enjoy it sometimes. I can learn how to manage my anxiety and take further care of myself.
Bye for now  :wave: :hug:

Hi Samantha, I think it's really brave of you to sit with those feelings of loneliness and just cry: those tears are healing and need to be released. (often, for so many of us, we numb it out and get more and more disconnected and I do believe that feeling and meeting the -disconnect is probably the path to dissolving and healing it but for sure it's hard, tough soul work)
so I am also glad for you that you can get back to grounded place of reminding yourself all the good in your life; hold on to that and love yourself, every day. I have felt so much of what you feel and I agree with C - that you have such a depth of awareness and  - you are not a bad person (we just learn to believe that when we are poorly treated) - I can tell you are not, by the way you express consideration and warmth and thanks to other forum members here and by your care for your brother and your appreciation for all the good people in your life.   hey, I have an agreement with someone in my life that we will each write down five good qualities about ourselves, or good things we have done in our lives (big or small - it's all good!) : can I invite you in on that one?  hugs

glad to meet you and please keep believing in healing. the more we connect with ourselves, the more we can connect with others.

Thanks Yvette :-) That's a really nice reply, and makes me feel a good bit better.
Yes, I'd like to join in with that. I'll do it here, in fact, since this is my journal.

Five good qualities of mines and/or things I have achieved:

1. I have campaigned for animal rights causes and dream of continuing to do so in a positive way.
2. I have written 10,000 words of a novel in college, achieved my dream of being published and I passed my graded unit with an A.
3. I love my little brothers dearly, and I enjoy spending time with them and want to take them on more days out.
4. I can be friendly and warm, despite having social anxiety, and I am a generally nice person.
5. I care about people and the world very strongly.

It feels weird writing good things about yourself and publishing them  :blink:. It can be (Wrongly) seen as narcissistic, but I do think it is very important, especially for people like us who struggle with seeing our self worth. I'm trying to embrace the "bad" parts too though, just see myself as how I am and embrace that, without judgement, because I simply am how I am and I feel that having that understanding of self worth just for being at the core is important. So, yeah I'm trying to work on that, too.
Thank you <3 I will keep believing in healing and I hope that you can do the same as well :-) we'll get there, one step at a time.

For my journal now:
I feel fine, just now, if a little tired. I've been reading through this forum and I came across a thread on memory loss in relation to trauma. It dawned on me that I have experienced this, however I never made the connection. I was aware in my youth that when my dad lost his temper with me and behaved abusively, I would forget the order of events - it would all become muddled and unclear. I never really understood this, I just thought it was something my brain done when it got overloaded with negative emotion. I guess this is an example of dissociation, something I never really identified with so much before. It's made me realise some things. My memory is a fog. My mind is a fog. I was in an abusive relationship last year and I don't really feel like it happened. I know that it did but I don't identify with the person I was then anymore. It's a story that I don't feel a part of, despite having some memory of the basic details.
I feel I forgot a lot of what happened, like there's a barrier but I'd rather keep it up anyway. I could probably remember if I really wanted to, but I don't really want to. I think I cut out a lot of the good things, if they existed. I don't know if they did. But if they did, they're gone. I have the memories I needed to realise I had to leave forever and not much else. Pretty weird. There must have been good memories, I know there were some, if few, but honestly the entire experience is a fog. The facts are there, like basic facts, but not much else. Not very real feeling memories. I can't revisit the experience, so to speak. Maybe that's normal? I don't really know what normal memory is, so it's hard to decide, but I do feel mines is very limited.
I'm writing all of this, so I remember these realisations. I feel this will be a very useful tool when I start therapy (Which I'm waiting on). Anyways, I'm really tired so my scentences might not make the best sense right now. Off to bed for me!

First day back at work today after Christmas. I got anxiety over so many things.
It started before I went in to the office, what if my seat is taken? Who will I ask where to sit if it is? etc, etc.
Then once I sat down at my seat that wasn't taken, "who should I ask for work? I could ask *. No I'm too anxious. I'll just do an online course and someone will give me work if there is any. But what if I should be asking for work? What if people see me doing this and think I'm useless?" Then, "I'm being too unsociable", then "I should go onto the online work chat and ask for work but I'm too anxious to even open the online chat", etc.
My anxiety is an incredible pain in the *. It turned out my same-level colleagues had no work either and had done similar things as me during the day, so I needn't have worried so much, but I did, obviously.
It's *. I feel like I'm living through *. My eyes water and I hold down tears at my desk, all because of these worries inside of my head that are not based in current reality.
One good thing, I guess, on experiencing my automatic suicidal thoughts that come up in such anxious times, I didn't really want to follow through with it. This is new.
I have a sense of purpose right now, and a sense of self worth. I just hate having to live with anxiety but where I usually resort to suicidal thoughts, which I did do, they had no real intent behind them today. I am very much aware I don't want to kill myself. It would seem such a waste because of an illness. I just want it to be cured.
I could be happy, I think. Sometimes, I really am. This is the thing holding me back, this anxiety, and if I can be free from it and connect with people I won't feel so lonely and scared and inadequate - the main things that trouble me.
I feel there's a me beneath the surface that gets out sometimes, and it shows me how I can be - happy, sociable and healthy- but it's a rarity when I see her and the anxiety quickly restarts. It's a dream to be her without fear, but I am split because there's this darker part of me that thinks being her is a terrible idea. Obviously. That's where the anxiety stems from - the idea that I'm wrong.
I don't know how to go about fixing it. I am scared that things on the internet might be scams, or I might spend money and they don't work or I don't have the motivation.
I'm also scared to get help in a way, because it will mean pushing myself and facing my fears. But I know it is worth it, from the times I have faced them and felt delightfully free for a while.
I'm still waiting to hear back from that charity, for women who have experienced violence. I should be hearing back from them soon.
Meanwhile, I'm still suffering though. And I don't know what to do about it.
It's really bad and it's drastically affecting me at work, but there's not much I can do about it. I can't quit. I don't want to tell anyone I've got mental illness, my social anxiety is exacerbated enough by menial things never mind that conversation!
I want to believe in recovery. I know that the general idea about C-PTSD and Social Anxiety is that they're not wholly recoverable from, and it scares me that these unhelpful things are so ingrained in me from childhood, so it would be really hard to change it all around, but I want to believe in recovery. At least, to get to a place where I'm enjoying my life and I feel like a real person who can connect to others.
I want that.
I want to be able to say hello / goodbye to people without wanting to die afterwards. I want to be able to make the first move for a conversation, make new friends etc., without dealing with toxic shame.
I'm so socially anxious that I don't say hello or goodbye and I rarely, incredibly rarely, ever make the first move for a conversation - even if it's almost necessary like I need work at my job. I have became very avoidant, but it's with good reason. If I'm not avoidant the toxic shame starts, over the strangest things. I can send someone a friendly reply to a message and I'll get toxic shame over that. It's incredible, really. This part of me will find something wrong with me no matter what, soon as I dare come out my shell.
I've been processing memories too, kind of. Things have been coming back to me from throughout my life and I've just been kind of letting the memories run through. I'm not sure if this is a great idea. It makes me have the urge to cry, they come to me at work and other times. I feel what I felt then. Surely, it's better than repressing them. But it seems smarter to process them in therapy, than during my day-to-day life. Duh.
I'm going to try and recover. I deserve to. No child should be made to feel unworthy to the point where it affects their adult life. The more I remember the more angry I get, it's hard to pretend to like my dad when I remember how much I disliked him and why. We were getting along in a strange way but those feelings come back the more I realise how affected I am. I hate him for that. It's different now so most of the time I forgive him, because he isn't abusive now. But we still don't have a normal relationship, I'm pretty certain we never will. I promised myself over and over as a child to not forgive him because he would lose his temper again soon after, so those wounds are too deep now to ever fix.
I hate this. I used to count down the days till I was sixteen and I could move out, as if then it would all be better. I never realised the emotional scars would stay with me years after. I'm scared I'll never be free from these things that have happened in the past.
It's not fair.
But what can be done about it?
All I can do is keep trying and give myself the best chance I can.

I recently downloaded Pete Walker's book on complex PTSD and I feel way more understood and a tiny bit more hopeful.
I felt a bit better this weekend but today I was back in work and I was really bad. Had to go to the toilet to cry and eyes kept watering. Felt like nobody likes me, I'm an outsider, they probably talk about how weirdly distant and quiet I am, or my mood swings from sometimes friendly to painfully depressed.
I was having flashbacks too. I was given a task to ask people of their seats for a desk plan and I was drowning in shame because I couldn't bring myself to do it, because I was already drowning in shame and assumptions.
I isolate myself then feel hurt by the consequences. But it's so hard to take the risk of communicating with others, especially when it has triggered me into toxic shame so many times.
The people at my work have been really nice to me, still making effort to include me, but I project the past onto their faces, I feel my toxic shame and create with it a false reality.
I'm aware of this but it's stronger than my will to be healthy, my will dissipates within the first hour of work and by noon I wanna die.
I told my friends about having PTSD because of my dad in our group chat cause they asked why on earth I was so eager to move out. Usually at least falsely supportive friends, they made a comment about it being blunt then made jokes about James blunt to change the subject. Kind of disgusted but not all that surpised. On a night out I had a mental breakdown, locking myself in the toilet for over half an hour then going home, and I got one message from the whole group asking if I was okay like a day and a bit later. Quite hurtful. I'm always so there, sometimes for people Im not even all that close to because I know what it's like. Strangers on the Internet are more supportive. I'm grateful for this group. That's one good thing, at least there are people who understand and we have a place to find each other.
I just want to be able to connect to people. And stop thinking that they hate me. Even if they show they like me my brain will find a way to say "well I bet they hate you now".
I've been processing memories without a therapist, not entirely intentionally, but I'm angry which is maybe good. Angry in a healthy way because I did not deserve this illness. I already get angry in a repressed way, wanting to punch my computer at work usually because flashbacks.
The abuse was really bad, sometimes I'm in denial but it was terrifying. It's no wonder I'm so damaged. I barely had a chance. Actually I must have a pretty strong will to still be only just surviving.
I've became aware of how intensely I dissociate. It happens a lot during conversations, I faze out, my mind is blank. Sometimes I feel unreal, literally, like this life as experienced isn't real, I'm in a dream like state, I don't feel attached. I got that on the train this morning.
I do it at my desk too, faze out as if to protect myself from traumatic levels of emotion. I managed to do virtually nothing for an entire day today in this detached, helpless state.
I'm struggling to not believe the inner critic because I feel like it's true.
I consider drinking alcohol on weekdays very regularly- a coping mechanism. I saw this coping method on Jessica Jones , seeing mentally disturbed characters behaving wrecklessly always draws out that urge in me.
I haven't done it yet though, not this week. Not that I do it often, it's very rare I attempt to soothe with alcohol outside of the weekend.
I don't feel capable of working sometimes because of my mental illness, I can't meet certain demands if I'm having a flashback, which I usually am. But I really like my job so it's sad if I must waste this opportunity. It's stressful but it's challenging and I am smart, I don't want to not make the most of that because abusive people told me I was stupid in varying ways and I have an inherited illness.
I don't know what to do, really. Work triggers me so much. It's not really under my control at all. I am constantly triggered, today I was thinking of my abusive ex telling me about how his friend, aunt and mother all think I'm a *insult meaning disabled person*, too. It was likely a lie but it's obviously really affected me.
My basic issue is that I'm not coping well with work. I've been bullied and abused so much that I think everyone is judging and hating me. I isolate because of my mental illness then feel even more ashamed.
Life ain't going so good.

Your intensely honest journal expresses so well the heartbreak we all feel, or have felt. One way to react is to reflect on how your words touch me deeply, having been on that trail too. But what comes through loud and clear with this latest entry is something you can never get enough of, and fully deserve:

                       :bighug:

                         :bighug:

I think I was having a long emotional flashback there. It happens a lot, but I feel a lot better today.
I have a clearer perspective.
Even though I'm still so affected by my mental illness, I'm learning to love all these different parts of me.
It's not my fault I'm scared of people sometimes, yet I beat myself up internally for the way it makes me act.
I have more compassion for myself today. It's okay that I'm taking it slow. This is my journey and my recovery matters. It's not like I intend to cause harm by my iscolations, and I think more people understand in a sense than don't.
Work isn't really so bad, when my brain is clearer and in the present, when I can love myself.
I went to lunch with my colleagues today, I made small chit-chat which is a good enough effort for me right now. I still have so many struggles, I still haven't chatted online unless someone directly messages me or it's really important. Like they say, one step at a time.
I'm still really quiet but people still talk to me sometimes and it's nice. People probably don't realise how much of a difference they make when they're friendly to someone who has mental illness. It makes such a difference, just to feel a bit more included and like people aren't so hateful and scary.
I've been making progress I think, and I can attribute some of that to reading Pete walkers book, c ptsd: from surviving to thriving. It's really shocking but verifying to see myself so perfectly described in that book- from the suicidal obsession without real action to the obsession with health foods and the ways I dissociate myself.
I think it increased my compassion and understanding, so that was nice.
I have hope. I'm doing better than before. There are frequent little victories to celebrate, like me managing to attend work for two weeks without a day off- something that doesn't seem a big deal but damn was I dealing with a lot, and I don't have a good record of attendance over the last few years as I've taken to avoiding, avoiding, avoiding. So it's really good for me, a little victory.
I've made friends too, I think that's why I was so triggered the past fortnight - too many expectations and stuff to deal with - my brain went in to overdrive.
Other things too, like talking myself down from a toxic shame attack, attending a team meeting despite being late - all small things but big things to me.
I'm really realising how much I think in black and white, too. It's something I'm aiming to change and it's helping me a lot.
I notice it when something goes wrong. I've iscolated myself so I need to be alone and miserable and everyone will hate me and I'll need to quit my job etc. Instead of saying okay ive iscolated myself but these people have been nice to me and obviously we're not close friends currently but they don't hate me etc and Im sure they'll be nice if I chat to them. I'm not all alone.
Life is full of grey, and so are us people, too.
Well, on that I'm off to bed. I'm really tired.
I wish everyone the best with your recovery, finding your self love and weathering the storms the best you can when bad times do hit.
And thanks woodsgnome from your reply  :hug:
Much love,
Samantha xxx

I'm still doing pretty good. I want to update anyway as it's nice to see my progression. I quite enjoy journalling.
I'm managing with work. I'm making friends, I speak up sometimes and I can have a laugh, be happy etc.
I'm still pretty nervous, but that's just me, and I'm slowly overcoming fears or at least feeling the fear and doing a lot of things anyway, so that's good, right?
It's so weird when things are going better, to look back on your past mind-frames, like the night I first wrote in this journal. I was definitely having a flashback or something, I was triggered. I thought I was hopeless and going to remain endlessly alone, because of my social anxiety.
It's just not true, I'm showing myself that now, as I progress.
I did almost take a panic attack today as I had to do a presentation, but I managed not to completely freak and done it anyway, with absolutely zero eye contact but hey, I done it. So, that's cool.
I'm realizing that I will likely always have C-PTSD symptoms on some level, but I can minimize their impact, and honestly that's good enough for me. I can still be really happy at times, and I'm not suicidal at all today.
I realise I dissociate a lot, it's almost like my default state. I've been trying to work on being more in the present moment recently, and it's nice, it helps a lot.
Like I can be kind of freaking about anything and everything then I say this little mantra to myself: "In, out, present moment, wonderful moment" and it just fills me with a sense of love and gratitude. I realise wow, I'm working in the city with a good job, I've made friends today, I've had fun. It helps me realise the good things about that moment, which is nice for someone who so often does not live in the present, like ever. I realise I have a lot to be grateful for when I don't usually notice. It's even good in not-so-wonderful moments because I realise the potential of the moment, the potential in being present.
So yeah, today was pretty good. I'm still nervous but I'm growing in confidence in some ways, too. I'm still mentally ill in many ways but that's okay because I'm also happy, and life feels good enough.

I identify strongly with the freeze trauma response, as explained by Pete Walker.
It's really bad, but it's totally who I am.
I've been like this my whole life, frozen in fear. For most of the time, anyway.
I remember when I was really little, I threw up in my mouth at my grandparents house and I never even told them, I just swallowed it.
I remember in primary school, the teacher asked me a question and I didn't like answering out so I just froze until she stopped questioning me and reacting to my silence. I just froze, and didn't say a word until she stopped. I must have been like 6 years old.
Now, I'm addicted to my smartphone. I lose myself in it for hours upon hours, a form of dissociation. I don't even do anything worthwhile or meaningful, I'm aware it's a way of numbing my pain, cause I don't want to feel it. I don't want to be alone with my thoughts.
I'm chronically late, because I struggle so much with doing tasks and getting out of bed, because these things require attention and being alone with thoughts, instead of mindlessly sleeping or scrolling through my phone.
I freeze up in social situations all the time. I am HIGHLY self-isolating and avoidant. At work, I will think about saying something and freeze up, often getting lost in other tasks and just not doing / saying the thing. Often, it's things I need to do, like tell someone something important or actually complete a task I've been given that requires socializing.
It's absurd but I can't seem to stop it. I freeze. That's just what happens, and it's been happening my whole, entire life.

I'm so upset and angry when I realise what they've done to me.

i'll likely never recover from this completely, and I've spent most my entire life suffering. Not only did they not respond to my severe social anxiety, that was pointed out to them when I started high school but they caused it. And my father even scorned it to put me down, his way of winning any arguments; just insult the person like a petulant child until they fall apart and you can feel you've succeeded. That was his way.
Like, look what they've done to me. I'm a * disaster. I can barely function and my life is just suffering and misery. My life is mostly just survival, I rarely get to enjoy it. It's not fair. I don't want to be this way; living with the scars from THEIR mistakes.
I get really angry when I have these moments of realization. I'm not usually angry and anger disgusts me because my father was angry when he abused me and I end up feeling like I'm just like him.
My little brother gets a lot of peoples moods and I'm always scared I've taken things out on him. Sometimes I'm just so angry. I always make sure to apologise and say I shouldn't have done whatever if I lose my temper. My dad never done that, no matter what. And it's not like it's the exact same. I've never done anything like the really bad things my dad done to me.
I couldn't live with myself. I'd move myself out.
It's not the same. It's really not.
I still feel concerned for him though, mostly cause I still live here and I feel my parents aren't very proper. I mean, look what they've done to me.
And my other little brother is older, but he's disabled, and he was / is still hit and shouted at when he does something wrong. That's beginning to seem very problematic to me. There's surely other ways to discipline. And obviously with his disability he doesn't process the world the same, he can't communicate very much (he doesn't speak). It's terribly problematic. It makes me wonder if his moods and unhappiness that occur sometimes would be lesser if our parents had been better.

I feel like I can't do this anymore.
My life is suffering. My life is really hard, and it shouldn't be, but it is.
I have emotional flashbacks at least once per day, at work.
Everything is hard.
Today, for example, I was at a tiny team meeting and I had chronic pain start as my IBS kicked off. This kind of pain has me unable to stand up straight, it makes me scream and cry, one time I almost went to A&E. It's bad. It's like extreme pain but constant, with no good reason.
Yet, what did I do? Sat still and didn't move a muscle, until I finally went to the toilet like an hour into the pain. Because all I do is * freeze, even over silly things like going to the toilet.
I'm more accustomed to pretending I'm okay when I'm in agony. I mean I do it on a mental level every day, anyway. Hardly any different.

I don't want to struggle anymore. I'm self aware of my mental illness but at the same time I so often can't help but believe it.
I don't know what's true. I don't know what to believe about whether people dislike me or not.
It's really hard.
I'm sick of struggling.
My life only seems worth living if I completely wrap myself away in a safe place all alone. Then I can stop feeling afraid.
But even on my own, I'm not alone, because C-PTSD is in my ear, being a complete *.
And I know on some level that giving in to complete self isolation is just nurturing my illness.
But it seems so good, compared to all of this fear and all of this suffering.
The relief of running away and never coming back would be immense.
But then I'd likely just end up depressed, because what's the point in being alive if you hide away and don't live?
I do want friends.
I do have friends, by the way. I just also have a ridiculous mental illness that destroys my life daily.
Today isn't a good day,

Samantha

 :hug:  Here's to a much better tomorrow  :hug:

Thanks Kizzie :-)

Today was actually better. I'm in a smaller room at work and that actually helps my anxiety a lot, haha. I spoke to people on several occassions today, which is standard for most people but progress for me.
I've not had any intense toxic shame moments or flashbacks. It's still there, but not been severe today. I've been alright, so yay.
I've also been in touch with the organisation that I was referred to, for women who have experienced violence. The woman spoke to me on the phone about what they can do, and she spoke about how they can help with financial issues, like the issue of me trying to move out of my family home before starting therapy (because I'm still staying with my FOO).
This is really good. This gives me hope. I would just really appreciate some adult guidance over moving out, so I'm quite relieved.
It's nice to have someone verify things, too. Like just having an adult react correctly to abuse, because obviously my family and anyone involved would try to shame me and / or deny the extent to which it happened and / or tell me it's okay, it's normal. I had a "good" upbringing because I was fed food or something else entirely standard (*, plus I didn't always have food, but I won't get into that here).
Like I'm traumatised, this is real. It makes a different just to be taken seriously for once.
I'm really looking forward to having my own space, that's mines to make my own. I think I'll feel safer, more at home. I think it will really help.
Plus, I'll get better sleeps I think, because my family are often noisy and inconsiderate when I try to sleep which makes working full time really hard. So yeah, that should help.
I'm feeling optimistic and slightly glad to be alive. yay.
Hopefully this streak continues :-)

Rooting for you!!   :cheer:

I've been trying to write a poetry book for a few months now, and I'm pretty close to getting finished.
It's about my experience with abuse and it's split into three sections: during, aftermath and healing.
It's hard to write, however, as my memory is so fragmented at times. Like, my brain just doesn't want to remember some things, it clouds over and puts me in a fog.
I become depersonalized from my own feelings, memories and experiences. It's a strange one, but just proves to me further that I do have C-PTSD.

I went to see a psychologist this week, and she dismissed me when I said I probably have C-PTSD. She never asked further questions, she just said I was probably looking for something to fit into online, and she doubts I would have C-PTSD.
I know I'm not delusional, I definitely suffer the symptoms of C-PTSD, and I have the life experience to back that up.
If she was knowledgeable and any good at her practice, surely she would ask further questions or agree to assess me, but they probably don't want the extra hassle of me being traumatized, I guess being mentally ill is bad enough for them.
I'm annoyed. Why would I NOT have C-PTSD when I have every symptom? It makes no sense.
She doesn't know the extent of my life after a 50 minute conversation. She doesn't know everything I experience, and she still doesn't know how bad the abuse was, all she knows is that is happened and it was physical as well as verbal and emotional.
How dare she dismiss me like that?
I'm annoyed.

Work is living *. I'm constantly triggered. I don't want to be alive anymore.
I'm incredibly isolated. It upsets me when I isolate myself, and makes me feel very ashamed and not fit to be working, as my mental illness affects me.

I started a good things journal yesterday. That let me see that I am making some progress. My attendance and time keeping has really improved, that's something. And I have had some nice conversations this week, even if I didn't have the courage to start them. It's still something to be happy about, it's still a good thing amongst the bad.

I want to get through this. I want to get better. I want to keep on trying.
I have hopes and dreams for my future. I hope I can stick in and life stops being so horrible.

I'm moving out soon so that's another good thing. The woman from the charity kept not getting back to me, so I don't think they're helping me anymore. But I've saved up a good bit of money myself, and I'll be able to move out in the next couple of months. So that's a pretty good thing. That's something to celebrate.

I'm progressively getting closer to moving out, I've saved up a good bit of money, so yay.
I'm so triggered living here, I hear my dad being horrible to my mum, I hear them arguing, I see my brothers being neglected and hear my parents treating my youngest brother like an annoying piece of crap.
It's horrible.
At least I'm getting out.
I just feel bad for leaving my brothers, but I'll stay in touch and take them on days out.
Work is hard because my social anxiety is still severe and limits me, and my brain likes to convince me people don't like me anymore.
It keeps getting proven wrong to me though, every now and then, which is bittersweet.
It's a relief but it's sad, cause damn I believed in those warped thoughts. They affected my actions, etc.
I've been crying a lot and feeling my emotions. I understand this is healthy compared to dissociating from them. I honestly do think I'm recovering, even though I haven't had a therapist yet. I'm getting better in some ways, I'm moving out soon!! I have relational healing via one very good friend I have, who is always there to listen to me babble and is just a really nice, caring person to me.
I'm learning a lot about my illness, I'm learning to feel, I'm learning it's okay to cry and be down and suffering is human. Sometimes, rarely, I am happy. But this is probably increasing. Nah, I know it is. And as I allow myself to feel sadness and all the emotions from my trauma, the ability to feel joy and other emotions should increase too. :-)
I left my abusive ex. I am working, even if it's really, really hard.
It's not easy, but I am progressing, I can see that.
I will heal. I am so sorry I can't save my younger brothers right now, I need to save myself first. I will at least be a source of love, when I can be. It's something, right? It's something.
I realize I probably can't go NC with my FOO, as I don't know how that would work, with my younger brothers. Whatever, I can take that sacrifice, I love them.
I'll make my life into something better. I'll keep going. I'm determined.
It's hard and I feel helpless sometimes, but I gotta do this. I gotta.
I deserve healing, we all do. So, I'll keep on seeking it. I will. And I'll get there. I'm more determined every day.

Hi samantha19,
I wrote this reply to another thread/post you made, but it was gone when I was done typing.  ;) That's OK.
I saved my reply though, and I see now that this post addresses to a large extend the other post you made.
So I will post my written reply here.
I hope you're OK with that.



That's quite a heartbreaking story, samantha19.  :'(

Moving out seems like a good idea.  :thumbup: for doing so.
It's a good and brave thing to do, and I'm sure it will aid you in your recovery.
As for your brothers: I can relate to your predicament as to what will happen to them now. A phrase pops up from my memory that I have learned from others for situations like this: "First put on the oxygen-mask before you start to help others putting them on", like they say in the safety-briefing on airplanes...
It sounds a bit hard, but it makes sense when you think about it.

Quote from: samantha19 on February 28, 2016, 09:45:18 PM
I need to move out, I just feel bad about it. :/
I know I can't get through to my parents, either. I've tried. They just gaslight me and become emotionally abusive. There's no getting through.
I really don't know what to do.

I think you are doing the right thing by moving out, and focus on your own well being. You may well feel even more powerless as you feel now. Yet you'll feel more powerful over you're own (mental) health, and that is real progress.
Perhaps in a few months, or a year even, you'll feel more powerful to do what you have been thinking of: go to the social services. Be a help in getting your disabled brother out of the house and get additional support for your younger brother who has been a victim of his abuse and the neglect of your parents.
But for now it's important to focus on you, and get well and learn the life of living independently from your parents and their abuse.

QuoteJust the kind of slapping that a lot of society seems to consider normal.

Society is getting less and less tolerant of things like this, so there is hope. For him and for you.

QuoteI just feel like my little brother is probably as emotionally damaged as me, or on track to getting there. He is really angry and upset a lot of the time, and depressed and anxious. I can't fix it. I can't save him. And it's breaking my heart.

I can relate, and I want to send a big  :hug:  to you.
You're right, you can't fix it, and can't save him.
And most of all: remember you are not the one inflicting the abuse. You wrote you may have contributed, but you have realized this and have stopped. That is awesome of you, and you may give yourself a pat on the back for that.  :thumbup:
In due time your younger brother may see, by you setting the example of not taking part in the abuse that there is another way to interact with other people around oneself, and that in itself is a great message you are sending him. You are leading by example, and that really is the only thing you have power over, and what a powerful thing that is.

I wish you strength in the coming months when moving out. You are doing the best you can.
You go Girl!  :applause:
:hug:

Thanks DutchUncle <3 you were right and I appreicate the kindness :)

I haven't wrote here in a while, wowza. Lots to update.

I've moved out! My flat is really big and nice thanks to having 2 flat mates. Unfortunately they're a couple and they argue sometimes, with the guy being an * to the girl. Controlling and nasty, basically. That triggered me a lot the other day, because she reached out to me and it was so similar to my past relationship. I began thinking about how on earth I have managed to live with a nasty, controlling type of man in all three of my living arrangements throughout my life. But whatever, I'm just going to try and distance myself from it all. They're my housemates, not my responsibility. A bunch of people have told her to leave him, ultimately it's her life. I can't get invested in their problems, they are in control of themselves, not me.
And if things keep happening to trigger me, I'll make arrangements to get out of this living situation or tell them straight up to stop (hopefully). Yay for assertiveness.
Other than that my flat is pretty good. I just don't have many friends in the area, but maybe as time goes on I will make more. Who knows? We'll see.
I am doing a lot better. I never realised just how better until reading my past entires here and reflecting. Like wow.
I am doing quite well at work now, dare I say it. Well, for me. I'm learning things, I complete tasks, I can go and ask people for help and guidance when needed (even if I put it off and struggle with this sometimes!). I get the job done, mostly. I am improving, quite a lot, I guess.
I still have social anxiety, obviously, but I'm recovering.
I have been doing the Social Anxiety Institute course online and it's really working for me! It's only 20 pounds per month. It really helps. I am noticing a lot of differences cognitively. I am getting a lot better at countering automatic negative thoughts, feeling hope over despair and just being sociable in general.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still pretty damn quiet, where I'm not comfortable. But I don't pure hate myself for this anymore. I have more understanding and I know that beating myself up isn't healthy, worthwhile or productive.
I'm starting to realise that people most often don't give a damn about me to be judging me and these negative thoughts that jump into my mind all the time are liars (at least virtually all of the time).
I'm climbing out of my depression. It doesn't affect me too often anymore. I have hope that I won't have social anxiety forever. This course I'm doing talks of it as curable. And I think as I deconstruct my terribly negative thoughts it will be, and if not I'll at least be a thousand times better than I was before.
Life doesn't feel so doomed.
I can still suffer flashbacks but they are way less frequent. I used to get one every day in work, before morning was over. Now it's a much rarer thing, I am not triggered so easily. And I can get out of it quicker too. So that's good. It feels like I have flashbacks at times in my life now, instead of having occasional bursts of life in between one big long flashback.

Trigger Warning: physical abuse and flashbacks

When I get them though my mind has started blurting out and repeating "get off of me!" I don't know where exactly this comes from. Sometimes I get visuals of my childhood room. I think it's just from physical abuse, idk if I actually said or thought that then or if it's a reaction from now. But I hear it and I can twitch, become afraid of others around me and start to cry. Not so fun. I feel like I am screaming "get off of me!" in reference to the past but also to all this social anxiety and illness that is still on me as a result.
I laugh about it often too, in a dark way. You know the lyrics to taylor swifts trouble? That plays in my mind only with "triggered, triggered, triggered".
Humour helps, at least only to acknowledge the situation. Realise what's going on. This is a flashback not reality.
My little brothers still live at home and I am a positive part of their lives when they visit or I visit them or phone. I can only do what I can. I am responsible for me. That's just how it is. Sad, but true, unfortunately. I don't really dwell on it any more.
I will always be there, and offer kindness, love and be a friend to them. What else can I do?
That's it from me, just now. Over and out  :cheer:

QuoteThey're my housemates, not my responsibility. A bunch of people have told her to leave him, ultimately it's her life. I can't get invested in their problems, they are in control of themselves, not me. And if things keep happening to trigger me, I'll make arrangements to get out of this living situation or tell them straight up to stop (hopefully). Yay for assertiveness.

I am doing quite well at work now, dare I say it. Well, for me. I'm learning things, I complete tasks, I can go and ask people for help and guidance when needed (even if I put it off and struggle with this sometimes!). I get the job done, mostly. I am improving, quite a lot, I guess.  I still have social anxiety, obviously, but I'm recovering.

This is a flashback not reality. My little brothers still live at home and I am a positive part of their lives when they visit or I visit them or phone. I can only do what I can. I am responsible for me. That's just how it is. Sad, but true, unfortunately. I don't really dwell on it any more.

Wow that is some solid recovery you've got going on Samantha :applause:  Glad you came back to let us know  :hug:

Wow Samantha, you really have come a long way. I was reading some of your older entries and to see how much better you are now gives me hope that I can someday get to a better place too. Kudos to you for moving out  :applause:, that takes a lot of courage. Thanks for updating us on how you're doing, here's to continued progress!   :hug:

Thanks for continuing to be honest, and no it isn't discouraging. You give me hope that things can get better, but also comfort that it's OK to still struggle sometimes too. I related to today's post way too much. I know it feels weird to say that stuff here (I just did the same thing recently). All I can say is hugs, and I hope you find answers eventually.

I feel dead inside today.
I've been like this for the past few days altogether.
Trying to quit smoking again probably isn't helping, but I'm sick of making myself physically more ill through addiction, and I want to kick this habit because it's not mentally healthy either.
I've became more aware that smoking is, for me, a trauma response. I do it when I feel things I don't want to feel, like stress or anxiety.
I feel so detached. This isn't normal.
I think being on this website more again is triggering to me, which is a shame because it's a good outlet and nice to be surrounded by others experiencing similar, sharing support etc.
But I feel I am dealing with a lot at once by being here, confronting a lot of my repressed feelings.
Maybe I need to take it a bit slower and more easily, lol.
I think I'm just a little overwhelmed. So my emotions are just like bye see ya next week kid this is too much, sry  :wave:

I'd usually have smoked about 5 cigarettes by now and I haven't smoked any today. That's cool. Even if I feel like a dead thing.

I honestly feel not in my body. Is this dissociation? I guess to an extent, yes. Fun times.

I have a problem where I'm becoming healthy enough to realise a lot of people in my life are trash, but not healthy enough to make new friends who are better suited to me.

So it's a case of hang about with untrustworthy * stains or be alone.

(Excuse my bluntness I'm getting better at angering and I'm also experiencing nicotine withdrawal, yay!)

I hate my dad. I've repressed these feelings in favour of "something nicer" but the way he treated me was * *.
I can't trust anyone because of his shape shifting personality.
I was too young and iscolated to fully understand and it was entirely the fault of my parents.

I still act nice with my parents because I'm too scared not to, for a number of reasons. To name a few:

It would be uncomfortable.
They're unpredictable and controlling.
I can see this causing drama that spans into wider parts of my family (I live with my cousin, for example).
My little brothers live with my parents and I want to see them.
I'm probably still scared of my dad being violent towards me, or whatever, as this fear was deeply embedded within me as a child and teenager.
When I explain to my mum she gaslights me, which is * horrible to deal with. She literally tries to tell me I can't trust my own memory (she done this last time and said I falsely remembered being kicked the time my dad smashed my friends laptop and I wasn't kicked. So obvs my memory is messed up and he's not abusive lol. Figure that one out).

But what's the alternative?

I fear that acting like everything is fine not only gives them a free pass but disturbs my healing.
How can I be healed if I pretend to like the people who abused and destroyed me?

I am confused about how I feel with this.
I will leave it just now to deal with it in time.

I've been looking at therapists and found a few that I like the look of.

Thing is I can't trust anyone, really, it feels. I analyse their pages to see if they're narcissistic or similar to my mum.
I avoid male therapists, fair enough, but I don't even feel I can even trust the women.
I'm terrified of getting my trust broken again.
I guess I just need to be there for myself.
I can terminate any relationships that don't serve me and all that.
This would be quite easy to do with a therapist, anyway.
It's not like breaking off a long term friendship. You're also paying for it.
So yeah. I guess I just need to get on with it, as much as I do not want to, this suffering can't go on like this.
I don't deserve it, either.

I wish I could do something about all of this numbness. I don't want to feel it (the foundation of all addiction).

This started with self harm, that was what I done in my younger years when the pain got too much.
Now I'm avoiding an empty void, only I can't avoid it only cover it. And I don't want to smoke anymore.

I just feel so alone and depressed. I don't feel I have any very good friends. I have some friends and they're nice but I just feel so alone right now. I am quite alone in my life, I am so, so quiet and iscolated a lot of the time.
I live my life in recluse.

This will pass, it always does.
I know that.
It's just not very nice having to sit with it. It's a horrible (lack of) feeling.

I'm noticing more progress as time goes on.
I believe the Social Anxiety Institute course has been helping me massively. It's unbelievable how much my social anxiety has decreased recently, I wouldn't have believed it possible in this amount of time.
I'm feeling way more confortable with myself, as well as expressing myself more.
For example, I'm on a course the now at work and I've noticed these changes:
I'm speaking out in class without being called on (!),
I'm laughing a lot,
I'm chatting more,
I'm calmer in conversation, I feel more like I have a right to be there and it's not all such a big deal, I'm just more at ease, it's nice (although don't get me wrong, the physical anxiety has manifested in the form of intense nausea, I ain't outta this * storm yet, but it's a lot better).
I'm calmer in silence too. None of that self hate taking over for me being quiet. I can be quiet, so what? Really not a big deal. It's fine (This is more my mind frame now).
I'm expressing myself more. Still not fully, but just chatting more, giving my input more, connecting with people more.
I feel I look people in the eye better than I used to. Little things like that all make a difference.
I said bye to the lecturer today. That sounds small but little things like greetings give me a great deal of issue. So it's good to see I am doing them with more ease.
Cognitively, there is a good difference. I am kinder to myself and way more rational. My brain is less of a distorted * hole, more of a friendly place where a scared thing lives (I am the scared thing, ofc).

I also done a presentation at work, what the *? In front of like 12 people as well. What da heck? I am improving.

During the presentation I froze up twice however, but I think it's a mark of my recovery that instead of remaining frozen until asked to sit down (as happened in high school, lol, fun times) I apologised each time and explained that my head goes blank when I get nervous. This honesty meant that
I wasn't just standing in silence without my team knowing what to do, it meant I was still engaging. My team then helped me out, someone make a joke (in a kind way), and someone else suggested something else to talk about, which got me back on to the subject.
I got quite a lot of praise, for having the best organised presentation so far and giving a lot of new information to people. Even my team lead says he learnt something.
People were also all really nice to me about my being nervous, a few people made effort to try and make me feel better and chat to me about their experiences and how it gets better with time (I'm sitting thinking yeah I bet you don't have c ptsd tho, ha, but it is still valid tbh, and they are only trying to be nice).
So like, I'm glad I went for it anyway, because I was due to run out of that meeting room before I was up, and I could have but I never.
I wrote a poem about how this is "going from victim to survivor" because that's how it felt.
I've spent my whole life hiding, hiding, hiding because of him, and I showed myself - my anxiety, my hard work, my personality, my passion, my voice etc. And the result was good, a lot of people actually seem to like me and they appreciated my talk. I ended up chatting more that day and it gave me a confidence boost. I guess that's what happens when you break out of your survival methods and realise that the world will not react to you like your parents did (I mean 99% of the time).

Another realisation:

Recovery is less about what you can do and more about how you feel. What you can do will evolve naturally as your frame of mind improves.

I feel like I have a shot at a good career again. I know this sounds boastful but I always had a lot of potential. I done well in school without trying for virtually all of my years, I was always creative, working on little projects when I was younger, I can be a bright person and I have always been regarded as intelligent (outside of my abuser(s)), especially in English and writing. I also had a mind for business and programming, making little websites and the like when I was like 9 lol, such a nerd.

I don't mean to boast I just know myself. I know that I had potential. But it got covered up for a long time.

If someone(s) calls you stupid enough times you begin to believe it. If someone(s) reject you and treat you like trash enough times, you learn to hide for your own safety and to protect your emotions, because they've taught you that you're not good enough.

Just as a note if anyone is reading this, I don't believe anyone's worth is in this silly defined idea of intelligence either. It's totally * not. This is just relevant to my journey because I feel something I should have had pride in was attacked and attacked and attacked, and my passions were squandered as a result, my opportunity to be happy, make friends and succeed at certain things diminished,

But not anymore.

I'm so glad. There's been a real shift.

And I'm not even on the anti-depressants anymore (which didn't work for me). These are real cognitive changes, my life is truly evolving and I'm so glad.

I still feel vomity because I'm not used to this talking to people all the time, but I'm quite confident I'll get more used to it with time. I sure hope so, but I don't see why not. It makes sense that my brain will learn I am safe, as I practice socialising more and more.

I still have quite some way to go, but I'm on a journey moving up now and it is bringing me a great increase in joy. Maybe we feel more intensely about our (not so) little accomplishments and changes, where we speak out more and make friends. It's a really beautiful feeling, it really is, feeling like you are coming back into yourself. It's so nice. I am smiling and laughing a lot more. My days are less boring and terrifying.

(I hope I can keep this up - but I will, man, I will, just got to keep going with recovery.)

I still get toxic shame, I still get EF's.
I do feel I believe in them WAY less though and I can get through them more easily too.

I actually feel quite uncomfortable today because I pushed myself continuously, and it brought on toxic shame. The event was adding myself to online group chats at work that I'm supposed to be / entitled to be a part of.
I saw that someone had invited the other members and not me in one, this brought on the toxic shame pretty bad. My ears burned. But... I also then realised that my account wasn't working at first, maybe they were added then (most likely). Maybe I was just forgotten. The person has invited me to the upcoming night out and stuff, I wasn't left out of those e-mails and I was also asked face to face, so I realise it's not rational for me to think oh * I'm being left out, they must hate me yada yada ya toxic shame.
I still feel weird about it though. Because what will other people think. Also, it took me 20 days to add myself lol.
But my brain is being a silly potato and I recognise that. It's not fair to beat myself up like this, I've not done anything wrong.

Phew this has been quite the long entry!

Final notes:

Moving out has helped massively, I do believe. My family home was hectic, constant noise and arguments and drama. Outer environments must affect our inner environment so much. I feel so much calmer, I have time and space to relax, I can sleep at night, etc. Being free from all that negativity is really helping.

I am more repulsed by my dad as time goes on. My mum wants them all to visit soon, like tomorrow, but I don't really want to keep seeing him. I kind of hate him. Idk. It's such a weird "relationship". I mean obviously, he abused me throughout my life. Now he tries to play happy families though, and I just feel disgust over this now. I don't need to pretend to keep my home peaceful anymore because I moved away. But it's complicated, isn't it? Because my mum is an enabler and has gaslighted me about his abuse many times. And other things.
It's just all very complicated.

Okay, that's it for me now. Over and out.  :wave:

The past week has been one of my hardest in a while, but I am feeling more positive again tonight.

I was doing a lot at once, facing a lot of my fears and I lost control of my minds incessant scribbling. It rolled way of the page as my attention to controlling it deviated.

I have been really scared and depressed. I experienced a setback in effects due to this. I was so overwhelmed and I did not feel in control. Suddenly, sending emails terrified me again, all these little things.

I pushed through, somehow. The weekend came and I relaxed, I cried and I began to recover. My dissociative state broke after my big cry, I suddenly feel more in touch with my surroundings, more real.
It's like I wasn't really aware of my home before (it's a new one you see), but now I feel actually in it. Dissociation is weird.
One of my biggest stressors was that I was talking to a boy I had met the weekend before. I was attracted to him, we have similar interested and he was really sweet to me
I struggled to control my mind and keep texting back, the anxiety creeping in, analysing every word before I sent it and finding within them enough flaws to paralyse me from making a move. So I stopped replying. And this self sabotage dropped me down into an even deeper depression. But the anxiety was a little less, I began to eat more again where before I had been slightly starving. This was my life situation from talking to a boy that I was actually interested in.

I still hadn't text back when the weekend arrived, although I did consider it. My friends ended up coming up to visit and we went out and had a really good night. I love my friends. They make me really happy and I feel my new house feels more like a home now it contains such a happy memory, yano?
So I opened up to one of my close friends when I was drunk, and she took my phone and typed out a reply without sending it. I was still terrified though I laughed about it. She was trying really hard to motivate me to just do it, now or never etc. But I was effing * it.
Today I sent the God damn message. I'm not expecting to get a reply or not to get a reply, I'm just glad I took control of my own life here again. It feels... better.
My depression tends to be a result of anxiety and avoidance, so I feel way less depressed now I am not being avoidant.
I'm still a bit sad, but I was sad anyway. I already decided I had screwed it up. This slightly unscrews that and leaves the ball in his court.
I know I cannot completely help my anxiety, it's an old habit that can't be fixed with the snap of my fingers.
I can choose to increase my self love and calmness, work on making cognitive changes and put energy into healing. So that is what I am doing.

Recovery is not easy, but it is worth it. I'm sure I read that somewhere.

It's not easy. You do things that you've been terrified of and it cuts you open, all these raw emotions pouring out, these unhealthy reactions, this leftover trauma. It hurts. But once you are cut open and it seeps out you can choose how you transform it, you can choose how you put the wound back together.

I love myself. I keep telling myself this to counteract the voice that says the opposite. I love myself.

I am healing, it is taking time and effort but I am healing and it is beautiful and this increase in freedom is incredible.

(Since writing this I have tried to sleep but been overwhelmed with anxious analysis and toxic shame. Gosh this * is annoying. I wish I could be someone who just doesn't give a *. I am getting to a more carefree place but it is not easy.
I will try my best to remain positive throughout this situation, nonetheless.)

I just feel like such a weirdo for replying to a text like 5 days later. I made an excuse by saying my phone had been broke. But I literally replied to the previous messages as if no time had passed before explaining this, and my IC is rejoicing that this makes me weird.
It's also rejoicing that the entire situation makes me weird. It's finding fault in the fact I never continued conversation much with adding a question or whatever (but I think this is better because it leaves the ball in their court first). My IC has even imagined for me scenarios where conversations have been had about me and how I am no good, lol.

This really shouldn't be such a big deal, right? Like it isn't.

I'm just so shame based as a person. I hope to install a more positive and self loving base soon.

I am getting there but it is a struggle. I hope I come out the other side feeling alive and well.

Yes, I know that this stuff shouldn't be such a big deal, but everyone here probably also gets how it is for us.

My inner critic has been really strong recently.
I've started getting looping thoughts that I can't seem to stop. "I hate myself" goes round in a loop when I get bad sometimes. It's a new thing. Also variations of "I want to die".
Yay! New issues!

My toxic shame has been more intense than normal. It's craaazy. It's so extreme, to the point where I'll believe I'm so awful and embarassing I wish I hadn't been born or I could erase my existence entirely.
Then what I'm stressing about gets proven wrong, so and so still likes me and I've not made a complete * of myself. So it falls away, proving I am entirely dependent on the approval of others. Woo!
I honestly think I'm just pushing myself a bit much, still. There's a lot of pressure on me, from others and from myself, to be a certain kind of person. And I can't meet this bar that's in my head, especially when my IC can find fault in anything I do.
It's like ive wrote in my diary before:
If I talk: oh wow ive said too much, Im a weirdo, im a narcissistic freak I need to stop.
If I don't talk: * well this is awkward.

Cannot win!!

I'm gonna get to bed soon cause I am so sleepy. Nearly the weekend so maybe I'll take some time to recover. :-)

"If I talk: oh wow ive said too much, Im a weirdo, im a narcissistic freak I need to stop.

If I don't talk: * well this is awkward."

This is SO me!

You might try this for your inner critic: instead of just telling it to stfu, try examining the things its saying and then seeing that it is utterly false. Write yourself new rules. If that's too hard, try putting Groucho Marx glasses on your IC, or changing its voice to Minnie Mouse's.

I'm glad you're here. You were meant to be here. Hang in there. :)

Haha, ridiculous, isn't it? Sorry you can relate. At least we can find humour in it I guess...

Thanks for the advice, I will try these. I love the one where you make it into a funny voice  ;D

And thank you. That's so nice of you to say :) You 100% belong here too and I'm sending you all the good vibes  :hug:


Ok so for diary stuff now. I said no to something today, an invitation to go out, because I didn't wanna go out. This was actually really difficult to do!! But I'm glad I did. I can't keep living my life bent to the will of other people, other people who most likely wouldn't even want me to live like that!
I've struggled with not saying no for so many years. I never knew why I was like that before, but now as I reflect on my life growing up I can see why. I remember being shamed for turning down a shopping invitation from my aunt, pretty badly shamed. My descisions were not my own.
This led to some pretty silly life experiences - like being in a four month relationship with someone I wasn't even attracted to because I couldn't say no to meeting up, I couldn't say no to kissing, I couldn't say no to going out. Which was ridiculous !! But like I said I didn't know why I was like this, only that I was, I was a desperate people pleasure but I didn't even quite know why. It was automatic, deeply ingrained.
I still have some of these issues, but I am getting better I think.

I feel a bit liberated just now :-) I made my life my own today. Saying no feels good, which is funny cause I was expecting toxic shame, which held me back from saying it for so long.

Decent people are still going to like you. Only really problematic, angry people are going to get pissed at you for having your own life outside of them. I know this.
There's nothing wrong with politely saying no to something, actually it's a wonderful thing to do. Otherwise, how can we say we are free? We need to own our rights and own our lives. It's not even a big deal at all, it's really not. I'm fully aware of that, it's just a negative brain pattern. It's not logical, the fear, the shame, the desperation to put yourself aside to "please", and I know it.

Besides if we live our lives as people pleasers, we won't feel truly liked, we will feel like the mask is liked. It takes being yourself to enjoy being genuinelly liked by others :-) and that is way more rewarding.

Today I want to do nice things, exercise and be creative and relax. Me things, I just want some me time. And I have a few people I said I'd see this weekend, so I don't want to overload myself with plans. I made the better descision :-)

Mad how much this is over nothing, but good that I'm learning and progressing, lol.

I wrote a post somewhere else on here about how I question reality and have done throughout my life, likely due to all the gaslighting I experienced and my trauma response type of freeze.
I suddenly realise there are unaddressed things I should be angry about - like the gaslighting. I still don't fully believe myself, I can't... just incase. This is wrong and possibly a case of denial, I know this. 
They * me up and the evidence is not in their favour. Their arguments are so weak it's almost humorous if it wasn't so terrible. Things like "your dad wasn't abusive, you can't trust your memory, because the time he smashed your friends laptop into pieces you thought he kicked you and he never kicked you". I've already posted that here I think but it's a prime example.
I'm good at analysing things, * I was the best at essay writing in my class, yet I can't fully believe in the clear evidence shown when I have analysed my own memories. Because it's my own mum. How could she do that to me? It hurts too much to imagine. What the *?
It's scary because what does it say about her? What does it say for my siblings still at home, to live with them both? There's so many scary things to accept.
Your mum teaches you reality, right? You trust her with all your heart. She's the vessel you see the world with.
What happens when they lie to you? What happens when they tell you your own experiences are wrong and twist them so that you deserve abuse? *.
I don't want to believe it all because if I do how can I stand to be around them? We're still playing happy families.
But how can I leave this repressed? It's not healthy. I need to believe myself where I was hurt so I can believe myself now and be a fully integrated person.
My mum broke my heart. My dads abuse was obvious - it was very easy to say "this is extremely * wrong". But my mums was deep and insidious. Sometimes I think now that this messed me up more. I don't know. I don't want to blame that * less, he was the (most) violent and verbally horrible, sick, nasty, controlling evil one.
But I put my mum on a pedestal. She had so much space to shape my perception of the world, and she abused that entirely. I was so vulnerable and that would really * a person up.
I hate them. This is so sick. I feel like my life has became a psychological horror story, the kind you read about, not the kind you're supposed to experience.
I don't want this life (but I know I'll get over this. I know I am strong. I am healing in other ways and I know that this is part of the process. Things need to be realised so that they can be let out and resolved. Still * hurts though).

I keep saying "I hate myself". It's become like a mantra in my head.
"I hate myself I hate myself I hate myself".

Reading this thread on Reddit this morning did really help though:

https://m.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/comments/2ia3ir/why_do_i_hate_myself_so_much/

Still saying it though. Why do I hate myself so much?

It's obviously not right, I think. I'm not doing anything cruel. The only reason to hate myself is that I think I am a freak and that other people must look at me with wariness or disgust. This could be a projection of my parents and those who bullied me though, right?

I wish I could believe more that other people are my friends. I feel like they must think I'm a total freak though. I hate when I socialise more because it gives room for people to hate me and think I'm a * weirdo. The way I feel is a contradiction: I don't want people to think I'm into them, so worry if that comes across by me talking to them too much or whatever, and I also hate myself for my social anxiety for this makes me withdrawn. I only feel good if I am confident (and even then I can feel like crap). I feel vulnerable to be hated and judged when I am a bit quieter and anxious (although let's be honest I hate myself anyway). This is likely because of all the times people made me ashamed of being quiet. My mum shamed me so badly, and my dad sneered at me about it. Then there were all the "friends" at school who did not understand. Ironically they were all part of the problem.
I wish I had a normal life growing up. I wish I could replace my childhood with something wholesome and happy - take away the little girl who was deeply saddened by the fact that "something bad happens every single day". I feel I was around 7 years old, maybe younger. Who has these depressing, despairing thoughts at like 7 years old? It was something I had confirmed, every day held badness. I'm not sure what exactly it was, I remember attributing it that day to the girl in my street who was bullying me, but I think it shows wider pain and depression.

I don't know what to do with all of this self hatred and resulting depression.
I honestly am starting to believe it. And it's pouring into my mind so heavily. It's weighing me down.
I've lost so much weight, it's actually frightening. I'm nearly 20 and skinny jeans that I owned since age 15 are now very baggy on me. None of my clothes fit me anymore, everything is too big.
I struggle with eating so much. I make excuses like it costs too much / I'll eat more tomorrow. Truth is, I don't find pleasure in eating anymore. I do it occasionally because I have to.

People are seeing more potential in me and more people are being like my friends. I've started getting angry because it's like I want them all to leave me alone. I don't express this anger but it's there. Leave me alone, you'll only be disgusted in me over time, and I don't want that pain.

I don't quite want to do this anymore. I'm so done.

At the same time I want to see that my brain is wrong, but what if it's right? That would really hurt and upset me :-( I like making friends. I don't like it when people hate me. I don't want it to be true.

It shouldn't be true. I'm not that bad, how can I be? I'm struggling to even find reasons for this feeling.

Still I hate myself, I hate myself, I hate myself.

I'd rather not be alive, then nobody can judge me or drag me down.

Why I hate myself:
I went out for a drink with work people last night and I spoke a lot to certain people which makes me feel like a weirdo for spending most of my night with certain people because they might be like omg I don't like her please go away (although this is unlikely * but yea).
I may have made one unintelligent comment to the bosses.
I also feel I didn't speak enough or about the right stuff at times, because I was nervous and also potentially just boring.
I was physically shaking due to anxiety. Noticed someone looking at my shaking hand so they noticed. Yay I'm officially a freak.
I spoke away to someone I don't usually speak to. This is inconsistent.
I have ended up thinking that one of the guys maybe really doesn't like me and thinks I'm a weirdo.
I've ended up thinking that I wasn't wanted there. What if I wasn't wanted there?
What if people were like oh no, she's here (but why would they be?????)

I'm done. My brain is a * * storm.


What if I love myself? What if I just say sod all of this and decide Im good enough, * anyone who thinks otherwise and keep living as me?!

That would be nice. But it terrifies me. But that would sure be nice.

I wanna do that because it seems like the way to having (/maintaining) friends. I would like to be happy in my skin. 

:hug:

This sounds like me!

But...we are good enough, just the way we are. The truth is, you are good enough. That's the truth. We just need to tell our brains to let the truth sink in. Accept ourselves with all our flawed humanity and not hold ourselves up to some unrealistic standard.

You are good enough.

Thank you ThreeRoses :-) that's really nice of you. You are good enough too of course <3

I've quit smoking for like 4 days now, though I think it will be forever this time. Food is wonderful again, like oh my gosh. I am eating like nothing else, I actually love food. When I was smoking I just felt eternally sick and had barely any appetite. I forgot what it was like to freaking love food. I don't think I'll have any problem putting back on the lost weight now :D

The Allen Carr book on quitting smoking did help me some, I do believe, but I think I was also just ready to. I realised I hated it, but that book helped me break some psychological beliefs that were holding me back from quitting long-term. So yay.

Everybody doesn't hate me, still. My brain was being a potato. Nothing new there. I'm okay, I've always been okay.

The negative thoughts are not quite so frequent but still there.

I do think about suicide quite a lot but nothing new there either. There's probably less intent behind it these days. There's even been occasion where I don't feel it at all, I'm really happy to live.

I feel like I belong a good bit more at work now. I think that's because I've been making more friends and treating my social anxiety. I say making more friends but I always had some in a sense my brain was just too filled with negativity to see it. I am making friends more though.

I don't feel total fear walking down the corridors anymore. I feel like I belong and am allowed to be there, I'm a good enough, well enough liked person.

Opening up out of your shell is pretty cool because, apart from maybe the odd awful person, nobody is going to reject you like your parents / abusers / bullies did. People are generally all nice and friendly, at least in my experience :-) it's nice. I feel like I'm getting back to me.

I had friends once, I made friends with more ease. I really did, even though I was still socially anxious. I feel I'm getting back to that and I forgot how it was. It's nice. It's not as weird and obscure as my depressed brain made this possibility, it's just pretty normal, but also really nice. :-)

I still dissociate when I get stressed, but not as much. I still shake and freak out but I don't hate myself for this as much and I move on, I go out, I talk to people - I'm doing pretty good.

I feel like I've really went on a journey this past year, and it's been filled with suffering but also growth and it's been beautiful in a way because it's my story and it's a story of dedication to staying alive through the worst and healing.

I look forward to seeing where the future takes me, I hope I continue to grow and grow but I will, right? Kind of think that's what life is all about sometimes.

Not doing so good again recently. My inner critic is growing and growing - potentially worse than ever before. It's like it's own entity now saying things like "kill yourself" over and over again. I / it calls me names for no reason too, like stupid cow. It's crazy. I say it out loud sometimes too and have to stop myself when I notice (only do this on my own but still).
I stopped doing my social anxiety therapy a while back. I've been pretty bad mentally so I guess I just stopped having the time or focus. It all gets too much, this life thing. Unfortunately I become overburdened by social interaction, it constantly triggers me. I knew I was overwhelming myself but I was so pressured so have maxed out at doing all the things, being sociable etc. It's been too much, too fast but I so wanted a "normal" life now. I felt pressured by work things too as I was literally told to be less anxious and more confident (I've probably written about this before). It's totally unfair but I internalised it and just want to do well so much. But I'm burning out, I have been for a while. Ultimately it's not helping in the long run, I've taken a massive leap back it feels. But setbacks are normal, right? I can get back to a better place. I just need to prioritise my mental health more, again. It's just hard when you're working full time and feel like you have all these obligations.

It's my birthday today. I'm 20. Feels weird, I'm like totally an adult age now. No more being a teenager.

Totally new, unrelated point but I've noticed something: I'm very codependent. I cling to people. I develop crushes on anyone and everyone. I get attached easily but not because I like someone but because I feel I need someone. No, not even that: I need their approval, their positive regard. I crave it, to be loved or even just liked for me, the real me. I guess because that could prove my inner critic wrong. But I think I've been loved like that, I just didn't have the same feelings back romantically, so it didn't work out. It was nice, but I overelied on that person, constantly venting to them and stuff. I stuck around I think because I wanted to love someone who loved me like that - it would be easier, safer: so much safer. But I couldnt. Eventually I realised I had to do the right thing and break it off because they wouldn't take the hint, a friendship couldn't work. But I think my sticking around so long and relying on them was rather codependent. :)

Talking to guys terrifies me. I constantly feel rejected if my message isn't replied to right away, I overanalyse whatever I've said sometimes before I even send it and find so many faults. It's probably all imagined, idk. It's silly little things but my brain makes them major. It says look at you talking about yourself so much, you narcissist. It says look at you not showing enough interest, you confusing *. It finds fault someplace, somehow. The worst is when I just go "oh no, that was really weird". See I'm quite a goofy, take the piss person sometimes. But being like found as weird terrifies me because it confirms everything my shame stems from: I'm weird, I'm off, I'm a freak who doesn't fit in.
Being bullied in high school really sticks with ya, huh?
I resent read reciepts so much, lol. I actually have a technique where I go onto airplane mode to read messages so I can form a reply to send or alternatively keep the message marked as unread until later. I think it works, though who knows with the read reciept thing. Could be causing problems lol oh well.
Unfortunately that's not so simply on things like snapchat. Must develop new techniques so I can continue being the queen of social avoidance (Jk) (a little bit).
Being heavily reliant on attention from others to validate me is kind of funny because I can sit around moping that nobody is talking to me, get proper like suicidally depressed about how alone/ unloved I am and then someone or a few people will message me and I'll be like WHAT THE * GET ME OUT OF HERE NOW!!!

The irony is something else :):):)

Ah writing always helps clear out your thoughts. I should do this more.

Night,

Samantha x

TW


I often worry that my inner critic is right. What if I am a pretty terrible human being?

I've got it into my head that I'm obnoxious when I'm talkative (either through being drunk or just trying to be more me, or even being nervous and over talking). I have decided that other people think this too, even though they haven't explicitly said it.

There's a narcissistic guy at my work and virtually everyone talks about him behind his back. I have too. He was seeing one of my friends you see and done some pretty scary mind game stuff when she broke things off. He's also overbearing, rude and holds himself above everyone else (even people who are really smart and good at their job).

My inner critic says I am like this person, because I crave attention and approval. My inner critic says I am self absorbed like him whenever I talk about myself "too much" in conversation, think I'm funny when I'm not or whatever else. I think a part of it is recognising that something is going on with him mentally, he's been noted as not "normal" and I relate to being not normal and mentally ill so my brain has latched on to this. It's saying that I am like this too.

I've attacked myself about being narcissitic before though, until I done a personality test and found I was so not narcissistic it was basically dangerous lol. Do you wanna be the centre of attention? * NO. That was how my answering went.

See I think I'm a bit weird. I'm not a normal person, I have alternate style, I've never been one to act like the crowd, I'm a bit socially awkward and unsure of how to act (more like a lot), I reject some social norms like rigid gender roles and question a lot of widely accepted things. I'm not normal and maybe I'm not easy to swallow. Is that a reason to be filled with shame?

I'm not perfect. I'm not very good at playing things cool. I'm not the worlds best communicator, far from it. I'm terrified of hurting or bothering people, but I have good intentions, at least, and I don't do anything to hurt anyone. So I shouldn't feel this way, right? Some people might not like me but that should be okay, they can move along and relate to other people instead. But it's not okay in my brain most of the time. It's terrible and I feel like I need to run away to stop the shame, stop their judgement, stop any more of me "messing up".

My social anxiety makes me withdrawn too and this brings with it a lot of guilt. It's probably not that big a deal because I am virtually always nice when someone talks to me and people still seem to like me, but idk. Sometimes it's pretty bad and will probably come across as rude. I've seen people offended by these things.

I also feel like I annoy my friend group. I talk to them more than they talk to me, I think. They all have relationships and I don't. I'm the only one who gets ridiculously anxious over silly things, at least the only one who is so open about it. A lot of them don't really have time to see me anymore, even on my birthday week. It's ok, they have jobs and stuff, but idk it feels like they could still make the effort a bit more :/ they manage to do other things. I also talk about myself a lot with them I think, just sharing things. But what if I'm annoying and nobody cares?

I'm ditsy too. Really ditsy. Probably a CPTSD thing but still. On holiday with my friends I done lots of silly things like leaving keys in the room, leaving a safe unlocked. I don't manage to think straight well, my head is constantly jumping around so many things at once. I laugh about it like I don't care but I don't like having a brain so jumbled. They got quite annoyed with me, like really annoyed, like I was meaning it. They weren't nasty or anything just a bit peed off. I did endanger their things, even though it turned out okay.

So these are the reasons I feel worthless and not like a good enough human. What if my inner critic is right? There are people in the world, narcissists and abusive people, who virtually all others come to dislike. What if I'm like that? My inner critic has latched on to this idea.

It's sad for the narcissistic in a way but you can say it's their fault. But how self aware are they? Still their actions that cause it, can't get drawn in by sympathy that's not what I'm saying. Just contemplating.

It's just like what if I am a cringey piece of * that people are a bit fed up with and annoyed by? I think that could be true. I see signs of it everywhere. People not talking to me anymore, people getting exasperated with me, friends having less time for me. Even the occasional person who will poke fun at or openly dislike me (this is rare but and I understand everyone probably deals with *), but I experience it sometimes and it really doesn't sit well. 

Plus all the abuse and the bullying, I begin to think was some of it me? I instantly reject that but the thought pops up recently. The bullying still feels like it was my fault. The dislike of my abusive ex's friends, too. I haven't changed my perspective enough on that, I still blame myself.  I think that's where this stems from. But I also think it seems true by my current experiences. I am so insecure in myself.

You are most certainly not a terrible human! I also identify with being "a bit weird," but everyone is in one way or other - whether we see it or not.

Any abuse you've suffered is not your fault! Nothing you could do is worth someone hitting, bullying, disparaging or harming you in any way! Even if you do offend or hurt someone, the functional thing for them to do would be to talk to you, honestly and appropriately.

I hope you can really feel from my post how much I am on your side. :hug:

Thank you ThreeRoses  :hug: That's kind of you and made me feel a bit better :)

It's not the parental abuse I am blaming myself for, but I do still feel so much shame over being bullied in high school. It wasn't my fault though, you're right, some people are just really cruel. It was inane things like my hair, my clothes, my (lack of) make up or my social anxiety they picked on. None of those things make me a bad person. I need to address these memories more, I think, because I haven't properly done so to change my perspective on them. For years I just felt so ashamed. Too ashamed to revisit them really, it was overwhelming embarrassment I felt.
It feels like a small thing. It's not like I was being hit, but I've always been a very sensitive person and I was already feeling vulnerable I guess due to my home life, already with low self esteem and social anxiety. So it did hurt and that's real and it still matters, right?

I am feeling better tonight, after a monumental breakdown today.

It helped me break out of an emotional flashback a bit by saying to myself: my age, "I'm safe now", where I live and work and "nobody is abusing me anymore". It just helped me to break out of the mind frame where you feel you're in the past again, and that other people are like the abuser / will regard or treat you the way they did. It didn't fully fix my mental state, it really didn't, but it just made me feel calmer and more empowered in the moment. I felt myself easing off in work and my anxiety decreasing. It decreased because I realised the people around me weren't like him, nor were they likely to act like this. This was different. I'm an adult now. I got out. I'm free, even if my mind doesn't feel it sometimes.

The bad thoughts I was having about myself calmed down since someone I perceived as having rejected me spoke to me all nice again. This is obviously a problem in my life, this overwhelming projection and fear of rejection. Like someone doesn't reply to a message and I'll be like "wow! It's true! I'm a terrible person. Inner critic was right. They must think this, they must think that. Maybe it was this thing I done, maybe that..." My brain goes in to overdrive. Then the person talks to me again and Im like "oh right :) you don't hate me :) cool :)"

I project hatred and disapproval onto people all the time. But it keeps getting proven to be crap. My brain be crazy.

Oh positive things! I hung up my TWLOHA Calander again last night (the images have messages related to mental health. Septembers is "you are enough". I love it). I put three tick boxes on each day, one for my online therapy course that ive decided I ought to start again, one for food (Im striving to eat 3 meals a day) and one for vitamins. I done all the things today, woo! :)

I'm falling asleep so I'm gonna end this here. Na'night!

TW

Last night I had the worst breakdown. I was home alone and started absolutely bawling my eyes out, to the point where I could barely breath. I don't really do that. It feels like I've been falling apart, I am deteriorating so much man, like holy heck.

I ended up phoning a helpline, which was actually helpful. The woman on the other side was really nice and seemed to genuinelly care. It did help me to talk to someone, see I've been feeling so freaking alone. I think I just need someone to talk to sometimes about all the crazy stuff going on in my head. I say "crazy stuff" but it's not really all so crazy. I'm dealing with a lot so of course it hurts to bottle it all up.

I'm feeling so ashamed of myself recently. I don't want to go to work anymore, I'm finding it harder and harder to.

I'm experiencing this horrible battle where I don't want to be around people because I feel so totally shameful, but I don't want to be alone either because nothing hurts more than feeling alone.

Help!

I believe in the shame right now. I believe I am shameful and unloved. Also, different. So different from my group of "friends".

I think my problem is I'm still with the same group I've been with for years upon years. We aren't the same kind of people, I am different. But I'm too socially anxious and detached to make new friends I feel as comfortable with. So I stay and wonder why I feel so unloved and different.

I just want to feel okay with myself but will I ever? I feel so fundamentally flawed. Or at least that I am fundamentally flawed to others. Like I'm just waiting on them finding out. I feel like a total freaking loser.

I should just embrace myself, in all my weird and wonderful ways. But it's so hard. Ugh.

I feel like people all secretly hate me and if they don't, they will.

Mental illness sucks.

I hope I'm not crap. :( I hope my brain is wrong :(

It's hard because I'm so split in my mind. I don't know if it's real or not, so I don't have a course of action - I just suffer.

Like I don't go oh well I'll improve myself because a part of me is like "no this is obviously BS like all the other times before".

But I also don't fully reject the inner critic because I remember being bullied and abused and disliked and rejected. I remember feeling so embarrassed and ashamed at different stages throughout my life. I listen to it and wonder if it speaks some truth. After all, I do make mistakes, it could be true, I do feel pretty crap, and sometimes people react badly to me.

So, yeah, I just suffer. I can't be arsed anymore.

I hate it. I hate this life.

I ended up going back to my FOO's house last night after my breakdown. That's how much I couldn't bear being alone. I figured I needed to go back to my hometown anyway, was my birthday this week and all. Not like anyone has even got me a card though - although my mum did buy me expensive shoes for my birthday on holiday so that's something, Im not discrediting that.

My dad is actually such a pig (sorry pigs you don't deserve that insult, cute little animals). He was telling me about how angry he got at these young boys driving by because they were trying to piss him off apparently. Sounds like there was cheek on both sides but these boys were laughing about it too. He says he got out the car to fight them, until my little brother started crying in the back and they pointed this out, shaming him. Clearly his temper is still the same, the need to control and hurt others who dare disobey him type of thing.
The way they talk to my younger brother is so bothersome too. He is really attention seeking and annoying - he doesn't take no for an answer and begs you until you say yes or get stern with him about it. But that's cause of how my mum has parented him, she gives in to the begging and whining. But anyway they just get angry at him all the time. If I tell him off for something they both have to join in, shouting. Even when he hasn't done anything wrong they'll interject, like when I was asking to borrow his earphones and my mum interjected calling him selfish and I was like "wow hold up it's HIS earphones I was just asking he's fine to keep them". It's crap, pure crap. He's like the scapegoat of the family, constantly treated like a bother - and I mean constantly. All day, every day.

I know it must seem weird that I am here but the depths of loneliness I felt during my flashback were monumental and I just felt I had to come back to my hometown. The loneliness was scaring me. My friends were mostly all busy too so going to see them instead wasn't an option. Besides, I didn't want to visit them totally depressed and that.

God, I really do feel so ashamed of myself. I don't know how people can like me - but people do, I think. People act like they do. It's weird. People r weird.

I need help, someone to talk to. I need to process what has happened to me. I'm suffering so much and I'm not able to hold myself up from drowning. I plan to go to the doctors on Monday, I think I might actually take the day off work sick, potentially the week or ask to work from home since we can do that now. I don't think I can face the world. I know avoidance is my worst enemy etc. but it's hard, it's so so hard.

This has been a rambling ramble. Goodbye.

 :hug:

:thumbup: on calling the help-line.

The internet and replies to your posts here at the forum cannot be that fast, but we're here to stay. Together with you, dear Samantha19. Always.

A belated birthday :cake: to you too.

Dutch.

Samantha :hug:

I'm sorry you feel so alone. Is there somewhere in your community you can spend a little time volunteering, or find a 12 step meeting? I like going to al anon meetings bcuz the people there all have dysfunctional backgrounds too. They're a welcoming bunch of people. :)

"I believe in the shame right now. I believe I am shameful and unloved. Also, different. So different from my group of 'friends'." It's not true! You are lovable, you have just as much right to feel happy and loved as anyone else! There is nothing different about you that would say otherwise; altho the IC would have you believing there is.

We're in this with you! Like DU says, maybe it's not contact in real-time but we're here, we care for you. :hug:

Thank you both very much  :hug:

I am considering volunteering at some point. I think it would help with the loneliness too and maybe give me more purpose and happiness.

I have been off work for the past three days. I said I was physically sick, so that's my excuse. I could probably delve in to the whole "it was my mental illness" thing. I'll see how it goes.

I plan to go back tomorrow. I told my boss I am planning to and feel a bit better.

I still feel depressed and detached. I have done some things over the past week however that did help a bit. I think I said before that I reached out to my FOO. They're not the worst and treat me pretty well now, in the present, but of course there's still that damage in the relationship felt on my side. I simply felt all alone and had to turn to someone.
My mum has been helping me. She came up and cleaned my flat with me - it had gotten very, very unclean. I am not very capable in my depression, you see. We also went out for dinner and she let me talk about all these things that were bothering me.

My relationship with my mum is complicated. She can be really good but she has still been emotionally manipulative and really rather problematic in the past. She lives in denial of the abuse that happened. I want her in my life still, and that's my choice. It's a choice that would probably be different if she was presently abusive.

What happened still leaves a distance however, something uncomfortable. It's felt on my part at least.

I believe that my family dynamic has been one where my mum was verbally and probably emotionally abused by my dad. I am not aware of physical abuse as I never saw or heard of that, but can't completely rule it out. Because of this dynamic I think she has been manipulated and also lives within her own denial. She also chose him over me time and time again, under the guise of choosing the family as a whole unit over me attempting to split it up or whatever. I always hoped my mum would leave him, it was a dream.

Which is all crap, of course. I deserved so much better.

Nevertheless, I still love her and I believe she loves me and she does make effort to be there for me :/

Like I said, it's quite complicated.

My dad is nice to me now but I wonder if I am getting the front he put on to other adults when he was abusing me. I have transcended the role of victim and now I am someone who gets the "friendly" face.

God my family are so interesting in all their * up-ed ness. You could write some real good psychological analysis'. If you were into that.

Not so fun when it's ya life.

Maybe I'm relying on my mum through co dependence though. I felt like I had nobody else and I was REALLY falling apart.

I also went to stay with my gran. This was nice. My gran is my dads mum, but she's his opposite - kind and caring. She's also entirely submissive, you can tell my papa was in charge when he was around. Probably part of my dads messed up-ed-ness (I'm inventing new words now I'm sleepy ok). She never got involved in the family "arguments" despite her presence during some of them - these "arguments" being me responding to the abuse, in my memory. So that sucked I guess.

But at the same time, in the present, going to stay with her is really nice and peaceful. She looks after me and loves chatting away to me. Her house is quiet and calm, clean and tidy. I felt better when I woke up there. Still depressed, but feeling more loved, less alone and my anxiety had decreased.

Sometimes you REALLY need other people - nice, kind other people. I know my family are messed up but my gran has never been nasty to me or told me how to feel or got involved. I still appreciate her :/ I know that might be looked at weirdly but hey, that's my outlook, my choice.

I also spent time with my little brother the next day. That was really special. He's a light in my life, that one (they both are! Just that I spent a lot of time with the youngest that day). I helped him with his homework, carried on and watched funny YouTube videos with him. We just chilled, it was nice, to see him happy and to spend time with a kid who I really love who loves me too, yano. Connection is so important.

I actually felt quite lifted at this point. I was inspired to try new things with my hair, something I haven't done in months tbh - I've been so miserable, barely even brushing it most days. So it was nice to be wanting to do something again, for happiness. :-) I can do side plaits now, yay I guess.

Today I was back at my flat. It's been a depressive day - they all are right now. I met my new doctor, he seems really nice and pretty good. He gave me tablets I can take at times of anxiety, as opposed to ongoing medication, and gave me a local counselling services name to contact. I have contacted them and I look forward to it, I hope it will help. It looks more promising than the paths I have been down before.

I've not ate dinner, only breakfast and lunch. Not my best day but hey ho.

I wrote some poetry at one of my really low points, it often comes out of me best then. I am fair chuffed with what I produced, and have posted it on my blog, first post in several months :-) got quite a good few likes and stuff, so that feels good. I love writing, it's like my thing in life. It's where I feel my purpose lies in this life. It helps. It doesn't take the pain away but it makes sense of it. It lets me see myself as a person in a story, which exists outside of my critical view where I see myself from within. That might sound strange but it makes sense in my head, hey ho. Like I said I AM VERY SLEEPY.

My inner critic and stuff has been really bad. It's gotten pretty monstrous. I want to get better at handling it. I'll just keep doing what I can. It's hard when you believe it and don't fully believe it at the same time, very confusing stuff  ??? It is crazy how stressed I can get over what people think of me though. If someone doesn't like me, what's gonna happen? What they gonna do? * all.
It's the way even the idea of it triggers toxic shame and so much insecurity, though. Sometimes I become avoidant just to avoid triggering that. Self awareness is weird as well lolz.

You know what? Writing here is really helping. I feel more "put-together" already. I appreciate this online little place to make sense of our thoughts and emotions. It provides something rather vital, really. Feeling grateful guys.

I have been dreading work tomorrow, when I actually think about it. I feel embarrassed and shameful because of two reasons: one. I accidentally sent a silly video message of me and my brother carrying on to someone I work with lol, I then apologised for this. IC alternates between: this is embarassing! To: it isn't a big deal, why'd you apologise weirdo?

I also have been speaking to someone at my work in a not just friends but not quite anything else way, I guess. I liked him, dunno why. Think I just wanted someone. Had some cool qualities. But think he's either a bit of a player, not really into me or a combo of the two. Otherwise just bad at keeping up communication and / or being shy. Who the * knows? Anyway, he regularly does this thing where he texts me, then when I reply he reads my message and sometimes doesn't reply for hours / days / forever. It's so confusing! Sends my social anxiety into overdrive. So he's done that again. The last message I sent told the story of the accidental video send and I also admitted to feeling let down by my friends. So my IC has been having the time of his life, yano? It doesn't know what to scream about, being embarassing or weird or over-sharing, more!

I know it's probably just BS on some level, and he is the one with the problem for being so distant one minute and interested the next, sending mixed messages and so on. I know I am probably similar due to my anxiety but still, he is being really rude! Hurts my feelings :(

I know this seems like an overreaction but yano what being triggered is like lol. Everyone here will understand anyway, I'm just making excuses at the imagined thought of someone else reading or coming across this. Paranoia you never let me down!

Anyway this eventful weekend led me into a * storm of negativity, pretty much summarised by me being all alone at work with everyone either detesting me or being indifferent / pushed away by my socially anxious ways.

Isn't it fun being mentally ill!!!

I'm gonna go sleep now because as I have said several times I am very sleepy. I've enjoyed writing about this, it helps. When I make a bit of a joke out of things it helps me take it all less seriously and see how silly it is, and how simply human I am. I love writing, it is therapy to me.

Bye bye for now  :wave:

I am always learning. I feel that's a positive way of dealing with thoughts of saying / doing something "wrong" or being inauthentic.

I don't like being bitchy, but often I will join in with bitchiness as I am mirroring the other person. I have a tendency to do that, especially if I want the person to like me. It's inauthentic and something I have decided I should work on.

I should stop striving to be liked by people through being inauthentic. It feels uncomfortable and wrong. I don't like being two faced as well. See, it's hard when you don't like someone who is bothersome. That's my issue right now. I am nice and friendly, chatty to this persons face. Only because I have to be and it's hard not to be. But I feel guilty for having two faces and talking about them behind their back.

All of these thoughts over a bitchy comment I made.

It's just hard. I don't like being bitchy but at the same time I can acknowledge when someone is problematic, and I have done.

I am going to work on being more authentic and perhaps not bitching about people. Even if I don't like them I can accept that without being nasty behind their back, that's not the person I want to be.

Feels weird talking about something I've done wrong but I think that's important too, right? Personal development and all that. I know it probably doesn't sound like a big deal but it matters to me. Whenever I make a nasty comment ever it makes me feel so bad inside. I feel like even the people I'm conversing with will judge me, even though they're doing the same thing. Perhaps a toxic shame thing.

I am being really honest here about my own flaws, I know. I am trying to be better too.

Well, hadn't this been a ramble?

Ive ate a lot today, think I hit at least the recommended daily calorie amount, woo! This is an achievement for me.

I'm feeling less exposed and anxious recently due to less stressful new social activities, so that's why I can eat again I think. It's good. Hopefully it will last, I really want to put on weight because I am so skinny now, it's really bad.

I have a good amount and vairiety of friends and supportive people in my life. This is good. I appreciate these things more than anything tbh.

I am trying to be okay with the idea of not needing constant approval from others. If someone doesn't respond the way I want them to, so what? I am still me. I am still worthy and awesome. Hells yea!

It's working. I'm feeling not so bad and obsessive about it. I think this is because I have accepted I don't NEED other people / another person to prove my worth. Even if you get them you're still worrying and doubting if you think like that. So nah, I am choosing to be okay with myself. If I make mistakes, if I act "weird", if I say something "wrong" or whatever that doesn't define me. The me underneath is unchanging and pure, I think.

Wow, this must be what it feels like to like yourself.

I think having more good friends has helped me see myself in a better light. Also, being more mindful and meditative, though. When you're in the present moment past "mistakes" become irrelevant. You realise that you are not the past or the future, you are you, the same as always.

Idk I am really tired it is way past my bed time haha. If my words are a bit muddled this may be why.

Goodnight diary dear.

Hey,

I've not wrote here in a while, huh? Typically, I am back because I hit a low point - but I am also motivated since finally starting to see it clearly as an emotional flashback.

I've been running, running away from the emotional pain again. I got triggered on Friday and I've been relentlessly trying to suppress it since then - smoking regularly (despite having quit before), getting very drunk that night, staying up all night, losing myself in sleep and TV shows, eating ridiculous amounts of crap, etc. I finally crashed on Thursday morning, after 6 days of running away from my emotions to no avail. I ended up severely suicidal with strong intent, physically exhausted, my social anxiety worse than it has been in a loooong time, and basically being so immobile and non-functional that I had to call in sick for work. I feel there was a cross roads on Friday, where I pondered between writing about my emotions or stuffing my feelings with food - I chose the latter. All kind of went downhill from there. Sigh.

My inner critic went into overdrive on the Saturday morning, like it was out of control. I did not know how to handle it. It ran along in the background, so nasty and filled with hate. It made me feel schizophrenic, but I identify with it - I still see it as a part of me - so it doesn't make sense for me to be. It just sounds so extreme to say there's a hateful voice in your head that you basically can't control, telling you to harm yourself and things too, but it is what it is. And I created those thoughts in the first place, they're just automatic now.

I felt so embarrassed and ashamed yesterday for acting socially anxious, though I kind of stuffed the feeling down.
I've been feeling (or believing) that because of my mental illness I don't deserve to be. I, or my IC, thinks of people who do bad things and be crap friends and how their mental illness or issues should not be used as an excuse, so how can I use mines? I have been feeling like I am not good enough for it all and do not deserve to be alive. It's over such tiny things though, like if I didn't say thank you for something when I probably should have (even if I said it at some point), or if I feel like I don't make enough effort, because of a friend always being the one to talk to me first, or me never arranging plans. These things don't sound like shock horror stories of evil, but when I do them I feel like I don't deserve to be alive and I have just committed something as shameful as murder. My brain is effing crazy! ;D

I've been overreacting to things, I think. I felt like this was the end. I can never get better. Okay, I experience flashbacks. That's a part of my experience. But those flashbacks do not define me. They're little blips. When you're in them it feels like the whole world is being dragged downwards into a black hole of despair, and you will never be happy again- think dementors in Harry Potter. But It's BS. Sure, my life isn't an easy one and that sucks. But I can help manage this better - less running away, more flashback management.

I have things to be grateful for. I have made friends. And this voice in my head says "you don't have them anymore", "they're not real friends", etc. * the voice. The voice is an *. Yeah, I struggle to be too friendly with them, because of the good ol' mental illness, but so what? I'm in a much better place than I was this time last year. So yeah, * the voice. I'm living proof of its previous incorrectness. I still have the job I was "never going to be able to manage", and I'm doing pretty well at it too. I've been progressing :-) I now speak to more people, and more people consider me friendly. I feel more comfortable around people and have interacted with lots of them much better. It's awesome really. * the voice. And yeah, I've been back-tracking going through a bad patch in terms of social anxiety. But recovery isn't linear and I did stop doing my therapy, so what did I expect? lol. I'm starting it again, from the beginning, today. I've made progress and that's not to be ignored. I can build on that again.

I'm still sad. I'm still a bit empty and hurting, but I'm also not ready to let this win. I hurt because of what happened to me, that made me feel not good enough, unloved and broken. It hurts less when I tell myself this newer, truer story of what is real. So I'm going to keep working on that.

And maybe I'll never be happy like the neurotypicals but I'll be happy like me, sometimes.

I've revisited my abusive relationship, just the start, through writing, and some things are making more sense to me.

I thought I was in love. I really did. An all encompassing, romantic, soul mate kind of love that only seems to exist in the movies. I thought I had found it.

He was 20 and I was 17 but I lived with the believe that age didn't matter because we are souls and age is only the amount of years you have lived on this earth as you.

When you're young and naive you don't quite realize these things as red flags. Not even when he has to lie to his mum about your age because his last girlfriend was so much younger too. Nobody else realized either. "If you're happy, that's all that matters", they say. And at first, I was! I really was.

He had my jaws aching from smiling all day. He was like an antidote to my depression. He made me feel special whilst inflating his own image too. I thought he was the coolest person ever, and I was eager to tell everyone about him. He was in a band(!!!), and at that inexperienced age the shows he had played and the things he had done seemed way more exclusive than they do now. In my mind it was inflated to some level of stardom like he was going to make it. Now I see there's lots of people who have played those shows, including my own cousin. Lol. Anyway...

I thought I was in love. I thought I had found the one.

Over one year later I'd read about how abusive people suck you in with a honeymoon period, and suck me in it did.

Those happy first few weeks (Was it even a few weeks before it got bad?) were like a glowing light and afterwards I was the moth - constantly jabbing at them, trying to get in, whilst in reality I was burning, frying up with all of the heat.

The glory days did not last. And suddenly I was the girl who allowed herself to be treated like *.

It wasn't like me. I was always the one who would never be here. But here I was, getting treated like crap and not leaving. I never left for over a year.

It was horrible. I was trapped - financially, emotionally, you might even say physically (sharing a flat that I paid for in the end, that he wouldn't leave).

And it was torture. It truly was. The anguish I would get into even for visiting a friend, because his control was so tight and terrifying, was painful. I wanted to leave for so long but I didn't feel I could for so many reasons. I used to have to hold my fingers in my ears some nights to drown him out because he would deliberately keep me up through verbal abuse and he enjoyed it. I envied his friends girlfriend because one day I observed that he allowed her to nap, during the day. How * crazy is that? I longed for that freedom in my relationship. It just seemed so nice. So calm. But by that point I didn't even try to seek it over things like that. I had changed so much. I had became completely * controlled.

I wonder now why I am so scared of finding love. Why I can't talk to boys for long enough for anything to happen. Why I haven't been on a date in years. Yeah, I wonder why, hmm?  ???

I was already socially anxious and I was already abused as a child, but I could still talk to boys. I was still in a place where I could find myself a good relationship.

He took that from me.

He took that from me and now years later I am totally * terrified.

I tried to see a boy last year. He was nice. I liked him. But the past just refused to leave. I remember lying awake at night terrified thinking "what if all boys are bad?"

It's not just my ex it was also because my friend had been hit by her boyfriend that night and told us, and it triggered me.

But it's just the way it does not leave.

The way I am never sure of myself.

The way I don't know how to talk to boys and I feel like everything I say and do is wrong and I am so, so scared.

I don't want to be all alone.

I really don't. It's upsetting me.

I'm young but I feel like the years are whizzing past. I've been "free" for coming up on two years. But I'm never really free. Not emotionally. I'm damaged.

And I don't want to be damaged anymore I want to be happy and I want to have the chance to find somebody in time.

(I will work on this. I might set goals. Boys just freaking scare me so much. I feel like they're too full of potential to be bad and abusive. So many of them are. I am so, so scared.)

Wow I'm unbottling feelings here actually talking about the past.

I'm angry that he gets to go on and probably do this to another girl or several.

He hurts people. He's like a leech. He hurts friends too - vulnerable people who fall for his sad stories and give him money to get on. Money he wastes and squanders.

I hate him. I hate that he done to me what he done - sheer emotional violence - and got away with it. And it breaks my * heart that he's probably going to do it to so many other girls.

I'm scared for them.

That was one of my reasons for staying - because I could take the pain if it meant the next girl wouldn't, for now.

But that shouldn't have been my burden to bear.

People like him are so cruel.

I was young and vulnerable and I thought he was my Saviour but he destroyed me. How terribly ironic is that?

Talking about the past is good though, right? Because if I feel these things for the right reasons it's better than bottling it all up and wondering why I feel dead inside. I know it feels better like this.

Bad again. What else is new?

The initial triggering I think was wakening up hungover on Saturday morning (6 days ago) and feeling all the shame that comes with being so drunk I show myself entirely. I'm not sure if I'm normal levels of chatty when drunk, I mean people really seem to like me (better) when I'm drunk, so I must not be too awful. But I feel almost narcissistic when I'm drunk sometimes, cause I talk about myself a lot more. Not sure if this criticism of myself is IC or true though. If it's true i definitely think I'm exaggerating it. Besides, most everyone isn't exactly their best version when they are drunk.
I'd also started smoking again that night after quitting for 2 days, so that wasn't great. Getting drunk destroys my willpower. Maybe I'd have started again anyway but it really weakened my chances.
I was already feeling a bit low and funny when I went to a pub thing after work on Tuesday - free drinks for the office due to a special high-up being in that day visiting.
I was surrounded by people I had spoken to before and been friendly with, even my own flat mate. But I felt so out of place and I stood myself for a period of time because I couldn't find it within me to join any conversations. I feel like I have impostor syndrome in my own social life sometimes. Anyway, I could feel it spiraling because standing alone just feels humiliating and I end up thinking about what others might be thinking of me. But like, they probably didn't even notice or dwell on it too much, people have their own stuff going on. I'm just one of many in the crowd. Idk.
Struggled to go sit next to the people I'm most friendly with, just sat in an available seat at another table. Then felt like I looked silly for that, but what could I do?
Total imposter syndrome, all day every day.

I got triggered again after dwelling on something my boyfriend said (yes I have a boyfriend again, finally, and he's actually really nice). He said something about how he gets stuck in his own head sometimes and (he described it like a coping mechanism) he thinks of me to feel better. He also said he feels calm and happy when he's with me, and his stress pretty much goes away.
I didn't like that. It made me feel trapped.
But I think it was mostly a triggering. It definitely triggered me.
I think because of my abusive relationship. My ex was mentally ill, or at least he pretended to be. I was made to feel like he needed me, he relied on me, he was co-dependent (not denying that I was too, mind you). He even threatened suicide when I left him (going to extreme effort to make it convincing, texting me saying he was at a suicide spot and going to do it, etc. keeping me completely trapped).
So I don't want to be anyones coping mechanism. I don't want anyone to rely on me for happiness. That kind of terrifies me.
But it's a different situation and I realize that now. But it triggered me into full flashback mode, and I've had to take a sick day because of it.
My current bf has never been abusive. He is really nice to me. He's also mature. He doesn't have the silly belief's and behaviors of an abuser. Like, he's responsible for his own actions and emotions, he wouldn't blame other people and, at least thus far, he has never asked too much of me. In fact, he's completely cool. If I don't want to hang out one day or a few days, even if we've made plans, he's always like "okay no worries". He's nowhere near who my ex was as a person. It's just easy to feel terrified when you are triggered, like you are back in that same danger, even though you are not.
I don't think I am really trapped. I'm not. I'm here because I want to be.
At the same time I recognize some things with us that may be issues. Not that we are ever unkind to each other, but it's almost like we are both co-dependent but still, completely nice to each other. It's not an abusive scenario. I think we just spend a lot of time together, and have both probably neglected other parts of our lives a little bit, because we just want to be with each other so much.
I think that is a little dangerous. Because you can't guarantee you will be in love with a person forever, so you can't lose yourself inside of them.
I see why his comment concerned me, from a rational perspective. Even though he was just being honest and there was a nice intention behind sharing that. It concerned me because I don't want him to be with me because he needs me / because I am a coping mechanism.
And I don't want to feel inclined to stay because of that. Because that was the main thing that kept me trapped in my abusive relationship, that need to help another person, even when it's destructive to myself and probably to them too.
I recognize that weakness within myself.
I see why that comment triggered me.
Thus, I am coming to terms with that and breaking out of the flashback.

It's tough having CPTSD.
It's a really tough ol' road.

My ability to look after myself is really bad. It's gotten to a frightening level. I feel almost fully incapable of taking care of myself.
My hair has had matted tugs in it for months, I kid you not.
i hide them often with a hat, or brushing over them, but it's bad.
I struggle with cleaning my flat, tidying and doing washings.
I struggle with sleeping at a good time and getting up in the mornings.
I struggle with making healthier lifestyle adjustments and sticking to them (although I do better in this area than the others, truth be told).

When I go into a flashback my feelings for my parents change. It always seems to happen.
It makes sense, you don't give the things they done in the past attention, you allow yourself to overlook some concerning behaviors they exhibit in the now, so you get along just fine.
But when a flashback comes you feel like that child again, that helpless, scared, angry, confusing, hurting victim. And you know what they done to you. And you're not shielded from the full extent of how it has screwed you up. You start to remember things you've been "moving on" from and you feel them in all their intensity. Suddenly the parents become the enemy again, in a sense, or at least the people who really, really hurt you.
It's when I'm in a flashback that I least want their help. Which whittles my support system down at my darkest of times. But I don't think I'm wrong. You can't find healing in the arms of those who broke you.
It shows how unintegrated I am, I think. That a flashback can have this effect. Something to work on?

I'm done rambling for now. It certainly seems to help though, just to pour all the toxic things I'm feeling out.

So I got out of the flashback eventually, it took a while but I got there. I feel the flashback done me some good - it was an indication of things I need to acknowledge and needs I need to have met.
I've realised some things recently. The main one is that my dad was my primary caregiver for much of my life growing up. That's when it was really bad, as I remember, for my mum was at work till later and he could physically abuse me or whatever without anyone being there to witness it.
It just never seemed to dawn on me before that the extremely abusive parent was my primary "care"-giver. I never really thought about it, but that's pretty bad isn't it? Growing up, from end of primary school to end of high school the adult in charge of me was my abusive, very neglectful dad. I'm only acknowledging this after thinking about the neglect recently, because I was massively neglected by him, but I never had expectations of anything different. My only wish was that my mum would divorce him. I'd even largely given up on the hope that his attacking me would stop.
I think I never realised it before because he was so absent when he wasn't abusing me, so I saw my mum as my primary caregiver, but physically she was there less as she worked full time.
It's weird but this is a revelation for me.
I'm starting to reflect on my childhood from an adults perspective. It's making me realise more how bad it was and why it damaged me so much. Because I know what children need, and not only were those needs not met but I recieved so much abuse and rejection too, I was treated with bare faced hate - from my dad. Someone who's supposed to love me. Family are supposed to protect you but mine were the enemy. I needed protecting from them.
I plan to write more about this later as I am pretty busy for now. Just noting this down cause it was on my mind.

Day 6 of quitting smoking today. Second longest I've went since I became, like, properly addicted.

God it's hard. It just seems to get harder. It's like so many cells in my body are actually screaming out for nicotine.

My anxiety has skyrocketed. I'm not really going out. I seem to even be scared of that.

I feel a bit numb, depressed. Mental illness is worse.

I also feel so much less dissociated sometimes, more connected, happy.
I also have my sense of smell back and food tastes better.
I've also saved approx £25.50 so far which is a ridiculous amount, especially when I am so skint.

I think I use(d) cigarettes as a mask for all the suffering I feel inside.

I'm not sure how to deal with that alone. It was always just avoid, push down, go on. But not anymore!

Really tough this. But the rewards are set to be amazing. I just need to get through. I am feeling very determined.

I don't care how much it hurts just now, addiction hurts worse.

 :hug: :hug: :hug:

One of the hardest parts of quitting smoking is directly tied in with my abuse. I justify my addictive behaviors by saying "well, I've been through a lot and it all just gets a bit much. It's not my fault" or whatever.
I think I accepted that I'm a statistic. Maybe I cling to it a little bit as an excuse. Idk. Maybe it is an excuse. It is to an extent. It certainly makes life harder and thus addictions easier to fall into. But I don't need to smoke. I'd be better off without it. It's just defeatist to think and act otherwise. Self-destruction through self-abandonment, because "I'm already broken, so what's the point in trying?"
It's ridiculous. It's silly. Just another excuse, battling its way through.
Addiction is tough.

I also keep wondering how I'm going to cope, and if I'm someone who will always be addicted to something. I mean I'm like that, I've always been like that.

It started with self-harm but there were other outlets. Anything to escape. I numbed myself with television and excessive Internet / phone use at times too. I've been addicted to an abusive relationship. All sorts of addictive behaviors, because it's not really about the substance, is it? No, it's about the escape.

At least on some level. I can't deny a lot of this right now is physical withdrawal and about losing my daily habit - the routine, the motivation to do things, the breaking up every day into separate pieces, the outlet for anger and sadness and reflection and everything else.

But I don't want to choose to be broken, because it is my choice now.

My mum was an addict, to the same drug, the same brand of cigarettes even. She was abused and she lived unhappy and depressed and controlled in her adult life - by addiction, her own misery and her abusive relationship / marriage. When does it end? I want to be different. I don't want the suffering to continue through to me - the next generation.

I think we live in a sick and unhappy world and i don't want to be sick and unhappy too - at least as much as I can help it.

I'm doing well, end of day 6 - that's approx 60 cigarettes I have not smoked. What a relief really! My lungs will be recovering. I can be fitter and healthier again. The amount of money I'll be saving is stupendous, it really is.

The thing is, nicotine really has been my crutch. Anything that goes wrong, I'll smoke to deal with it. It doesn't go away? Oh, better chain smoke! Now, I feel like I'm exposed. My mental illness will strike and I don't have a buffer. It strikes all the time really, but I deal with it through my addiction. It feels like my mental illness, when triggered, is a tumbling pile of terror and smoking stops it in its tracks, but now nothing will be there to stop it, so how am I going to survive?

That's stupid though. It's ridiculous and I know it is. Smoking doesn't really help, it's an illusion of sorts. It gives me a break sure, something to focus on for 5 - 10 minutes, like if I'm freaking out at work. But there are other ways to take breaks, I could practice mindfulness, do a puzzle, go a walk ... any number of things. I Just need to find those other things.

But really, without a buffer, it forces me to deal with my issues. Because now I can't smoke every time my inner critic goes crazy, I'm going to need to work on turning that angry little man down.  :)
I'm going to need to work on all the things that recovery entails, without just relying on smoking or whatever else to blot out the pain, all the while perpetuating my own suffering by not or barely actively working on getting better.

I'm proud I've managed to do this, anyway. It's not been easy. I must stay strong!

 :cheer: :cheer: :cheer:

So I didn't last long quitting smoking last time but now I'm on day 11 of my current attempt. I am very determined this time.

I feel things a lot more - all emotions. I do feel better tbh but less of a "smoke screen" between me and my feelings / experience of life. This means the good and the bad.

I've been feeling bothered recently by the unfairness of my circumstance. I was abused and neglected, my childhood was quite horrible, so a part of me feels I deserve an adulthood even better than the normal to make up for it. Silly, right? But the feelings there.
It bothers me that my adulthood is negatively affected when I already went through the bad childhood.
This is the part of me that wants full recovery or not to try at all.
Silly. I know.
It's just still affecting me and that's annoying. Still socially anxious, still affecting my job.
I'm smart, I am, but my productivity is held back Sooo much by my worries, mental distractions and social anxiety over asking questions.
I know I could be a lot better, if it wasn't for this.

Still, dwelling on the unfairness of it all, what does it achieve? Absolutely nothing.

I crave escape. Smoking wasn't really about cigarettes, it was about the escape, the suppression. Now I've cut smoking out as an option I'm thinking of having wild nights out and craving that form of escape. Anything to escape, feel belonging, dull the grief of it all.

I want to work on getting better. It's the logical thing to do.

Some things are coming back to me more. I had two dreams recently. One I was being spoken down to with that mocking tone by a parent when you can tell they're enjoying it in a way, scorning you. I wasn't able to get a word in to defend myself, he raised his voice over mine. He mocked me. I don't believe this is one memory but a dream from a feeling / group of experiences. The way I was treated.

I also had a dream where I confronted my mum because in the dream I saw her treating my younger brother with negativity and distain constantly every day. I was trying to explain from his perspective , a child, hearing those kind of words at him constantly and being treated with distain constantly that would be his overall experience of life with them and it would go in somewhere deeper, it wouldn't feel good either. Then I dreamt some weird things that seemed to symbolise old programming leaving my body. Bit weird, but cool tbh. My dreams are really vivid recently. I think this dream was about me talking about my experiences really. I was a child who was treated like that. So in the dream I was trying to explain, as the adult I am now; why that hurts and isn't healthy, isn't good. So maybe it felt like letting something go, a slight resolution.

You know what? I'm really glad that I'm not continuing the cycle. That's good, right? I'm not an abuser and I'm not a victim anymore.

I'm very glad that, at least, this cycle ends here.

Baaaad flashback feelings this afternoon and inner critic stuff. It's been telling me that certain people don't like me, but then those people are kind to me afterwards and I realise they still do like me. It's a really great feeling, that relief. I know I shouldn't feel relieved. Anyway, I'm just glad and grateful that people are kind and nice and friendly to me. It makes such a difference when my brain is full of crap.
Such a little thing to be grateful for, but it means a lot given my circumstance.
The inner critic is so wrong. I wish I could shut it up when triggered but I feel split. Sure, there's a logical part saying they probably don't hate me but there's also the part that feels so full of shame and utterly hated. I feel split tbh. A person who is fragmented. There's me - sensible, rational real me, now me. Then there's bullied me, abused me, terrified me, ashamed me.

I'm not sure how to fix this sort of thing. I wish the flashbacks and stuff would stop, or I at least had an effective plan of action to combat them.

I guess I should make or find one (through therapy or w/e).

I ought to get better. Life can be better than this. It always ️can be, right?

Still glad I never smoked or drank today. Not having my ID at work probably saved me lol. Almost caved due to flashback. Will be deliberately not taking my ID out with me until I'm through the physical withdrawl.

Still, proud I've quit smoking. Yay!

 :cheer:

Things are coming up again.

I want to know what's true because I am full of doubt and - I feel - covering over (old wounds).

I don't get it.

I have memories and beliefs about my past, to do with how I was treated as a child. But I've been told it's normal for parents to hit their chuldren and my own mum told me I can't trust my own memory. Why would my mum say that to me? Why is she like, covertly nasty? Is she delusional? I do not understand why she would do this kind of thing.

I don't fecking get it.

I'm scared / concerned because if all my memories are true I wonder why did the abuse stop? I think maybe I became too verbal and grown up and in control, maybe? It stopped (mostly) after I ran away and tried to tell other people and defend myself about it at 18 years old. After then it was different.
I worry that my little brother is treated badly too. My dad goes on about how my little brother is too sensitive and things. They constantly are annoyed with him and treat him like he's just bad in a way. It bothers me to be around them because of this. It's painful to experience. Had to tell my mum to go away / give us a break because she's just ready to jump when he seems to have done something wrong and give him into trouble.
I'll admit, being a child he is at the wind up sometimes and a bit of a pest, but like that's children for you. I just feel like they more treat it like he's bad, over his behaviour. I think the same thing probably happened with me.

What can I do about it, though? My memory is that when my dad hit me he didn't leave bruises. There's never any evidence, is there? And I don't tend to be believed as a witness. Lol, understatement (although I think maybe they do believe me, that's the problem. Easier to shut me up).
I feel quite powerless and like id look crazy. See, my parents act nice to me now, play happy families.
I have worried many times that I am getting the fake face my dad would give to others. Like he could be hurling abuse at me then someone would turn up to visit and it would be like a light switch - all smiles and laughing and pleasant, we're all happy families here.

I've been told that it's normal for a parent to hit their child, but if it is I don't think it should be and I don't think what happened to me was normal. It wasn't one off's. It was a continued way of being treated I think.

My memories are things like having tall furniture thrown across the floor in my room, fearing for my life up against a wall, my friends laptop being smashed when we were 13 by my dad cause he was angry with me and he thought it was my laptop, my bedroom door being knocked off the hinges because I locked myself in to get away from him, being so terrified from being chased upstairs that I ran out the house in my socks and he made fun of me and mocked me for panicking - like I was just so crazy and overreacting.

These memories are kind of put to the side usually. Having them open, here, changes a lot of things in the present and that's very uncomfortable.

If I accept I was quite severely abused by my parents, how can I be friendly and fake nice with them, if I care about myself enough to live in truth?

If I accept the way they treated me how can I turn a blind eye to their treatment of my little brother? But like what the * can I really do about it anyway? There's so much gaslighting and shifting of blame. He's too sensitive and I was crazy, irrational, over reacting, shouldn't trust my own memory.

I'm trying to honour my memories and believes but having them here isn't comfortable at all. It's really not. It's the kind of thing you want to push down and down and never deal with again. Way too damn horrible. Had enough of dealing with that for a lifetime.
But that's not healthy, is it? It's like lying to yourself and things. It's the opposite of integration.

I feel horrible over all of this. It feels like problems without solutions. And I feel guilty and scared for my little brother.

Maybe it's not so bad for him. I don't know. How can I really know?

My mum really doesn't behave great either. I once criticised her treatment of my brother and Her response way to say maybe she should just kill herself, which was very manipulative I think. Like I make a criticism of her treatment of my brother and she acts so hurt by it that she makes out it makes her want to kill herself. I think that was designed to hurt me. It certainly did, but it also made me unable to criticise again. That's control, isn't it? I think so.

I find it really hard to believe my mum would do bad things. I don't feel like I don't love my mum.

It makes me very confused when I don't suppress the abusive things.

I am still struggling to trust these memories.

It's like there's two stories - happy families and not happy families. What's real? What's fake?

My mum also told me she was going to leave us all after Christmas once when I was younger. I guess the idea was that she was sick of us all.

These memories aren't clear to me. They're a part of my story, growing up, like the primary school I went to or whatever. Facts. Old facts from the past.

She used to tell me she was going to leave him, sometimes, this was it she had enough - but she never did.

And she's always been one for the gaslighting. One of the times was one of the most horrible experiences of my life - crying and begging to be believed, taken seriously. But no I had my mum and her friend ganging up on me as I howled, saying things like "my dad hit me too, it's normal" and "you remember being kicked at the bottom of the stairs after he threw [friends names] laptop down the stairs, but you werent kicked". That last one is my favourite because she's trying to deny the ahuse whilst admitting the memory of my dad destroying my friends laptop when we were both 13 is true. As if that isn't abusive?

Like God, that crap is horrible. I'd not long started high school. I was trying to have friends and be normal.

That's not the only friend he acted badly in front of. I remember another (quite nasty) friend told other girls in school about the way my dad was shouting at me / talking to me when she came to visit.

You become ashamed of having a bad parent. As if it's something to do with you, as if you had a choice in the matter.

My feelings are very raw.

I'm not sure how to deal with this.

I'll get by, I mean, I will. It's just sitting with it. It's not so fun.

Depression type things got pretty severe recently. I've been overworking and go, go, go constantly. Trying to get a new job so put a lot into that, abandoning all my already minimal self care efforts in the process. So it was no surprise when I crashed and burned (more than once) really. No surprise at all.

I done a lot of housework this weekend, made a start, and made a conscious effort to eat 3 decent-ish meals today.

Considering the state I've been in the past few days and this morning, this really was an accomplishment.

I need to spend more time on self care like this. It's very important and I have a tendency to neglect it badly, always running away or numbing out from things.

I am feeling a bit better from it, but I do also feel a bit weird. Maybe a little unsettled.

It is very out of routine for me to be focusing on my own care and happiness.

Hmm.

I also need to spend more time alone, to allow me to do self care and household things as well as things for me and to connect with myself.

I'm in a relationship with a great guy, but sometimes I can get lost in it I think. It's something I tend to do in relationships, constantly want to spend time together. I think maybe because it's a way of running from and avoiding other things. Also, if you feel unsettled, as I do a lot, it feels a bit safer / better to know you're with someone.

But it doesn't really make me happier when it's too much, and it can mean neglecting other things like pursuing my personal goals, having some "me" time, etc.

It's something I need to have a look at and maybe work on - perhaps having some scheduled time for myself.

Completely my responsibility too, this is mostly coming from me, not him.


I done something that really helped me when experiencing suicidal feelings this morning. I wrote a list of things to live for, things like "new adventures, going for a meal (but feeling relaxed), nostalgia, smiling, yoga, airports, playing with dogs, human connection, the feeling of relief and joy when you prove the bad thoughts wrong," etc. It really helped boost my mood a little and allow for a bit of a shift. It took me a while to get out of my slump and I'm still not feeling all light and happy, but I'm feeling a lot better. Hopeful and like I'm getting somewhere, I'm on the road.

 :thumbup: on writing a list of things to live for!  That sounds like good self-care to me, even if you may not in more physical areas of life, like eating and housework. I'm very neglectful of household stuff too. It tends to trigger me so I run away from it.

You sound very aware of what you have, what you do, of causes and effects. I think that's great!

The responsibilities of life can be very tough, especially with some kind of trauma, so I'm glad you're practicing self care.

Take care, Sam.  :hug: if that's alright.

dear samantha,

you show so much strength and courage within you, it's absolutely amazing.  you're amazing.  you stopped the abuse by finally being able to be courageous enough to bring it out into the open.  abusers don't want that, it's too threatening.  they want to keep the abuse hidden so they can continue it, for whatever agenda within them it fulfills.  that's one reason for not leaving bruises.

i believe your memories are accurate.  abusers don't want you to believe them.  hitting a child is not 'normal'.  it's serving a personally negative purpose.   i don't care what those people said or tried to make you believe.  they were wrong.

have you talked to your brother about what's going on?  it might be helpful to him to know that you know, that it isn't right, that he isn't bad, and he's a good kid just the way he is.  it may be a relief that he has someone to talk to about it, and that he's got someone in his corner.

so many realizations, so many memories,  can readily be overwhelming.  are you in therapy?  i don't know if that's an option.    please, go slow with this.  writing your list was great, samantha.  maybe writing this other stuff down is helping as well?  getting the poison out?  i hope so.

this stuff can be very confusing, that's for sure.  you're in a time of transition, that's all.  realizing that what you believed was not what was really going on, and trying to decide on solutions for your situation is a place where change is beginning to brew.  that's a very confusing place. 

as you put more of the pieces together, i think you'll find the confusion lifting, your path will seem clearer, and you'll start moving more assuredly into a more comfortable space for yourself, whether it's physical, mental, emotional doesn't matter.  it all counts cuz it all works together.

may i encourage you to keep going but going slowly?  i think you're making some major inroads, and they need time for processing.   be patient with yourself, trust yourself.  i have no doubt you'll get the answers you need, and the rest won't be important.  warm hug to you, samantha. 

Thank you all for your kind replies, it’s much appreciated! <3

I just wanna note down something that helped today, again.

I’ve been struggling with a kind of weekend depression - I function kind of “well” during the week when I have work and a very set, mandated structure. But I’ve been totally flopping into anxiety and depression at the weekends, quite severe depression tbh.

I was struggling against it mentally a lot today, and that was causing me a lot of pain and making me think suicidal thoughts (with quite a low level of actual intent but still).

See, I have this idea of how I should be. I should be productive and happy and doing fun hobbies at the weekend, I tell myself. Not laying in and laying around and doing nothing productive or beneficial with my time.

This just spiralled me into despair.

I found later on that accepting where I actually am right now really helped take the weight off. It made me feel more compassionate to myself as I wasn’t holding some lofty standard of how I should be “recovered.”

I realised that maybe today all I wanted to do was lie in bed and watch my favourite TV show. And when I was able to feel less guilty and internally critical of that I was able to enjoy it and chill out a bit more.

The problem with weekends is I feel like there’s so many things I could / “should” be doing that it overwhelms me. I forget to listen to myself, still, and how I truly feel, what I need / want. 

So I was feeling depressed today and that’s okay.

I don’t need to be some idolised version of myself, post-mental-illness forever to live a meaningful and valuable life.

It’s okay to be sad, depressed, scared, unsure.

That’s what I’m telling myself more now.

When I deny my feelings / experience, trying to fight or get rid of the depression, it just brings it on worse and makes me feel a need to escape - because I’m not accepting or allowing the depression.

If I accept it then it stops being something to run from, through excessive sleeping, drinking or whatever else. It’s part of my experience that I’m okay with, and that’s that.

It’s freeing. Calming. For real.

Ironically, it helps it to lift - in my experience.

Weird revelation but felt worth writing down.

Goodnight,

Samantha

It's crazy how all these messages from society make us overwork. To improve, people tell us to get out of our comfort zone and do our "best". But what do they mean by best? Best as in work hard enough to absolute exhaustion or work hard until we need rest?

In Cptsd, we don't have much of a comfort zone, and healing often means finding one more in your daily life. That often means kindness to ourselves, and our pain.

Good on you for realizing that. :)