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@Kizzie - one of my cousins lives in a HUGE community like that. Unfortunately the communities with a lot of amenities are not in areas we want to be in, and we have never been "HOA people".

@PapaCoco - If I could wave a magic wand I'd have my east coast friends all relo or retire out to CA. I almost convinced one of them... but they had a change of heart (very valid). AS for "slipping back in" - that's not really the case. We are still very involved with these friends. One couple joined us on a vacation last year. My husband is also a musician/composer and he not only gigs when we visit, but he and his east coast friends create music via the interwebz.  He even recently went to a [different] city on a biz trip and frequented a restaurant owned by an old college friend of mine (who I haven't seen since 1984), mostly due to the connections I still have. In fact, I'd say that the ONE benefit of social media is the ability to stay in touch with people. Typically we visit in the spring and/or summer. Your words have given me the idea that I should plan a winter trip and see what happens. If I end up sitting in a hotel room with no socialization because no one wants to brave the weather, that would be important info to have.

I guess if I win the lottery, I could become bicoastal - winters in SoCal and everything else in DMV. I have a lot of life regrets and unfortunately, as much as I love CA, moving here is one of them. VA is the only place I'm still homesick for. I don't miss or have nostalgia for anywhere else I've lived.

Question for the group: As Papa Coco says - it would be great to hear from folks who've moved back to an origination point - how did it go? Regrets?

Hi All,
I hope I am posting this in the correct thread. If not, mods let me know and/or move it thanks.

By way of review, I'm 62, CPTSD, ADHD, ASD, Depression, Anxiety, Autoimmune Diseases, on permanent disability/not working. I'm married, my spouse is 63. We live in Southern California. He wants to retire in 5 years, which it's unclear if that will be financially feasible, but for the sake of this discussion, let's assume it is. He's also a 12-Step program person, with close connections all over the US. He has built in friends wherever we go/wherever we have lived (NY, FL, VA, CA). Historically I have always had a hard time making and keeping friends. Gee, wonder why... (eyeroll emoji)

Unlike the majority of women in my family, I doubt I will live into my 90s. None of them had the trauma or physical issues I have. I figure I have maybe 20 years left, so I'm really into the last act of my personal play already.

I understand it's important to have COMMUNITY for successful aging and increased longevity.  When we moved to CA in 2014, I started building a community through jobs, interests, hobbies, etc. I was involved in charitable works, I took many dance classes, tried to connect with parents of my then-teenage kid.  I would say I had about 10 good friends, plus 3-4 more I considered close. Mostly age peers.  Over the last 5 years, and in part due to the pandemic and in part due to politics, I am down to one close friend and one ok friend. That's it. People ghosted me (or in a couple of cases I had to cut them out for toxicity).

Here in CA I also have a couple of cousins, who I didn't know growing up (trauma story for another day), but have reconnected with successfully in the last 2 years. They are all older than me (over 70), with health issues of their own. I see them a few times a year, and we chat on the phone monthly or so. We interact on social media too.

Back in VA, I still have about 8 very good friends, with 2 of them being very close, and a circle of co-friends with my husband that's about 20 people.  They are all either age peers or younger than us. I have learned from one of my close friend's mothers (here in CA, she just died at age 90) that it's important to have a fair amount of friends that are younger than you are, because they keep you going and doing things that people older than you may not be able or want to.

Another thing I've learned about aging: it's important to end up where you have access to good medical care. While a cabin in the woods is great, I learned from one of my older cousins that it's a bad idea - they ended up moving from a very isolated area to a very suburban area specifically because they had to drive 1-2 hours for regular medical care, longer for specialized care. In both CA and VA we have had access to excellent medical care. This is not a concern in my dilemma, just bringing it into the conversation as a consideration.

I love SoCal - mountains, beaches, great weather. We are able to stay active 12 months out of the year. I don't miss snow or ice at all. My S.A.D. also disappeared since we moved here. I like the area we live in - exurban and quiet. I have no intention of ever living somewhere more urban ever again(it depresses me), so suburbs are fine with me. BUT I have zero community. I volunteered at an animal shelter for 3 years and came away with zero friends. Many of the women I took dance classes with have disappeared and the ones that remain are not interested in making new friends (I have tried). I find that I'm lonely here and I've been depressed more than not, and in therapy the whole time.

I like VA and also MD - both pretty places, but the weather absolutely sucks. It's either 20 degrees and icy or 100 degrees and buggy. April and October are great, that's about it. And they're not good at dealing with winter storms - our old street NEVER got plowed (and we'd get 5 feet of snow at a clip!). I can take some dance classes there, but none are tailored for senior dancers like in CA. I like the suburbs all around DC, but traffic is actually worse than in SoCal, and it's expensive as most roads are toll roads. Of course there's lots of culture there, too. The whole time we lived there I had a few depressive episodes, triggered by external events, but nothing that made me go rushing back into therapy. For that decade there I was mostly happy EXCEPT when it was winter.

So my dilemma: again, setting finances aside, is it better to stay in CA where we can remain active all the time? Or better to return to the DC/MD/VA area (aka The DMV), where we can't be as active but we have more friends to do things with (albeit less active - more indoor/cultural)?

If I leave CA only my 2 close friends will miss me, and they can afford to visit me wherever if they want to. Our friends in The DMV beg us to move back every time we visit.

One more factor: our young adult kid is currently single, has no real plans to marry and is uncertain they will ever have kids. I have let them off the hook in that regard and told them it's up to them, no pressure from me to become a grandma whatsoever, especially in this society where mothers are treated so poorly. They currently live with us for financial reasons, but will be moving on in the next 1-2 years (which is good, they are very triggering to me).They will most likely remain in SoCal, as they like it here. Even when they've lived nearby, they are not close to us (mental health issues unrelated to mine - no joke) and we'd only see them a few times a year anyway (and we can afford to fly them to visit us if they want to, or visit them, although unlikely we'd be invited). Husband would prefer to stay in the same state, I say it doesn't matter.

None of this has to be resolved even in the next year - we have time. But thanks to my issues, these things rattle around in my head all the time and I get no relief.  BUT WHERE SHOULD WE SETTLE IN OUR DOTAGE? SOCAL OR DMV?

Thanks for reading and I look forward to all advice, especially from anyone who has recently made a similar decision.

Kizzie - thanks and you are right to keep denying them. My H works in the intelligence community space here in the US. Russia, China, Iran are all significant threats not only to internet infrastructure, but to western society as a whole. There are state sponsored programs in each that are directed to do anything they can to destabilize western societies. If someone was truly a survivor, they'd be able to make that clear. I'm always amazed that they don't use VPN...

Since the death of my abusive mother (2021 - was NC since 2011) I tried reconnecting with family members who, thanks to mommy dearest's decades long smear/sabotage campaign, I either didn't know at all or hadn't heard from or seen in years. My brother still refuses, even though I have extended multiple olive branches - he swats them away very nastily. Our father died last year, and I tried again, he still passed a message through a half brother to basically tell me to go **** myself.

My parents were divorced and my father (who had a whole second family) was neither willing nor able to help me maintain family relationships beyond my grandmother (grandfather died when I was an infant). My mother was divisive with her whole family and isolated me, my brother, and herself from most of them (large extended family).  She also actively discouraged interaction with anyone on my father's side of the family, whether by disparaging them verbally or making sure we did not get to interact in person (e.g., not letting us know we were invited to things, scheduling other things at the same time, etc.).

I've been able to reconnect well with 3 second cousins on my father's side, one of whom was born on the same exact day as me. One lives an hour away, one 45 minutes away, and the third a state away, even so we are in contact via social media, email, phone. We get together as we can, including a recent "mini-reunion" with all 4 of us and our spouses.  They have been so welcoming to me, that I cry with happiness and gratitude whenever I hear from them.  These cousins really didn't know my mother - they are all older than me (I am at the youngest end of both sides of my family.) Even so, they have been receptive to me summarizing why I was not part of what clearly was a very close cousin group growing up (we all grew up in the same city).  So this is one success.

Another success - reconnecting with one of my 3 first cousins on my mother's side (these are the only cousins younger than me). I had cut these cousins out back in 2011 because after I went NC with NarcMom one of them kept relaying details of my life to her despite my pleas to not do so. I tried reconnecting with them, but no replies, so I've let it go.  The third cousin did reply, and it turns out lives a couple of states away in a place I visit occasionally. I'm older than him, he was born when I was in high school, so we're not close, but cordial, and on a recent visit to his city, got to have dinner with him, his partner, and my husband. We caught up and it was a nice visit. Due to the age difference, this cousin has zero awareness of the family dynamics or my mother's mental illness (for clarity - BPD/narcissism).

Best Success -- a second cousin on my mother's side. He's maybe 4 years older than me. We were relatively close in our youth because we shared common interests, the immediate families socialized a lot prior to the divorce, and as young people we socialized outside the family. He was also living in Italy at the same time I was (story for another time - 1st marriage to abusive sociopath green card scammer) when we were in our 20s, and we would socialize as couples (he married a lovely Italian lady) at that time.  I hadn't seen or heard from him in over 25 years. My mother actively discouraged contact after my own divorce for reasons that remain obscure but don't matter.

After my mother died I tracked him down (let's call him "J" for now) on FB. He's still married to the same lady ("A"), with 3 adult kids and is now a grandparent. They all live near where we all grew up. Over time he came to know that I was estranged from my mother, but we never really discussed it online.  One day a few months ago, I noticed he was posting pics on FB from a location 15 minutes from my house!

I reached out through FB - turns out he and his wife were visiting the area with their new baby grandkid and parents because one of his kids married someone from the area I now live in, they were introducing the baby to the other grandparents.  We arranged to meet for a family dinner at a local restaurant. I got to meet the kids/grandbaby and we caught up on lots of stuff.  That's not the best part though.

Best part:  At one point in the meal, we were reminiscing about pleasant childhood memories (bonus points to both J and A for not mentioning anything about my first marriage or that time at all in front of my husband), and A asked - "What happened with you mother? Were you not close?"  Without missing a beat J jumped in, "Her mother was extremely unstable, I remember her behavior as being erratic. Thinking back, nybell, I think she was Borderline -- am I right?"

WOW.

Mind you he hadn't seen my mother in person in 25+ years either, and only heard about her remotely through his own mother (who was not close to my mother, in fact my mother didn't like either of J's parents as I recall, in retrospect I think because they would call her out on her * in front of the whole family, bless them). A had only met my mother a few times (and my mother didn't like A either, though she did like J), so she had no idea.  The fact that he jumped right in with knowledge that most people in the family don't have, that he cut to the heart of the matter, I cannot tell you all how incredibly affirming this was. It was as if he exploded all of the gaslighting I had endured with one match. My husband, who understands but tends to downplay what I've been through, was gobsmacked.  To know that someone else SAW what was happening, even as a young person, and register it as disordered and dysfunctional, well that helps me tremendously.

I can only hope for all of you that you are able to reconnect with loved ones who your abusers stole from you, and that once you do you get the love none of us got as children.

Thanks NarcKiddo - will do.

Papa Coco - I'll figure out where to post my affirmation story in the next few days.  Nothing supernatural about it. I have plenty of woo-woo stories, but that's not one of them. I believe that those of us who are survivors tend to be more intuitive. I stopped doing reiki for 2 reasons: 1) people kept asking me to massage them despite my explanations about how that's illegal; 2) my autoimmune stuff kicked into high gear, and I have a hard time keeping my own chakras open.

Papa Coco - thank you for the warm welcome.

I agree treatment overall has gotten better over time. When I tell current therapists some of the things my first therapist said, they cringe visibly.

I'm happy to find this group because only a few people in my life acknowledge my issues -- even my spouse downplays, dismisses and gaslights me on issues that are not physical.

I am grateful that I don't suffer addiction issues (my spouse is in recovery, so I cut him a lot of slack because I see he's trying - 20+ years clean).

I hear what you're saying about spirituality. I was a Reiki healer for a time, too. That was honestly one of the happier times of my life, but it's not something I can return to.  Currently the only thing in my life that has always and continues to bring me joy is dance. I've studied many kinds over the years, and currently still do modern and tap. Even though each class kills the rest of that day with fatigue, the mental/emotional boost is great and makes the fatigue worth it.  To me, dance is a form of spiritual practice.

If you don't mind - direct me to a thread where you discussed your experience with MDMA - I'm interested in that.

Also - I actually have a good story from a recent reconnection with a cousin that was very affirming --which thread should I post that to?

I'm grateful to have found this forum and look forward to further interaction as well. Thanks again.

Thanks for the add, mods.  I found this forum while searching online for how to heal CPTSD on my own.  Background:

-60 years old, cis, straight, female. Scapegoat. 4th Gen American. 3rd Gen college graduate with post-grad too.
-Married with 1 internationally adopted, now adult, kid.
-Diagnoses: "functional" depression, anxiety, CPTSD, ASD, ADHD, Dyscalculia, Autoimmune Diseases (including: Celiac, Hashimoto's (Hypo), Vitiligo, Insulin Resistance, Alopecia, CFS, and more).
-I'm on permanent disability.
-Have had many careers, never could hold a job longer than a year or so, most less then 6 months. Longest careers were: Speech Pathologist, Actress, Restaurant work, Travel Agent.  Hated speech pathology most of all.
-I'm not shy, but people think I'm standoff-ish. I do have RBF. I have only 2-3 close friends.
-Have always loved the company of animals over humans, for which I have and am always ridiculed. I currently have 2 sweet cats and 1 sweet chiweenie dog. I used to volunteer with my local animal shelter, but after a couple of years I realized I had made zero friends and many of the other volunteers were very weird and mean, so I left.

-Parents separated/divorced when I was 8 (golden child bro was 5)
-Father - undiagnosed/untreated ADHD and I now suspect ASD - remarried when I was 11 to a stepmom with OCD/MDD. I have 2 half brothers (one is also undiagnosed ASD, the other is undiagnosed OCD but milder than his mother). Came from a loving family.
-Mother - was misdiagnosed as Bipolar back in the day, but really was BPD with narcissism. Her parents were NOT abusive - attachment issue arose due to illness of my grandmother when she was born - family had to raise her the first year, so she didn't get a lot of attention (again, though, no classic abuse).
-My abuse began as soon as my brother was born (I was 2 1/2 and I remember most things back to age 2). Never physical, always psycho-emotional.
-I begged my father for years to remove me from her custody. He always had excuses and so never helped me. He was verbally supportive over the years, but never any real action.
-All 3 parents are deceased. Thanks to all of them and my issues I have little to no contact with what was once a very large extended family full of cousins. Also, my in-laws all don't like me and I remain polite but distant with them, having long ago abandoned the idea of becoming actual friends with them (FIL and MIL are also deceased).
-I'm the ONLY person in the entire family who has had this much therapizing. Also the only one with this much damage and disease.

-I was married previously, to a sociopath who was scamming me for a green card. As soon as he got the card, the abuse ramped up til I had to call police to get him out.
-I ended up moving back in with my abusive mother for a few years. (Bad move in retrospect.)

Why I'm here:
-Have been in and out of traditional talk therapy since 1989. CBT. DBT.Lots and lots of "Parts Work" too.
-Current depression level is background hum - 2/10.
-Have been doing EMDR via Zoom (because I literally can't find an in-person therapist in my area who takes insurance), since May 2023.
-EMDR seemed to help for the first 5-6 months. Since late last Fall it has stopped working.
-Tried Neurofeedback a month or so ago and it was a horror show. Very dodgy practice and I'm not about to try that again.
-Decided to take a break from EMDR and therapy for now as there's no point in continuing what doesn't work.

I've decided to try healing myself, but need ideas, resources, and support to do that. In a few years I will be on Medicare and I know there are few to no therapists who will take Medicare, so I'm trying to NOT end up and old depressed person (like my dad). I feel like the depression gets slightly worse every year no matter what I do. I figure I have maybe 20-25 years left and would prefer to live them in peace at least.

I don't like how my life has turned out - mind you I'm grateful to some extent because it's not a bad life, it's just not what I would have chosen had I known about my CPTSD and ASD earlier in life (have only been diagnosed in the last few years).

Any and all help appreciated. Thank you and namastè.