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Thank you everyone! The good news is it seems like it's going to be a good fit. We're going to meet once a week for the next 6 weeks and check in there. I think I really just need a safe space to talk about stuff.

Also always a good sign (sarcastic) that when you tell a therapist what you think of as the "Light" version of your trauma and they repeatedly wince

I'm meeting with an new possible Therapist this week. We've talked once on the phone and he seems nice and a potentially good fit but I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for questions I should ask him in preparation?

As someone who has BPD I want you to understand that it doesn't mean that something is fundamentally wrong with you. BPD comes from trauma in childhood, there is perhaps little difference between that and CPTSD and the only reason I haven't continued the cycle is because I got support that helped me start to process my trauma.

I do totally understand your feelings though. A lot of us have been told that the problem was us, and sometimes it feels like ti would be easier if that was true. But we're not the problem. We never were.

Landedbird, I'm sorry you went through it as well. It's such a horrible thing to experience, it's why one of the main rules in my house when my kid was young age was "if someone says stop while being tickled you stop immediately"

I suppose looking back on it I relate it to my sexual abuse not only because it often involved being pinned to a bed and touched in a way I did not want that was similar to the other abuse he did at night, but because it was a way of overriding my consent and boundaries in ways that other adults allowed. It was also definitely an opportunity to cop a feel when he could as well.

But it mostly I think a reminder that my consent and distress did not matter to him.

Being able to talk about on here has been a huge relief and help

when I was diagnosed with autism they were at first hesitant because I couldn't remember enough of my childhood clearly and they said I definitely have autistic traits but they couldn't separate it from my trauma. After that they communicated with my sibling (my parents were not an option) and the information from my sibling confirmed my autism and I got the diagnosis no problem

The thing the therapists diagnosing me said is even if they had not given me that diagnosis that didn't mean I wasn't or that I couldn't consider myself autistic, just that my trauma made the diagnostic criteria murky for them.

I have never talked about this, never felt safe to. My dad I know did things I can't fully remember. I just experience flashbacks of fear of a shadowy man in my room at night over the bed wanting to harm me. I do have one clear memory of me calling him out when I was 13 when he came into my room when he thought I was asleep and tried to put his hand down my shirt. which is when I think that kind of in the night abuse stopped.

Its the tickling that didn't stop. It never felt right. It never felt playful or innocent or fun. I'm autistic and very ticklish but I hated feeling out of control. He'd tickle me until i could not breathe and I was crying and scream/begging him to stop (at which point he'd call me dramatic) but it felt wrong and not just for that reason. I was into my teens when he did this. He did this in hotel rooms while I was trapped on the bed begging between gasps and unable to breathe and my mother watching this happen. It made me feel sick and dirty afterwards. It never felt right. It always felt like an excuse to touch me and have power over me.

It feels like it was part of the CSA to me. But I am always afraid someone is going to tell me I'm being dramatic and making it something it wasn't. And while I'm so angry at him I'm even more angry at my mom for just watching that. For allowing that and his comments on my body and getting mad at me for asking him to stop making his "jokes" or calling me a slut. Because I know she had been a victim of CSA herself. She always said she was a safe adult. But she wasn't. She didn't protect me. She let it happen. I don't know I just needed to say these things so they don't live forever in my head.

I'm Beet,

I am 41 and been in and out of therapy for the last 20 years or so. I think it's helped, I think I'm doing better at 41 then I was at 21 for example, but I'm grateful for 21 year old me to stick it out without the tools and support I have now. I had a rough childhood, I was the ghost of the family in a lot of ways. I have been diagnosed with autism and told I'm "in the EUPD/CPTSD area" but I've found treatment and support for CPTSD has been the most useful for me.

I'm going through a bit of a rough patch and looking for ways I can get the support I need to get through it.

Outside of that I enjoy crafting, writing fanfiction, drawing, and I'm a mature post grad student.