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Greetings! I know that a lot of you (most? All?) can relate to chronic fatigue. I've been exhausted my entire life and wish I knew what it is like to have sustained energy. I fight the guilt and shame of my "laziness" every single day.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer this past October and have since had a couple of surgeries and just finished a round of radiation treatment. I have been spared chemo, thankfully. I can't imagine how it would be if I had to deal with that as well. As it is, I'm just so tired. I finished radiation two weeks ago. I went on a short hike yesterday, barely a mile, and I'm useless today, nothing but sleeping.

I read about so many women who continue to exercise through chemo, go right back to work, etc., and I swear the guilt makes me feel even more tired. I know better than to compare myself to normies, but it's not like I have a choice. The shame of my laziness is deeply rooted in me. Sometimes I try to imagine what a life free from the stress of constantly and continuously measuring my shortcomings, of the guilt and shame of being such a weak, pathetic being. I think about being lighthearted and having the energy to get through a day without collapsing and I don't think I'll ever get there.

And all this is happening in my own brain. I'm completely no contact with my FOO. My husband supports me 100% and even my coworkers encourage me to rest more. I want to tear out this guilt and shame by the roots. Goals, I guess, goals. 

I started this journey sure that I had no repressed memories. I still don't think I really do. But one the other hand, I don't actually remember much of my childhood, which seems like that might be a red flag? I asked my therapist about it and she told me that I *should* remember my childhood. She asked me, who was your fourth grade teacher? Ok, I have no idea. But I kind of remember other grades. In third grade there was nice lay teacher (Catholic school), but I don't recall her name. I have vague recollection of the nuns in 1st and 2nd. 5th and 7th, I don't know. 6th and 8th, i think I do recall the nuns that taught those grades. So, yeah, red flags indeed.

Do you all remember who your teachers were?

Lately there has been this image flitting around in my brain. My mother grabbing me by the shoulders and pushing me between her and something/someone that was coming at her. I think it might have involved alcohol and might have been all in fun. I was, maybe, 9 or 10,maybe younger or maybe older. I recall something like being startled and confused. For one, she was touching me. Her touch repulses me, but I don't know when that started, or why really. I have no memories of her touching me in a kind or caring way. On a rare occasion I got slapped for being mouthy, but that was about it.

I don't know where I'm going with this. I've been comfortable with not remembering much of my childhood for so long, and it makes me nervous to have these little flashes of remembering. It's not like I'm suddenly remembering something that happened as much as I remember *remembering* something. Something I used to think about when I was younger. Something I'd rather not revisit.

Is this part of healing? We don't really have to remember things...do we? Do I really have to think about why my mother would reflexively put me between her and something dangerous, or even something pretending to be dangerous? Why am suddenly thinking about this, and why do I even care? Rhetorical questions, of course. It's been a long winter for me.

This is a new realization for me. I adore everything about this day, except for the jump-scare. When he was little, and maybe even still, my son loved going to haunted houses. The scarier, the better, especially when a zombie or whatever would jump out of nowhere to scare us. OMG, I thought I was going to die every time that happened. I would jump three feet in the air and scream. And I mean full-throated scream. I hated it! But he loved it and I'll never understand it.

That shock to my nervous system was just so freakin' painful, it hurts just remembering. He also loves scary amusement park rides, which I also find painfully awful.

I'm glad to know why I'm this way now, but it doesn't seem to alleviate the stress.

At least there's candy.

I really want to start this journal, but not sure how, where to start. There's still a part of me that isn't sure I belong here. Intellectually I know I belong, but there's a nagging voice saying I'm making mountains out of molehills. And it's really hard for me to write. It's like a door just closes in my brain and I can no longer access what I wanted to say. I recall that once I dissociated in mid-sentence in front of friend. As I stood there, frozen, with my mind somewhere far away and nowhere at the same time, my friend joked that, "sometimes Chaos just goes away." He said it kindly and I was not bothered at all. It was true and still is to some degree.

So that is happening a little bit now. I want to talk about my therapy. I have a *wonderful* therapist now who is practicing Developmental Needs Meeting Strategy with me and it has helped a great deal with the dissociating and I am able to write about the past a bit more now. I am also feeling less critical of myself. I really have spent most of my life believing that if I were only a little more resilient, a little more motivated, a little more *something*, that I would be just fine because it wasn't that bad growing up.

But I think it was that bad, though. NPD mom was a perfectionist about everything. I was born imperfect. I had a physical deformity that was very obvious when I was born, but turned out to be mostly correctable. Something along the lines of, say, a cleft lip, which can be surgically corrected but is still a little noticeable. I know it was a big deal to her because she would tell people (in front of me) that when she was pregnant with her second child she didn't care if it was a boy or a girl, only that it was HEALTHY. Even as a very small child I understood that it was because I was not not healthy when I was born. I never did anything correctly or up her standards. Ever. She never missed an opportunity to let me know how wrong, stupid, ugly, fat, clumsy, ungrateful, and selfish I was and how I didn't deserve any of the nice things I had.

The toughest part was the loneliness. As a kid she kept me very isolated and without any kind of healthy relationships modeled for me, I had no idea how to behave with other people. So I behaved like her: mean, disapproving, quick to anger, looking for people's vulnerabilities and then trying to hurt them there. Of course no one liked me! I wondered a lot how people knew what to say to each other, how they made friends, how they got along so well. I ended up dropping out of high-school, pregnant and then a single mom at a really early age. Even into my 30's I would cry myself to sleep out of loneliness and deep desire for *someone* to love me. For a long time I was sure I was autistic because I just didn't get social interactions at all.

Gosh, I've made a lot of progress. Somehow I pulled myself together enough to go back to school. Then I moved thousands of miles away from her about 30 years ago, but I didn't really understand the depth of the damage she caused until maybe about five years ago. I've been in therapy, on and off, since I was 15 but mostly because of my anxiety and intractable depression. A psychiatrist once diagnosed me with dysthymia due to my mother, but even then I didn't fully get it.  I still thought that if I were just a little tougher I could have dealt with it and I was just doomed to being a depressed loser forever. Sometimes I would wonder if all that therapy and all those anti-depressants were a waste of time and money, or as "she" insisted, just an excuse to not get my act together. But writing this now I see that it hasn't been.

I am in such a better place now and NPDm just hates that. The last time I saw her she was still hateful and critical of everything and everyone that ever meant anything to me. She is quite old and can't scream at me any more, but she has really honed that meanness to a fine point...just so bitter and nasty. I went no contact after that, about six months ago, and since then have had a number of revelations. Getting to know little-me and middle-me has been amazing and helped me start thinking, without my brain shutting down, about how life was for them.

This is waaaay longer than I had intended so I am going to stop now. I'm honestly not sure where I'm going with all of this, but looking forward to it anyways!

Thanks for being here, everyone!

Hi. I am glad to be here. I joined OOTS a long time ago but never could bring myself to participate. I've been a member of Out of the Fog for even longer. Whenever I posted there someone always suggested I might benefit from this site... I think because so much anger is reflected in my posts. So here I finally am.

I confess that until recently I found this site hard to read. I have every single symptom of cPTSD but couldn't bring myself to admit it. It would mean that my problems - relationships, depression, anger - would not be my own fault and that just seemed impossible. I was raised by a very NPD mother and it was drilled into my head daily that I was pathetic and couldn't get "my act together."

I've been in therapy on and off since I was 15 (in my 60's now) to try to figure out why I'm such a mess. I have had some breakthroughs recently and am ready to  be here. It also helps that my therapist confirmed in no uncertain terms that I do have cPTSD. Just accepting that has been a huge relief. I still have a long way to go, though. I recently brought teen-Chaos out of her pit-of-despair and have been learning things about her, which has been liberating, too.

Looking forward to getting to know you all.

-CR