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Background: Last week was good, but intense. It was one of those times where you feel like you're turning a corner into a new level of recovery. I feel like I'm finally ready to start really addressing my trauma in therapy, but I'm struggling with feeling like a fraud.

Well, yesterday I got an email from a coworker with feedback on a project I've been working on for some time. It was a lot of critique, but constructive. I read it, and flew into what I'm guessing may have been some kind of flashback. I was trying to explain to my SO how I felt, and if I recall correctly I was saying things like "I hate them" and "if they don't want to pay attention to what I'm doing when it counts then why do they get to tear what I'm doing apart when they decide to notice me - it's not fair". Really petulant stuff, in other words. I felt like I had been replaced by an 8 year old having a tantrum. I've had plenty of experiences like that before but I guess this time I felt a little more aware of what might be happening.

I still don't really understand why I was so triggered because it doesn't make any sense to my rational adult brain. I really want to understand my triggers and flashbacks more, because in the past I've just felt crazy and been really mean to myself for having them.

Thank you everyone 

Hi everyone,

It's hard to know where to start! I suppose at the beginning. I am in my early 30s now and I've spent the last few years in therapy coming to terms with how what I've experienced has shaped me as a person, and honestly figure out who I am.

My parents had a very abusive relationship when I was growing up. Because no-one got hit, it took me a long time to accept how bad it was and how much it affected me. My father had an extremely volatile personality - one minute everything was fine and the next he would be screaming at my mom and they would start fighting again. There was emotional and verbal abuse, physical intimidation and restraint, and the (what felt like constant) threat of my dad getting upset enough to take his life. Looking back now it was probably something he said to scare my mom, though I have no doubt that he suffers greatly from depression. As a kid I felt very responsible for making sure that didn't happen. He frequently idolized me, and crossed lines as I became older that made me feel very uncomfortable (never amounting to what I recognized as sexual abuse, though now I see how not ok it was regardless). These things combined to make a very strange relationship where I felt responsible for his feelings and abandoned myself and my needs in the process. I felt I couldn't count on my mom because as soon as they started fighting it was like I was invisible, and most of her energy went toward dealing with him. My brother and I were unschooled, so we were home most of the time in a small house with my parents. I did not have close friends after the age of 10, and no adult support system. My parents were involved in what was basically a cult for years, so even when there were more people around us, it did not feel safe to me. I had a lot of anger toward both of them when I first started therapy and talked about all this, but now I've made some peace with it. I know they did they best they could at the time.

That is what I recognize as the origins of my story, though further experiences of relationship instability and volatility and self-denial in my teens and 20s drove home a feeling that I was fundamentally broken. I was often very very depressed, and/or agitated and anxious.  I had my child when I was 21, and things were particularly hard for several years after that.

I am in a stable relationship now, with a person who is safe and yet also encourages me to grow. My kid is doing well. I feel lucky. But I still have regular symptoms that really impact my quality of life. I dissociate a lot because that is how I deal with my feelings, but as a result I'm not able to engage with life even when I want to. My life is very "small" and I still have very distressing moods, though they are more manageable when I am carefully controlling my environment. This affects my family a lot though, and the costs of my coping strategies are starting to outweigh the benefits. I'm working with a therapist I really like and I want to get better. Though if I'm honest it scares me too.

I hope that this is not too long, and appropriate as an introduction for this forum.

Hi Chuck,

I'm new here too. I think being able to talk openly about the impact that CPTSD has in my life will be good for me, and I hope it is for you too.