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I'm having great difficulty in determining with the kind of friend I seem to attract, where I am maybe being unrealistic in my expectations due to past childhood abandonment and over sensitivity vs. acknowledging and validating that the person is being a jerk and should be held accountable. I'm one of those 'always there for you' reliable sort of people. You need a ride? If I can do it, i'll be there. Having a bad day? I've got a good ear. Send me a text? I'm gonna respond. Call me and leave a message? I'll call you back when I'm able. Birthday? I got you.

I've got two very, very close friends. I've shared my history of my biological father after 13 years of being present and raising us deciding to peace out and cater to his depression. I've shared my depression and anxiety with them, over the course of years i've always considered them to be my 'exceptions'. I'll cut people out of my life and INFJ door slam when necessary, but they've always been my exception to the rule - because cutting them out of my life would be like cutting a piece of me out, and I don't want that pain. But for over the past year they've really let me down. One of the girl's has been my best friend for well over a decade. We used to talk every single day. And of course people grow and relationships change, but she'll go 2-3 months not talking to me, not getting back to my texts, only to pop up and go 'hey sorry! miss you! love you! just in a bad headspace and taking a break from social media!" Uhm. Yo. I was worried. I was plotting my travels to your house to knock down the door and make sure you're alive?!?! What the heck man.

My other friend who's always been an exception is also very, very close to me. I supported and was there for her in breaking up, kicking out and divorcing her abusive ex. When she called me nervous that he was coming to get the last of his stuff, at the drop of a hat I drove out there, sat with her through it all so she didn't have to worry about him doing something regretful and foolish. I saw her through the months coming out of the bad relationship, and saw her through the months of starting to date again. She found a great guy and i'm really, very excited for her. Except I don't really exist anymore. The minute he proposed, our wine nights stopped, answering my calls stopped, the only way I get to see her now is if I swing by her department at work (since we work at the same company). Literally, if I didn't occasionally go to check on my client's and run into her, I would  never see her, she's incapable of planning an evening away from her new fiance. She's blown off every plan we've made and turned down every invite i've given her because of this new relationship.

I want to honor and validate how I am feeling, but it's nagging at the back of my mind when other people have told me my expectations on other's is simply too high. Which breaks me to the core, because I genuinely feel my expectations are to be kind and compassionate to one another, to attempt best as possible to do no harm and be supportive. It kills me to think my expectations to return text messages and phone calls (I'm talking like...once or twice every few weeks here). If I am to lower my expectations as I've had people suggest...then what am I okay with allowing? Because the behavior above makes me feel like crap, and being told that I should accept and expect this behavior makes me feel like double crap.

Due to my CPTSD, I think part of me has always felt if I give 100% of everything I possibly can, and give no reason to be abandoned then I can avoid being left behind. When my father abandoned me, there was no warning and the only rational being his personal mental health. Logically, I know that, but it feels like being on a human-size hamster wheel trying to accept that I cannot change the behavior of other people (my career choice of a behavior analyst suddenly makes so much Freudian Sense!) but ultimately, will have to carry the price and the pain of it. I think that's why knowing when and how to set boundaries has always been so tough. I either have a brick wall, or it's a free pass everywhere so I can feel there's less of a chance of being neglected again. And it's not the easiest conversation to say "Hey when you act like a jerk, it trigger's my C-PTSD left to me by my absent father so tread carefully.

I've always felt the injustice from a personal relationship point. Because of the damage my parents sustained and the negative body image they unintentionally reinforced through the years, my interpersonal path has really suffered and been delayed. Relationships are tough as is. Then you throw into the mix a terror of waking up one day and having a repeat of someone you loved and trusted walking out with no warning and no explanation.

I will say I am thankful for my experiences from a professional career way - it's given me a focus and guiding light on having a drive and need to have C-PTSD added to the DSM as a valued and respected diagnosis within the clinical mental health community. I've got an advantage in my classes with other students who aren't sure one exactly the therapist they want to become and if they'll have a specialty or not. I know without a doubt, I want to learn as much about trauma and the dissociative selves and attachment disorders as possible, to add to research and foundations of therapy tools geared towards C-PTSD specifically. It gives me a purpose, and that purpose is something I really hold onto when I'm having rougher days.

Lately I've become obsessed with adding to my collection of trauma and PTSD focused library. It's a worthy investment, since my schooling is rooted in clinical psych and a desire that my own suffering and war-torn parts may one day benefit other's through a focused compassion and fueled-drive to learn how trauma's evolve within the soul. I picked up Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors by Janina Fisher and her classification of what trauma can end up being originally diagnosed as was so reassuring.

The first time I attended counseling, it was straight after my parents had divorced. My mom wanted us 'checked out' like a physical to ensure we were alright. A stranger met with us, and we all nodded are heads and said we were all right - not much was changing and for myself, I was still a bit in shock. Three month's later he would be e-mailing my mom, telling her that he couldn't handle kids and at 14, a dad who had been involved and in my life every day, chose to disappear.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if my mother had lied, told us he was killed in a hit and run.

The second time I attended counseling, I just remember being angry. The counselor was terrible. It was between my mother and I, who felt we would benefit from going to counseling together since I had become distant and argumentative through college. We were always at each other's throats. And the only proof I had of her loving me was the monthly bank account deposits. I loved those deposits - at least they took care of me. We didn't get anything out of those sessions. I can vividly remember a tornado warning happening during one of them, and I was horrified at the idea of being trapped longer than an hour with my tearful mother and a therapist who kept parroting everything I said.

I packed up my car and moved across the freaking country after that. Right after college, I was gone. Believing I was moving onto something better - but in reality I was running away. I couldn't see how anything good could happen in that mediocre town.

The third time I went to see a therapist, she smiled calmly and told me I had an adjustment stress disorder and situational anxiety. It was a reflection against a lot of changes trying to get settled and build a new life in a new town without any support and once I fixed my current situation, it would all go away. I fixed my current situation. I got a better job. I got a roommate to help with the finances. I stopped therapy, feeling in the moment that I had 'fixed' what I needed to fix and it would go away. The anxiety didn't go away. The depressive episodes, that I didn't realize were depressive episodes did not go away. The suicidal ideation did not go away. The terror of relationships, but the draw and desire to have meaningful connection and contact, it did not go away.

But I had always been able to survive with those symptoms, they had in a way become a core part of me. I had found measures and methods to distract and dissociate away from them. I honestly don't know what woke me up, to realizing how many of my behaviors stemmed from avoiding and deflecting, re-triggering and an isolated amount of pain and grief that had never been respected and validated. I easily numbed myself for over a decade on the pain of my father's abandonment. I don't believe I am fully awake and conscious to it, even now. I'm more aware, but those self-destructive behaviors trickle in from time to time. Every book I read tells me that trauma is relationship-based, and so you cannot heal without the support of a relationship, to re-teach you that not everyone and everything is to be feared and treated with suspicion and caution.

I went to see a therapist for round four, and didn't make a good connection. I know I need to gather the courage for round five but I'm getting so tired of failed attempt after failed attempt. I can't walk into another session and be met with a therapist who invalidates what to my core, I need to be true. I need the validation of the correct mental health diagnosis. I can't be told I 'just have generalized anxiety' or I just have 'situational' anything. The pain is too deep for that, it's become attached to me and I need the steady hands of an experienced surgeon, not another colorful pill.

I'm done playing games. The ones I play, trying to make things better but only succeeding in setting myself up for failure.

I am done playing the game where I count how many days pass by until family decide to call me. Reinforcing that I could be dead for a month and they'd never know. That's not a game I'm going to play anymore. I don't win. They don't win.

I am done playing the game where I give and give and give, because I think if I can lodge a certain amount of favors and debt owed, a person can't leave. I am done where I surrender EVERYTHING, my values, my self-esteem, my individual needs, all for them in some desperate ploy that I won't be triggered through repeat abandonment. I don't win at this game. I don't want to play it anymore.

I am done playing the game where I feed my loneliness through food. I pamper and coddle my food-addiction, because in the moment it feel's better that the depression, the anxiety, the quietness. This game will kill me if I don't get out now. Maybe not now, maybe not in twenty years, but eventually it will catch up to me.

I am done with the game of doomsday. Where I build every situation up in my head, think of worst terms possible and decide I can survive that and hope it won't end up being worst of the worst. I am done living in terms of what I 'chose' to think I can survive and what I can't. I will let the universe be and find a way to flow, to be flexible - to bend.

I'm done with the game of feeling sad and romanticizing the thought of people around me dying. Because then it's over. The relief that comes with the games being over, with finally having a reason to be sad over something tragic and human, something tangible for other's to see. I am not interested in this game. I will due to other's what is due to them. I will own the feelings. I will no longer protect them from the damage they have done. I will knock down my walls to build a more flexible barrier - that allows for more options than a simple 'all in' or 'all out' function that no relationship can survive through. I am very much done with this game. It only hurts me.

I am through with these games. I am through with them because they create fronts and distractions so I don't feel the real emotions attached that I need to feel, so I don't gather the confidence to confront and have conversations that need to be said. I have always glorified the ability to door slam, that I believe many of us adapt to and build through the manifestation of our post-traumatic stress disorders. While door slams hold a purpose, and each must decide the right path for themselves, I am old enough and capable enough to have the hard discussions, to stand my ground and at least communicate my needs and see if the other person is receptive and respectful that I deserve these needs to be met, and to decide the outcome from there. I am tired of 'all' or 'nothing'. I can't survive it. I'm not sure anyone can.

My journey of healing starts with ending these games, with no longer condoning these self-destructive behaviors, this self-sacrifice in relationships that in essence, is selflessly tied to manipulating people to stay. I'm embracing the fear, so I can find the courage to move forward - towards tomorrow. I hope it's brighter. I chose to believe it will be.

I used to engage in a  lot of fantasy play on thinking about the 'what if's and how a letter or a reconnection could suddenly build new bridges. I wrote out the letter's a couple of times - not to send them - just to write them out. Sometimes their nice letters, full of forgiveness and moving on. Sometimes they fall short of mercy and compassion, but that's okay because I don't send them. I had a really rough time learning to grieve on a past injury, an abandonment that had happened nearly a decade ago and because everyone moved around me saying it was no big deal, I never appropriately went through the stages. The letters really helped.

I really got into yoga  few years back, and whenever I dedicate time to my mat and focus my energy on healing, it seems to help. I've really focused on surrender to my personal grief once I realized I had these stages to navigate. The mindfulness has been cathartic and I've had some pretty incredible touching moment's come out of my subconscious from my practices. It's not the medium for everyone - but I think there's a lot of worth in allowing your emotions to come out in something you love to do, exercise, creative writing, painting, hobbies etc.

I play this game.

I don't know I play it. There's no winners.

I like to wait out my mother, see how long it takes her to wonder how I am doing. Sometimes it's a handful of days, a passing of a few weeks, as long as two months once. I could call her. That would make the most sense. I'm the one who's noticing her absence, who want's to talk. I should make the call. But I don't. I'd rather keep a track of days, almost in survival mode (Look! YOU only called me twice in the past three months! I didn't need you!).

To clarify - I don't like this game. I hate this game. It's worse than being dragged into a three hour Monopoly game with your brother who cheats because he called being the bank.

The last therapy session I had, my therapist suggested I work out a day with my mother once a week, where we'd agree to call each other. I was horrified by the idea. Every inch of me rebelled and instant protection and defiance wrapped around me "No. I don't think so." and placed up my roadblock.

It's really tough, against all my instinct. I try not to play this game anymore. With every painful memory of emotional neglect and disappointment, I shuffle through the deck in my head, try to pull out a sweet one, something to leave me with a gentle reminder that nothing was done intentionally. I wish that made it better. I wish knowing good intentions or at least neutral intentions took away the exhausting years of developing am ambient attachment.

I was doing really well for a few weeks. I read Journey through Trauma and I built up my basecamp. I worked the change triangle out of It's Not Always Depression and I really felt prepared for the annual visit when my FOO visited - just the girls, a fun 'girl's weekend'. Seven days here, and I was unmade. My security fell apart. By the time they left, it felt like I had been unwillingly dragged back into the trenches. This endless loop of re-trigger after re-trigger is maddening and exhausting.

I started playing the game again, and I don't know how to quit. All I do know, is that I lose.

Thank you for the kind words.

I did have my second session with a therapist today. I am concerned she's focused too much on my anxiety and doing an over load of coping skills but it's the second session and I need to let her be the counselor and recognize with being a graduate student in Mental Health Counseling I tend to over-analyze a little too much. I often forget to be kind, patient and forgiving of myself - it's so easy to show those virtues to others. It's why I've had a rough go at maintaining healthy eating. I easily allow shame and guilt to drive me into an unhealthy coping mechanism of ordering pizza and binging on it.

Happily, what I am enjoying learning are the behaviors developed over time through C-PTSD and considering my job field is behavioralism, I am hopeful on trading in these negative coping skills for more positive ones.

I feel as if I've fallen down the rabbit hole again.

Back in 2015 I was so distressingly depressed and anxious that I gave myself an impossible task to complete without feeling better. I told myself I had to train and complete a marathon. After, if I was still numb and feeling worthless and isolated, I could look at alternative options. So I started to train, and something quite miraculous occurred. I shifted. I did yoga. I worked out. I lost weight from a HEALTHY stand point, not the yoyo diets my mother had placed me on since I was 14 because she was so panicked about us gaining weight (didn't matter, I just learned to binge eat when she wasn't around - a learned behavior as an adult I have great shame and difficulty with now). For the first time, in 25 years, I loved myself. I loved all my imperfections. I loved my reflection. I loved my thoughts. I was blooming, it was spectacular. I dated, for the first time in 25 years, I dated.

And then a week before I was about to run my marathon, I was a scapegoat at my job for an incident that I was indirectly involved in and lost my job. I ran my marathon, got sick with a really bad case of pneumonia, and over the course of a year, stopped running, stopped working out, started binge eating again, gained back 40 pounds and all of the symptoms of C-PTSD that I had managed to shed. It it wasn't for those 6 months of being in a sense of recovery, I would have believed my state of anxiety, chronic isolation and distrust and feeling of self-worth were normal, that that was my normal.

I am struggling with finding my way back to recovery. My self-worth is very much tied to my self-image. I have a loathing of my body. I do believe I am good looking, just don't feel it on the inside. I tend to skip over my better attributes and zone in on the features that make me recoil. I've failed to lose weight because I struggle with being consistent on a diet and exercise regime that is healthy without tipping over on too much. I've started to run again, but can't seem to out run my anxiety like I used to. All my old tricks that worked for the first round seem to be ineffective, as if the illness has adapted and manifested into something stronger.

Frankly, I'm at a loss on what to do, except to keep trying.

I've always had great difficulty sharing my life with others. It's why I've pushed myself to come here. To tell someone.

For years I considered my childhood to be standard, even above average as my mother and step-father spent most of my high school and college years lavishing gifts, expensive trips and money on me. It only occurred to me after college, after I moved 1400 miles across the state, because I had this indescribable need to get away, to run but with no concept of what I was running from, that my childhood was not typical - not acceptable. At 27 I am coming to terms that my father was emotionally abusive and neglectful, that he was verbally abusive, and the signs of violence I saw - although never specifically aimed at me - shaped the way I viewed the world as a threat. That my loving mother had a price tag to her love - with narcissistic tendencies that leave me avoidant and constantly re-triggered by her.

I can't trust. I can't connect. It seems to have been drilled out of me and everything I have is spent up. I have nothing possibly left. You would never guess that my inner world feels empty and lacking. I have a wonderful job. I have clients who absolutely adore me, co-workers who admire me, a management team who supports me. I have a year left of my Masters in Clinical Psychology with my company pushing to pay for me to get a second masters in Applied Behavioral Science. I practically own half a Sephora store and spend an hour in the morning before leaving the house, because I use make up like camouflage in gorilla warfare.

I am trying to grasp and figure out what it means to carry a traumatized heart while still feeding and helping it grow. I've seen a therapist twice and am nearly in a frenzy waiting for her to give me the diagnosis of C-PTSD. It's the only disease I've found that I feel explains why my head feels broken all the time. I've never received validation from my FOO for what i've experienced watching my father walk out on us with no warning, knowing I was 13 and still had his birthday present wrapped in my room, that sat undisturbed on a shelf for three months until my mother removed it. I've never been able to figure out why I wasn't worth staying, and how to carry the knowledge that while my biological father hasn't asked about us in over a decade, he continues to work in the same building as my mother.

I've been holding all these scars and bruises on the inside of my organs and bones - and I just want someone else for once, to see them. To know I'm not going crazy, that these demons are real and need to be conquered and that I don't have to do it alone.