Recent posts
#1
General Discussion / Re: Psychosis from extreme dis...
Last post by Blueberry - Today at 08:08:47 PMOh yeah, reviving old threads is a good idea. There's lots of really useful info and experience in old threads. I just didn't want you to be disappointed when OP doesn't respond.
#2
Successes, Progress? / Re: Post-Traumatic Joy
Last post by SenseOrgan - Today at 08:00:46 PMI love you all to bits! 
#3
New Members / Re: What's in a Name - Part 3
Last post by SenseOrgan - Today at 07:46:38 PMQuote from: asdis on May 10, 2025, 08:55:13 PMwe put this name (Asdis) together while researching Old Norse. we then found out it's already an Icelandic name. the first part "Ás" is Old Norse for "god" and "dís" is Old Norse for "goddess". we like the name because we have a very large system and have many different genders within and it's one of the few names that feels like it can encapsulate all of us.What a great name!
#4
Recovery Journals / Re: Desert Flower's Recovery J...
Last post by Papa Coco - Today at 07:43:33 PMDesert Flower,
I like what you said about how the times when you felt safe were the times when you felt connected to your Self. That's a powerful realization. And it is very true for me too. Authenticity is something we with CPTSD often missed out on. We became what we thought we had to so we could feel safe, rather than grow and nurture and celebrate who we actually were born to be.
I watched a documentary on the making of the TV series Stranger Things. The Duffer brothers, who wrote, produced and filmed the series, and are now in their 40s were given a camera for their 9th birthdays by parents who wanted to support their true desires. It's rare to find people who's parents supported their authentic selves, and when we find them, we recognize that they are solid, authentic, creative people today.
Whenever I watch documentaries on successful people, the one common denominator is that they had someone, somewhere, supporting their authenticity when they were very young. One thing I like about IFS therapy is it lets me be the adult who starts to support the inner children in me who are still waiting for permission to be validated and authentically themselves. It's a process, and it works. And as each little IFS part finds their own authentic selves, my overall authenticity gets just a tiny bit clearer to me.
As you've pointed out, with authenticity comes a feeling of satisfaction and safety and power.
We here are headed in the right direction. We support each other. And it feels goooooood.
I like what you said about how the times when you felt safe were the times when you felt connected to your Self. That's a powerful realization. And it is very true for me too. Authenticity is something we with CPTSD often missed out on. We became what we thought we had to so we could feel safe, rather than grow and nurture and celebrate who we actually were born to be.
I watched a documentary on the making of the TV series Stranger Things. The Duffer brothers, who wrote, produced and filmed the series, and are now in their 40s were given a camera for their 9th birthdays by parents who wanted to support their true desires. It's rare to find people who's parents supported their authentic selves, and when we find them, we recognize that they are solid, authentic, creative people today.
Whenever I watch documentaries on successful people, the one common denominator is that they had someone, somewhere, supporting their authenticity when they were very young. One thing I like about IFS therapy is it lets me be the adult who starts to support the inner children in me who are still waiting for permission to be validated and authentically themselves. It's a process, and it works. And as each little IFS part finds their own authentic selves, my overall authenticity gets just a tiny bit clearer to me.
As you've pointed out, with authenticity comes a feeling of satisfaction and safety and power.
We here are headed in the right direction. We support each other. And it feels goooooood.
#5
New Members / Re: What's in a Name - Part 3
Last post by SenseOrgan - Today at 07:39:12 PMQuote from: Dalloway on March 09, 2025, 02:26:03 PMI just found this thread and it´s really nice to read all the backstory about our nicknames.I chose my name because at the time I joined this forum, I was reading Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. The novel, just as her other ones, resonated with me very much. Woolf´s writing is deeply touching and lyrical. She can express the existential pain her characters are suffering from with only a few words. She became one of my favorite writers and Mrs Dalloway one of my favorite book characters. Also, Virginia Woolf struggled with depression most of her life, which made her stories and characters so heartbreakingly real.
It's interesting that I was 100% certain you had chosen a name from a character in a book. I had no clue which one though. Or did I? I just checked after reading your explanation here, and indeed, it must have lived somewhere deep down in my memory. I went to LA for therapy in 2005. I went to Amoeba Music to buy some CD's for support and ended up buying the soundtrack of a movie that had deeply impressed me. It was the soundtrack for The Hours, composed by Philip Glass.
#6
Recovery Journals / Re: Ran's journey
Last post by Ran - Today at 07:26:05 PMQuote from: Chart on Today at 12:03:10 PMQuote from: Ran on January 11, 2026, 10:24:29 AMI have actually started dating him. It just happened. I can tell that I do have genuine feelings, but he is a massive troll as he pushes my cptsd attachment buttons deliberately. I don't hate it all, but I just fear that once things are over as long distance relationships last rarely, then it will hit me hard also I got overwhelmed too, but that part might be too triggering, soOuf... Ran, your post hits me right square where I am suffering... now and for two years... and since forever...
Trigger warning: flashback, claustrophobia, trapped, panic attack!!!
I started feeling claustrophobic, because I was suddenly put into a wife role, with no ceremonies and I had an I think it was flashback of people's faces around me watching, so I felt trapped. I got even a bit of an panic attack. I'm over it now, but it was something new.
My core trauma is Attachment... my research has revealed a long family history of father/child abandonment. The men were abandoned, were all subsequently raised by mothers who had in their own trauma emotional or physical abandonment. It's a web of failed relationships from the past, the inability of each to recognize their pain as the parental dysfunction. The scenario seems to be always the same: a woman suffering abandonment who then has a male child, thus demanding their sons to fulfill their emotional needs which in turns causes trauma in the sons... who grow up to abandon their children. Somehow this six-wheel wobble-machine has moved forward through the decades advancing like a drunken sack of aluminum cans.
I am in extreme pain at the moment. It sounds like you are experiencing painful symptoms?
For me, this deep deep core wound that occurred in-utero and I endured directly for the first four years of my life, is what keeps rising up inside me as depression and mental pain. It gets pretty severe. I'm also experiencing physical breakdown, as various parts of my body are ceasing to function without mild to severe pain on a regular basis. I think pain can trigger further pain. The pain I'm experiencing in my body is triggering fear and insecurity in my psyche... because it's now extremely painful to "work" as I've been doing the past ten years. I'm now in a very scary place. This is awakening violently that primal wound of insecurity and absence of safety. It's not the same, but it's enough to trigger my old deep wound.
When these things get triggered, we have to listen to them. Pain in the present is leading us back to the wound that was never healed. It's really really hard, but I have to "go back" and sense what the core situation was and then stumble forward in a manner that allows to come into the light... and resolve... but it's hard... it was sooooo long ago.
Crazy situation, but that's how I understand it. What you are describing sounds quite a bit similar. If not, feel free to ignore what I wrote. It's just what struck me now in this moment.
Sending support
I guess in my case it's the men abandoning the women, so women are expected to be strong as my households have always been run by women. Even if those men don't abandon us deliberately, then I've noticed this pattern, but I've never deeply thought about it.
My body is breaking apart. I was born weak already and it all has progressed over the years, with analyzes made in the doctors showing nothing.
I have gastritis and duodenitis and issues with kidneys. Inflammation, where the antibiotics don't help at all. I have a lot of pain due to the scoliosis and I'm not sure if it's pinched nerve. I get migraines and tinnitus. I also have hypermobility or possible heds, but it isn't figured out wich one.
It all seems to be something neurological as systematic issues were all ruled out.
I tend to be very harsh on myself and I hate everything about myself. I want to hide away and not see my body what is breaking down.
I experience panic attacks, flash backs, body convulsions and body just trembling, shaking and have high bloodpressure with dizzyness.
Also migraine aura, tension headaches and just sharp pain on top of my head, when I've been through an intense period of my life.
Not to mention depressive episodes, intrusive imagery and thoughts. I've been passivley suicidal since 2021.
I'm not sure how I am standing. It's a complete miracle while also having born weak.
#7
New Members / Re: What's in a Name - Part 3
Last post by SenseOrgan - Today at 07:22:06 PMQuote from: Desert Flower on July 04, 2024, 09:47:39 AMOkay, I'm new here and I'm finding it really difficult to introduce myself somehow. Well, I never was supposed to speak about any of this of course. So, I'll start with 'what's in an name?'. I chose Desert Flower because I'm trying to blossom while I grew up in such a barren place. I just need a little water every now and then. And I'll be fine hopefully. I've been holding back the tears for so long, I can't believe it. Sometimes I just can't believe I'm still here, I'm still standing (sort of). It's been so rough and lonely. I'm just so glad you're here and I'm not alone with this anymore.I loved it right away when we met
Exactly the association I had with it [very similar to what I so adore about plants growing in abandoned buildings, especially in impossible places] #8
Recovery Journals / Re: Hope's Journal 2026
Last post by TheBigBlue - Today at 07:19:38 PMReading this, I'm really struck by how much awareness and regulation you are building, especially around anger, bodily signals, and nighttime safety. 
One small thing that came to mind (feel free to ignore if it doesn't fit) - maybe adding something like:
* "practicing kindness toward myself when things are messy"
or
* "allowing myself to go at my own pace."
Not as another task, just as a stance.
(If that's ok)
One small thing that came to mind (feel free to ignore if it doesn't fit) - maybe adding something like:
* "practicing kindness toward myself when things are messy"
or
* "allowing myself to go at my own pace."
Not as another task, just as a stance.
(If that's ok)
#9
Recovery Journals / Re: The tipping point…
Last post by TheBigBlue - Today at 07:10:03 PMChart, that sounds incredibly hard. Reading this, I don't hear failure or fault - I hear a nervous system that lost its external anchor and is now in free fall. I'm wondering if what is happening right now could be a disorganization phase after the loss of borrowed regulation? Not because anyone did something wrong, but because the safety that was carried in the relationship disappeared.
It sounds like she had become an external stabilizer for you, and when that attachment was activated and then ruptured, it lit up very old wounds: abandonment, humiliation, aloneness. Not because you're weak, but because what you carry is deep, and it may simply have been more than she could hold.
This phase you are describing: the panic, the collapse, the body pain, the exhaustion, the shame, the sense of being stranded, that all fits with what disorganization feels like I think (own experience). It is terrifying. It is painful. It is profoundly lonely. And it often shows up somatically, not just in thoughts. I want you to know: even if it feels like you're lying in the trough between rogue waves, you are not unseen here. We can hear you, and we can sit with the pain and dysregulation without asking you to be different.
What really stood out to me was your last line. Despite everything, there is a note in it that feels different - not resolved, not healed, but aware. Almost like part of you already senses that something more integrated exists, even if you can't feel it yet. That doesn't erase the suffering you're in right now, but it does make me think you might already be moving, however painfully, toward something truer than what came before.
I'm really glad you wrote this. It makes a lot of sense to me.
Sending
It sounds like she had become an external stabilizer for you, and when that attachment was activated and then ruptured, it lit up very old wounds: abandonment, humiliation, aloneness. Not because you're weak, but because what you carry is deep, and it may simply have been more than she could hold.
This phase you are describing: the panic, the collapse, the body pain, the exhaustion, the shame, the sense of being stranded, that all fits with what disorganization feels like I think (own experience). It is terrifying. It is painful. It is profoundly lonely. And it often shows up somatically, not just in thoughts. I want you to know: even if it feels like you're lying in the trough between rogue waves, you are not unseen here. We can hear you, and we can sit with the pain and dysregulation without asking you to be different.
What really stood out to me was your last line. Despite everything, there is a note in it that feels different - not resolved, not healed, but aware. Almost like part of you already senses that something more integrated exists, even if you can't feel it yet. That doesn't erase the suffering you're in right now, but it does make me think you might already be moving, however painfully, toward something truer than what came before.
I'm really glad you wrote this. It makes a lot of sense to me.
Sending
#10
New Members / Re: What's in a Name - Part 3
Last post by SenseOrgan - Today at 07:09:20 PMQuote from: Marcine on May 23, 2025, 03:58:12 AMancestral courageAmazing family history! You made me realize that not only trauma often didn't start with us. Imagine how our personal "choices" affect so many lives. Not only our own children if we have them. We're all connected.