Recent posts
#1
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: Seeking Support after Extr...
Last post by Teddy bear - February 27, 2026, 08:57:55 PMHi Seeking to Survive 👋
Welcome here 🤝
I'm a fairly new member too, so I had some similar feelings at first—but I quickly found my way around the forum by using the search function for topics that are most relevant to me at the moment (or in general).
Hope you like it here
Welcome here 🤝
I'm a fairly new member too, so I had some similar feelings at first—but I quickly found my way around the forum by using the search function for topics that are most relevant to me at the moment (or in general).
Hope you like it here
#2
General Discussion / Re: Taking part in a research
Last post by Teddy bear - February 27, 2026, 08:30:42 PMQuote from: Blueberry on February 17, 2026, 08:54:28 PMGood for you, Teddy bear! I've taken part in a couple of studies and felt that I was at least contributing lived experience with cptsd. It being a field that needs more research. Sometimes it was a little destabilising for me. I hope you don't experience that.
👍, Blueberry
I felt a bit anxious and hyperactive after the meetings too, but tried to distract myself with other things.
Overall, I feel quite good about having taken part.
#3
General Discussion / Re: Taking part in a research
Last post by Teddy bear - February 27, 2026, 08:23:41 PMHi everyone 👋
I participated in a study about withdrawal from psychiatric medications due to side effects.
I was told that other participants mentioned I articulated things they had also noticed — about side effects and other observations. That was nice to hear.
The results are expected to be published in about six months.
On a personal note: my doctor at the dispensary reduced my neuroleptic dosage from 7.5 mg to 5 mg after I complained about sedation and drowsiness. This is a really positive step! I even cancelled an appointment with a private clinic doctor (though I plan to resume my search for a good doctor later).
I participated in a study about withdrawal from psychiatric medications due to side effects.
I was told that other participants mentioned I articulated things they had also noticed — about side effects and other observations. That was nice to hear.
The results are expected to be published in about six months.
On a personal note: my doctor at the dispensary reduced my neuroleptic dosage from 7.5 mg to 5 mg after I complained about sedation and drowsiness. This is a really positive step! I even cancelled an appointment with a private clinic doctor (though I plan to resume my search for a good doctor later).
#4
Family / Re: Left out
Last post by Gromit - February 27, 2026, 08:14:09 PMAn update:
I attended the funeral and the wake, everyone was very nice but I am not sure I will see anyone again until the next big event. My cousin does stay somewhere locally and was staying for a couple of weeks, he had hinted that we must spend some time together after the funeral whilst he had wife were here, maybe that went out the window as her sister was also with them. Quite relieved really, I am not a fan of family gatherings.
Interestingly, my mother has not sent a thing since my uncle, her brother, died. No Christmas card, no birthday card for my son. My husband was concerned. The celebrant at the funeral said that my mother had a link to watch the funeral so she is obviously alive.
It is a little curious that she has not sent anything, she has kept up with that despite our estrangement.
Whether she only sent things because her brother encouraged her too or whether it is some other reason I will never know.
I attended the funeral and the wake, everyone was very nice but I am not sure I will see anyone again until the next big event. My cousin does stay somewhere locally and was staying for a couple of weeks, he had hinted that we must spend some time together after the funeral whilst he had wife were here, maybe that went out the window as her sister was also with them. Quite relieved really, I am not a fan of family gatherings.
Interestingly, my mother has not sent a thing since my uncle, her brother, died. No Christmas card, no birthday card for my son. My husband was concerned. The celebrant at the funeral said that my mother had a link to watch the funeral so she is obviously alive.
It is a little curious that she has not sent anything, she has kept up with that despite our estrangement.
Whether she only sent things because her brother encouraged her too or whether it is some other reason I will never know.
#5
Recovery Journals / Re: Living As All of Me
Last post by TheBigBlue - February 27, 2026, 07:48:53 PMI would love to have an answer, but I don't.
What you wrote - the robot mode, the spacing out, the sundowning, the loss of faith in all the frameworks that used to hold you - that doesn't sound like "doing suffering"; it sounds like surviving another wave with the tools that are left.
If you find an umbrella that actually works in this storm, please hand me one too. 👀🔍🌧☔
In the meantime, I'll sit here with you in it - just two soggy humans scanning the horizon and looking for it together. ☔💛
What you wrote - the robot mode, the spacing out, the sundowning, the loss of faith in all the frameworks that used to hold you - that doesn't sound like "doing suffering"; it sounds like surviving another wave with the tools that are left.
If you find an umbrella that actually works in this storm, please hand me one too. 👀🔍🌧☔
In the meantime, I'll sit here with you in it - just two soggy humans scanning the horizon and looking for it together. ☔💛
#6
About Complex PTSD / Re: What is Complex PTSD & How...
Last post by Kizzie - February 27, 2026, 06:36:56 PMFeb 27th - Here's a new video "Trauma: It's More Complex Than You Think" - a presentation by trauma researcher, clinician and psychology professor Dr. Colette Smart from the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.
Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuKHO0vHEa0
Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuKHO0vHEa0
#7
Recovery Journals / Re: Living As All of Me
Last post by HannahOne - February 27, 2026, 06:17:04 PMIn ACT and DBT they talk about circles of suffering. How there's the original trauma and then how our responses can add to the suffering. This could become self-blame, but it can also become a way out. Depends on how you look at it.
I notice ways of being in myself that are adding to my suffering. I have the original trauma, resonating REALLY hard right now. Unfortunately. It's a bell that is easily rung and then I'm vibrating with it in my teeth for weeks and weeks. My jaw hurts, my bones hurt. I can't see straight.
So what do I do?
I isolate. I stay in bed and stare at the wall. I guess I'm spacing out. I think about what I need to do that day, and I activate some part of me to do the things. A bit robotically. Make the sandwiches, feed the beasts. And then back to bed. Once I'm in bed I think about what I'll have to do next and I shut down until that time. When the alarm goes off, I robotically get up and do the next set of things. The kids are very active right now, one in school and a part time job, one in school and several activities so they are like ships in the night, stopping home at 4 pm to get refueled (sandwiches!) and then off again, coming home before bed. I greet, hug, I can be a mom. But then back to bed and spacing out. I'm sundowning at 8-9pm, I get anxious, everything feels smaller and darker and I don't want any demands. Twelve hours of fitful sleep. I wake up with my eyelids glued shut. I know winter is making everyone stir crazy. I'm also doing suffering. I'm doing the thing I do to avoid the pain I carry. I'm creating more suffering, more problems, leaving problems unsolved. It's not great.
For a good period of months I was undoing it. I was doing clothes, going out, talking to people, taking more clients, making art. I was undoing all of that.
The last few weeks I am doing it more and more. I'm doing something I don't want. I can't seem to undo it. I don't have what I need to undo it right now and I don't know how to get it. In the past I feel I was much stronger in many ways. I had a lot of energy to go get the things I needed. To do, in the outer world. To go get what I needed, to seek and find, to plug into things and create energy, create a home, a community. I created many communities.
I don't know why but I turned 50 and I can't do it anymore. Some of it may be the pandemic, I know everyone is struggling right now to create community. I fear some of it is post-traumatic decline catching up to me. Even though I was in therapy for 30 years and worked so hard, I was always at the cutting edge of the latest trauma therapy and the therapist was always building the plane as we were flying it, going to get more training, let's try this, let's try this, and I tried it all. Some of it helped for sure. Some of it was retraumatizing. And also I'm just a little jaded now. I've jumped through all the hopes. Sure, let's play DBT. Let's play CBT. Let's play NARM. Wanna play EMDR? Sure I'll move my eyes/hold your tappers/go with it. Wanna play Gestalt? Sure I'll talk to a chair. I was game, I'd try anything.
Now? Eh. I mean sure. Let's play psychodynamic and talk about countertransference. Yawn. It's like someone else is "doing" therapy and I'm just watching going, "eh." I CBA.
for many people midlife includes a loss of faith. Check. I used to be very religious, I was raised in a crazy religious stew. I spent years straitening if out, got a degree in religion to fully grasp the field, tried this one, that one. Religion helped me survive, it gave me a sense of meaning and justice and a purpose, a sense of safety, a Sky Daddy to replace the earthly one. A community. It gave me so much.
Now? Eh. I'm ok without it now. But without faith in religion, and without faith in therapy, I'm not really sure what to have faith in. Who to have faith with. How to go forward just me, naked in the storm? No sky daddy, no earthly therapist mommy. No supervision. No vision. No community. No meaning, justice, purpose. No shelter in the storm.
I notice ways of being in myself that are adding to my suffering. I have the original trauma, resonating REALLY hard right now. Unfortunately. It's a bell that is easily rung and then I'm vibrating with it in my teeth for weeks and weeks. My jaw hurts, my bones hurt. I can't see straight.
So what do I do?
I isolate. I stay in bed and stare at the wall. I guess I'm spacing out. I think about what I need to do that day, and I activate some part of me to do the things. A bit robotically. Make the sandwiches, feed the beasts. And then back to bed. Once I'm in bed I think about what I'll have to do next and I shut down until that time. When the alarm goes off, I robotically get up and do the next set of things. The kids are very active right now, one in school and a part time job, one in school and several activities so they are like ships in the night, stopping home at 4 pm to get refueled (sandwiches!) and then off again, coming home before bed. I greet, hug, I can be a mom. But then back to bed and spacing out. I'm sundowning at 8-9pm, I get anxious, everything feels smaller and darker and I don't want any demands. Twelve hours of fitful sleep. I wake up with my eyelids glued shut. I know winter is making everyone stir crazy. I'm also doing suffering. I'm doing the thing I do to avoid the pain I carry. I'm creating more suffering, more problems, leaving problems unsolved. It's not great.
For a good period of months I was undoing it. I was doing clothes, going out, talking to people, taking more clients, making art. I was undoing all of that.
The last few weeks I am doing it more and more. I'm doing something I don't want. I can't seem to undo it. I don't have what I need to undo it right now and I don't know how to get it. In the past I feel I was much stronger in many ways. I had a lot of energy to go get the things I needed. To do, in the outer world. To go get what I needed, to seek and find, to plug into things and create energy, create a home, a community. I created many communities.
I don't know why but I turned 50 and I can't do it anymore. Some of it may be the pandemic, I know everyone is struggling right now to create community. I fear some of it is post-traumatic decline catching up to me. Even though I was in therapy for 30 years and worked so hard, I was always at the cutting edge of the latest trauma therapy and the therapist was always building the plane as we were flying it, going to get more training, let's try this, let's try this, and I tried it all. Some of it helped for sure. Some of it was retraumatizing. And also I'm just a little jaded now. I've jumped through all the hopes. Sure, let's play DBT. Let's play CBT. Let's play NARM. Wanna play EMDR? Sure I'll move my eyes/hold your tappers/go with it. Wanna play Gestalt? Sure I'll talk to a chair. I was game, I'd try anything.
Now? Eh. I mean sure. Let's play psychodynamic and talk about countertransference. Yawn. It's like someone else is "doing" therapy and I'm just watching going, "eh." I CBA.
for many people midlife includes a loss of faith. Check. I used to be very religious, I was raised in a crazy religious stew. I spent years straitening if out, got a degree in religion to fully grasp the field, tried this one, that one. Religion helped me survive, it gave me a sense of meaning and justice and a purpose, a sense of safety, a Sky Daddy to replace the earthly one. A community. It gave me so much.
Now? Eh. I'm ok without it now. But without faith in religion, and without faith in therapy, I'm not really sure what to have faith in. Who to have faith with. How to go forward just me, naked in the storm? No sky daddy, no earthly therapist mommy. No supervision. No vision. No community. No meaning, justice, purpose. No shelter in the storm.
#8
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: Seeking Support after Extr...
Last post by Kizzie - February 27, 2026, 06:06:49 PMHey Seeking to Survive, a lot of new members feel as you do so not to worry.
There are a lot of guidelines in place to ensure members treat each other with respect, tolerance and kindness. They came about because early on there were a lot of trolls who joined just to make trouble, and also members who did not quite know how to behave toward others (which makes sense give trouble with relationships is one of the symptoms of CPTSD). The first threatened this community and the latter disrupted it, thus the guidelines. You need not fear putting a foot wrong or needing to write perfect posts though. If something crosses the line I will edit your post and send you an email explaining why.
As for the size of the forum, it is large and takes a while to feel your way around, but as it is for survivors of complex trauma with complex PTSD, the sub-forums are meant to capture the complexities of what we live with. If you go slowly as others have suggested I think you'll feel comfortable fairly quickly.
There are a lot of guidelines in place to ensure members treat each other with respect, tolerance and kindness. They came about because early on there were a lot of trolls who joined just to make trouble, and also members who did not quite know how to behave toward others (which makes sense give trouble with relationships is one of the symptoms of CPTSD). The first threatened this community and the latter disrupted it, thus the guidelines. You need not fear putting a foot wrong or needing to write perfect posts though. If something crosses the line I will edit your post and send you an email explaining why.
As for the size of the forum, it is large and takes a while to feel your way around, but as it is for survivors of complex trauma with complex PTSD, the sub-forums are meant to capture the complexities of what we live with. If you go slowly as others have suggested I think you'll feel comfortable fairly quickly.
#9
Recovery Journals / Re: Living As All of Me
Last post by HannahOne - February 27, 2026, 06:00:41 PMSanMagic7, isn't overthinking such a witch? I exhaust myself!
#10
Recovery Journals / Re: the next step
Last post by sanmagic7 - February 27, 2026, 02:31:12 PMfeeling better today, like i got some good sleep/rest during the night. up and down. it's going to be a lovely spring day today, then back to winter temps. i don't mind, i'm so glad to be back to where there are definite seasons. living on the northern west coast gave us a modicum of seasons, but kind of like shadow images. not quite there, not quite not.