Recent posts
#1
Recovery Journals / Re: Starting my journal
Last post by HannahOne - Today at 04:28:07 PMHolidayay, I'm new to the forum and just read your last two posts. Thank you for coming back and sharing your experience. So heartening to hear that so many things that once bothered you no longer do. And sobering to read that the grief continues. That makes so much sense. The grief is a part of me, I know. I can't wish it away without wishing myself away.
Having to show up in a social situation is still a trigger and that makes sense too, when part of what we are showing up with is complex grief, ambiguous loss.
Thank you again for sharing your experience. I don't know any better way to learn about CPTSD than from other survivors and I'm so grateful to have found this place and come to understand myself better---and meet so many amazing people who have persevered, sought healing, and found life to be worth living in the midst of that "gift that keeps on giving."
Having to show up in a social situation is still a trigger and that makes sense too, when part of what we are showing up with is complex grief, ambiguous loss.
Thank you again for sharing your experience. I don't know any better way to learn about CPTSD than from other survivors and I'm so grateful to have found this place and come to understand myself better---and meet so many amazing people who have persevered, sought healing, and found life to be worth living in the midst of that "gift that keeps on giving."
#2
Recovery Journals / Re: the next step
Last post by sanmagic7 - Today at 03:46:05 PMthanks, NK. she's getting better but i'm taking her to urgent care today, just to make sure we're not missing anything. 
so, i'm really run down today, it's finally caught up w/ me. ugh.
so, i'm really run down today, it's finally caught up w/ me. ugh.
#3
Recovery Journals / Re: Living As All of Me
Last post by NarcKiddo - Today at 12:52:23 PMThis is not fair. You are entitled to have a bit of a foot-stamping tantrum in among all of this, if will help you let off some steam. Maybe that's what Frank is suggesting. We know, and your parts know, that you will decide on the best way forward out of care and love. For you, for them, for your kids, for Frank. It's a hard and scary time. Thank you for being so honest as you process this. Many of us may face similar issues at some stage. You sharing your experience is helpful for us, too.
#4
Recovery Journals / Re: Post-Traumatic Growth Jour...
Last post by dollyvee - Today at 12:24:49 PMWow...all great news SO. Asking for what you need is a way to be seen and, the difficult part for me, is to not take it back for fear of repercussion. It sounds like you arenot self abandoning, but self affirming in uncomfortable situations and seeing who shows up for you and supports you when you do that 
#5
Recovery Journals / Re: Miscellaneous ramblings of...
Last post by dollyvee - Today at 09:12:47 AMQuote from: TheBigBlue on February 11, 2026, 04:06:39 PMWhat that looks like in real life:
- you don't just observe another's pain, but you become flooded by it
- you lose track of your own needs
- your nervous system reacts as if the pain were your own
=> This isn't kindness gone wrong.
It's a trauma adaptation.
TBB, to me this is fawning, a trauma adaptation.
Ingrid Clayton just wrote a very good book regarding fawning that I think touches on a lot of the things you're saying here.
NK, I wonder if you are pulled into the dysfunctional relational dynamics between your f and m and are perhaps their scapegoat in a way for the problems?
#6
Frustrated? Set Backs? / Re: trying to make sense of th...
Last post by dollyvee - Today at 08:49:04 AMQuote from: Dalloway on February 11, 2026, 06:36:54 PMI very much like the idea of facing the inner voice and being curious about it´s purposes and also asking where it thinks I should be and what I should do.
Hey Dalloway,
I just want to clarify my statement about connecting to the inner voice and dialoging with it. As you mentioned above, the Inner Critic will probably drive you to do things that make it feel better, which is what helped keep you safe as a child, but it's more of child consciousness rather than adult consciousness. It might be good to ask it rather why it wants you to do those things and what it's hoping to achieve by doing that.
I'm realizing that I didn't complete my post and the book is Freedom From Your Inner Critic: A Self Therapy Approach by Jay Earley. It's a good place to start as he maps out how to work with parts like the inner critic if you're interested.
Sending you support,
dolly
#7
Recovery Journals / Re: Living As All of Me
Last post by TheBigBlue - Today at 04:30:49 AMI'm so, so sorry you're facing this. I had endometrial cancer and a total hysterectomy seven years ago. Especially the months leading up to surgery were brutal, and at the time I didn't have words for it. Looking back, I know CPTSD did not make any of it easier.
I'm sharing this only to say that what you're describing makes so much sense to me - this is an enormous load, and the reactions of your parts are deeply understandable. It's a human nervous system responding to something overwhelming and unjust. You don't have to frame this as strength or fighting. You're allowed to take this one breath, one decision, one moment at a time.
I'm really glad you're letting us be here with you in this. And I want to say this simply: the world is genuinely better with you in it - exactly as you are, even in this fear, even in this uncertainty. You matter, and your presence matters. 💛
I'm sharing this only to say that what you're describing makes so much sense to me - this is an enormous load, and the reactions of your parts are deeply understandable. It's a human nervous system responding to something overwhelming and unjust. You don't have to frame this as strength or fighting. You're allowed to take this one breath, one decision, one moment at a time.
I'm really glad you're letting us be here with you in this. And I want to say this simply: the world is genuinely better with you in it - exactly as you are, even in this fear, even in this uncertainty. You matter, and your presence matters. 💛
#8
Recovery Journals / Re: Living As All of Me
Last post by Marcine - Today at 01:28:14 AMDear friend HannahOne,
It is with love, from me to you, that I share my thoughts, unsugar-coated. This is no time for frosting over.
Breast cancer is not your fault.
And it is your unwanted challenge to deal with.
Treatment options require you to spend precious focus and time weighing the trade-offs and making best guesses of outcomes without all the information. To build a healing team and gain confidence in their methods quickly.
To face mortality. To dig deep yet again, and again, then again... and again when you think you have nothing left to draw on, for a journey no one else can make for you.
All the while fighting the battle against trauma history and fears of future pain. There is no respite during such a time of onslaught. And no tidy timeline. No guarantees. And the loneliness is real.
Intellectually knowing that this time in your life will one day fade into memories— is of no help now.
I'm not even going to mention your warrior strength and optimism, because you already know how much I respect those qualities woven in you.
I would like to gently point out that carrying it all on your shoulders alone is massively difficult... And asking potentially too much of yourself.
I went through breast cancer treatment 9 years ago and my kids were young teens and toddler-age. It was difficult for them, to say the least, to not know if their mother was going to be ok. My heart breaks knowing I could not comfort them at the same time I was going through surgery, chemo, radiation. But the fact is that I loved them and they were my motivation to survive. So as hard as it was on them, they would have felt betrayed and abandoned more if I had tried to keep the situation a secret from them.
We did not pretend with each other. We learned new dimensions of love and humanity through the process. They felt anger. They experienced helplessness. So did I. And I needed them to understand I was fighting strong as their mom.
It was a challenge to rely on friends and neighbors when I felt so vulnerable. Some did small, meaningful things. Others stepped up massively and unexpectedly. Some of them are still in my life, some faded away.
I wish I had a magic wand to give you all the time you need to make the ideal choices and to process the trauma as it comes up, one wave at a time. I don't have that power. And you probably don't have that luxury.
I can remind you that your kiddos are stronger than you might think. Why? Because you raised them.
Making the next, single, good step is enough. More than enough.
Consider sharing the load whenever humanly possible. Your healing will benefit. You don't have to go it alone. You deserve the support and all the blessings, my friend.
Reach out anytime.
It is with love, from me to you, that I share my thoughts, unsugar-coated. This is no time for frosting over.
Breast cancer is not your fault.
And it is your unwanted challenge to deal with.
Treatment options require you to spend precious focus and time weighing the trade-offs and making best guesses of outcomes without all the information. To build a healing team and gain confidence in their methods quickly.
To face mortality. To dig deep yet again, and again, then again... and again when you think you have nothing left to draw on, for a journey no one else can make for you.
All the while fighting the battle against trauma history and fears of future pain. There is no respite during such a time of onslaught. And no tidy timeline. No guarantees. And the loneliness is real.
Intellectually knowing that this time in your life will one day fade into memories— is of no help now.
I'm not even going to mention your warrior strength and optimism, because you already know how much I respect those qualities woven in you.
I would like to gently point out that carrying it all on your shoulders alone is massively difficult... And asking potentially too much of yourself.
I went through breast cancer treatment 9 years ago and my kids were young teens and toddler-age. It was difficult for them, to say the least, to not know if their mother was going to be ok. My heart breaks knowing I could not comfort them at the same time I was going through surgery, chemo, radiation. But the fact is that I loved them and they were my motivation to survive. So as hard as it was on them, they would have felt betrayed and abandoned more if I had tried to keep the situation a secret from them.
We did not pretend with each other. We learned new dimensions of love and humanity through the process. They felt anger. They experienced helplessness. So did I. And I needed them to understand I was fighting strong as their mom.
It was a challenge to rely on friends and neighbors when I felt so vulnerable. Some did small, meaningful things. Others stepped up massively and unexpectedly. Some of them are still in my life, some faded away.
I wish I had a magic wand to give you all the time you need to make the ideal choices and to process the trauma as it comes up, one wave at a time. I don't have that power. And you probably don't have that luxury.
I can remind you that your kiddos are stronger than you might think. Why? Because you raised them.
Making the next, single, good step is enough. More than enough.
Consider sharing the load whenever humanly possible. Your healing will benefit. You don't have to go it alone. You deserve the support and all the blessings, my friend.
Reach out anytime.
#9
Recovery Journals / Re: Living As All of Me
Last post by HannahOne - February 11, 2026, 11:55:49 PMWhen I don't know what to do, when I'm pacing back and forth with a tight throat but can't cry, when I've cried and nothing changed, when I realizing I've been staring at the wall for more than four hours. I come here.
It seems to help. It gives me something to focus on. It puts me in touch with other people. It reminds me this is just a very human experience. We are human. Human beings feel things. Struggle. Suffer. I'm not alien to this planet. I evolved here over millions of years. My nervous system was built for this place in all its tooth and claw, and is plastic and can recover. That I'm a tribal being, not a lone wolf. Even the lone wolf is a bit of a myth. No wolf is truly lone. And I get to read the experiences of others and cheer them on, people healing, growing, trying, reaching, having the courage to exist. It's so heartening!
The oncologist presented me some choices. I'm having trouble sorting. The medication is not really an option for me for a variety of complicated reasons having to do with the pain and disorders I already have. It also only cuts risk of recurrence in half and my risk is apparently very high. So I think I need to do surgery and cut the risk to nearly zero. Very well.
But---so many worried parts.
The parts of me that were neglected feel like this is a repetition. That my back is against the wall and I can't really consider all my choices because I don't have what I would need to make them possible. Because I don't have a partner who can help, because I'm responsible for kids, have no family, just a sib on the other coast, and have lost most in person friends... it's all up to me and I won't be able to take care of myself.
The parts of me that become a mother at age 7 when my sibling was a toddler is resentful, overwhelmed, panicked at how I will handle all of this, doesn't want to do this while I have kids in the house. feels like the Edward Munch "The Scream." A seven year old can't do this, can't be down from surgery and also caring for three other people and a menagerie of creatures..... But I'm not seven.... right?
The parts of me that got out at all costs are furious that this is how it's going, that another future is foreclosing, that I ended up here, with so few choices, without the financial independence I had before 2020, that was so hard won. I'm so angry at myself. I told myself I would never end up dependent financially, and I did. I did it because I had to save my child's life. It was a five year legal, medical fight. But I swore I would never end up here. I remind myself I'm NOT my mother, I have several masters degrees, I have a work history.... but I feel like my mother. Ashamed and trapped. Having the surgery doesn't mean I can never leave if I want to.... but it may make it harder. I don't know if I want to leave, I didn't want to decide yet. I feel like I'm having to foreclose on a future before I am ready.
The parts of me that took the abuse feel that this is a punishment. It seems poetic to have a doctor cut off the physical parts of me that were abused by a doctor. Who does a breast exam on a nine year old? and without gloves? I look at photos of people who've had the surgery online and think they look well, strong, free. I look at Tig Nataro, she's so bad-$$$. Yet when I think of myself in their place, I don't know how to feel well about it, how to feel healed or whole about it. I feel such a sense of doom, punishment, karma. The threat was actually made to me at once point, to cut off parts of me. And now that will happen. It can't not feel like mutilation to these young parts, it can't not feel like a punishment, the scars a scarlet letter saying I am bad, worthless, only good for one thing, now not even good for that. Discarded.
God, brutal. My parts are brutal. They had to be. I know, I know.
Some parts also think I will have complications. That I'll be in pain forever, I'll get nerve damage or phantom limb feeling. My disorder leads to odd scarring and makes me more likely to get CRPS/AMPS and other neuropathies. I fear I will be haunted by sensations and pain, that it will be a never ending trauma trigger.
In reality the great thing about the surgery is that it's one and done. No more scans, no more biopsies which are torture, no more surgeries, no medications, no more worry about recurrence. If I have pain from surgery that lasts, that's still easier to treat than throwing all my body systems into chaos with a medication that causes so many side effects.
I may yet try the medication, the doctor thinks I should. What does he know, LOL? Meanwhile I have to get a bunch of OTHER tests, meet with a new surgeon, etc etc. This is going to take time and I'm lucky to have time. I know illness never comes on our timetable. It's been a brutal five years since 2020, I was just beginning to really recover, and then this. I wanted a few more years for my kids to be out of the house, to have some mental space to decide what I might want for the rest of my life....
This IS my life. This is your life, HannahOne. There is no other. And in this lucky, lucky life I am lucky to have "the rest of my life," to for now be able to presume to have it. I am lucky to have a choice of medication or surgery. I am lucky this was found so very early that I have time to consider the choice. I am lucky to have health insurance, a stable home, and a family, even if my family won't or can't take care of me, I'm not alone. I am lucky just to be here, sanity mostly intact. My cousins are all dead, in prison, prostitutes, or lost, unsolved cases. I'm here. I'm the lucky one. I am lucky to have a very flexible job that I can take time off from as needed, or just stop working if I need to, we would survive, I am lucky to have a partner who can shoulder the money. I am lucky I've already had my children and fed them from my breasts. I am lucky I got to see my children grow. I am lucky my children are teens. I am lucky, lucky, lucky in so many ways.
Somehow I have to let these parts of me know that. That while they are justifiably afraid, I am lucky. I am an adult. I am safe. This is my decision. If I do it, it will be because I think it's my best option. That I will be with them through it. I will find a doctor I can trust. I will not punish them if I have complications, I will not blame them if I end up with phantom pain or nerve problems or wound healing issues. If they feel horrible about me after surgery, I will comfort them. I will tell them, this is not that, that was then, this is now. I will take care of myself. This is me taking care of myself. This is not a punishment. I don't deserve punishment for things I had no choice in, things that happened, what was said, done. This surgery will be my choice if I do it, a very bounded choice without other good options, but it is a choice. Not a trauma. Painful, sad, scary. But I won't let them be retraumatized.
As I write, Frank has been RUNNING back and forth down the hallway, thump thump thump thump THUMP..... THUMP thump thump thump thump. Not like him. Does he feel the stress? Now he is paused, sides heaving. It's amazing how fast he can breathe. He examines me with one eye, then the other, raises and lowers his head, and sticks his back foot out to groom. Down regulate, Frank, down regulate. I go into the living room. And what do I hear behind me? thump thump thump. The wood floor is Lava for Frank, his nails slip, he never comes this far. Frank! Why are you on the wood floor? He chins each dining chair. Chins the couch. Why, Frank? Why are you marking everything? Is it so your bun-wife can find you? All your life, you've been only waiting for your bun-wife to arrive? I sing, he stares. Blackbird, by the Beatles. "Franklin thumping in the dead of night! Chinning all the chairs, I don't know why..... all his life, he has just been waiting for his bun-wife to arrive!" I get it. I too long for a bun-wife. Or hus-bun. All my parts long for what I didn't have, and can never have, because you can't reverse time. There's only here and now. Now there's a man in my house. My hus-bun is opening the garage door. What am I going to tell him? I've told him nothing. I don't know how to tell him. Where are the words? Where are the words. The words I want to say.
It seems to help. It gives me something to focus on. It puts me in touch with other people. It reminds me this is just a very human experience. We are human. Human beings feel things. Struggle. Suffer. I'm not alien to this planet. I evolved here over millions of years. My nervous system was built for this place in all its tooth and claw, and is plastic and can recover. That I'm a tribal being, not a lone wolf. Even the lone wolf is a bit of a myth. No wolf is truly lone. And I get to read the experiences of others and cheer them on, people healing, growing, trying, reaching, having the courage to exist. It's so heartening!
The oncologist presented me some choices. I'm having trouble sorting. The medication is not really an option for me for a variety of complicated reasons having to do with the pain and disorders I already have. It also only cuts risk of recurrence in half and my risk is apparently very high. So I think I need to do surgery and cut the risk to nearly zero. Very well.
But---so many worried parts.
The parts of me that were neglected feel like this is a repetition. That my back is against the wall and I can't really consider all my choices because I don't have what I would need to make them possible. Because I don't have a partner who can help, because I'm responsible for kids, have no family, just a sib on the other coast, and have lost most in person friends... it's all up to me and I won't be able to take care of myself.
The parts of me that become a mother at age 7 when my sibling was a toddler is resentful, overwhelmed, panicked at how I will handle all of this, doesn't want to do this while I have kids in the house. feels like the Edward Munch "The Scream." A seven year old can't do this, can't be down from surgery and also caring for three other people and a menagerie of creatures..... But I'm not seven.... right?
The parts of me that got out at all costs are furious that this is how it's going, that another future is foreclosing, that I ended up here, with so few choices, without the financial independence I had before 2020, that was so hard won. I'm so angry at myself. I told myself I would never end up dependent financially, and I did. I did it because I had to save my child's life. It was a five year legal, medical fight. But I swore I would never end up here. I remind myself I'm NOT my mother, I have several masters degrees, I have a work history.... but I feel like my mother. Ashamed and trapped. Having the surgery doesn't mean I can never leave if I want to.... but it may make it harder. I don't know if I want to leave, I didn't want to decide yet. I feel like I'm having to foreclose on a future before I am ready.
The parts of me that took the abuse feel that this is a punishment. It seems poetic to have a doctor cut off the physical parts of me that were abused by a doctor. Who does a breast exam on a nine year old? and without gloves? I look at photos of people who've had the surgery online and think they look well, strong, free. I look at Tig Nataro, she's so bad-$$$. Yet when I think of myself in their place, I don't know how to feel well about it, how to feel healed or whole about it. I feel such a sense of doom, punishment, karma. The threat was actually made to me at once point, to cut off parts of me. And now that will happen. It can't not feel like mutilation to these young parts, it can't not feel like a punishment, the scars a scarlet letter saying I am bad, worthless, only good for one thing, now not even good for that. Discarded.
God, brutal. My parts are brutal. They had to be. I know, I know.
Some parts also think I will have complications. That I'll be in pain forever, I'll get nerve damage or phantom limb feeling. My disorder leads to odd scarring and makes me more likely to get CRPS/AMPS and other neuropathies. I fear I will be haunted by sensations and pain, that it will be a never ending trauma trigger.
In reality the great thing about the surgery is that it's one and done. No more scans, no more biopsies which are torture, no more surgeries, no medications, no more worry about recurrence. If I have pain from surgery that lasts, that's still easier to treat than throwing all my body systems into chaos with a medication that causes so many side effects.
I may yet try the medication, the doctor thinks I should. What does he know, LOL? Meanwhile I have to get a bunch of OTHER tests, meet with a new surgeon, etc etc. This is going to take time and I'm lucky to have time. I know illness never comes on our timetable. It's been a brutal five years since 2020, I was just beginning to really recover, and then this. I wanted a few more years for my kids to be out of the house, to have some mental space to decide what I might want for the rest of my life....
This IS my life. This is your life, HannahOne. There is no other. And in this lucky, lucky life I am lucky to have "the rest of my life," to for now be able to presume to have it. I am lucky to have a choice of medication or surgery. I am lucky this was found so very early that I have time to consider the choice. I am lucky to have health insurance, a stable home, and a family, even if my family won't or can't take care of me, I'm not alone. I am lucky just to be here, sanity mostly intact. My cousins are all dead, in prison, prostitutes, or lost, unsolved cases. I'm here. I'm the lucky one. I am lucky to have a very flexible job that I can take time off from as needed, or just stop working if I need to, we would survive, I am lucky to have a partner who can shoulder the money. I am lucky I've already had my children and fed them from my breasts. I am lucky I got to see my children grow. I am lucky my children are teens. I am lucky, lucky, lucky in so many ways.
Somehow I have to let these parts of me know that. That while they are justifiably afraid, I am lucky. I am an adult. I am safe. This is my decision. If I do it, it will be because I think it's my best option. That I will be with them through it. I will find a doctor I can trust. I will not punish them if I have complications, I will not blame them if I end up with phantom pain or nerve problems or wound healing issues. If they feel horrible about me after surgery, I will comfort them. I will tell them, this is not that, that was then, this is now. I will take care of myself. This is me taking care of myself. This is not a punishment. I don't deserve punishment for things I had no choice in, things that happened, what was said, done. This surgery will be my choice if I do it, a very bounded choice without other good options, but it is a choice. Not a trauma. Painful, sad, scary. But I won't let them be retraumatized.
As I write, Frank has been RUNNING back and forth down the hallway, thump thump thump thump THUMP..... THUMP thump thump thump thump. Not like him. Does he feel the stress? Now he is paused, sides heaving. It's amazing how fast he can breathe. He examines me with one eye, then the other, raises and lowers his head, and sticks his back foot out to groom. Down regulate, Frank, down regulate. I go into the living room. And what do I hear behind me? thump thump thump. The wood floor is Lava for Frank, his nails slip, he never comes this far. Frank! Why are you on the wood floor? He chins each dining chair. Chins the couch. Why, Frank? Why are you marking everything? Is it so your bun-wife can find you? All your life, you've been only waiting for your bun-wife to arrive? I sing, he stares. Blackbird, by the Beatles. "Franklin thumping in the dead of night! Chinning all the chairs, I don't know why..... all his life, he has just been waiting for his bun-wife to arrive!" I get it. I too long for a bun-wife. Or hus-bun. All my parts long for what I didn't have, and can never have, because you can't reverse time. There's only here and now. Now there's a man in my house. My hus-bun is opening the garage door. What am I going to tell him? I've told him nothing. I don't know how to tell him. Where are the words? Where are the words. The words I want to say.
#10
Recovery Journals / Re: Post-Traumatic Growth Jour...
Last post by HannahOne - February 11, 2026, 11:31:57 PMSenseOrgan, the image of 97 square meters of soil is incredible. A billboard, announcing... "Hello World"? "I am here"? "I do it My Way"? "Extravagant Energy Found Here"? What does the billboard say?
"Social anxiety doesn't exist," I agree! It's trauma! When it's not safe to exist as a child with caregivers, how can we exist in the wider social world? We can't learn by experience, it's not safe to try and fail, to explore, to be curious.
You were able to find felt safety in Awareness, using all the tools and practices you've been doing all these years. And be present at the meeting.
Curiosity is a sign of felt safety. Frank will not explore if it doesn't feel safe. You were interested in writing an article, curious about it, about publishing, being public in another way.
And claimed what you wanted, shelves, and MORE shelves! Shared your predicament of bicycling with shelves, and had a laugh together with another about the human predicament, the human condition. Aren't we all on a bicycle juggling four shelves? That's connection! You deserve all of that and more and it is yours.
I understand survivors' guilt, I think about it too when I post something positive. When I read your words though it gives me so much hope. Thank you for sharing the positive experiences. It helps so much to hear. It also brings admiration, which is really important. We all have CPTSD. When I can feel admiration for another with CPTSD it helps me realize I'm not SO different. I can admire my own courage, too. If SenseOrgan can do it, I can do it. If I can do it, you can do it. This is one of the many ways we can share healing energy with each other in a safer way, by showing that it can be done, sharing the positives. It's wonderful! And it feels so good to celebrate someone else! Heck yeah for flirting! Heck yeah for claiming all the shelves and more! Next time, buy up all the masking tape! LOL. Lounge around, take up space. Stare your mother down.
When it's time, you will confront her in exactly the way you need to do it. Hurrah!
"Social anxiety doesn't exist," I agree! It's trauma! When it's not safe to exist as a child with caregivers, how can we exist in the wider social world? We can't learn by experience, it's not safe to try and fail, to explore, to be curious.
You were able to find felt safety in Awareness, using all the tools and practices you've been doing all these years. And be present at the meeting.
Curiosity is a sign of felt safety. Frank will not explore if it doesn't feel safe. You were interested in writing an article, curious about it, about publishing, being public in another way.
And claimed what you wanted, shelves, and MORE shelves! Shared your predicament of bicycling with shelves, and had a laugh together with another about the human predicament, the human condition. Aren't we all on a bicycle juggling four shelves? That's connection! You deserve all of that and more and it is yours.
I understand survivors' guilt, I think about it too when I post something positive. When I read your words though it gives me so much hope. Thank you for sharing the positive experiences. It helps so much to hear. It also brings admiration, which is really important. We all have CPTSD. When I can feel admiration for another with CPTSD it helps me realize I'm not SO different. I can admire my own courage, too. If SenseOrgan can do it, I can do it. If I can do it, you can do it. This is one of the many ways we can share healing energy with each other in a safer way, by showing that it can be done, sharing the positives. It's wonderful! And it feels so good to celebrate someone else!
Heck yeah for flirting! Heck yeah for claiming all the shelves and more! Next time, buy up all the masking tape! LOL. Lounge around, take up space. Stare your mother down. When it's time, you will confront her in exactly the way you need to do it. Hurrah!