Recent posts

#81

Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: New-ish

Last post by Gromit - December 27, 2025, 07:22:18 PM

  Hello HannahOne,

I too seemed to find out and connect the dots at about the 40 age. I had already, 'escaped' and tried all kinds of 'help'. I am 53, maybe it was just that the resources were suddenly out there, online, around 10/15 years ago?

I too tried not to recreate my childhood with my family, but it is a struggle to know what is good enough with only a blueprint of what you do not want.

I am glad you are here.

Gromit

#82

Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: New-ish

Last post by Kizzie - December 27, 2025, 04:55:29 PM

Hi and a very warm welcome to Out of the Storm Hannah    I'm so glad you decided to post and that it feels helpful to do so. I echo what Chart wrote about the aloneness disappearing or at least for many of us, decreasing once we realize so much of what we feel is common for others who have experienced abuse/neglect. I find it makes it more about what happened to us and less about us as being defective, weak or whatever negative things we come up with about ourselves.

I hope being here continues to help!

Kizzie

#83

Therapy / Re: Heart Opening Music

Last post by Kizzie - December 27, 2025, 04:34:47 PM

Here is my favourite:

It's kind of an anthem for Out of the Storm.

[here]

#84

Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: New-ish

Last post by HannahOne - December 27, 2025, 04:09:18 PM

Welcome here. Welcome HannahOne!

Tears are running down my face reading your words. You made it. To here. You are welcome to stay. You are welcome.

Thank you so much SenseOrgan! I did make it    That's important to notice. I feel like I've been running my whole life, to get far enough away from *there*, constantly thinking, "is this far enough? Is this far enough?" And at some point around age 40 I started realizing that what I needed wasn't so much to be away from *there* as to get *here*. I wasn't sure where *here* was, but I think I know where it is now, and it's a whole new world! I'm so glad you're here too!

#85

Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: New-ish

Last post by HannahOne - December 27, 2025, 04:06:27 PM

Welcome HannahOne, I find this Forum is a crazy-house of mirrors. Everywhere I roam here I find reflections of my own experience. It is troubling and comforting all at the same time. But the "alone-ness" has disappeared for me. It took awhile to get used to it, but it sure is nice now. I'm sorry to hear your history, but so very glad you are with us here.
Sending hugs if that's okay, chart
 

Hi Chart! I love that image, it is a crazy house of mirrors! That's something I really needed as an abused child: mirroring. And the mirrors I had were totally distorted, or non-reflective like Teflon. I'm so glad to hear that you've found "not alone-ness" and find it nice. I am a little scared, to be honest, but it's something I want. I would to figure out how to be fully present and connected to other people at the same time and I have felt it happening lately through the forum. Thank you for commenting! 

#86

Recovery Journals / Re: the next step

Last post by sanmagic7 - December 27, 2025, 04:06:20 PM

thank you, DF.

i've looked over several posts, cannot make sense out of anything other than hugs.  my mind has been frazzled and fried, i guess.

#87

Recovery Journals / Re: Desert Flower's Recovery J...

Last post by sanmagic7 - December 27, 2025, 04:04:36 PM

 

#88

Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: New-ish

Last post by HannahOne - December 27, 2025, 04:03:42 PM

Welcome. I'm glad you found us. Much of what you say resonates with me, especially how you dealt with your past. I find it interesting to read how many people seem to start hitting that wall in their 40s.

I'm not sure if I'm replying correctly to each person. But yes, it is interesting it happens in the 40s. I'm 50 now and still working my way around/through the wall.... people would say to me ten years ago "it's a midlife crisis" and yes, but....also no. The life review and revising process is different when you were an abused child. It's more complex. For one, like many of us describe, I don't feel I have a "self" to go "back" to, my original self had to grow in response to trauma. So "finding myself" is more complicated.  For two, I ended up a divided self, at minimum divided in two, a self to whom it happened, and a self to whom it didn't happen. It's more complicated to navigate midlife when all these different parts of me have their own experiences, opinions, needs, traumas, dreams. And three, I don't have the resilience of a person who was not an abused child. At forty I started getting all kinds of sick, autoimmune, inflammation, old injuries flaring up, several pain syndromes. I don't have the body I would have had. and that's continuing now. I don't have as much money as I would have if I hadn't been an abused child. I don't have the family support I would have had.... so it's just more complicated to navigate a midlife reset, because there's all these problems that continue from the past, and also the grief of all of that.

I find myself at 50 spending less time thinking about the parallel universe in which things were different, which is a kind of relief. My life makes more sense when I don't leave out the first 18 years! 

#89

Recovery Journals / Re: Post-Traumatic Growth Jour...

Last post by sanmagic7 - December 27, 2025, 04:02:58 PM

 

#90

Recovery Journals / Re: The tipping point…

Last post by sanmagic7 - December 27, 2025, 03:57:44 PM

you go, chart.  bang it!  love and hugs