Recent posts

#81
Sexual Abuse / Re: Sexual abuse as a child
Last post by Armee - June 25, 2025, 06:14:04 PM
 :grouphug:

Many mental health professionals have not healed their stuff. I wonder if you could begin that journey and obtain therapy as you go? Significant healing for betrayals like you experienced take so long, but there's no need to put everything off till you meet that finish line. Maybe even the school you go to will have free therapy?
#82
Ideas/Tools for Recovery / Re: ZOOM Support Groups
Last post by Flyinglove - June 25, 2025, 05:17:04 PM
Hi guys new to the forum. I'm just wondering if there is a  support group still running?
#83
Medication / Re: considering starting meds ...
Last post by Blueberry - June 25, 2025, 03:44:15 PM
I've just read your post and my heart goes out to you. It sounds so difficult, I'm sorry :'(

I have either partial DID or OSDD rather than full DID, and I don't have any meds for that. I just take Citalopram as an anti-depressant and L-Thyrox for thyroid underfuntion. I don't have the impression that Citalopram helps when I'm in a really bad way, when I'm in EFs. I think it helps a little bit in general when I'm more hit with depression Being in EFs - I think that's really when I'm more in a Part than in my Adult of Today. I don't find it surprising that there's not a medication for that, tho my psych doesn't seem to understand. Unfortunately, he doesn't know enough about DID and sub-forms of it...

My present psychiatrist is probably the best I can do round here. I have been in far worse, far less competent care. It took me a good while to find a semi-compatible one. I wish it weren't so.

I'm sorry I don't really seem to have anything helpful to say, so just sending support.
#84
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: A little bit about me
Last post by NarcKiddo - June 25, 2025, 12:58:07 PM
Welcome. There's plenty of us here who think we didn't have it all that bad compared to others. Anyone who has made it through childhood without ever being told by anyone that their situation was not normal or healthy will very likely assume that childhood was normal.

Well done for getting sober and I am glad you found a good therapist.
#85
Please Introduce Yourself Here / Re: New to OOTS
Last post by NarcKiddo - June 25, 2025, 12:51:29 PM
Hello, and welcome. I'm sure you will find a lot of support here.
#86
Recovery Journals / Re: What to say...
Last post by Blue_Jays - June 24, 2025, 08:55:48 PM
I have been wanting to write my mom a letter. Every time I get the words down, I am proud of myself for saying exactly what I need to. But I am saddened knowing she would not understand one word of the letter. I continue to write these letters, and not send them. Though I was close today.

Listening to my sister deal with my moms insanity up close is painful. I am so sad for all of us. We deserved so much more than this.

Our "dad" (my step dad) is likely going to be homeless soon, and potentially in that situation for the rest of his life. I am hoping my sister does not let him into her life, but it takes a lot to abandon your parents. We grew up with an intense sense of loyalty... un-learning that is very challenging.

I am surrounded by adults who look to us to solve their problems. It often seems like they invited us into this world just so we could save them. We are not obligated to care for them, to house them, fix them, etc. They will ruin us in the same way they have ruined themselves.

I am always careful to label people narcissistic.. but the lack of care being given is astonishing. Maybe emotionally immature. But I have had enough of this. I am sincerely hoping my siblings reach the same point I am at. I know the game being played, and my mom will take everything from them while trying to accomplish whatever it is she is doing...

I think my mom is going to be homeless one day. And I can't be the one to help her. I don't want any of us to help her.

They continue to make my life hard, even with no-contact.
#87
Medication / considering starting meds agai...
Last post by asdis - June 24, 2025, 07:35:22 PM
After some long back-and-forths with our therapist about not being able to manage our symptoms again, we've agreed to try seeing a psychiatrist for meds again. We can't really sleep or interact much with others, all of our symptoms have been ramping up like crazy. We've been on lots of different meds over the years and the best outcome we've had from them is 0 effect. As in, most of the time meds have either made things worse and/or caused terrible side effects, or at best have done absolutely nothing. We're terrified of trying meds again, but we can't keep going like this. Our therapist helped us find a psychiatrist that seems like a possible good fit (specializes in all our boxes but dissociative disorders), but that doesn't take the fear away. It is very difficult to find a provider that accepts and understands DID, or even trauma in general.

We've been on Prozac, Hydroxyzine, Seroquel, Prazosin, Lamictal, Geodon, Trazodone, Ambien, Klonopin, Zyprexa.. and those are just the ones we can remember. We know we've tried several other SSRIs, mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, and sleep meds. We had been diagnosed with many different combinations of bipolar disorder, bpd, psychotic disorders, and anxiety disorders throughout the years until we were diagnosed with DID and CPTSD (not including ED/autism). The last attempt we made at medication was two years ago while inpatient, as taking meds there was mandatory. We were unable to find a medication we could tolerate. Before the hospitalization, we had been prescribed Abilify but were unable to try it as we couldn't afford it. The psych that prescribed it to us dropped us shortly after. We've tried so many medications, we've sunk so much money into meds and providers that just gave up when meds didn't work out, it feels nearly impossible to go back to to this with any hope. We can only give a partial history (thx parents for losing our files) and we genuinely just don't remember all of the medications we've tried. We don't want to keep living like this, but being newly physically disabled makes the fear of side effects even stronger. Knowing that most medications will make us even more dissociative adds a new layer of fear, fear that our already spotty memory and poor communication skills will deteriorate even more. We remember losing our brain, being lost in dissociation even more often than now, being late constantly, not being able to hold conversations or even remember the pain we're in long enough to tell someone. It's taken the last three years of being mostly unmedicated to undo the deep dissociation that meds had put us in before.

Has anyone else been here? Or similar? If you've gone back to a psychiatrist after a couple years of not seeing one, were you able to find a helpful one? Were you able to find anything that helped? For others with dissociative disorders (especially DID) that are on medications, have you been able to find anything that helped without strengthening dissociation?
#88
Recovery Journals / Re: Healing journal (tw) Anger...
Last post by StartingHealing - June 24, 2025, 06:34:45 PM
24 June 2025

Been two weeks today since the person in the role of step son + gf left. Not having another person around has be in a word wonderful.  In that time frame, I've come to a few conclusions.  Yes, he grew up in an environment that I'm certain traumatized him to a certain extent.  There were a couple of days where I got on a jag of retrospection and certain things started tickling the thinking meat.  I've concluded that person in role of step son has a PD of some sort.  I know the overlap in the Venn diagram of behaviors due to trauma and the behaviors due to a PD is huge.  I don't know for 100% certainty, yet I'm leaning really hard towards him having a PD of some sort.  Explains a great deal as well with him basically refusing the slightest progress towards healing.  I shared my experiences, I shared strategies, websites, videos, etc.  He never followed up on anything. 

I know that he is creating his own karma and I do not wish him ill.  At the same time, his past behaviors still stick in my craw. 

Looking forward to the point where him and his mother are people that I once thought I knew.

Wishing all the brave souls here, all the best.
#89
Frustrated? Set Backs? / Re: coming to terms with not k...
Last post by asdis - June 24, 2025, 06:32:41 PM
thank you everyone who responded. we're still struggling with it but we were able to pinpoint that a pain flare coupled with a "new" flashback exacerbated the denial. we've been trying some internal work of looking for who might be driving the denial and it seems to have leveled things out a bit.  :grouphug: hugs for those who like them, we're sorry you guys relate.
#90
Sexual Abuse / Sexual abuse as a child
Last post by Black cat - June 24, 2025, 02:58:49 PM
I was sexually abused by my brother when I was little.
I now have 24 years but the memory of what happened never left my mind.
For years I thought I just needed to talk about it with someone and I took the courage to do so to a psychologist when I was 18, but I stopped when I finally speak about the abuses. I was wrong, I needed to process the trauma, but I then went through a difficult time in my life and now I crave to talk about it with a psychotherapist but I don't have the money to do so.
It's been some years and I think I always experienced symptoms of CPTSD and I want someone to tell me I do, and to help me go through it. I really want to heal because lately I can only think about this, and the trauma, and it's exhausting.
For years I thought I accepted what happened to me but in reality I only know rationally, but emotionally I still see that child as someone different from "me".
I have to accpet that me and that baby are the same person, I'm not her "substitute", she didn't "die", she's me and I'm her. Sometimes this realization kicks in and I feel really bad, I can't even think properly or stop crying but it only lasts some minutes.
I want to heal and to leave this behind, as much as possible.
I want to stop feeling the dissociation, the derealization, all the anxiety I have everyday and all the problems I have with my self esteem and relationships.
I want to become a psychotherapist one day and I know that in order to do so I have to heal first.
I hope I will be able to do so soon