The tipping point…

[Chart]

Every time I post on the Forum, I feel fear. I write from my heart. I write from my soul. But every single expression I make/do/express, I fear. I fear I'm going too far. I fear what others will think. I fear I am a "bad person" and my rejection will swiftly follow.

For this reason I almost always return and reread my post. I've learned to absolutely NOT TRUST my fear.

Rereading what I've written, usually a day later, I have a clearer sense of what my objective truly was. I have some distance. Usually, nearly always, it's okay. I think, No no, that was nice or kind or helpful... then I think... why was I scared in the first place?

I'm scared because I suffer from Cptsd. Developmental trauma has shaped my life like a sculptor starting fresh with cold hard stone. What was hammered into me as a baby was chaos, fear and utter confusion.

And I remember nothing. My mother left the hurricane when I was four-years-old. Like a tsunami that carried me deeply inland, I awoke one day and realized: the man who never loved me has now truly disappeared... I don't think my mother "explained" anything. What can you explain? Can Cptsd be "explained"? I think not. Only those who have directly experienced it can fully know the eternal chaos of obsessive mental torture that follows us around like a decaying corpse...

sorry, that's the wrong path...

This journal, I want it to be about what I've come to understand. Its been two years since I collapsed mentally. I've made good progress... solid progress. I've shaken off the corpse and that stink only wafts my way four days out of the week. At this very moment I've only sensed the Depression very briefly, once today. Today is an exceptional day. Tomorrow it could all revert again. If I've learned one thing, it's that it's not over. Just feeling better a couple hours, a day or two, well, "it" comes back. Cptsd is chewing gum on the sidewalk... and I stepped right in it.

"The tipping point" is now my objective. I want to feel okay 51% of my time here on this earth. I also want to vanquish this thing. I want to fight. I'm tired of being shamed and doubting and folding and feeling like a crumpled-up piece of trash not even in a waste bin... just lying there on a curb or in a gutter...

I want to get to a point where MORE than half of my life is "relatively" free of the razor-depression-pain of horror.

I hate this thing... and I'm wondering if hate is truly helpful.

Anyway, there's doubt... I know that feeling too. It goes on the shelf like all the other "crap".

First journal entry, new journal. Much I want to say. Didn't even scratch the surface.

It's sunny out today.

Sending love and hugs to you all.

Chart

[NarcKiddo]

Yay for it being sunny out.  And for a good idea for a new journal. I think the tipping point objective makes a lot of sense.

[SenseOrgan]

Welcome back! 2.0. Onward to unapologetic 

[sanmagic7]

dear chart, i just want you to know that to this day, and i've been part of this forum for at least 10 yrs., i still doubt my posts, especially to others, that i've gone over the line, i'm being intrusive rather than supportive, giving 'advice' or 'therapy' when i'm not supposed to - yep, still working on knowing i'm writing from the heart and only want the best for anyone and everyone here.

i know i've made mistakes, and have had mistakes made against me, but there have only been less than a handful of people who truly have gone too far, and they were dealt with appropriately by kizzie.  you have not even been close.  your support and kindness and caring have shone thru clearly, and i've welcomed every word from you.  if there's been a misunderstanding in communication, we clear it up.  you have been a wonderful member of this forum to my mind.

good for you for having that 51% goal.  it sounds good.  great, actually.  i'm in your corner all the way.  you're valuable to me.  love and hugs

[TheBigBlue]

Chart, thank you for writing this so honestly. Seeing someone I admire - someone who often seems much more put together than I feel - name the fear, doubt, and ongoing work behind it all really matters. It reminds me that progress doesn't mean being untouched by CPTSD; it means staying present and living anyway.

Your 51% goal feels real, humane, and possible. I'm glad you shared this, and I'm really glad you're here. 🌤
 

[Chart]

Thank you Narc, SO, San and Thebigblue!

It is absolutely insane the effect of coffee on my mood and mental state. Mornings are very hard for me. I think my biological father would often come home at sunrise. He was definitely intoxicated with alcohol and probably other stuff to boot. This is when I would hear the shouting and screaming downstairs. Wouldn't be the only time of day I'd hear these things, but I'm certain that mornings were particularly brutal. So i believe I developed a chemical propensity for somnia. I can sleep through anything. I once fell out of the top bunk (we'd switched bunks with my sister cause she had a broken leg) during the night. When I awoke in the morning I was on the floor and later the pain in my shoulder was shown to be a broken collarbone. I never woke up from the fall and remember nothing from the night.

So my "sleep issue" is actually the reverse of a lot of people. I don't suffer from a lack of quantity or quality of sleep, I actually am severely sleep addicted and experience terrible fearful mornings when I'm obliged to wake up and get with the day. The anxiety upon waking is strongly linked to my horizontal position. Once I stand up the anxiety symptoms descend significantly.

But during periods of strong EFs, I've noticed that coffee has a profound effect on the intensity of the EF reducing the Fear and discomfort dramatically. So, for pretty much my whole life I've been a coffee junkie.

To be continued...

[dollyvee]

Wishing you all the best with your new journal 

I am curious...who is shaming you? And who is hating?

Fear is an interesting concept that I have been thinking about recently too.

I hope you uncover all the things you are dealing with and give rise to that more integrated sense of self 

[sanmagic7]

dang, chart, that makes a lot of sense to me. at least, the idea that sleep was a protective agent for you so you didn't have to hear what was going on, which, i'm assuming, was pretty scary for a kid.  and mornings being so terrible for you, well, that's when the screaming would be happening, right?  sounds like real-time triggers, over and over.  how awful for you!  so, if sleep and the aftermath of sleep, which would be mornings, trigger the awfulness of what you went thru, it also makes sense to me that coffee would kind of block all that and put you on your way to some sense of normalcy, it being a trigger of your own to get you out of the feelings of the past. 

and if none of this makes sense to you, please ignore.  just thinking out loud.

at any rate, i'm glad you have coffee to stop the effects of the past.  it might not have to be forever, but for now it seems to help a lot.  love and hugs

[TheBigBlue]

Chart, I'm very aware I'm not an expert here, so please take this only as thinking out loud, not conclusions or advice. But reading what you wrote made me wonder about the quality of that sleep rather than the quantity.

What you describe doesn't sound like restorative rest so much as a very deep shutdown - almost a dorsal-vagal refuge. Given the repeated danger tied to mornings in your childhood, it would make sense if sleep became the safest possible state when threat felt unavoidable. In that light, sleeping "through anything" feels less like ease and more like a remarkably effective survival adaptation.

The part about anxiety being strongest while horizontal really stood out to me. Lying down is such a vulnerable, childlike position: no agency, no readiness. Standing up changes orientation, control, and capacity to act. It makes sense to me that your nervous system would settle once you're upright again.

And the coffee piece is fascinating. Research is mixed on coffeein and trauma, but subjectively it sounds like coffee may interrupt that collapse state, pulling you out of shutdown, restoring activation, clarity, agency and control. If so, that "coffee junkie" habit reads less like a casual quirk, and more like a smart, high-functioning way your system found to regulate emotional flashbacks when nothing else was available.

If any of that resonates, it really highlights how adaptive you were in an unsafe environment, but also how sad it is that you had to be. Many of us here learned similar workarounds just to get through the day.

Thank you for sharing this. It gave me a lot to think about. 💛

[Marcine]

Your heartfelt honesty, authenticity, and awareness reach me loud and clear, Chart.
Onward on the journey.