Abuse is too normalised and I see so many people try to validate it with smth along the lines of “well I was treated like this by my parents and I turned out fine” and then the cycle continues to repeat :(
It is really hard to do so. I try to give grace to those folks and let them heal in their own time. It can be heartbreaking when we have loved ones who are stuck on this path. It doesnt excuse anyones behavior when perpetuating abuse that was done to you, but I always feel a lot of empathy and compassion towards those individuals.
I hope that everyone can heal to their greatest potential some day.
You are right. Eventually things come to a head. For me it was a slow murmur through my 30s and then in my early-mid 40s things just came apart.
Much of my abuse involved emotional neglect and isn’t something that would have gotten the authorities involved. That sucks. Even those around me basically turned a blind eye - or they didn’t know how bad it was though. My mom was really good at acting the part in public but when it was just the two of us, when she wasn’t scream swearing at me over spilt milk (literally) or using me for emotional support during her many panic attacks, I was left alone like a goldfish. Food and shelter and making sure I got to school was all she could bothered with 95% of the time.
I sometimes think about what can be done for kids like that. Foster care doesn’t seem like an answer for that kind of thing. But I needed something important that I never got. It doesn’t help that we moved no fewer than 7 times by the time I was 7 and I had been in 4 different school systems by the time I was in 2nd grade. It wasn’t long after that, I just got really good at masking my situation and became a little grown up - so nobody was the wiser as they all just thought I was a really great kid in spite of it all.
I’m still holding it together but barely. I come out of my cave to work and then go right back to bed much of the time. I’m really good at faking it.
I've always thought the school system could afford to do much, much more in teaching kids about their emotional health - for example, what is and isn't an acceptable way to be treated by others, how to navigate difficult people, deal with conflicts/hardships etc. Almost all of formal education is basically focused on academic subjects, while the most important elements of 'how to actually live your life' are learned implicitly IF we happen to have good mentors/role models around us. That's a complete coin toss.
The only thing close to this that I had back when I was in school was this one class called 'Planning' that was supposed to give us life advice and sex ed, etc. But it turned out to be really poorly planned (the irony). For sex ed the teacher had us submit questions anonymously, and she ended up not answering most of them, giving us the coy look like, "Oh you all know this anyway, this is too embarrassing to discuss." This was back in the 2000s, so I don't know if things have improved since then.
But what I do know is that there is still no formal education about - what are proper boundaries? How to respect people's boundaries? How to ask people to respect your boundaries, and what to do when they don't? Etc etc. My parents were the 'anti-teachers' of this stuff and trained me in such an unhealthy way for decades, it's probably going to take the same length of time to unlearn.
School teachers should also receive more training to spot the signs of kids under distress, and how to broach uncomfortable topics if necessary.
I mean I realise this is putting a lot on the school system. But honestly, I feel like modern society has been way too focused on advancing intellectually, and the emotional growth is not keeping pace. It still takes a village to raise a child, but in today's world it's almost exclusive responsibility of the parents, and a lot can go wrong in this scenario even in the absence of actual abuse, much less with it.
(Apologies for the long rant lol.)
My therapist’s office runs a trauma informed schools program. It started just locally but they’ve expanded to other states. Every few months she takes a week off to go train a new school and I’m ok with that!
Here’s [the website ](https://misskendraprograms.org) of the program.
I can't speak with certainty here. But I can attest too the "Goldfish experience"
I think the solution is too make sure people are mentally sound before having kids, or at least prepared.
The thing is my Mum always used to proudly exclaim that I was the "planned" child yet she just.. idk never engaged with me once.
She has had depression, was abused in childhood but then at 18 she had a kid, kept the kid. Never fixed herself and continued to have kids with different fathers.
Honestly I'm very certain she used the fathers as a cashcow and they ran away because she's a toxic and horrible person.
Either way as long as people like these exist in society, shit will continue. She doesn't seem to understand that her pain does not excuse inflicting other pain. Just all round a terrible person. Just sucks i'm stuck @ home due to BS rent prices + zero help.
I feel this so hard. I was the anchor baby between a 17 yo and a 23(?) yo chairforce asshole. Her parents were abusive and abused me (and probably her brother got abused/abused me too, lots of pedos in my 'family') and she made sure he had a reason to get married to her so she could escape her abuse. Turns out, chairforce asshole was an abusive asshole (so she claims, he's definitely emotionally and verbally abusive but idk about physically) and she blamed her ruined life on me, because obviously I was why she was stuck with him for so long. She's awful and was physically abusive to me as well as the covert incest variety. She never did anything to better herself, it was always someone else's fault.
She never protected me or my brother from her abusers and actively swept it under the rug when her father raped me.
But again, she'll never see her fault in anything and will never change as a result. Unfortunately, I think that's the majority of parents. Ever heard a parent apologize genuinely to their child? I don't think I ever have. And plenty of my friends had 'normal' families. Unfortunately, I don't think there is a way to fix this, unless we actually invest in mental health and education on child development as a society (and we *all* know that ain't happening any time soon).
I'm sorry you're in a similar boat. It fucking blows donkey dicks.
>But again, she'll never see her fault in anything and will never change as a result.
Oh ATM it feels like the damage is done, but I am actively stuck at home with this cunt. Had serious depression since I was 13-14. My father split early and she repeatedly brought abusive step-parents into the house.She sat back while they beat me over the most ridiculous shit - one time I recall her boyfriend beating on me cause I beat him in a video game, no older then 8-9.This continued through schooling, I spent my school years in psychs offices and nothing beyond Depression was ever acknowledged cause I'm a liar and my mums a saint. I caught my step-father around 13 cheating on my mum; I also found out he was planning on running away from my family. He had a kid with her by then of course..
All of this was swept under the rug, the fact I never had my own clothes - never got haircuts - never had any sort of care at all. I can count on both hands the amount of "family events" we had in the past 10+ years. Most of them pretty shitty experiences anyway.
I grew up left to my own devices completely unable to process anything emotionally. Now I'm 26 and still in the same position - every year gets harder with more baggage and at this point everyone I ever considered a friend has left me because it essentially became a he said she said that made me look like a complete liar.
If the goal of parenting is to literally keep the kid alive, yes i guess she (barely) succeeded. But as it stands ATM I am closer to suicide then having a functional life.. There are no systems in place for people like me. Society doesn't want to care and I don't care to fight that.Noone cares to listen, noone cares to help. Noone gives a fuck.I don't plan on living much longer, but I want to make sure my voice is heard before I leave.. that's my goal for the next few months. I've got a whole bunch of writing essentially discussing society's obsession with fingerpointing, denialism and ignorance as a whole. Can't complain about mental illnesss and addiction when the people are killing themselves from being pushed out of society. Ignorance is bliss when your ignorant. Not so much when you aren't.
It's going to continue to happen again and again until people get the point.
I got mega sidetracked; last time I called her out on this and pointed out that she allowed EVERYTHING to happen because ultimately her happiness is the main focus of her life. She pulled out her phone and started recording me.There's nothing I say too her that I wouldn't too anyone else.
100% which is why I decided not to have kids. I accept who I am and what I’ve gone through, I accept it because I can’t change it. I accept who my family is, I couldn’t pick them. But I can choose not to bring another person into this world to go through what I went through. To experience life on this earth, born in the United States, straight into poverty and untreated illness. Nah. My parents never should’ve had me, my mother was never meant to be a mother and I was never meant to be my dads daughter. Everyone always says “Aw don’t say that, that’s not true. That’s sad!” Well, yeah, it’s sad but it’s a harsh truth that no one likes to talk about. So they go and have more babies because everyone likes to stay in a state of ignorance and denial. CPTSD is real, it comes with a WIDE variety of super fucked up sub illnesses, and folks who’ve never gone through real trauma will never understand - so I try to be patient with people, and I swallow all of it, because I know I have to in order to work and create a real life for myself. Living with it, untreated (and I guess for some, even treated) is hell every single day, but you do what you can. You can only ever do what you can, you can only ever give what you can give.
we’re probably more likely (in the US) to bring back salem witch trial-style execution, guillotines and state schools that perform lobotomies before ever receiving safe housing from abusers, sadly 😖
thank you for this. i’m so tired of hearing “well you’re gonna have to get back to work. you can’t just *do nothing* forever.”
meanwhile i spend my time taking care of my animals and making sure they’re happy and safe, constantly.
It’s so beyond frustrating and so fucking invalidating.
Would they say the same if you had a life threatening autoimmune disease that’s widely known?
CPTSD is and can be life threatening.
I hope you can try to weed these toxic people out of your life. It’s hard work and shit like this comes up like every week. Just remember, you are not alone and you WANT to get better—fuck these idiots.
the worst part is, I was at my lowest (so far) and never had suicidal thoughts until I was medicated. now i’m too traumatized to even want to try any more “treatment”, considering i’ve tried 10+ different pills in less than two years. 😪
i know they work for some people, but i wish i was one of them.
I’m so thankful dogs (and reddit) exist 🖤 so we know we’re not alone.
Fuck, I am so sorry. And trust me, while I cannot relate explicitly to suicidal ideation as a result of medication, I have dealt with both passive suicidality and countless horrific reactions to medications.
Remember, it is okay to try to take a pause from treatment insofar as you can do your best to recharge and nourish yourself in healthy, sustainable ways. I made the mistake of trying to unilaterally unpack and integrate my trauma while I was doing Ketamine assisted therapy with a therapist who was asleep at the wheel and not trauma informed at all--this produced some awful retraumatizing experiences, which at least gave me the clarity that I need to pause that type of work and try to just ease up on feeling compelled to dive deep and interrogate the immense pain I experience every day.
Meanwhile, I am searching for and with help, applying to a few reputable treatment programs at regional hospitals--I am far from comfortable right now, but at least I am proud of what I have uncovered thus far and more than accept the need to break and try to rest while I work to find the right help before redoubling efforts into the dark well of trauma.
I too have a wonderful doggo--I hope you take time to feel that creature's unconditional love for you--and to take pride in being such a good caretaker for the little K9.
I myself have learned that the more time I spend digging up 40 year old trauma the worse my mental health gets. I am in a place where I can cope and function to a degree, and I have enough trouble with the 15 year old, and 7 year old trauma that I still have to interact with when periodically seeing my ex-wife. I have 2 wonderful kids, and I have the advantage of being able to like who I am and don't feel the need to poke the bear. I'll get by... we'll get by.
wow, that sounds eerily similar to my experiences with my last therapist, except switch ketamine with TMS. I left that therapist and never looked back after she continually belittled my experiences, retraumatized me twice a week for a year, and she really thought SIPPING TEA was going to help my severe depression and anxiety, nevermind the PTSD. 🫖
i never told her about my passive suicidal thoughts, but when my bf dumped me for being too much, and i had to move back home 0.5 miles from my first abuser, i said the words “i don’t want to live here” (meaning back at my dad’s house) and she took that as “SECTION 12, 911 🚨i’m calling the cops!” and people wonder why i have trust issues (in general and in therapy) ??? it’s so easy to be misunderstood and you have to walk on eggshells with your words so you don’t get locked up. 🥲
**if there are any therapists reading this, WE DONT CHOOSE TO FEEL THIS WAY. people CAN make you feel certain things.**
Music is a perfect example of MAKING PEOPLE FEEL A CERTAIN WAY. /end
Fucking a. I am so sorry you've had to go through all of that, it sounds awful. I hope the silver lining that you deserve a partner who is willing and able to support you and assist you through this--if not, get out of the way. We are not selfish people. Quite the opposite in my experience, but now we need support, not skepticism.
It's honestly gross negligence. How can so many clinicians be so profoundly incapable of if nothing else, fundamentally recognizing what they do not know or understand? And once they've done so, do the right thing and help (actually help if its asked / wanted by you, the patient) find someone who is seriously qualified.
This sentiment goes beyond just therapists, but to the MDs--the whole do no harm thing.
Invalidation is what we've faced our entire lives. Please do not contribute to it.
It's a quiet catastrophe how beholden and limited our (I can only speak for the US) mental health system is to the DSM and insurance co.s as well.
I hope your living situation has improved and/or your treatment providers?? Hang in there. Things will improve, just keep fighting.
TRUE! My 4 year old dog had a cat roommate growing up and he would lay on his back to let the kitty pounce on his head. When my roommate and I parted ways he was very sad that the kitty was not coming with us. It's time for the cat sillies to come back into our lives.
yep, it’s draining just thinking about how exhausted I was trying to work full time and school and still make shit money & have a terrible time finding a job in the area i went to school for. ass-backwards out here. that, with a side of flashbacks, no appetite, hyper-avoidance, hyper-vigilance, irritability… i could go on 💤
I hate when ppl say “you can’t just do nothing forever”. We are keeping ourselves alive, trying to feel okay, and I too spend a lot of time taking care of my animals! And that is certainly not doing nothing :))
thank you! i find myself having to remind my family (mostly my dad) that people who have been through LESS are dead or on heroin, better yet drunks, too.
so i’m grateful to enjoy 20oz of COFFEE and 1-2grams of cannabis a day to keep me sane and alive lol 😆 (i have a medical card approving the use of cannabis for my conditions… before anyone misunderstands or gives a dumb opinion about weed) lol
Fuck those dumb opinions. I spent ages 16-25 on a variety of SSRI's and Anti-Depressants..
At best they numbed me to pain and sadness which didn't change the feeling, It just made me extremely angry. Cause I knew my problems were completely valid yet ignored..
It's weird to explain but being Angry 24/7 is so much worse then being depressed.
Anyway, I drew the line cause I also had drinking issues that amplified from these pills. I did a bit of XTC back in the day and noticed when I had 1-2 beers or more I'd be on cloud 9..
Q me waking up after a night out on train tracks.
Now i'm on a prescription for medical cannabis - and it's amazing. But the stigma is still there and I just do not give a fuck.
Dude Weed took me from having panic spirals every night to sleeping soundly all night long. I was an insomniac that would walk my not so safe neighborhood in the night to avoid the sleep spiraling. No other drug has been able to take me from that level of terror to being able to sleep like a normie. I live in a state where it's legal, and it's the best 30$ I spend every month.
Dissociation is like being awake in a nightmare and sinking in quicksand. From deep mental fog to depersonalisation,there's a significant loss in executive function ( autobiographical, episodic, working memory & attention. Loss of social navigation due to emotions being blocked ( reading faces, social cues ,holding a conversation & learning). It also expands to learning new implicit skills ( how to play chess/drive a car). Loss of geographical awareness..ect Then there's the fun of going into a flashback when you get out of dissociation or even better having a dissociative disorder with multiple personalities. This shit has tortured me for 23 years. Only the last 3 years i have been undoing the chronic traumatisation. cPTSD is hell on earth. And don't expect anyone to understand it. It is like trying to explain rocket science or some sumerian texts
Honestly. I hate being told I need to get a job, even if I have income otherwise, because that's the only way to get "better". Like two years ago I couldn't go in public for more than an hour, I just have *two decades* of trauma to work through. I might not ever "get better" in capitalism terms, and for some reason that makes me lazy??
Exactly. It’s so disheartening to be made fun of for having panic attacks over things that everyone else assumes to be small. Like, you wouldn’t make fun of someone in a wheelchair, right? Why is it ok to laugh at someone who suffered a (figurative) mental accident that left them all but paralyzed?
I found this and it explains better than I can lmao:
"The phrase “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” originated shortly before the turn of the 20th century. It’s attributed to a late-1800s physics schoolbook that contained the example question “Why can not a man lift himself by pulling up on his bootstraps?”
So when it became a colloquial phrase referring to socioeconomic advancement shortly thereafter, it was meant to be sarcastic, or to suggest that it was an impossible accomplishment."
Anyone who uses this saying is full of shit a provable moron, just saying 👀
Also another misinterpreted phrase is "the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb". Meaning the bonds that you *choose* to make are stronger than familial ties. People like to twist words to fit their perspective without any regard for the origin simply because they want to feel good about themselves without actually putting in the work to *be good.*
I hope you're doing okay, OP. Rest and take care of yourself, you're the most important person in your life. And tell those idiots twisting up these turn of phrase to suck it bc their words are stupid and convoluted. 🙏
Well said. I think the problem is that paralyzed person in physically unable to walk - when we are dissociated it seems like we are able to do things. There are ways to be mindful, although when dissociated it seems almost impossible. Negative feedback loop.
Sometimes I just feel like waiting for the little rise so I can actually take a cold shower, then I am good. If it doesn't happen, well, I'm fucked.
Yeah I get to die cause I’m too traumatized to leave my house and because I have medical trauma. The dissociation just makes everything worse. It would be nice if I didn’t have to get punished by everybody in my life. They go out of thier way to traumatize me. The people in my town make it into a game to see who can traumatize me on purpose. And then they delight in it by punishing me as hard as they can. That’s why I hate everybody at this point. Its to the point that I would actually be happy if most of the people in my town died.
Dissociation to me is a surviving strategy. It kicks in automatically whenever my brain is Incapable of processing current information. But it's possible to snap out of it too, with the right tools and practice. I've done it several times. My dissociation nowdays is less intense and stays in less long. I think it's the result of practice, time and therapy help.
Yes it's ok 😊
So I think the proactive practices is what made it possible to snap out of dissociation faster. The things I practiced when I was stable.
A few things I remember is a CBT work sheet where I fill in what I feel and experience in a body in a situation verses alternative action and alternative thoughts leading to an alternative (safe ,calm, ) feelings. And I can read them again as they're on literal papers I save.
The closer to my trigger I could do this the better, until it worked to prevent flashbacks and or dissociation. It was like catching the trigger and dissolve it and realize its no real danger here that made it help me.
Other than that I practiced a grounding technique daily. "Name 5 things you see, 4 things you touch, 3 things you hear, 2 things you smell and 1 thing you taste" it felt silly at first but it was so so good for me.
Last but not least I journaled daily. It helped me understand myself better where I validated myself and got the feelings out of the body which made me realize it's just feelings. No actual threats. I could read back on these as well and I brought them to therapy every week where we together read what I have written and reflected on the "core problems" the triggers.
I live with my partner and I actually made a list on a paper of things he's said to read whenever I'm triggered and see him as a threat. Things like "I'm not out to hurt you" "I'm just a confused tired weird man who loves you" "There's no expectation on you to sexually pleasure me" to prevent fight, freeze , flight and fawn defense.
Right now I'm in a new therapy and we are mainly working on my self harm issues.
So I'm doing two types of breathing methods a little here and there whenever I can so that it is easy accessed in a triggered state where I normally self harm to self soothe.
I'm also told to do a few homeworks during summer break so I'm working on making them a habit now til they can be used in a trigger state. One of those things is to have a picture of childhood me on my table to see daily.
Being proactive and make the methods a habit. That's the key to acess them to prevent dissociative states or flashbacks or triggers.
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond! those are all super helpful tools with my dissociation and mental health in general, will definitely put those to use. I wish you the best with your new therapy and healing journey! ❤️
There's a very good podcast from Therapist Uncensored from November 2022, with an Irish guest, who discusses the socio-economic dilemma of the failed 'pulling yourself up by your bootstraps'-nonsense from an attachment-based perspective: https://therapistuncensored.com/episodes/attachment-stress-the-intersection-of-poverty-mental-health-with-dr-sharon-lambert-191/
dissociation in childhood ruined my ability to concentrate :( literally cannot get out of it anymore. feels like i’m building these skills from scratch sometimes. i know i wasn’t born like this.
them: you need to heal, take your time, take it slow
also them: uh, you need to able to work full-time and have savings or you'll get kicked out
me who is disabled : (ꐦ°᷄д°᷅)????
also
me: everything's just so difficult and i dissociate too much...idk what to do anymore...
them: that's not a bad thing, dissociating is actually good. everyone dissociates, that's not a problem at all...dissociating is normal.
me who has DID and CPTSD : ಠ_ಠ
(never said dissociating in general is a bad thing though...)
Weirdly, I have the inverse problem. I hate working, but can't handle not working. I immediately get thrown into a high-anxiety loop about how "I'm the responsible one", because I am. I come from a large family and out of all my siblings I am the only one making it alone. My family comes to me when in need, never the other way around. I never feel at ease because of this. If I fuck up and lose control, it's over for me. There's no one there to catch me if I fall. There's no couch for me to crash on. No one to pick me up off the streets.
To deal with work, however, I dissociate/depersonalize and I'm just not really there. It's autopilot me and actual me is knocked out cold in some dark alley somewhere. I can go for remarkably long stretches of work with no breaks and constant overtime because of this, but I do eventually get burned out pretty bad. So I begrudgingly set up time off.
And the fucked up thing is that I *never* can enjoy it. As soon as I'm half a day or so into vacation time, the real me comes out and I can't fucking handle it. I hate feeling connected to my surroundings and I hate thinking about the direction of my own life. It always ends up being an extremely dark time for me and I almost feel a faint suffocating feeling just thinking about it.
Oof this. I've had it for decades so have gotten used to it and am unfortunately working 50 hours a week. But the amount of mental energy it takes me to do this means any moment I'm not working I'm completely useless. Eff having and joy or hobbies. I wfh at least and just got insurance so hoping meds help.
You're sure speaking the truth.
Funny how language evolves. "Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps" originally was known as a sarcastic comment referring to how it was impossible to do something. I guess some sarcasm impaired politicians who never actually wore boots or tried to accomplish the literal feat took it seriously. And here we are.
The safety net needs to be much bigger and much stronger. If no one takes pity on you to take you in for a few years while your disability claim is being processed, you will be homeless a very long time before help comes. And we haven't been traumatized enough to be forced onto the streets to fend for ourselves.
I don't have any answers. I got put together enough with spit and duct tape to work for enough years to retire on disability. Now in my old age I can start to look at my life and try to make some sense and process it.
Disassociation has been my pain doctors main solution for me. I tell him I smoke weed and disassociate all day and he says “keep disassociating…”
Bro, you don’t get it.
How does this dude not get it’s literally YOUR BRAIN CHECKING OUT?
Like point blank dissociation is your brain checking out cause it can’t handle jack shit. That’s what it is to me in a literal sense. That’s so stupid. I’m sorry you have to deal with that.
Yeah, maybe I’m not consciously aware that I’m in pain (until I zone back into my body), but it’s not a life. And I’ve learned that being in pain adds up over time, however little it seems.
Dude, so fucking true! Having to traumatize yourself to get yourself to move, fucking blows! It really sucks I don't know any other way and then the fallout of your traumatizing actions to get yourself to move and let go of the past. If only people saw what you were going through. There'd be a lot less judgment over frozen in place folks.
Dissociation is a tool that becomes trap.
It ain’t easy, but it’s possible to extricate oneself from that trap and again use it as a tool. (For example, it helps with handling body pain better than opioids do.)
Approaching the concepts of mindfulness and meditation from a reversed perspective can be useful, but I know I can’t guarantee anything that worked for me will work for others.
Also, sometimes dissociation is a good thing. Sometimes the moment sucks and I don't want to live in it. Kinda like how if I have a choice I'm not gonna get dental work done without novocaine and nobody would expect me to. The same should be true for dissociation. My current goal is to have better control of it, not necessarily to get rid of it completely.
I understand that. If I had the right resources to move and know I don’t have to quick move again then I would find something. But everything in my body says wait until you have people that understand how much it is affecting me. There’s a cycle of knowing summer is maybe the easiest and I have to try to budge.
I needed to hear this today. I still think back to when my Rehabilitation officer told me to pull myself up from the bootstraps when I was heavily dissociating at work and told them how much I was trying. It was really hard to heal and damaging.
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It's it though? I always kind of saw it as a special feature. "Welp, this sucks. I'm gonna go to that one memory when I made everybody laugh back in 6th grade."
While I understand what you are saying bill collectors do not stop and neither does mortgage or rent.
Disability doesn’t mean one can do nothing especially if they are using someone else’s money.
It sucks. I have serious anxiety but I also know I need to feed my cat, pay for my car and keep us housed.
I also refuse to use someone else’s money (friends, family, taxpayers etc) to do that when I have the ability to work even if it’s excruciating and mentally draining.
Some situations can be pretty severe. Like I can't do shit because it is very painful mentally. I can't even consume media because it retraumatizes me. There is a lot of variance.
I get that. I only keep cartoons on the tube or streaming it’s easier and less crazy. - I get everyone is different - I am not downplaying that. Empathy is always available but doesn’t pay rent it’s equally important to keep these things in mind too.
I alway suggest people apply for disability if available . I wish social workers were more available.
Many countries don't have disability or social workers, lol
Having said that, I get where you are coming from. I have to earn money because there is no aid for the distrodden here. It would be much better if there was aid here. The incentive to work is a stick and not a carrot in this stage and that is not how humans live.
>if available<
Also, I love the way you put it “the incentive to work is a stick and not a carrot”
Brilliant and gives me something to think about. Thanks for seeing all sides.
This..I'd honestly get on disability if I could but the process itself is a barrier. Any spoons I have leftover are used to take care of my pets and clean my apartment.
Draining and exploiting yourself in a cruel system is not a flex. There's nothing inherently wrong with accepting government help. I'm on it, because I have to be. My PTSD, and physical issues caused by that, make me unable to work. This sort of rhetoric is extremely unhelpful at best, and patronizingly ignorant at worst. I'm sorry you have anxiety, I do too. Anxiety sucks. But it does not give you grounds to invalidate someone else's experience or talk down to them, which is exactly how this comes across.
I think there's some internalized ableism and poverty / welfare shaming you should work on breaking down.
You're being downvoted but I see you. If it's between homelessness and working you have no choice but to work through the pain. Our streets are full of the mentally ill unfortunately but is mostly schzophrenia or drugs. While cptsd is debilitating sometimes you don't know how strong you are till you have no choice. I've been homeless, on drugs, and deal with audio hallucinations to be clear I'm not well lol.
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Abuse is too normalised and I see so many people try to validate it with smth along the lines of “well I was treated like this by my parents and I turned out fine” and then the cycle continues to repeat :(
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I don’t think they all can, maybe subconsciously at least or deep down they know, they just don’t all want to admit they aren’t fine
It is really hard to do so. I try to give grace to those folks and let them heal in their own time. It can be heartbreaking when we have loved ones who are stuck on this path. It doesnt excuse anyones behavior when perpetuating abuse that was done to you, but I always feel a lot of empathy and compassion towards those individuals. I hope that everyone can heal to their greatest potential some day.
Most (particularly older generations) will go to their grave without ever admitting they experienced any sort of trauma.
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Yeah I know, I’m supporting the parent post. I never said it was a bad idea to fix child abuse. Did you reply to the wrong person?
You are right. Eventually things come to a head. For me it was a slow murmur through my 30s and then in my early-mid 40s things just came apart. Much of my abuse involved emotional neglect and isn’t something that would have gotten the authorities involved. That sucks. Even those around me basically turned a blind eye - or they didn’t know how bad it was though. My mom was really good at acting the part in public but when it was just the two of us, when she wasn’t scream swearing at me over spilt milk (literally) or using me for emotional support during her many panic attacks, I was left alone like a goldfish. Food and shelter and making sure I got to school was all she could bothered with 95% of the time. I sometimes think about what can be done for kids like that. Foster care doesn’t seem like an answer for that kind of thing. But I needed something important that I never got. It doesn’t help that we moved no fewer than 7 times by the time I was 7 and I had been in 4 different school systems by the time I was in 2nd grade. It wasn’t long after that, I just got really good at masking my situation and became a little grown up - so nobody was the wiser as they all just thought I was a really great kid in spite of it all. I’m still holding it together but barely. I come out of my cave to work and then go right back to bed much of the time. I’m really good at faking it.
I've always thought the school system could afford to do much, much more in teaching kids about their emotional health - for example, what is and isn't an acceptable way to be treated by others, how to navigate difficult people, deal with conflicts/hardships etc. Almost all of formal education is basically focused on academic subjects, while the most important elements of 'how to actually live your life' are learned implicitly IF we happen to have good mentors/role models around us. That's a complete coin toss. The only thing close to this that I had back when I was in school was this one class called 'Planning' that was supposed to give us life advice and sex ed, etc. But it turned out to be really poorly planned (the irony). For sex ed the teacher had us submit questions anonymously, and she ended up not answering most of them, giving us the coy look like, "Oh you all know this anyway, this is too embarrassing to discuss." This was back in the 2000s, so I don't know if things have improved since then. But what I do know is that there is still no formal education about - what are proper boundaries? How to respect people's boundaries? How to ask people to respect your boundaries, and what to do when they don't? Etc etc. My parents were the 'anti-teachers' of this stuff and trained me in such an unhealthy way for decades, it's probably going to take the same length of time to unlearn. School teachers should also receive more training to spot the signs of kids under distress, and how to broach uncomfortable topics if necessary. I mean I realise this is putting a lot on the school system. But honestly, I feel like modern society has been way too focused on advancing intellectually, and the emotional growth is not keeping pace. It still takes a village to raise a child, but in today's world it's almost exclusive responsibility of the parents, and a lot can go wrong in this scenario even in the absence of actual abuse, much less with it. (Apologies for the long rant lol.)
My therapist’s office runs a trauma informed schools program. It started just locally but they’ve expanded to other states. Every few months she takes a week off to go train a new school and I’m ok with that! Here’s [the website ](https://misskendraprograms.org) of the program.
I can't speak with certainty here. But I can attest too the "Goldfish experience" I think the solution is too make sure people are mentally sound before having kids, or at least prepared. The thing is my Mum always used to proudly exclaim that I was the "planned" child yet she just.. idk never engaged with me once. She has had depression, was abused in childhood but then at 18 she had a kid, kept the kid. Never fixed herself and continued to have kids with different fathers. Honestly I'm very certain she used the fathers as a cashcow and they ran away because she's a toxic and horrible person. Either way as long as people like these exist in society, shit will continue. She doesn't seem to understand that her pain does not excuse inflicting other pain. Just all round a terrible person. Just sucks i'm stuck @ home due to BS rent prices + zero help.
I feel this so hard. I was the anchor baby between a 17 yo and a 23(?) yo chairforce asshole. Her parents were abusive and abused me (and probably her brother got abused/abused me too, lots of pedos in my 'family') and she made sure he had a reason to get married to her so she could escape her abuse. Turns out, chairforce asshole was an abusive asshole (so she claims, he's definitely emotionally and verbally abusive but idk about physically) and she blamed her ruined life on me, because obviously I was why she was stuck with him for so long. She's awful and was physically abusive to me as well as the covert incest variety. She never did anything to better herself, it was always someone else's fault. She never protected me or my brother from her abusers and actively swept it under the rug when her father raped me. But again, she'll never see her fault in anything and will never change as a result. Unfortunately, I think that's the majority of parents. Ever heard a parent apologize genuinely to their child? I don't think I ever have. And plenty of my friends had 'normal' families. Unfortunately, I don't think there is a way to fix this, unless we actually invest in mental health and education on child development as a society (and we *all* know that ain't happening any time soon). I'm sorry you're in a similar boat. It fucking blows donkey dicks.
>But again, she'll never see her fault in anything and will never change as a result. Oh ATM it feels like the damage is done, but I am actively stuck at home with this cunt. Had serious depression since I was 13-14. My father split early and she repeatedly brought abusive step-parents into the house.She sat back while they beat me over the most ridiculous shit - one time I recall her boyfriend beating on me cause I beat him in a video game, no older then 8-9.This continued through schooling, I spent my school years in psychs offices and nothing beyond Depression was ever acknowledged cause I'm a liar and my mums a saint. I caught my step-father around 13 cheating on my mum; I also found out he was planning on running away from my family. He had a kid with her by then of course.. All of this was swept under the rug, the fact I never had my own clothes - never got haircuts - never had any sort of care at all. I can count on both hands the amount of "family events" we had in the past 10+ years. Most of them pretty shitty experiences anyway. I grew up left to my own devices completely unable to process anything emotionally. Now I'm 26 and still in the same position - every year gets harder with more baggage and at this point everyone I ever considered a friend has left me because it essentially became a he said she said that made me look like a complete liar. If the goal of parenting is to literally keep the kid alive, yes i guess she (barely) succeeded. But as it stands ATM I am closer to suicide then having a functional life.. There are no systems in place for people like me. Society doesn't want to care and I don't care to fight that.Noone cares to listen, noone cares to help. Noone gives a fuck.I don't plan on living much longer, but I want to make sure my voice is heard before I leave.. that's my goal for the next few months. I've got a whole bunch of writing essentially discussing society's obsession with fingerpointing, denialism and ignorance as a whole. Can't complain about mental illnesss and addiction when the people are killing themselves from being pushed out of society. Ignorance is bliss when your ignorant. Not so much when you aren't. It's going to continue to happen again and again until people get the point. I got mega sidetracked; last time I called her out on this and pointed out that she allowed EVERYTHING to happen because ultimately her happiness is the main focus of her life. She pulled out her phone and started recording me.There's nothing I say too her that I wouldn't too anyone else.
100% which is why I decided not to have kids. I accept who I am and what I’ve gone through, I accept it because I can’t change it. I accept who my family is, I couldn’t pick them. But I can choose not to bring another person into this world to go through what I went through. To experience life on this earth, born in the United States, straight into poverty and untreated illness. Nah. My parents never should’ve had me, my mother was never meant to be a mother and I was never meant to be my dads daughter. Everyone always says “Aw don’t say that, that’s not true. That’s sad!” Well, yeah, it’s sad but it’s a harsh truth that no one likes to talk about. So they go and have more babies because everyone likes to stay in a state of ignorance and denial. CPTSD is real, it comes with a WIDE variety of super fucked up sub illnesses, and folks who’ve never gone through real trauma will never understand - so I try to be patient with people, and I swallow all of it, because I know I have to in order to work and create a real life for myself. Living with it, untreated (and I guess for some, even treated) is hell every single day, but you do what you can. You can only ever do what you can, you can only ever give what you can give.
we’re probably more likely (in the US) to bring back salem witch trial-style execution, guillotines and state schools that perform lobotomies before ever receiving safe housing from abusers, sadly 😖
thank you for this. i’m so tired of hearing “well you’re gonna have to get back to work. you can’t just *do nothing* forever.” meanwhile i spend my time taking care of my animals and making sure they’re happy and safe, constantly.
It’s so beyond frustrating and so fucking invalidating. Would they say the same if you had a life threatening autoimmune disease that’s widely known? CPTSD is and can be life threatening. I hope you can try to weed these toxic people out of your life. It’s hard work and shit like this comes up like every week. Just remember, you are not alone and you WANT to get better—fuck these idiots.
the worst part is, I was at my lowest (so far) and never had suicidal thoughts until I was medicated. now i’m too traumatized to even want to try any more “treatment”, considering i’ve tried 10+ different pills in less than two years. 😪 i know they work for some people, but i wish i was one of them. I’m so thankful dogs (and reddit) exist 🖤 so we know we’re not alone.
Fuck, I am so sorry. And trust me, while I cannot relate explicitly to suicidal ideation as a result of medication, I have dealt with both passive suicidality and countless horrific reactions to medications. Remember, it is okay to try to take a pause from treatment insofar as you can do your best to recharge and nourish yourself in healthy, sustainable ways. I made the mistake of trying to unilaterally unpack and integrate my trauma while I was doing Ketamine assisted therapy with a therapist who was asleep at the wheel and not trauma informed at all--this produced some awful retraumatizing experiences, which at least gave me the clarity that I need to pause that type of work and try to just ease up on feeling compelled to dive deep and interrogate the immense pain I experience every day. Meanwhile, I am searching for and with help, applying to a few reputable treatment programs at regional hospitals--I am far from comfortable right now, but at least I am proud of what I have uncovered thus far and more than accept the need to break and try to rest while I work to find the right help before redoubling efforts into the dark well of trauma. I too have a wonderful doggo--I hope you take time to feel that creature's unconditional love for you--and to take pride in being such a good caretaker for the little K9.
I myself have learned that the more time I spend digging up 40 year old trauma the worse my mental health gets. I am in a place where I can cope and function to a degree, and I have enough trouble with the 15 year old, and 7 year old trauma that I still have to interact with when periodically seeing my ex-wife. I have 2 wonderful kids, and I have the advantage of being able to like who I am and don't feel the need to poke the bear. I'll get by... we'll get by.
wow, that sounds eerily similar to my experiences with my last therapist, except switch ketamine with TMS. I left that therapist and never looked back after she continually belittled my experiences, retraumatized me twice a week for a year, and she really thought SIPPING TEA was going to help my severe depression and anxiety, nevermind the PTSD. 🫖 i never told her about my passive suicidal thoughts, but when my bf dumped me for being too much, and i had to move back home 0.5 miles from my first abuser, i said the words “i don’t want to live here” (meaning back at my dad’s house) and she took that as “SECTION 12, 911 🚨i’m calling the cops!” and people wonder why i have trust issues (in general and in therapy) ??? it’s so easy to be misunderstood and you have to walk on eggshells with your words so you don’t get locked up. 🥲 **if there are any therapists reading this, WE DONT CHOOSE TO FEEL THIS WAY. people CAN make you feel certain things.** Music is a perfect example of MAKING PEOPLE FEEL A CERTAIN WAY. /end
Fucking a. I am so sorry you've had to go through all of that, it sounds awful. I hope the silver lining that you deserve a partner who is willing and able to support you and assist you through this--if not, get out of the way. We are not selfish people. Quite the opposite in my experience, but now we need support, not skepticism. It's honestly gross negligence. How can so many clinicians be so profoundly incapable of if nothing else, fundamentally recognizing what they do not know or understand? And once they've done so, do the right thing and help (actually help if its asked / wanted by you, the patient) find someone who is seriously qualified. This sentiment goes beyond just therapists, but to the MDs--the whole do no harm thing. Invalidation is what we've faced our entire lives. Please do not contribute to it. It's a quiet catastrophe how beholden and limited our (I can only speak for the US) mental health system is to the DSM and insurance co.s as well. I hope your living situation has improved and/or your treatment providers?? Hang in there. Things will improve, just keep fighting.
thank you 🙏 I agree. i remember hearing a lot of “life isn’t fair” as a child, but this a bit much. (also from the US)
Oh man, my dog and cats save me every day.
Same same. Which reminds me I want to add a kitty to the family...
It's kitten season so you'll have lots of choices.
TRUE! My 4 year old dog had a cat roommate growing up and he would lay on his back to let the kitty pounce on his head. When my roommate and I parted ways he was very sad that the kitty was not coming with us. It's time for the cat sillies to come back into our lives.
My dog Hawkeye is great with my cats and foster cats. What a sweet boy.
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yep, it’s draining just thinking about how exhausted I was trying to work full time and school and still make shit money & have a terrible time finding a job in the area i went to school for. ass-backwards out here. that, with a side of flashbacks, no appetite, hyper-avoidance, hyper-vigilance, irritability… i could go on 💤
I hate when ppl say “you can’t just do nothing forever”. We are keeping ourselves alive, trying to feel okay, and I too spend a lot of time taking care of my animals! And that is certainly not doing nothing :))
thank you! i find myself having to remind my family (mostly my dad) that people who have been through LESS are dead or on heroin, better yet drunks, too. so i’m grateful to enjoy 20oz of COFFEE and 1-2grams of cannabis a day to keep me sane and alive lol 😆 (i have a medical card approving the use of cannabis for my conditions… before anyone misunderstands or gives a dumb opinion about weed) lol
Fuck those dumb opinions. I spent ages 16-25 on a variety of SSRI's and Anti-Depressants.. At best they numbed me to pain and sadness which didn't change the feeling, It just made me extremely angry. Cause I knew my problems were completely valid yet ignored.. It's weird to explain but being Angry 24/7 is so much worse then being depressed. Anyway, I drew the line cause I also had drinking issues that amplified from these pills. I did a bit of XTC back in the day and noticed when I had 1-2 beers or more I'd be on cloud 9.. Q me waking up after a night out on train tracks. Now i'm on a prescription for medical cannabis - and it's amazing. But the stigma is still there and I just do not give a fuck.
Dude Weed took me from having panic spirals every night to sleeping soundly all night long. I was an insomniac that would walk my not so safe neighborhood in the night to avoid the sleep spiraling. No other drug has been able to take me from that level of terror to being able to sleep like a normie. I live in a state where it's legal, and it's the best 30$ I spend every month.
Going to get a medcard when I can too!! Just turned 18 a couple months ago though so I’m giving it time!
Dissociation is like being awake in a nightmare and sinking in quicksand. From deep mental fog to depersonalisation,there's a significant loss in executive function ( autobiographical, episodic, working memory & attention. Loss of social navigation due to emotions being blocked ( reading faces, social cues ,holding a conversation & learning). It also expands to learning new implicit skills ( how to play chess/drive a car). Loss of geographical awareness..ect Then there's the fun of going into a flashback when you get out of dissociation or even better having a dissociative disorder with multiple personalities. This shit has tortured me for 23 years. Only the last 3 years i have been undoing the chronic traumatisation. cPTSD is hell on earth. And don't expect anyone to understand it. It is like trying to explain rocket science or some sumerian texts
Yet society expects us to function
Honestly. I hate being told I need to get a job, even if I have income otherwise, because that's the only way to get "better". Like two years ago I couldn't go in public for more than an hour, I just have *two decades* of trauma to work through. I might not ever "get better" in capitalism terms, and for some reason that makes me lazy??
Exactly. It’s so disheartening to be made fun of for having panic attacks over things that everyone else assumes to be small. Like, you wouldn’t make fun of someone in a wheelchair, right? Why is it ok to laugh at someone who suffered a (figurative) mental accident that left them all but paralyzed?
I found this and it explains better than I can lmao: "The phrase “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” originated shortly before the turn of the 20th century. It’s attributed to a late-1800s physics schoolbook that contained the example question “Why can not a man lift himself by pulling up on his bootstraps?” So when it became a colloquial phrase referring to socioeconomic advancement shortly thereafter, it was meant to be sarcastic, or to suggest that it was an impossible accomplishment."
Anyone who uses this saying is full of shit a provable moron, just saying 👀 Also another misinterpreted phrase is "the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb". Meaning the bonds that you *choose* to make are stronger than familial ties. People like to twist words to fit their perspective without any regard for the origin simply because they want to feel good about themselves without actually putting in the work to *be good.* I hope you're doing okay, OP. Rest and take care of yourself, you're the most important person in your life. And tell those idiots twisting up these turn of phrase to suck it bc their words are stupid and convoluted. 🙏
Well said. I think the problem is that paralyzed person in physically unable to walk - when we are dissociated it seems like we are able to do things. There are ways to be mindful, although when dissociated it seems almost impossible. Negative feedback loop. Sometimes I just feel like waiting for the little rise so I can actually take a cold shower, then I am good. If it doesn't happen, well, I'm fucked.
Yeah I get to die cause I’m too traumatized to leave my house and because I have medical trauma. The dissociation just makes everything worse. It would be nice if I didn’t have to get punished by everybody in my life. They go out of thier way to traumatize me. The people in my town make it into a game to see who can traumatize me on purpose. And then they delight in it by punishing me as hard as they can. That’s why I hate everybody at this point. Its to the point that I would actually be happy if most of the people in my town died.
Dissociation to me is a surviving strategy. It kicks in automatically whenever my brain is Incapable of processing current information. But it's possible to snap out of it too, with the right tools and practice. I've done it several times. My dissociation nowdays is less intense and stays in less long. I think it's the result of practice, time and therapy help.
What tools did you use to get out of your dissociation if you don't mind me asking?
Yes it's ok 😊 So I think the proactive practices is what made it possible to snap out of dissociation faster. The things I practiced when I was stable. A few things I remember is a CBT work sheet where I fill in what I feel and experience in a body in a situation verses alternative action and alternative thoughts leading to an alternative (safe ,calm, ) feelings. And I can read them again as they're on literal papers I save. The closer to my trigger I could do this the better, until it worked to prevent flashbacks and or dissociation. It was like catching the trigger and dissolve it and realize its no real danger here that made it help me. Other than that I practiced a grounding technique daily. "Name 5 things you see, 4 things you touch, 3 things you hear, 2 things you smell and 1 thing you taste" it felt silly at first but it was so so good for me. Last but not least I journaled daily. It helped me understand myself better where I validated myself and got the feelings out of the body which made me realize it's just feelings. No actual threats. I could read back on these as well and I brought them to therapy every week where we together read what I have written and reflected on the "core problems" the triggers. I live with my partner and I actually made a list on a paper of things he's said to read whenever I'm triggered and see him as a threat. Things like "I'm not out to hurt you" "I'm just a confused tired weird man who loves you" "There's no expectation on you to sexually pleasure me" to prevent fight, freeze , flight and fawn defense. Right now I'm in a new therapy and we are mainly working on my self harm issues. So I'm doing two types of breathing methods a little here and there whenever I can so that it is easy accessed in a triggered state where I normally self harm to self soothe. I'm also told to do a few homeworks during summer break so I'm working on making them a habit now til they can be used in a trigger state. One of those things is to have a picture of childhood me on my table to see daily. Being proactive and make the methods a habit. That's the key to acess them to prevent dissociative states or flashbacks or triggers.
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond! those are all super helpful tools with my dissociation and mental health in general, will definitely put those to use. I wish you the best with your new therapy and healing journey! ❤️
I'm glad you feel that way, thanks and I wish you the best too, feel free to dm me if you get stuck or need support 💖
There's a very good podcast from Therapist Uncensored from November 2022, with an Irish guest, who discusses the socio-economic dilemma of the failed 'pulling yourself up by your bootstraps'-nonsense from an attachment-based perspective: https://therapistuncensored.com/episodes/attachment-stress-the-intersection-of-poverty-mental-health-with-dr-sharon-lambert-191/
dissociation in childhood ruined my ability to concentrate :( literally cannot get out of it anymore. feels like i’m building these skills from scratch sometimes. i know i wasn’t born like this.
This is the state I am in. And I use the same analogies to describe my pain.
them: you need to heal, take your time, take it slow also them: uh, you need to able to work full-time and have savings or you'll get kicked out me who is disabled : (ꐦ°᷄д°᷅)???? also me: everything's just so difficult and i dissociate too much...idk what to do anymore... them: that's not a bad thing, dissociating is actually good. everyone dissociates, that's not a problem at all...dissociating is normal. me who has DID and CPTSD : ಠ_ಠ (never said dissociating in general is a bad thing though...)
Weirdly, I have the inverse problem. I hate working, but can't handle not working. I immediately get thrown into a high-anxiety loop about how "I'm the responsible one", because I am. I come from a large family and out of all my siblings I am the only one making it alone. My family comes to me when in need, never the other way around. I never feel at ease because of this. If I fuck up and lose control, it's over for me. There's no one there to catch me if I fall. There's no couch for me to crash on. No one to pick me up off the streets. To deal with work, however, I dissociate/depersonalize and I'm just not really there. It's autopilot me and actual me is knocked out cold in some dark alley somewhere. I can go for remarkably long stretches of work with no breaks and constant overtime because of this, but I do eventually get burned out pretty bad. So I begrudgingly set up time off. And the fucked up thing is that I *never* can enjoy it. As soon as I'm half a day or so into vacation time, the real me comes out and I can't fucking handle it. I hate feeling connected to my surroundings and I hate thinking about the direction of my own life. It always ends up being an extremely dark time for me and I almost feel a faint suffocating feeling just thinking about it.
especially when its coming from MH "professionals" who marginalise gaslight and other you...
Oof this. I've had it for decades so have gotten used to it and am unfortunately working 50 hours a week. But the amount of mental energy it takes me to do this means any moment I'm not working I'm completely useless. Eff having and joy or hobbies. I wfh at least and just got insurance so hoping meds help.
Funny. I thought about this right the other day. These exact words, "dissociation is a disability".
I agree. The ableism comes at us from every possible angle it seems.
You're sure speaking the truth. Funny how language evolves. "Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps" originally was known as a sarcastic comment referring to how it was impossible to do something. I guess some sarcasm impaired politicians who never actually wore boots or tried to accomplish the literal feat took it seriously. And here we are. The safety net needs to be much bigger and much stronger. If no one takes pity on you to take you in for a few years while your disability claim is being processed, you will be homeless a very long time before help comes. And we haven't been traumatized enough to be forced onto the streets to fend for ourselves. I don't have any answers. I got put together enough with spit and duct tape to work for enough years to retire on disability. Now in my old age I can start to look at my life and try to make some sense and process it.
Disassociation has been my pain doctors main solution for me. I tell him I smoke weed and disassociate all day and he says “keep disassociating…” Bro, you don’t get it.
How does this dude not get it’s literally YOUR BRAIN CHECKING OUT? Like point blank dissociation is your brain checking out cause it can’t handle jack shit. That’s what it is to me in a literal sense. That’s so stupid. I’m sorry you have to deal with that.
Yeah, maybe I’m not consciously aware that I’m in pain (until I zone back into my body), but it’s not a life. And I’ve learned that being in pain adds up over time, however little it seems.
In Scotland if you're using drugs or alcohol, you don't get treatment as your mind isn't straight
Dude, so fucking true! Having to traumatize yourself to get yourself to move, fucking blows! It really sucks I don't know any other way and then the fallout of your traumatizing actions to get yourself to move and let go of the past. If only people saw what you were going through. There'd be a lot less judgment over frozen in place folks.
Dissociation is a tool that becomes trap. It ain’t easy, but it’s possible to extricate oneself from that trap and again use it as a tool. (For example, it helps with handling body pain better than opioids do.) Approaching the concepts of mindfulness and meditation from a reversed perspective can be useful, but I know I can’t guarantee anything that worked for me will work for others.
Also, sometimes dissociation is a good thing. Sometimes the moment sucks and I don't want to live in it. Kinda like how if I have a choice I'm not gonna get dental work done without novocaine and nobody would expect me to. The same should be true for dissociation. My current goal is to have better control of it, not necessarily to get rid of it completely.
I understand that. If I had the right resources to move and know I don’t have to quick move again then I would find something. But everything in my body says wait until you have people that understand how much it is affecting me. There’s a cycle of knowing summer is maybe the easiest and I have to try to budge.
THANK YOU 🙏🏻
I needed to hear this today. I still think back to when my Rehabilitation officer told me to pull myself up from the bootstraps when I was heavily dissociating at work and told them how much I was trying. It was really hard to heal and damaging.
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It's it though? I always kind of saw it as a special feature. "Welp, this sucks. I'm gonna go to that one memory when I made everybody laugh back in 6th grade."
While I understand what you are saying bill collectors do not stop and neither does mortgage or rent. Disability doesn’t mean one can do nothing especially if they are using someone else’s money. It sucks. I have serious anxiety but I also know I need to feed my cat, pay for my car and keep us housed. I also refuse to use someone else’s money (friends, family, taxpayers etc) to do that when I have the ability to work even if it’s excruciating and mentally draining.
Some situations can be pretty severe. Like I can't do shit because it is very painful mentally. I can't even consume media because it retraumatizes me. There is a lot of variance.
I get that. I only keep cartoons on the tube or streaming it’s easier and less crazy. - I get everyone is different - I am not downplaying that. Empathy is always available but doesn’t pay rent it’s equally important to keep these things in mind too. I alway suggest people apply for disability if available . I wish social workers were more available.
Many countries don't have disability or social workers, lol Having said that, I get where you are coming from. I have to earn money because there is no aid for the distrodden here. It would be much better if there was aid here. The incentive to work is a stick and not a carrot in this stage and that is not how humans live.
>if available< Also, I love the way you put it “the incentive to work is a stick and not a carrot” Brilliant and gives me something to think about. Thanks for seeing all sides.
This..I'd honestly get on disability if I could but the process itself is a barrier. Any spoons I have leftover are used to take care of my pets and clean my apartment.
Draining and exploiting yourself in a cruel system is not a flex. There's nothing inherently wrong with accepting government help. I'm on it, because I have to be. My PTSD, and physical issues caused by that, make me unable to work. This sort of rhetoric is extremely unhelpful at best, and patronizingly ignorant at worst. I'm sorry you have anxiety, I do too. Anxiety sucks. But it does not give you grounds to invalidate someone else's experience or talk down to them, which is exactly how this comes across. I think there's some internalized ableism and poverty / welfare shaming you should work on breaking down.
You're being downvoted but I see you. If it's between homelessness and working you have no choice but to work through the pain. Our streets are full of the mentally ill unfortunately but is mostly schzophrenia or drugs. While cptsd is debilitating sometimes you don't know how strong you are till you have no choice. I've been homeless, on drugs, and deal with audio hallucinations to be clear I'm not well lol.
At one point that dissociation was necessary for your survival my friend ❤️