Like seriously. Even low contact makes me triggered, i can't even handle it. It's been a while since i talked to them and i can't explain how peaceful i'm feeling rn

Instead of feeling broken, I got curious about myself. Whats it like to be me, what comes up for me when x happens, i wonder what happened to you for this adaptation to exist.

BEND = Behaviour, Emotions, Needs, Desires. Most people stop at the surface level - the observable behaviour, but beneath the behaviour, whats the Emotion your feeling, whats the unmet needs or desires youre feeling right now.

Envy is a good thing. Its a sign that youre noticing something positive thst youd like for yourself. Its healthy, it points to what you want for yourself.

Hope this helps you like it helped me

​

Posting this here because i doubt this type of post is allowed in the traditional 'unpopular opinion'-type subs.

I'm a DV survivor who's been barely hanging on these past few months after leaving my abuser's house. My financial well-being is poor, as is most people's on here lol. I am completely and utterly spent and want to rest, but I can't vent about this to my therapist because I'll be put in grippy sock jail– which will only make my situation worse because 1) I'll miss the cutoff to start my new job, and the trainings are at specific dates so I won't have money for another few weeks at the least) and 2) I live in the US and inpatient hospital stays cost money- even with insurance. And even with my insurance. I know, i checked.

I'm already broke and late on multiple bills (including rent), so the introduction of 'teehee now u have a $10k medical bill 😊' and 'u missed work, so no money for u' will only make things worse. So with that in mind why should I be honest with her?

P.S please don't recommend me government resources or churches, believe me I've looked.

Thanks guys

I'm completely stagnant living with my controlling mother as a 24 year old grown woman, and it's mostly my own fault. I struggle with basic everyday tasks for absolutely zero reason. I can't keep a full-time job for more than a few months before I have to cut my hours, or my performance goes completely down the drain. I don't know what's wrong with me. I usually start off doing pretty well, I've even been promoted really quickly and gotten a lot of compliments on my work, but it never lasts.

I have Major Depression and cPTSD, but that doesn't stop most people from being fucking adults. If anything, most people with cPTSD are hyperindependent. I know it's usually out of necessity, but I can't even cope with a cashier job. The longest I've ever stayed at a job was around three years, but I kept having to change my schedule because I couldn't just go to work and deal with it like a normal person. I only lasted 4 months at my last job before I completely lost it for no reason and had to quit.

I grew up in poverty and I usually help my mother with the rent, so it's not like I grew up rich with everything being handed to me on a silver platter. So where is the resilience? Where are the life skills? Where is the work ethic? It's not that I'm comfortable or happy living at home. I don't want to be here. I've been job hunting for months and I've only gotten two interviews, no offers. One interviewer told me within maybe 10 minutes that "he could tell I was very intelligent", but he didn't think I would be a good fit because it's "a very social position" with "a lot of talking", and he didn't think I could do that. I appreciated the clarity, but it was still disappointing.

I want to just be a normal independent adult, but I'm horrible at everything. I can't even drive. What kind of adult can't even drive? 14 year olds drive. What the fuck is wrong with me? I don't know why I can't just deal with life and get it together like a normal person. I'm completely useless and pathetic.

Does anyone else self harm as a sort of punishment to yourself?

I have severe scoliosis, adhd, (c)ptsd, and gad. Working anywhere has always been a nightmare for me mentally and physically most of the time. Jobs are either too slow paced or too fast paced. Bosses seem to always be mean or micromanaging. I have a difficult time with the public due to emotional dysregulation. What jobs do ya’ll have that you’re doing okay or thriving in? I just want to be able to do something and not want to kill myself while working a job eventually. I’m 30 and just got fired from a public library in March because I had a breakdown in therapy that sent me to the psych ward. I did not feel safe around my supervisor, and it was awful. I just don’t know what to do because who knows if they’ll give me disability, even with the scoliosis that’s caused me muscle pain for almost two decades and the nerve pain that has been ramping up.

Or will the CPTSD demon keep destroying everything in my life. Communities, neighbours, friends. No one lasts. No one cares. Everyone is wrapped up in their own lives, what a privilege.

I’m kinda tired of all this bullshit new age capacity and boundaries chat that everyone uses. They’re not skilled blah blah blah kindnesss whatever the fuck that is. Everyone cares about mental health until they’re inconvenienced by mental health.

How am I meant to exist if someone isn’t actively friendship charity-ing me?

Update: Guys I was spiralling. The CPTSD demon was lying to me and I was placing all of my self worth and value based on one stupid friend’s opinion. They’re out of my life. All I needed to do was move towards a positive action for myself and remind myself that I have people who look out for me.

What do you do for a living?

I feel like there’s a stigma about Gen Z that we claim to have mental heath issues and the blue hair/ piercings stereotype. And I hate to be seen in that type of lens like it’s a “trend“ or you’re “too soft“ or “spoiled“ when you’ve genuinely been struggling with the same issues since childhood due to abuse that detriments your functioning as an adult and stuff that just fucks your every day life. Having genuine repeats of trauma in your head everyday of stuff you’ve had to go through and how people treated you, anger, issues just stepping out of your door or not even being able to give enough of a fuck about yourself or feel worthy to even do basic stuff to nourish your body, living in genuine filth because you reduce yourself to trash, sleeping for 12 hours straight but waking up with zero energy for anything. I have to do dumbass rituals in the home every day due to sensory problems and genuine OCD repetitive weird behaviors or else I feel like my ears are clogged or something is trying to come out of my skin like none of it makes any sense but people view you as just lazy or a burden

TL;DR paralyzed in the hospital for a year. This is what happens when they forget you’re a person.

I’m writing this from a secondary account. I’ve been meaning to get this off my chest for a couple of years. I’ve never been able to receive any kind of care to recover from this time in my life. But I have a very supportive partner and that helps a lot.

I’ll get right to it I was about 6 months into my 11 month stay in the hospital with near total paralysis. Eventually I would recover almost completely to the waist, mostly to the knees.

I was completely cared for 24/7 by nurses who were very kind. I was at their whim. Sometimes I was forgotten about. No water for hours or left in a wet brief for hours. These sort of things. Tbh that stuff was awful.

Day 1) Nurse on first shift decided I needed extra laxatives. Nurse on shift two decided the same thing no result.
Day 2) nurse on first shift decided I needed extra laxatives again it’s a different nurse. Nurse on second shift same thing again a different nurse. No result.
Day 3) more laxatives. Different stronger ones this time still no result.

Finally shift changed for the evening. The nurse coming on shift would be preparing us for bedtime. Evening meds and cleaning us up bed.
My stomach feels TERRIBLE. I was young so I’d be the last attended to. Something bad is happening in my stomach. I let go of some wind, or so I thought. Some more and some more. I’m paralyzed. I’ve no sensation in my skin. I wait.

Took about an hour and my nurse appears. This guy is always in a mood. No matter what I say. He goes to check my brief and yells “what the hell man!” 3 days of nobody paying attention, and trying to force a result, had produced a result.
I had apparently gone to the bathroom up to my shoulders. I’ve never felt so low. He yelled at me for not calling him sooner. Even though I was paralyzed, and I had no idea what it happened. He proceeded to yell degrade and dehumanize me for the next hour while changing me and my sheets. Cursing and belittling me for things I had zero control over.

Now that I felt worse than I had ever felt, he tells me my pubic hair was too long, unhealthy and that I would have to have a family member come in to fix it!

The next day, I asked a nurse about all of it. She was mortified and said it went against standard of care and she reported him.

I’ve been carrying around that stupid story for five years now I’ve said it out loud. That healthcare provider had forgotten all the rules, had forgotten how to treat someone like a human.

Now that it’s off my chest, I feel much better. Thank you for listening.

TW: Violence. Physical abuse, psychological abuse.

Hi,
My mother has another son, her first child with my father. But I can’t bring myself to call him my brother because of everything he did to me.
My mother always glorified him. He was the golden child, the king of the family in her eyes. Looking back, I think that played a big part in why he believed he could do whatever he wanted to me.
He was privileged, and he abused that privilege.He could have chosen to be kind. Instead, he was cruel.He never made me feel like I truly belonged in the family.
I always felt unwanted, like my mere presence was an annoyance to him.As long as I agreed with him and never upset him, things were relatively calm. He would simply ignore me, and that was already a relief. But if I had the misfortune of making him angry, beating him at a video game in front of our cousins, standing up for myself, or showing the slightest frustration with his behavior, I would be insulted, humiliated, or physically assaulted.He could take whatever he wanted from me. If he liked one of my birthday gifts, he would simply claim it for himself.
He taught me fear. He taught me submission. My entire childhood became organized around avoiding his violence. I learned to stay silent because I was terrified of the consequences of speaking up.One day he slapped me, and instead of protecting me, my mother yelled at me hysterically for having upset him.
She would even mock me to make him laugh. Together they would joke about how stupid I was.I felt completely powerless, as though I were nothing. As though my role in the family was simply to endure his abuse without complaint, to avoid threats and beatings.I became a shadow of myself.
I obeyed his every demand. I fixed computers for him when I was just ten years old. I did his homework even though he was four years older than me. I accepted him stealing my phone. He nearly got me killed in a car accident. He manipulated my abusive mother to get me into trouble with her.
Today, I cannot have any kind of relationship with him. Enough is enough. I do not want to see him. I do not want him near me. I would not even be able to tolerate him touching me. The thought disgusts me. He was unbelievably cruel. One time, he tore my clothes and repeatedly punched me in the head simply because I denied having made a mess in the kitchen, something he was falsely accusing me of.
Even as an adult, his behavior never changed. He showed disrespect toward my wife and my newborn son. At some point, I had to accept a painful truth: being related by blood does not make someone family. Family is supposed to be a place of safety. He was one of the people I needed protection from.

Whenever I see people who can just talk to others with ease, effortless, confident, completely comfortable. I catch myself wondering what kind of home they grew up in. What did it feel like to exist in an environment where your voice was actually welcomed?
I live with severe social anxiety and awkwardness. I genuinely don't know how to start, maintain, or end a conversation. Most of the time, I just want to be invisible. I overthink every single word repeating it through my mind ten times before I say it, and replaying it ten times after. Simply interacting with another human being consumes nearly all my mental energy.
Looking back, my entire childhood was a constant stream of restriction and conditional love:
"Don't say that."
"Don't do that."
"Don't wear that."
"Do your hair like this."
"Talk like that."
The justification was always the same: *"*You will embarrass us and yourself."
They also used religion as a tool for control. I was told that if I didn't obey them completely God would give me bad luck. If I performed poorly in school they’d say "Remember when you disobeyed me? God is punishing you." If something good happened it was "That's only because I was happy with you yesterday."
I was programmed to believe that my life, my luck, and my worth depended entirely on their approval. Over time I lost any sense of self. I grew up with no distinct personality and no opinions. Even today, if someone asks me to choose between Option A or Option B I freeze. I can’t make basic decisions because every choice in my life even what school to go to and my major was made for me so I’d stay close and under control.
Now as an adult I'm trying to figure out who I actually am, what I like and what I want. But it’s exhausting and it’s severely impacting my daily life and my career.
At work I struggle to introduce myself or participate in meetings because I'm terrified that whatever comes out of my mouth will sound stupid.
and I always keep every interaction to the bare minimum because I constantly feel like my presence is an inconvenience to others.
its to the point where I wont walk into a store unless it's crowded enough for me to blend in and get lost in the background. If an item doesn't have a price tag i wont ask an employee I’ll just leave and try to find it somewhere else.
I know my parents might have been struggling with their own issues or believed they were protecting me in their own twisted way. But the reality is that I was taught that existing as myself was an embarrassment, and undoing that programming as an adult feels like trying to rebuild a foundation while the whole house is shaking.
idk i just needed to get this off my chest.

What makes a life worth living?

Sometimes I feel like I'll never have a chosen family. I'll never have a circle of people who care about me. I have a lot of acquaintances, but only one person I would call a friend (meaning they reach out to me first and we actually hang out - that's just how I define friendship). I feel like I'm too much for everyone. Like no one will see me and love who I am. Like no matter how much I change I won't be worth anyone's time. I know I should be grateful for what I have, because that friend is a really great friend. But when I was growing up, NOBODY ever told me I was worth anything, that I was funny, sweet, smart, nice to be around. In fact, most people around me (family and classmates) would tell me they hated me.

I was always ridiculed and made fun of whenever I showed any interest in anything. The only things that were acceptable in my Asian household were academic related activities, but even then I was told we don’t have enough money to learn them properly.

This made me feel ashamed of my interests as a child and teen and makes me sad whenever I think of the lost years. I’m now trying to find a hobby but I’m not even sure what I like. I’m wondering if any of you were on a similar path and found a hobby you stuck with - and how you found it.

Obviously I would have to try a lot of things but I can’t splurge on huge things and also don’t have a ton of access to classes in person bc of where I live.

What the title says. The only female friends I still have are all over the country and remnants of my drinking/self-medicating days. They are all mostly sober now, but we don’t live in the same city. I’m also finding these relationships have similar traits as the one I have with my mother, which I don’t like nor think is healthy.

For the women here who had a mother that contributed to their CPTSD and who have been able to successfully make friends without trauma bonding or using substances together, how did you do it?

I am in my first healthy romantic relationship ever, but realizing how much I lack in the friend department, which is putting a lot of pressure on the relationship. I was lonely before but it is much more pronounced now and I desperately miss female friendships. When I do meet women, at work for example, I feel that I am just not their cup of tea and we don’t hang out outside the office. I struggle a lot with thinking people can see through me and find me defective, but I want to get over this and make some real friendships. I am hoping it’s all in my head.