i genuinely have no gage of how much trauma the average person goes through in their life mostly bc people dont talk about it and i always wonder if the amount of things ive gone through is normal or if my childhood was actually fucked up

How to find one? I've plenty access to therapists, but the Behavioral Health Resources in my area be clueless, and unable to aid, let alone recommend or find useful aid.

Hey, I have a huge problem.
I’m insanely insecure, I get jealous when I see other girls pretty (don’t judge me pls) and I hate when I see my man staring at women this made me sooooo devastated like I cry all the time about that thing, the problem is that I’m not ugly, everybody compliments me, but I don’t have the confidence to stop being jealous of other girls or about my bf pls help.

Hi everyone! My gf is currently in therapy for trauma. She is suffering from feeling overwhelmed and "icky" between therapy sessions. Her therapist taught her tools to cope with these situations (like butterfly tapping) but she struggles a lot using them whenever she is alone. Did anyone have similar experiences? What helped you in these situations?

Alright guys my dad often taunts me, everyday I get three-four taunts for sure, could be way more than that on days, even after studying all day....I am treated like crap, he says I waste food, I waste money, I waste his resources, and that I am a waste.... today things had been piling up for a week...I often do SH, but I had been clean for like a week, today I got the urge, instead of doing that I took some objects that would not break if thrown and threw them across the room, dad came, said lots of stuff, swore at me a lot, then said meri koi aukaat nai hai etc etc, said he would throw me out of the house and well lots more, my brain froze when he was saying all this, I badly SHed after that...I jjst wanted to ask, is this normal behaviour and did overreact (I am 18 years old in class 12 btw)

Okay, I won't get into what happened. I'd be going on for ages, otherwise. If anyone is curious about it, I can tell them in the comments.

A few years ago, I had a very traumatic experience that lasted the guts of a year. What complicates it more is that I also kind of took in other people's experiences, and feel upset and angry on behalf of other people it impacted, I know a lot of people who went through it and see various versions of it, anything from horror stories to people who had positive experiences or romanticized it.

If you name a therapy, I've done it. I've done various medications, the stellate ganglion block, tried "life hacks" like chewing gum, humming, sleeping better, but basically, I have very bad intrusive memories from that period and of stuff I saw online from other people's experiences. I'll be getting, like, 15 or 20 an hour and EMDR made it worse, TMS did nothing, I hate how a lot of therapy has kind of assumed that my experience made me expect something and how proving the expectation wrong (i.e., "This made me weak") is what will fix it. The truth is that it's much more mundane, and I simply hate how these memories keep popping up. All the fucking time.

It doesn't even always have triggers. It simply appears. I'll be getting up, going to bed, going about my business, it is ALWAYS fucking here. I try ignoring it, not checking it, not following up the thoughts, nothing. Thought interruption doesn't work.

A few years in, I'm incredibly frustrated. It's been going on far too long and I've just about had it. I had plans but can't even enjoy them without these memories ruining them, I simply need the thoughts to fucking stop.

Anyone know like, some miracle cure ideas that worked for them?

I have anxiety & ptsd. I spent a brief (6 months?) time semi homeless while I hid from someone abusive and violent. I had some money but not much, and a car. At times I got condiments from fast food places and that was part of my food. At times I ate plants in a forest. I did also have some regular food, but it was sporadic how much. I don't consider this a very long time to be semi-homeless (half living in car, motels or camping), but it was a very intense time.

I think this has played a role in my overspending on food, especially convenience or processed food, when anxiety and stress hits in my current life. Even though those situations are in the past. I feel extra insecure at times of higher stress and want more comfort food & feel like I don't care how much it costs. It feels like an emergency.

When I have no outside stressors, I do well with eating healthy food. I also do quite well sticking to a budget.

I think when stress hits I get a fear about will there be enough food and what if I run out, even if the stressor is nothing to do with that. Paradoxically, this causes me to overspend because I comfort purchase.

What I've tried: Budgeting apps - do help unless I am hit from all side with stress. I used to use Chronometer which tracks food & nutrition and it actually did help me. But have not used it for quite a while. (So many things like this that have helped and then I get off track & just forget them) I half tried meditation, walking, affirmations which surprisingly did help a bit & journaling but am not consistent. I do see a therapist but so far this has not been a focus.

What I'm wondering about: Exercise, trying to join more social things to have some constant source of more reliable calm experiences, trying a different way of budgeting. I have no idea. I've watched people online food prep but I don't know if i could stick with it.

You cannot just forgive immediately, just like that. What would you be forgiving? First, you must feel the full extent of the pain caused, then become angry, hate, and only afterwards, if the choice commands it—forgive. Only then will it be true forgiveness.

The flexible mechanism of the psyche is structured in such a way that it creates a cohesive, positive image of what is happening, pleasant accompanying feelings, and a visual chronology of events, while hiding all the pain and horror in the subconscious and the body, freezing the trauma. When certain memories are replayed, it is important not just to admire the picture: one can delve into the experienced states, into the tangible feelings of that episode, and the answer will be hidden within them. There will be a reaction to the feelings brought up from the depths: for example, indignation or gratitude.

Hey. I'm 17. Since 1 & 1/2 months I'm in a mental hospital and a month ago I got diagnosed with a bipolar disorder. I got admitted because I told my therapist that I got myself two sugar daddys. Swarmed about them, about how great it was and how I finally got money for my drivers license. He admitted me to the clinic, against my will. I made that choice when I was manic, so I wasn't in the right state of mind. And since that talk with the SVU detective (they told me that man wanted to lure me in and use me for sex trafficking) the nightmares are getting worse. And I keep having those flashbacks where I hear their voice, feel their touch or even see them.

So... am I traumatized?

Or whats wrong with me? ...At the end I gave them permission.

Possible TW for sexual abuse and being strangled

Is it normal for me to have such strong responses to some situations? For an example, if I am laying down on the sofa with someone near me and they even slightly lean towards me or raise their hand I uncontrollably start screaming and flailing because I'm scared they'll touch my crotch. Even though the person has never done such things and as far as I remember nothing like that has happened to me. My friend thought it was strange when she was sitting near my legs and raised her hand to reach for the remote and I started screaming and kicking at her. Same with when I was laying on a bed and my little sibling literally just walked past. She didn't even raise her hand, just walked past me and I started screaming and wailing and nearly fell off the bed.

Or I have strong reactions sometimes when I think someone could strangle me. For an example I was spending the evening with some people I knew well, I leaned back in my chair because I was a bit tired and thought I'd get some shuteye. I uncontrollably jerked awake, everyone was very confused because I was hyperventilating and shielding my neck. I also sometimes have had dreams of people strangling me, especially if I perceive that person to be violent or otherwise scary.

So I do have a few problems, with my dad. He's not a bad person but I do have some resentment with me. I want to heal, because it's starting to come up in different situations in my life, like relationships. Can someone help?

Let me start with at the moment I'm experiencing pregnancy insomnia and I'm on early maternity leave. I try to fill my time with hobbies and exercise however in the country I live in currently I'm put on curfew at this stage of my pregnancy. I'll be moving back to a state in the US where I had a lot of great experiences, I have family and a couple close friends there however I also had a good amount of life learning not so great experiences. About four to five years ago I was bullied at a job. A couple months after I was in a tight financial situation and asked someone if I still needed to pay them the full amount for something ( I DID pay them back) that person freaked out and assumed I wouldn't pay them back. I still have proof in my phone that I did in Fact pay them back and feel like I should always keep that document. I got fired from the place where I was being bullied for simply not being liked and it kind of haunts me lately knowing I can run into people I used to work with. I have an amazing husband who I love more than life and I'm pregnant with a baby girl and want to teach her confidence and kindness, I am grateful for my life and it's way better than it was back then in so many ways. I also at the that time remember starting off the year pretty well and thinking I was living a great ambitious life but I truly believe bad luck and timing took over. I consider myself a decently confident person, maybe everyone or most people experience something like this type of bullying or hard times in their. Maybe not? Am I alone in this weird struggle?

So, I just turned 31, and I've been thinking a lot about things that have gone on in my life.

My parent's were drug addicts when I was born, my mother being 15 and an illegal immigrant. Eventually my foster dad met my mother, and after a while of them being the usual junky parent's, my foster dad had enough and took them to court and gained custody. My mother to this day is absent, and my father died 10 years ago but he got sober, got a job and created a fantastic relationship with me.

He felt like a best friend but he fell ill to Hep C.

As he got sick he started hating me and convinced my best friend at the time that I was going nowhere. That kind of sucked.

Come highschool, I met my best friend Dominic. Unfortunately a couple years ago, he jumped off a bridge. A few months after that, I had been acting lile an idiot at the bar and hit on some girl and her boyfriend held a grudge. The following weekend he tried to murder me, and ended up stabbing me 15 or more times in the face, head and arm. Thankfully I was able to subdue him and get away. The cops showed up and dragged me out of my house, naked in the winter while I was bleeding out because he instantly called the police and said I had attacked him in some sort of rage. (Not true. Im 5'3 130lbs. Im NOT fighting someone 160lbs, and substantially taller than me. 😂) After the charges were dropped, my foster grandma who was the only woman in my life died and I had to take care of her for the whole process, about 9 months later, my other best friend who was living with me, and I was keeping away from drugs got caught up with his old friends and overdosed. That was 3 weeks ago. All of this is going on while my foster brother who is 6 foot and 200lbs of autism and schizophrenia has been terrorizing the house, smashing thjngs, kicking in my door, throwing dumb bells at me.... All of this is going on, and I dont know if this is just normal life, if I just don't care anymore, like somehow I avoided any of the mental problems youd expect with some of these events, or is this just the beginning? Is it possible im just a ticking Time Bomb? Is it possible I havent even processed anything yet?.. Why do I feel fine? Like none of this ever happened?

I was recently in my first ever car crash, i was in a car with my boyfriend and 2 friends and we ended up hydroplaning on a big rain puddle on a motorway and spun in circles and hit the railing separating the roads.

Thankfully nobody was injured and we didn’t hit another car but now a few days later when I close my eyes it sometimes feels like I’m back in the car and hearing everyone and I just end up crying and having a hard time falling asleep.

I was just curious if a car crash like that could be enough to cause trauma in a person even if no one was injured or anything like that

I have major unresolved trauma from high school, bullying and frightening moments in my life that revolves around violence and confrontation.

I feel like many of the people within the Internet space and political side of things would use these types of people to indoctrinate them into certain politics that revolves around hate disguised as purpose.

Even though I’ve had all of this happened to me in my life, I don’t feel like I hate people.

But if I ever approach to do something like that, what’s a good way to negate?

I’ve been noticing I’ve been called a narcissist by girls I’ve chatted too and dropped like a stone after , been called it so much I decided to look into it so I’ve been talking to Ai to look into it but I was hoping to get some human input.

So one thing I’m objectively attractive and intelligent and the second anyone does something that even slightly undermines me for example a girl choosing another guy over me my mind can’t take it and I think stuff like “ how the fuck could a bitch I only payed the slightest bit of attention to pick a pathetic prick over someone like me “ that’s the sort of internal monologue I have and it almost feels as if it’s an insult to my whole bloodline and everything I’ve worked so hard to get away from . My intrusive thoughts go crazy over such a little thing like that I fantasise about ruining their lives , torture and absolute submission to me , obviously I don’t intend on acting on it consciously but that’s where my mind goes the second I get slighted. And also since I’ve been getting lots of female attention after my glow up in appearance I literally don’t care about them I just like chatting to them getting them to love me only to drop them , I love the ego boost from them and having people obsessed and hooked with me it’s intoxicating so I keep doing it wether it’s ethical or not. Like I can’t explain it but sometimes I feel like a literal God among men but then one day I’ll snap out and think “ oh shit that was abit horrible” then I’ll be just proceed to do it again cuz I care more about them being hooked . That’s why I can’t settle with one girlfriend because I like having multiple people after me all the time it makes me feel good and it makes up for my childhood.

I won’t get into it but the AI thinks it’s “ overcompensation for the lack of power and self worth during adolescence “.
But yeah thought I would be blunt was hoping for some human input for a change.

TLDR I've been so stressed it's acting like a neurological condition or smth; is the only thing I can do chilling the best I can & waiting it out or is there some way to speedrun recovering from that kinda stress? (Sorry if it's written poorly; as you may guess from this and some of the stuff I mentioned, I'm having a hard time figuring out words and how to order them)

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I've spent a while doing the emotional labor when needed which is obviously exhausting (especially in such a volatile household), but my brother [who I've also ended the main carer for since I was like 14] has been insanely angry and rude lately for [seemingly] no reason and when I told my parents my grandma who's been over to help for a few weeks now lied for him and said I must've been confused (they believed me though, thankfully) even though I'd literally been defending her from him myself this entire time because when I don't she just shuts down and cries and ofc he gets like that for no reason so it's unfair to her n whatnot. But I've gotten so stressed over ts the past couple months like I started having auditory hallucinations until my grandma came over to stay a while and help but that only lessened it, I still hallucinate a bit. And a couple weeks ago, I started getting so stressed I'm having issues like confusing completely unrelated words (eg I confused jacket and blanket recently, and I keep typing or thinking entirely different words to that I'm actually trying to use [like "How are you" ends up "How are market" or something, the least major confusion was using "tight" when I meant "tied"], and I keep misreading words as entirely different things. I misread "request" as "meningitis" like a day or two ago and only realized because it didn't fit the sentence at all so I reread it. Right above it was the word "most" and I think I somehow combined and mangled them into that???), thinking/processing things way slower, I feel sluggish & I think my voice got a bit weird, I keep stammering and stumbling over my own words even when I plan what I'm going to say, I can hardly balance even when laying/sitting, I'm having trouble w remembering what I was doing & stuff and keep getting distracted more than usual, I keep having delayed understanding when people talk to me (I already have the "What'd you say? [answers question before they can repeat themself]" thing, but it's worse now, and instead of just not understanding the words but hearing them correctly I just hear pure gibberish that I can't decipher and I either somehow figure it out or the person has to repeat themself once or twice so I can understand), atp I either hit my head so hard I forgot and somehow have no head pain or it's the sheer stress (which, he got a lot worse a couple weeks ago, and this all began a couple weeks ago and just has been getting worse instead of better).

I talked with my parents about it a bit and mentioned wanting to at least sit in the shed whenever it's just me, my brother, and my grandma, to be away from them since atp I'm too offended by them both lying about what'd been going on to really care if they fight and bicker without my intervention, and they apparently didn't know how rough it was when they aren't here until that so they were surprised (mostly mom, apparently dad knew a bit because my brother told him some things himself but mom was completely unaware), so I was also told to try to stop picking up the emotional/social labor for them lol [and was encouraged to go to the shed {though was told to bring a chair and maybe a fan lol} when needbe]. Tbh I was surprised because it didn't seem like the sorta thing they'd care about/take seriously but they were shockingly kind about it. Idk what to do about the effects the stress still has on me though, I have OCD so I keep getting worried I'm having a stroke or aneurism or whatever even though ik it's most likely the stress, which ofc is not helping the stress much. Is the only thing I can do is try to chill & wait it out?? It's making daily life way more annoying than it needs to be

Someone else might need to hear it.

I can’t help but feel my CPTSD is my own fault. Every decision I make in life backfires. Looking back at my CPTSD (which has been diagnosed back to my childhood), this pattern has always been around, but every new trauma adds to the difficulty of making future decisions. I went through my heaviest trauma of all a couple years ago and it opened my eyes to the fact that every single decision I make is a poor one—with good intentions and even more careful decision-factoring each time, mind you, and still every single decision makes my life worse. Now, after the trauma of a couple years ago, what was already a difficult time making decisions with ADHD, it’s basically impossible. I’m paralyzed. The confusing part is I see people making objectively bad and/or irresponsible decisions on a whim and it always seems to pay off for them. I try to be discerning and mature in my choices, and still, all failure. No amount of thought nor calculation seems to help. Every decision, no matter how significant or minuscule, feels like I’m walking over hot lava, just one step away from falling in and adding more trauma to my collection.

If you can’t trust yourself to make decisions without getting entirely destroyed every time, completely fearing that any next decision will be the wrong one because it always, always is, well…there’s just no living.

ETA: I understand making no choices is still a choice, but I’m sure many people who have been through trauma understand that making this choice sometimes feels like the only choice (or at least the one that has the best chance of protecting you from further danger and pain). I don’t even think of the future anymore because I know no amount of working toward my positive dream life will keep all the devastating disappointments from coming instead.

my mom and step dad have been struggling alot and ive thrown up twice bc i greened out from trying to smoke to quit thefeeling of my parents stressing over bills, grocerys, lights, and i got an opprutinity today, my friend not saying names he said to me before testing i told him about my strugglign parents he said i can come with him to rob people with his gang of people for weed, money, whatever yk, ive already fucked my life up breaking into a home and getting assault charges i just wawnna help my mom im not a bad kid i just need advice

I dropped out of school and lost multiple jobs because of anxiety and trauma.

Recently I got fired twice from security because I couldn’t talk on the phone, or remember names faces or events.

Ive been told in order to break my anxiety I just need to force myself to go out.

And I don’t know, it’s like there are people I can function around.

But most “real people” (that’s just how I describe it) I simply cannot function around , they only make it worse the longer I stay and I don’t know why…

Maybe it’s because of Sensitivity? Trauma? Their Hostility? Being forced into situations I don’t understand or am not equipped to solve and being punished for it? 0 room for error or imperfection? My own insecurity?

I have seen statistics of how common childhood sexual abuse is, and it is honestly insane to me.

Specifically, though, I'm wondering about a certain dynamic: Is it really so common for children to be abused by an adult they know (or know-ish), rather than a stranger? And is it common for it to be a repeated thing, and not just a one-time incident?

No matter how you are sexually assaulted or abused, it is very bad and should have never happened. I do not mean that other ways of sexual abuse are lesser at all, but I am just wondering about this specific type. Is it really as common as the statistics say?

Sometimes it honestly feels like I'm a different species of human or like I got dropped into the wrong universe or something. I care so much about the things I care about and find so much meaning in them and I'm constantly looking at the people around me thinking "why are you not marvelling at the beauty of this things existence??". It's the same thing with injustice, I'm constantly looking around going "why are you not bothered by this??".

I've spent years looking for a place where I feel like I belong. I keep finding spaces that are one thing or the other. Either we only talked about trauma, or we never talked about it at all. Or it was too big and I got lost in the shuffle. I've always wanted somewhere small I could tell someone why losing my favorite game broke my heart, or why I get excited about dinosaurs, music, or the night sky, and have them actually want to understand instead me instead of trying to fix me. A place where people slow down before jumping to advice. Where curiosity comes before assumptions. Where we ask questions, reflect back what we hear, and build understanding together. Where people can be messy, take accountability when they hurt each other, repair, and keep growing. A place where understanding isn't something we hope eventually happens, it's something we build together. Somewhere we can support each other through the hard days and still laugh, geek out, and build genuine friendships. Because for me, those things have never been separate. They're both part of the same messy, beautiful person.

Lately I've been wondering whether I'm the only one who's been looking for a space like that, or whether other people have been wishing it existed too.

Does anyone else feel this way, or have you been looking for something similar?

Does anyone get angry at the idea of "getting better" or when professionals/people in life try to give you hope? I understand that my relationship with PTSD will continue to evolve, that it might not always take up as much space in my life as it does now. I've had PTSD for 13 years and have been working on getting better for 6 years. I've changed so much and while I am grateful and see the ways I am different, the fact that I have to manage this at all makes me angry. When people tell me it will get better I feel like they are giving me false hope.

When I'm told its possible I wont meet criteria for PTSD in the future the idea of that makes me angry not relieved. Not sure how that works and I see that it's a contradiction, all I want is for this to be gone and the idea that it could be much less impactful one day makes me upset. Anyone with PTSD understand this/experience anything similar?

Y me refiero a una ruptura que los haya dejado en cama, les haya desgarrado el alma y carcomido las entrañas. ¿Qué hicieron?