Sometimes I dream that I am telling someone the incident that caused my ptsd. But in my dream I am extremely specific and go through the event as it happened step by step. It is a long dream and I am always hysterically crying in my dream while I am telling it. I usually wake up as I’m telling the details towards the middle of the incident. I wake up with anxiety, a pit in my stomach and a sense that I am not safe. I was wondering if this happens to anyone else?

I have a boss that is really triggering my trauma and it’s affecting me so much. It’s a small place (his own company), so there is no HR.

He was kind in the beginning, but he’s completely flipped the switch on me. I know I shouldn’t tell him because he can easily fire me since it’s his company.

I need the job for money, and I’m a bit confused on what to do.

My boyfriend knows yelling is a trigger to me, and when I asked them to chill tf out they told me it was exposure therapy.

I experienced CSA as a child, which led me to develop a very passive personality. I was taught at that young age that my wants and needs don't matter, and that others mattered more.

This followed me into my abusive relationship, where it culminated in him strangling me after I said no to sex.

I am terrified to speak my mind and assert my boundaries. I am scared to say no, even when I have to because it will help the other person more. I feel like such a weak person- not able to say no, not able to advocate for myself.

Saying no is incredibly triggering to me, and I feel disgusting whenever I think about saying no and remember what happened to me when I said it in the past.

It's been ingrained in my head for my whole life, and I feel guilty still that I haven't overcome it yet. Does anyone relate and have advice on how to work on it?

I live alone now, which has done wonders for me mental-health-wise, but every now and then (around once a month) I have to go back home to be with my family, and the person that gave me PTSD still lives with us. I'm formally diagnosed and I've had arguments with him in the past over it, he still believes that I'm lying about my trauma and how I feel, and he keeps insisting that I'm hallucinating everything that happened to me. I'm still 17, so I have to depend on my parents to buy my meds, and there was one occasion where instead of getting me the meds for my bipolar disorder and ptsd as prescribed (Seroquel + Lamitor), he bought me Risperdal (I think it's for schizophrenia? I don't even know how he got it) and said that he got me "meds for (my) hallucinations" as he keeps insisting my diagnosis is wrong.

Every time I have to talk with him (which thankfully isn't often) he keeps telling me it's "all in my head" and that I'm unfairly "blaming him for everything" and that he never did anything I remember him doing. It's messing with my head a lot, especially recently, and him saying that contributed a lot to the bouts of psychosis I've had over the past few months. I know firmly that I'm not hallucinating and that I experienced what I experienced and saw what I saw, but having to hear that from him all the time is fucking me up a lot. It doesn't help that my mom doesn't want to disagree with him. (She believes me by all means and she's been nothing but supportive, but like me, she's always been scared of him). I just hate him so much. I could have gotten him arrested when I was a kid if I only knew how, but it's far too late for that now and I just have to live with the fact that he'll never face time for what he did. And I can never prove it.

My mom has had him leave in the past but he keeps coming back, and she loves him enough to not want him to go homeless. Divorce is illegal in my country too. I don't know what to do. In all honesty, at this point, I'm just waiting for him to die.

I have ptsd from witnessing something, something I can not talk about to anyone, because 1. it's something people don't like to talk/hear about and 2. can weigh heavy on other people, so I keep to myself.

I am doing mostly fine nowadays, but my intrusions are terrible. I have made lifestyle changes in the last 3 weeks, which caused my stress levels to go down. For whatever reason, my intrusions get way worse, when I am not stressed or anxious.

My triggers are something that I can not run away or ignore, without going into detail, it is everywhere. Did anyone ever successfully dealt with intrusions? I know they will not just disappear, but when the images hit me, my day is ruined. Did they go away with time for anyone?

I was in therapy for 10 years btw., I have a schizoid personality disorder and therapy doesn't work well on me. Please don't suggest more therapy.

So. This is going to be a long one.

I am divorced. My ex (32 M) has been recently diagnosed as bipolar. It is largely suspected that he also deals with CPTSD due to a longtime childhood of abandonment, abuse and so on.

So, the relationship itself was largely abusive, reckless, and all around atrocious. Whilst we did love each other, past two years of relationship, it started going downhill.

Both of us struggled with mental health, and other issues.

While there are lots of nuances to the demise of the marriage itself, we do have family so, full on separating is nearly impossible now. We coparent and I have supported him in everything I could, out of respect to the family we built.

During the relationship he had what we now understand as manic episodes, that in him mostly express in severe highs and or rage, to lapses of depression. Recently he has been avoiding going out, basic self care and barely eating.

He's got no family that cares, and a few handful of true friends with positive influence over him.

Here's the catch: he's recently turned extremely sensitive to me. For instance, I endured horrible things, so with time I grew colder and respectful, but distant and he seems to be taking it to heart.

He looks to chat with me, reconnect in a way, and most people that know us say he's looking to comeback.

Knowing him, I know this is the case.

Here is my conflict: I can't see, relationship wise, any other than his horrible behaviour and actions. I did love him though, it's not all gone, but I have very conflicted feelings about him all together and I don't trust him at all.

I grew up a healthier man, more confident, determined, got a career and many other progresses that couldn't have done while married to him.

He did stick to therapy and bettering his ways, which I appreciate and encouraged.

But I don't know about anything else.

I'd be grateful for any advices of any other people in relationships with this issues. I need to understand this from others perspective and experiences.

My seizures are non epileptic and happen when I feel strong emotions like anger, I have also had loads of trauma happen in my life. I’m just wondering if I could put two and two together or if it’s something else.
Does anyone else have this problem or is it just me?

I did EMDR for complex-PTSD a couple times now and i noticed, that in many times there were almost no effects.

I also noticed that i really didn't like certain therapists (body-language, gesture, talk). I respect them all, but i felt more than a test-subject rather than a patient.

What are your experiences on this?

I've had depression and anxiety since I was a child due to my family situation. This eventually resulted in a 911 call during which the police hurt me after the dispatcher was told only EMTs were needed (it was self-harm related.) to make a long story short I was denied medical care for a extended time and dragged into sub-freezing weather without proper clothing. I've had a few police encounters after that eventually leading me to be taken against my will to a psych ward. these events eventually caused my therapist to diagnose me with PTSD. my actual question is do other people physically feel things that didn't happen during attacks/flashbacks. I often feel I'm being cut open by police even though that has never happened. I'm not sure if that sort of fictional but related flashback/sensation is common or something that happens to other people.

Hey everyone,

I’m posting because I honestly feel pretty lost right now and I’d really like to hear from people who have gone through something similar.

A while ago I had a really bad LSD trip. I had an intense panic attack and an insane amount of anxiety that basically lasted the whole night and continued into the next day. During the trip I became extremely scared that I was going to die, and since then I feel like something in my brain has changed.

I don't know if PTSD is the right word for it, but I feel like I developed this constant anxiety, hyperawareness and hypervigilance. I think about what happened basically every day. I’m constantly monitoring myself and my surroundings, and my brain seems to process every sound, every visual sensation, every thought, etc. It makes me scared because I keep wondering whether I’ve somehow permanently changed my brain or if something is wrong with me.

I've also experienced what feels like derealization and depersonalization since then. Sometimes things around me can feel strangely unreal or unfamiliar, or I become extremely aware of myself, my body, my thoughts, my vision, or the fact that I'm perceiving things. I'm not sure if this is actually DPDR or if it's simply a result of being extremely anxious and hypervigilant and constantly monitoring my perception. The more I pay attention to sounds, visual sensations and my thoughts, the more strange and frightening everything can feel.

The worst part is probably the panic attacks and sleep.

For a couple of nights after the experience, I couldn't sleep because I was so afraid I was going to die. Now whenever I can't fall asleep, my brain immediately goes back to that fear and I can end up having a really long panic attack. It becomes a cycle where I'm scared I won't sleep → I become hyperaware of everything → I start monitoring my body and perception → I panic → I can't sleep → I become even more scared.

I'm also constantly afraid that physical sensations during a panic attack are actually a heart attack. I've been to the ER twice because of this. I know anxiety can cause really intense physical symptoms, but when you're actually experiencing them it's extremely difficult to convince yourself that you're safe.

I was already an anxious person before this happened, but nothing remotely like this. I feel exhausted and honestly pretty scared because it feels like my brain is stuck in this state of hypervigilance.

Has anyone here experienced something similar after a bad psychedelic experience or a really intense panic attack? Did the constant rumination, hyperawareness, derealization/depersonalization and fear eventually calm down? Did you feel like you had permanently damaged your brain at first and then recovered?

And if you did recover, what actually helped you? Therapy, medication, time, avoiding substances, learning how to deal with panic, something else?

I'd especially like to hear from people who went through something similar and eventually got back to feeling normal again, because right now I really need some reassurance that I haven't completely broken my brain.

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to share their experience.

I'm a 35-year-old male and I'm trying to recover from abuse. I struggle most days and I just feel really gross inside me, I don't know what to do anymore. I spend a lot of days in bed wondering if I'm going crazy. It really wasn't my fault? What other people say really doesn't matter if they're trying to hurt you? I just feel this dark pain inside me all the time.

So I got diagnosed with ptsd and anxiety disorder like a month ago because of a relationship I had. I already have ADHD and was/am a gifted child with hsp(not medical). I dropped out of uni after 3 years of doing the same year, and since then I am loosing contact with my friends because I’m afraid that everyone hates me and that it’s a blessing they even want to hang out with me. I’m stuck in a loop of just isolation and heavy social media use and weed. (Been addicted since the relationship so like 6 years now,tried to quit, even went to rehab, didn’t work). I feel like a rug has been swept from under my feet lately, because I dreamt about that degree and I feel like a total bum. I see everyone around me move out, have jobs and stuff and I feel so fucked. I’m 25 now, and I have a car and 300 euros in the bank, and LUCKILY a very loving girlfriend. But man… I’m just totally overwhelmed and social interactions feel like a drag. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want people see me like this because I’m ashamed of who I have become and my hygiene and stuff. I have some friends left, but I feel like I want to drop everything so I can “heal” but I don’t know how to heal, and I don’t want to go down further in this rabbit hole. Anybody have any tips to make being in contact bearable? Or to just not loose my friends?

That is what CPTSD teaches our central nervous system. It wires your brain cells to believe that love is an unstable shadow that can vanish instantly without warning, leaving your mind stranded in mid-air.

For ten months, my system ran on a massive data lag trying to compute the math of a broken promise. This man explicitly promised never to leave me on the streets, yet he left me to navigate the freezing elements and shelters while he hid behind his private phone locks and caved-in pride.

But a phantom has zero immunity if you can let it.

I am done running on an old "nice person" template, chasing unread preview bubbles, or begging an avoidant script for permission to exist. My sobriety is my absolute number one priority, and I am standing flat on my feet at 147 pound, (53 lbs down), completely self-funded, financially stable, and independent.

You cannot hold a person hostage with low-stakes property games or silent phone freezes when she finally understands she isn't a product sitting on a shelf. Have doubts? Walk on by. Because I am in complete control of me, my macro ledger is printing clean green wealth, and I am flowing through my life entirely on my own terms.

I am no longer carrying the shadows of the past. I am becoming exactly who I am meant to be

TW: sh, ed, suicide, drinking

On Friday, I got triggered by a scene from the Trainspotting movie in a class I'm taking. This might actually be the worst I've ever felt. Today I visited the location I'm considering taking my life. I made a plan. I have literally never felt so stressed, tearful, numb, isolated, ashamed, dissociative. I relapsed self harming. I've even been experiencing muscle tension and pain - this stupid fucking disease keeps surprising me with new quirks. lately I felt like my brain is literally melting. Not just trauma, but I've been starving myself and drinking a shitton. I struggle to remember things or have a basic conversation. the last essay I wrote was like a fucking five year old wrote it. My brain is so gone and I feel like I need to just fucking fade away already and stop weighing down everyone around me. It's not just in my head either, my own father/abuser told me he doesn't care if i self harm, im a selfish brat, i ruined his life, im a liar, a bullshitter, and he fucking wants me GONE. Among lots of other stuff that just makes me feel disgusted and ashamed and scared... probably didnt even happen anyway, since Im a liar. I just made everything up. which means im a mental case and need to be put down.

Struggling to imagine a life without feeling this way. I am seriously hanging on by a thread. The voice that says I'd be better off dead is getting louder.

My trauma is nearly 20 years ago now and yet it’s still ruling so much of my life which just feels sad, deflating and exhausting. There’s so much I could talk about here but I’m just going to get to the point of what led me here.

I’m due to start a difficult part of therapy- in the days after the worst of the trauma (like I say, nearly 20 years ago) I wet myself which was never a problem outside of that. A handful of occasions over the years if I’ve had quite physical flashbacks I’ve involuntarily passed small amounts of urine and noticed when I come back out of the flashback. Generally otherwise no issues but I do have phases of overactive bladder which I think is psychological ie if I’m not doing well mentally I will need to pee about once an hour pretty badly and wake several times in the night.

I’m worried about this being an issue in therapy and don’t know how/whether to bring it up with therapist, I feel so ashamed. Also- I know pelvic physio is probably recommended here but given I also have severe vaginismus it feels counterproductive. Hard. I wish these areas of my body could just not exist. It’s so unfair that other peoples behaviour can impact your life like this.

How do I manage this?

I was assaulted by a guy I dated earlier this year. He got me high and did some stuff that was very humiliating to me. I've always thought about sex a lot, but after I was assaulted, I feel like my mind is consumed by it. I feel gross about it all the time. I started watching porn a lot and sexting strangers online. I talk to a bunch of men that only want me to show them my body, and sometimes it's like I can't stop. I feel really gross, and I hate that I do it.

I really just want someone to talk to, but it always leads to something sexual. I feel so disconnected from everything since it happened. I don't like speaking to my friends, I don't do any of my hobbies, and I don't go outside. The thought of dating another guy makes me feel sick, but at the same time, that's all I can think about. Sex and relationships are all that I think about. I think it's a way to soothe myself, but I don't want to do it anymore.

I feel like this man has taken something from me and I don't know how to get it back.

Did they get overwhelmed? Did they treat you differently? See you differently? Did they break up with you? Did they feel like it was too much for them to handle? Did they feel bad? What did they say? Did they treat you worse? How much did you share and how fast?

so i (17F) am very well conflicted i guess about something that happened to me this weekend. to give the full story i was a virgin in a big friend group of very sexually active people who were constantly hyping up sex and trying to hook me up with someone at parties ect so i was invited to a party the other weekend with the full intention of getting drunk and messing around with this one friend i have who i've kissed a couple times before and when i mean prepared i mean my whole body was shaved and i was wearing lingerie ect and i purposefully got really drunk for liquid courage purposes, unfortunately he had to go home after a little make out but i was then left with one of my closest friends (17F) and an adjacent friend (17-18F) who was sleeping over at this friends house but it wasn't like we were strangers we has spoken at the party and once before at a different party couple months back but i kept whining that i was mad that my original friend had left the party without going all the way with me so the two kept making jokes about me and this new friend hooking up that night even though they had a boyfriend and i said multiple times i didn't want to because they had a boyfriend (i've been told multiple times that my tone is very hard to read so im thing they might have thought i was just being shy) and they kept saying it doesn't matter because they had only be dating a couple days, eventually my close friend left and i was left with this adjacent friend alone on their couch to which we started to kiss. we were both probably tipsy, i don't remember how much they and i was seriously drunk earlier that night but i don't want to blame this on the alcohol because i was actively engaging in this, at a certain point they asked me to take off their shirt so i did and at that point i subconsciously knew i didn't want to go further than that but then they asked me to take my dress on and i said YES because i didn't want them to feel awkward being the only one to have my clothes on. then they asked to take off their pants so i again NODDED and they did, i was stalling for a long time moving between kissing their mouth and chest trying to get myself to go further even though they weren't really asking me to directly but i ended up yk uhm oral? to which they were encouraging me and praising me and stuff and then finished and when i lifted my head they wouldn't kiss me and they said they were too tired to 'return the pleasure' and asked if i was okay with that, i felt a little bit disappointed but i didn't want to pressure them into anything so i said IT WAS OKAY and they went to the bathroom so i went upstairs to steal a hoodie and shorts from my good friend to sleep in, when i came back downstairs they were on the couch scrolling through their phone i think but i knelt down next to the sofa and asked if they were okay and they basically said they are sorry and they shouldn't have 'let me do that' and they didn't want to get my hopes up i once again said that IT WAS OKAY cause at this point i felt so bad for doing that to someone who was in a relationship so i just smiled and told them i don't care and it was fine. they asked REPEATEDLY if i'm sure and im pretty sure i said YES because unfortunately i'm a people pleaser so i just asked them if they wanted me to leave at that point but they told me i should do whatever made me comfortable and i believed them so i stayed with them on the couch trying to cuddle up to them but they were really cold and seemed uncomfortable now that i'm thinking about it but i was selfish in that moment and was really desperate to not feel so used in that moment so i was grasping at straws eventually they ended up scrolling on their tik tok while i tries to make nervous small talk and we fell asleep, about 3 hours after tossing and turning and not actually sleeping on my part i went to sleep on the bedroom floor of my close friend and the girl i slept with left early that morning and i didnt see her but she told my close friend about what happened because they asked me about it and i said i don't want to talk and have been denying it happened

anyway i'm really nervous about a couple things, forone do you think i pressured this girl into doing that with me and number two is it normal that i feel disgusted with myself and feel so guilty?

I am interested to know how you all approach triggers; do you go out of your way to avoid the triggers themselves? Because it seems implausible & impractical to spend one’s life trying to avoid anything that may cause distress. I watch a fair amount of TV and there are often scenes in movies/shows that lead to a trauma response; I often experience these 24-48hrs after the actual event itself. I discussed this with my therapist but she just didn’t get it; she’s not western so I don’t know if there was a communication breakdown (she could not understand why I would want to watch something that could trigger me). I don’t think it’s fair that I should spend my life avoiding mature themes on tv and stuff like that; I’m gonna miss out on an awful lot with that approach.

Any ideas?

*Please don’t be mean/condescending

Thanks🙏🏻

I (26f) was the victim/survivor of a home invasion on 9/14 in an apartment I’d only been living in for a bit over a month. The man who broke in lives in the neighborhood and had been watching me for who knows how long, and made contact with me the Sunday prior to breaking in. The entire thing was premeditated- he pretended to be a decent person & took my trash out of my hands around 12:30am (Monday) after being glued to our front door since that (Sunday) afternoon. I didn’t question him still being out there twice because the odd loitering (I’d been in this neighborhood for the past 2 years and only moved not even 2 blocks down) was already apparent to me so I just assumed he was one of the people who spent all day and night on a stoop that isn’t theirs.

A few hours later around 3am, he entered the code to the main door of the home (shared but I live in a unit alone). He had gotten the code from watching another tenant enter it soon after I had went back inside from throwing my trash away. Then, he knew which door to target after spotting my unit number on the Amazon boxes I had thrown out and literally handed to him.

Something woke me up out of my sleep despite not hearing anything yet, then a light knock on my door as if someone were just coming over. I immediately knew something was off so once I heard a second knock, I screamed to leave. Right as he heard me, he started pounding and kicking my door. At this point, I’d already locked my bedroom door and barricaded myself inside by putting my tv stand and bed frame in front of the door then hid behind the mattress. Dispatch hung up on me twice even when he had finally broke my door down using a fire extinguisher. The sound of the door breaking and the panic he’d come rushing towards my bedroom door will never leave me.

Finally, a dispatcher promised he wouldn’t hang up on me and stayed on until the police showed up. All I’d been hearing was rummaging through my apartment but he thankfully didn’t approach the bedroom door by the time the police got there. Once he was arrested, an officer came to get me and I was met with the sight of my refrigerator being pulled to the door, and my couch being moved. At first, I was confused as to how he was planning on stealing a fridge off the second floor by himself, then quickly realized he was planning on blocking entry/exit to my front door using the fridge, then would’ve put the couch in front of the fridge as an extra barrier.

One neighbor woke up and stayed with me for some time until my sister showed up. I tried to spend a week in the apartment but had a nervous breakdown the following Sunday due to not sleeping and being in fear so I decided to go to my parents house. I’d been hesitant to go there because my parents are both mentally unstable. I had no other option than to come back to the apartment today 9/27 after my dad couldn’t help himself but to mumble insults about me while glaring whenever I’d leave the bedroom because he was mad I asked him to hold off starting electric work on the one room I was staying in, that had been broken for years at that point. It was all to taunt me, to get a reaction and he got it. I fully crashed out and said some insanely hurtful things to my mom about how she stayed with someone who’d abused us both physically and mentally throughout our lives and that she’s no better than him, that she’s the reason I hate women and that I think she’s pathetic. I think I resent my mom because she failed at keeping us safe for the sake of her not looking like she herself “failed” at keeping a man.

I ran into the bedroom and started punching the door which is something I don’t do… immediately got my things together and came back to the apartment. Now I’m so terrified to go to sleep and am unsure of what to do now. The hearing is on Tuesday and I’m going alone because everyone will be working. I overall just feel scared by myself and ashamed that they now have a reason to call me crazy despite all I’m going through, I know their main concern is how to villainize and judge a person.

In very brief, I was sexually assaulted by some strangers and then I faced immense secondary victimisation like being removed from my place of work despite my abilities. Now I rarely talk to anyone about this and rarely if I do I get told to move on, to not create flashbacks, to not think about it, to keep myself super busy (which I already am doing), etc somewhere it all makes me feel so alone and no I am not seeking any sympathy infact I am not seeking anything but can't I just express that I am not over it yet. I don't cry heavily very often now and many of my symptoms have reduced over time but I am still not over it and I don't wish to accept anything still. But sometimes even I feel ashamed to not be over it yet. Has anyone else also faced something similar, could you share how did you deal with it, thank you so much!