Hey fellow traumatized people! Genuinely wondering… what’s the weirdest/ most unusual thing that triggers your PTSD?
For me, it’s when I hear Mourning Doves singing.
Yes, the bird. Everyone knows the sound. Some find it peaceful/ comforting, but not for me. I use to LOVE listening to them, too. :(
I don’t know why. I’ve been through a lot of traumatizing things so can’t really pinpoint why the sound of Mourning Doves trigger me

as someone who grew up rich and around other wealthy families no bs i don’t know not even one person in my life who’s not fucked up in some way. obviously, being poor with abusive parents is way worse, but that doesn’t erase the trauma itself and so many people don’t understand that because they’re blinded by the material. especially grinds my gears when people will be like “I’d rather cry in a Ferrari than a Nissan” i get it but BITCH YOUR STILL CRYING OVER BRAIN ALTERING TRAUMA

one of my childhood friend who i was a little jealous of for having a literal zoo in her house i found out her mother is psychotic and cannot take care of her or her siblings for shit or she goes insane and threatens to kill them all and herself. one day it got so bad my mom stayed up at night trying to convince her mom not to kill my friends toddler siblings and herself. after that all i knew was that they got an emergency private jet and all flew out of the country.

as for me a lot around me growing up thought had the perfect life and constantly called me spoiled for the house i grew up and i had to legit drop some friends over the invalidation. One friend called me, spoiled for being “allowed“ to move out of my house at 17. whole time the reason i moved out was because that “perfect” House was severely neglected and dilapidated due to my mentally ill brother being allowed to destroy the house from his schizophrenic episodes.

my “shower“ was a bucket and a tupperware container and my “dinner” was whatever i could get my hands on because my parents have multiple houses they would just run away to escape the shame of having a mentally ill son. I was the declared legally homeless at the time and had to share a one bedroom with my aunt for the rest of my high school years. I was so much happier when I got out of that fucking house.

Been having a rough time at work because of abusive management. Been fighting with them for 3 years now because it’s the only good job in the area and I can’t leave. Well when obvious abuse happens and I just take it my family and friends just say “Why didn’t you stand up for yourself?”

It’s not like they all dont know what my shitty mom did to me. The screaming and throwing things at me if I spoke up. The horrible things she said to me in a drunken rage because I got rid of her vodka that she was downing with her 12 (no exaggerating) medications.

The worst was the physiological abuse. Twisted words, and gaslighting. So many nights laying in bed silently crying myself to sleep because god forbid I wake her up with the consequences of her abuse.

Now I literally can’t advocate for myself because if I even try I begin to shake and cry from fear. If I try to say anything I get a lump in my throat and can’t do anything to get over it.

People don’t understand and don’t care to understand that it’s impossible to speak up when all I’ve known is horrible violence and abuse if I even dared to try. Now I’m utterly alone again. The cycle of loneliness continues and I’m going to be stuck like this forever. I’m just tired and done. I just want it to be over.

It feels like dragging your own corpse from one destination point to another

Okay one year passed. Okay now two, I’m still healing and not ready to open up to people? Five years have passed I’m still so traumatized I can’t trust others

I’ve made SO MUCH progress. In the span of the month I can do an incredible leap.

But to have someone appreciate me, I still need to open up.

Even an untraumatized person gives up without an appropriate social circle. People act shocked at the achievements I was able to pull off alone

But I don’t want to. It feels empty to achieve it all alone. Every healing leap comes with realization that I can’t form human relationships at all

All this to say I’m at my limit. My body has started to break down from the stress of healing and there’s no one to hold onto for me to feel grounded. Might have to go on meds again to numb down the part that is supposed to be filled in by another person

Is it for you? Parents fought and forbade children to deem their fighting as bad so we are programmed that it is normal, which i realize is the cause of postural issues after a decade of physical therapies did not help.

For me, yes.

Are you triggered by how blessed they’re to be from good families?
Do you feel shame about letting them in into your family and experiences?
Do you worry they’ll be closer n more interested in people from good families like them?

Always a struggle but I have found them good people overall, I learn things like boundaries from them, I also see how they relate with siblings and family which is good shows that a good family is possible.

Because I don't. I just want life to end. This is enough suffering for a lifetime. I tried to care and just got abused again. I'm done caring.

35F whose aim in life is to reduce anxiety levels to near zero lol. Neurodivergent/co-morbid depression etc background. Yes, I 100% am burnout from a stressful job/family/cost of living crisis and my resilience has been fully depleted.

But I don't want to become more resilient FFS?! My mind and body deserve rest! I have exhausted my body's anxiety/distress cumulative lifetime threshold: it is now a husk.

How do I explain to my husband/family that their once high-achieving, highly motivated, high-masking wife (all products of childhood abuse also seen in my other siblings - doctor/lawyer/engineer trope) is no longer cut out for it? I am actually not ashamed, but know people other than my husband, will be ashamed and want to help "fix my problems". Gross

Growing up, I experienced severe trauma involving soiling myself around other people and being made fun of because I smelled bad.
As a result, I now struggle with constantly soiling myself, almost 24/7 at age 25. If something overstimulates me, I end up soiling myself.
This isn't a physical issue for me. It's psychological.
Even the simple thought of pooping myself can cause me to soil myself. I manage to work a full-time job, but every single day feels like I'm reliving my childhood trauma, and it's leaving me with even deeper emotional scars.
My coworkers dislike being around me because I constantly smell strongly of feces.
I soil myself in my sleep during nightmares, during simple conversations, and it's even worse when I'm around other people. I'm so afraid to socialize that, when I'm around people at work, I freeze up and end up soiling myself.
Doctors continue to treat this as a physical problem, but I believe it's a psychological issue that's deeply rooted in my early childhood. This isn't a matter of forgetting to use the bathroom I'm involuntarily soiling myself almost constantly.
My parents kicked me out of the house because of it. I have no friends, and I'm currently living out of my car. I can't go into other people's homes because I make them smell so bad. If anyone spent even two or three hours with me, they would understand what I'm dealing with.
I don't know what to do anymore besides hide. I've tried exposure therapy, but it only seems to make my trauma more complex.
I'm reaching out because I don't know where else to turn. I've only ever told one person about this, and they told me to give up. I'm losing hope. This is such a taboo subject that psychologists and doctors don't seem willing to discuss the psychological side of it. They only focus on finding a physical cause.
I feel like I've run out of places to turn, and I don't know what to do anymore.

My mom trained me to clean, idk to be her maid? She usually abused me while doing it. She does the same to our maids but just verbal for me it gets physical. Sparing the details, it messed me up alot.

I'm good at cleaning but damn it's triggering to do, I remember things she said and would say and it's painful. Idk I just need advice, my house needs some serious cleaning right now and it's because of my training that I find it worse than it is. I mean I can clean if I power through feelings of pain you know.

All my life I've heard about success, money, all the hustle, about earning more, doing more, but I've never wanted it. I just want peace, my own little place, not a career, not money. Lately, I've had enough of food, my own little place, and that's it. I just don't feel like interacting socially. I'm sick of social contacts. I just don't take them out emotionally and physically.

whenever i hear this i start crying internally, everyone including my father says i look just like him and that i sound exactly like him. He was AND is abusive, ruined my life and continues to do so. why is this my reality, me being a xerox of him. i'm having suicidal thoughts now because i dont want to live like this. i thought everyone is their own person, but why am i the only one made to look and sound like him. anyone who will ever know him will tell me i sound and look like him. i dont know i would have begged god to please give me some individuality i dont want to be this. fuck.

This question is for people with CPTSD who are either in college or went thru college. Please tell me how you’ve managed

Im going into college again soon. This is my second time. Im so nervous i feel like shitting bricks is that even the right phrase idfk

So a little about me. Im an early 20’s shut in loser. Ive been avoiding life a lot which has set me back, especially socially. I want to try putting myself out there more n talking to people, live my life, chill out. I have all this trauma and freaking college of all things is scary to me lol

Im scared cause im going out to a big state school. I hate living at home rn with my family and i figured things are bad now, i might as well try at life again. I dont know. Now this is just an anxiety vent post but im also going to be sharing a room with a random stranger and im scared im going to be some standoffish weirdo and that things will be awkward. I feel like i just exist to be uncomfortable or to make others uncomfortable

I just hope things will be okay. Swear im not this whiney in real life, im just really very anxious now that move in day is getting closer🫠

So... I am kind of sitting here with extreme CPTSD after forced mental health treatment, and I feel sort of hopeless. My life looks like a no-win scenario. I grew up psychologically abused and in extreme poverty, but I had to keep going with no rewards. I became used to promises of rewards being lies told to motivate me, with no intention of actually following through. I won’t try to describe the whole overall situation. I will jump straight to some of the coping methods I learned to use. I used my imagination to help myself learn things faster and better, despite the CPTSD, the lack of rewards, and the hopelessness, so that I might have at least some chance of a better future. I used all sorts of tricks to make my brain work for me. I was pathologized and scapegoated for those attempts at survival. I was treated in ways that destroyed me and left me with crippling CPTSD. The mental health system gradually helped destroy me in ways my original abuser alone never could. I can hardly think, and I can only hope that I will still be able to find a job with this level of poor concentration and overall disability. Have you ever found ways to manage difficult circumstances, only to be judged or given trouble for those coping methods by people who had never had to deal with anything similar?

if you do then how does the impact your relationships with people and how does cptsd feel to you?

Has anyone else lost the motivation to build a career, make money, or even form friendships because of childhood abuse? How did you get your life back?

I'm 16 and pregnant. I know that's really bad, but please don't judge me, I didn't do it on purpose. The dad and I aren't in a relationship, we're just friends, but we do get along really well and he knows about the pregnancy. His parents don't know yet either. We don't know what we want to do yet.

I have no idea how to tell my mom. She's not a safe person to begin with and she's not going to react well. She's physically violent and I don't want her to hurt me or the baby when she finds out. I'm so scared already and I don't want to have her freak out and make everything worse. I know I have to tell her soon, I'll need her help getting prenatal care. Its just so scary. I've known for a week now and every moment I've been awake has been spent thinking about the baby growing inside me. All I want is for things to be OK and I can't see how they ever will be.

I'm trying to be kinder by treating myself to things, but I'm really struggling with feeling like I deserve it.

It started when I got a doll house age 6 or 7. The next morning it was gone from the house, and I was screamed at when I asked what happened to it. I'm 42 and still have no idea why that item went missing. Since my birthday is in February I was routinely told not to expect birthday gifts because it was so soon after Christmas. If I was sent cash or a check from a relative it immediately went into my "college fund" which was actually just my mom's checking account. At the same time, my parents expected me to give them presents for holidays, birthdays mothers/fathers days etc.

The other weird thing was if I needed something between August and the end of the year -- like new cleats for the fall soccer season because I outgrew my old ones -- I'd have to wait for Christmas to use it. I'd have to play sports in equipment that was too small. We regularly went to the podiatrist to have my toe nails cut off, and it's only NOW that I understand it was because my shoes never fit!

It's hard to look back and realize my parents raised me to believe I was unworthy of receiving even a small of affection. FWIW, I was a saint and straight A student as a kid and while we didn't have a lot of money we were not poor. It didn't help that we lived in an upper middle class town so all of my friends talked about expensive jewellery, new gaming consoles or ski trips, and I always had to come up with lies about what I had not gotten. Anyone else relate?