It's been a year since me and my mother finally got away from the man she married. Given that I've been having dreams where he is back in my life and he ether just exists, yells at me or me and him befriend each other and it sickens me. Every time I remind myself I'm just in a dream I try to fight back but I am to weak to fight all the muscle I've built up just turns into rubber and I feel fatigued. It's really hard to get rid of the dreams and I just wish I could just erase him from my mind. Or just punch him in the face if I ever bump into him because of all the anger idk where its coming from.

I was bullied pretty badly in high school and faced racism. Anything from being addressed as the n word to being picked up and slammed to the ground while a friend of the main bully recorded me.

I’ve gotten a black eye from him even and nearly went blind. He faced no consequences as he was a master manipulator and people like him for being the high school "Jock”.

He always said sorry then repeated the behaviour and laughed with his buddies about it. He even made fun of my heritage (where my parents are from in Africa).

I get an apology about two years after high school and it (in my opinion) looked like an apology for himself. Sure, he said he’s sorry (he’s said it so many times it doesn’t hold value) and was more focused on saying in his apology "I understand you probably hate my guts".

I accepted the apology because my dad told me to.

Since then, I’ve been through addiction & other not-so-proud stuff I’m not interested in sharing here. I decided to message him after all these years (been about 10 now) and it was a friendly message. Leaning towards me calling him a lovely person and how I understand if he still feels bad for what he did to me and said I understand the message could go unseen but I just wanted to share.

He, yet again, said he feels bad about how he treated me and said I look like I’m doing well and he’s happy specifically for that.

I just asked him why he called me the n word all the time and would beat me up over it. I asked if he found racism funny at the time. He denied absolutely everything he did. I then sent him screenshots of how he use to speak to me and he said "Man, I don’t remember saying that, clearly I did though, there’s no denying that photo. I honestly don’t remember using that word with you or others. No one deserves that".

For the sake of convenience of this post I’ll make it short. We went back and forth over it ((and he said "James, deep down, do you really want to message me day in day out about this? God doesnt want this for you man, im not him but i think hed want you to forigive and heal) and he then accused me of spreading rumours about him over the last two years that he r***d his ex and said how I can’t deny that as he has these messages pinned to my IP address.

I blocked him and unblocked him after an hour saying how crazy that sounds and specifically said the last time we spoke was in 2018/19 when he messaged me out of the blue. I then tell him if he has all that info, what does he plan on doing with it? And said intimidation and what he claims to be true do constitute grounds for legal action and said we can take this to court.

He says "James, for the hundredth time, I’m done with these conversations. Chao for now".

I said "for the record, I hope those things are not true Chris, I just can’t connect the dots on why you think it’s me who did that. Chao".

After a few days, I blocked him for good.

Any Advice would be appreciated and welcome

I was such a good innocent kid until the age of 10 when the abuse and confusion began, what was once a happy kid with all the energy for life and happiness in the world riding his bike,playing basketball, video games just happy to be alive, to live everyday, to wake up every morning became a loser bum piece of shit loser pariah to society, they will never truly understand.

This is anybody who I feel comfortable around and have built respect for online. Especially the ones who are popular, I feel uneasy about everything I do in front of them. I feel like they have somehow have a secret distain for anything I do, regardless if we're in active conversations or not. Like, I'm afraid to ask them a question or make art for them, because I feel like they're gonna discard and gossip about me to people I don't even know. I'm afraid to do something that would be even remotely perceived as wrong to them. I worry whether or not I'm even doing it right.

People who have never met me before, people who don't even know who I am, and I'm scared to unintentionally mess up with the fear of being hurt again. Especially if it's a popular person, I'm afraid of being rejected and then smeared and abused all over again.

I (19 F) struggle with C-PTSD, ASD and depression, my ptsd has many causes but I often get anxiety and panic attacks and dissociate which has led me to having many episodes in situations where i’m surrounded by people who don’t know how to act and have sometimes been very disrespectful to me, this is not exactly what happened here but i’m gonna explain.

My gf’s (23 F) family own a mini market which is right next to her house. my gf and I where hanging out in a little staff office in the mini market when her dad and one of the employees walked in, the employee was very distressed and my my gf’s dad explained that one of her employees (40 F) got electrocuted by touching an outlet. my gf and her dad left to go see what happened with the outlet and i was left with the employee, i noticed she was looking extremely anxious and since i know how anxiety attacks are I tried comforting her and teaching her how to do breathing exercises to calm her down, when she was doing better i want to check on my gf an her dad, they where checking the security cameras and her dad was extremely mad because in the video he saw she touched her own phone charger not the outlet which she was trying to blame and he went to question her about it being very disrespectful and mean to her despite her being in an obviously bad state. seeing this whole situation made me very upset and it started bringing me flashbacks to situations where i was having anxiety episodes and people where yelling at me and putting me in even more distressed, i didn’t say anything at the time but i was felt very dissociated and anxious after that.

then my gf went to tell her mom about everything that happened while I was there, her mom and I have always gotten along fairly well despite her usually being a very antisocial person. her mom started defending that it was good that she got yelled at, saying that she deserved it and that she was “exaggerating” and “a manipulative liar” that’s when i got re triggered. i started feeling the face of everyone who had treated me that way in her face. i was so mad and stressed. i started crying and telling her how i’ve been in situations like that and that people deserve empathy especially it situations where they went through something terrifying and they aren’t doing well, the only thing that should matter is their well being nothing else. i noticed how i couldn’t even talk right anymore and i didn’t even know who i was talking to anymore so i left.

my gf followed me and tried comforting me but i started realizing how much i fucked up and she definitely looked worried about it too. i told her i would apologize and before i left she went to her mom telling her about how i wanted to apologize but she refused to hear me.

a week later my gf went to her family home again and talked to her mom about it trying to give her my apologies and explain the situation but her mom was still mad and told her that she didn’t want me to go to her house anymore and tried telling my gf basically that i’m a bad person for doing what i did and that she should leave me.

now I don’t know what to do. my gf is very understanding of my but she’s also a bit disappointed by what i did and her mom is still mad. I’m not trying to use my mental conditions to excuse myself but to explain how i felt i why i reacted the way i did. I wonder if i’m not the only person with mental struggles who ends up making mista like this and then hating themselves for it

I've had probably 20-25 jobs, moving from place to place , fucking up my life trying to find the right one and making it to work without a vehicle. After my ex fiancee left me I moved back in with my mom and found this job. I was able to keep it for 3 months pretending that I didn't wanna kill myself, but I'm starting to break down with a few hundred dollars saved (was trying to get a car).

I have been sexually abused and taken advantage of for years and I even tried to get married, but unfortunately I was about to marry someone with literal brain damage. I wanna catch a break so badly. I'm going to try for disability once again, but I've finally decided after trying really hard to work like a normal person...........I can't fucking pretend to not have problems for you to not pay me enough. I fucking quit. Can't say I didn't try though.

it’s been a year since i’ve been sa’d and i’m cranky, my stomach hurts and i’ve been randomly crying all day. i literally had to leave the gym early bc i had to cry and i felt weak. trauma is weird

I’ve been doing ok for a few days. Two days in a row that I didn’t need PRN medication. But I woke up early this morning and I’m descending into a ptsd episode with fear, waves of derealization, panic… and now I’m sad because I can’t remember what it felt like to feel normal. Nothing triggered it.

I don’t know where to go for meaningful support. I don’t really have anyone to talk to. I’m going to be traveling for work in a few days and I just can’t be like this when I’m on site.

PTSD is so exhausting and I am just so over this.

Hi all 👋 I need to know if there's people like me out there. For context I'm a previously healthy 27yo female and 2 years ago had an unexpected massive MCA stroke. I was treated very quickly with a powerful clot-busting infusion which reversed 70% of the effects. It also triggered severe haemorrhage from some undiagnosed stomach ulcers (read: projectile vomiting pints of blood) which sent me to a resuscitation bay for an hour and a half.

I'm a veterinary surgeon by profession and during periods of consciousness fully understood the direness of the situation medically speaking. I probably would have at least offered euthanasia if this were happening to a dog. I experienced truly awful physical sensations including many different types and severities of pain, nausea, gasping air-hunger, pissing myself, and a relentless volley of non-consensual touch such as stripping/cutting of my clothes, attempts to access veins all over, urinary catheterisation, oral suction, and awakening to find a man cutting into my groin to place a pacemaking wire into my heart. Twice I politely asked a nurse if I was dying and twice I was told I was in the best hands (yikes).

I was told it was looking bad enough to need a medically induced coma but that survival to successful intubation in cases like this was poor. I was offered a priest but not access to my family in that moment(??). Ultimately they skillfully avoided the need for intubation by putting an endoscope down my throat and cauterising the bleeding while I choked on both the endoscope and my own blood. Don't get me wrong, I am actually grateful for that and impressed by it having performed lots of endoscopy myself.

Once stable, I spent time in ICU where the psychological trauma manifested itself as Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy (broken heart syndrome) resulting in heart-attack-like symptoms and a couple of days of treatment for heart failure which did resolve.

After this was a relatively short (2 week) stint in stroke rehab where at the same time a region of skin died and fell off the inside of my right arm owing to escape of a drug under the skin during resus.

Emotionally, I had moments of raw fear for my family knowing the pain it would cause to lose me. I also quite naturally don't like pain or unexpected rough/intimate touch. But other than that, I cruised through the whole thing with a sense of acceptance and calmness, including the possibility of death. That especially wasn't a problem, in fact at moments I would have welcomed it as a relief.

I live on multiple medications and have some problems with strength, sensation, vision, fatigue and pain. But I have also since become an amateur climber and mountaineer in defiance. People ask about my visible scars, but I can speak openly about the experience and do so with a sense of humour and excellent story-telling. My partner (who I had not met at the time) finds this shocking. I have learnt information and techniques from the experience that I use on my patients.

I sometimes have dreams about drowning in blood and flickering ceiling panel lights give me enough sense of unease to try and move to a different room (I stared at one above me in resus). The sound of curtains on rails makes my hair stand up a bit. But that is all.

I declined every offer to see a psychotherapist or counsellor afterwards, didn't want to waste their appointments. I was raised by two nurses to be resilient and non-complaining, and I treat animals in various states of trauma every day. But I'm still surprised by how unaffected I am.

Are there others like me out there? Am I lucky to have the right brain chemistry to handle this, have my parents raised me well, am I a psychopath, or is this actually just suppression and in your experience is there a possibility this could all come out later in a big mess? Should I bother seeing a professional or can I just keep blissfully living my second life? I don't want to have to unpack it all unless absolutely necessary

Thank you all, and I'm sorry in advance that you have lived experiences that mean you are here to read this and respond.

"They say time is a healer, life is a teacher
Show you, show you the way
They say time is a healer, making you stronger
Well, if that's the case

Then how am I still wounded?"

The word wounded adds a layer not found with some other metaphors for trauma. Something I have been experiencing ever since I saw that ghost (my own).

A scar, once the injury is healed, doesn't hurt passively. It's a reminder of pain, but might not be pain itself.

A wound can hurt all. the. time. Even when it's not a sharp pain, you're always aware of it. And the smallest poke or stretch can set the wound ablaze. As if you're being wounded all over again. It's omnipresent. Always weighing down on you, even during your victories, big or small. Deciding to raise its voice just as you begin to relax after a hard day. Keeping you up at night.

That's what it feels like.

I was born with severe astigmatism and strabismus (exotropia) on my left eye. After appointments made with approx. 8 doctors, they kept measuring the angle of my eyes I grew to know when the right time for surgery was. I was three years old when my parents lied to me. They hadn't allowed me to eat anything all day, saying we'd get fast food after we "visited grandma at the hospital". I was happy about it so we took the car. We stayed waiting in the waiting room for at least 2 hours. Suddenly, who I now know at the my ophthalmologist of like 10 years walked in and called us in a room. There was a painting of a ship battling a wild tide, more chairs with fake leather and those gold buttons lining them. I was asked if I wanted a drink. He came in with a white plastic cup filled with orange juice: but it looked dull, grey-ish, and smelled fishy. I tried a small sip and didn't like it, but I was pressured into drinking it all. I noticed my parents staring at me with tears in their eyes, crying. I felt panicked/distressed at the site, but suddenly my eyelids began to droop, I felt heavy, swaying on my feet. I felt sleepy in the most artificial way possible. They sedated me. My mom held me in her arms as I finally succumbed to the drug. I woke up with excruciating pain in my left eye. They'd covered it with one of their white patches. I was in hospital clothes on a hospital bed in hospital room. My grandma had never been there. A lady I didn't know came in with a dinosaur plushie, saying she was rewarding for being brave. I didn't know what she was talking about, I think they had me on other painkiller drugs. My parents never cared beyond my physical state, never asked how I felt ever in my life. They lied to me about everything. At the doctor's they would kick me out of the room, look at me weirdly and slam the door in my face any time my surgery had to be talked about. When I had the courage to bring it up, once I was beginning to remember the more I grew, they could only talk about how THEIR actions hurt THEM, not even acknowledging my struggle. My trauma manifested a lot in my dramatic play with dolls. They somehow always ended up drugged and at the hospital and then the scenario would go blank. It was as if my mind was asking me "what next?" I experienced severe reactions once I fully remembered everything at age 12. I felt so betrayed, anxious, and terrified of my family. Whenever I set a boundary such as "don't touch me", they always violated it despite my protests and fear every time. It still happens. I was severely emotionally neglected in all aspects. Later on, I began feeling the hands of the surgeons crawling up my back, and grabbing my ass and squeezing it. I would get flashbacks of myself unconscious getting stripped of my clothes by strangers, without my knowledge or consent. How they had to open my eyes with their fingers and tools while they operated on me, and my gaze being blank, innocent, unaware. I'm shaking while I'm writing this. I felt a complete loss over my body, I am 17 now and full relaxation is the most daunting thing to do. I have refused to ever attend services like spas or massages in fear of having to lay facing down naked. I have frequent and intense thoughts of rape and it is one of my worst fears. It's just the fact that I was an innocent girl getting touched by strangers, even in a non-exploitative way, their hands all over my body, then literally opening and slicing and stitching it while my parents did absolutely nothing. Told me nothing. Offered me no support. Avoided me. Left me and every possibility of a good childhood seep into oblivion. I wish I could say I value family, but it is what I fear the most. I'm having trouble expressing this right now but I am hoping you people will have something consoling to say. Thank you for reading this and I appreciate you. I have never been comforted on the matter before.

I literally just woke up. I'm shaking. I'm gonna try to keep this short..

My trauma happened about 4 years ago, I was 15 then. It was (long story short) my dad and I alone in a cabin and he tried to get me drunk, after he failed he got drunk himself and then got a psychosis. Mainly the verbal.. insanity stuck with me. I got away before anything more could happen.

Just now, I dreamed (long story short again) that my mom got drunk at a party, and I realized she was drunk because she was pulling me through a hallway and she was stumbling in an almost zombie-like way. When I pulled away from her, she turned around and started chasing me and she had this dead, again zombie-like stare on her face.

After waking up, I realized the feeling I had in my dream is like an exact replica of the feeling I had when I realized my dad was drunk.

Some more side information: my parents divorced about a year after it happened and I could go no contact with my dad. My mom now remarried and I haven't seen him in a long time. I went through EMDR and I finished that recently. And as the title suggests, I never had a possibly trauma related dream before.

Do you think this was a trauma related dream? What do I do? I'm worried, should I be?

Please feel free to correct any mistakes or whatever I'm still quite shaken from the dream, it was terrifying

I had PTSD from a coma years ago. A year or two ago I went through a 30 day 100% sleepless spell. My egg cracked. In the immediate aftermath I had either nightmares or breakdowns or both of all kinds of hellish things where I literally thought I was in hell. It gave me CPTSD. After things were better for me, I sought out help first from a psychiatrist who gave me daytime Prazosin and Buspar which helped a lot. Then I started seeing a psychologist who might be helping already. But as I become more and more me, I'm walking around just agreeing with people a lot less. I don't agree with them so I say so. One of my dearest relationships was with my now-grown nephew. He bluntly told me he was ready to choke me when I was so sick because all I did was agree with what he had just said. It was all I could do. Now I can do more. So I've told him a few times when I see things differently and he gets offended and won't talk to me for a day or two. The problem is, he's 29 years old and only wants to talk about the video game he's playing, the movie he's watching, or the new toy he bought. It's better when we're together, but I never see him in person. On the phone, when he will (I'm not making this up) give me permission to call him, I talk a lot more but he doesn't say that much. I want him to be happy and have the things he wants. But our family is full of people who are having a lot of problems and our country is having a lot of problems, and I get to hear about the 99th remaster of Doom. Who gives a fuck? I asked for permission to talk to him last night and he said "I really don't feel like it. I had a busy day at work." I told him I'd try to pretend that wasn't really hurtful and said goodnight. He said nothing and no thing ever since. When you need permission to call, when talking to someone is such a chore that a busy day at work makes you too tired to endure it, is there a relationship left to save? When I was going through my very bad time he barely made an appearance. I had thought of him as one of my closest friends. He said he could tell there was something wrong with me, but i would talk about it. So he just quit coming around. Thanks for caring. Now I feel like, if I lose this relationship, am I losing anything? It hurts me to think about this stuff. It hurts me the way he treats me. We were close until I got sick, then he got bored and moved on. Me and my ex-wife were close until I got PTSD, then she didn't like that I had been so sick so she started cheating on me then left me. When you get PTSD, even if you don't abuse them, do people just walk away from you? How do you even go about finding new people. My world is almost empty. If I'm driving people away to figure out how before there's nobody left. If I have to pretend I agree with everything people say and never give my opinion to be in a relationship with them, am I in a relationship with them?

Anyone else passed out several times over the years living with its? Incidents generating the trauma was in 2022. Since then I have passed out 3 times after having to discuss it in length with law enforcement, as it is still being investigated. And- Not a crumble slowly to the floor. A complete forward fall each time face first hard. Had to have 4 teeth replaced once, stitches another time. Grade 3 concussion… I can’t find anything in medical journals

Almost an entire year for me to finally stop hearing the sounds of my roof caving in on me every damn second of the day. It comes and goes now, but at least it's not the first thing I think about in the morning and last thing before bed. Small successes are better than none I suppose

Growing up I constantly got in trouble and screamed at for stupid things. For example, I got screamed at for buying protein powder, for buying shampoo, and for making the bathroom floor wet after taking a shower. I honestly feel like butters from South Park in that regard.

This made me start to dissociate when I was a teen. In college I had other trauma but now that I’m healing and coming back into my body, I have this fear that I’ll do something wrong or “get in trouble”. I’m 32 now and don’t live with my parents anymore for reference.

Has anyone else experienced this? And how did you heal it?

Hey guys, I've been going to therapy for a few months now. But like, when I get home from work, I'm tired.

Really tired.

So after therapy, I'll forget a buncha the stuff we discussed, and so I feel like I'm not getting as much out of it as I could be tbh. I remember asking my therapist if they could share the details of our session with me. Just a summary or something like that after each one. They didn't seem very open to it

The struggle is that I really want these notes, because without them, I just feel like I have a productive time *during* therapy, but then I get home and feel like I'm back at square one. I'm tired.

Is this just me? How do you guys deal with this? Would appreciate any advice.

I went through multiple counts of rape a while ago. I know this is a fact because I have the police case against him. I know it happened

But I can't remember any of the details. I can't remember being there.

Other days I will remember everything so vividly, have the worst days of my life, and then booom, it's forgotten again.

It's annoying. I think the worst is when I can't even remember because I know it happened, I just can't remember the details and it makes me feel like I faked it.

Hi folks,

I am reaching out to you as well as the u/cptsdwomen and u/pmdd groups to try and see if this is more than just trauma rising up.

This post is primarily for women, femmes and all who menstruate (or who used to) and have un/diagnosed PMDD... pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder - a disorder often co-morbid with PTSD and CPTSD.

Some context

I have CPTSD from old stuff, PTSD from new stuff, and PMDD throughout all the things since age 9. I've been through some scary times since COVID and experienced a couple crimes that brutally affected my life within the past two. The legal after effects as well as fallout financially and healthwise are with me everyday.

BUT (hopefully) the worst is over and I can keep plugging away and slowly healing.

What's happening as the outer stuff eases (from complete chaos to normalised hardship), my past two cycles, I've noticed an old old shame/guilt feeling creep up and blanket me come up from out of nowhere. Had that happen lots as a child. It would take over while at a friends' house or while watching a movie or in an otherwise pleasant, low-key situation. (Yep, there's abuse from back then too)

I have a trauma counsellor (she's on vacation til end of month). I do all the things (as best I can) and have had to do so since the past two decades when it comes to mental/physical health. So I'm not a newbie to the 'work' and not looking for advice like "talk to your counsellor" (because I will :)

My question 🤔

What I am trying to figure out is if others who mentstruate also notice weird and random waves or bogs of shame take over during otherwise ok moments or within a mild trigger or interaction? Especially during/after ovulation and during the luteal phase? I need to know if I am alone in this or if there are others finding this happen in there cycle too.....

If this is relatable, would you be willing to share? I'm trying to figure out what's happening beyond "old trauma is coming up, if you don't know exactly what"....

Thank yooooooou for reading and considering!

❤️‍🩹

I think I have ptsd. I keep hearing screaming/orgasms all the time (i've never orgasmed), especially in quiet spaces and i have been observing it. I usually do something active or watch something as for sleep putting on music, sometimes this doesn't help. I've come to realise i am the only one who hears this and i feel that i am going insane. I had a panic attack last year. I will be getting a diagnosis to see if i have this, however i have been told that i probably do have ptsd by nhs.

When i was around 6 i was SA’d. I remember telling my mom, I remember being interviewed by social workers and i remember being a kid and knowing that i was SA’d, but I cannot remember any details or anything that happened to me for sure?? I have one event that I remember very VERY vaguely as in I almost question its legitimacy (but i know something happened because he WAS arrested).

Recently, I’ve even discovered that more things happened that I cannot remember at all and didn’t even know happened to me.

However, I still struggle knowing the fact something happened to me. I still think about it everyday, i struggle with reminders of what happened (smells, places, tastes), I’ve started having nightmares about him, struggling to focus in class, and pretty much every other symptom of ptsd, but I can’t really remember anything? How is it that i have all these symptoms from something I can barely even recall? Is it still possible to have ptsd?

This whole experience has been so confusing, I’ve been questioning whether or not I should bring this up to my psychiatrist, considering i’ve never heard of this happening to anyone else diagnosed with PTSD. I’m not asking for a diagnosis I just want to know if this is normal? Has anyone else experienced the same?

I was SA’d 10 years ago. It was hell but I’m mostly fine now thanks to therapy. A few weeks ago I was looking through my journals from that period of time, maybe the two or three years afterwards, and more than once i had wondered if/ expressed that I felt like I had developed a speech impediment. I can’t really explain it well but it felt like explaining things was harder, like there was a lag or disconnection between thinking and speaking.

Does anyone know if there’s any research or resources about this? Not for dealing with it but just so I can know if this is common and why it happens.

I got diagnosed with PTSD 6 years ago now. I have overcome a lot of hardship to some extent but I do not really feel accomplished. I am finishing up college, I have job, I live on my own but I can't shake everything I have been through. I don't feel like I've made any progress despite going to therapy and generally improving my life. I still have panic attacks everyday and I can't sleep a lot of the time. I've just adjusted to this shit rather than it improving. A lot of intense stuff has happened in the last 2 years so I guess it could just be compounding. I really don't know what else to try and it's making me feel like a burden to those around me. Would be nice to feel completely ok for like 20 minutes.

Does it actually help with healing or does it just temporarily reduce depression and that’s it?

does anyone have experience going through cognitive processing therapy? was it helpful?

A while back I was SA'd (sorta) and I feel like it would help to get it out in the form of music. Does anyone know any songs specifically about sexual coercion?

Title sounds awful, but to elaborate I absolutely want people to overcome PTSD and find success, I really do hope we are all able to feel safe and have beautiful futures soon.

I feel bad feeling this way because I'm sure they did not mean to make me feel like crap for not suddenly getting my crap together now that I'm "free", and as I learn more about PTSD it's left me feeling like I could never reach anywhere near their heights. Some of the biggest stories involve abuse far more severe than my own, and it makes me mad at myself that instead of creating my own small business and becoming an "inspiration" I struggle to get out of bed, brush my hair and feel anxiety talking to a cashier.

I'm not sure if they never had those years of being stuck, realising they don't have an identity outside of their trauma, lack of drive to do anything and feeling alien from every regular person around them because no one could possibly relate. Did they share their story back then or hide it? Was adjusting to the real world also incredibly hard to do? Were they also emotionally unstable? Did they deal with years of foggy memories and fatigue? Did they also feel more hopeless outside of the abuse?

Idk, it's just hard trying to find examples of success where it doesn't jump from the worst things I've heard to suddenly having a loving family, living upper middle class and being believed. I would be heartbroken if they were putting on an act, but I wish they would talk more about how long it took to actually recover.

Hi. So I was diagnosed with PTSD four years ago and I feel so tired physically, mentally and emotionally. I am always drained. I always zone out every second. My weight fluctuates, I stress eat and because of the PTSD, I have developed a cardiovascular desease.

I just wish this could end... I feel like my life is falling apart and no matter what I try to improve, I'm always finding myself where I was before.

I don't want to give up on myself but I'm so tired...

I was at the hospital yesterday, after a >!suicide attempt!<, and after speaking to a mental health professional, they told me I likely have PTSD. I've been thinking about it, and if I really did it would make sense and would definitely help me get proper support. Should I go get tested for it? I'm not sure what to do.

For context I was severely >!physically and sexually abused!< growing up, and at around 14yro I started living with someone else, so I'm safe now. (Now I'm 17 btw)

I think my mind completely blocked out what had happened, though I could remember small details but that's about it. Very recently, memories have been popping up in my head which have caused me to become extremely distressed and panicked. I also keep having dreams about it

If anyone who knows about this stuff give me advice, I'd greatly appreciate it

Posting this on both r/TrueOffMyChest, r/PTSD, and r/SuicideWatch because I don’t know where it belongs. I just need to get this out of my system. I don’t know what I can do.

Sorry if the writing and grammar is bad I'm just vomiting all of this out here as I’m currently going through a crisis mentally. It probably doesn't make any sense at all and I did no reading over it or proofreading. I also left out a lot of details I feel weren't impactful and I don’t know what else sorry.

A lot of it is just me venting and talking about the trauma I faced and how it currently affected my life and those around me severely.

When I (23M) was 21 and on the night of Monday September 19th, 2022 ~10pm, I was walking home from school which is about a 20 minute walk. During the walk I was about half way home and this car stops and he gets out of his car with a weapon of some kind and I just froze and panicked because I don't know what he has and he was much taller and more built than I was, (a similar situation happened when I was younger but I was getting robbed instead that time) so I thought I was getting robbed but he then forced me in to the car with a concealed weapon I couldn't tell what it was because I was just in shock and so I got in the car and it felt like everything was just not real and I thought that was it I'm going to die and get my organs harvested. Instead, he brought me to some park and into the forest there and there he began to SA me and then he left me there when he was done. I spent my night there until it was nearly morning, just frozen and drained in the middle of this forest area of the park. 

Everything that happened was mostly a blur and I somehow managed to get myself home by taking an uber. During this time I just constantly felt disgusting and uncomfortable and I just couldn't feel clean, so I went to the hospital a few days later and they tried to gather as much information as they could as to what happened and I couldn't give them much because i didn't know since it's all just a blur, they also couldn't use the SAEK because I already tried several times to clean myself, all they could do was run tests and provide medication for possible STD's and stuff (all came back negative). During this time, I was dating someone for about a month and a little bit, and when I came around to telling them what happened they just looked at me and treated me with disgust and I felt blamed constantly till they eventually broke it off. When I spoke to a therapist the therapist just didn't really care which was the start of my fear of therapy and never going ever again they kind of just gave blank responses and it felt like I was making up what I was saying to them.

I haven't gone to therapy ever since then and my grades were suffering and I was unable to go outside. I had a hard time sleeping with constant nightmares and other issues. Due to my fear of therapy from what happened after the SA I was at my the lowest point I have ever been in my life and considered suicide and attempted several times (always got too scared and didn’t want to hurt those around me) by the end of 2022.

 I have been diagnosed with ADHD, Social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and major depressive disorder from a young age, and I also have a history of self harm starting when I was <10 years old (don't remember when exactly), I also had selective mutism from kindergarten (4 y/o) up to the 9th grade (14 y/o). I only recently learned of the term selective mutism a few years ago too lol. I’ve always been on and off antidepressants and ADHD meds but I always struggled with how they make me feel. 

In 2023 I started to just kind of just block all of it out and shut it all out from my head and it felt like none of it ever even happened, but a long with that it caused me to have this wall in my head and not ever being able to control my thoughts and impulses and made my mental health decline and I just kept pushing myself on my own with no help and support, I felt like I had to be on my own. Just to note my family is really good and loving but they have a lot of struggles financially and stuff and I feel like as an adult and their child I know telling them any of this will just drag them down mentally too and I never want that, especially how they found out once I hurt myself really bad I saw how they felt and I never want them to experience that ever again. I know this was a bad thing and this is filled with bad habits through and through and I acknowledged that but I was always constantly lost and conflicted with myself. Eventually I managed to find some stability (kind of but not really) and pretty much dissociated from the whole situation and changed into a different person entirely and the whole situation just. I just feel like I’m never consistently the same person and it's as if I’m always a different person in different scenarios and constantly forgetting actions that happen or that are happening until it's too late which is a main issue in my life, due to ADHD and whatever else.

During the times I was “recovering” on my own, I was one day on a chatting website with random people because it helped me when I helped those who were struggling with issues and I always like talking with them and it gave me some hope, until I randomly met someone who I made really good friends with and we hit it off immediately with lots of common interests and views on things. This friend eventually became my girlfriend throughout the summer and looking back on it now it was probably a mistake because I was struggling mentally behind the mask I wear everyday. But dating her was the best thing that happened, it was my first actual relationship where I loved someone, it's not like I was actively searching for a partner or desperate for one, we kind of just clicked and went with the flow of things. She made me so happy and supported me and cared for me and I also did what I could for her and we helped each other. But eventually I started to get maybe too comfortable and the wall I put up in my head started to eventually crack and all my ADHD and other symptoms got amplified without control and the impulsiveness just went up like 10x, I would make poor comments and they did hurt her even though I never once intended them, and I see her as the most beautiful and perfect person who I want to marry and have a future with and is the love of my life despite us being so young and I know we have our whole lives ahead of us and what not but this was it. Throughout the relationship my ADHD symptoms just wouldn’t calm down and I just kept blurting hurtful and random things out which I never mean, I’m a really gentle, quiet/soft spoken, and reserved person generally so it’s so out of character for me and it doesn't feel like I'm in control when I do these things and I just hate my life so damn much because of this. 

I lacked the support, I lacked the training and I lacked the strength to fix anything and everything just breaks when I interact with it and I can't live like that anymore, I constantly want to give up and just stop this conflict in my head where I don’t have the control anymore and I just feel so cold and lonely in my own brain and body… if that makes sense? Things got really bad for us when she would always try and tell me I needed to get therapy but I always avoided it because I got scared of therapy and being judged and dismissed by the therapist again when I was at my lowest. My struggles, weakness, and mental capacity caused too many issues and stress factors in my life and she was a collateral of my mental issues. 

In 2024, a big issue that caused me to be like this right now is because of my own issue and the SA, because I tried to take some control and cope in some way because I guess the situation that happened was out of my control so I want to get some control back by doing this in some way by talking to gay guys on the internet (im 100% straight and always will be). These were just normal conversations and I never told them anything about me that was real, I would make up fake stories and stuff to them, but I made it look like I wanted real connections with them but I did not want anything to do with them and blocked them after I felt bad for them that I was messing with them. I respect everyone and support all, but this SA caused me to be fearful of gay men who are strangers. So I guess the other day I told her I'm on reddit making this post claiming to make friends but I wasn’t actually going to get involved with them it was just a way of coping to take control of how I feel towards them if that makes sense. I'm NOT homophobic entirely, my best friend is bi and I have a lot of friends I like to hangout with and work with who are gay.

The main issue was that, when I told her about doing that and not telling her the post or sharing it with her, she made a new account and tried to find it, which she did. And when she found the post she dm’d me and basically tested me (it was on a subreddit for gay men/trans people only) and asked what I was looking for on this subreddit and (s)he asked if im poly or single or something or if im looking for something more and in my mindset, I take nothing said on the internet as real or meaningful so I say dumb shit not knowing it's her and I know it was obviously disrespectful to her regardless of it being something that was meant or not real or not meaningful or not, but (s)he said, “just going forward, are you looking for anything more or just friends” and I replied “depending on where things go I guess based on person to person”, which (s)he replied with “I’m assuming you are single unless you do poly” I replied with “I am single”. And to her it was the end, I know it was a mistake. It felt like a fever dream that I was doing this and it was just my brain on autopilot? I’ve also never done anything like this in my life to her. When she sees any females who are friends with me and she doesn’t like it, I block them and cut them out of my life out of respect for her. 

This whole messaging thing caused her to break up with me and I tried to explain my side that it was just coping it was just autopilot and didn’t feel like me doing this, and that im 100% straight and she knows that, but to her (and rightfully so) it felt like I was cheating on her and broke her trust even if it was a whole fake online personality I used there with zero intention other than to lead them on and mess with them, I know it's horrible and I could have done something else, but it was what my brain wanted to do (I promise i'm not homophobic, just uncomfortable and fearful of them sometimes due to SA). 

This all caused me to completely crash and I feel like I just ruined my own life right after it was starting to somewhat get somewhere good with a good and loving partner. If only I had started therapy and didn’t be such a coward and failure to everything around me, none of this would have happened and I just constantly feel like it’s too late for me and I don't know if i'll make it through this genuinely.

I have also been on antidepressants for a few months but it feels like it's not enough and I constantly just want to keep harming myself to feel like I’m still alive because i'm constantly remembering that in the middle of the night it feels like I got out of bed and ate all my pills and went back to bed (I didn't but it was like a dream?) I recently started therapy yesterday despite being so fearful of it and I wanted to do it for myself and to show her I could be better. t was through my school but it went okay but it also made me feel like I could have done so much more to fix all my issues and work through it all with training and therapy but now I feel like it’s just too late for me to make any change to fix all the mistakes I’ve made and I’m just being punished for the poor decisions I made because I was a coward and failed to see the issues I face with daily. But now it’s just feeling like it’s too late and I just want it all to end.

Sorry for being who I am and the way I am, I just hope the world could forgive me for the things I did in my life and the people I hurt in the process. I don’t know how to move forward with this. I'm just exhausted with myself. If you read all of this, sorry for wasting your time.