So my husband and I have been married for about 4 years. I am completely sure I love him deeply, but I also feel that I can be very apprehensive.
My husband and I both work from home so we are never apart, but there are times when he has to work abroad and I really have a bad time letting him go. I get extremely anxious when we're not together and I don't know if that's bad.
3 reactions Hi there - genuinely in a difficult space needing to hear some others thoughts on this scenario - i have 5.0.0.5 years of therapy with current amazing psychologist T - i have had previous therapy before and never experienced what i will describe happening today. My history is child se-ual abuse, eating disorders, then into therapy where i was groomed and abused there too. mixed painful experiences.
This year I’ve had this strong feeling for needing comfort/hugs. i don't really have a place where that happens. Earlier in year i got sick from overdose & could have died. my T was with me, first time i asked for a hug, she said, “i would love to” and hugged me. 2 months later i asked for a hug and she hugged back but i left feeling like i had abused her. then she was off sick for 5 months.
since coming back to therapy, I've done my very best to be honest with T. told her about feelings of needing hugs & feeling like id abused her. She said i hadn’t abused her and she could have said no, (which she has done with people but not me) she also said its okay to want your needs met. but when i have felt like a hug since i don’t ask her - i told her i don’t ask her. i don't know why i am feeling so unsafe and needing that physical comfort. some part of me wishes she would ask if i need a hug at the times i need that but I’m pretty sure any therapist can't ask that- it needs to be client led. it's like i want to know that she cares enough to want to hug and i am not forcing but i can't seem to accept or understand what genuine care is. i get so confused and i am guessing this is stemming from my previous abusive experiences. This T has gone above and beyond for me in ways before - when hospitalised buying me self-care products, pyjamas, and writing a wee card. We have a very strong rapport 5.5years into therapy. thank you for your help #Therapy #MentalHealth #CPTSD #PTSD #Trauma #attachment #Abuse #psychology #BPD #EUPD
Each day is a new opportunity to learn about yourself.
Today I learned that my Disorganized/Fearful attachment style and my people pleasing are connected. That my trauma driven behaviors are actually the result of my attachment style.
If you are curious and want to know what your style is, there are tons of quizzes online.
I suggest taking one. It changed my perspective and helped me to understand what I need to change. I need to be more trusting and more mindful in my relationships.
Slowly, I am learning what drives my behaviors and the more I know the more I can heal.
#Trauma #PTSD #Abuse #AbuseSurvivors #suicideattemptsurvivor #selfharmsurvivor #Healing #learning #attachment
We fancy children as being resilient and bouncing back from trauma more quickly than grown ups. But the science actually suggests that this isn't exactly accurate. Children are less resilient than they are malleable. And frankly, if they don't have attuned caregivers who can help them weather traumatic events in effective ways, the impacts can be long lasting.
In this brilliant article, Sara Schuster describes the science behind it: How Old You Were When You Experienced Trauma Matters – Here’s Why
What takeaways did you get from this article? Did it help to explain how you have developed as an adult? Share your thoughts below.
Have you ever heard about attachment style? It can be a powerful determinant of the ways in which we interact with others in a relationship and it is established in childhood depending upon the connection you had or didn't have with your primary caregiver. You can read more about it in this article:
themighty.com/2022/07/disorganized-attachment-style-makes-me...
Those of us who have experienced trauma often have a disorganized attachment style. I can vacillate between trusting others to isolating in just moments because my hyper vigilance kicks in.
Based upon these descriptions, can you isolate your attachment style? Are you secure, avoidant, ambivalent or disorganized? How does this manifest for you? Share below!
#PTSD #CPTSD #Trauma #attachmenttheory #attachmentstyle #attachment #Relationships
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My wife just blew up at me. We need to communicate better, she said. She has a habit of telling me what negative thoughts I am thinking and feeling, and then adding, "well am I wrong?" to it. This is years in the making. Essentially, it happens when she asks me a question or tells me about something, and my tone of voice sounds negative to her, or my face or body language looks negative.
I have chronic pain as well as deep depression, so it is difficult for me to convincingly put on a happy face, or speak with joy in my voice. But I do try my best to speak in neutral tones at the very least, and I have thought that I have a resting face of a neutral mood or higher as much as possible.
It has been building for a long time. I am struck out of the blue most times when she tells me what I am thinking, and how unfair that is, and paints me as the bad guy and her as the innocent one. In the early days, it would just shock me, and sometimes confuse me. In the last couple of years, it just makes me angry and defensive. We've had plenty of arguments about it, but no agreement. She doesn't see it as mind reading because she says "I 'feel like' you were disgusted by what I just said, and you shouldn't be", or "I 'feel' that you think I'm stupid just because I did X, or Y". She says since she uses the word "feel", she isn't mind reading, and so it's up to me to tell her if she's right or wrong. Well, I have been telling her she's wrong for over 40 years now, and that only makes her angry and defensive. I told her time and again that I get mad when people try to read my mind and put words into my mouth. I tell her to skip saying the part about what she is so sure that I am thinking, and just ASK ME what I am thinking, instead. Ninety percent of the time, I am not only NOT thinking what she thinks I am, but I am thinking about some other subject altogether. Then when she accuses me of thinking some negative thing, it hits me out of the blue, and I register it as an insult. I asked her why she can't just ASK me what I am thinking, or ask me how I am feeling. I would welcome both of those if they were honest questions. I would feel like I was cared about. That makes perfect sense to me, but she doesn't see it that way. She says that she's just being honest, and that she IS asking me how I feel, or what I am thinking, when she tells me what she feels like I am thinking. We can't get past that. So she got louder and more accusatory, and then angrily walked out.
I don't know what to do. I am battling Major Depressive Disorder, CPTSD, Anxiety, ADHD and severe Chronic Pain. I am doing the very best that I can. I am on disability, and I fill my days and evenings reading books on my various diagnoses, learning as much as I can, so that I can better control, or adapt, or adjust to the reality of my life, and I do feel good about that. I have tried to share some of this with her, both verbally, and by sharing articles with her via email. She seems stand-offish about it, at best. When I ask her outright if she wants to learn more, she swears she does, but she has a life, therefore she just doesn't have the time or energy to read much about it. I told her a few minutes ago that I will stop burdening her with it, and will stop sending her articles and such. She rebuffed that idea, but added again that she just doesn't have the time. She said she is doing the best that she can in trying to deal with all my problems, and she doesn't have the energy or the will to do it any more. She's "had it."
She came back and brought up another time recently that I was unreasonable, saying that she had told me something about her job, and I had reacted with sarcasm and disgust. I remember it well. It was just the opposite. She told me that her employer was giving $50 bonuses to anyone who got a Covid booster shot, and I responded "wow, that must be nice. Go ahead and do that." She and I both agree that that's all that I said. But she says I was being sarcastic, and spit the words out like venom, and I thought it was disgusting. I remember calmly saying those words, genuinely happy for her to get $50 just for getting a shot that we both were going to get anyway. The difference, more than likely, was the fact that during the time that she was unwinding after work and telling me bonus, as well as about the rest of her day, I was in a pit of depression, and I was in a ton of physical pain from my legs and my back. I know that had to have affected the tone of my voice, the look on my face, and my body language. But I don't talk about the pain, because it would sound whiney and redundant. I was just sitting there listening to her, and I thought I answered appropriately and honestly. Anyway, that night, after I had answered her, she responded by telling me what (she believed) I was thinking and feeling, and she wanted to know what my response was. My response was "that's not an argument I am willing to have right now." To me, I was angry that "it" was happening again, and I could argue about it like so many times before, or I could choose not to. I chose not to argue. To her, I had just insulted her, and said she isn't worth arguing with, and since I had not argued, then what she had thought about me must indeed be true.
If (and when) she "reads my mind" again, and assigns various negative thoughts and feelings to me, we could bypass all of this trouble if she could just hold those 'mind-read thoughts' inside, and just ask me two simple questions, instead. First, "how are you feeling?" And second, "what are you tinking." I will gladly and honestly answer her. But I just can't take any more veritable accusations for thinking and feeling certain ways, and then be expected to explain or defend myself, meanwhile letting it roll off me like water off of a duck's back. It's not an argument I'm having anymore.
Thanks for listening.
♧♧♧
#MajorDepressiveDisorder #Bipolar2Disorder #CPTSD #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #Anxiety #ADHD #Autism #BodyFocusedRepetitiveBehaviors #PathologicalDemandAvoidanceSyndrome #AutismSpectrumDisorders #TreatmentresistantDepression #TRD #ASD #anhedonia #ChronicDepression #ChronicPain #SpinalStenosis #GAD #Sadness #CombinedPresentationADHD #SmilingDepression #SocialAnxietyDisorder #Disability #MentalHealth #Insomnia #DiabetesType2 #Diabetes #Asthma #Hypertension #Hypervigilance #nerveandjointpain #HearingLoss #Grief #generationaltrauma #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #TraumaRecovery #Trauma #ChildhoodTraumaSurvivors #MedicalTrauma #IntergenerationalTrauma #Trauma #SexualTrauma #traumasurvivor #Survivor #EmotionalAbuse #ChiildhoodSexualAbuse #ChildhoodEmotionalAbuse #PsychologicalAbuse #PTSD #AdverseChildhoodExperiences #ChildhoodAbuse #ReactiveAttachmentDisorder #RAD #attachment #Childhoodneglect #attachmentdisorder #ChildAbuseandNeglect #FearOfAbandonment #abandonment #Suicide #SuicideLossSurvivors #SuicidalThoughts #SuicidalIdeation #PassiveSuicidalIdeation #suicidal #Depression #MajorDepression
I recently got myself out of a toxic “situationship” because I finally realized that I was suffering. This is actually a really big step for me because in the past I would rather be depressed than be without said persons company… In the beginning of this situationship I had zero interest in the person and he checked none of my boxes; he spoke about women in such a degrading manner, and he’s hot and cold. This means that he would be very present, sweet, and thoughtful for a few weeks and then ghost me without reason for the next few weeks. I was so desperate for his attention that when he came back I’d welcome him with open arms. This is actually called “Love bombing” and trust me, it hurts. Now, because I convinced myself that my attachment to him was a crush, I did everything in my power to justify his manipulation!! This is until I realized that he was going out of his way to ignore me. After he played this trick 2 times, the 3rd is where I realized my worth. Well… not really. Uhm… it took him telling me that he didn’t want a relationship and saying that he flirts with everyone for it to snap in my head. Even then, I assumed “Hey, we could still be friends! The bestest of friends in fact”. We even called each other “Bestie”. But then the cycle continued and the love bomb + ghost tactic started again so I took back my power and completely cut him off. Not officially, there was no “We’re no longer friends” conversation, but now I don’t allow him in my bubble. He no longer has access to me. I ignore his messages and attempts at conversation + physical contact and I feel good about it: relieved. But with my overthinking here comes the question — does he even care that I cut him off? And that breaks my heart hurt because I’ve been dealing with him for 6 months... SIX! And this urges the other questions — was I imagining the love bombing? Was he just being nice?? NO WAY, I won’t accept that. If I searched up “How to know if someone likes you” he’d check every singular box. This entire thing makes me SO angry because just as I would start letting my guard down and slowly lifting that physical barrier (platonically of course), that’s when he would ghost me. This is why my guard is make of bricks and cement. I’m so scared of people leaving and taking a piece of me with them but then again relationships are about sacrifice… right? But why would I sacrifice my mental and emotional well being for anyone??? Even those that I know would never leave… and that’s the problem. Thanks dad.
During the months when I am losing my mother (I don't know what will remain of me afterwards), I feel I touch the core of the BPD problem: the constant and pervasive state of partial detachment from one's life and the expectation that sooner or later someone else will appear to deal with it instead of us, to give us instructions about what to do with it. Life does not belong to us and we do not belong to life which for others is so clear that it belongs to us. Feet do not weigh on the earth and hands do not grasp what we need, The ability to grasp our life, that's what we miss. This is why we find it so difficult and wasteful of energy to do something coherent to build a life, to take care of it. For this, we become addicted because we are waiting. The origin? Bad emotional communication from which we defended ourselves with a sense of detachment, with a readiness not to let us belong. And now that the one who wanted to decide for me the meaning of (my) things and (my) emotions is dying, I must urgently learn to die before I have ever learned to live. #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #DBT #dependency #attachment #LosingAParent #Borderline depression
As children, we pretend for fun. As teenagers, we pretend we care. But why do we pretend to be okay? I'm 16, and I've been pretending my whole life. Pretending that I didn't care about the abuse, about the loss. Pretending that I wasn't depressed or crying every night. But now...today...today I am pretending that I don't miss my girlfriend. We got together about a week and a half ago, but I haven't talked to her since the day after we got together. It doesn't seem like a big deal, I know. But to me it is. I made this (the picture attached) for my tablet wallpaper. It took me 4 hours to get it all done, and I wanted to show her. But I couldn't. She had gotten in trouble and doesn't get her phone for an unknown amount of time. *sigh*
We haven't been together that long but this hurts....a lot. Why?
#why #wlw #LGBTQ #Depression #Anxiety #PTSD #help #Questioning #attachment #attachmentissues
I have never experienced a flashback...my two best friends in residential had multiple a day sometimes. The totally disassociated, not present...and terrified. I recently heard about emotional flashbacks and it was terribly validating. Essentially it’s when you’re triggered by something and “flashback” to an experience from your past and you’re living like you’re there all over again. I’m present in reality but not there’s a part of me that’s not. The younger part of me that’s still hurt and afraid. It’s like the same threat is happening now. I’m afraid I will be abandoned because you don’t agree, don’t like my opinion or ideas, or just because I’m not good enough. #Flashbacks #Trauma #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #attachment #FearOfAbandonment
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