help

I don't know what to do. I've worked so hard to heal myself of 20+ years of trauma and now I am being asked to stop taking my medication for 60 days in order to keep my job. #help #Singlemom #Depression #Anxiety #PTSDSupportAndRecovery

Hi! I'll attempt to keep this one short, unlike my other posts.

I grew up a non-smoker in a very much smoker family (everyone, including the teens, smoked except for grandma and me). We all live in one big family house which has three floors. Each of us, or I guess each "family unit" has their own flat, complete with the bathroom and kitchen etc. The smoking family members would all gather in the second floor hallway and chainsmoke with the window only a little cracked, pretty much using the place as a balcony.

As a kid I grew up with my emotionally neglectful & abusive grandmother who lived on the second floor, but very close to the stairs leading downstairs, away from the part of the hallway where they used to gather. This was ironically ideal as at least I didn't smell it as much back then and the only thing bothering me back then was the cat hair on my clothes I got bullied for and the feathers in my bedding I was allergic to, oh and I guess also grandma but that's besides the point. :P

Afterwards something happened that made my dad move me upstairs, and I remained there since then. This upstairs flat does not have a bathroom or a functioning kitchen, so I always have to walk down the stairs, open and close the door leading to the stairs and move through the second floor hallway if I want to go to the toilet, get kitchen appliances, literally just leave or move freely throughout the house.

As a kid it was really bad because, as I said, there were about 1-5 people smoking there at any random moment and I needed to power through that. Plus I couldn't have said anything to them either because they'd get mad I'm straying away from them or defending my health (lol fuckers).

Now at least most of the people have moved out and only two sometimes smoke there, so it's better. Still definitely not ideal, but better! Except for when some of them visit, like the teens that are now adults that now have a partner of their own who also smokes and that fuckass annoying baby they like to expose to second hand smoke that I have to pretend I find cute, even though it always reeks of smoke and shit and will probably end up with a shit ton of problems in the future. And then they all gather in the hallway and ruin the air again and again. The new people always seem to use the worst smelling brands, too, and I have to pretend like I appreciate their presence at all, which drains me to no ends. Can't wait for when they leave.

It bothers me a ton, because I have to time my actions throughout the day constantly like going to take a dump, taking out the trash, talking to people downstairs if it's needed or if they want me to etc. and it's annoying to do that and then miscalculate and end up with potential smoke in the hair/clothes/SELF and then just the feeling of not feeling clean and worrying about getting cancer. Plus the clothes were expensive, and just freshly washed.

It's also annoying when I time it juuust right, after they just smoked and I can still smell it in the air. I try to hold my breath but it isn't doing much. I always run upstairs really fast afterwards and get a tissue to blow into, I guess to reassure myself that I'm alright now.

A trip from the hallway and out of it usually takes me about 4 seconds because again, I try to be really fast, but running up the stairs while holding my breath all while the smoke is still seeping into the rest of my skin exacerbating my skin problems and possibly creating new ones in the process takes longer, around 7 seconds. My question is, how likely is this to impact my health?

I was toying with the idea of going to the cardiologist and telling him about all of this (except for the part where I'm inconsiderate about my family of course), so that he could maybe write a fake note telling them my issues got worse and that a potential culprit could have been their smoking, so if they please couldn't smoke outside instead. Corrupt, but it could work, I think?

Then again, the house is my grandma's, and she doesn't really care about any of this even though she is a non-smoker as well, so it's probably not accomplishable. Doubt she'd make an exception for JUST me either. Seems unbalanced.

Anyway, thank you for reading, and I will be glad for any responses. :)#CPTSD #EmotionalNeglect #Smoking #cigarettes #help #MentalHealth edited for the tags

TW: so for starters, long post again, huuuuuuuuuge amounts of insensitivity in said post that sounds like I'm normalizing it because I don't feel about it anyhow, might be triggering for some who suffered from an abusive relationship, probably some trauma bonding, written from the POV of what people would normally deem an abuser (even if my partner doesn't realize it - not sure if this is allowed?), no idea anymore, of course feel free not to read this post if you feel uncomfortable at any point

Hi, so the problem is this. My partner/SO of 8 years loves me even though I used to and still treat him pretty badly. I haven't been diagnosed as one, but I'm certain I must at least have traits of some very specific cluster B mental illness, not naming any because self-diagnosies are not tolerable etc. etc.

This extends to him too, I don't want to label my guy but I think he is someone that people would think of as a codependent in a given relationship, and a possibly an enabler from outside of the relationship.

I am not a very good person. I don't feel any kind of empathy, guilt/remorse, I can't bond with people ever, and I just genuinely don't care about most anything but my own person. I find myself incredibly interesting and I dissect and analyze myself in many ways from many angles. I love to brag about the bad things that I "have the potential" to do. I mostly conceal all of this in public, aside from some casual things that don't reveal much about my mental state, but that doesn't change the fact that I am wired in this way. It's only with my SO that I can afford to be truly vulnerable, otherwise nobody really knows me in the slightest.

I'm saying this because my SO is the only person I can be "real" with, and so this of course means he gets to see the worst I have to offer (because that is me, and anything else I present is a false representation made in order to survive in society). Now don't get me wrong, I don't ever abuse him, as in, physically, but I used to mentally years ago, heavily, during the typical lovebombing stage, because I was really young and just had no concept of boundaries or maybe I did and just ignored that because I didn't care that much about reputation back then and even was kind of passively suicidal, so the thought I wouldn't live long anyway made me more susceptible to trying out things on people.

I want to be clear on that I'm not excusing any of this, shit was diabolical and even though I don't feel anything about it, I don't do it anymore, because I do appreciate this person a lot, even if I can't really prove it emotionally. The abuse must have lasted about 2 years before something happened that prompted me to reveal myself for real, and after that I just stopped with it because I understood it wouldn't mesh well with this new revelation, and I wouldn't be able to get anything out of him now, anyway (this is what I thought at the time).

Since then I am always myself around him. We are also much healthier (coming from the ex abuser this must not sound very authentic, but I do think I've mellowed out a LOT since then). Even so, it's still a very puzzling thing. Basically it appears that he knows I'm incapable of loving him, but does not care in the slightest. I attribute this to him having a very low self-esteem. Sometimes I use him as venting grounds for when I'm particularly frustrated with the outside world, expecting reality validation, and he happily remains my echo chamber.

Even though he is a very feelings-oriented and a moral person and I'm certain he would hate anybody that is like me character-wise with a passion, he claims to love me for who I am. To me this doesn't seem like love, but rather obsession. It definitely stems from me traumatizing him heavily in the past as I said, I know it was fucked up and I tell him so whenever he appears to sideline it, as well as the struggles it brought about for his mental health.

The problem is, he always appears to think I can do no wrong and excuses any bad action I ever do or say I have the potential for doing. I have always believed this to be problematic, mostly because his own issues complement this obsession with me.

He has a savior complex and a general need to "feel relied on/depended on", plus a tendency to think of me as "broken", which really doesn't make any sense because I'm self-aware to hell and back and don't care if I inflict hurt as long as nobody finds out socially. He excuses my actions every single time without fail ("your actions aren't that bad"), and even when I provide evidence that they are, he points to my past and uses it as justification for my actions, in a sort of "you are allowed to do that because of how bad you had it" kind of way.

He has admitted to worshipping me and obsessing about me in private (centering his religious OCD around me, for one, or choosing to write his essays in uni about how "misunderstood" I am and how he loves me so much (obv with an alias for my character because why would he reveal the very problematic personality of the one he loves right)). Don't get me wrong, I obviously love it because why wouldn't I since I'm such a shitty person and think I truly am all that and deserve everything good in life but it still seems concerning to me to the point that I think if I had any empathy at all I would 100% feel sorry for him. He just seems almost brainwashed, and I didn't intend to do this, I think (???).

Since I haven't managed to have an effect like this on anyone since, I'm wondering what it is I did to make him that way, so that I can maybe revert it? Like okay I may not feel bad about it but I care for this person in my own way and from a cognitively empathetic standpoint even I can see that this is majorly fucked up and I definitely need to correct it somehow, even if we are "okay" now, as his denial clearly signals that not everything is healed.

So I'm looking for advice from ex codependents.

Anyone with a similar case? How did your partner make you realize that many of their actions towards you were (and still sometimes are, at least for me - though not because I would want them to be mean but because I'm just bored and don't care in general) genuinely not well-meaning? How did they make you or how did you yourself manage to "snap" out of it?

I think if I had the capability to love, I would truly love this person, for too many reasons that I won't get into right now, they basically saved me, but that's exactly why I want them to live their best life, which I believe would best be accomplished without me. How do I manage this?

I apologize for the word soup. Hopefully this is comprehensible enough. Have a great rest of your day/night :)

#Abuse #TW #help #Relationships #traumabonding

Everytime I go to look at posts, comment or post in this group it prompts me to join? I'm using mobile webpage .on my android device.Did I do something wrong and keep getting kicked out of the group by the group leader? I've tried the app but it freezes before log in. Anyone else having this issue?

#MightyPets #help #rejoingroupsmultipletimes #techsupport

!!!TW!!! [Trigger Warning]: homicidal thoughts, animal abuse (!!childhood only and it was one incident!!), for pretty f*cked up things that happened in my childhood, and some that happen still. I'm sorry.

This will be a very long post, so feel free to skip it if you feel like it. I just don't know where else to post this anymore. Or how to go about getting help when nobody listens to me.

I don't know where to start. I feel like this life has never been worth living, despite not having it as bad as many other people currently. Thing is, I always manage to slip back into certain patterns and loops, and I'm tired. It diminishes the quality of my life greatly, and because of that I'd like to get help. But the problem is, it's so hidden that nobody considers it a problem. Not my close circle, or my SO, or even the psychologist I go to. Regardless, I feel like I have to explain my situation first. I think it all stems from my childhood, and my psychologist claims PTSD, so even though I don't believe it's only that, that's why I'm posting on this mental health platform.

My upbringing was mostly stressful. My parents were mostly absent, so my grandmother had to raise me. My grandma was always mean, moody, bossy and hot-headed. Since she was stuck with raising a child she didn't want to care for, she pretty much gave up on me. Refused to talk to me or appease my curiosity just as well as she failed to nourish my interests, beat me up whenever I'd refuse to eat something she'd made (because her cooking was god-awful and always had to contain raw meat which I despised back then (possibly why she felt she had to include it every time)). Constantly devalued, insulted my intelligence or even just doubted my ability to function. There were multiple attempts at gaslighting me about things I attributed to myself, some worked, some I saw through. Neglected me a lot emotionally while being hot and cold. Sometimes, she would do a 180, like when I'd start having major tooth pain and she would suddenly sympathize with me and genuinely feel for for me and make me sliced toast.

I think this was the basis for many things I feel (and don't feel) in my life currently. I detached from most of what I feel, never ever felt affective empathy in my life but pretended to, so she failed to instill that in me too I suppose. I always felt that my real self is dangerous to expose, so I created a false self instead, and now maintain it to the best of my ability. If it collapses externally, I collapse internally, cue another loop.

I do everything for short-term pleasure. I still do. It sucks because I can't maintain my connections because I just genuinely don't care about any of these people that walk into my life. I never truly bonded with anyone or liked them unconditionally and I struggle with expressing that to the outside world because I don't want to be found out.

It'll go great at first, like I'll be super charismatic because I'm amazing at talking to strangers because I'm never myself because I don't HAVE a self except the controversial one that would drive everyone away and so I hide it and everything looks good, but once that initial interaction with them becomes constant, I start thinking now that I have to be in character and it just kinda spoils them for me, so I ghost them.

If I can't ghost them and I still need to be in contact for whatever reason, and I'd witness the person does something that is a trigger to me - so whenever I'd perceive somebody think lowly of me, whether it'd be by underestimating me, taking me for granted, thinking I'm stupid, thinking they're better than me or more aware than me, misunderstanding me, misunderstanding the POINT of me or just plain not noticing me for a skill they'd normally notice in other people, I'd get these intense homicidal urges to just jump them because I'd start thinking that because they think that of me, they must be really self-absorbed (projection?) and because of that, "worthless" to me, and no longer deserved the time I attributed to the activity I was previously trying to make work with them. The same would happen if they started taking me for granted or just being arrogant for no reason, or they didn't and obviously still cared about me but in my head I perceived them to think of me as stupid.

Naturally I NEVER let anybody know about this, so nobody ever really suspected anything.

But it's still always a really miserable experience for me. I can't describe why it is, because I mostly don't feel anything during those times, so why should it be? But it's either an extremely good feeling in the form of a social high, or indifference, or this extremely unbearable feeling of indifference and alienation at the same time that more often that not makes me collapse and I have to excuse myself so nobody sees. Like I'll be socializing with them and suddenly I'll just feel alienated from them because they'll never understand me, they'll never see me in full authenticity, not because I oscillate between not wanting them to + exposing myself in full glory to get short-term satisfaction feelings (though that plays a part), but because they just have to BELIEVE that I'm this person my false self claims to be. They refuse to believe I could truly just not care about them unless they are beneficial to me in any way, they refuse to believe I could feel zero empathy because I always hide those things from them. It kills me inside because I want to be authentic with the world, but I can't because my authenticity would spell disaster for other people, on top of myself.

It also really doesn't help that I don't look threatening. I'm a woman, average height, with a ditzy persona. I have a sense of personal style which is quite eclectic, and all of this makes people open up to me naturally and in their mind we are great friends. When really it takes just one thing for me to go from indifference to despising them with all of my being to the point that I just want to strangle them for perceiving even once that they are thinking of me badly. But I still mask all of this, so like I stated multiple times in this post, nobody knows about this. End result, I come off completely unbothered and probably just like I have depression because I tend to cry really easily with anything (apathy, sadness, happiness, anger, jealousy, blinding rage....).

Or maybe they are just being ignorant of me because what do you mean I throw a family cat into the pool and nobody cares. Or my cousin into a nearby nettle field because I was jealous that her birthday was being celebrated unlike mine and although my folks are pissed, they don't take it as a sign that something is wrong (even though I was literally 8 years old at the time). Or I fully confess to the fact that I never felt empathy MULTIPLE TIMES, but just because I look like I do and I have a shit ton of cognitive empathy, everybody thinks I'm bluffing or delusional.

Fast forward to now and I just realize I genuinely despise most people I know. I'm extremely hyper aware about everything I do and it sucks, because I'm effectively a nobody in the end but nobody will ever know that, or even affirm that, because it looks different to the outside world. I'm selfish as fuck, but that's not me just being humble or depressed or anything, it's just genuine self-awareness. But I'll never get that confirmed. Not until I actually DO something that will warrant people to think I am the way I am. I don't want it to get to that point. I know exactly what kind of problem I have, but nobody wants to acknowledge that I do have it, and it's driving me insane. Please help me.

edit: grammar

#CPTSD #MentalHealth #Trauma #help #EmotionalNeglect #noempathy

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Ever since the middle of last month, I’ve been having stress dreams pretty much everyday. It used to be just around twice a week… why? I hate this so much. I want it to be back to normal. It’s now pissing me off.

Is it just thanks to the crapload of stressors I’ve had? Of course it is, it has to be. The traumatic flashbacks, the interrupted routines, being done with Amazon, the news about Target and (I think) Dollar General (and yes, even though Target did apologize, as a minority I cannot fully trust them anymore until I see loads of genuine improvement moving forward), summer’s existence (I hate summer)…. even when I’m no longer stressed by these things at times, even when days were great, I’m still having stress dreams everyday…

I even had such a great birthday unexpectedly last month. All of this now just seems like a very rude awakening. I wish I’ve never turned another age…. 🙁

#MyAutismIsNotADisorder #MyAutismIsNotADisability #Autistic #AutismSpectrum #Anxiety #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #OSTD #OtherSpecifiedTraumaDisorder #StressDreams #help #overstimulated #TickedOff #triggerwarning

This year, literally the past six months, it seems like my husband is letting his depression win. He’s always upset, angry and/or depressed. There’s always a trigger that sends him into a negative thought loop, but the thoughts that seem to keep popping up is that he’s lonely and it’s all his fault, and that he’s never going to amount to anything because he doesn’t earn enough money. He upset about not having friends to hang out with, yet he won’t try to stay committed to anyone long enough to gain a friendship. He’s upset about not being able to afford everything his heart desires because his job won’t pay him enough money. Then he cites both of these things as being reasons as to why this life isn’t worth living. He gets livid and irate. He ends up mad at every little thing. I don’t know what else to do. He’s gone to therapy for years. He refuses to go on medication unless it’s the medicine he wants. I’ve tried my hardest to be supportive and to be there for him, but I really just don’t know what to do. He’s fine for one week then the next he’s mad at the world or himself. It’s a constant vicious cycle. I love him, but I’m exhausted and at my wits end. #Depression #exhausted #help
Update: He just wants to sleep all the time now. I’ve never seen him get this bad. I don’t know what to do.

I really wanna share my healing process which i truly need advices and friends , real supportive companions through the journey so we won't all feel drained by our own self discovery and healing .. if anyone support me in such idea please comment here ! 🙏🏻🙏🏻 #Anxiety #MentalHealth #PTSD #Healing #help #CheerMeOn

The short summary is, January 19th I got choked on food and I ended up getting dysphagia from it and couldn’t swallow anything for weeks. I ate pudding and apple sauce, eventually I ended up passing out February 2nd, my first time ever passing out. They said it was just panic attacks and syncope and not a issue, so they sent me home but my blood pressure was terrible my boyfriend was leaving to go to bootcamp too so that was stress added onto it. February 20th around that I had a doctor appointment with a gynecologist and she told me my iron was low and my b12 was high which made no sense cause I wasn’t eating but 100-200 calories a day if that. But I eventually was able to eat, and slowly felt kind of better but not fully. I had issues of being fatigued, and tired even though I got 8 hours of sleep. It’s tmi but my last cycle was watery and light and wasn’t normal compared to how they usually are. I felt terrible on it, short of breath, weak, fatigued, blurry vision, it was bad. However I’ve had issues when I’m eating, everything will start going black and I struggle to breathe and it feels like my heart stops for a second, then it starts racing and I panic, which makes it worse, I feel like I’m going to pass out during that, my head feels weird too. That’s what happened again earlier today, but yesterday at work I was standing there ringing up a customer and everything started going black and I almost passed out then too. I’m just scared. I’ve never dealt with anything like this before. I was told I have insulin resistance PCOS and may be iron deficient from my doctor and maybe anemic, I’m waiting on blood results to come back but is this a blood sugar issue or is it something else. Please help.#Anemia #anemic #iron #IronDeficiency #insulin #PCOS #irondeficient #help #question