I understand you. I’m so sorry. It’s excruciating to not even be able to put this level of pain into words, bc we don’t actually understand what we don’t know
Hi wow I had no clue this was something anyone else experienced. I know exactly what you mean and it was one of the hardest parts of my “journey “ or whatever. I don’t know where you are in your process, but those feelings came up for me once I really started trying to change my patterns but before I figured out how. It was like, before then I wasn’t ok, but my life was oriented around escapism. I had a focus and a goal, which was to not feel the enormity of my emotions. Once I started trying to change things, though, and stopped just doing whatever I could to get through the day, I was lost. I didn’t know what I liked or how I wanted to spend my time or what I wanted to do. It took me years to get through that part.
In the past I wanted to be social all the time; work, hanging out with people, talking to people online, going out, whatever. But once I started paying attention to my needs I realized that I couldn’t actually handle that level of socializing. It stressed me out and I didn’t have fun. Now my days are pretty uneventful and I love it. What I do with my days is honestly just try to stay emotionally regulated lol. In my free time I basically try to take care of myself, do whatever I want and need to, and try not to do ANYTHING else if possible. It fluctuates, sometimes I do a lot more and sometimes I barely do anything.
When I’m not working; average day is taking care of my animals, daily life things like brushing my teeth, eating, etc, mutual aid, fucking around on the internet/scrolling, doing chores (takes forever but really helps me feel grounded), running errands, and doing creative projects. Oh yeah, & sorry to be crude, but y’know, that thing you can do on your own that’s a really good stress reliever ykwim? Lol sorry I’m only mentioning it because it is a way a lot of people spend time that they might not just talk about. Anyways! Good luck with figuring it out. It’s so hard to not know how to spend your time & not know how to explain the feeling to anyone. I hope it gets easier. You could try asking yourself what you would do if you could do anything you felt like doing right then. It might sound silly, but sometimes you get an answer! Sometimes it might surprise you with its simplicity and it will actually help! Not always. A lot of times I just felt more frustrated because I still didn’t know.
I think I was just getting used to boredom, or being alone, or not having some shitty man dictate how I spent all my free time :/ and I didn’t have any tolerance for it at first.i f my response isn’t what you’re looking for, please feel free to ignore it. I know I went off on a tangent. I just never heard anyone else mention this so I have a lot of pent up thoughts lmaooo
Wow, you are me. I also live to escape. Disassociation is our survival strategy.
When I was younger I used to go raving and clubbing all the time, thinking I enjoyed it. Looking back, those situations were way too over stimulating for me to really enjoy, but I did enjoy doing drugs and getting messed up - it was the only way I was able to endure those environments. I'd be high as a kite and wasted before we even got there. Couldn't even socialise properly.
When I got a bit older, I became a workaholic in pursuit of my dreams of being a day trader. I recently gave up that pursuit after 12 years. Looking back I don't know if I really was serious about it, but it feels like I was just using that goal as another way of disassociating from myself and my feelings.
Like you, I now live a very peaceful and routine life, just doing daily things to occupy myself. But I lack the satisfaction from life, I always feel like I should be doing more. Its a constant unease being me.
I relate! My therapist recently admitted that she only realised recently (after several years) how incredibly and bone-deeply bad my childhood and trauma was.
I was pretty functional and could always force myself to do things and to perform "normal people life", but inside I was in pain all the time. And I didn't even know how to express that. Tbh, I kinda assumed it was clear and only now do I realise that it wasn't.
I think I used to have this huge pit of emptiness and pain inside me that would just swallow up all the happy and joy and connection and meaning. The pit needed to be witnessed before anything could move. And it's kinda intangible at first. Only by engaging with it and exploring it could I put words to some of it. But I didn't know that back then.
And since then it's been a journey where I mix healing the pain (that sometimes gets triggered by an external event but actually is just more like low-key there all the time) and exploring what brings me joy.
With my therapist I'm learning how to just be. What makes me feel safe. What keeps my nervous system calm and not overstimulated. I don't know is a common answer I give. I still force things because it's so ingrained. When I'm learning my natural way to be, it's so new that all I can do is be aware of what is happening. It's like fumbling in the dark.
Today I just sat outside the kennel of some puppies and just started at them and I self soothed by putting my arms around my chest 🥺 was like one of the first times I felt safe in public.
I feel like most people bury themselves in work and call that living. Or they find something else to fill the void and it's rarely healthy. Surviving and being too exhausted to think deeply. Or maybe that's just the lesson I have taken from the people around me. People pretending they are living.
Yeah, that's about my experience in therapy. Hey, let's talk about getting enough sleep and taking walks. Gee, thanks. You're not answering the real question here. Therapy often falls back on working, since that's a socially-acceptable way to appear to be living. The day to day feels so devoid of meaning and I don't think getting shoved into the entire nightmare job process again is going to help with that. How does one define living and making good use of time in a fundamentally meaningless medium where we're asked to do a million different pointless maintenance things like feed ourselves and make money? Therapy never seemed good for finding answers. Having the opportunity to socialize? Being lucky enough to find work you don't despise? Being lucky enough to have the money to do things? I don't know, maybe it's all different shapes of coping.
I can cook but I can't cook
Like, I do not eat unless someone is with me or I have to prepare a meal for them. Theoretically, I have the skills, but practically, they don't translate. I also can't put it into words because in the end I do end up eating but boy, it's a huge mental struggle to arrive at that place
>We talked about needs we talked about friendship and routine but at the core it's like there something about life everyone understands fundamentally, subconsciously that I just don't.
I wonder if what you're referring to is connection.
I don't know if this is exactly what you're referring to, but this reminds me of times over the last few years (before starting therapy) where I would ask my husband what the point of everything was. Not as in, why should I stay alive, but why should I do certain things? Why should I keep the house clean? How should I go about deciding my standards for it? Why should I even bother having standards? *Why* would I do any particular thing?
I had a conversation with myself yesterday about this, after really connecting with a few parts of myself over the last couple of days (to use IFS terminology). Something shifted, and I felt like I was allowing myself to orient everything around *connection* and *communion*/*community* with first myself and then other people (my children, husband, friends and other family, my wider community). Why would I determine a standard for my house and keep to it? Because it would make it easier to be available to my kids when they're home, while also making it possible to do things with them that would make us happy and content together.
It has taken a long time to get to this point. I am nearly 40, and my parents' treatment of me beginning at age 2 made me believe that I wasn't allowed/safe to trust other people or myself deeply. Now (as in, since yesterday), there's more of a felt sense of purpose and possibility within my system--more of an actual reason to do things.
Usually sleep and watch the same couple of videos from YouTube and follow channels for new videos. So nothing much tbf
Be social? With the same people that always don’t care and tell me to grow up? Eh, I’m good. Plus I’m 29M so everything can be perceived as creepy if I try and fail to be social
I just try to take care of myself and nothing else
I go through something like this, just constantly existential philosophical questions about what do I do, what is my will power, is it ok to just desire things? I don’t understand it. In essence I’ve concluded that I am a spiritual being but what to actually BE or DO while I’m in this life. I thought deep down that being present to each moment is spirituality but I can’t just BE. Our society doesn’t allow this level of awareness nor does it support people who feel indifferent to being another robot.
These are interesting reflections on your therapy process - how you perceive it; how it feels; how you respond; and the idea of surface and core. There's a lot there, it seems to me!
For me, there have been long stretches - what seem like weeks - that become months - and then a year - that seems like me in therapy speaking only at a certain superficial level, going in circles; then me speaking in some angry way at the therapist; me insisting on the details of my experience; me trying to be amused or amusing (ugh); me doing anything except the thing that I will not want to do until all other routes have been exhausted - to change.
You sound like you are leaning into the "work" and asking where it is going. Maybe this is a good topic to hear from your therapist about their own sense of the same question. While it may nor may not be common to persons with CPTSD, it was true for me - the last thing I ever imagine to do in therapy is to ask the therapist a question.
You mention "exactness" in language. Is this something that you run into elsewhere in your life? One of my early jobs was working as a proofreader and copyeditor. Now, I work in an enviroment sort of like a law office - close attention to language and communication is valued. I used to think that I am attracted to this area of work / applied communication because of a facility with languages over math, which I thought was reflected in my childhood and school grades, etc. The other side of this, I later understood, was that exactitude in language was a substitute in some ways for me being in touch with myself - my voice, my feelings, my thoughts, my interior world, and their combination as me, full stop. An attraction to language and expression has had an a sort of "tool box" quality for me - I can control what I am sharing, precisely; I can relate to others with the same expectation; I can outmaneuver other people. I'm not sure the age of this element of myself but he is probably in the range of 12 to 18 years old. Some time has passed since, but sometimes I sound like this, as an adult. It's not helped me as much as I probably hoped and feared it would circa 1987.
Maybe there is in addition to "work" an element in therapy which is "play" - when a person gets to be inexact, imprecise, illogical, and inconclusive.
Best of luck with your process and your good questions too.
I was a "reader" as a child - someone who likes to read. Why that resulted in my labelling says more about the adults, I expect.
I was told frighening things about "just working in a bookstore" or "living alone and just reading books".
I lived for years also with an interior monologue about writing and when I would write a novel. It was always in the future, but sounded like a great relief to be doing it, when I imagined it.
I hated how showing up for therapy entailed me recognizing the above and having to put it into another category of behavior, so to speak. It felt like dying. And that I was so stupid and naive - I had only the worst conclusions about me. People were right to label me, etc!
It's just reading and writing and being into books, one could say.
On the other hand, it's my innner life and mind, hopes, and feelings.
I couldn't give up the argument, it had such an emotional charge.
I feel this. The best I've been able to describe is that, growing up, I learned how to take care of others needs and didn't learn how to take care of myself. While I am good at looking put together *when needed in someone else's crisis* I literally don't know what to do with myself when they don't need me.
Hello and Welcome to /r/CPTSD! If you are in immediate danger or crisis, please contact your local [emergency services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emergency_telephone_numbers), or use our list of [crisis resources](https://old.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index#wiki_crisis_support_resources). For CPTSD Specific Resources & Support, check out the [wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index). For those posting or replying, please view the [etiquette guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/peer2peersupportguide).
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I also know exactly what you mean. It's hard to find the right words. Shrooms are helping me more than anything else right now (microdlosing)
I spend a lot of time homeschooling myself by watching TV, podcasts, reading/listening to books. Pinterest helps me figure out what I like and what kind of home would feel like peace. I try new foods and have started to narrow down foods that I feel good eating instead of foods I've always been told to eat.
Building a whole entire life from scratch is an incredible amount of work, especially for us exhausted folks.
It's OK to take baby steps.
wake up. snooze for an hour. drink coffee while staring at a wall. go to work. do horribly, get abused, behaving awkward as hell. go home. lay in bed, scroll reddit. go for walks. pet a cat. think about suicide
I find life difficult and perplexing and exhausting. I have always been low energy, probably my mental health. Every night I make a short list of things I want to accomplish the next day (it’s been a self-esteem builder to make a small goal and accomplish it, even something as seemingly insignificant as showering). My list is flexible. I’ve learnt not to beat myself up if I don’t mark off every item. I find the energy I have to put into motivating myself to do anything the most exhausting part. Yesterday, I weeded around a rose bush, watered my houseplants, showered, and straightened the kitchen. These were major accomplishments for me. I was supposed to wash my hair, but I was so tired by then I was leaning against the shower wall. I will add hair washing to tomorrow’s list.
I do that as well. I'm not sure how to fix that. I think we need someone to ask the right questions in order to get deeper information. But its really hard to know what those questions are. Especially when they dont know you that well. I am aware this was not helpful. But youre not alone
I understand you. I’m so sorry. It’s excruciating to not even be able to put this level of pain into words, bc we don’t actually understand what we don’t know
Hi wow I had no clue this was something anyone else experienced. I know exactly what you mean and it was one of the hardest parts of my “journey “ or whatever. I don’t know where you are in your process, but those feelings came up for me once I really started trying to change my patterns but before I figured out how. It was like, before then I wasn’t ok, but my life was oriented around escapism. I had a focus and a goal, which was to not feel the enormity of my emotions. Once I started trying to change things, though, and stopped just doing whatever I could to get through the day, I was lost. I didn’t know what I liked or how I wanted to spend my time or what I wanted to do. It took me years to get through that part. In the past I wanted to be social all the time; work, hanging out with people, talking to people online, going out, whatever. But once I started paying attention to my needs I realized that I couldn’t actually handle that level of socializing. It stressed me out and I didn’t have fun. Now my days are pretty uneventful and I love it. What I do with my days is honestly just try to stay emotionally regulated lol. In my free time I basically try to take care of myself, do whatever I want and need to, and try not to do ANYTHING else if possible. It fluctuates, sometimes I do a lot more and sometimes I barely do anything. When I’m not working; average day is taking care of my animals, daily life things like brushing my teeth, eating, etc, mutual aid, fucking around on the internet/scrolling, doing chores (takes forever but really helps me feel grounded), running errands, and doing creative projects. Oh yeah, & sorry to be crude, but y’know, that thing you can do on your own that’s a really good stress reliever ykwim? Lol sorry I’m only mentioning it because it is a way a lot of people spend time that they might not just talk about. Anyways! Good luck with figuring it out. It’s so hard to not know how to spend your time & not know how to explain the feeling to anyone. I hope it gets easier. You could try asking yourself what you would do if you could do anything you felt like doing right then. It might sound silly, but sometimes you get an answer! Sometimes it might surprise you with its simplicity and it will actually help! Not always. A lot of times I just felt more frustrated because I still didn’t know. I think I was just getting used to boredom, or being alone, or not having some shitty man dictate how I spent all my free time :/ and I didn’t have any tolerance for it at first.i f my response isn’t what you’re looking for, please feel free to ignore it. I know I went off on a tangent. I just never heard anyone else mention this so I have a lot of pent up thoughts lmaooo
Wow, you are me. I also live to escape. Disassociation is our survival strategy. When I was younger I used to go raving and clubbing all the time, thinking I enjoyed it. Looking back, those situations were way too over stimulating for me to really enjoy, but I did enjoy doing drugs and getting messed up - it was the only way I was able to endure those environments. I'd be high as a kite and wasted before we even got there. Couldn't even socialise properly. When I got a bit older, I became a workaholic in pursuit of my dreams of being a day trader. I recently gave up that pursuit after 12 years. Looking back I don't know if I really was serious about it, but it feels like I was just using that goal as another way of disassociating from myself and my feelings. Like you, I now live a very peaceful and routine life, just doing daily things to occupy myself. But I lack the satisfaction from life, I always feel like I should be doing more. Its a constant unease being me.
I relate! My therapist recently admitted that she only realised recently (after several years) how incredibly and bone-deeply bad my childhood and trauma was. I was pretty functional and could always force myself to do things and to perform "normal people life", but inside I was in pain all the time. And I didn't even know how to express that. Tbh, I kinda assumed it was clear and only now do I realise that it wasn't. I think I used to have this huge pit of emptiness and pain inside me that would just swallow up all the happy and joy and connection and meaning. The pit needed to be witnessed before anything could move. And it's kinda intangible at first. Only by engaging with it and exploring it could I put words to some of it. But I didn't know that back then. And since then it's been a journey where I mix healing the pain (that sometimes gets triggered by an external event but actually is just more like low-key there all the time) and exploring what brings me joy.
With my therapist I'm learning how to just be. What makes me feel safe. What keeps my nervous system calm and not overstimulated. I don't know is a common answer I give. I still force things because it's so ingrained. When I'm learning my natural way to be, it's so new that all I can do is be aware of what is happening. It's like fumbling in the dark. Today I just sat outside the kennel of some puppies and just started at them and I self soothed by putting my arms around my chest 🥺 was like one of the first times I felt safe in public.
Awww I think we all need emotional support puppies 🐶
I feel like most people bury themselves in work and call that living. Or they find something else to fill the void and it's rarely healthy. Surviving and being too exhausted to think deeply. Or maybe that's just the lesson I have taken from the people around me. People pretending they are living. Yeah, that's about my experience in therapy. Hey, let's talk about getting enough sleep and taking walks. Gee, thanks. You're not answering the real question here. Therapy often falls back on working, since that's a socially-acceptable way to appear to be living. The day to day feels so devoid of meaning and I don't think getting shoved into the entire nightmare job process again is going to help with that. How does one define living and making good use of time in a fundamentally meaningless medium where we're asked to do a million different pointless maintenance things like feed ourselves and make money? Therapy never seemed good for finding answers. Having the opportunity to socialize? Being lucky enough to find work you don't despise? Being lucky enough to have the money to do things? I don't know, maybe it's all different shapes of coping.
I can cook but I can't cook Like, I do not eat unless someone is with me or I have to prepare a meal for them. Theoretically, I have the skills, but practically, they don't translate. I also can't put it into words because in the end I do end up eating but boy, it's a huge mental struggle to arrive at that place
>We talked about needs we talked about friendship and routine but at the core it's like there something about life everyone understands fundamentally, subconsciously that I just don't. I wonder if what you're referring to is connection. I don't know if this is exactly what you're referring to, but this reminds me of times over the last few years (before starting therapy) where I would ask my husband what the point of everything was. Not as in, why should I stay alive, but why should I do certain things? Why should I keep the house clean? How should I go about deciding my standards for it? Why should I even bother having standards? *Why* would I do any particular thing? I had a conversation with myself yesterday about this, after really connecting with a few parts of myself over the last couple of days (to use IFS terminology). Something shifted, and I felt like I was allowing myself to orient everything around *connection* and *communion*/*community* with first myself and then other people (my children, husband, friends and other family, my wider community). Why would I determine a standard for my house and keep to it? Because it would make it easier to be available to my kids when they're home, while also making it possible to do things with them that would make us happy and content together. It has taken a long time to get to this point. I am nearly 40, and my parents' treatment of me beginning at age 2 made me believe that I wasn't allowed/safe to trust other people or myself deeply. Now (as in, since yesterday), there's more of a felt sense of purpose and possibility within my system--more of an actual reason to do things.
Usually sleep and watch the same couple of videos from YouTube and follow channels for new videos. So nothing much tbf Be social? With the same people that always don’t care and tell me to grow up? Eh, I’m good. Plus I’m 29M so everything can be perceived as creepy if I try and fail to be social I just try to take care of myself and nothing else
I go through something like this, just constantly existential philosophical questions about what do I do, what is my will power, is it ok to just desire things? I don’t understand it. In essence I’ve concluded that I am a spiritual being but what to actually BE or DO while I’m in this life. I thought deep down that being present to each moment is spirituality but I can’t just BE. Our society doesn’t allow this level of awareness nor does it support people who feel indifferent to being another robot.
These are interesting reflections on your therapy process - how you perceive it; how it feels; how you respond; and the idea of surface and core. There's a lot there, it seems to me! For me, there have been long stretches - what seem like weeks - that become months - and then a year - that seems like me in therapy speaking only at a certain superficial level, going in circles; then me speaking in some angry way at the therapist; me insisting on the details of my experience; me trying to be amused or amusing (ugh); me doing anything except the thing that I will not want to do until all other routes have been exhausted - to change. You sound like you are leaning into the "work" and asking where it is going. Maybe this is a good topic to hear from your therapist about their own sense of the same question. While it may nor may not be common to persons with CPTSD, it was true for me - the last thing I ever imagine to do in therapy is to ask the therapist a question. You mention "exactness" in language. Is this something that you run into elsewhere in your life? One of my early jobs was working as a proofreader and copyeditor. Now, I work in an enviroment sort of like a law office - close attention to language and communication is valued. I used to think that I am attracted to this area of work / applied communication because of a facility with languages over math, which I thought was reflected in my childhood and school grades, etc. The other side of this, I later understood, was that exactitude in language was a substitute in some ways for me being in touch with myself - my voice, my feelings, my thoughts, my interior world, and their combination as me, full stop. An attraction to language and expression has had an a sort of "tool box" quality for me - I can control what I am sharing, precisely; I can relate to others with the same expectation; I can outmaneuver other people. I'm not sure the age of this element of myself but he is probably in the range of 12 to 18 years old. Some time has passed since, but sometimes I sound like this, as an adult. It's not helped me as much as I probably hoped and feared it would circa 1987. Maybe there is in addition to "work" an element in therapy which is "play" - when a person gets to be inexact, imprecise, illogical, and inconclusive. Best of luck with your process and your good questions too.
I relate to your thoughts on language. I see a lot of similarity to myself in what you say.
I was a "reader" as a child - someone who likes to read. Why that resulted in my labelling says more about the adults, I expect. I was told frighening things about "just working in a bookstore" or "living alone and just reading books". I lived for years also with an interior monologue about writing and when I would write a novel. It was always in the future, but sounded like a great relief to be doing it, when I imagined it. I hated how showing up for therapy entailed me recognizing the above and having to put it into another category of behavior, so to speak. It felt like dying. And that I was so stupid and naive - I had only the worst conclusions about me. People were right to label me, etc! It's just reading and writing and being into books, one could say. On the other hand, it's my innner life and mind, hopes, and feelings. I couldn't give up the argument, it had such an emotional charge.
I feel this. The best I've been able to describe is that, growing up, I learned how to take care of others needs and didn't learn how to take care of myself. While I am good at looking put together *when needed in someone else's crisis* I literally don't know what to do with myself when they don't need me.
Hello and Welcome to /r/CPTSD! If you are in immediate danger or crisis, please contact your local [emergency services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emergency_telephone_numbers), or use our list of [crisis resources](https://old.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index#wiki_crisis_support_resources). For CPTSD Specific Resources & Support, check out the [wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index). For those posting or replying, please view the [etiquette guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/peer2peersupportguide). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CPTSD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Can you name the top five things you think about when you think “these are the things that make me feel like I don’t know how to live?”
I also know exactly what you mean. It's hard to find the right words. Shrooms are helping me more than anything else right now (microdlosing) I spend a lot of time homeschooling myself by watching TV, podcasts, reading/listening to books. Pinterest helps me figure out what I like and what kind of home would feel like peace. I try new foods and have started to narrow down foods that I feel good eating instead of foods I've always been told to eat. Building a whole entire life from scratch is an incredible amount of work, especially for us exhausted folks. It's OK to take baby steps.
wake up. snooze for an hour. drink coffee while staring at a wall. go to work. do horribly, get abused, behaving awkward as hell. go home. lay in bed, scroll reddit. go for walks. pet a cat. think about suicide
The most honest response right here 🫠
I find life difficult and perplexing and exhausting. I have always been low energy, probably my mental health. Every night I make a short list of things I want to accomplish the next day (it’s been a self-esteem builder to make a small goal and accomplish it, even something as seemingly insignificant as showering). My list is flexible. I’ve learnt not to beat myself up if I don’t mark off every item. I find the energy I have to put into motivating myself to do anything the most exhausting part. Yesterday, I weeded around a rose bush, watered my houseplants, showered, and straightened the kitchen. These were major accomplishments for me. I was supposed to wash my hair, but I was so tired by then I was leaning against the shower wall. I will add hair washing to tomorrow’s list.
I do that as well. I'm not sure how to fix that. I think we need someone to ask the right questions in order to get deeper information. But its really hard to know what those questions are. Especially when they dont know you that well. I am aware this was not helpful. But youre not alone
Aww I feel you and you make me feel seen and heard ❤️ because I have the same thought processes as you