Imagine that soul-crushing moment when your trauma makes you think like them (your abuser) and you start doubting yourself and your trauma. You fear on your dear life questioning, "What if I become like them?"

No heartbreak, no person can make you hate yourself like those realizations will.

You thought Jack's last tape was sad?

Then listen to this alternate version and hear him break down even further (starts at 5:05)

what kind of books on cptsd would you recommend?

Hi there,

Here are some books the mods recommend:

The Body Keeps the Score - Bessel Van Der Kolk (PDF linked)

It Didn't Start With You - Mark Wolynn

The Pain We Carry - Natalie Y. Gutierrez

What Happened to You - Oprah Winfrey

Here is a list of some more trauma-related books

Take care!

What I wish my dear system understood is, it's completely normal for us to avoid being around people who have certain disorders. It doesn't make us ableist. It doesn't make anybody ableist, in fact, because trauma does not equal discrimination unless the person chooses to engage in hateful behaviors, which is a completely separate topic. Ableism, by definition, "is discrimination and social prejudice against people with physical or mental disabilities. Ableism characterizes people as they are defined by their disabilities and it also classifies disabled people as people who are inferior to non-disabled people."

It is not the same as trauma.

There is a line drawn between being ableist and traumatized. Until you are actively speaking out against certain people and discriminate against them, until you are actively trying to put them down, to hurt them, to speak of them with hate, you are not being hateful by avoiding certain groups of people depending on characteristics they have. That goes for ableism too.

The easiest example of this I can give are women who are avoiding men because of sexual trauma. You wouldn't immediately assume that they are being sexist, you would think they have trauma around them, understand them, and while these women would still have to engage with men from time to time, you'd support them (women) in wanting separation from them (men) in every other way. Then how is it the same with disabled people?

My dear system, we have been around narcissists our entire lives non-stop. We had narcissists who used their disorder as an excuse to hurt us, and we felt too guilty to stand up for ourselves because we thought we would be ableist if we were to tell them to stop. "They just don't know any different," we told ourselves. But the harsh truth is, no matter the amount of empathy, no disorder allows you to hurt others. No matter if you can control it or not, it is not an excuse, ever, and we have always had a right to say we do not want to engage with people with NPD. We are not being hateful towards them. My darling heamdates, we tried to understand them the best we could and find ways to work with them. And we know that if those people decided to abuse us again, we would fall for it immediately. We were always allowed to sat "no." We were always allowed to avoid them.

No person is being ableist if they set a boundary in order to not hurt themselves. We have no kind of prejudice against them other than basic trauma and a desire to not get into yet another relationship/friendship that would retraumatize us. We are allowed to join support groups for those like us. The people who we have been with put us through literal hell, and we can't even admit it due to there being so much that if we're not in denial, we are going to spiral into insanity.

We ourselves barely experience empathy, if at all, and we never gave ourselves the opportunity to hurt others.

And people out there with same experiences, you are allowed to avoid certain groups of people because of your trauma. Or just simply because you're uncomfortable. I know that there are disorders that are stigmatized to the core, and so people are trying to defend them the best they can, but it should not enable abuse. If a person is abusive, they are abusive. If they are abusive because of their disorder, they are abusive because of their disorder. If they have a disorder that makes it hard for them to understand empathy, social cues, etc, they can still listen to a "no," "stop," "I don't like this," "you're hurting me," "you're making me uncomfortable." Therapy exists, and if it's not available, basic human decency works, too. Nobody is saying it's fun for people with certain disorders to be stigmatized because of them and treated like garbage. But it also doesn't give said people the "okay" to treat others like garbage either.

Ableism is not the same as avoidance due to trauma.

The existence of stigma and ableism and people suffering from it is not an excuse to enable abuse.

Your trauma isn't any less valid just because somebody had a mental/physical disability that influenced/cause their behavior.

And whoever decides to tell us, or wheoever's reading it, otherwise, should go to hell.

i was only 5

i was only 6

i was only 8

i was only 9

i was only 10

i was only 11

i was only 12

i was only 13

i was only 14

i was too young for what they did

Normal people watching the new es episodes: plot! New characters! Interactions!

Me watching the new es episodes: -staring at Megs chest- his transformation seams are in the perfect spot to give him boobs without looking awkward and slapped on

I actually wanna write up something about this topic and I quite wanna know how many percent are each the column.

The 2nd option means that even if you got traumatized,you pay no attention to it and you pretend that it has never happened and don't even display any signs that you've ever had it. You could say it's one of those that go like "My trauma made me stronger!!"

PS: These are the types of trauma responses that I have registered so far, I actually never found something official (from doctors or someone close to that),so don't yell at me.

Please share until it expires 💓

why does no one ever talk about how during your healing, no matter how far into it you are, a trauma comes out so much that you never realized that the trauma of that thing was actually really bad or strong?

Reminder that safety can be inherently traumatic. After being in unsafe environments you’re whole life, it’s a hard thing to cope with. You can get stuck doing things you needed to survive that aren’t helpful any more. Once upper safe PTSD symptoms can worsen. Being safe is strange and uncomfortable. -Briar☘️

Living is a traumatic experience

Does anyone else fear healing or is it just me? I don't know who I will be if I don't have my trauma and that scares me. What if I also lose all the good things I accquired too?

Someone got on my ass today about growing up in the suburbs vs the ghetto.

All I said to them is that I don't like rap songs that are all about bragging about sex and money.

And they took offense to that.

And while I didn't try to argue with them because I would never dismiss another person's experience; I do want to point out to anyone willing to listen that Suburbs aren't always nice places to live.

Suburbs aren't always nice neighborhoods. They aren't always safe places to live.

They can very much be dangerous in their own ways.

Instead of gang wars it's domestic violence. Instead of girls being forced on the corner for money, they can just disappear and if they are found then it's dead and naked in a ditch. Instead of dog fighting it's neighbors throwing rocks at your dogs and trossing poisoned food over the fence of your backyard.

Kids can still go to bed hungry if the utilities get too high. Cause a night or two without dinner is better than missing the house payment and landing the whole family in the street. Medical emergencies can also land you in the street so it's you better be fucking sure you are dying before begging mom or dad to take you to a hospital.

Mass shootings do not discriminate towards any income bracket. Anyone can wind up in the middle of one and it's no more deadly to people in poverty than it is to people hovering just a little bit over the poverty line.

The dangers in suburbs are quiet. The victims are too because there's always someone worse off than you so it's best to keep your mouth shut than lose what you do have.

Suburbs are not always a nice place to live.

And you shouldn't be so quick to judge others just because they grew up with a house and a yard.

Abuse happens everywhere and you can't always tell who's a victim just by looking at where they live.

question, concern, no tw

is it common and normal for people to remember a traumatic memory in the third person? I do with some of my memories and idk if thats proof it isn't real? or if it was so traumatic you had to "leave" your body and dissociate? do you know about this phenomenon?

Hey jaguar,

Yes, this is actually a common phenomenon and I experience this too! You're right that this has to do with dissociation. This article explains it more.

-Bun

Anyone wanna see the 20 minute rant my toxic friend sent to me, explaining why they and everyone hates me. TW: it is alot. 

(THIS IS VERY VERY TRIGGERING!!!!  trigger warnings: mentions of SH, scars, tr4uma, su!c!de, cyb3rbully!ng, mentions of dr!nking, mentions of w33d, mentions of being h!gh, mentions of being drvnk, codependancy, manipulation, getting b3at up, strong words of hate, isolation.

(LAST WARNING!!!!)

“okay. so basically ive been genuinely sick of you for awhile. like all you do is follow me and austin and all the boys around like a fucking puppydog, then complain that no one likes you and how im your only friend or wtv. like it genuinely pisses me and everyone else off. maki literally said he dislikes you, seven is literally dating someone in grade 12 and never liked you and said yall never went on a date, hunter and austin both complain abt you, sully literally hates you, and ive been sick of you for awhile. you showed me your scars outta no where one time, which was incredibly triggering in of itself, you say you have all these mental illnesses which is kinda odd how you just share them with the whole class?? and its also kinda odd you share your suicidal thoughts and attempts to the whole class??? you got mad at annika for a completely stupid reason as she was right and trying to be protective. i quite literally hate you and have for awhile. Briah also seems sick of you. Like your genuinely such a dick. your toxic, as well. you tell me to stop being friends with one of my friends, just bc you disliked them? regardless of if they were a dick to you, they are my friends. i have many friends like him. and you can tell the whole school abt it bc i do nothing they do, im just friends with them. your friends with sully regardless of his past. do i care? no. heather is also completely sick of you, literally based on her expression when she talks to u i can tell. i dont even understand how you got with heather. and genuinely what the fuck is glitchself. I understand he/they/it but what is glitchself. you also constantly complain about how your high or how ur drunk or whatever. then you post abt all ur issues and lifestories online, for some odd reason. I dont even understand why. sure, i go through shit, do i post it on my tiktok or instagram announcing it to everyone who follows you or sees your profile. no. its just so odd. go ahead  and tell the whole school abt me if you want, i have so much shit on you that idk if you even wanna do that. also, you can go ahead and beat me up. go for it. honestly, all bark no bite. i could genuinely fucking demolish you. id like to see you even try. go ahead and cry about this on ur story or smth. i genuinely hope you never talk to me or any of us again. you got the whole school hating on you at this point. also i assume ur gonna get kai/hope involved? yeah go for it. itd be funny seeing you guys scream at me for being right. LMAO.”

Hi, I heard that people who come from abusive households have issues getting used to the peace, once they leave. Adjusting to not having to "fight for your life" anymore. But it caught me harder than I could've ever expected. There's still this stress and panic inside of me but, when I lived with my parents, I knew what I can do to make the possibility of an abusive "outbreak" less likely. And doing so made me calmer. Things like loading the dishwasher. I did it like an addiction, when I lived with my parents. Because I knew, the dishes are one of the things they loved to get angry about. My partner called me obsessed about it and in hindsight she was right. But now there is nothing, I have to do, in order to avoid abuse. And by that, nothing to make me calm and calm down my inner stress. I feel like running all the time but with no direction and no goal and actually no idea why, but I can't stop. Like, I can't even load a dishwasher because I don't yet own one. This is so messed up and I feel like a freak more than ever again, but that's the reality right now. And I feel so guilty, because my life was supposed to start after I moved out and I was supposed to be my happiest. But now I am feeling worse than before and I don't get anything done. What can I do?

Hi Anon, I am so sorry for the experiences you’ve had, the trauma you’ve had to survive, and how it continues (very understandably and validly) to impact you.  I empathize with the hard feelings around unmet expectations that you had hoped for once you were in a safe space - and now trying to process why things feel worse. Before going into potential tips, I’d like to validate that this is (unfortunately) not an uncommon experience for survivors - link, link, link - are all articles that discuss the impact on our brains when we are raised, and live, in abusive households (whether familial, childhood, intimate partner violence, etc).  The impact on our brains cannot be diminished.  It sadly has taken the entirety of your life to leave its impact and it is physically impossible for your brain to untangle, and rewire, and heal within a short time frame after everything that happened.  Which isn’t to say don’t bother!  But just in the sense that as hard as I know it can be, please be patient with yourself as you weave through the second phase of your healing journey.

You are safe, that was paramount in order to begin that journey, but now comes the second part of transitioning into relearning who you are when you are not in survival mode.  Some articles on where and how to even begin can be found here, here, and here - but I hope that if there is anything heard from this reply it may be this: I’m sorry for the things that were done to you, it is not your shame to carry but theirs, and you are worthy of healing.  I wish you well. And please don't hesitate to send in another ask if you were looking more for general how to do daily tasks tips - I read the above as seeking validation and potential understanding as to why, and steps towards healing, but can certainly provide daily task resources as well. - Mod Kat

Hello there, hope you're having a good day. I was wondering if you had any resources on Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

I most certainly do.

This is one of my favourite resources for those with complex trauma. It is a website dedicated to aiding those with complex trauma, containing many articles and other resources.

Cleveland Clinic has a nice page on the basics of cptsd, such as symptoms, differences between ptsd and cptsd, and such.

This is the ICD 11 page on cptsd which will cover basics and such in a more official format.

If you want cptsd resources of a specific nature, please feel free to send in an ask with specifications. In the meantime, I hope these help.

~ Mod Night