I was talking to my friend about our traumatic childhoods and something that kept coming up were strange, small triggers.

We agreed that some triggers cause an obvious trauma response (panic attacks, flashbacks, etc.), while others are quieter. Just perceiving them might cause your brain to jump to a traumatic memory, but it's more like a rapid association. It might instill dread or subtly ruin a moment for you, but nothing more.

Either way, some can be really random.

For example, I silently relive something traumatic every single time I see a fridge. Every time I see or hear about the Big Bang Theory. Every time I hear canned laughter from a TV show. I'm glad Pier 1 Imports shut down because just seeing the storefront was upsetting.

I think my weirdest one is Welch's Fruit Snacks.

If I had an episode every time one of these came up, I wouldn't be able to function, but it does make life harder in ways others can't see.

Regardless of severity, what are your strangest, most niche triggers?

the world wasn’t made for people like me. I feel completely excluded, alone and isolated, there is nothing I can do about that. I have had everything bad happen to me and yet somehow I’m a narcissist apparently because I’m “stuck in a victim mentality” and always “throwing a pity party” for myself? Whatever the fuck that means, like just fuck off I’ve had a shitty fuckinf life with to much on my plate as a kid if I want to be angry then let me.

They do. They hate when people claim suffering. They hate when people point out abuse.

If you are a victim of something, the clock literally starts ticking right then and there!! The amount of attention and care literally goes down as time goes on. People have TIME LIMITS on you being a victim of whatever you experienced!! If you are still whining and crying about being a victim for "too long", people criticize you, they judge you harshly, they start giving you "tough love" and start saying things like "DON'T STAY IN A VICTIM MENTALITY" as if that's encouraging???????

You think I want to stay here???????? I don't and I am STUCK. That's why I am reaching out for help in the first place. I need help and guidance and to be literally walked through this shit.

I need intensive care. I have been molested and raped over 5 times!!! How would you "get out of a victim mentality" with that trauma?! My own father calls me a loser and ugly!!! I don't even have a safe, family support system!

But no....it's all ME! IT'S ALL MY FAULT AND IT'S MY FAULT TOO FOR BEING A VICTIM TOO LONG.

THE WORLD HATES VICTIMS AND WANTS US TO ALL GO AWAY 😢😢😢

Agree/disagree ? From a fb reel but the summary from :

The core idea: Being too self-aware can keep you stuck in trauma.
To actually heal trauma, he says, you have to become more vulnerable , you have to go back emotionally to the place where you were denied nurturance and allow yourself to receive it.
2. Why childhood matters in his model:
If you experienced negative emotions as a child and no one comforted or nurtured you through them, that experience itself is traumatic. As a kid you develop raw instincts and needs around that.
3. What happens in adulthood:
You learn to survive that by suppressing those raw childhood needs. Then as an adult you develop a different skill , the ability to intellectualize, articulate, and analyze your feelings.
So you can sit and perfectly explain why you feel the way you feel, what pattern you're in, what you should choose , you're being intellectually honest, but not necessarily vulnerable.
He says that's a way your own mind tries to make you feel safe, but it keeps you from the actual healing work.
4. The trap:
The line near the end is key : "you're constantly suppressing that raw instinct, that childhood and that need nurturance. And then you have to go to therapy for years and years only to become more self aware."
Tldr as "digging further into a hole."

Source [fb reel](https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1Av1shAQSx/?mibextid=wwXIfr)

I think one of the hardest parts of CPTSD for me is how quickly multiple stressful things turn into feeling like nothing in my life is safe.

I have a lot happening at once right now—housing uncertainty, family issues, work stress, finances, relationship and friendship stuff, etc. My brain is constantly going: What’s next? What else am I going to lose? Who else is going to leave? When do I finally get to feel secure?”

And it’s hard because these fears didn’t come from nowhere. I grew up feeling unprotected and still am not. I’ve been abused, betrayed, abandoned, and had situations where I did everything I could and things still went wrong even today. So “everything will be fine” doesn’t always comfort me. My brain remembers all the times it wasn’t.
I know I’ve made some progress. But when I’m overwhelmed, it feels like none of that counts and I’m somehow back at square one. I think I’m just tired of always having to be resilient. I don’t need someone to fix everything for me. I just want to know what it feels like to have something in my life feel secure enough that I’m not constantly preparing to lose it. I don’t want to always be surviving something.

I want to actually feel safe enough to live.

Anyone else not really being able to yell as an adult after having a fucked childhood?

There are times were I need to at work, and it's just so fucking hard to do. I hate doing it, it makes my skin crawl.

In a nutshell: Has anyone else (particularly if you had people-pleasing tendencies and a strong fawn response) become more ‘self-centred’ or ‘selfish’ as you healed? Or since you became aware?

Full post:

I had quite a strong response to a perceived betrayal and some group dishonesty recently (I am also autistic though so sense of justice/injustice is strong anyway but it did trigger a deep wound) and instead of dealing with it healthily I had a very brief baby fight response and then calmed down to try to hold steady but instead eventually ruminated myself into flight and freeze responses (withdrawal, disappearing, struggling to do things, lots of sleep).

I did what I felt I needed to do for my nervous system and to feel better, which was essentially to get away from the source of fear/pain. Even though I did know it wasn’t the best response and I knew what my reactions were about. But I allowed myself some grace.

But during the time I pulled away from everything and everyone (I wasn’t trying to get anyone to chase I just genuinely wanted to be alone) I fudged a few relationships and missed a lot. Forgot two people’s birthdays, failed to follow up with a friend it later turned out was going through something, missed notification of someone’s huge life event and missed some people’s career related updates. Two people in particular were upset with me and a third I was able to have a brief healthy conversation with about it. But the other two…I think I realise how selfish flight response can be now, focusing on only your own hurt and recovery whilst others maybe worry about you or have their own things going on.

It would be unthinkable for me before as I was always focused on others to the expense of myself. But now it seems to have flipped - anyone else experienced that?

I am going through a break up and also the loss of an attachment figure. I barely have friends. I feel like the ones I do have, have their own stuff going on. I've been feeling very depersonalised and just keep thinking when will it ever stop.

My family and few friends are ready to accept me when I am pretending to be okay with life and happy by hiding my true self. But I am tired of faking it to everyone. I just want a single person to see my true broken self not the fake SSRI medicated me. I want them to just hug me when I let out my sorrows and mind and thoughts that's torturing me, without any judgement and assure me that they understand why I am like this and they won't leave me no matter what.

Why the fuck would they do this to me? This shit is supposed to be done on literal cattle, not me. I'm a human being who feels emotions. I just want to leave my childhood behind, but it's permanently engraved on my body. I'm a literal object and I have to get reminded of it every day. I can't even fix it because it was hot iron instead of ink and I don't have the money for surgery. Someone is probably going to see it eventually and then what will they think of me?

Is anyone here from Austria?.

I think abt making a group for survivors in Austria.

I can’t do cptsd anymore

I’m permanently exhausted tired. No amount of sleep helps.

I can’t manage my life it’s out of control

The grief won’t stop and only multiplies

HELP!!!!

Growing up without any guidance and religious trauma has destabilized me and held me back from so many opportunities I would have had if I just had a little bit of support. I feel wronged. I’m not a victim but I also deserved love and protection. I can’t blame myself because I was only walking through life with what I knew at that time. I’m grieving who I could have been.

A lot of people would call me petty and the religious ones might condemn me, but I don’t care - I want all my abusers and bullies to suffer.

Hi everyone,

I'm writing this because I recently went through a relationship with someone who has C-PTSD, and I'm still trying to understand what happened, what I could have done differently, and how I could have been a better partner to her.

I loved this woman deeply. I really wanted things to work between us. But being in this relationship was probably one of the most emotionally exhausting and painful experiences of my life.

One of the biggest difficulties was that she believed her trauma didn't really matter when it came to our relationship. Or at least, that's what she told me.

But from my perspective, I could see its possible influence everywhere.

I noticed what I perceived as avoidance, emotional withdrawal, defensiveness, shame, and an inability to take responsibility when something went wrong. Whenever there were conflicts, mistakes, dishonesty, or situations that hurt me, I often felt like there was no real accountability. Rarely an apology, rarely an attempt to repair things, and almost never an explanation of what was happening inside her.

I wasn't expecting her to tell me every detail of her trauma. I didn't need to know everything she had experienced.

But I desperately wanted to understand her.

I wanted her to be able to say something like, "I'm struggling right now because this situation triggers something in me," or "I know my reaction hurt you, but I'm overwhelmed and I don't know how to handle it."

Even something as simple as that would have meant the world to me.

I didn't need perfection. I needed communication, some vulnerability, and the feeling that we were facing these difficulties together.

Instead, I often felt completely shut out.

The hardest part was that she didn't seem willing to acknowledge that her past might be affecting how she behaved in our relationship. And because she insisted it wasn't relevant, I eventually tried to treat her as if it wasn't.

As if she wasn't carrying all that trauma, fear, and shame.

As if I could expect the same emotional availability, communication, accountability, and relationship skills that I would expect from someone without that history.

And, unsurprisingly, that didn't work either.

I found myself constantly torn between trying to be understanding of what she might be going through and feeling like I was abandoning my own emotional needs.

I needed honesty, reassurance, emotional closeness, consistency, and the feeling that I mattered to her.

But so often, those needs went unmet.

And the more insecure I became, the more desperately I tried to understand what was happening. I asked questions, looked for explanations, tried to identify patterns, and pushed for conversations that she often seemed unwilling or unable to have.

Looking back, I can imagine that my attempts to create safety for myself may have made her feel even less safe.

Eventually, I reached a point where I felt completely helpless.

She wouldn't fully commit to our relationship, but she wouldn't clearly walk away either. At least that's how I experienced it.

And I loved her so much that I kept holding on, hoping that if I could just understand her better, be patient enough, or find the right way to communicate, things would finally change.

But they didn't.

I became increasingly anxious, frustrated, and emotionally overwhelmed. I started reacting in ways I'm not proud of.

And this is the part I really want to take responsibility for.

I know I wasn't always the partner she needed.

I know that my own insecurity eventually became unbearable, and that I sometimes behaved in incredibly childish, demanding, and hurtful ways.

There were moments when I pushed too hard, when I expected answers she might not have been capable of giving, and when my frustration turned into anger.

I regret that.

I also realize that recognizing someone's trauma doesn't automatically mean understanding what they need, and that good intentions don't necessarily make someone feel safe.

But I still struggle with one fundamental question:

How do you build a healthy relationship with someone whose trauma seems to affect the relationship deeply, but who doesn't want to acknowledge or talk about that impact?

How was I supposed to respect her boundaries while also communicating my own needs?

How could I have made her feel safer without losing myself in the process?

And how do you distinguish between behavior that deserves compassion because of trauma and behavior that still requires accountability?

I understand that C-PTSD doesn't make someone incapable of honesty, accountability, love, or emotional intimacy. And I don't want to assume that everything she did was caused by her trauma. I can only describe what I experienced and how I interpreted it.

I'm also aware that this is only my side of the story, and that she might describe our relationship very differently.

I'm not here to blame her or to have strangers tell me that she was the problem.

I'm here because I genuinely want to learn.

Especially from people who live with C-PTSD themselves.

What would you have needed from a partner in her situation?

What might I have misunderstood about shame, avoidance, emotional withdrawal, or the difficulty of opening up?

Could my constant need for clarity and reassurance have made things worse, even though I was trying to make the relationship work?

And perhaps most importantly, what should I have done differently — and at what point should I have accepted that love and understanding alone weren't enough?

I know I hurt someone I loved, even though hurting her was the last thing I ever wanted.

And I know that I was hurting too.

I don't want to repeat those patterns in another relationship. I want to become someone who can offer understanding and emotional safety without sacrificing his own needs or expecting another person to heal on his terms.

I'd genuinely appreciate your perspectives, even if they're uncomfortable to hear.

Thank you for reading.

Edit: some grammer

I came to this forum hoping to get a sense of it was normal for CPTSD to be as disabling as I find it to be. I’m in my 30s and feel I have nothing to live for. I haven’t ever been able to work full-time due to trama symptoms and have mostly given up on applying for disability after trying for 5 years.

I don’t want to get into it on this post, but I was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused throughout my childhood and my entire psychology is that of an animal that is actively being murdered and has accepted death. Since about 3rd or 4th grade my only goal, more or less, has been to make my last few days, weeks, or months as comfortable as possible; I thought I would eventually be killed by my adoptive father as all the abuse came from my adoptive parents (I’ll use familial terms for simplicity’s sake, but these people aren’t biologically related to me and I don’t consider them my or a family in any sense) or have to kill myself to avoid being killed or worse by him. To this day, I can’t fully go no-contact due to finances, but I’m at least very low-contact.

I never expected to live this long, and now I have nothing to show for my life. I don’t have any money; I’m literally starving and have been food- and housing- insecure for almost a decade watching those problems get worse and worse. I have two degrees, but they don’t quality me for any kind of work; I majored in something I was good at because it made me happy at the time and I was never taught anything about money. I feel so embarrassed that I never understood where money comes from.

I’ve struggled with addiction on and off since my teens, and I started drinking heavily again four years ago after I suddenly lost one living situation. I’ve been more or less suicidal since then and pretty much gave up at that point. I hate being alive and the age I am now, feeling so ashamed compared to other people because I don’t do anything. At the same time, I genuinely don’t want any of the things most people want or would consider themselves successful for having: I don’t want to be a member of a family and I don’t want to buy a house because I don’t want to live in a house.

I have basically 1 friend left because I avoid and abandon people - what I think happens is I say yes to all kinds of things that trigger me, feel guilty for being triggered and that a decent person would just suck it up, and eventually decide it’s best for everyone if I just leave forever/get burnt out.

I could go on forever about how trauma destroys every part of my life: I’m terrified and judgmental of people, I get scared at night because I think neighbors will more likely be at home and therefore available to see me and hurt me/try to get me removed, I shut myself in for much of the year because seasons and especially holidays trigger me, I don’t want to live in the same climate, type of area, or even country that I was brought to and kept in when I was very young. I don’t understand how anyone can say they love their parents or siblings or feel an obligation towards them or what they could possibly have to say to their mom’s brother’s daughter or whatever. I have no reference for what’s normal. It’s hard to be motivated to get out of bed when I have so little love for humanity or anything in the world. I just want life to be the opposite of what it was in every way and to forget that any of those places or people ever existed.

Thanks for letting me get it off my chest. There’s probably more, but I’ll cap it there. I just feel totally lost in life, and I can’t bring myself to do anything because I feel too suicidal every day.

I have not had sex with my husband in over a year. We've had sex once in 2 years taking his deployment time into consideration.

Well the reason we have intimacy issues is because before his deployment, he said his friends said he should get me pregnant before he leaves. I've been pregnant in the past, had a terrible complication, lost the baby. So one of my fears is being pregnant alone. He knows all of that. So him bringing that up, bothered me.

I didnt wanna give him the opportunity to get me pregnant before leaving. Felt guilty about not wanting to have sex, so we had sex I'd cry during and after sex. I felt gross.

We'll the day he was getting deployed, I was a wreck. Balling my eyes out on the floor, snot down my face, puffy eyes, non stop sobbing. He picked me up, carried me to the bedroom and began kissing me and feeling me up. I wanted him to stop but he kept saying focus on us and this moment. I said no. But instead he kept going, he wanted to have sex. So I disassociated and had sex to not deprive my husband sex for the last time for a year.

I hadn't felt that absolutely degraded and disgusting since I was r***d years ago. It brought up those same feeings. Then during his deployment he became an alcoholic, did steriods, used testosterone, and came back looking like a stranger. He of course wanted to have sex, so I had sex with him. Felt gross cus it was like sleeping with a stranger. And now I'm just absolutely all around triggered by my husband. And don't know how to get past that. 

I've been going to therapy. Our last resort now is couples therapy. I hate when my husband even touches me because I know it will lead to him wanting sex. I get this shear panic and disgust when he touches me. And I know he feels rejected, so I feel even worse than before. It's just this never ending cycle. I hate it. I just want to be normal again and feel normal. I can't even kiss him. I feel so bad about hurting him and have given him permission to sleep with other women but he says he doesn't want to.

Besides the intimacy thing everything else would be great. He's a good guy, I just don't know how to get past this.

Freshly dealing with all of this after 20+ years of living in survival mode. I have been fighting so hard to recover. Physically reminding myself I'm safe in my own home. Mentally reminding myself I do not have to fill every silence. Trying to manage my emotions. Going to therapy.

Sometimes I feel like I've made leaps in progress, but most days I just feel fundamentally flawed and broken. I work in a very fast paced industry where conformity is expected and while I'm going through this, I feel like my flaws and problems are on full display to everyone around me, shaping my career trajectory and future. I always have so much in my mind and sometimes just feel like most people don't "get" me, or worse, that they see me as some sort of temperamental,emotional monster.

I've been worse in my personal life as well. Burning a lot of bridges with friends, noticing how much quicker I am to go to my anger and temper with my fianceé and my parents.

I feel more in my body than ever, more sensitive to pain and discomfort and aware of how much I have been neglecting myself.

Everyone says this takes time, but I feel like I don't have time. If I don't get my act together, everything will fall apart and I feel like I'm just getting it together.

I've lost so much of my life to these feelings and I want to get back on track but it really feels impossible.

I just want to know what it's like. What it's like to be around people without being on edge. To not be tense at all times. To not get triggered by every little thing. To be okay. Just one day.

To safe you time: I'll first describe how i found the technique, then why i use it and how it works for me, and at three bottom how it works.

Thanks to the user who told me i should try to rest!

When I tried the Technique for the first time, at 14, it didn't work. Never tried it since, until this week, after a user on here suggested I should try and rest before a task. Huge shoutout to you, you my biggest problems.

Starting a task is insanely difficult to me. From Assignements and studying for uni, to just starting to play a videogame or working on a hobby. I get so overwhelmed by thinking of this huge amount if work, and that leads to anxiety and guilt for not starting, which makes it all even more difficult. I posted about this and one user suggested to rest before i do something, but, like, honestly rest. Because, best case, I slowly regulate my system and can start more easily, or I don't start but don't stress out all day (and not starting anyway). Now I've combined this with pattern of thinking with the pomodoro technique. Just telling myself "Hey, let's start, do something for 25 minutes and then we can rest again" is so good. And due to the breaks being 5-10 minutes, it doesn't feel like I'm wasting time while giving my overthinking brain time to breath.

How does it work:

You get ready to work on whatever you need/want to, set a timer for 25 minutes and wirk for that time. Then, you take a break of 5-10 minutes, maybe listening to music, looking out the window, something that gives you brain time to rest. Then you repeat this.

The intervals can all be altered to fit your preferences, of course. This is just what has wirked for me the past week.

I hope someone finds this useful. Thank you all for your vontunued support and thank you, who told me how to rest.

Edit: it was actually the advice of two people! Both together helped me in this

When I say desired, I mean to be found attractive. Not purely for looks, necessarily, but just an overt, deep attraction. I sometimes find myself jealous of how women can be lusted after by men (in a safe and pleasant way, naturally). It sounds embarrassing and narcissistic, but I want women to do the same to me. Not to a creepy degree, of course, but like where I get flirted with or hit on.

I wonder if this is because of trauma. I never really got attention from girls, as well as from parents, and maybe part of me wants to be desired to this degree. It feels narcissistic. I just want to feel like somebody is attracted to me, not because of anything I do, but because they just are. I don't like having to work to be loved. Maybe I just want someone to love me because I'm me, not because of my actions.

I put a huge emphasis on sexting and things in relationships. Ever since my teen years, it was the most effective way to make my partners happy. And I suppose I want someone to want me because I've always tried to bend myself to their desires. To make them happy. It'd be amazing to just have a woman be attracted to me without having to do so much to be liked. Sometimes, with my partners, I feel like they only like me because I can please them, and never because they genuinely like me. Maybe I just want my partner to wear their desire on their sleeve; to show me that they are attracted to me in an obvious and blunt way.

God, I feel like an incel writing this. I just want to know if anyone relates to this.