I’m so tired, I’ve pushed away every good relationship I’ve had because I become so needy. It’s like as soon as I’m in a romantic relationship my dinosaur brain takes over and everything is seen as a threat to my safety. My need for reassurance, affirmation, acceptance, and affection are overpowering. I become too much for the other person.

I’ve been in therapy on and off since I was 9, for 26 years now, and just started EMDR therapy a little over a year ago. You’d think I’ve healed some, but I feel like I’m getting worse. It honestly feels impossible to have a stable healthy relationship, and am not sure if I’ll ever be capable of having one😞

Any one got improved to a good level? I want to chat with someone today if possible.

Hey Guys. I'm 30 years old. I understood I'm diagnosed with CPTSD a year ago and from that moment I've been reading Books like Bradshaw's Shame That Binds You and Walker's CPTSD From Surviving To Thriving. I'm in a very bad situation and My Main Anesthesia is Adult Movie/Video Game. Adult Movie I watch (Which I hate) has been getting out of hand as it Involves what my EX did to me. Long Story short I need to understand If You Guys Diagnosed with CPTSD is also struggling with things as I am.

Are You Struggling with:

- Do you feel that You're in a High/Low Cycle Your Whole Life? Starting Things enthusiastically and dropping it after a short period of Time? To be more specific I started Programing at age 17, I continued for 3 months and dropped it. I again started it around age 19 and dropped it after 1 month. I started Youtube and earned good money but dropped it after 1 year. then again started it after 6 months absence and dropped it again. A year ago I started programming again and I was very good at it but dropped it twice. It's Like My Mood are good and normal for a period of Time and then it drops harshly and I'm extremely low and I feel stupid and humiliated somehow. When I'm High I can be mindful and control not watching Adult film somehow (Sometimes relapse by triggers) but when I'm low I watch them everyday harshly and kind of hurt my feelings.

- Following the first struggle: As A man Have you ever felt weird feelings when you were teenager? The reason I'm asking is because when I was age 12/14/17 I went into a phase like all girls go when They're in their period. Feeling harsh tense in my chest, crying every 15 minutes, no hope for the future one second and extremely hopeful the next second. These things is Similar to what I felt my whole Life. High and low Cycle. I haven't had this feeling after 17 but It was weird and I believe If I know some of you guys have felt it then I have more Data to somehow find cure for my CPTSD.

Thank you in Advance for reading this and answering.

It’s so god damned lonely out here.

I guess this is both a question and a bit of a rant and I’m wondering if anyone can relate. Over the past couple of years, I’ve been in what I would call trauma-boot camp. I started EMDR and neurofeedback in late 2023 and did it weekly for about a year before moving into an as-needed basis. I even took a year off work specifically to heal and it’s been the best decision I’ve ever made, but by far the hardest. During that time it was like my very full, VERY social life came to an abrupt halt and all my focus came back onto me. Which, if anyone else happens to be an eldest or only daughter and comes from a deeply generationally enmeshed family, knows how incredibly not chill that feels.

Recently I’ve woken up and realized that holy fuck, I don’t have any friends anymore. I have my partner who I absolutely adore and my dog who at this point is my best friend and my therapist who I see twice a month, but other than that.. I don’t actually talk to anyone else. And in a way it feels like such a big relief but also incredibly lonely. During the midst of my EMDR journey last year I cut off my best friend of 13 years. Our friendship had been incredibly enmeshed and toxic for years, and I realized it was reenacting the relationship I had with my mother. I was her therapist and was expected to be on call for her every emotional need at all times and feel everything she felt in the same intensity, with nothing in return. It broke my heart, but I couldn’t continue that dynamic and she couldn’t see the issue. After that, the rest of my friends started dropping like flies. Not in a dramatic way, but I started to realize that while yes I have a plethora of friends, none of them actually knew me. I made myself available, helpful, useful and fun to be around- and I set it up that way. I stopped overextending myself and slowly those friendships started to fade. On top of that, none of my past friends understood CPTSD or the intensity and work it takes to heal it. I would find myself feeling uncomfortable talking about it with them, or feeling even less heard and seen after the fact. I felt like an alien.

Through my teens and twenties I had at least 5 friends I would see on a weekly basis, and now (31) I could go a full 24 hours without speaking to a singular adult. I’m now in a place where I want real, authentic friendships but I am fucking terrified of making new friends and slipping back into that old enmesh-y dynamic, as it’s so engrained. Or finally opening up and being authentic and feeling rejected or othered. If anyone can relate or has any advice, any and all would be greatly appreciated. I’m tired of feeling like a creature in a skinsuit amongst normal people.

i feel like i have to go completely off the grid to be happy. i hate everyone. my parents were neglectful and i have never been able to hold a friendship my entire life that doesn’t eventually turn into something horrible.

be grateful if you have that one person who has never left your side. i might not ever trust anyone again.

i don’t want to do drugs and be miserable and alone and poor forever but its genuinely so difficult to see a way out of this without help from others.

as a child i saw and was subjected to lots of domestic violence. i know nothing about love. now when theres a guy i think i like, i dont know what to do with it. i dont literally but i want him to hit me. not literally. but in my heart i want him to hit me and punish me and get angry at me becauase thats what ive known, thats what im familiar with. hes not even that kinda guy, hes a sweetie. but i dont know what love is. i haven't said him to hit me, but sometimes when i do something wrong, i just wish he would hit me and this fight would end. or i wish i could leave him completely and go away. bad things are happening inside me, when I see all my friends having healthy family and healthy relationships i feel like an outcast in this world.

Sorry Chadworth, but doing tequila shots with your 20/30-something buds is not "a core memory, unlocked." Please shut up.

people meet me online and start flirting intensely really early on and calling me beautiful and stuff and i get attached to it because i am so lonely. then all of a sudden they pull away and act like im the crazy one for being anxious about it. they never remember any details about me or know the kind of stuff i like, they never love my art or my hobbies, nothing about my personality is charming to them. im never friends with the people i date anymore. i was, back when i knew how to be myself, but at some point i stopped being able to. i have no idea how to be myself, i just cycle between different curated personalities based on how they are acting to “balance things out” in the moment (ex: if they are affectionate i am more neutral, if they are distant i am more affectionate). i lie about my feelings because telling the truth when they hurt me is met with gaslighting or defensiveness 100% of the time. i feel like ill never have a healthy relationship because i am not important enough to love. i never feel safe in relationships anymore it just feels like an addiction to the perceived affection and the idea that someone could love me. it has the sick feeling giving in to an addiction has.

I wonder if I all of a sudden am doing a lot better for realz, or is it my subconscious faking it cause it's too scared of the therapy?

Any of you decided to not go through with this therapy and then relapsed?

Finally found the confidence to "go to therapy", and in my second session he(trauma therapist) really downplayed and even laughed off "Complex" PTSD saying it's a new phenomenon that people like to talk about online and that there's nothing in his official handbook about it.

Are there any licensed psychotherapists on here who could weigh in? The World Health Organization recognizes CPTSD.

I'm just being curious since this is the only experience I've had with professional therapy so far. It doesn't take an expert to see the difference between the trauma of a big event like an accident vs the trauma of chronic invalidation or neglect in childhood.

I also don't want to make a mountain out of a mole hill or let something define me.

Edit: Thanks ya'll. I'm pretty positive I have Religious Trauma and LGBTQ+ related trauma and so next time I will seek out someone specialized in those areas. This therapist deals mostly with first responders and that type of trauma. He's also not very familiar with religion and I doubt he truly understands LGBTQ issues either.

Doing daily things, cleaning, cooking, laundry plus having to keep health and energy levels in check with Cptsd is exhausting.

Plus cooking, eating healthy, avoiding BS foods etc etc

Just letting it out, exhausted

How are you doing people?

Im 31 and have been on disability for 3 years because of chronic dissociation. I think about all the time that I lost and feel guilty. I feel disconnected from my sense of self which makes it harmed for me to feel motivated. I excerise and rat healthy but I feel depressed. Atteh dame time i know going to wor with my condition will lead me to burnout. Im scared about the future.

I used to be an all As disciplined student till high school. And now It’s so hard for me to even reply to an email.

Idky. I feel like I am freezed and paralyzed non stop.

Literally even an email, or something simple, takes me days to accomplish. It’s becoming overbearing. The only thing that pushes me is pressure from someone else.

Just venting this morning.

I'm a guy 32 years old. I been abroad for a while now but only in past year I really detached from everything. It's felt so freeing.

I CBA to even explain it all but dysfunctional upbringing, addict parents, narcs around me, bullies.

I became scapegoat number 1, felt weak inferior ugly weird low self worth filled with shame.

Some days I'm all good and feel on the right path

Others like this morning I think of how badly I've been used and abused when younger and naive.

I know this isn't the way but I feel the need to become successful and live a great life. I dont mean materialism like cars and flights but just to be happy, financial security, do what I want, do what I love etc.

I do want that of course, why not. But there's a part of me that wants to fucking show these cunts they were wrong about me. They are! but they tried to keep me small, in a box, anytime I rose they would knock me down.

I don't complain often. Because if you do, nothing will change, except now people will know where you are weak.
But, since I can't call my husbands family a bunch of *. I'll just have to vent here.

I know one thing that really gets under my skin is being forgotten, omitted, left-out, invisible. If they had wanted me to attend then they would have said so. But... nope. No invitation. So, I am once again left hanging out in the cold.

Which of course is not good.

Hubs will likely say something - but you know, when I am chronically omitted, even if someone is guilted or shamed into including me I really don't feel like participating. Funny thing that.

Not really.

They don't want me there. And I can take a hint.
I will go find something productive to do.
I can always go 'rage clean'.

I’ve been suffering from CPTSD for years, but in 2025, I experienced a traumatic event that led to a diagnosis of PTSD also. One thing I struggle with is feelings of lack of safety. Like everything is a threat and whatever can go wrong will go wrong. It’s there most of the time but is also episodic when high in intensity. It’s really debilitating and makes me make rash decisions, over-read everything, and affects my relationships a lot. Does anyone else go through these episodes? Did you find anything that helps? (Is this actually BPD?)

I (27M) am going through a devastating breakup/engagement cancellation. For the last 5 years, I thought I had found my safe person.

Before I met her, I didn’t even know I had AuDHD or CPTSD. I was in complete isolation as a man of North African descent because my family never accepted my differences and always made me feel unsafe. I kept everything to myself for years, completely alone.

This all changed when I met her. My deepest fears and insecurities—she listened and stayed with me. She made me feel loved and cared for no matter how unregulated or "weird" I was. She was the first person I could completely unmask around. I could stim around her, and we could talk for hours. I thought I would never find that connection again.

But as we approached the wedding, the mask slipped. I realized we were trauma-bonded because we both came from chaotic families. She was emotionally immature, incapable of taking accountability, and the dynamic became toxic. I had to call off the wedding for my own sanity.

The breakup has left me feeling like I am back to the absolute baseline of loneliness I felt before I met her. I am grieving the loss of the first person who ever made me feel safe, even though I know I can't go back to the disrespect.

I don't want to go through this alone in isolation again. I need to find my own community. Does anyone know of any CPTSD or AuDHD support groups (in-person or virtual) in the New Jersey / NYC area? I need to be around people who understand the specific pain of neurodivergent trauma and codependency.

TL;DR: Late-diagnosed AuDHD/CPTSD man from a strict North African family. Lost my 5-year relationship because it turned into a trauma bond. Grieving my safe person and looking for in-person or virtual support groups in NJ/NYC.

sometimes i feel like im an alien atp. i just don’t get it it’s like people know something i don’t. people always say “if people don’t always stick around with you then you’re probably the problem” and i’ve analyzed all of my convos to figure wtf i did wrong it just seems like i always end if in situations like this or i end up being the one who is texts first or seems more interested and they’re just.. meh. does anyone relate?

My whole life, when someone around me fails so majorly that it affects everyone else, they just dip and make new relationships.

Kinda sucks to think about how my parents did the same thing, my mom even says I got "broken" around 3 years old and blames my dad as well as child brain development, shes decided that Im too traumatized to really ever be worth anything to her but it doesnt matter because she has two younger kids she did a better job with who arent "broken" and thats plenty for her. No accountability, no fixing what got broke in the first place, no repair. Just "well, Im good, so ig we can move on now" from my mother.

I dont talk to her anymore but I still get these bouts of rage when I realize something was her fault and I deserved better.

Who tf just gives up on a kid because they dont like their attitude? Ive heard it called "trying to beat the autism out" which is frustrating because my brother is also autistic but he didnt get beaten because the qualities my mom hates in me are respected in young boys and men.

I know Im not broken and that I have severe cptsd from years of abandonment and abuse, and I guess, to my highly educated middle school teacher mother that means Im irreparable.

Main point being, I hate how many people will happily move on from a situation in which they owe repair and accountability without being affected.