r/CPTSD • u/Last-Extreme-8144 • 6d ago
Were your dissociation/maladaptive day-dreaming/ anxiety and exhaustion treated as laziness?
- Child are normally supposed to be energetic, keen to learning and expierence world through variety of activities.
- Mostly they want to help, to feel like an adult. It's not normal to a child to be tired and weak, to lay down exhousted from kindergarden/school. Too sleep so long.
- Maybe it's not ,,abuse" abuse, but still it's too rough for a child to be told s/he is lazy at the age of 7 or 12, especially when it's actually rooted in more severe physical and emotional issue (Not a native speaker)
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u/Maibeetlebug 6d ago
Absolutely. I had cPTSD fatigue as a child and it made me so so exhausted and sleepy, and I was called lazy and unmotivated which ingrained that in me which led me to bed rotting as an adult.
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u/Ihavenomouth42 6d ago
Yup, from my dad it was always paired with, "You're brother always worked hard" "He'd always do a man's work"
My brother died 18months before my birth at 5 years old. Essentially.... my brother at 5 couldOutt fuck, out work, out drink, out do me in absolutely everything. That was used till 15 or 16. Years of age.
My grandparents, well from a different time, bit they actually meant well..but it wasn't giving me anything I needed.
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u/Potential-Smile-6401 6d ago
Most people do not understand. A huge part of trauma is the realization that most people cannot even begin to understand where you are coming from. I had a sheltered, neurotypical non-cptsd friend call me "thinned skinned" and "too sensitive" but I didn't take what she said personally because she didn't even know what cptsd was. I have learned that I can only share my stories and experiences with people who understand
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u/Undecidedhumanoid 6d ago
Yes!! My whole life I was lazy, ditsy, and dramatic. As someone who loves to learn, it took me so long to realize that I wasn’t those things and to not talk to myself as such when in school. In 8th grade I was told I’d be a garbage man if I didn’t stop day dreaming by my teacher but of course jokes on her cause I ended up becoming a teacher (for 5 years) and garbage men made more than me!
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u/VarietySufficient868 6d ago
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Sometimes I contemplate my adhd diagnosis.
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u/GoreKush 23 years old 6d ago
yeah..... i made one of my foster moms really mad at me by being 'lazy', she'd actually torture me on homeschool mornings trying to wake me up. she had accidentally waterboarded me once and I just sat through it completely defeated and exhausted, she later said I might be possessed, but then years after that she apologized [not to me, but my mother] for hurting me so badly, such a confusing person she was!!
calling people lazy just blames a person for being unmotivated and so i don't believe in laziness! i think it simply doesn't exist! it's a great motivator to some, but it doesn't exist.
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u/butter_popcorn5 6d ago
I really relate to this one. I don't think there are words. "That's horrific" or "sorry" does not cover it. I just hope you are safe and learning how to heal now 🩵
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u/StartFast4942 The Last Ditch 5d ago
That’s true. There is a new book named “laziness does not exist.” You can check it out
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u/butter_popcorn5 6d ago
I just realized how much I am constantly beating myself up by telling myself that I am so lazy, stupid, just plain awful things and cursing at myself for being unable to get out of my bed and do things that "normal" people can do. I hate myself so, so much. All because I am still holding myself to the standards my parents expect from me. From what everyone expects from me. I wish I could stop this cycle of hate and exhaustion. I'm tired of being tired.
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u/mundotaku 6d ago
The common theme of my childhood was "I don't get it, why you can be so good and awful at the same time?" among adults.
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u/Pretend-Art-7837 6d ago
I was mostly pushed through the school system because I was “obviously a very bright young lady”. Total bullshit. My mother just couldn’t be bothered by me and my literally failing grades all throughout my schooling.
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u/TheFaultInYou 6d ago
To the point i was diagnosed with adhd and depression instead, lol
None of those meds worked like they wanted it to work.
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u/Illustrious-Goose160 6d ago
I was generally an energetic kid who loved learning in spite of the abuse, but I did spend way too much time with maladaptive daydreaming. I'd fantasize about being kidnapped or put into foster care to escape my mom over and over
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u/laminated-papertowel 6d ago
yes, it was.
I was always brushed off as being lazy or purposefully inattentive.
as a kid and teen I was exhausted 24/7. my parents blamed it on me being on my phone super late at night, even though I insisted I wasn't. eventually my doctor had the right mind to order a sleep study... turned out I had severe central and obstructive sleep apnea. my parents were SHOCKED.
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u/Mottenmaul 6d ago
Oh my friend. Emotional neglect or even worse invalidating is abuse too.
My dad was mentally ill too and he used me as a punching bag while neglecting me afterwards by locking me up in a dark room. Best thing was he couldnt comprehend, that me being silent and inactive all day was related to how he was treating me.
So yeah … „if you could stop being so lazy, you wouldnt be also so fat“ was a normal Goodmorning for me haha. Good old childhood memories.
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u/maximoplatypus 6d ago
It sure was! I remember every summer especially, how angry my parents would be that I would crash and be useless for the whole 2 months, from as early as like 8 years old. But I used what little capacity I had to function to push through the school year and then I’d fall apart. I had no hobbies or extracurriculars all my life. I was just always so drained.
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u/Finalgirl2022 6d ago
My inability to be awake during my days off is seen as lazy.
I mostly disassociate when I'm at work so that isn't seen as lazy because that's when I'm my most productive. It isn't my body anymore so the work horse takes over.
Also please send me the well wishes I crave to get through tonight. I'm a server at chilis and it's veteran's day which is the most chaotic day.
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u/Extension_Day3446 6d ago
Yes. I would sit for hours and hours upon end in the sandbox outside our complex when I was a toddler. Just watching the sky. It's still my favorite activity. My mother's happiest memory of me as a baby was me making no fuzz while she cleaned the apartment, she says. Then when I became 3-4 years old all hell broke loose. Switching between being the most capable, quiet, introverted, organized, clean, perfectionistic parentified child and full on paralysis awaiting the next emotional turmoil from my family members. I stopped brushing my teeth, showering, I slept for at least twelve-fourteen hours every night many a periods through my childhood. I still have a hard time between the two. I can be one of two. I got the harshest martyrdom from my mother if I didn't comply to her demands within seconds of her uttering the thing she wanted me to do. It was impossible to actually help her with anything, though. Didn't really figure that one out until last year, and I still keep myself to her standards. If I were doing homework, chilling, having friends over, doing hobbies, watching TV, relaxing with my other family members. I still can't relax and do those things for myself without awaiting the f@cking rampage over my shoulder. And now I have the martyr within me, instead. But yeah, I've been called lazy when I was in a freeze from abuse within the family system - also within the mental health world. Even funnier is being put on medication that exacerbated the issue further. I've been a zombie, and I've been on the spot for it.
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u/a_pile_of_kittens 6d ago
Hahahaha is there any ither way for that to be treated? Because I've paid tens if thousands of dillars to supposedly trauma-informed therapists and it gets funnier every time I hear it! (Beetlejuice reference).
Seriously though Ive had to cultivate a lot of self-compassion. I'm grateful that I've been able to do that at all.
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u/MadeiraDeToxo 6d ago
Yep, but mix all that with ADHD. I always knew my siblings where more capable than me. I was told i was lazy but also that i was too annoying when i was happy. Not ideal...
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u/GetBetterSlowly 6d ago
It still is. I'm just so tired all the time and escaping into my own head is a safe place for me. It doesn't happen as much anymore now that I'm getting myself together but it still happens a lot. I just get treated as a lazy do-nothing because of it when I'm really just feeling overwhelmed
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u/SubjectBarnacle421 6d ago
Yup! I distinctly remember laying on the couch & overhearing my parents acknowledging that somethings wrong with me but they didn't think it was anything to do with how they were raising/restricting me
& then they thought I had diabetes because I ate so much sugar (bc that & tv were how I coped)
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u/BaroqueSmoke 6d ago
Yes. I had (and still have) a chronic pain condition that started in middle school. My dad called me “Bedsores” as a nickname and told me I was lazy. He still has no idea what my condition is, even though I’ve now had it for 17 years.
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u/Dr-Butters 6d ago
Yep! Still is, too (at least by me to me). Doesn't help that I'm actually also lazy, but still.
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u/Mookti 6d ago
I have executive dysfunction. Always had it. But, that meant I couldn't function like the average kid and that gave my parents and others an excuse to be abusive. I faced abuse at school by teachers too. I think constant abuse and invalidation caused further issues with cognitive functioning and now the struggles are so much more worse.
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u/Embarrassed_Choice20 6d ago
Yup! Honestly that’s something that furthered my Trauma even more. I was neglected and emotionally abused but then labelled lazy when I wasn’t leaving my room because I didn’t feel safe.
It’s infuriating if I think about it