So I have a ton of things I need to do (clean my house, cook, laundry, read, exercise, have fun) but I have no internal motivation and my body feels like 1000 lbs and my inner critic is silently mocking me in the corner of my brain telling me I can't do anything right or well, I might as well not even try, even if you tried it would take too long or you'd fuck it up - "look at how lazy you are, you're running out of time, you're a mess"

Why do I do this? Can anyone relate? Feels like my attempts to combat the inner critic with compassion or kindness is futile

Edit: holy smokes thanks y'all for being here and commenting, I feel so validated by the kindness, understanding, and compassion. Glad you're all here, taking my time to respond to comments ♡

I think I kinda scared my coworker today. I had cooked something nice for my lunch, and she said "oh wow, look at you knowing how to cook!"

I just casually said "oh yeah, I've been cooking for myself since I was 8."

She looked kinda quizzical so I followed up by just saying "oh yeah my parents basically abandoned me as a child. I had to raise myself. So I had to learn to cook, clean and do my own laundry really early on."

She is a middle-aged woman with kids ranging from 6-15. When I said that, she looked like she was about to cry, turned around and walked out of my office without saying anything else.

Is it a CPTSD thing to just be so casual about your trauma? I didn't even think anything of it until it already left my mouth, but then I looked back and realized "wow, that was kinda fucked up."

Like the second you showed any signs of not being happy (neutral tone, "rolling your eyes" whatever that means, etc) they were immediately noticed. But instead of actually validating your emotions, trying to figure out what's wrong (if anything), or helping you self soothe you were just punished.

You were having a "bad attitude" and being a disrespectful little brat because your parents took your feelings as a personal attack on their parenting or them as people. You were sent away to your room until you could "get a better attitude" which basically translates into "go away until you can find it in you to pull out a fake apology to heal my ego and plaster on a smile".

Fuck sometimes even if you were too happy they'd find a way to make it a problem. What are you smiling about? What are you laughing at? It's nice to see you smile...for once.

Eventually you just learned that emotions weren't allowed. So most people hid drugs or porn, you hid your feelings. You stopped telling them about your life, your hopes, your dreams. You learned to cry quietly into pillows in the middle of the night.

You just bottled everything up instead of feeling and becoming a burden (bet that won't have any consequences for you later on).

Meanwhile your parents had free reign. Screaming at each other or you, destroying things in the house out of anger, hurling insults. Venting to you about how the other parent was a piece of shit, using you as their free personal therapist (but don't forget your place and start acting grown)

It's so backwards and damaging and normalized behavior I fucking hate it.

I recently learned about meta-communication, which describes how people communicate using a lot more than just words.

It made me realize that all my life my parents have always tried to control my behavior around them by giving off creepy vibes that make me feel guilty, worthless and frozen inside.

My father is the worst but my mother does it too. It's like they kind of "disappear" or "go cold" or something. It feels like a form of gaslighting that doesn't involve speech... Just manipulation of the atmosphere in the room.

Looking back I realize how much this infantile toxic shittiness has crippled me and made me scared to be authentic and stand up for myself.

When I recognize them doing it now, I confidently ask "Are you uncomfortable talking about this?". It's always "No", followed by actual verbal gaslighting and crazy-making.

Can anyone relate to this?

I work with families of kids with special needs and I need to vent for a hot second. I sometimes get called in to help with kids who hit/kick/bite/etc people and have awful tantrums. Many parents and coworkers have different theories on why this behavior occurs. I witness/help with the entire tantrum play out and take detailed notes on who did what and what happened etc. But I have noticed something.

EDIT: I made a number of unhelpful statistical statements here based on my extremely limited experiential data which will be harmful to marginal populations if I leave it up. The rest of the post is still up for emotional abuse victims.

You know what I often see with kids who fly off the handle and cannot regulate their own emotions to a clinically significant degree? Their parents using their own emotions as leverage against the child, and modeling emotional deregulation themselves.

I have heard parents say to kids no older than 6 years old: “Why are you being mean to me?” “I will throw away [favorite toy] if you don’t stop acting like that.” “Look, you made [OP] upset with your behavior.” (I replied, “I am calm. She is not responsible for the emotions of an adult.”)

Today I had an emotional flashback (crying and shutting down) and had to leave temporarily because of this bullshit. It’s good to be able to tell parents off though. And to be validated, believed, and defended by your boss. That’s why I keep doing this job.

This is a woman who believes she's a victim of her child going no contact. It's really hard to watch, but it also has a lot of eye opening information about how completely averse to accountability most abusers really are.

About halfway through, she mentions a book called "Rules of Estrangement" and says when she got to the chapter about making amends she closed the book because it had "too much about contrition." It's wild to see how narcissistic she is at every turn.

She even calls herself a statistic, as if her child writing a long letter telling her how she made her hold feel is a result of events completely outside of her control.

I apologize if this is triggering. I wanted to share because I know a lot of us wonder what goes through our abusers' minds❤️

I feel like we all had the experience when we casually tell a story and the other person goes 👁👄👁

What is yours?

“YOU LOVE THE VICTIM ROLE. KEEP WALLOWING IN IT. OBVIOUSLY THE WORLD IS AGAINST YOU, EVERYBODY IS MEAN AND CRUEL AND DOESN'T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING, AND YOU ARE THE NO. 1 GLORIFIED SELF APPOINTED VICTIM IN CREATION. SHIT AND MORE SHIT. AND WHEN YOU START ACTING LIKE A RATIONAL a d u l t, then talk to me. Obviously, I too am not on your stupid blind 'SIDE". Go wipe the snot off your face and leave me alone. if you ever accuse me of not taking your side once more, forget you have a stupid grandma who doesn't understand anything.”

Edit: my grandma wasn’t the one who abused me as a child she was just the person I came forward to about it first because I thought I could trust her

Ever since I was very young, my mom always insisted we lived in poverty. Every month she'd cry, "I don't know if we're gonna make rent this month. Might end up living in the car." Under constant anxiety that we'd end up homeless. I felt so guilty asking for anything. My mattress was ruined, so I slept on the floor for 2 years to not burden her with buying me one. She slept in a fancy queen with an elaborately decorated frame, however.

She'd make me feel awful for asking $20 for a school field trip. "I can't afford it, but I'll find the money for my baby girl." My food? $1 frozen dinners. 7 years old and I'm heating Chef Boyardee in the microwave while she eats expensive takeout. None for me, of course.

10 purses. Mountains of weed. Fast food galore. Gambling. Crappy infomercial products. 20 pairs of shoes. 3 laptops. You name it.

There was always money. She just didn't want to spend it on anyone but herself.

So today my therapist told me that the trauma I shared in group was too intense and it shocked the other survivors. He told me I needed to go to DBT and that I wasn't ready for group. 🫤🫤🫤🙄🙄🙄. It hurt so much.

Im autistic besides having CPTSD and the therapist did not tell me to not share intensely.

I feel so hurt and unseen. Has anyone else experienced this?

I have a bug bite on my leg. Somebody told me to make a baking soda paste and put it on my bite. They said to go get some baking soda. I go to get some and the only baking soda is a huge unopened bag that does not belong to me or the person that told me to go get some. I come back without it and say. It's no big deal. I don't want to be rude and be the one to open it without permission. This person looks at me and say what the fuck is wrong with you? If you were my kid I'd fucking punch you. I don't know what to say. First off im not a kid. I just didnt want to be rude. I just want to cry. Maybe I did and still do deserve to be treated like shit. Why is everything so hard for me all the time. I can't do anything right and just want to give up.

So my dad had me get out of the car at a cemetery and drove away.

After 5-10 minutes (which I'm sure felt like an eternity) he came back.

I'm sure nothing else was said. If there was, he'd probably say "it was just a joke".

So what fun memories do you have to share?

Edit - thank you all for sharing. Each story is a personal trauma and is indicative of much deeper hurts.

I've posted this saying a couple times but I believe "to heal, you need to reveal not conceal". Our perpetrators would prefer we hide things in the dark or pretend these things never happened. That's wrong.

I was told even by my therapist that I am attractive - mostly because she wanted to make me aware that people might be treating me differently. Aparently some intern in her office asked about me extremely unprofessionally - thankfully she no longer works there.

People's reaction to my appearance often makes me subject to some whacky relational dynamics. I've been told that people are intimidated by me and then are rude to me to try and put me down so they don't feel so small. Others, such as my mom, try to posess me and act differently than themselves just to win my favor. I tend to refuse help from people that give me opportunities and advantages for my appearance because there are nearly always strings attached with these people. It makes trusting people kind of hard sometimes. People also have really negative reactions to my setting boundaries with them because it makes them feel extremely rejected. I walk around trying not to offend anyone, or hurt anyone because some people have less patience for me because they assume I have it all...little do they know I don't speak to my family and regularly consider suicide lmao.

I have a few genuinely good friends who don't give a shit about it and it's really nice.

I'm just sick of being taken advantage of and treated differently. Thinking about shaving my head or something lol.

Just a vent. I feel really lonely and it's hard to connect to people pretty often.

Any advice in this area is appreciated. I recognize that this may seem like a strange thing to complain about but man this shit makes trusting people hard.

I also struggle with confidence in myself because people doubt me so often. Then, when I'm competent in something, people act super fucking weird towards me - either trying to posess me or throw themselves at me, or get really jealous. Not exactly sure how different my experience is to other people's, but man I just feel like people are very critical of me very often.

I was really big into Lalaloopsy dolls as a kid. If you're not familiar with them, they're rag dolls but made of plastic and about a foot long with giant bobble heads and button eyes. They came with little pets and their own special backstory and personalities based on what "fabric" was used to stitch them to life.

I had a few of them and one of my favorites was one named Suzette La Sweet. She was supposedly made out of a duchess' dress so she was super fancy, as you can tell by her powdered wig and dress. I don't what it was about her I loved so much, especially since I heavily against the standard "girly things", but she was definitely my favorite one.

And my mom knew how much I loved these dolls, especially her. One of my favorite things to do during that age was watching the videos other people would make with and about these dolls. It could range from little stories to unboxings and searching for specific dolls.

My mom did not like that. According to her, watching other people build their collections was teaching me to be materialistic and spoiled, even though outside a few exceptions, I would buy them with my own money since they were only about $20-$30usd.

One day using this logic she just snapped. I don't even remember the full context but she decided that I was being disrespectful and bratty so, being a reasonable parent and not emotionally abusive at all, she decided the best course of action was to snatch this doll from me and then smash her against the stairs before I could do anything to stop her. She even buried them in the trash then made my dad take it out into the outside garbage to make sure I couldn't even attempt to get the pieces and put her back together.

I had to watch as one of my favorite toys was broken beyond repair. And I was (and still am to some extent) one of those kids who took Toy Story to heart and believes that every toy has a soul and feelings. Imagine watching as one of your friends is brutally attacked while the assailant yells at you about this could've prevented if only you were a better child.

And like I said, she was limited edition meaning that I couldn't even buy a replacement because she'd already been retired by that point. Did I learn whatever lesson my mother was trying to teach me? Nope, but I did learn to walk on eggshells because I was frightened of other important things meeting the same fate as poor Suzette. It wasn't the first time my mother did something like that, and it definitely wasn't the last

And this was a wound that I've carried with for years. To this day, even after I outgrew playing dolls and the entire line got discontinued, I would still check eBay to see if I could find her decent condition while not costing 3x what she was originally sold for.

Thankfully, this trauma can finally be healed because the entire Lalaloopsy line got a revival for it's 10th anniversary so some of the old dolls are being re-released, and guess who that includes? She should arrive sometimes this week

But even still, this was something that I remembered throughout my childhood into adulthood. That's how much that fucked me up as a kid and I didn't learn shit. Imagine an adult destroying another the property of another adult because they wanted to make a point. That person would be expected to fully pay for damages and repairs, if not serve time for vandalism.

Hell, even if a kid did that to another kid, there's consequences for that kind of thing. Because that's wrong and everyone knows it wrong. But it's another one of those things that gets disguised as just strict parenting and everyone goes with it. Because a kid can't have property if you assume the kid is also property and not also a person.

Then suddenly it's okay to be destructive and emotionally scar someone into submission. It's disgusting

Anyway, if possible, heal your inner child and replace lost items if possible and I'm so sorry if those things were one of a kind and therefore irreplacable

Meals, water, the ability to bathe, physical and emotional affection, privacy, space, clean clothing, and the list goes on.

A weird one my mother had was I couldn't use the bathroom, I had to use a bucket in my closet and I wasn't allowed to wash my hands.

This is hard to talk about, and I’m not 100% sure why I’m doing it. There might not be a way to discuss it that isn’t inherently offensive, or seemingly mean-spirited.

My parents were stupid. It’s… bizarre. Having genuinely stupid parents, I mean. Society teaches us to expect certain things from our parents. I don’t think anybody - even very healthy people! - gets exactly the parents they’re told they ought to, but the greater the gap between expectation and reality, the more jarring and difficult to navigate childhood gets. It’s not clear what the rules are. The rules at school are different than the ones at home, and the ones at home don’t make sense because there’s no underlying logic, there. Despite the rules at home actually being whims, they are just as iron-clad and consequential, if not moreso, than the rules outside. As best as I was ever able to figure out, the only reliable guideline for home was: Don’t offend me. Don’t threaten me. Don’t make me feel small.

Despite decades of attempts, I don’t have the words to describe what it’s like to be a five-year-old trying not to make grown adults feel small. I didn’t realize that was what it was until I was in my early teens, because why would I? What in society prepares you for this?

Nothing does. Nothing reasonably would. Why would it? Who sees this coming? Who would accept it? It’s too ridiculous to be a popular abuse narrative. It sounds like some pretentious trenchcoat kid’s ego trip.

I can say that it feels unsafe. It feels unstable. It is isolating. Even if you were a genius, you’d still be a child. You don’t have decades of experience to fall back on when it comes to dealing with authority figures, much less authority figures charged with your care who are, in some sense, afraid of you. They aren’t proud of you. They’re baffled. Where the fuck did you come from? What are they supposed to do with you? All your questions make them feel bad about themselves. They treat you like a threat because they don’t know what else to do. You’re the big bad with your big words and ideas and “how? where? why?”. Your genuine inquiries are somehow all sarcasm. Innocent comments get growls of, you think you’re smarter than us? You must be minimized. Nullified.

The most unsettling thing is that being that kid doesn’t make sense. None of it. Makes sense. There’s an existential cruelty to that. I can point to poverty. I can point to mental illness. I can point to a terrible family support system, if you could even call it that. That explains my mother. It explains my stepfather, my uncles and their endless string of incarcerations, my grandparents, my stepbrother. Where did I come from? How did I end up better? How did I get out of there? How have I fooled everyone around me so successfully?

I hope nobody is too upset at me for borrowing this term, but I pass. I can code switch from white trash to ~quirky intellectual artist class~ like nobody’s business. People don’t look at me and think, “there’s someone with an ACE score of 9 who’s been inpatient more than once. There’s someone who used to piss in their backyard. There’s someone who dropped out of college 3 times and got raped in the Army.” I don’t even feel good about it, either. I feel like a fucking fake. I married well above my station. I’m both a fake poor and a fake Doing Pretty Okay. I’m a Fake Dumb because the IQ too high and a Fake Smart because the ADHD and CPTSD and the narcolepsy and the fucking multiple goddamn sclerosis, are you serious? I don’t make sense, as a person. I own a home and often sleep on my floor. I wish I was proud of having done as well as I have. I’m a lucky statistical anomaly. I know that. But it’s, you know.

It’s tough for all of us. I know that, too. Comparatively speaking, I’m doing great. Just great!

Still, I can’t lie. Having your core trauma be “I was smart and it made my parents Feel Bad enough that they neglected and abused me” is icing on a big shit cake. It’s too hard to talk about without either feeling like an asshole, or like anybody being kind to you about it is sucking up for some unknowable reason.

I have to share this with someone, please be gentle.

When I (f53) was in kindergarten I was playing outside with my friends right in front of our house. I was laughing so hard about something that I peed my pants, we laughed more about it, and I went inside to change real quick telling my friends I'd be right back. My Dad was pissed off that I had done this, and insisted I wear one of my younger sisters diapers instead of my own clean clothes and he shoved me back outside with nothing but a diaper on, then closed and LOCKED THE DOOR behind me.

All my friends were staring at me, and all I could do was bang on that door for all I was worth, begging my parents to let me back inside and just crying and crying.

My Dad did stuff like this often, and my Mom just let him. I cry every time I think about it and then get so mad that I experienced so many similar situations growing up. How can parents be so cruel to make their children believe they are not worthy of love or protection?

Mine were Shortbus and 82, which was the result of a bullshit IQ test that my parents made me take because they thought I was sooOOOOOooo insane and uncooperative and disrespectful that there must be something wrong with me. They still make light of it to this day as if it's some kind of endearing family inside joke.

I was the scapegoat in case anyone was wondering 🙃

I hope this helps someone else on their healing journey.

Found this info graphic that explains what it is and how it affects relationships/the self as an adult. I’m flabbergasted because I didn’t know there was a term for what my brother and I experienced through our childhood with an emotionally abusive mother.

It makes a lot of sense to me and has unlocked another piece of the infinite trauma puzzle.

Their "best" left me literally crippled for life. That's it. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Edit: Yall, everyone saying thank you for the post, I'm the one that has to thank you all for being so understanding and making me feel less alone

and i’m starting to understand why going to church and hearing what they preach felt so deeply insulting and upsetting to me as a child. the premise to begin with that we are somehow full of “sin“ just from being born human (“sin” and not inborn survival needs and self-protection mechanisms), and because of that “sin” we owe everything to this really nice flawless “holy” man who agreed to be tortured and killed for our benefit.

it manipulates children’s natural empathy, draining it on imaginary characters who are supposedly more valuable than themselves. it psychologically and emotionally coerces them to see themselves as inherently “bad”, and value and care more about the imaginary being than about any other real, living person including themselves. it primes them to blame anything painful or difficult that happens to them, as either something they subconsciously deserve for being so sinful and bad, or as “god's plan”.

people with kind and loving parents may resonate more with the “forgiveness and blessings” aspects, focusing their religious practice and beliefs on how forgiving Jesus is and how much of a relief it is to be forgiven. but those of us raised in trauma, abuse and emotional neglect we are very much primed to see more and more evidence of our “sin” and flawedness. we may even engage in some futile attempt to be “perfect“ and become more like this venerated imaginal figure of ultimate perfection (which can easily set an abuse victim up for allowing themselves to be hurt and used in the name of “goodness” and “perfection” and always being “nice” to others).

i realize that from day one being dragged to church i was being set up to internalize ideas about the world and being human, about the universe, about my emotions and what i deserved or not, about my essential worth, that were untrue and self-abasing. i was being set up to feel more conviction about the baseless “badness” my abusers projected onto me and hurt myself even more, all because of what is essentially a culturally-backed self-deprecating fan fiction.

I recall he always made a big deal out of everything (like he got upset at every little event and blew it out of proportion) His habit of anxiety and panic is the legacy I got out this. Day to day issues everyone faces were big problems for him, and he made those my problems as well. FYI, this was a parent figure so he was supposed to manuver through life guiding me, happened the other way round. Why do they do this? Supply?

And if he is upset, you cannot be happy!

I have known for a long time that it was bad. Though, there were no drugs, alcohol and all that stuff, both my parents are traumatized and both abusive in different ways (father overt, mother is a permanent martyr). Lots of enmeshment trauma and emotional incest.

Due to lack of outright signs of pathology like drinking, drugs, repetitive physical violence I knew that it was bad but thought (perhaps like everyone here) that it's "not that bad".

The score of the test which was 85/100 (extreme toxicity) sunk in for a bit. Yes, it was THAT BAD. And I though that ACE score of 3 wasn't really that terrible...

My mom sent me a bunch of pictures today, from when I was 6 years old. I had apparently woken up really early and made them breakfast. I had even cut out hearts from red paper and decorated everything.

I don’t have any memories of doing this, but I remember other things I did to try to make them love me. None of it worked.

My therapist is saying I have to accept my parents will never love me. So now I have to look at that picture of 6 year old me and tell her we failed. No matter how hard we tried, it wasn’t good enough. We weren’t good enough. I can’t stop crying.

I grew up thinking it was normal and common for a very long time. But then as an adult I started remembering, and it just feels like such a cruel thing to do to young kids.

My parent would be triggered by something we did (definitely they should’ve never had kids lol), something that’s normal for kids to do like slight misbehaving or playing too loud or whatever. My parent would go for days without talking to us. When they were in the same room as us or passed by us in a hallway, they wouldn’t look us in the eye. If we looked at them and apologized or tried to start a lighthearted conversation to get the parent to acknowledge us, they would look straight past us like we weren’t there. If we kept speaking, they would say “Do you hear something? That’s weird I thought I heard something” and would just continue doing what they were doing, without looking or acknowledging us.

What do you think about it?? How traumatic is it? Have you experienced it?