3 Unnamed Childhood Trauma Symptoms - CPTSD

"Kids gradually accept that they have zero power in making their situation better, and zero faith in the adults helping." This. This right there.

"Emotionally disregulated adults are beyond what a child's nervous system can handle." This sentence just changed my life. Thank you.

From my mother: "That never happened. You must have dreamed it." For several years, I was confused about dreams and reality - and felt that I could not trust my feelings AT ALL.

Childhood was like 1 longggg gaslighting experience. Nailed it!!

I’ve always been told I “wear my heart on my sleeve” when it comes to children. I work in schools. I don’t know if I’m overreacting but I’ll let it eat me up sometimes when I see teachers lack empathy for certain kids. The longest I’m with a particular teacher, the more I see it. For example, a teacher who doesn’t “like” a FIVE YEAR OLD KID. He annoys her because he’s “stubborn”. No, he’s severely neglected and traumatized! So I ask, what’s his home life like. I get a response like… mom and dad both overdosed and died. I think 80 year old great grandma has him now. Been in a few foster homes. And I’m like, and you’re MAD at him for being too shy when asked a question in front of the class? I see this ALL THE TIME. Am I not right for being aggravated at that adult? If you’ve lost all empathy then quit the job.

I had to stop only 8 minutes in because I am an extremely nonfunctional adult who has severe childhood C-PTSD and C-PTSD. But the praise for maturing so quickly and being a little adult hurt, that was me. I was only praised for how grown-up, emotionally intelligent and empathetic, and how much of an “old-soul” I have been from such a young age. I have been receiving these compliments since about 5th-6th grade, so about 10-11. No child should be forced to grow up or fall behind or be neglected from acting their own age. PLEASE, let kids be kids. Adulthood crushes us faster than we realize.

Every venture into homes of peers growing up was like entering another dimension. Balanced relationships were profoundly weird to me at the time. As a young person, it's hard to pinpoint what exactly is different if you have no idea how toxic your own home environment is. My parents loved me, and I believe they truly did the best they knew how, but it was still damaging to everyone in the home. It's easy to see now, but I still have to deal with it from an elderly parent. Unintentional abuse is still abuse.

Woah! This hit like a ton of bricks. I'd always felt as if my "joy" ability was stunted. I just don't ever connect with happy. However it takes very little to trigger sorrow and grief. I've sought them out simply to be able to feel something. When getting a new kitten, I remember crying over the pain I would feel when they died. It was my partner that snapped me of it saying that grieving them is wasting the time that we have now.

For real watching him on YouTube has been the only way I benefitted from therapy. If only more therapists actually knew what they were doing.

I’m a 44 year old man. For decades I’ve struggled and only recently I’ve begun therapy. He explained to me that a large part of my struggles is due to childhood emotional and mental trauma. When I now think back to my childhood I can seem to remember nothing but negative memories. My therapist said if I don’t want to say out loud some of the things in my head then posting some random YouTube or Reddit comment can help me release if I need it. Seems to help. I get to send my pain out there into the ether and have the shield of anonymity. Channels like this are very helpful to educate myself and help me to process some of those bad memories. I just want to say thank you for the work you do.

"One parent who rages and the other who dismisses that rage to the point it's normalized." That hits hard. I tend to blame my mother a lot, but I never really considered my dad's role. He often acted as a go between, and he was the one I would go to because he wouldn't get mad, but I never considered how he would always rationalize my mothers behavior and how we would conspire to not tell my mom things that would enrage her. Also, I never realized how much I suppress my emotions until my super emotional friend was upset about something that seemed silly to me. We talked for hours before we realized that my disconnect was that I simply don't get upset because "tears get you nowhere so I learned not to bother". Heck, I can cry over Marley and Me, but when my grandma died? Nothing. I totally disconnected. Also, I get called out for getting way too excited about things. I never considered that it was a result of emotional disregulation. Lastly, that emotional vaccum disconnect. I used to feel that with my mother and it has given me all sorts of trust issues because I no longer trust my judgement. After all, my mother was popular and everyone seemed to like her, so why was she such a monster to me in private? I used to wonder if other people would like her if they saw the "real" her. Now I distrust anyone who's nice to me because I remember how nice my mother was to others.

I had my UCLA doctoral diploma framed and gave it to my mother. Her response: "But you're still unmarried." I understand why she was the way she was, but am still (at 70!) figuring myself out. Time is getting short. Thank you.

“JOY or INTEREST in doing things WAS NOT SAFE with an emotionally dysregulated raging parent” = 🤯 Wow! You could only be happy when they were happy. Your interests could only be their interests. Plus, muting your joy and muting your interests seems like the perfect set up to lifelong co-dependency.

Continually saving my parents from each other’s homicidal rage was too much for my nervous system, yes, it was.

Shaming a child for just being a child - wow! That shifted something inside. Thank you for saying this.

I can absolutely relate! Mom would yell at me as a child - a never-ending stream of anger - I would just shut down. I blocked out hearing and seeing (although I wasn't allowed to close my eyes) - it was like putting on a raincoat against the hail. I actually had to "unlearn" that reaction when I went out into the real world! For the longest time, I thought it was my fault. Until I saw a billboard stating the "Verbal Abuse is also Child Abuse." I had never thought of it that way.

"We don't trust our reality, but we need someone to confirm what we're feeling or what we're thinking." Wow... I'm speechless as to how pointedly accurately this describes me in my relationships with friends, family, and romantic partners. I actually teared up at four separate times throughout this video because of how deeply it resonated with me... and I'm a guy who doesn't cry all that much. Thank you.

Does anyone else feel freaked out when someone actually saids something uplifting or really good about you?? Or when people treat you right and you get these thoughts in the back of your mind that they aren't really a good person or they have ulterior motives? I have major trust issues myself.

I liken my experience of childhood trauma as "paper doll syndrome". My siblings and I were the paper dolls in someone else's playtime. We were not allowed to be human beings or have emotions. Only the owner of the paper dolls was allowed to display its feelings as anger and physical abuse. I was the little adult trying to keep my siblings from "causing" us all more abusive outbursts. Sadly, nothing I did or did not do was ever going to change the hell we lived in.

I am 34yrs old and I don't remember being a child. I feel like I have always been an "adult". I was always made to feel like everything was my fault and it was a mistake that I was born (my father loved to tell me that). I remember for the longest time I would tell my "You're a bad person, no one loves you and you make everyone around miserable." Thankfully after being in therapy I haven't had that thought on repeat.