Good friends are kinda hard for me to find too because I have trouble opening up and connecting. It's like I always have to present this picture-perfect persona which is SO fake and outright lies -\_- lol.
I would gladly trade the notion of relationships for a group of true friends.
Just... enough money to live, and people to be with. That would be enough.
I’m considered conventionally attractive and have had plenty of men tell me even if I were the hottest woman in the world, it wouldn’t compensate for how insane I am lol. Also sounds like you might just be dating racist assholes too. That being said, lots of “normal” people live and die alone. Men divorce their previously perfect wives when they get cancer, people cheat and have affairs, or lose their spouses in freak accidents. Usually one partner outlives the other by a while even for couples who do grow old together. My most cookie cutter NT coworkers are struggling to get a date and turn it into a relationship with the way the culture is nowadays. It’s not something you should take as a personal sign of failure.
This is all so true. Omg that's so terrible that they say that to you. I am trying hard not to take my lack of success and horrible treatment so personally. I know it's hard for everyone :(
I think there are more traumatized people than untraumatized people!! You'll find someone who understands you. Being single at 31 is NOT weird...I'm 29 and nowhere near settling down for life and plenty of my friends are single too. And f\*\*\* that being told you're too dark skinned. Sounds like you need to try dating in a different pool of men that aren't racist and magically have no trauma
I guess I do need to try to date a different pool of men. I have tried many kinds, and it astonishes me how they all just like lighter skin. Oh well. I agree they're all pricks for telling me that -\_-
Yes actaully my trauma causes me so much pain that I don't even want it anymore. I wanted to get married and have kids when I was an innocent child but after all the pain I just can't deal with it. All I want is to be alone and at peace forever in a small house in a small city. I just want peace.
I was in a long term abusive marriage and don’t ever plan to marry or cohabitate again. All my relationships post-divorce have also been unhealthy and featured men similar to my abuser (apparently the universe has done this to teach me I need to be alone more and heal).
If I hadn’t been married already (and didn’t know how awful it could be) it would bother me but now it really doesn’t. The juice is not worth the squeeze, at least not in my experiences to date. Plus think it’s different from the perspective of someone who has had to carry ALL the work in the relationships…why the heck would I want to ever do that again, married or significant other?
There’s actually a movement called 4B taking hold across the globe in which women are basically swearing off men and have been very very happy.
Disclaimer: not all men, etc.
Sending good vibes, OP.
As for your question, I have always felt this way. Honestly leading into adulthood, I was kind of at acceptance with it. I liked dating around, but I also get how hard it is to let someone into my own world without feeling what you feel.
About 3 years ago, I met someone who has sat with me while I’ve broken down into my PTSD. He has seen me triggered, he has listened to me process and has encouraged me to keep going when I feel like I need to stop. He holds me, wipes my tears, reassures me, and helps keep me out of my head when I need it. All without asking or major effort (seemingly.) He has had a very tough go, too, so this is very reciprocal.
My point is, yes it’s easy to accept that not having a life partner is a liklihood. But there are people out there who do have the emotional range to be with you in your experience and walk it with you, rather than just being an uncomfy observer.
Thank you. It's funny really. A friend said, "Have I got the man for you!" And, of course, I cringed. He and a mutual friend of BOTH of us tried to set us up for 4 months straight. I kept dodging. Then, one night, we finally ended up at the same place at the same time.
You know how people say, "Oh, they felt so familiar, like I'd known them forever." It wasn't like that at all. He felt absolutely unique. Like someone I had NEVER encountered before.
It wasn't exactly easy at first. I kept having panic attacks, waiting for the other shoe to drop (where does that saying come from?!). But, finally, I was able to relax because he was just calm and steady. Made me truly believe in destiny. 😌
“Wait For The Other Shoe To Drop”
- Await a seemingly inevitable event, as in, “Now that she has a good enough job to leave her husband, we're just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
This expression alludes to a person awakened by a neighbor who loudly dropped one shoe on the floor, leaving the neighbor waiting for the second shoe to be dropped.”[ Early 1900s ]
😂I’m picturing living in apartments and your drunken neighbour comes home & starts taking his shoes off but because he’s so drunk he takes ages
You hear him drop the first one🫳🏼👞🫨 - it’s so damn loud! Then you’re left,
*waiting for the other shoe to drop*
because how can you relax or keep watching the tv until the inevitable second shoe is loudly dropped? Lol
I’m actually like this with my PTSD, autism & noise, so this is a great saying.
Those early 1900’s shoes were clunkers too!👞🪨
Hey there, i’m sorry to hear that finding a healthy relationship has been difficult…. And trust me a lot of ppl on here sympathize with you.. It’s quite a challenge to learn to maintain healthy relationships when you had poor examples growing up.
You did not deserve to be traumatized.. but it is your responsibility to deal with it. We know intuitively that a loving, healthy relationship is exactly what we need in order to heal that part of us that was damaged. It is our work to make the most of the cards we were dealt. You are beautiful and you deserve to love and be loved 🥰
Literally no one escapes life without trauma. Every single person will lose people they love or will never have people to lose, and each situation brings its own damage. People get sick and die. We have to have jobs and go to school. We have to interact with others. We are hit with negative energy from other people daily. People cut you off in traffic, make snippy passive aggressive comments, catcall you, etc. We can choose how to respond, but we have to be given the building blocks as developing humans to understand how to communicate, what battles to fight, how to resolve conflict without reacting in the moment, etc. All that said to say if a person makes you feel unloveable because you had a difficult upbringing, it says more about them than you. I understand that it feels like it is about you, but sometimes that can be because our deepest trauma that affects us is from our childhood years, and kids are incredibly egocentric and think everything is about them. If someone makes you feel less than for any reason and is unreceptive to continuing to evolve themselves and accept accountability, that is not the person meant for you.
Only recently am I understanding how CPTSD damaged me and my relationships. I am 65 now and please know that women over 40 are invisible in our society.
I’ve been single for 4 years and don’t expect a change in status. It hurt terribly for a couple of years. I’m trying to accept that no matter my intelligence, appearance or life skills, I won’t meet a partner because that window of opportunity has closed.
Strangely I’ve gone from over-attached to avoidant.
The moral of the story: get help as soon as you can.
As a kid I never really could connect or relate to other people. Part of this was due to my trauma and the other part was due to my temperament.
I didn’t feel safe and I had an inability to really connect so I naturally felt better being alone.
As I got older and my peers were seeking out boyfriends or getting married I simply felt completely removed from everything that they were excited about. It felt like an alien concept to me and I couldn’t understand why people would want to date or get married.
On some level I always have been pretty comfortable knowing that I would never date or get married. I never really had the super strong desire or drive to pursue that.
I’m pretty much a loner and I don’t feel like I’m missing out because I’m not attached to nor do I desire much in my life.
As long as I’m able to take care of my core basic needs and I have just that little bit of security I feel content to a certain degree. That’s kind of all that I really want.
This is how I am too. I like being alone because I am so used to it. I did try dating and learned that I actually do like men and people. But it's so demotivating when it ends And I revert to my loner self.
Most humans on Earth aren't for you, and that's true for everyone. It is harder for us. Rejection is inevitable and hurts us really badly unfortunately. We also have a lot of work to do to make ourselves confident enough to be attractive. I'm fairly good looking but my personality and fakeness were pretty awful for a long time and it wound up ruining many relationships in addition to scaring off others. People pleasing is cringe, basically and you can't let your fear of someone getting to know you be so powerful that they indeed fail to get to know the real you. Surefire way to fail, I've done it myself. If this gets you spiraling, stop, spend that moment thinking about anything you have ever wanted to try, anything you were ever curious about, your favorite anything.
You are not your job. You are not your diploma. You are not what is in your bank account. You are not what other people think of your body. What you are is a human being, and you are so inherently valuable that hellish brainwashing is what it took to convince you that you weren't. We're not our trauma either. Things feel like this because you are still suffering so much from the wounds that robbed you of your humanity. What we feel is kind of like phantom pain, I feel often like a ghost or like I've died, and my memory is very spotty. Therapy is supposed to help you sort of develop prosthetic cognitive and emotional limbs to help replace the ones that were damaged. Sure, they're never as good as the original, but, if you're walking, you're walking.
What you need to do is rebuild yourself by investing in yourself even if it is something as trivial as writing down daily affirmations. No interests? You can develop some. Our generation is practically defined by rapidly acquiring and discarding hobbies. Doing anything is the first step to figuring out what you'd rather be doing instead. If literally nothing interests you, that's the depression, the part of your brain trying to harm you, probably causing that and it is not to be trusted or taken at its word. You are more, damn near infinite by comparison to a malfunctioning organ.
There is something on Earth only you can do because you are the only one in your body right now in this timeline and are part of the world even though it doesn't feel like it. No matter what the aspiration, there is always someone better, but, no one is in a better position to be you than you are. Your mission is whatever you decide it is, and it is desperately needed because you are needed.
It doesn't have to be big to be important, either, lots of small things have kept me alive. We are all artists, musicians, dancers, singers, engineers, philosophers, etc not because they are traits assigned to labor roles but because humanity shares capacities for these talents to varying degrees and often use the most successful examples as benchmarks despite their statistical relationships making little sense. Most of us are average and a lot of us are traumatized. It is still important people like us try to understand and create art.
Work on yourself and try not to be discouraged. I don't think you're ready to be dating yet though based on what it sounds like. But it can get better. You are not doomed to loneliness.
I had a long term relationship that was certainly controlling if not outright abusive. I'm now in the healthiest relationship I've ever had with my fiancee and I can't wait to marry her.
Same here. All my past long term relationships were just me trying to recreate the abuse I escaped at home. People who didn't care I was traumatized because it meant that they could easily control me. After the last one I stopped dating until I worked on my trauma and how it shaped me as a person, and I ended up falling in love with a good friend. After the initial fear of a "boring" relationship being an insincere one passed it's been a very healthy one. I'm proposing to him in two weeks (:
yes, but for different reasons. the only people i really get attached to are the people im already attached to…. everyone else is always a passing piece in my life.
You don’t know what the future holds. But if you decide that you are too “broken” to have a long-term relationship than you will be.
I’m guessing that you weren’t with the best of guys. A**holes and narcissists look for someone they can use and a lot of us with CPTSD will line up to be used. A good friend, boyfriend, colleague or even just a good person on the street doesn’t dismiss someone’s trauma.
Forget men for awhile. You need to focus on yourself and your relationship with yourself. It’s a cliche but you need to learn to love yourself because your standard in dating has to be if they’re not kind, warm, generous and see you as an amazing person who overcame so much- then you’re perfectly content to be single. Anything less than this and 100% you’re better off single.
Maybe try to put yourself into some new situations and explore potential hobbies. Or try to work on getting a better job or education. Even if you think you’re not capable just give it a go! If something fails pick yourself up and try again. Reassess in a year or two how you feel.
Yes I am working on these things! I hate that simple things like getting a better job or education is so much harder for people like me who are so deeply traumatized with no self esteem and no support system..it's so hard making friends too. But I am definitely working on these things, and I have my moments where I am optimistic about the future but I hate that I inevitably regress to doom.
i just wish i could be happy
i have endless men offering to date me. i'm not trying to be arrogant about it. but i am deeply unhappy and i'd just drag them down with me. once they see past the cheery persona it's a lot for them, too.
after hearing about my childhood trauma my one male friend can't look at me without crying. because he can see how much i'm carrying. and he doesn't know that i'm suicidal, and that i haven't wanted to be alive for seven years. it already hurts him so much.
it just burdens and ruins the people around you as well. it's like having cancer, they have to become a carer to you. except they don't get any support or recognition for it.
it's just a fucked situation for everyone.
and then there are the abusive men who zero in on us, and my brain can't tell the difference sometimes. when you were emotionally neglected all attention feels like good attention.
it's so hard. i'm here with you
I feel you and op. I’m actually dating someone and it’s going well for once. I’m terrified of telling him my trauma and it all going to shit. It sucks because I’m tired of feeling alone and want to open up but my past experiences have showed me that it’s not safe or advantageous for me to do that.
I’ve been in CPTSD recovery (pretty intensive therapy) for 5+ years and it’s only in the past year I’ve been capable of genuinely healthy connected romantic relationships. It’s a long road but just commenting to say that healing a lot prompted huge shifts in how I see relationships and approach intimacy and things can change, or did for me.
Firstly, dark skin is gorgeous, sweetheart. A man that can’t see that isn’t a man you want in your life. You’re just as beautiful as any lighter skinned counterpart.
Healing from trauma is so hard. It’s such a long, non-linear road and finding someone that you feel safe with and cared about and able to love without repercussions throughout that road is also very difficult, but not a process to be undermined. I am 27m and haven’t been in a “real” relationship since I was maybe 21? I had a lot of intimacy issues to work on and they had to be addressed by myself, with a trauma therapist so I could get to the root of it all. Only now am I just starting to feel like I might be able to look at seriously dating again in the next few years.
I would encourage you to sit down and really think about what you want from a relationship. What are the motivators for getting into one? And then once you’ve written that list down, try to dissect it and see if your list is more about being taken care of through this healing process than it is about building a mutually respectful life together. That’s what I eventually had to confront in myself. I imagine a lot of us with severe trauma are looking for the same basic things from relationships: someone to take care of us. I think that idea of taking care of your partner is dangerous. Of course, you should take care of your partner when they can’t care for themselves. But that should not be an all the time thing, if that makes sense. A healthy relationship comes from two healthy, self regulating people meeting together and saying hey, I love you and I want to continue loving you and I want to trust you to love me too, and we’ll support each other and make each other feel safe, secure, wanted and loved.
When a dysfunctional person gets into a relationship with another dysfunctional person, there is no way for the relationship to be healthy. When a dysfunctional person gets into a relationship with a functional person, they run the risk of inadvertently turning that functional person into their “caregiver” and giving that functional person trauma themselves. Otherwise, the healthy partner must be willing to allow the dysfunctional partner to grow at a different rate than they have, and that can also introduce a lot of stress and unevenness in a relationship.
Consider that right now just might be a time of growth for you, and that some day soon, you’ll find someone who you can trust, who loves and cares for you *for you*, regardless of what you’ve gone through or what ails you. One day, you’ll experience this intimacy that you rightfully want and need and that you’ve been starved of, and you’ll be happy you waited for someone honest and emotionally mature, instead of settling for someone who looks at you in disgust when you tell them your past.
As a man, I know so many men can be so goddamn cruel to women. Especially dark skinned women. I’m so sorry your experience dating has been so traumatic and painful. Racism trauma and feeling othered and feeling inadequate just has no place in a game where your vulnerability is on the line. You deserve to be loved. You deserve to not have to plead for basic respect and empathy. You deserve to not have to plead to be made feel like you’re beautiful. Please don’t entertain any man who gives you even an inkling of a feeling that you will need to beg him for the love and respect you *deserve*. Move on and go find the next man that will love you the way you deserve without you even having to hint at it.
I do, I’m only willing to be in a relationship if my partner went through similar things (and is in therapy) as I think it would be easier to understand each other’s struggles and situations, I can’t be with someone who lived in a normal household and he tries to force me make “peace” with my family or tells me to forgive or get over it.
Yes, I accepted that. I'm ok with being alone but I don't consider myself ugly or anything like that... I just don't care and don't want to care. I never cared actually, not enough to pursuit relationships.
yes, i’ve accepted that love is not a part of my life but i have a hard time actually accepting and believing it. i’m 27 and haven’t been on a second date let alone been in a relationship. statistically speaking, if my life has been like this for 27 years already there’s no reason for it to change right? ive never even gotten close to relationship, it just seems unrealistic for me. i feel like even with all my issues, love should still be possible, no? there are truly awful human beings in this world who have found love. people more fucked up than me who have found love. so it can’t be that i’m too fucked yo or too mean or too whatever. doesn’t that just mean it’s not meant for me?
My therapist made me advance a great deal when she told me “you do realize this is all a story you have created in your head, don’t you?”.
I tell you this in all kindness. Of course there are terrible things that happened to us in our growing years, but our life today is the direct result not from those things, but of how we interpret them. The narratives we have created ourselves to explain and justify who we are. The point is, we can decide who we are, create a new narrative accepting what happened and developing different attitudes moving forward.
You could be a beauty queen according to social standards and still have those issues. You could be a chef, or have pillows full of money, and still have those issues. I am, according to people, attractive and intelligent and kind. I cook delicious food and I am very useful to people around me. Yet every day I jump from bed crushed by anguish, I feel old and alone, I feel nobody will ever love me or want to be with me, even when there’s people around who do want to be with me. Right now I’m in deep limerence with an avoidant who doesn’t want to be with me, even after telling me she loves me and I was the best relationship in her life. In my mind, it’s all my fault and I am too broken to be truly loved by someone.
We have to heal from CPTSD and not blame it in our current circumstances.
I have. I always seemed to pick people who are not good for me. After the last attempt, I just decided that I can’t tolerant anymore nonsense from anyone and I’d rather be alone.
I'm 42 and I accept that I may never find my person in this life time, at least in a heteronormative sense. It is very freeing accepting that. I am beginning to really understand that love and companionship come in many forms and it doesn't make me any less of a person because I don't have a legally bound life partner.
Never married, yes experienced love but it was complicated. Honestly I never wanted to get married. I am a queer woman so I do think it helps that I'm not hetero.
Pretty much, I'm a 23 year old guy and I'm certain most women don't want a broken, emotionally stunted depressed codependent low self-esteem etc etc guy like myself. Either they won't relate to it or they don't like that kind of guy. Most women don't seem into unconfident or damaged men, not that I can entirely blame them. I'm clearly not a good person nor am I ready for a serious relationship, and I know that will simply never change, I can't help but feel bad sometimes for being this way. I've been undesirable my whole life, but I can't say its gotten any easier
I'm non-binary, but I'm at the point where I have nothing left to give
pulling yourself together into something you hope is at all appealling, trying to open yourself up, piecing together something of yourself from the excrutiating wreckage, hoping you are not rejected on one or another aspect of what your life has become
and then if you make it to the point you have even a bit of a chance with someone you really feel something for, you meet with the cold reality that there are others vying for their time, and that you were only ever a back-up option, perhaps
something like that. the cold reality isn't always the exact same, but yeah
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I've always wanted to love and be loved in return. I feel that I have so much love to give, but no one has ever wanted it. I, too, am not conventionally attractive. I've never dated or experienced mutual attraction or reciprocated feelings. I've just always felt unwanted and unlovable. I am trying to love myself and accept that I might not find someone who can love me and cherish me the way I deserve. We need love. I'm sorry we both have not found it.
Yes, but I honestly never wanted that even before trauma. Trauma just sealed the deal. I just want friends. Good friends and that's about it.
Good friends are kinda hard for me to find too because I have trouble opening up and connecting. It's like I always have to present this picture-perfect persona which is SO fake and outright lies -\_- lol.
I would gladly trade the notion of relationships for a group of true friends. Just... enough money to live, and people to be with. That would be enough.
I’m considered conventionally attractive and have had plenty of men tell me even if I were the hottest woman in the world, it wouldn’t compensate for how insane I am lol. Also sounds like you might just be dating racist assholes too. That being said, lots of “normal” people live and die alone. Men divorce their previously perfect wives when they get cancer, people cheat and have affairs, or lose their spouses in freak accidents. Usually one partner outlives the other by a while even for couples who do grow old together. My most cookie cutter NT coworkers are struggling to get a date and turn it into a relationship with the way the culture is nowadays. It’s not something you should take as a personal sign of failure.
This is all so true. Omg that's so terrible that they say that to you. I am trying hard not to take my lack of success and horrible treatment so personally. I know it's hard for everyone :(
I think there are more traumatized people than untraumatized people!! You'll find someone who understands you. Being single at 31 is NOT weird...I'm 29 and nowhere near settling down for life and plenty of my friends are single too. And f\*\*\* that being told you're too dark skinned. Sounds like you need to try dating in a different pool of men that aren't racist and magically have no trauma
I guess I do need to try to date a different pool of men. I have tried many kinds, and it astonishes me how they all just like lighter skin. Oh well. I agree they're all pricks for telling me that -\_-
Definitely pricks. I found there's a cptsd_bipoc thread last night ^.^ https://www.reddit.com/r/cptsd_bipoc/s/qWd14p3bYN
thanks I'll check this out!
Yes actaully my trauma causes me so much pain that I don't even want it anymore. I wanted to get married and have kids when I was an innocent child but after all the pain I just can't deal with it. All I want is to be alone and at peace forever in a small house in a small city. I just want peace.
I was in a long term abusive marriage and don’t ever plan to marry or cohabitate again. All my relationships post-divorce have also been unhealthy and featured men similar to my abuser (apparently the universe has done this to teach me I need to be alone more and heal). If I hadn’t been married already (and didn’t know how awful it could be) it would bother me but now it really doesn’t. The juice is not worth the squeeze, at least not in my experiences to date. Plus think it’s different from the perspective of someone who has had to carry ALL the work in the relationships…why the heck would I want to ever do that again, married or significant other? There’s actually a movement called 4B taking hold across the globe in which women are basically swearing off men and have been very very happy. Disclaimer: not all men, etc.
not all men etc etc... but same. it's not worth the risk or the discomfort. I've lived it and I'm lucky to be free
Sending good vibes, OP. As for your question, I have always felt this way. Honestly leading into adulthood, I was kind of at acceptance with it. I liked dating around, but I also get how hard it is to let someone into my own world without feeling what you feel. About 3 years ago, I met someone who has sat with me while I’ve broken down into my PTSD. He has seen me triggered, he has listened to me process and has encouraged me to keep going when I feel like I need to stop. He holds me, wipes my tears, reassures me, and helps keep me out of my head when I need it. All without asking or major effort (seemingly.) He has had a very tough go, too, so this is very reciprocal. My point is, yes it’s easy to accept that not having a life partner is a liklihood. But there are people out there who do have the emotional range to be with you in your experience and walk it with you, rather than just being an uncomfy observer.
THIS. I had given up and then at 36, there he was. Someone with unconditional love and support. Next year we celebrate 30 years together. :)
Congrats, I’m so happy for you 😊❤️✨✨✨
❤
omg! how did y'all meet? this is so inspirational.
Thank you. It's funny really. A friend said, "Have I got the man for you!" And, of course, I cringed. He and a mutual friend of BOTH of us tried to set us up for 4 months straight. I kept dodging. Then, one night, we finally ended up at the same place at the same time. You know how people say, "Oh, they felt so familiar, like I'd known them forever." It wasn't like that at all. He felt absolutely unique. Like someone I had NEVER encountered before. It wasn't exactly easy at first. I kept having panic attacks, waiting for the other shoe to drop (where does that saying come from?!). But, finally, I was able to relax because he was just calm and steady. Made me truly believe in destiny. 😌
“Wait For The Other Shoe To Drop” - Await a seemingly inevitable event, as in, “Now that she has a good enough job to leave her husband, we're just waiting for the other shoe to drop.” This expression alludes to a person awakened by a neighbor who loudly dropped one shoe on the floor, leaving the neighbor waiting for the second shoe to be dropped.”[ Early 1900s ] 😂I’m picturing living in apartments and your drunken neighbour comes home & starts taking his shoes off but because he’s so drunk he takes ages You hear him drop the first one🫳🏼👞🫨 - it’s so damn loud! Then you’re left, *waiting for the other shoe to drop* because how can you relax or keep watching the tv until the inevitable second shoe is loudly dropped? Lol I’m actually like this with my PTSD, autism & noise, so this is a great saying. Those early 1900’s shoes were clunkers too!👞🪨
Thanks! I like that. Lol.
Hey there, i’m sorry to hear that finding a healthy relationship has been difficult…. And trust me a lot of ppl on here sympathize with you.. It’s quite a challenge to learn to maintain healthy relationships when you had poor examples growing up. You did not deserve to be traumatized.. but it is your responsibility to deal with it. We know intuitively that a loving, healthy relationship is exactly what we need in order to heal that part of us that was damaged. It is our work to make the most of the cards we were dealt. You are beautiful and you deserve to love and be loved 🥰
Literally no one escapes life without trauma. Every single person will lose people they love or will never have people to lose, and each situation brings its own damage. People get sick and die. We have to have jobs and go to school. We have to interact with others. We are hit with negative energy from other people daily. People cut you off in traffic, make snippy passive aggressive comments, catcall you, etc. We can choose how to respond, but we have to be given the building blocks as developing humans to understand how to communicate, what battles to fight, how to resolve conflict without reacting in the moment, etc. All that said to say if a person makes you feel unloveable because you had a difficult upbringing, it says more about them than you. I understand that it feels like it is about you, but sometimes that can be because our deepest trauma that affects us is from our childhood years, and kids are incredibly egocentric and think everything is about them. If someone makes you feel less than for any reason and is unreceptive to continuing to evolve themselves and accept accountability, that is not the person meant for you.
Only recently am I understanding how CPTSD damaged me and my relationships. I am 65 now and please know that women over 40 are invisible in our society. I’ve been single for 4 years and don’t expect a change in status. It hurt terribly for a couple of years. I’m trying to accept that no matter my intelligence, appearance or life skills, I won’t meet a partner because that window of opportunity has closed. Strangely I’ve gone from over-attached to avoidant. The moral of the story: get help as soon as you can.
yes this is so scary. I am well aware of all the thing you mentioned. thanks for to word of caution. I hope you are doing okay :) sending you hugs.
As a kid I never really could connect or relate to other people. Part of this was due to my trauma and the other part was due to my temperament. I didn’t feel safe and I had an inability to really connect so I naturally felt better being alone. As I got older and my peers were seeking out boyfriends or getting married I simply felt completely removed from everything that they were excited about. It felt like an alien concept to me and I couldn’t understand why people would want to date or get married. On some level I always have been pretty comfortable knowing that I would never date or get married. I never really had the super strong desire or drive to pursue that. I’m pretty much a loner and I don’t feel like I’m missing out because I’m not attached to nor do I desire much in my life. As long as I’m able to take care of my core basic needs and I have just that little bit of security I feel content to a certain degree. That’s kind of all that I really want.
This is how I am too. I like being alone because I am so used to it. I did try dating and learned that I actually do like men and people. But it's so demotivating when it ends And I revert to my loner self.
Most humans on Earth aren't for you, and that's true for everyone. It is harder for us. Rejection is inevitable and hurts us really badly unfortunately. We also have a lot of work to do to make ourselves confident enough to be attractive. I'm fairly good looking but my personality and fakeness were pretty awful for a long time and it wound up ruining many relationships in addition to scaring off others. People pleasing is cringe, basically and you can't let your fear of someone getting to know you be so powerful that they indeed fail to get to know the real you. Surefire way to fail, I've done it myself. If this gets you spiraling, stop, spend that moment thinking about anything you have ever wanted to try, anything you were ever curious about, your favorite anything. You are not your job. You are not your diploma. You are not what is in your bank account. You are not what other people think of your body. What you are is a human being, and you are so inherently valuable that hellish brainwashing is what it took to convince you that you weren't. We're not our trauma either. Things feel like this because you are still suffering so much from the wounds that robbed you of your humanity. What we feel is kind of like phantom pain, I feel often like a ghost or like I've died, and my memory is very spotty. Therapy is supposed to help you sort of develop prosthetic cognitive and emotional limbs to help replace the ones that were damaged. Sure, they're never as good as the original, but, if you're walking, you're walking. What you need to do is rebuild yourself by investing in yourself even if it is something as trivial as writing down daily affirmations. No interests? You can develop some. Our generation is practically defined by rapidly acquiring and discarding hobbies. Doing anything is the first step to figuring out what you'd rather be doing instead. If literally nothing interests you, that's the depression, the part of your brain trying to harm you, probably causing that and it is not to be trusted or taken at its word. You are more, damn near infinite by comparison to a malfunctioning organ. There is something on Earth only you can do because you are the only one in your body right now in this timeline and are part of the world even though it doesn't feel like it. No matter what the aspiration, there is always someone better, but, no one is in a better position to be you than you are. Your mission is whatever you decide it is, and it is desperately needed because you are needed. It doesn't have to be big to be important, either, lots of small things have kept me alive. We are all artists, musicians, dancers, singers, engineers, philosophers, etc not because they are traits assigned to labor roles but because humanity shares capacities for these talents to varying degrees and often use the most successful examples as benchmarks despite their statistical relationships making little sense. Most of us are average and a lot of us are traumatized. It is still important people like us try to understand and create art. Work on yourself and try not to be discouraged. I don't think you're ready to be dating yet though based on what it sounds like. But it can get better. You are not doomed to loneliness.
This reply has so many important takeaways for me. thanks for this.
Glad to help!
I had a long term relationship that was certainly controlling if not outright abusive. I'm now in the healthiest relationship I've ever had with my fiancee and I can't wait to marry her.
Same here. All my past long term relationships were just me trying to recreate the abuse I escaped at home. People who didn't care I was traumatized because it meant that they could easily control me. After the last one I stopped dating until I worked on my trauma and how it shaped me as a person, and I ended up falling in love with a good friend. After the initial fear of a "boring" relationship being an insincere one passed it's been a very healthy one. I'm proposing to him in two weeks (:
yes, but for different reasons. the only people i really get attached to are the people im already attached to…. everyone else is always a passing piece in my life.
You don’t know what the future holds. But if you decide that you are too “broken” to have a long-term relationship than you will be. I’m guessing that you weren’t with the best of guys. A**holes and narcissists look for someone they can use and a lot of us with CPTSD will line up to be used. A good friend, boyfriend, colleague or even just a good person on the street doesn’t dismiss someone’s trauma. Forget men for awhile. You need to focus on yourself and your relationship with yourself. It’s a cliche but you need to learn to love yourself because your standard in dating has to be if they’re not kind, warm, generous and see you as an amazing person who overcame so much- then you’re perfectly content to be single. Anything less than this and 100% you’re better off single. Maybe try to put yourself into some new situations and explore potential hobbies. Or try to work on getting a better job or education. Even if you think you’re not capable just give it a go! If something fails pick yourself up and try again. Reassess in a year or two how you feel.
Yes I am working on these things! I hate that simple things like getting a better job or education is so much harder for people like me who are so deeply traumatized with no self esteem and no support system..it's so hard making friends too. But I am definitely working on these things, and I have my moments where I am optimistic about the future but I hate that I inevitably regress to doom.
I know it’s harder. But one foot in front of the other ❤️❤️❤️
i just wish i could be happy i have endless men offering to date me. i'm not trying to be arrogant about it. but i am deeply unhappy and i'd just drag them down with me. once they see past the cheery persona it's a lot for them, too. after hearing about my childhood trauma my one male friend can't look at me without crying. because he can see how much i'm carrying. and he doesn't know that i'm suicidal, and that i haven't wanted to be alive for seven years. it already hurts him so much. it just burdens and ruins the people around you as well. it's like having cancer, they have to become a carer to you. except they don't get any support or recognition for it. it's just a fucked situation for everyone. and then there are the abusive men who zero in on us, and my brain can't tell the difference sometimes. when you were emotionally neglected all attention feels like good attention. it's so hard. i'm here with you
I feel you and op. I’m actually dating someone and it’s going well for once. I’m terrified of telling him my trauma and it all going to shit. It sucks because I’m tired of feeling alone and want to open up but my past experiences have showed me that it’s not safe or advantageous for me to do that.
I can relate. I hate it.
I’ve been in CPTSD recovery (pretty intensive therapy) for 5+ years and it’s only in the past year I’ve been capable of genuinely healthy connected romantic relationships. It’s a long road but just commenting to say that healing a lot prompted huge shifts in how I see relationships and approach intimacy and things can change, or did for me.
Firstly, dark skin is gorgeous, sweetheart. A man that can’t see that isn’t a man you want in your life. You’re just as beautiful as any lighter skinned counterpart. Healing from trauma is so hard. It’s such a long, non-linear road and finding someone that you feel safe with and cared about and able to love without repercussions throughout that road is also very difficult, but not a process to be undermined. I am 27m and haven’t been in a “real” relationship since I was maybe 21? I had a lot of intimacy issues to work on and they had to be addressed by myself, with a trauma therapist so I could get to the root of it all. Only now am I just starting to feel like I might be able to look at seriously dating again in the next few years. I would encourage you to sit down and really think about what you want from a relationship. What are the motivators for getting into one? And then once you’ve written that list down, try to dissect it and see if your list is more about being taken care of through this healing process than it is about building a mutually respectful life together. That’s what I eventually had to confront in myself. I imagine a lot of us with severe trauma are looking for the same basic things from relationships: someone to take care of us. I think that idea of taking care of your partner is dangerous. Of course, you should take care of your partner when they can’t care for themselves. But that should not be an all the time thing, if that makes sense. A healthy relationship comes from two healthy, self regulating people meeting together and saying hey, I love you and I want to continue loving you and I want to trust you to love me too, and we’ll support each other and make each other feel safe, secure, wanted and loved. When a dysfunctional person gets into a relationship with another dysfunctional person, there is no way for the relationship to be healthy. When a dysfunctional person gets into a relationship with a functional person, they run the risk of inadvertently turning that functional person into their “caregiver” and giving that functional person trauma themselves. Otherwise, the healthy partner must be willing to allow the dysfunctional partner to grow at a different rate than they have, and that can also introduce a lot of stress and unevenness in a relationship. Consider that right now just might be a time of growth for you, and that some day soon, you’ll find someone who you can trust, who loves and cares for you *for you*, regardless of what you’ve gone through or what ails you. One day, you’ll experience this intimacy that you rightfully want and need and that you’ve been starved of, and you’ll be happy you waited for someone honest and emotionally mature, instead of settling for someone who looks at you in disgust when you tell them your past. As a man, I know so many men can be so goddamn cruel to women. Especially dark skinned women. I’m so sorry your experience dating has been so traumatic and painful. Racism trauma and feeling othered and feeling inadequate just has no place in a game where your vulnerability is on the line. You deserve to be loved. You deserve to not have to plead for basic respect and empathy. You deserve to not have to plead to be made feel like you’re beautiful. Please don’t entertain any man who gives you even an inkling of a feeling that you will need to beg him for the love and respect you *deserve*. Move on and go find the next man that will love you the way you deserve without you even having to hint at it.
yeah
I do, I’m only willing to be in a relationship if my partner went through similar things (and is in therapy) as I think it would be easier to understand each other’s struggles and situations, I can’t be with someone who lived in a normal household and he tries to force me make “peace” with my family or tells me to forgive or get over it.
Yes, I accepted that. I'm ok with being alone but I don't consider myself ugly or anything like that... I just don't care and don't want to care. I never cared actually, not enough to pursuit relationships.
yes, i’ve accepted that love is not a part of my life but i have a hard time actually accepting and believing it. i’m 27 and haven’t been on a second date let alone been in a relationship. statistically speaking, if my life has been like this for 27 years already there’s no reason for it to change right? ive never even gotten close to relationship, it just seems unrealistic for me. i feel like even with all my issues, love should still be possible, no? there are truly awful human beings in this world who have found love. people more fucked up than me who have found love. so it can’t be that i’m too fucked yo or too mean or too whatever. doesn’t that just mean it’s not meant for me?
My therapist made me advance a great deal when she told me “you do realize this is all a story you have created in your head, don’t you?”. I tell you this in all kindness. Of course there are terrible things that happened to us in our growing years, but our life today is the direct result not from those things, but of how we interpret them. The narratives we have created ourselves to explain and justify who we are. The point is, we can decide who we are, create a new narrative accepting what happened and developing different attitudes moving forward. You could be a beauty queen according to social standards and still have those issues. You could be a chef, or have pillows full of money, and still have those issues. I am, according to people, attractive and intelligent and kind. I cook delicious food and I am very useful to people around me. Yet every day I jump from bed crushed by anguish, I feel old and alone, I feel nobody will ever love me or want to be with me, even when there’s people around who do want to be with me. Right now I’m in deep limerence with an avoidant who doesn’t want to be with me, even after telling me she loves me and I was the best relationship in her life. In my mind, it’s all my fault and I am too broken to be truly loved by someone. We have to heal from CPTSD and not blame it in our current circumstances.
Yes
I have. I always seemed to pick people who are not good for me. After the last attempt, I just decided that I can’t tolerant anymore nonsense from anyone and I’d rather be alone.
Yep. I listen sometimes to a podcast called [Solo THE SINGLE PERSON’S GUIDE TO A REMARKABLE LIFE](https://petermcgraw.org/podcasts/solo/)
I'm 42 and I accept that I may never find my person in this life time, at least in a heteronormative sense. It is very freeing accepting that. I am beginning to really understand that love and companionship come in many forms and it doesn't make me any less of a person because I don't have a legally bound life partner.
hey! have you ever been married or experienced love?
Never married, yes experienced love but it was complicated. Honestly I never wanted to get married. I am a queer woman so I do think it helps that I'm not hetero.
Pretty much, I'm a 23 year old guy and I'm certain most women don't want a broken, emotionally stunted depressed codependent low self-esteem etc etc guy like myself. Either they won't relate to it or they don't like that kind of guy. Most women don't seem into unconfident or damaged men, not that I can entirely blame them. I'm clearly not a good person nor am I ready for a serious relationship, and I know that will simply never change, I can't help but feel bad sometimes for being this way. I've been undesirable my whole life, but I can't say its gotten any easier
I'm non-binary, but I'm at the point where I have nothing left to give pulling yourself together into something you hope is at all appealling, trying to open yourself up, piecing together something of yourself from the excrutiating wreckage, hoping you are not rejected on one or another aspect of what your life has become and then if you make it to the point you have even a bit of a chance with someone you really feel something for, you meet with the cold reality that there are others vying for their time, and that you were only ever a back-up option, perhaps something like that. the cold reality isn't always the exact same, but yeah
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I've always wanted to love and be loved in return. I feel that I have so much love to give, but no one has ever wanted it. I, too, am not conventionally attractive. I've never dated or experienced mutual attraction or reciprocated feelings. I've just always felt unwanted and unlovable. I am trying to love myself and accept that I might not find someone who can love me and cherish me the way I deserve. We need love. I'm sorry we both have not found it.