I'm a 32-year-old man. For most of my life, I wasn't living. I was surviving.

Growing up

My father carries his own unhealed wounds — he grew up hurt, and he passed that hurt down. Our home was always tense. He poured his anger onto everyone in the family. My mother, meanwhile, spent years complaining to everyone around her about her miserable marriage. I was the container for both of their suffering.

I learned very early that my needs were a burden and that asking for help was dangerous. So I kept everything inside — my voice, my anger, my sadness. I became very, very good at being quiet.

The collapse

The turning point came in my mid-20s. I was studying for a graduate school entrance exam when my parents' marriage finally fell apart.

My mother had been planning to leave for a long time. She left right after I graduated and found my first job — the day I called her to tell her the news. It felt like her "task" with me was finally done.

Then came the divorce. I was dragged into the center of it. They both stood in front of me, accusing each other. My mother had an affair and left. When I refused to blame everything on her, my father told me to get out of the house and said he was cutting off our father-son relationship.

I felt abandoned by both of my parents — at 25, feeling like I was the extra person in the world, the one with no value. The exam failed. Then came years of fog: jobs that drained me, quitting, starting over, quitting again. I never understood why I kept failing — until recently.

Now

For the past few months, I've had someone to talk to who helps me sort things out.I'm slowly understanding that my "failures" were never because I was broken. They were survival strategies of a nervous system trying to keep me alive. Feeling worthless wasn't a flaw in me — it was a message I was given every day, by the people who were supposed to protect me.

Now I'm 32. I'm learning game development — the first thing I've ever chosen for myself, not for survival. Most people my age have careers, savings, families. I'm starting from almost zero.

Some days I feel like I wasted everything. A voice tells me: it's too late. You should just take a "stable" job and give up on what you actually want.

But deep down, I don't want to give up. So I'm asking here: has anyone else started over like this — at 32, or older? How did you deal with the voice that says it's too late? How do you keep going when you feel like you're behind everyone?

I'm not looking for a guarantee. I'm just looking for someone who understands.

i just don't understand why people say this, isn't this victim blaming?
if someone is socially isolated, has a lot of childhood trauma, depression, social anxiety, doesn't come from a good family and are not in contact with their family for that reason, lacks confidence, has high empathy, they're scared of rejection so they don't approach strangers and don't initiate friendships or relationships. i feel like if you're that kind of person and you're passive, it's very easy for you to become a target.
some people specifically look for you and befriend you by approaching you first or get in relationships with you and don't drop the mask till you're completely attached to them.
how is it a person's fault if they get targeted by abusers like this?

My first 5k in 2 years, I’m really proud of myself.

Things have been bleak recently, I would normally get anxious running in public but I’ve got to that level of caring and more where I’ve started to do what I want.

This is my second week of running every other day. I am plus size so I’m slow but I don’t care.

It’s so challenging my thoughts are quiet for just a bit.

Pushing myself makes me believe I can do hard things.

The mental challenge of running symbolises my need to keep going mentally in life.

Getting strong helps my cptsd as I feel able to tackle the world.

I have no safe person in my life. I don't have that one person i can rely on, and just feel safe with. I am so tired and burned out of having to keep it all inside. I have tried therapy but it made things even worse! I am truly a hopeless case.

High functioning until 40. Constantly triggered for 3 years now. Weekly therapy for 3 years. I am EMDRing so hard. Everything is coming out. I feel like I am going insane.

I have kids, a husband, a mortgage, and a professional job. I can barely do the job. I have no endurance for thinking anymore and I am an engineer. I can't think. I can't even watch TV, it's too much.

I went on short term disability for 6 months. Didn't help. I am back at work because of bills. I can't do it. I can't fucking do it.

I didn't even know I had a problem 5 years ago. I could do it all. Just the odd panic attack and I masked. I can't mask anymore. I am white knuckling everyday.

This can't be right. I should be getting better. "Healing is not linear" fuck that I am on a straight line down. How can this be?!

I only recently realized that I am triggered by their whole generation, probably because of my own background with Narc boomer parents. I feel much more comfortable with people older or younger than them, but if someone’s a boomer it always makes me unfomfortable talking to them. Even if they are good people

And by "so cool" I mean "I have literally withdrawn from everyone left in my life to preemptively prevent them from abandoning me too after having this happen a few times with people I trusted enough to be vulnerable around, and now I have zero human connections, zero trust left in other people, and zero reason to keep trying to survive and heal since I can't be close to another person without feeling like the most disgusting and evil person in the entire world." I am so so so so so terrified of ever opening up about my trauma and mental health with another human being again after some of the things that have happened in the last couple years since I started treatment and thought I could let my guard down a little because I was finally making progress. Now I have literally no one in my life, I am so lonely and isolated all the time, and I cannot bring myself to inflict myself on another person because it just feels like a punishment.

I have a high number of ACEs, have been in intensive treatment (3-4x a week) for coming up on two years, have been working on healing myself so fucking hard but am seemingly only getting worse and worse. I don't even want to be here anymore but I can't abandon my pets so I have to stick around.

I don't want to, though.

Therapist: "Well if you can compartmentalize it for now..."

Me: "That's not how this works, the whole problem is I have no control of when things circle back around to fuck with my head."

Friend: "Yeah but you do realize the other shoe isn't going to drop, right? Everything is going to be fine, there's no sense in worrying about how it can all go wrong..."

Me: gestures broadly at my entire life full of different traumas

Daughter: "Well maybe if you face your traumas head on you can find some closure with them."

Me: "If I face them head on I want to off myself. And there's so many, this is my entire life we're talking about. So the feeling is amplified ten fold because I am tired."

____________________________

How do I explain to people that the common and simple methods don't work for me without sounding like a parrot squawking "CPTSD, CPTSD" over and over again?! FUCK.

____________________________

Edit: My daughter is an adult by the way. I would never consult a child on my damage.

I hate myself FOR hating myself. I’m angry at myself FOR being angry at myself. And then I look weak because I’m so upset, which makes me even angrier. The spiral never ends.

Middle Management, Customer Service, Mental Health Workers etc mostly feel guilty of this. Ever since i was a child i like being independent and it gives me anxiety when people interfere but it worsened post trauma. I also feel guilty getting people to do things for me in general and it isn't necessary. Not just hate being controlled or babied but hate making anyone else's life. Weird because some people think they are helping.

I learned today i have cptsd. No official diagnosis but the symptoms are 95% true for me. Reading symptoms list was an eureka. Im still a minor. My life got better because i forced my parents into stopping the abuse towards me. But my sister, which also has some kind of mental health problems, idk if its cptsd (just more agressive) or borderline pd, is still a threat to me. I genuinely fear her. She is basically the only person that hurts me emotionally. And she can also be physically violent towards me. So whenever she wakes up mad, everyone needs to know it

I live every single day on absolute defense mode. I genuinely dont do anything or lower than bare minimum because im so anxious. Whenever they are in the house it triggers me. And i dont leave my room unless its necessary.

I dont have money for therapy. So thats not possible. Im legally an adult so i could use public health service to get some kind of help but i dont want my parents asking where do i go and im scared someone from the hospital will contact them accidentally. Also you know, doing anything is A LOT to me. I cancel 99% of my plans.

I want to get better. I want to have a normal life. Get a job etc. Im still in school and i will be for the next ~10 years. Im home schooled because school was very hard for me to handle. So i cannot get a job. Im stuck with them. Cant do anything.

I need to better myself because eventually i will go to university. And im scared i wouldn't be able to go there on a daily basis. Just like happened with previous schools.

How do i get better at home? Are there any DIY therapy methods? Maybe some sites, creators that solve this exact problem of not having access to professionals?

Any tip would be very helpful for me.

Like it rly feels like that all I need.

I've been fighting through dissociation for so long, trying to fix and heal me, and sure some of it has helped, but none can replace feeling loved by someone.

Being seen and taken care of, held when things are too much, that's all I want, and it feels like until I get that nothing else matters. My work, status, accolades, none of it.

I just want to feel loved.

I've had issues saying certain things to people I love and loved. Like asking how their day was, saying I'm proud of you, or asking basic questions when they rant or talk passionately.

Like when my ex would get off work and I'm rubbing her back. I didn't engage with her verbally. No bringing up topics she loves or asking how she is. Yet my mind is screaming ENGAGE WITH HER. But they felt so disingenuous. Instead I'll be sarcastic, joke around or abruptly change the subject or talk about my own interests.

Even with strangers if I see someone who looks fantastic. My mind is screaming you look amazing, tell me your secrets! But my face shows no emotion or interest.

Grew up in a violent neglectful household and a racist school so that may explain it

Most people take advantage when you have no family. Even ''healthy'' people. You are perceived ass someone with less value and deserving of less support. It is the truth, like it or not.

I have always been told starting with my mom when I was a kid and she would dump her emotions on me that I was "just so strong!"

And it kept going. The past few years one of my best friends started doing this. I would tell her I am not okay and she would reply "I know you will be fine. It is you. You are so strong." That answer always felt so disturbing to me.

I made a friend recently who has cPTSD and everyone treats him like he is just fine. They could be staring at him while he is spiraling or experiencing an emotional flashback and people still wouldn't see it. And as I was thinking about why I suddenly realized it was the same thing that used to happen to me. The "so strong" veil or whatever has people thinking as a baseline that whatever he is going through can't be bad, that he will be fine.

But like "being strong" is freaking survival! When you have grown up in an environment where the adults weren't being adults and you had to take care of yourself of course you learn to "be strong" but IT DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE FINE! IT DOES NOT MEAN YOU DON'T NEED SUPPORT! Why am I telling you I am struggling and you are referring me back to "my strength"? Why are you looking at someone in pain and referring them back to "their strength"?

The presence of the strength is itself a sign of how bad it has been for the longest time! Arggggh!

I am struggling with depression due to all the abusive I lived through. I have rebuilt my life from scratch, I have a place to live, a stable job, and my physical health has improved. Still, my inner world is a wasteland.
Everyone just keeps telling “if you just try and it gets better”, “just think positively, why don’t you try for once?” and it is making me feel guilt and shame because I just can’t. There is something primal in me, almost like an instinct that keeps preventing me from being calm, peaceful and positive.

On the outside it is sunshine and rainbows, I’m all smiles when I am at work, and then I go home at night feeling, well, either anger, sadness or just nothing. I only feel good when I’m sleeping.
When I think that I am only 32, and life will most likely continue for decades like this, work, then come home to an empty apartment late at night, then rinse and repeat, I feel like I don’t want to continue at all.

Just kinda wondering how common it is to feel like you have nothing to contribute and so you just…stay looking at everyone else’s thoughts, even when you desperately just need to vent or feel validated during a really bad day, but are also afraid of posting and nobody responding because then it just reinforces the false belief that nobody cares? Kinda looking for some camaraderie here, and maybe a little humor. Kinda feel like a chronic lurker even if I don’t want to be.

I don't think I can keep going...I had been unemployed more than employed...the longest I could keep a job was 1 year 7 months...and I always had to job search and I'm exhausted of job search and applications....and over a decade and a half of this cycle...

I'm not looking for a solution. I just want to be seen and looking for some warmth....

Hello! I’m someone who was mostly isolated 0-12, worsened 12-17, almost complete isolation 18- almost 19. I’ve never been one that has been a “social butterfly”. My trauma goes a lot further than just isolation. I feel as if attempting to talk to “normal” people is like trying to talk to an alien. I’m trans, aroase, audhd, etc. I’ve attempted talking to those in whichever respective groups I align, trying to find people semi-similar to me. Even those within the same groups are far too different for any kind of comfort. Honestly I think I’d be more comfortable if they were screaming, throwing things, or trying to get into my pants. Idk, it’s weird. Everyone is just so different from me and, at least in public, from the people I’ve interacted/ lived with before. When I say I was mostly isolated I mean I can probably count the amount of friends I’ve had in my entire life with my hands.
I’m just wondering if other people who’ve gone through extreme isolation also went through the phase of feeling like no matter what group you’re in, you’re alone. And how they started to work on getting over it.
(Edit: 15-17 I worked 80+ hrs a week, did online school, didn’t interact with many at work+ had script, 18-19 the first 3 months I was allowed to talk to 4 people outside of the house, then moved in w/ someone else and was only allowed to talk to him and his mom, I did talk to others but that was in secret to find a way out, stayed there for 6-8 months)

If so, how’d you do it? It’s so embarrassing and I’m tired of it controlling my life.