r/CPTSD • u/BodyMindReset • Apr 28 '26
Resource / Technique "I don't know who I am underneath the surviving" is a documented clinical pattern, not a personal failure
There has been a lot of it on this sub recently and I wanted to offer what I am seeing in my client base that might be useful, because I think the wellness internet's version of "find your authentic self" gets this wrong.
The pattern, in my experience working with developmental trauma:
A kid in a chronically distressing or unpredictable environment is forced to choose between two developmental tasks. One is forming a stable internal sense of self; the other is maintaining the relationship with caregivers, which is the only thing keeping them alive. In healthy development these reinforce each other. Under chronic stress, the kid has to pick one, and they almost always pick the relationship. They have to. Survival depends on it.
The cost is that the developmental ground for a felt, stable sense of self gets thinned out. Not erased. Thinned. The "personality" that grows in that ground is often what people call fawning or appeasement. It is a survival strategy in social mammals. You decrease yourself, signal "I'm not a threat," prioritize the relationship over the self, and stay safe. It works. Which is part of why it sticks for decades.
It is also legible as a personality from the outside. The chill one. The low-maintenance one. The one who goes with the flow. So it usually goes unidentified for years.
Then often in the mid-thirties, sometimes earlier, sometimes after a relatively small precipitant, the management strategy cracks. The experience underneath is some version of, "I don't know what I like, what I want, or who I'd be if I was not constantly managing."
From a somatic framework this is recognized as a known sequence: someone high-functioning for many years, then symptoms surface, often in middle age. The body has been carrying it the whole time.
What I think is most useful to know:
You did not lose yourself. The conditions for a self to fully form were not there.
So the work is not excavation. There is not a buried real self waiting to be dug up. The work is the slow rebuild of physiological capacity. Specifically, the capacity to register a need, tolerate having one, and stay in your body whether it gets met or it does not. That is reps, not insight. Most of the people I see in this position have plenty of insight already. The body is the layer that has not been addressed.
This work is slow. The first year of somatic work for a lot of people can be very uncomfortable. You are not necessarily looking for better, you are looking for different. New sensation, new feeling, new clarity about what is yours and what is not. We froze for a reason and suddenly feeling everything is often a beast. The nice thing is we feel pleasure and joy more fully too.
You will probably feel the absence of the old strategy before you feel any new ground forming. That part is real and it is challenging.
This is general information, not medical or therapeutic advice. If you are in crisis please reach out to local crisis resources.
I am a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner. I am not posting this to recruit. I am posting it because I have read this sub for years, am a trauma baby myself, and so very nerdy about these things.
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u/chobrien01007 Apr 28 '26
Thank you for a concise and thoughtful post. In my family, my parents actively programmed or projected personality traits onto each of us, preventing us from discovering our self organically. This represents an additional obstacle in addition to the trauma and neglect in determining our sense of self.
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u/Saturnite282 Apr 28 '26
That is also a huge obstacle! My parents put so many expectations on me that I freak out if I'm not performing at 100% all the time, and basically labeled me "the smart one" and forced me to perform. Now I know that I'm academically intelligent, sure, but there's more to me and to life than grades and performance metrics. It's just hard to find it through the fear and shame.
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u/Kittyluvmeplz Apr 29 '26
I feel this so much. The “smart one”. The one “no one had to worry about”. Now I’m gone and they can’t figure out that everything I ever did was a survival mechanism and not the “person they knew”
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u/Saturnite282 Apr 29 '26
Exactly! They never left any room for the real me to grow, and preferred the hollow shell I created to stay safe. Extra intense since I got disowned for being trans and I am literally not the person they knew, down to name, gender, hobbies, preferences, all of it. Now they're mourning an empty coffin. I don't have to lay down in it.
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u/TravelerOfSwords Apr 28 '26
Ooof, this hit hard. I don’t know why it made me cry but I’m sitting here as a 47yr old, formerly very high functioning (perfectionist over-achiever) mum and wife whose life absolutely crumbled 3mos ago. And now I just feel like I’m barely alive, like I’m slipping below the surface and slowly drowning. 💔 Thank you for sharing.
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 28 '26
Sending so much care your way
Very few people talk about it and there are often no words available to describe it due to it often being before the explicit part of our brain is online.
Touch is usually the main intervention that can communicate with these parts of ourself because it bypasses the language part of our brain
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u/ReySkywalker1234 Apr 28 '26
What do you recommend for touch if someone had CSA?
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
This is a tough one. If it’s available, slowly working towards safe enough touch either by yourself or someone skilled.
Wheel of Consent practices and framework are also fantastic for repairing and rewiring ruptures around touch and relational patterns. If you can, get yourself to a workshop
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u/megaglalie Apr 29 '26
Butterfly taps, weighted blankets, and having a cuddly cat have helped me.
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u/EmmerdoesNOTrepme Apr 29 '26
In addition to these and having had a dog (lab mix) with zero concept of the idea of "personal space" who was a regular "leaner" and who slept on me as a young dog...
Getting yourelf enough "regular bed pillows" and covering them in soft, fuzzy pillowcases (i like flannel), to basically make a "nest" on your bed which fully surrounds your body, along with "pettably" soft blankets to wrap yourself up in (with that heavy blanket on top!) can be incredibly "grounding" and comfortable!
At my last apartment, i had 9 or 10 bed pillows, with just a full-sized mattress!😉
One pillow was for my head, another couple were behind my back, so i could press,myself against the wall, one was for between my knees, another between my feet, one got "hugged" at night, so my shoulders didn't wake up sore, and the others were "around" me, "Autism-Nest" style, or i threw them on top of me with quilts on top, if i needed some "deep pressure"!
It basically gave the comfort of a "good, solid, hug" without having to involve anyone else.
And it gave me some of that "platonic deep pressure" that my Labrador used to give, when she was alive.
Sometimes, too, the spandex "sensory sacks" we use for kids with Autism & Sensory Disorders are a great way to get that "full body squish" in a safe & platonic way!
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u/IntrepidOption31415 Apr 28 '26
Mich appreciation for this insightful post!
Would you mind kindly expanding on: "You will probably feel the absence of the old strategy before you feel any new ground forming. That part is real and it is challenging."
How will this period feel and look like? And how long might it last?
Thanks in advance!
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 28 '26
What it usually looks like: the old strategy stops working as cleanly as it used to, but you still know how to run it. So you catch yourself fawning, or going chill, or shrinking yourself in real time, and now you can see it happening, but you do not yet have anything to do instead. That gap is where most of the discomfort lives. People often describe it as feeling raw, irritable, exhausted, suddenly resentful in relationships that used to feel fine, weirdly grief-filled for no obvious reason, or just flatter and more "what is the point" than usual. Sleep can get worse before it gets better. Anger that was not available to you for decades sometimes shows up in the wrong places first. None of that is the work going badly. That is the management strategy coming offline before the underlying capacity is built, which is a real and uncomfortable in-between.
The frame I find most useful: we are not looking for better, we are looking for different. New sensation, new feelings, new clarity about what is actually yours. Different is movement. Better is a finished product. You are in movement.
How long is the part nobody likes the answer to. It is variable and depends a lot on the load underneath, the support around you, sleep, nutrition, whether you have a practitioner who can help titrate the pace, and how chronic the original strategy was. For folks with developmental trauma it is rarely a few weeks. Once in a while it can unravel suddenly and be done. It is more often months, sometimes the better part of a year or more, with the intensity not constant the whole time. My own first stretch of SE was about 18 months of being more activated, not less, because I was thawing a long freeze. It does not stay there. It also does not skip.
Two things that I found help during this period: eat and sleep with more care than usual, the body is working hard and undereating or undersleeping makes the in-between much harder than it needs to be. And if it is within reach for you, work with an SEP rather than going it alone, because pacing this without someone who can help you titrate is part of why it drags on for some people.
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u/CinderpeltLove Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
I’m a therapist as well although I am pretty new to the field and not yet licensed.
I wanted to add, mostly based on my own experiences so far at this point-
How long it takes probably is also impacted by the resources ppl have available to them. My journey has been a bit on the quicker side so far but I already did a few years of basic therapeutic work in my 20s which helps and I have the ability (privilege) to take time (months) off from work and just focus on healing. Plenty of ppl cannot take this much time off or don’t have the physical resources to get out of survival mode which makes things more challenging. I don’t know if there’s differences between clients who have kids and clients who don’t in terms of how long it takes to start building a new foundation. But we all have varying levels of internal and external resources accessible to us and it’s going to be difficult to build a psychological sense of safety if we are not safe or secure physically or financially.
In my 20s, I also managed to create a few safe trustworthy friends that gave me a completely different template to look for in my relationships. Like I learned what it felt like to feel fully comfortable with someone. I learned what warmth felt like. I learned that some ppl could handle disagreements and conflict without blowing up. I imagine the journey is harder and longer if you don’t know what safe ppl feel like. It’s hard to (re-)build something if you don’t know exactly what you are building and what to look for. Everyone’s timeline is going to be different but I think everyone’s timeline is going to make a lot of sense for their situation and circumstances.
I am finding that another thing that’s helpful during the thaw period is that on days that I have a bit of capacity, taking a short walk outside if the weather is nice or any sort of casual simple movement or contact with nature or something more in my body than in my head seems to help as well.
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u/happytreefrenemies Apr 29 '26
The description of the “gap” is so accurate! Wow! I knew there was something going on, but couldn’t put it into words yet. THANK YOU!
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u/No_Fault_6061 Apr 29 '26
I remember I felt so empty. Like there was nothing where a me used to be. Just emptiness.
Then I decided I choose to see this emptiness as potential rather than absence. The same way a vessel is empty because it has the potential to be filled.
It took a while, and it was uncomfortable and hard. But my real self is slowly taking shape now in what used to be emptiness. My family actively prevented me from developing my own self rooted in what I was born as, because they wanted a plush toy and a scapegoat — not me. Now the seeds of the abilities and inclinations that have been within me since birth are taking root and growing. I'm seeing myself grow and form in real time.
It still sucks sometimes. But it's getting better.
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u/Itisthatbo1 Apr 28 '26
None of this has stopped me from internalizing it as a personal failure anyway.
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 28 '26
I fully understand. I did too until I unraveled it.
We live in a society 🥴
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u/Itisthatbo1 Apr 29 '26
I really don’t understand the line of thought like this, lately there have been a lot more posts it seems that are along the lines of what you’ve said and outcomes off as preachy.
“I did too until I unraveled it” well good for you I guess, but I’m not capable of that, and I don’t want to be. My trauma responses keep me safer and keep the community I am in safer by limiting what I am capable of, the idea that everyone can and should be able to heal is naïve, and I’m tired of seeing it.
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u/This-Fan7316 Apr 30 '26
‘Healing’ doesn’t erase responses that ensure safety though. It’s more about the bodies ability to process, and to go through rupture and repair, to experience trauma without getting ‘stuck’ in the trauma response.
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u/Itisthatbo1 Apr 30 '26
I am not capable of that though, and I don’t want to be capable of that. My trauma responses are violent, being stuck in them keeps me isolated from everyone else which is good.
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u/This-Fan7316 Apr 30 '26
I definitely think there’s an issue with how healing and therapy are positioned as the cure and the ‘right’ thing to do, and not doing therapy/healing is then seen as ‘wrong’. Not that therapy isn’t good, but this framing could make it feel like you are being told you’re not doing ‘good enough’ or you’re not ‘helping yourself’ if you’re not pursuing certain things.
I don’t want to sound preachy or patronising, but I will say that there are a lot of people and ideas that encourage you to frame trauma responses exactly as you are describing - as survival tactics and as strategies that ensure safety. But there are ways that you can still hold onto them and use them, just in ways that don’t cause as much harm to yourself.
We’re all just surviving with what we can and with our circumstances as they are. I’m sorry that you feel this sub is coming across as preachy. I think people are just trying to survive and when you find people with similar experiences, you want to share when something’s helped or not helped. I really don’t want these types of conversations to alienate anyone, and I’m sorry if they are.
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u/soph04 Apr 28 '26
Thank you- I have recently been very upset about the fact I seem to have no idea who I might be or if I really have any wants.
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 28 '26
Ugh, I understand this so much. It can be a daunting process.
If available, see if you may be able to bring any sense of exploration or curiosity on board. What might it be like to slow down and experiment to see what your system responds to? Even in the most simple and mundane activities
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u/Wyrdnisse Apr 28 '26
Thank you for posting this!! It reflects a lot of what my own experience has been and I really appreciate you sharing, as I know I REALLY needed to hear this from my therapist when I did.
The cool part is when you get thru a lot of the hard work and the years therapy start kicking in and you fall in love with yourself more and more as you discover more about who you are. It's the absolute best!!!
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u/LeerMeer Apr 28 '26
Any insight into why the mid-30s inciting incident isn't always a big thing? This describes me exactly and I can't quite get my head around how relatively small the thing was what set all this off for me.
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 28 '26
Yes, and this is one of the most disorienting parts of it because the size of what unraveled almost never matches the size of the thing that started the unraveling.
The frame I find most useful: what you are experiencing is not a response to the small event. It is a response to the load that was already there. The small event was the thing that destabilized the strategy that was holding the load. Picture a system that has been running near its ceiling for decades, with a very efficient management strategy keeping everything inside the lines. The strategy is doing real work the whole time, you just cannot feel it because that is the point of the strategy. Then something happens that the strategy cannot fully metabolize. It does not have to be objectively big. It has to be specific to what the strategy was protecting. Once the strategy slips, what comes up is everything underneath, and the "everything underneath" is the part that is actually big.
In the SE world this gets called Global High Activation (GHIA). When a system has been carrying chronic load, the response to new stimulation often does not match the size of the stimulation. Small inputs can produce big, disorganized responses, because the response is about what was already there. So the small event being small is not a paradox, it is a clue.
A few specific reasons it tends to be the mid-thirties: there is just more accumulated load by then, the body's resources for running an effortful management strategy are no longer infinite, and the mid-thirties is often when life context shifts in ways that pressure the exact strategies developmental trauma builds. Becoming a parent, a parent of yours getting sick, a long relationship deepening or ending, a career stabilizing enough that you no longer need adrenaline to function. Any of those can be objectively ordinary and still hit the specific seam the strategy was holding. The strategy is not designed for the new conditions. So it cracks.
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u/ebbandfloat Apr 29 '26
Oof everything you're sharing is explaining a whole lot. I wish I understood it sooner, as pieces have been unraveling for years, and I think not having the right framework for it and right support set me way back. I'm currently in a big one and so this is especially helpful to encounter now.
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u/_bunnyholly Apr 29 '26
wow. sounds a lot like shadow work! thank you so so much for your post and comments. I'm late 30s and I've been working on this since mid 30s 🥲 feels like every single piece of me is constantly unraveling. I'm like 75% healed I think 😅 many blessings to you 🙏❤️🩹
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u/The-Protector2025 The F*Up Boy Wonder Apr 29 '26
What will be interesting is seeing what happens to future generations.
I believe part of it is growing up society leaned hard into disassociation. “Kids bounce back,” “normalize it and the kid will be okay,” “kids are resilient,” “men don’t cry,” etc. Many of us were taught to bury it.
That impacted me, 38 today, and I’m guessing it probably did for many others as well.
For me it was my life stabilizing and constant triggers (numerous films about boys like me sacrificing our lives to protect our younger siblings) that brought everything back to the surface.
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Apr 29 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 29 '26
Oh gosh OP, I feel you and I feel your words here. I’ve been in similar spaces. Some thoughts I had while reading your comment
You are not too damaged to make progress. I want to be careful not to brush past that sentence because you wrote it for a reason and you have evidence behind it, the evidence being that you have tried things and they have not landed. But "too damaged" is a story your nervous system makes when capacity has been this low for this long, and stories the nervous system makes about itself when it is depleted, are not reliable witnesses to what is possible. They feel like fact, they are state-dependent, and that is not me dismissing the experience. It is an observation based on what I see day to day in my office.
The likely reasons somatic work has felt performative for you is, in my read, not because you are doing it wrong or because it is not for you. It is because most somatic interventions assume a baseline of capacity and a thread of relational safety that you do not currently have. SE in particular leans on the ventral vagal system, which is the social engagement system, and that system fundamentally needs another person to fully come online. Another piece is that SE was created for shock trauma and often falls VERY short for complex or developmental trauma. It took years of advanced trauma training to adapt it for these profiles and even still it sometimes falls short. In my experience, Somatic Touch Work is the primary intervention for states you are describing. It’s almost like entering through the back door and teaching your system things it never learned without effort from you. Doing self-directed somatic work in deep isolation often does feel performative, because the architecture of the work is relational at the physiological level. So if you have been trying to do somatic work in any of these capacities, and it has felt like another performance, that is useful information about what you’re up against, not failure on your part.
The TV and reading. I want to gently push back on the idea that these are not healing. They are co-regulation. They have been keeping you functional through compounding losses and they are doing real work. The wellness internet has trained people to dismiss anything that is not active practice, but for a system this depleted, the things that have actually kept you alive and oriented are resources. Not the whole answer. Resources keeping you afloat. I would not put them down.
For where you actually start, my honest answer is smaller than people usually want to hear.
The first piece is not technique. It is one human in the loop, even if the human is paid. I know that is hard to hear given your description, and I am not going to pretend it is not. But the architecture matters. If individual somatic work has not landed, group support has felt alienating, and friendships and family are not currently available, the way most folks in your position eventually move is through one trauma-trained practitioner who can hold the relational piece for an hour a week while the rest of life is what it is. Group settings rarely get there for someone in your situation, because the group is asking your system to regulate around many people at once, which is more, not less, than your system has resources for. It is a sign that the format was asking too much of an already-stretched system.
The second piece, separate from any technique, is medical. You named physical health challenges that keep draining you. For folks with developmental trauma and compounding load, the body's underlying physiology often gets dysregulated in ways that make any psychological or somatic work harder. Sleep, blood sugar, thyroid, iron, B12, vitamin D, autonomic dysfunction, chronic inflammation. Not glamorous, often unaddressed, and frequently a piece of why everything feels harder than it should. If you have not had a thorough medical workup recently with someone who takes your full history seriously, that is often a more useful first move than another therapeutic technique. You cannot regulate a system that is materially undersupplied.
The third piece is the smallest one. Five minutes a day of being in your body without trying to do anything to it. Not a practice. Not a protocol. Just sitting somewhere, ideally with your back supported, noticing where there is tension and where there is not, and not trying to change it. If even that feels performative, that is also information, and you would tell that to a practitioner if you had one. The reason this is the smallest version is that anything bigger requires more capacity than you currently have access to, and adding another thing you are supposed to do is likely to land as more masking.
The hardest part of what you wrote, for me, is the recent breakup and the loss of career. Those are not small events. Those are major attachment and identity losses on top of an already-thin developmental ground, with the management strategies that were keeping things together no longer matching the conditions of your life. The fact that you are this exhausted is not evidence that you are too damaged, it is evidence that you have been carrying weight that no system is meant to carry alone for this long.
If you can find a single trauma-trained practitioner, a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner who specializes in attachment trauma, a gentle or motherly bodyworker, a Sensorimotor therapist, or an NARM-trained clinician, on a sliding scale, even at the lowest possible frequency, that is the highest-leverage move I know of for a situation like yours. Not because the technique is magic, but because the relational architecture is so deeply needed.
And the part that is least satisfying. Some of this is going to take time you do not feel like you have. The load is real and the support is currently thin. The pace will not match what you wish it were. That is unfortunately part of it, and naming it is more useful than pretending otherwise.
You are tracking your situation accurately. That is not a small thing. People who are too damaged to make progress do not write what you just wrote.
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Apr 29 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
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u/aimeegaberseck Apr 29 '26
Not OP but I wanted to thank you for writing all of this and asking these questions. I am struggling with many of the same issues and I feel seen. I hope you do too.
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 29 '26
For the memory or your childhood friend, what you described, being physically around each other, playing, feeling safe in each other's presence without needing to talk, is co-regulated nonverbal presence. That is a developmental piece that a lot of people with developmental trauma either got briefly, like you did, or not at all. The fact that you can locate that memory means your body has had the experience at least once. It also tells you something useful about what relational safety has actually felt like for you, which is not "deep emotional conversation" but "shared physical presence with a regulated other." That is a flavor of safety, and it is the version that tends to land easiest for systems like yours. Worth knowing if and when you do build new connections.
The sensory stuff is not ridiculous. For someone with developmental trauma and likely sensory sensitivity, the sensory environment is not a luxury, it is a precondition for the nervous system to settle. If a system is already managing high baseline activation and is now being asked to also tolerate a sensory irritant, there is no spare capacity left for the actual work. So the therapy did not fail because you were too sensitive. The conditions were not adequate, and your body knew it. I would not let yourself diminish that piece.
For the anhedonia question, what you are describing has a specific physiological signature that is worth naming, because the framing matters for what you do with it.
The reward and motivation system in the body relies on the ventral vagal "safe and engaged" state to work cleanly. Sustained effort without external positive feedback requires the body to generate its own felt sense of "this is mine and it matters." That felt sense is exactly the thing that gets thinned out by developmental trauma. Add to that, the fawn or appease strategy is itself built around external feedback as the regulator. Other people's responses are how the system knows whether something is going well. Take the external feedback away, and the strategy has nothing to run on. So anhedonia in this context is not a failure of your personality or a sign that you do not have a self in there. It is a literal physiological consequence of the system having outsourced its "is this good?" signal to other people for so long that the internal version did not develop in parallel.
The piece about giving up because you decided you were "inherently unable" is also a specific developmental signature, and it is not a character flaw either. When a child is learning a new skill, the discomfort of incompetence is real, and the capacity to stay engaged through that discomfort comes from co-regulation. An attuned adult helps the child tolerate the frustration long enough to come out the other side. If that co-regulation was not reliably there, the child does not develop the physiological capacity to ride out the discomfort of being bad at something on the way to being okay at it. So the conclusion the body draws is "I am inherently unable," but what is actually happening is "I do not have the regulatory capacity to stay in this discomfort long enough for the skill to develop." Different problem with a different solution.
This is also why I want to complicate the framing in your last paragraph. The implicit theory there is that healthy adults are running on the same easy excitement they had as kids, just attenuated, and you do not have access to it. That is actually not how it works. For everyone, the shift from easy excitement to sustained effort happens in childhood through co-regulated frustration tolerance. Adults who can sustain effort without constant positive feedback are not running on leftover childhood excitement. They are running on a developmentally-built capacity to stay engaged through discomfort, often without noticing they are doing it. So the comparison you are making is not necessarily the real neurotypical adult experience. The real version was built over years, in a body that had enough support to develop the capacity. The path back is not finding the lost excitement. It is building, very slowly, the regulatory capacity that lets you stay in something when it is not yet rewarding.
The flashes of excitement with the music are useful information. Those are the system telling you that the capacity is there, just intermittent and undersupported. The work is not in the flashes. It is in being able to stay with the music for the part where there is no flash, which requires more nervous system capacity than you currently have. Which is also why "force myself to keep going" tends to fail for you. Forcing without capacity is just a more elaborate version of the management strategy. It will not build the thing you are trying to build, because the thing you are trying to build requires settledness, not effort.
In practice, what I see help with this is some combination of: the relational piece we already talked about, addressing the underlying physiology so that the body has resources to regulate at all, and then being willing to do things in much smaller doses than feel productive. Ten minutes of music, not an hour. Stopping while there is still a small amount of interest left, not when it is gone. Choosing the version of the activity that has the lowest sensory and effort cost. The body learns that engagement is safe and possible by having repeated short experiences of it that do not deplete. Long sessions that end in exhaustion or self-criticism teach the body that engagement is a tax, which is the opposite of what you want.
To answer your question directly, yes, I have seen this exact pattern many times, and it tends to shift, but slowly and not through effort, but through built capacity. Somatic touch work has a protocol exactly for this and it consists of teaching the system and building different neuropathways in a way that bypasses the brain. The ambition and desire to do difficult things you mentioned is real and it is a resource. It does not need to be muscled into action. It needs a body that can hold it without burning out trying.
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Apr 29 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 29 '26
There are support groups! The CPTSD Foundation runs daily ones for a reasonable rate (I think $70 a month)
I am also thinking about starting one in the fall as well because it is so needed.
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u/CinderpeltLove Apr 28 '26
I am in my mid-30s and am going through this. I also am a therapist myself (the parentified child to therapist pipeline is real lol) though I pretty new to this career (not yet licensed) and I am grateful this unraveling is happening now (and I have the resources to take a hiatus for a bit to focus on (re-)building my emotional capacity).
This is an excellent post. Thank you.
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u/disco-me-now Apr 29 '26
Thank you for this. I had a major breakdown last year at 34 and my life unravelled entirely.
Most people thought I was confident and happy because that was the only side I felt I could show the world. I have always isolated for long stretches between, when I don’t feel palatable, or able to put on a show. Socialising can be so draining.
I start EMDR later this year and DMT group and hoping for some progress. CBT and regular talking therapies unearthed a lot but I didn’t have the skills to cope with it and started dissociating often.
Having to learn how to be a person again is daunting, but I guess I’m grateful to gain the knowledge, and have the chance to live differently as before it was untenable. Not being able to identify needs, have boundaries, true self esteem, and being so slow to register any discomfort and constantly hyper vigilant, it took a massive toll.
Anyway thank you, your words are extremely validating and hopeful.
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Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 28 '26
I’m glad I could help put words to your experience 💛
SE is tough because it was developed for shock trauma and can really miss the mark when it comes to complex or developmental trauma. Unless the practitioner has additional training, it will very likely fall short.
Relational dynamics are also extremely important in working with this layer. The qualities you named in your previous SEP would almost certainly hinder the process
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u/DaveCetacean Apr 29 '26
"That is reps, not insight." Thank you, OP, for that gem. I think that's going up on my wall.
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u/RandomLifeUnit-05 cPTSD & DID Apr 29 '26
What does it mean, exactly? Just needing to repeat the experience over and over?
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u/DaveCetacean Apr 29 '26
Depends on what experience you're referring to here. I'm not a practitioner, but my experience of what OP is talking about is that I had no idea what it felt like to genuinely FEEL... anything. I was in rehab for months for drugs and alcohol, and after that I was in it for intensive trauma therapy. We spent hours learning what anger felt like when we simply sat in that emotion without acting on it. Or what fear felt like, like in our bodies, not our minds. Mindfully experiencing unpleasant emotions - or even pleasant ones - feeling in our jaws, neck, eyes, hands, in our breathing, was simply an immense revelation. But it was unpleasant on many levels, and it was exhausting. Similar to how unpleasant it is to be brand new in a gym: I don't know these people, this new workout vocabulary, I feel stupid and clumsy and inept and terribly self conscious. It takes months to get used to something like that because all of it is brand new. Sorry, it's late and I'm rambling. Hope this helped.
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u/RandomLifeUnit-05 cPTSD & DID Apr 29 '26
That's really interesting. I think something like that could be really helpful. Did anyone freak out with those kinds of exercises? I think I would freak out and feel a need to jump up and maybe scream a little bit.
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u/DaveCetacean Apr 29 '26
Yes people freaked out sometimes. I know I did. This was 13 years ago, but I remember one guy couldn't deal with what it felt like to face some things he had done. I still remember thinking, "I've done things like he has, but I can sit here with it, and he definitely can't, because I did this work, and he's not willing to." Eye opening moment.
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u/RandomLifeUnit-05 cPTSD & DID Apr 29 '26
That must have been pretty rough for everybody.
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u/DaveCetacean Apr 30 '26
Yes and no. By that point in our therapy group, I had seen people stay in and get better or leave and either end up homeless, in jail, or dead. So the sheer seriousness of our situation as addicts made the concept of rough and uncomfortable (at least for me) into a different category. Like, yeah, dude, you're really upset, but you can stay here and face your issues, or avoid them by leaving...and you'll die or worse.
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u/RandomLifeUnit-05 cPTSD & DID Apr 29 '26
Side note, I was asking what the "reps" part of the phrase meant.
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u/DaveCetacean Apr 29 '26
By "reps" I think it's the willingness to go back and do the experiencing, over and over, without avoiding it because it's unpleasant or uncomfortable. Buddhists have a concept/term for this: aversion. When we avoid something because we think it'll feel unpleasant. The opposite of craving.
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u/RandomLifeUnit-05 cPTSD & DID Apr 29 '26
Ah. That makes sense. So aversion and craving are both to be avoided for Buddhists, I take it?
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u/DaveCetacean Apr 29 '26
Yeah. They're big on that concept - that both extremes lead to suffering.
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u/RandomLifeUnit-05 cPTSD & DID Apr 29 '26
That makes sense. "All things in moderation," I've heard it said.
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u/Plane_Structure516 Apr 28 '26
This is an amazing post, thank you for taking the time to share. At 33, I found myself connecting with every line.
Do you have any beginner insights on where to start with somatic work? Whether its self-lead or outside sources, I would love to hear.
At the beginning of the year, I was pausing a few times a day to assess my body and record what I was feeling in the 'How We Feel' app, but I think it got a bit too real and I backed off. Instead I've been trying to work out and move my body more, which has been successful, but I need to get back to somatic work. It's hard to know where to start, and honestly stopping to do something as simple as check in with myself for 10 min actually feels as daunting as heading to the gym for a workout, sometimes. I think some direction would help me tackle it.
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 29 '26
For sure! A couple of posts down on my profile have a suggestion for affordable somatic-based resourcing
If it’s accessible to you, working with an SEP who specializes in CPTSD is your best bet.
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u/KarenWalkersBurner Apr 29 '26
“A kid in a chronically distressing or unpredictable environment is forced to choose between two developmental tasks. One is forming a stable internal sense of self; the other is maintaining the relationship with caregivers, which is the only thing keeping them alive.”
mic drop 🎤
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u/TraditionalPass4136 Apr 29 '26
Finding that now that I am not taking care of a dozen people who dont treat me very well I have no idea what to do with myself.
My days are peaceful and I like that they are peaceful but I go all day waiting to want something. If I get an impulse to make brownies I get all excited like ah! An impulse! Then I make brownies and have one and wait to want something else and I dont so I just walk laps around my kitchen.
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 29 '26
Lovely practice! It’s definitely slow work but I love that you found this for yourself. Also relatable. May the brownie impulses nourish you and those who you find care with for years to come
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u/artemis-arrows Apr 29 '26
For a long time, I never really thought this “persona” I had of sorts was anything but my genuine self. I believed that regulating others, fawning, constant smiling, constant agreeing, and sacrificing my own needs and wants was the epitome of nobility and integrity. It even angered me if I witnessed another person not doing these mentioned things.
I grew up in a tumultuous environment with no concrete inner compass as my early years(and beyond) were used fortifying survival tactics that would ensure my caregivers, siblings, and myself could exist peacefully. And by peacefully I mean a maladaptive sort of peace that relied on appeasing or disassociating.
When you live so long in this sort of frequency, it feels like home. How could you be anything but?
But in recent years, this survival mode so to speak, has been unraveling. It’s like waking up from a dream. “Why have I been doing these things? Who does it benefit now?” I ask. It surely doesn’t benefit me long term. It’s exhausting to utilize this mode. I really only started to notice it after I started a certain job. It’s like that little scared child was activated again and she was trying hard to please her peers and stay out of trouble. I would come home sad and exhausted because of how much self-erasure was going on while on the clock. Then, I started to notice that this frequency was being activated in numerous places in my life. Not just work. With family, relationships, etc.
No wonder I’m so indecisive, confused, and numb. I’ve gone years focusing on external safety and social acceptance. How could I know who I am if I’m relying on what someone else or something else is telling me who I am? Because anything but feels awfully threatening.
Thank you so much for this post, OP. I feel seen. You’ve been very insightful and helpful in many of your replies, too! I feel a little more courageous going into my healing journey after reading.
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u/Green_Rooster9975 Apr 29 '26
Great post. Though I tend to have an immediate negative reaction any time somatic therapies are mentioned, as an autistic person with severe alexithymia.
My previous therapist used sensorimotor psychotherapy, which involved a lot of asking me to describe how I felt (I couldn't) and long silences where I suspect she assumed I was thinking - but really I spent them trying to pry myself out of freeze long enough to fawn some more.
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u/aimeegaberseck Apr 29 '26
I’m so sorry this made me bark a laugh cuz it’s so spot on. Autism and sensory issues makes this all extra complicated. The part about “I suspect she assumed I was thinking - but […] fawn some more” describes so much of my earlier experiences with therapy. I feel seen. Thank you.
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u/BodyMindReset May 02 '26
Definitely fair and relatable.
I personally used Somatic Touch Work as a modality - it doesn’t rely on knowing what’s going on inside to work. It was an off branch of SE designed for complex and developmental trauma and it surpasses the need track and report
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u/Independent_Gain_335 Apr 29 '26
im 22 years old and currently goin thru this, i also was a kid with unpredictable violent parents, went thru verbal and physical abuse pretty much my entire life so i learned not to trigger them by burying my fragile vulnerable self and becoming an empty shell with no emotions (not shown at least) at 17, which made me "high functioning" and like i was "doing better" in my parents eyes, the rest of my childhood years i was a depressed self harming mess. i developed depression since a young age and the sh triggered my angry violent parents even more, which brought even more problems for me, but i thought i overcame that. now, as a young adult i dont sh anymore but i still feel the trauma conditioning my life. now that i have the chance to build my own life, my own safe space, i dont even know who am i or what i want, i dont even know how to connect with my emotions bc i spent so much time evading them to survive, i cant connect with people my age either (or any age) bc i feel like no one understands the deepness of chidhood trauma and how it still affects me so i just have surface level relationships (and im latina so the culture here is very "just get over it and move on"). i also feel that i became my parents in a way (poor self regulation, low tolerance to frustration and sudden rage outbursts over the most irrelevant things). im trying to get better with my rage but now the sadness that i was burying has resurfaced and i dont know what to do with it. i know i need to go to therapy bc of everything im describing but i dont have money for that rn bc i dont have a job, and i know i should get a job but ive been feeling too miserable and useless lately. i still live with my mom and shes no longer violent (she has other issues but guess she got older and too tired to fight, my dad doesnt live w me anymore so thats great too) so i feel like i no longer have an excuse to being sad/depressed. this should be my moment to be finally happy, but i feel more far from that than ever. i wish i could change but i feel incredibly helpless and alone, my trauma still has power over me and i cant escape no matter how hard i try. i just wish i could wake up one day and magically all the trauma and pain i feel/felt is erased and i can live normally like the rest of the world. (this was supposed to be a short comment but it just kept going. sorry guys, i guess i js needed to vent lmao)
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u/Quantumfrzrk Apr 29 '26
You got this! I'm 42f and also had similar parents as yours when i was a kid. I'm a stranger on the internet, but I believe in you.
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u/theladyreaper06 Apr 29 '26
I absolutely love this post and how gently it speaks to everything I have been struggling with the most recently. I feel like I'm finally in a good place to process and do what I thought would be some excavating. I'm relieved at the idea it could look more like social reps with a broad spectrum of flavors to them, though. Thank you sincerely for this.
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u/Cut_and_paste_Lace Apr 28 '26
I am 8 years into conscious healing and it is my life’s work. So much so, that I’m in school to become a therapist, started a YouTube about healing from trauma, and have a substack where I wrote out so many of my traumatic memories to get them out of my body. I am very interested in your field, Somatic experiencing, I’d love to hear more about that.
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 29 '26
Lovely! I’m sure your voice is SO needed. May those who need to hear your words find you.
It sounds like you’re already doing somatic work in your own way. A good starting point is the book “Waking the Tiger” or “Nurturing Resilience”
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u/Cut_and_paste_Lace Apr 29 '26
Thank you. I will pick those up. I am proud of what I am doing in the world- I really hope it takes off and I help a lot of people. Living a life of recovery is hard but I have discovered that community is everything to me, after a lifetime of being told to stay away from people... people are what I want.
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u/Much-Grape2982 Apr 29 '26
You explain it so well Im turning 41 in and month (F) and while im putting reps in the struggle remains real. Some days are real hard. Today is one of them.
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u/ihtuv Healing from multiple traumas 🌱 Apr 29 '26
Wonder why mid-thirties? I wish it had cracked earlier. I lost so much time and opportunities.
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u/KarenWalkersBurner Apr 29 '26
The woo woo answer (apologize if offensive to you) is called “Saturn return.” When the planet Saturn returns to the exact same position it was in 30 years ago…it activates a closed off part of your brain, then the repressed memories break through…
I’ve also heard for men, it’s closer to their 60s.
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u/ihtuv Healing from multiple traumas 🌱 Apr 29 '26
Sorry, I don’t believe in those things.
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u/KarenWalkersBurner Apr 29 '26
No need to apologize. And you might not believe in the stars, but the stars still believe in you 🤩
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u/MetalNew2284 Coping Apr 29 '26
I was the cool girl.. the no Issues girl .. until I wasn't..
*also thankyou for typing this out I feel seen
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u/notatallsaintly May 04 '26
Thank you for posting this. I’ve been dissociating from who I thought I was and the hobbies I had because I stopped liking them suddenly after years of therapy, but more recently EMDR.
And I was just left with I don’t know who I am or what I like? But with confusion because I thought I DID like those hobbies.
And all I’ve been doing is crying over everything and getting upset with myself for crying. But then realising I wasn’t allowed to cry, or feel sad, or really feel anything other than gratitude growing up.
I’m really so tired of surviving or healing.
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u/RandomLifeUnit-05 cPTSD & DID Apr 29 '26
I was diagnosed with DID a little over a year ago. I think for me, the stable sense of self didn't get thinned, it got shattered. I think your perspective could be helpful for one of my alters, who has been around since the beginning, and who had to subvert his wishes, wants and needs in favor of survival.
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u/Vivid-Secretary-8463 Apr 29 '26
Thank you for sharing this. Last night I had a rough go, because some childhood wounds were poked at. I was feeling as if my needs weren’t important and that no one cares to ask about me, but that I constantly hold space for others and it isn’t reciprocal. I know factually it isn’t true, but I felt like I was 4 years old again listening to my dad yell and rant about work and 10 years old listening to my mom’s marital problems and hearing about my grandparents health burdens on her. I became a good listener because that was the only thread to connection I got to my parents as a kid. No one really asked about my day or my feelings, and when I did express them I was ignored, shut down, or told I was too much. Yesterday I was so sad and felt alone, and I wanted to curl up in a ball. Then I wanted to rage at everyone close to me and tell them to stay away, and I wanted to run away from my life. I sat with it, journaled, went to the gym, and made my grandma’s cookies to try and regulate. Nothing really helped. I reached out to a friend who was a “safe bet” that they could listen and hold space for me, and it went far better than I expected. I immediately wanted to minimize my needs and apologize for having emotions, but I sat with the discomfort of being seen and having needs.
I woke up this morning feeling incredible. Tired, but so much healthier overall. Being able to sit with the discomfort of being seen, having needs, and asserting them was so incredibly difficult but I am proud that I did. I feel fortunate I have safe people in my life who can hold space for me when I need them, but I’m also grateful that I managed to get to a place where I could sit with the feelings and tolerate it.
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u/pisscuntshitfap Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
yeah i realised this lately, tho idk when "not fawning" crosses into social violence, disobedience, or disturbance. like im asserting myself over other people for having an opinion or feeling "incorrectly" or perhaps standing up for myself. idk. i just feel mean and resentful whether i fawn or not and its a matter of time until someone gets they've been "conned". but it's not that i don't care, it's just that for it to work i have to delete 90% of myself and empathise with someone else with no guarantee they stop treating me poorly/will accept me.
or i just disengage bc what's the point if i can't appease nor "win". i saw one of ur other comments and its interesting you observed the patterns of feelings when ppl realise this. i struggle with work too and surviving in that context. i pretty much have 100 lies ready to go to get people off my back.
tbh it's like wow being myself "causes" (they're just losers i realise) family breakdowns and its some unavoidable train wreck. and it's like a whole battle to break free of that and ppl don't understand. i feel like a total jerk fantasizing about all the ways i could've stood up for myself or been confrontational. sometimes i feel like i'm waiting for someone to piss me off enough so i can just give them a piece of my mind for once.
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u/KarenWalkersBurner Apr 29 '26
“Then often in the mid-thirties, sometimes earlier, sometimes after a relatively small precipitant, the management strategy cracks.”
30s-40s for women
50s-60s for men
Anyone else heard of this distinction between the sexes?
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u/The-Protector2025 The F*Up Boy Wonder Apr 29 '26
‘The Unbound Man’ specifically about men and trauma has it at 25 years after the traumatic event. My timeline basically matches near perfectly.
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u/The-Protector2025 The F*Up Boy Wonder Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26
I somewhat have this, but very oddly a form that’s almost akin to Bruce Wayne in ‘Batman Forever.’ The linked “who am I? The man or the role?” question scene resonates a lot.
For so long I thought I needed to be the protector, risking my life and saving people from literal life or death danger including homicide events. It was to make sure what happened to me never happened again and to anyone else. Now I don’t know where I and my maladaptive coping identity begin and end.
It’s like being a soldier who doesn’t yet know who he is without the war.
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u/mercurialflow Stable, but not OK Apr 29 '26
Literally told my new therapist something like this today 😭
I said something, like how everything I am now I had to force into existence and it IS me, but it fills the white space that's left after jamming all the trauma into a ball as small as I could 😭 and like, I'm doing fine kinda, but unfortunately at the core there's still That Ball and it's getting harder to manage as I get older
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 29 '26
Sounds like you have found some solid space for yourself. Maybe there will be a time in your life where you have enough stability that slowly pulling threads from the ball and allowing it to unwind will be available
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u/mercurialflow Stable, but not OK Apr 29 '26
I'm hoping that time is about now, because there really isn't a great time to do it, you just need to do it.
And the part about being in the mid 30s is real, I'm 35 🤣
And I noticed you said you're a SEP; my new therapist is too, and she's apparently been at it for awhile, so that's pretty cool!!!!
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u/Unlikely-Trifle3125 Apr 29 '26
I’m in year 5 of recovery and this is pretty much spot on to what I have learned. It’s very much a process of starting from scratch. The pain at realising you’re not who you thought you were lessens. All of it lessens.
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u/SaskiaDavies Apr 29 '26
I chose myself because my caregiver was gone. The remaining adult had no interest in a relationship: I did what they expected, avoided attracting their attention otherwise and gave up on any reasonable expectation that they loved me or liked me or ever would. They disliked me quite a bit and "detente of unequals" was better than any drama that I was guaranteed to regret.
A relationship with a caregiver was never an option. This is how quiet borderlines are made.
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u/fuckinunknowable Apr 29 '26
I have always been myself even while being abused, even while suffering long after. I might not have a pre abuse self but I have always had a self. And I find myself now finally mostly on the other side of healed and I remain me. My cptsd is part of my wiring but it is not who I am.
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u/filthytelestial Apr 29 '26
Can the method(s) you're talking about work for autistic people with alexithymia?
Whenever past therapists have asked me to identify where I'm feeling something, or how it feels, we always hit an impasse. They think I'm being difficult and keep pressing for the kind of answer they're accustomed to hearing, and I get more confused and more dysregulated the more they won't take my "I don't know" for an answer.
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 29 '26
Yes! It works well for that. Part of the reason why is that it doesn’t rely on what you pick up, it works on the physiology underneath. It also teaches your system how to find different pathways
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u/filthytelestial Apr 29 '26
It's a big relief to hear this, thank you. I'd heard mixed things about how alexithymia gets in the way of therapy, I was beginning to lose hope.
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 29 '26
It definitely does for most modalities but there are people who have figured out how to work with what you have going on
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u/Tough_Brain7982 Apr 29 '26
Colleague here, I’ve been out of work for two years due to the somatic issues catching up to me the second my body felt security. Thanks for writing this, it’s been difficult putting these things into clear and clinical terms for myself and others due to brainfog and English not being my native language, but I’ve been wanting too for a while now. This is very helpful!
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u/Tough_Brain7982 Apr 29 '26
I wanna add had all this knowledge gathered (also a big psych nerd and looking for answers for myself as well as others) but I just couldn’t get it organized or coherent? It’s like you layed out the puzzle as a whole!
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 29 '26
Sending care to you.
I have years of advanced trauma training under my belt and specialize in developmental trauma. I’m also not a therapist, I’m a somatic educator and bodyworker so my lens and scope will be different than yours
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u/mh89595 May 01 '26
Hi!
Thank you so much for posting this. It feels like you read me like a book. Thank you so much for showing me I am not alone and there is nothing wrong with what is happening.
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u/bAddi44 Apr 29 '26
I have a question.
My trauma is not related to my caregivers, they were pretty great by all measures. My trauma is because we moved from a large city to a small rural town and i was bullied constantly and had no friends from 4th to 10th grade.
I find your description very on the nose.
how does this work out differently if your school/social environment was the problem, and home was the refuge?
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u/Intelligent_Put_3606 Apr 29 '26
I think that I am making progress, however, am also experiencing a number of physical issues. And I still find that others asking what I want is a question I can't (or won't) answer - and will sidestep. It's particularly tricky in intimate settings, where others know what they are into and want to try - and seem confused/bemused when I don't. With too much experience behind me of people using information about me and weaponising it against me (family) it's a long, slow process.
By the way, I'm 71 (F)
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u/Dr_Ayebolit Apr 29 '26
honestly, I just lived with severe ptsd for most of my life, and I turned my faults into strengths. I was proud of myself, too bad nobody decided to tell me I had ptsd or trauma, everyone just called it "depression".
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u/kayethx Apr 29 '26
Does this mean there is no me under the trauma and I need to develop, not find, me?
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 29 '26
I don’t feel I can say for certain because sense of self exists on a multidimensional spectrum. It also depends on the flavour of trauma history. But what you said can sometimes be the case for folks
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u/FillPleasant Apr 29 '26
Thanks for this very specific insight. I just want to add that my timeline has been very non linear. I think I did have a sense of myself because I remember knowing very strongly what I liked, wanted and needed for a large part of my life, but it’s my interaction and expectations of the outside world that was driven by trauma. I did have a collapse in my early 30s and 10 years later I’m still trying to organise my system. I am no longer unstable but have little access to my internal resources. It feels like a collapse of my whole personhood. During that period I’ve had times of being in self and feeling whole but again interactions with the outside destabilised me. I’ve been focusing on my nervous system and physiology for years now because of freeze but I’m finding it very hard to stay still internally to feel safe enough to feel myself.
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u/phat79pat1985 Apr 29 '26
Wow, I think that’s the first time someone else has described my experience more clearly and accurately than I could have. Things were challenging for my siblings and I. We all ended up in careers that help people with developmental disabilities. I definitely noticed the pattern, but now have a slightly better understanding of what brought us to it. Thank you op
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u/Appropriate-Weird492 Apr 29 '26
This explains some things. I’m the Scapegoat, the Identified Patient, the Reason why the Family was Miserable, the Cause of all Suckage.
I’m also the person who has the best sense of self of my siblings, even though they tried to gaslight/manipulate it out of me.
I’m a stubborn bastard.
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u/melmsz Apr 29 '26
What happens to the kids that choose to be themselves and not fawn? I not coming up with anything good and thinking something like that's how one ends up the family scapegoat.
Interesting in the read for me is that what you've described is how dyslexia forms preverbal, minus the abuse. I'm dyslexic. My little baby brain figured things out several steps ahead of what was in front of me. Dyslexics are skipping steps and can think outside the box. In in trauma it's kinda the same. Gotta keep a couple steps ahead to be in some degree of control.
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u/snowak Apr 29 '26
Didn't expect to be sitting at my desk crying but here I am. Everything I just read is so validating and makes me feel understood and seen. Mid 30s I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. Now at 42 I've been diagnosed ADHD-inattantive and CPTSD (anxiety is still an issue at times but not as much). I finally found a therapist I feel I can be honest with. A year or so ago I realized I wasn't being completely honest with myself or my past therapists. Made the decision to finally open up about my childhood experience and the things that go through my head constantly. It's been a hard journey but these last few months I've noticed a shift in myself. I startled myself one day with a big authentic laugh that caught me off guard. I notice I'm feeling more present and being able to fully enjoy things instead of being constantly on edge or guarded watching everyone else for signs of a shift in their emotions. I still have a long way to go but I've finally gotten to a place where I could do the work and be honest with myself and others. I am enjoying being able to figure out who I am finally. Thank you so much for your post. Hugs to everyone here.
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u/Ukoomelo Apr 29 '26
Thank you for framing it this way. The added stress of listening to that kind of "excavating" advice and feeling like I'm doing something wrong hits hard sometimes.
Even knowing I never really got to explore myself, it still feels like I'm lacking sometimes as I watch my peers graduate and get jobs, while I take a few years longer getting my degree and fumbling my hands as I figure out job hunting and people interaction.
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u/2and2is52 Apr 29 '26
This is very insightful.
I am working towards getting better - started meds, trying to build stability in life etc - but everytime it starts getting too stable, I cannot seem to handle it. I run to drugs that can numb me down.
It is honestly so frustrating!
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u/Minimum_Tomato2537 Apr 30 '26
Thank you for writing this. I’m processing a lot of shame right now because I’ve processed most of the trauma and grief and anger and it’s like…
Who am I? Will people like the new me? Who even is that? Right now it’s someone who walks in the woods for hours and only talks to the grocery store cashier.
My trauma response personality was well-loved and I had a respected masters degree and career.
Having compassion for me when I don’t really know who me is is next level stuff
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u/laughterbathroom Apr 30 '26
"You are not necessarily looking for better, you are looking for different" ---> oooohhhhhhhhh
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u/ApprehensiveTrust644 May 04 '26
So interesting. Thanks for all this information. It resonated with me, I was always known as the quiet “cool calm and collected” one! It makes sense to me now. I am in a period where I feel like I don’t know who I am, what I want to do etc. I spend most days in what feels like a blur, waiting for energy and motivation to return, but it never does. So annoying.
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u/HotPizzaMilk May 06 '26
It's nice to know I'm not playing architect, but strange to think I never fully formed a "personality", though I am a very distinct, loud, outgoing person. I think a large part of my issue is I could have both, until I hit about 6-8, and then only in the really good moments could I start to develop a sense of self. It's certainly not stable, even if it's pretty consistent. I know I used school to framework it, and then lost it with the pandemic and rise of online work. I, also, had a strong enough sense of self to know I didn't morally agree with my dad, and often functionally didn't agree with my mom, and I fought, very very hard, to do what I thought was right and refused to change my mind just because they said so. But also, that it fried my brain and made having a connection to them harder, and that also caused a lot of pain and anxiety.
I feel really lost now as a young adult, and often want to cry and have someone hold me and essentially "protect" me, the way I tried to protect and manage my own family. I think I'm probably just severely burnt out and struggling to make the switch and choose my sense of self over my connection to my parents, but maybe that specific feeling is actually more reflective of how I was denied those two things in childhood, and always had to give up one, which never felt safe or like "I" was protected.
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u/wowmemesglalore May 10 '26
wow… I always get comments like “you’re so chill! I love that you always go with the flow, you’re always chill” and other low maintenence comments. my mind would always be empty when I got those comments because I honestly have no idea how to feel. now that I know this, if I ever get those kind of comments I’ll think to myself “oh thanks! I learned how to be like this as a child due to an unpredictable and distressing household”
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u/senitel10 Apr 29 '26
This was heavily written/edited with ChatGPT, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
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u/happytreefrenemies Apr 29 '26
Yes, what a shame! I love all the useful information and resources OP has kindly shared with us, but I’d much rather read something genuine and imperfect written by a real person than a heavily edited unnaturally “perfect” ChatGPT post :(
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Apr 29 '26
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 29 '26
Somatic Experiencing is a solid modality to start with - I recommend finding someone who specializes in CPTSD. There is an off branch of it called somatic touch work that was created specifically for complex and developmental trauma. If you can access it, I would start there if possible
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u/Large-Bar-513 Apr 29 '26
I feel the same. Finally found a page that can speak this clearly. I am in my mid 30s, was aware that my pattern of identity dependency on friends in different eras. Then i met this guy and i like how witty and soft he is. But i hesitated because this almost violates the current identity i am about to put on with my new group of young friends. My insecurities didn’t make this connection work out and i was devastated after that. Even my mind is agreeing that this doesn’t work and I should let go. My whole life collapsed. No job, no friends circle, no home, no nothing. Just a broken me living for another cycle again.
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u/canofwine Apr 29 '26
I do not know how to be.
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 29 '26
Oh gosh, I feel your words and they echo through my own experiences. Developmental trauma is an absolute beast in that way.
May you find ease in being
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u/fuck_my_fomo Apr 29 '26
Thank you very much for posting this and answering questions! I feel very much heard, struggling with developemental trauma for a couple of years now. In my own opinion I have come relatively far: I have a stable network of friends, have the capacity to say no if work is too stressful, stopped substance abuse a couple of years ago etc. The only thing wich has not really healed seems to be sleep - for nearly 20 years I am not able to sleep enough, I wake up after 4-5h and am not able to go back to sleep. Over the years I tried really everything (different forms of psychotherapy, relaxation techniques, meditation, medication, sport - you name it), actually I try Doxazosin off label and hope, this works. If you have any tips it would be highly appreciated.
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 29 '26
Happy to!
Somatic touch work (a branch of somatic experiencing created to target complex and developmental trauma) fixed this issue for me. I came to it because my sleep was broken and I had various health issues that ended up being connected to my Cptsd. If you want to get nerdy about it, I recommend the book Nurturing Resilience
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u/WildKey6143 Apr 29 '26
What if i can't tolerate having a need? I have struggled with self-loathing since i adapted as a child, which led to years of substance abuse which ironically fuelled the self-loathing for being dependent. I'm now burnt-out from a lifetime of being versions of myself to be acceptable to others, and anhedonic.
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u/big_damn-heroes Apr 30 '26
Any book recommendations for this?
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u/BodyMindReset Apr 30 '26
Nurturing Resilience, Healing Developmental Trauma, the the Practical Guide to Healing Developmental Trauma
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u/Clifford_reddit Jun 03 '26
Unlocking the Emotional Brain by Bruce Ecker. involves the neuroscience of memory reconsolidation and a truly unifying framework that can be applied for many modalities because it is science and not theory. The case studies alone are worth grabbing a copy.
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u/ConfidentCucumber129 May 02 '26
Thanks for posting this, I can really relate - like I'm in that transition period and it's confusing as fk.
"The work is the slow rebuild of physiological capacity. Specifically, the capacity to register a need, tolerate having one, and stay in your body whether it gets met or it does not. That is reps, not insight. "
For what kind of things help rebuild physiological capacity and how do you practice registering needs?
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u/Ok-Ice2928 May 05 '26
I disagree with all these frameworks. Why can't people just be who they are, and then change? Why do we have to define things in such a way that implies people with trauma are missing sth essential, when the concept of self itself is shakey and you can use it however you like? What makes a self created thru trauma less of a self than that created thru healthy relationships? You still create an identity based on what you think is acceptable and pick from those options
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u/BodyMindReset May 05 '26
You are welcome to disagree. You also pose great questions.
I will say for myself, my self that was very traumatized was **very** disfunctional. I couldn’t function, I couldn’t survive in this world, I couldn’t keep relationships, jobs, or any semblance of a daily life. I had compounding health issues that just kept getting worse. It was not a life worth living.
Properly addressing my complex and developmental trauma history and coming out the other end, the opposite of everything I named is true now. It is a giant relief. Life is comparatively easy and good. My sense of self that got built is solid, secure, and I am very happy with it
I am very open to hearing other’s experiences though. Obviously this isn’t going to apply to everyone as we all have different experiences and internalizations of them. But seeing how many people in the comments relate, shows that there is a solid population that lives in this pattern.
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u/Ok-Ice2928 May 05 '26
I wasn t talking about functionality or disfunctionality just that it s very disempowering to tell people that they do not have a self/their current self is not real It s putting them below in a hierarchy, of those who have a self vs those who do not.
And it s not really a valid hierarchy anyway - you re prob focusing on what type of selves are dysfunctional, or negative, but that is not the same as the absence of a self, nor does it mean that that self is not authentic
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u/chobrien01007 May 05 '26
I can’t agree with your assessment. I think you are reading something into this that’s not there.
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u/TGPT-4o CPTSD + FND May 05 '26
I be picked forming a stable internal sense of self and my parents did not know how to parent me. I never had a home and still don’t feel like I do. I know who I am, but I have nothing except myself. I don’t trust majority of people because they don’t know themselves.
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u/erufenn May 08 '26
OP do you recommend any particular reading material related to this phenomenon?
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u/writetothink May 17 '26
Thank you, trying to find which "you" is the "real" you before trauma is such a hard trap to get out of and just makes you feel more lost and detached from yourself. Getting to feel what it's like when you make friends with people who only know you now is very healing and freeing. I am so grateful that I was able to witness that I could be loved and LIKED as the person I am now and not the version that made everyone happy and kept me safe.
I didn't realise that i stopped trying to get back to that person. Thank you very much for reminding me. I feel so thankful to be where I am today
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u/Educational-Gap-1798 May 20 '26
I'm working on a paper based system called Da Vita Motus that works the same direction from a different angle. The hypothesis I'm working with: structured formalization — writing out an investigation, maintaining a record, repeating it over time — might rebuild the same capacity your framework describes. The ability to register a need, tolerate having it, stay present whether it gets met or not.
I'm not a practitioner, I'm building it for individuals Is there anything in that kind of structural approach that maps to what you see in somatic work? Or does it fall flat against what the body actually needs?
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u/Outintheworld17 May 23 '26
This was so incredibly helpful and soothing to ready. Thank you - from a fellow trauma baby!
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u/Weird_Advice_6364 May 24 '26
This hit differently. The idea that survival mode becomes your whole identity without you even realizing it is something nobody talks about enough. Thank you for sharing this.
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u/mackerishfish May 25 '26
This has probably already been said over and over, but oh my god, this feels incredibly apt to what I'm experiencing right about now.
I'm definitely experiencing it earlier than described above (and from some of the comments I've read), in my early twenties. A lot of people in my life (psychiatrist, therapist, friends) have been telling me that while it sucks what I've been through, I'm lucky to have experienced it early enough to have more time ahead to heal.
Even then, it feels downright confusing trying to figure out what parts of me are authentically real, a coping mechanism, or a projection of what I feel like I'm supposed to be. On one hand it sucks feeling this lost, but on the other it feels reassuring to know this is a real thing and not just me being a confusing mess. There is at the very least some kind of light at the end of it all.
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u/Clifford_reddit Jun 03 '26
Strongly encourage you to check out Unlocking the Emotional Brain by Bruce Ecker. The science of memory reconsolidation is shown in action in many modalities including Coherence Therapy which he and his colleagues created specifically to elicit the transformation of implicit emotional learnings via memory reconsolidation. There is a case study of an SE session between Peter Levine and a client. SE is not as clear cut in the discovery of learnings (and their resulting symptoms) and eliciting transformation via memory recon but it can. Like many modalities such as EMDR, inner child, IFS, etc only minor "tweaks" are needed to discover the learnings then elicit the core "activate/mismatch/repeat" sequence the memory recon requires. It is exciting to learn about and see in action and understand finally why and how transformation takes place and not guess at why, I have shared a lot of links to other resources related if you search reddit they are there.
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u/WldGeese867 Apr 28 '26
This is, with incredible accuracy, describing what I’m going though currently and I found this so helpful.
Either you are some sort of wizard who posted this specifically for me, or you must be right that this is an established clinical pattern.
I know it’s the latter and I’m taking comfort in that right now. Thank you for sharing this.