u/2morrowwillbebetter

TLDR; how do you calm your nervous system down when your anxiety is in flight, screaming “danger, danger!” When there is no threat— when your body has been told “love is dangerous”. How do you ask your partner to healthily support you in this? How do you learn to communicate your wants and needs (healthily, again!) when you’re triggered / have a cPTSD episode?

* also I’m non binary ! (he/they) *

I feel emotional even sitting with all these feelings, there’s gratitude, there’s grief, there’s anger, there’s relief, but ultimately there’s love. I’ve never been given romantic love that’s been this healthy before. We both have trauma (we are also both Audhd) that is similar and different and my partner has dxed bpd so sometimes it can be rocky to navigate — neither one of us have dated someone with cPTSD/bpd (respectively) before so despite that we have chosen love. I’m grateful to have what I’ve been asking for for the longest— someone to love who actually wants to make it work. I finally find that and it’s terrifying.
I’ve been in therapy for roughly 4/5 years consistently and recover is well, but every time I get involved w romance I get triggered more easily and my symptoms get inflamed. Therapy helps but I forget a lot of my coping skills when I’m triggered and unfortunately I feel bad in that I get triggered a lot internally or externally by things that feel small.

We sometimes trigger each other, for example I am very sensitive to people “teasing” me and I can handle is sometimes but other times I can’t tell if my partner is teasing or making fun of/bullying me. My brain registers it all the same and I feel really sensitive when she’s just teasing me about something and I know logically she isn’t bullying me or the like, but I have severe trauma from being bullied both at home, online, and at schools. I experienced trauma both in my upbringing that’s mostly emotional, so it feels like I have invisible papercuts and ulcers inside of me from how painful the trauma is in my gut. I’m healing, some days ofc are wonderful but since entering my relationship my anxiety has gone up. My partner is kind to heart imho and she’s just as imperfect as I am, so ofc we have had our mistakes. She’s also in therapy and we have been talking about going to counseling together. A lot of times we get triggered cus we misunderstand each other and those trigger us, but it’s gotten easier and we learn to ask and not assume. I work on my emotional flooding and urgency both in therapy and here. My therapist has met my partner (zoom) and recognizes the real work and love here. Ultimately it’s worth being here and making things work and to her as well, we’ve been dating a year. Anyway.
Things have started to feel.. healthier. Less misunderstands and if we have them, it doesn’t lead to a fight lately, even if we feel bad we try to agree to at least tell each other “I love you”. I feel less scared in some areas— I allow myself to push past my fears esp after talking to my therapist about them. I continue to. I feel like a little kid sometimes, my inner child screams no matter what’s happening, tbh. I’m also healing from anxious attachment ofc so I have to be careful in not falling into codependency tendencies which I healed a lot from while I was single. I fall into people pleasing sometimes, faltering boundaries.

I know progress not perfection, logically — I’ve made great progress, but I struggle w falling into perfection without meaning to. I recognize I’ve done a really good job recently of not looking to my partner for perfection. (It’s not intentional! I realized control is a trauma response for me and my dad used to do it w me.)
I just don’t wanna ruin this one — this is a real good one. I mess up sometimes too but my partner has been so patient w me as I have been w her.

Thank u if u read even part of this. 🧡💖

Just want to start by saying I want to avoid getting a phone from Apple if I can help it, prefer refurbished or the like, so I’m still looking. Likely backmarket. Be nice about it, or don’t, but I will ignore and block rude people.

My phone currently is physically (damaged) and internally deteriorating, still functional but the battery is the worst part. I’m thinking to get the 17 because I really like the blue and lilac color, but the pro has a better camera, and it’s a bit cheaper I’m not sure how vastly different as I don’t understand the spec notes and all. But I mostly use my phone for filming / photos and everyday use.
I’m not in the mood to deal with a damaged phone to wait several months for the new iPhone which is gonna be out my budget anyway so please don’t suggest the 18.

TYIA!

I struggle a lot with rejection sensitivity particularly over text at a high intensity, the Audhd + cPTSD makes it difficult. My partner (also Audhd - any pronouns) is lovely, we aren’t perfect ppl, but my brain sometimes has shutdowns due to perceived rejection. Online is a bit easier, but I have it the most w my partner — she can tease at times and it’s not even that major but I will perceive that I’m being bullied, and she will clarify she isn’t. Once I’m out of my own head I realize this too… I just don’t rly have the skills to manage when I feel RS coming up, and many ppl don’t understand it enough, and some just say “medication”. I’m not sure. I just need skills to calm my brain down.

Today I felt rejection sensitivity cuz all my coworkers (even tho I don’t rly like most of them because I find them to be mean and catty.) ignored me after I was gone for over a month. I know it’s not on me or anything but it still hurts to be ignored. Currently I “don’t care” but deep to my core there’s the little child in me who is hurt when I feel ignored, intentionally, perceived or not. I hold space for both but what else do I do other than “get over it” lol.

title.

but for some context, there is a family friend (older woman) who is a psychic who I have been getting guidance from when I have the funds. sometimes she does offer discounts, or just overall assistance as they can be pretty expensive. There was once that I did ask directly, and she assumed I was asking her for a free session, and told me that her previous assistant asked me years ago for a Google review and I never did it. I’m really bad with reviews so I didn’t realize she’d take it to heart, and hold it for that long. I apologized and told her it wasn’t my intention, as well that I hadn’t realized that it was a direct person asking and I thought it was an auto response. I even tried to have a phon call to clear up any confusion but there was no working on her end to mine, so I felt misunderstood. She essentially told me, “well that’s how you feel and I’m not going to tell you otherwise.” It felt weird, and dismissive but I moved on.

FF to some time later, the was guided to offer me a discount for sessions to help with my healing, however I didn’t take it for some time because I had a lot going on personally - when I came months later she told me the offer “expired” but I was never told a timeframe and told her this respectfully. I could tell she felt some type of way by her responses, but she (almost reluctantly?) accepted and offered at a bit of an increase but still a discount. I didn’t respond for a day or two, because at the end of the message she said, “from now on im no longer offer discounts to anyone anymore.” I wasn’t sure what was going on and I didn’t understand the need to include this in the message, I took time to respond while I was dealing with some personal issues still. She gave it barely 2 days and told me that since I didn’t respond I don’t want it, and I was confused again. I was trying to take the time to respond holistically and I tried again to tell her I just needed some time and that I’m not sure what was going on. I decided not to respond because it came across as passive aggressive / hostile. I felt really uncomfortable.

This is what bothers me the most presently: she sent me an email last night to tell me that, sometimes she gets guidance to give to others but gives it to people who she feels will be grateful for it, so she chose not to give it to me. But then said, I keep being guided to tell you, so I am sending it to you now— do what you will with this information.
I have tried to be direct and communicate and offer for us to talk cuz I don’t understand what happened for us to get here, I’ve tried to make amends because clearly she’s upset by something I did to unintentionally upset her, but won’t directly communicate. I get she’s a psychic and whatnot but it feels like a bit of a power trip on her own feelings and projecting them onto me…..? The more I receive messages like this the more uncomfortable I feel. It feels hypocritical to me to tell me; “Give from a place of giving from your heart because you enjoy giving, not from a place of getting something back in return” but then sends me messages like this..? I’m frankly confused and unsure how to even proceed. I’m grateful for the guidance but I can’t get past the passive aggressive comment at all.