u/AnchoredInMy40s

I’m wondering if you guys can relate or help me untangle this idea.

So, first of all, I’m in my 40’s and I got my CPTSD diagnosis within the last few years. Since childhood, the diagnoses previously were typically anxiety, depression, or both. I’ve never (even now; I just fired yet another) found a therapist who understood and/or treated the complexity of my trauma. However, I do think I qualify as being in recovery. I've been at this a long time, just not always under the proper labels.

Anyway - that’s just a little background. The question revolves more around content, tools, books, activities, and support. Because I didn’t have an accurate diagnosis, for literally decades I consumed content including generic mainstream self-help, inspirational, motivational, or spiritual content, thinking it applied to me. Or even content designed for ONE aspect of my trauma - Adult Children of Alcoholics, for example, or content designed for people with anxiety or depression.

After my diagnosis, I had a lightbulb moment where I realized a lot of that content isn’t designed for me. Mainstream lighthearted/superficial content is designed for normies, not trauma survivors, or maybe trauma survivors but not folks who are quite as deeply messed up as I am. That’s not a criticism - but it did veer into criticism for me where I started writing off everything falling under generic motivational or inspirational content as toxic positivity or spiritual bypassing or dismissive and even harmful when consumed by trauma survivors. I think that *can* be true - but that I started taking it to an extreme.

Sorry I’m getting lengthy here - I’m trying to see this clearly even as I type and ask this question.

I am in a very difficult season. I recently had a surgery. My husband was in the ER less than a week later and is now going through a major medical crisis. My youngest kiddo has his own clinical anxiety diagnosis... the point is: I got trapped in the house for a couple of weeks and things started to get really dark. Just spiraling into despair.

Yesterday for some reason, I decided to pull out some of my old creative stuff. Just papercraft stuff that I love but haven’t touched in years because it didn’t feel important enough to prioritize over health, parenting, healing, etc. A lot of journals and planners and stickers and things are full of generic platitudes like ‘make yourself proud’ or ‘it’s never too late for a fresh start’ or ‘live in the present’ or ‘have an attitude of gratitude’ or ‘you deserve it.’ You get what I mean.

I guess I’m trying to untangle the difference between seeing something like that and having a big defensive negative reaction like this is bypassing gobeldygook and could never apply to or inspire me OR gaslighting myself into thinking I can just think positive and my trauma will disappear OR maybe there is a third option. Maybe I can start to be okay with consuming and even being inspired by generic mainstream positivity in a healthy, balanced way. Not thinking I can just disappear my trauma with silly affirmations, but also not writing off everything inspirational because it’s ‘designed for normies.’ Maybe I am allowed to enjoy motivational content too. Does that make sense?

I think the nuance is the difference between shaming myself because I can’t self-help my way to healing the way someone without trauma can vs. allowing myself to like and enjoy pretty things without making them some kind of explicit instruction on how to live my life and heal. Can anyone relate to this or understand what I am saying? Like it feels a little liberating to just be like - I can like this 'happy' notebook even if it doesn't necessarily take into account my entire life experience. Thoughts?

Man it has been such a rollercoaster couple of weeks. I am feeling so, so alone. I genuinely have nobody in this world outside of my children, who are not a support system, but instead require support from me. One of them is a clinically anxious toddler who requires immense amounts of emotional energy from me. He is literally constantly dysregulated. One of them is a moody 13 year old who is a great kid but who I have no ability to predict from one minute to the next. And none of them are my Q who is the worst of all. And then outside of my house... nobody. A mom lost to cirrhosis over 10 years ago. Dad's dead too for even longer. No siblings. No extended family who cares or lives in the same state as me, not even an in-law. Nobody.

I had a pretty major dental surgery 10 days ago. They totally misled me about how miserable the recovery would be. Said I would be back to work in 3 days, that 90% of patients don't touch their pain meds, didn't tell me I would have a mouth full of black pokey stitches for 2 weeks or that the temporary teeth replaced would be extremely painful to the point I can't even wear them. I'm walking around like a freak show. And then the teenager got sick. And then I got sick. I'm sure the toddler will be next.

But again, the worst of all, the man who should be my supportive partner in all of this, he chose this week to blow up his life. And I want it to be a good thing - but even the hope is painful.

He is autoimmune so he goes to a dermatologist for his drugs, but he hasn't been to a primary care in years and years. Last time he saw a doctor was when he caught norovirus in a public pool several years ago. Well, the derm ran some blood work and called him in a panic about his numbers - cholesterol, blood sugars, etc. He didn't tell me, of course, but he did actually schedule a doctor's appointment.

Well he gets there, less than a week post-op for me, while I am home sick with sick and anxious kids, and they send him straight to the ER because his blood pressure was 290/150. I didn't even know those numbers were possible. They told him he would have had stroke if he hadn't come in, but then all they did was give him some pills and he was literally home 3 hours later. I've NEVER in my life had such a short trip to the ER.

Of course the whole time he's there, he's texting me he's sorry, he's crying, my adrenaline is through the roof, I go into hospital mode. As a child of alcoholics who I cared for up until their death's in my 20's, I am a pro at this. I get hopeful like WOW he's finally getting the wakeup call I've been praying for. And then it all comes crashing down in 3 hours. He keeps repeating that he feels fine. No repercussions. He felt fine before. He felt fine after. They let him just drive home with some blood pressure pills. He went to work the next day. I'm not sure if he's drank since, and I'm not going to monitor him. He goes back to the primary care tomorrow so we'll see. My hope is gone.

He wants all this cheap grace now. Like gold stars for every tiny thing he is doing. He has no idea how to be helpful. It's like he is living on another planet. When I talk about my misery and suffering from the surgery, the illness, the intensive parenting, he just laughs. And the cognitive decline is starting. I hated this with my mom. The repeating of things and forgetting things is one thing - but this man is a literal genius who is now incapable of basic reasoning and tasks. He asks me questions as if I am the internet. Like he cannot figure anything out himself.

I skipped therapy last week because of the pain in my mouth and learning to speak post-extractions etc so I've been turning to AI and I hate AI. It's not even helpful but I have nowhere else. So now I'm here. This isn't going to solve anything either. I'm just despairing. I want to run away but I can't because of the kids. I want to collapse but I can't because of the kids. I feel immensely and intensely protective of my children and guilty I even let them live in a house with active alcoholism for so long without seeing it clearly.

So I don't know. I guess I'm just venting. He just sucks all the life and energy out of the house. I hope to God he goes to work tomorrow despite having that doctor's appointment and I hope that doctor sends him to rehab or puts him on GLP1 or Naltrexone or something. But that probably won't happen because why would it? Why would anything go right at this point?

How do folks go about kicking out their partners? I don't even know that he would do that. I feel like I would have to leave and then I'd have to take the kids and then we wouldn't have our stuff and it would be so hard. And I'm scared. He's never been abusive but I am scared if I back him into a corner he'll mess with the bank accounts or something. I mean, that's probably just paranoia but how do I know? And he's not violent at all but if he did kill me - NOBODY WOULD KNOW.

We just moved states a little over a year ago into the most beautiful home we've ever had. I thought we were going to have a fresh start. But I don't even care about this house anymore. I would live in a tiny shack just to be out of this environment. I have no income because we homeschool the younger grades and I've stayed at home since I was taking care of my parents and our oldest over a decade ago.

I want to think his mom would be supportive but when his sister went through a divorce a few years ago, MIL completely abandoned her partner even though they had been super close prior and the divorce was because of SIL's affair, not anything her wife had done wrong (although she was also an addict/alcoholic and has since fallen completely into addiction).

I just don't know. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to survive this. I feel like I must have the most amazing resilience. I have CPTSD. I have survived so much trauma. But when does it end? When do I get to have MY life that isn't about taking care of someone who has fucked theirs up or just surviving each day because my entire system is overwhelmed with grief and anxiety and depression and everything else? When does it end? How? How do I make it stop?

Ugh. That was long. If you read it, I genuinely love you. Thank you so much for seeing invisible little me over here.