u/ImportantThing3749

I did not “survive.” I existed.

I was not noble, brave, or tough. It fucking broke me. I have never been the same since being in the TTI. It took hobbies, friends, and everything I knew about myself, and ruined it.

I suffered through an environment that I had no choice but to remain in. My life was not threatened. I was never in mortal danger.

So, yes, to anyone who calls me a survivor, I would say, “no shit.” Because I’m standing right fucking here. Alive. Heart beating. Breathing. Traumatized. Time moves forward. What choice did I have?

I was not stoic. I was weak. I was preyed upon. Victimized. Mocked and gaslit for being victimized before I even ended up in the TTI. Told it was nothing. To grow a thicker skin. That I should stop victimizing myself. Called manipulative when I asked how I was doing so.

I am not, and will never be, a survivor. I lived. I am alive. That does not mean I am okay.

I am a victim. That label empowers me. It is the correct legal, therapeutic, and institutional terminology to describe my experiences.

Idk, I just don’t have anyone to talk to who went to my program, and all I hear about now is all the other programs getting closed, survivors lawsuits and I’m just bitter. I want to band together with people but nobody I know from the time wants to talk to me. I’m broken. I feel so lost and angry. I’d never participate in a lawsuit because I couldn’t handle proving myself in an actual court, but just knowing that someone (a lawyer) would go over everything I went through, help me build a case, I just wish it would happen. I can’t admit it was “bad” still. I still need outside validation that it was bad. I’m just jealous of everyone who’s fighting the fight and I and my program kinda just disappear into the background
Sorry it’s rambly I’m having a hard time being coherent I’m upset and i don’t know what to do. Keep having nightmares still :(

I’ve had “exercise induced asthma” diagnosed since about middle school although I had symptoms going back even further. I believe I have vocal cord dysfunction as well but not sure. I have levalbuterol rescue but nothing else. I didn’t need anything else until last summer when my allergies got way worse and so did my breathing. It was still quite mild though. I got prescribed QVar and then no guidance on it then told “you took it for more than two weeks?!” The next time I was at the doctor. Didn’t seem to do much for me.

This summer, I’ve noticed I’ve been kind of out of breath and writing it off as weight gain because I’ve gained a decent amount of weight. Some nights I’ll wake up, take a deep breath, and get this weird expanding stretching sensation in my lungs and a dry cough. Last night I woke up and had a tight chest feeling, couldn’t take a full deep breath, exhaling I had wheeze at the very end if I forcefully did it. I had a cough that didn’t really go away until I took my inhaler and it really helped.

I keep thinking I’m probably just gaslighting myself into this since the symptoms are still pretty ignorable and could be explained by other stuff. During the day I’m almost always fine although I get the tight chest and throat feeling sometimes at rest. I’ve never been seen by a pulmonologist although the one time I saw an allergist (for unrelated things), they did the blow into the cardboard tube test, I didn’t do so great on that and they really anxiously offered me an inhaler but I refused it since I have bad side effects from albuterol (I probably should have taken it, but I was really caught off guard when they asked me to take medication out of the blue while I felt fine and I wasn’t there for my breathing and wasn’t really thinking). They asked if I saw a specialist and were surprised when I said no.

Am I being mismanaged? When should I be taking my inhaler? My symptoms will go away if I wait long enough usually and I’m not sure if coughing or tightness is a reason to take my rescue. Is this worth bringing up to my PCP again?

I’d been doing okay. Well, “okay” in that I was in a restriction phase rather than a binge phase. I felt amazing. Lost enough weight to get back to the normal range. Switched to maintaining my weight and stopped really thinking too hard about stuff. And then I moved back in with my parents, and it’s all falling to shit. I’ll eat normally in the first major part of the day, and then binge 2000+ calories at night. I don’t even feel sick anymore from it. I’ve gained like 8lbs in the past 3 weeks and I feel horrible. I want to stop. But when it comes to the binge it’s like I just don’t care in the moment? Pizza, brownies, cake, whatever it is, if it’s unhealthy, I will want it. I’m mad as fuck. Really mad. It’s like a switch flipped. I’m snowballing down gaining momentum and it’s harder and harder to stop.

My parents were very strict about food when I was younger and at uni I have access to junk food and I don’t feel stressed to eat it but at home I do, I want to eat it, so I don’t miss out on it, so someone else can’t eat it first, because it’s so rare in the household, etc. I’d buy my own food but I see food as kind of wasteful to spend money on if I don’t have to, if that makes any sense? Once i eat it, it’s gone. My money is basically turned into a 30 second experience.

Last summer was similar. I gained about 20lbs and hated myself. I desperately don’t want to repeat that. Nobody will give me GLPs because I’m not significantly overweight. I do have insulin resistance though (probably because of how much sugar I eat daily). I don’t know what to do. I’ve tried therapy. I tried DBT. I’ve tried intuitive eating. I even will buy stuff I like but I can’t not put food on a pedestal and it will never not be super enticing to me, a special limited edition item I have to eat or hoard NAOW or the world will end!!!!1!

I can’t fuck up my progress. I worked so damn hard and I’m undoing it and I feel like I can’t stop. HELP

So I got hired recently. I completed the online training and am scheduled for my first few shifts. My problem is I still don’t know what to do. Like I actually don’t know what to do at all.

I can clock in, I was taught how to do that, but I’m not sure where to report to or what to do after I clock in. Like do I go to my department or what? I’d really rather not have to go to the service desk and have them page the manager again because I don’t want to be a bother but I don’t see another way to figure it out.

I was given a shirt but not really any info about the dress code. I don’t want to show up and immediately be sent home I think I would die of embarrassment. I know because of one of the documents I read in training not to show up in sweatpants and to cover tattoos etc but I can’t remember if there are other restrictions.

I also haven’t been trained for my role at all, I missed online training modules for my own job because of some reasons out of my control. I was told not to worry about it. Obviously I still am worrying. I completed the other online training stuff though. I’m not sure if my first real shift coming up will be my actual training but I sure hope so because I’m so lost.

I’m autistic and I have pretty bad social anxiety and I don’t do well not knowing what to expect. I generally need pretty specific instructions or I am unable to complete tasks. The end of my last shift was kind of abrupt for a few reasons and I was flustered and I didn’t ask these questions because they didn’t occur to me until I’d already left. Even more embarrassingly I don’t have the manager’s email and I completely forgot it, we communicated via phone call so I have their number, but calling them over this seems silly.

Can anyone help me know what to expect? I’m actually so stressed about this like it’s bringing me to tears. I don’t know if this is my fault or what but I feel really unprepared for all this.

I have autism and social anxiety. It wasn’t this bad a few years ago. I guess not interacting frequently in person for a while (in college, tend to stay by myself besides classes) has atrophied my skills.

It’s to the point where making a phone call to follow up on job applications, leaving to get a haircut, even leaving my dorm/campus feels impossible. I can’t. I want to cry just thinking about ending up in a new situation. I’m terrified of making a fool of myself. I don’t have a “social script” or know what to do or expect for any of this. I can’t bring myself to call. I just pace and pull on my hair and cry. Doing anything “adult” feels just so impossible and scary. I’m in my twenties so admitting that I am so nonfunctional and “weak” is embarrassing as fuck. I should be better by now but I’m not?

I can function when I know people and I know the environment like my classes and campus and professors but when it’s unknown I just can’t.

I don’t think at this point in this state I’d be able to function. I can’t even go out for a haircut or or go to a restaurant or pick up my prescriptions or do literally anything not inside my home that I want to do because it’s just too much. I worry I’m going to become a shut-in that won’t ever go anywhere in life. It’s fucking crippling. I don’t have panic attacks but I shut down and can’t speak when I get really overwhelmed and I did that in a job interview and they ended it 6 minutes in and told me to leave. I know it will happen again. I can’t handle embarrassing myself like that again it’s just too much.

Doing anything I’ve never done before is just impossible. I don’t know how people do this. Every time I think about things I can’t do it gets worse and worse because there’s so much I’ll have to do on my own and I just can’t handle it.

I’m trying to just hold it together but the more responsibilities I get the worse my anxiety gets. I don’t know how I let it get this bad, two years ago I could have done this shit but now I can’t even think about leaving my “safety.”

Has anyone recovered from this? How?