u/InimitablyImperfect

I think I have a fair amount of medical trauma that was unknown til recently. I was born with a congenital defect that was undiagnosed til I was 4 and my mom thinks I had a lot of pain from it although no one knew at the time. I had an extended hospitalization for it at age 4 with tons of surgeries, tests, feeding tubes, PICC lines etc. I’ve always just thought of it as part of my story and didn’t realize it affected me until I started IFS therapy and met a part that had tons of fear related to it.

I’ve had lots of illness, surgeries, blood draws, and shots over my lifetime and never had any issues. However, I started TRE a month or so ago and had a dentist appointment recently where I thought I was about to have a panic attack. Nothing like that has ever happened before. I even had a Mohs procedure one time without enough lidocaine and sat stock still the entire time without flinching so this sense of panic is entirely new.

Is it normal for TRE to allow suppressed fears to surface? If so how do you integrate it so these panic episodes don’t happen??

This is a repost of something I saw elsewhere and not my original content, but I’m posting here in case it needs to be seen by someone who is struggling to put the pieces together. Part of my difficulty with deconstruction is knowing I was harmed by religion, but not knowing exactly *how*. It’s hard to identify and fix your behaviors when you don’t know the root cause. Anyway, the below about the impact of purity culture really struck me and I see how this has played out in my own life. I’m able to see the grey areas in things now, but when you’re young and that kind of thinking is unsafe you crave rules and structure.

“Purity culture was out there recruiting in the 90s and 00s, and guess who craved certainty more than anything? My undiagnosed neurodivergent sisters. Undiagnosed neurodivergent girls were rule followers, pattern seekers, deeply empathetic, highly responsible, praised for being “mature”, masked early and efficiently to stay safe. Rules felt grounding and predictable. What did purity culture actually teach (besides keep it in your pants)?

Obedience = worth
Desire=dangerous
Spiritual authority over intuition
Control framed as care
Fear dressed up in a love costume
Your questions and doubts were unsafe

It wasn’t “just” neurodivergence. It wasn’t “just” purity culture. It was the perfect storm for high masking girls. Instead of learning about consent, boundaries and desire we were taught that rules minimized danger. Control was presented as the antidote to desire. Masking was seen as spiritual maturity. People pleasing was called a “servant’s heart”. The freeze state of the nervous system was considered gentleness. What was actually nervous system collapse was seen as godliness. Black and white thinking was exploited. Neurodivergent brains crave clarity. Purity culture offered it:

Pure/impure
Worthy/ damaged
Chewed up bubblegum/ unwrapped piece of gum (iykyk)

When it comes to long term effects:

We were never allowed to practice desire. Purity culture removed awkward firsts: flirting, trial and error, learning consent in real time. For many of us it felt like relief. No risk. No guessing. No rejection. But relief is not the same as development. So many of us never got to learn now to notice desire safely. How to say yes or no in our bodies. How to explore attraction without shame. How to recover from rejection instead of freezing. You can’t practice what’s forbidden and you pay for that lack of development for a lifetime. In our most vulnerable and formative years, we were taught to control, deny and manage our bodies. We pressed mute. We left our bodies before we ever got to inhabit them. None of this stayed in youth group. It shows up now as delayed anger, chronic self doubt, difficulty accessing desire, and staying too long in unsafe situations. Which all makes sense- you’ve adapted to feel safe. The combo of undiagnosed neurodivergent girls and purity culture harmed an entire generation of women and we are still unmuting our bodies and learning safety outside of control”.

I was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD recently, but recently realized I might have OCD. OCD never came up in my eval, but all of my symptoms are internal (scrupulosity and rumination). Is it likely I was misdiagnosed and have OCD instead? Or can they occur together? Just trying to figure out my next move because it’s hard to find people with my insurance to diagnose ADHD and prescribe meds. Should I stick with the ADHD diagnosis for now and go to a psychiatrist to discuss OCD? Or am I better off going back to the person who did the ADHD eval even though they missed the OCD symptoms?

It’s also tricky because I started Wellbutrin for ADHD and while my mood has improved the rumination has not and I’m not sure if I should bring that up with the ADHD doctor or go elsewhere.

I’m new to mental health care because I was able to perform functionality for so long and I’m finding it all hard to navigate 😅

I recently learned about moral and religious OCD and think I might have it. My question is, how do you determine what your morals/ values are and when to stay true to them versus what is compulsion from an unhealthy place?

I’m not currently religious, but used to pray compulsively about any perceived error I made. I think that’s partially why I left religion- it was too exhausting. The moral OCD remained though. I’m far from perfect and have made plenty of decisions that conflict with my moral code, and I think I learned to cope with this disconnect by compartmentalizing or rationalizing. Below are some examples of my thought processes. My question is, these things aren’t inherently bad, but they control my life. How do I know what is real and what to honor and if any of these are coming from an actual place of morality vs a need to be “good”?

-if I eat meat, I need to eat all of it and not waste it. The thought being an animal was potentially mistreated and died for me to have this meat, eating it all feels like a weird way I need to deal with that guilt
-guilt and punishing myself for buying anything where I don’t know the origin. The thought process is was it made in a sweatshop, were they paid for their labor, etc. I feel the need to balance any of these purchases out with doing something nice or donating to a charity or something
-not letting myself enjoy any financial comfort without guilt. Like it’s not fair for me to have things when so many go without and needing to compensate
-punishing myself for any positive self-image because I don’t want to be vain. I won’t let myself see me as attractive because that would be vain so I outsource that need to my husband. Criticizing myself for putting any effort into my appearance because that effort could be spent doing something more useful
-constant scrutiny of my reasons for doing something i.e. am I doing this because it’s the right thing to do or do I have an ulterior motive and analyzing it to death
-worried any thought that isn’t completely kind hearted and selfless means I am a terrible person

This is a pretty niche post, but maybe someone will relate. On my healing journey, I’ve noticed that lots of women (on Reddit at least 🤣) have overlapping symptoms and conditions, particularly some combo of:
-ADHD or AuDHD
-PMDD
-endometriosis
-CPTSD
-Anxiety
-chronic pain and autoimmune disorders

I’ve been going crazy trying to figure out the cause of the overlap and wondering why TRE is the fist thing that has actually helped me. Then I started looking at low vagal tone and the research is there- low vagal tone is linked to all of these conditions. Why haven’t we heard anything about this?

Has anyone had TRE and/ or vagal nerve exercises help with any of these conditions?

Is TRE meant to release fascia? Can you do fascia release exercises in addition to TRE or will that cause nervous system overload? I’ve had a few TRE sessions where I got a pretty bad “hangover” for a few days so am trying to figure out how to pace.

I know there is more to sx instinct than just sexual energy/intensity, but I’m wondering if people with sx in their stack (sp/sx in particular) are more prone to being demisexual.

For sp/sx, the reason I’m wondering is because it’s like there is this sx need for high intensity, chemistry, and attraction but it’s tempered by the need for security, trust, and emotional closeness before that attraction fully develops. Like it’s more of a slow burn than instant fire. Am I describing demisexuality or something different?

I’ve tried several times over the years to build a capsule wardrobe but have never found anything that worked for me long term. I’m wanting to try again, and am trying to figure out the best method to go about it. Is there technology/ website that helps with this? My criteria are below:

-secondhand/sustainably/ethically sourced

-using colors that are best for my color “seasons”

-clothes specific to my body type

-using clothes I already own as much as possible

-clothes that fit my lifestyle and climate

-fits my personality/ vibe

I think I might be demisexual. I’ve been doing a lot of digging into why I’m not sexually attracted to my partner despite finding him physically attractive and liking everything else about him. We both have attachment issues (I’m fearful avoidant, he is dismissive avoidant), but the more we work through those it has become clear that there is more at play. We had a conversation recently where it hit me that he is likely autistic. I think I never noticed because I’m neurodivergent myself. I missed it in him for the same reason people don’t see it in me- attractive, good at masking, successful. The signs were there, but I think both of us struggle to see and accept our neurodivergence.

I don’t know what to do because I don’t think I can be sexually attracted to him because of the emotional distance. However, the emotional distance is largely due to autism, not from lack of trying.

I love him, we have children together, we are best friends, but we are unable to connect emotionally in the way I need. He tries, but it’s like a robot I’m having to feed a script and so it falls flat. And while I deeply desire sexual connection with him, I can’t get what I need from it because the emotional connection isn’t there.

Any advice? I love that he loves me despite my neurodivergence, so it feels awful that I can’t do the same for him. I truly don’t know what to do.