u/International-Fun-65

Hi all,

34(F) here, I think I technically qualify as disorganised but have a strong anxious lean and I thought I'd come here for help.

I really do not like the version of myself that I become when I'm attached to someone. Morally, I'm a strong believer in personal autonomy and logical thought. Resultingly its distressing to watch myself become enamoured with someone I've just met and so fixated on trying to make them love me. Or to watch myself get so desperate over wanting a text back, or feeling the urge to blow up on romantic interests over things that are, in hindsight, not as terrible as they felt in the moment. Falling in love leaves me feeling possessed by the ghost of the girl in Obsession and I lose my respect for myself watching myself act like a petulant child.

I've just started therapy in an attempt to address this issue.

I'm not like this in my friendships or family relationships. If anything, I'm the opposite of clingy with my friends and family and my busy schedule can make it hard for me to afford them the attention they deserve.

Does anyone have any hints for pulling yourself out of that childlike state in the moment and maintaining focus on adhering to your morals/values/sense of self when an attachment wound is triggered?

I'm tired. I don't know why life seems to constantly throw me into the arena of trauma.

I feel like I've been training for this career my whole life. I had my first "don't kill yourself" chat when I was 12yo. My best friend at the time turned up to tell me goodbye. I asked her if she'd stay one more day if I threw her an extra sandwich at lunch. I had no idea what I was fucking doing but there were limited trusted adults.

It then became a semi-regular conversation with my classmates from 13 onwards. Everyone was cutting, being beat, doing the beating, using drugs, getting pregnant. Growing up in the hood is fucking weird.

By 14 I got to use these well honed "don't kill yourself" skills with my mother, who decided to make it a regular topic of conversation between us.... Just like she made my parents marriage issues a regular topic of conversation in the church we attended.

I somehow managed to get out and get a bachelors, despite ending up homeless at one point in the process, being let down by the system at almost every juncture and nearly ending up in the psych ward. My graduation present was a shitty bottle of $5 sparkling wine and my parents went straight home afterwards.

Fought tooth and nail to get an opening in my career after having a complete meltdown trying to finish my thesis. My partner at the time decided to give cheating a second shot towards the end of it, and it turns out all the grit and determination in the world won't fix a functional freeze.

By some miracle I finally landed my dream career in community corrections. Within a year I'd begun to demonstrate what was in retrospect PTSD symptoms. I still remember checking the lights in the bathroom for cameras and I still remember the nightmares about violent sex offenders hiding in the bushes.

I was a 29yo woman, getting sent to hook up a home detention device on a violent offender who had held his wife against her will at gunpoint for two days, with only a 24yo girl and a mobile phone for protection. No panic button, no shot gun, and no self-defence training.

The name of a girl I case managed in that town came up on the Court files this week, I could still hear her whispering "can you hear him" into the phone as her brother meth raged around the house. She was barely fucking 18, and I sat and listened as she described being tortured by her cousins and watching her sister die. I witnessed her descent into irreparable psychological damage and I can't unsee it.

I was suicidal by year 3 of my career. I started to plan it out, the cost of my funeral, how I was gonna die, how much it would cost to cover my rent for a few months and pay off my car. By the end of my calculations I realised I didn't have enough money to ethically die... So I figured I was gonna have to live. Its a wild feeling walking into work after that and telling the guy across the table that he shouldn't do it either. Sorry my guy I gotta live so I guess so do you.

I soon learned the term "vicarious trauma" and my experiences started to make sense. Then last year, I got introduced to the concept of CPTSD. Turns out a lifetime of being trapped in moderate trauma eventually catches up to you.

I thought getting into a different area would make it better, and it did for a bit. But theres just so many wounds, sore spots and triggers now. I'm starting to feel old and tired and I'm only in my 30s.

The industry is a baptism by trauma. 99.9% of the guys who come through the system have been through fucking hell, and if they haven't been through hell by the time they get to us they are about to discover it. I've read and heard so many stories. The capacity for human survival is absolutely remarkable, but I struggle to find peace knowing what people are capable of.

Last month I saw an old friend in the courtroom, he looked so fucking sad under the meth ravaged face and dirty clothes. Last time I saw him was a few years ago. He had showed me some music he was working on and we slept together. I spent the last hour of my day hearing him banging and screaming on the cell walls behind my office. I can't get the sound out of my head.

Sometimes I'm ok, and sometimes I leave my body for days at a time. I'm triggered at the moment and I haven't slept properly in weeks. My acne is flaring, my hair is shedding, I'm getting nightmares again, panic attacks and dissociation episodes. I somehow fucked it up with a close friend (friendtuationship) and I've just disappeared from the chat. I'm completely panicked and frozen, I don't know how to fix it with him and he was one of the only safe spaces I had.

I dont know how to do anything other than try and function right now. I just want time off so bad, just so that I can sleep and heal my face and try to find feelings again. I'm so fucking numb right now, I feel like a walking empty shell.

They tell you when you go to war that you'll get PTSD. When you join the police or become a nurse, they warn you about PTSD. They don't tell you that about community corrections. They don't warn you that you can get PTSD just from working with too many people that have PTSD. Its ironic I'm now third generation CPTSD, patrilineally, and all three of us got our adult dose of PTSD through public services to the community.

I think about the guys I case manage all the time, I don't know how they fucking do it, making it to their appointments and holding onto periods of sobriety. I struggle enough to function with a bed and house and salary. Without any existing addictions or threatening family members in my house (scary room mate but that's a different story).

I'm fucking tired of trauma man, I just want peace. For all of us.

I'm trying to work through the book Securely Attached which a new therapist has asked me to do before I start with her, but everytime I try to make sense of the feelings I get in an attachment trigger I'm flooded with horrible memories from my childhood.

It immediately spirals to that shame of "maybe I just shouldn't be with someone, maybe I'm too broken to make a relationship work".

Even listening to the conflicts described in the books makes me uncomfortable, like I actually feel triggered by the examples of anxious partners and feel such a visceral ick, despite presenting as largely anxious myself.

I know a shitty childhood is a generally accepted trigger for this attachment style, but I don't want to be like this. I don't want to feel like I am both threatened by and a threat to anyone who gets too close.

Has anyone else experienced this? How have you regulated yourself through this emotional rollercoaster when you're trying to work on yourself?

*I will also take therapy as an advice tip but specific types of therapy. I'm considering looking for an EFT trained therapist.

I've always been terrible at love and its to the point now where part of me wants to just give up on love as a whole. Like maybe I'm just not built to be good at it.

I've had long term relationships, spent most of my early adult life in two long term relationships, but after my 6 year relationship broke down when I was 26 its just been disaster after disaster.

The patterns the same, I always fall for unavailable men, they give me the love and attention I want at the start and its great. It gets too real and I start to feel overwhelmed, feel off in my body and everything just feels intense. They pull away, I spiral. They leave, I feel like all my schemas of unworthiness are confirmed. I avoid dating or just look for casual sex for a bit. I start to feel lonely, the cycle repeats.

The feelings of overwhelm at the start are intense. Panic attacks, sometimes nightmares, I'm jumpy, it feels like I'm running towards disaster and I can't stop it. I don't feel like I pull away, but I probably become more awkward, and I think they sense that I'm "off". When they pull away its even more intense, it feels like physical pain, I feel helpless and childlike and unable to control myself. I usually end up subsequently either cutting them off or just letting them go of their own accord. I don't fight them, there's no point they're already gone.

All of this really affects my self esteem. I am an otherwise successful person, with a wide and supportive friendship group. I have a career, hobbies and interests, a life. The moment I fall in love I feel like I'm falling apart in real time and I loathe the person that emerges.

I embarass myself and test my friends patience and I just don't know how to stop it.

I've been to therapy, two suggested I have an anxious attachment, a third suggested disorganised. I've been labelled with CPTSD but also ADHD. Largely, I keep my mental health under tight control, but romance just throws me under the bus.

I want to learn to function in this area so I can stop feeling so ashamed of it.

If anyone has worked through this, what kind of therapy did you do, what methods have you employed and what helped the nervous system panic.

I've just found this $25 online module to assist with dermatillomania. I am absolutely over the moon to discover a clinically backed module this cheap.

I have 0 affiliation just very excited to share a resource for a group that is heavily undersupported.

Let me know how you go if you do it!

See module here

I once heard that FAs are acutely aware of relationship power dynamics, and I feel like that applies pretty heavily to me.

Once I'm triggered, I judge how big the text is they've sent me, and try to send a text of similar or smaller size. I see how long it took them to message me, and try to respond in kind. If I find myself seeking them more, giving them more, replying quicker, putting in more emojis, sending longer texts... I start to feel powerless.

I'll find myself trying to reduce my messages, interest ect to try and maintain power. Sometimes I just want to run away to avoid that feeling of powerlessness, but then I feel like I'm getting sucked in.

Its like a riptide. I feel like a fucking clown every time the affection looks larger on my end, but that's almost part of the addiction? Then I kinda resent them, for feeling more than them, looking more interested than they do. I'll try and pull it back, find something to do so I'm not available on the weekend. Try to be nonchalant so I don't look so, clownish.

I'm not sure if this is an anxious attachment or FA thing, but if I manage to pull back and I see the the power balance change and they put a little kore effort in, I feel a bit better. Like I'm not the only one being a child here.

Sometimes it feels kinda humiliating to fall in love and I don't know why. I've realised this isn't healthy, but its hard to change, because I feel like if I don't measure out my affections in equal portions, they're gonna be disgusted at how pathetic I am and turn the other way?

Unreasonable shit but I'm wondering if anyone knows where this is coming from?

So this particular scenario, I've not seen it happen to anyone else, but its happened to me like at least 3 times now and it's driving me crazy.

Guys who I am very attracted to, who are not attracted to me, will keep me around as friend (yay I love friends, this is good). Thats not the issue.

The issue is they'll start slowly blurring the boundaries over the course of the friendship. I'm talking spooning, making out with me, spending hours leaning against each other by ourselves at a date spot having heart to hearts.

I keep ending up in these psuedo romantic scenarios with guys who vehemently insist that they are not attracted to me at all.

Like thats fine, its cool to feel that way, but if you feel that way, STOP STROKING MY LEG ect.

And if it was just for sex I guess that would make sense, but 2/3 refused to fuck me. So obviously thats not what they are after either 😭.

I geniunely don't understand what it is about me thats bringing this vibe. Like I'm glad my personality is banging enough that they want to keep me around despite not wanting to fuck me, but the rest of it is just painful when I'm obviously still attracted to them.

Obviously everyone knows love is intense for those of us with ADHD. Sucks I hate it. The problem is, currently I've developed a thing for someone. Its a silly thing, its not going to eventuate into anything, and that's not the problem right now. The problem is, ever since meeting him, my symptoms have gotten 1000 times worse. I'm super impulsive, I'm struggling to concentrate on anything, I can't finish tasks, my sex drive is through the roof. I feel like an unmedicated 14yo. This would all be nice and some "lobster too buttery, steak too juicy" business except that I'm not 14. I have a job, a life and things I need to be focused on.

Does anyone have any tips/experience managing ADHD when your emotions have managed to yank the steering wheel? Why is love so complicated fr?

The forever life of a mid bish.

Losing everyone that you fall in love with, and not being able to attain the people that come to mean the most to you.

I don't want the hottest partner on the planet, I just wish the people I connected with were attainable for a deeper connection. Like somehow everyone that shares my specific, pretty odd humour and interests are just... Baddies?

I wish I was pretty enough to not live in the constant fear of losing whoever does finally deem me worth their time.

To not spend hours and thousands trying to make up for being born mid with whatever serum or injectable is within market range.

I just miss the intimacy of feeling at home with someone, I really do. I wish I was pretty enough to be wanted.