u/Visual_Box_218

This made it a lot harder to realize that things are abnormal for me, since I was so heavily isolated. I'm in my mid-30s. I started therapy almost two years ago. Last year, my therapist guided me to the realization that I was raised in a cult-like environment. A family cult. There's a word for it, but I can't think of it right now. But I've been effectively getting deprogrammed through therapy as part of my healing, learning what is normal and what is not. My mom is the narcissist, although my grandfather may have been one too.

I grew up deep in the Appalachians. My mom's entire extended family lived on the same mountain. There were around 36-40 acres that my grandfather and my cumulative aunts/uncles owned. This is not typical, even in the Appalachians. My parents had a house where they lived with my brother and me. My maternal grandparents and four sets of aunts/uncles lived next door, although they lived in double-wide trailers. Although they were heavily modified to not look like trailers much anymore. We grew a lot of our own food through individual family and communal gardens. My brother and I were the only children, so I didn't have other families with kids to compare ourselves to.

Also, we had the whole superiority thing. Our family and our ways were the best. Everyone outside the family was lesser and couldn't be trusted. Conform to family values and beliefs and appearance standards or get punished. Also, anything that happened that made the family or family members look bad would get rewritten to not be bad or would get deliberately ignored. Like all the men in the family were raging alcoholics, but somehow, people pretended like it wasn't a big deal, was normal, or didn't even happen. If I questioned that lie, I'd get punished.

My grandfather was a patriarch, often actually referred to as a king in a semi-joking sort of way, and my mom was effectively a princess. My mom was also his enforcer, and everyone in the family was afraid of and reliant on her to some degree. In everyone's eyes, I belonged to my mom, like an object.

In my early childhood, most of my interactions came from this family. I wasn't allowed to really visit anyone else but this one girl, who also had deeply religious parents, but they were less cultlike and not abusive. So when I asked my mom why our family was different, I got in trouble, and I wasn't allowed to go visit her much anymore. As I got older, I still wasn't allowed out around others much, but when I noticed that my family was different, I'd already internalized that "We're different but better" mentality.

My family taught me some "old ways" and survivalist skills because I was supposed to distrust society to a large degree, and I "needed to know how to take care of myself." Sexism and gender roles were huge (which was a problem for me, especially since I had always claimed I was genderless, even when I was very little). They were also heavily religious. I don't know why, but it's still weird to me to admit that they were heavily religious, like it wasn't true somehow just because I got to wear pants around the house. But they definitely were. Church 2-3+ times a week, praying over every meal, and weaponizing religion to be bigoted, sexist, homophobic, etc.

There were also weird little ritualistic things, like my brother going hunting for the first time, but me not being allowed to go because I was a girl (not that I'd want to). Lots of family gatherings with social rules, like the men and boys had to eat before the women and girls. Getting baptized in the river in a white dress. Harvest season as a family. Burning the fields. Mowing almost as a religion. Having to have the men in the family "approve" certain things (after my dad died), like the car I was going to drive, any potential boyfriends, etc.

Everyone in the family had to be interacted with in different ways. My grandfather was treated with reverence. My mom "owned" me. My aunts were "safe" but always returned me to my mom since she owned me. I wasn't supposed to interact much with my uncles unless they spoke to me first. That last one is something I didn't even realize until adulthood. The women in the family would always say to leave the men alone, as I wasn't good enough to talk to them or would just be annoying to them (even though I was known to be quiet). My brother, though, didn't get that same warning. So it wasn't an anti-child thing. I think it was because I was a girl.

As I got older, my mom triangulated everyone I ever spoke to outside the family. She'd befriend them and indebted them to her.

But all of this was normalized, and then the abuse was normalized, too. Since I didn't have many external anchors to compare to, I believed it was normal. So emotional, physical, and even sexual abuse was normalized because the definition of abuse I was told was basically just being beaten with closed fists. Since I wasn't being beaten with closed fists and had a place to sleep and food (even if it was heavily restricted and shamed), I wasn't being abused.

Just like someone is trying to just completely pulverize your ovaries and reduce them to mush. An incredibly painful squishy/squeezy feeling. Usually, during ovulation, but it can happen at other times. Today is the first day of my period, and it's happening today to a lesser extent. But sometimes, it's incredibly debilitating. I can always tell when I am ovulating due to this pain.

My mom is incredibly dangerous. Throughout my life, she has abused me physically, emotionally, and sexually. She kept me extremely isolated. She is also a sadist. She has no remorse. She has never expressed empathy. She has made it very clear that I belong to her, and any time I ever tried to show any degree of selfhood or distance from her or how she wanted me, she would hurt me.

The last two times I tried to cut contact with her completely, she committed felonies to drag me back. One time, she held me captive for three years (in my late 20s). I'm in my mid-30s now. Once I escaped her that last time, I protected myself more, but I still have some contact with her because I know if I cut her off completely again, she'll do something extreme again.

I know I'm conditioned by her. The desire to appease her and more. I'm trying to break that. But some of it is entirely valid. My being afraid of her is justified by the things she has done to me repeatedly. I have come a long ways from how I used to be with her, though. I used to do everything she said. Even after I escaped her, I used to wait all day for her messages, and she'd message every hour or two. I would fall into her traps and respond to her insults and bait to give her the pain she needed from me, even from a distance. I don't do that anymore.

Over the last couple of years, since I started therapy, I have tried to lessen my contact with her. Now, her messages and calls are muted. They don't even pop up on my phone. I check to see if she has messaged me only a few times a day, usually around 3. I will reply if she has messaged me. I do not message her except to "test the waters" to see where she is in her cycle so I can prepare myself. Her cycle is always the same: quiet, then escalating tension until she blows up again. I haven't visited her privately in years because I am afraid she will do something to hold me captive again. So all she has are verbal blow-ups now through messages (since I ignore her calls).

Every so often, I still get a reminder that she is dangerous and that she will escalate if she thinks I am cutting her off. Around Christmas, she didn't send me a message for three days. She was angry that I didn't go visit her for the holiday. When she finally messaged, it was her usual slew of insults. But then she followed it with threats. She started saying she didn't believe I was actually me, that I had been kidnapped, and that my kidnappers must have overtaken my phone. She even insinuated that she thought the kidnapper was my partner. She threatened to call the police and tell them that I was in danger or missing, and she claimed that she had hired a private investigator to find me. All of these were lies, of course. I finally replied to her, and she admitted they were lies. But she said that if I "disappeared on her again," she would move heaven and earth to find me. The threat was clear: she would weaponize the police (which she has done many times before) and other people against me (and potentially my partner) if she thought I was cutting her off.

A few weeks ago, she reminded me again that she'd escalate. I didn't message her for two days. She then sent me messages that she was calling the police, she was calling my apartment leasing office, and more to tell them I was missing and a potential danger to myself. That is another threat she has used from time to time after I started therapy: she has threatened or made the insinuation that I may be a danger to myself. Again, she covered it up with the same bullshit. She said she would do everything to find me if I went missing, and that she'd do anything to make sure I was "safe."

Even though I have come far, this obviously still has an impact on me. I am working toward being able to move far enough away from her that the danger of her is lower, but moving that far away isn't an overnight process. Right now, I'm too close to her and too isolated. I have no one but my partner, who lives very far from me. If she tried to hurt me, no one is here to protect me but me. She has guns, friends in law enforcement, and powerful allies. I cannot just cut her off. She will do something.

Fortunately, my therapist seems to understand the situation. She has never told me to cut my mom off, and she seems to be guiding me toward moving far away so that I can cut my mom off one day.

Anytime I post about my situation, people seem to judge me that I haven't cut her off due to the severity of what she's done to me. And that fucking sucks. Sometimes, situations aren't clean. You can't just cut someone off.

My partner tries to understand, but it just feels like he can't quite "get it." He knows she's dangerous and insane. I've shown him her messages, and he knows my crazy history with her. But he still doesn't quite get it, and I'm starting to feel guilty, like it's my fault for her still being in my life. I don't tell him about most of her craziness. I don't want to burden him. But sometimes, it's still like he thinks I should be able to just ignore her and not message her at all. He looks at me messaging her as almost a form of self-harm, and I recognize it does harm me. But it's also necessary. Because if I stopped messaging her or ignored her for too long, that'd be cutting her off. I can't do that. Not yet, at least.

Unfortunately, this leaves me feeling alone, like no one else "gets it," which the shitty trauma bond takes advantage of to try to make me feel closer to my fucking mother, even though she's a batshit insane abusive pos. So then I have to fight that feeling, too.

I know it really happened. I have memory after memory, scars, paperwork, and more to prove it. But even in therapy, I can't help but immediately feel like the words that are coming out of my mouth are lies. I know they aren't lies. But there's this visceral "shut up, shut up, shut up" little voice, followed by "liar, liar." I logically know it's a conditioned response, but I haven't quite figured out how to break it.

Usually, the 24 hours following therapy, I end up in a shame spiral. I feel like I shouldn't have said anything. Surely, my therapist will never believe me. If I do manage to convince myself that my therapist believes me, since she's been working with me for about two years now and seems genuinely invested in my recovery, I worry that I said too much and that I overburdened her.

I also know this is a specific type of response due to my mom's narcissism. She would try to rewrite reality constantly (gaslighting) and try to blame me for her abuse while pretending to be the victim (DARVO).

For example, (TW: physical abuse): >!Once, she beat me with a wire coat hanger while screaming insults. I was about fourteen. I tried to make her stop because it was leaving red lashes on my arms, and I was more worried someone would see them at school the next day. Even then, I was more worried about hiding what she did to me because she always made it clear that it'd be worse if anyone found out. Once I asked her to stop, she denied ever doing it. I held up my arms with the lashes, and she still denied it. She was still holding the coat hanger. She continued screaming, and a couple of minutes later, she was beating me with the coat hanger again. It started getting too painful, so I grabbed the coat hanger and yanked it from her hand. She then held her hand out, screaming and faking being in pain, saying that I hurt her hand by taking away the coat hanger. I tried to argue with her to defend myself, but she just kept denying any wrongdoing. Then she looked at the coat hanger and acted like I was the scary one, like I was going to attack her with it, and made some comment about how she might call the police on me. Something about her trying to turn it back around on me and make me into the abuser made me freeze. I ended up mumbling some apology to her and gave the coat hanger back to her. I don't remember the rest of that day.!<

Even when I talked about that in therapy, I felt like a little liar. Like I shouldn't talk about it. Like I was wrong. Like it wasn't that bad. Because my mom had already implanted those seeds long ago to doubt myself and reality as a whole. In the years before and after, she did things like that or far worse, and she'd lie and twist reality about those, too. So I was always having to constantly reality check myself internally while pretending to indulge in her fantasy. Masking and lying that things never happened or were ok when they weren't, just so she didn't hurt me anymore.

It's volcano, unless you mean the island north of Sicily, or you're speaking in Italian.

I don't really know why this is happening, but I see so many people lately using Vulcano for volcano (seemingly deliberately). They are not interchangeable.

I'm really confused as to why she's doing this. She lies about anything and everything, sometimes for no reason. But this one feels oddly specific. I'm in my mid-30s.

My uncle (my mom's brother) has end-stage liver disease. Supposedly. Supposedly, because I haven't heard it from him, but I have seen pictures of him she has sent me of him in the hospital and a few other things. My mom has lied about major illnesses before, but this feels real. At least enough of it that he does actually have severe liver disease.

Throughout the last few months, she has kept "wondering" how he got liver disease. Like it was some mystery. But my uncle was a chronic alcoholic most of his life. He was drinking before I was born and drank heavily throughout my childhood. I don't have a single memory of him sober when I was a child. My own alcoholic father would drink with him, which was a point my parents would fight about. This same uncle shot my cat because he was so drunk he thought she was a squirrel. She was only outside because my mom is a pos who threw her out to intentionally worry me, since our area was dangerous and my mom is a sadist who likes seeing me suffer. No, I'm not being hyperbolic. She literally tortured me.

Sometime in my early adulthood, my uncle supposedly got sober. Again, according to my mom. I don't know if this is true or not. The couple of times I've seen him since I was a child, he did seem better. So I think he either got sober or cut the drinking back significantly.

But now that he's sick, my mom is wondering how he got liver disease. When she first brought it up, I said it was probably due to his heavy alcoholism when I was younger. My mom denied this. She almost seemed angry about the suggestion. She straight up said he's never had a problem with alcohol. A few weeks later, she wondered again. She added to her list specifically that he never had a problem with alcohol and even extended it to him barely even drinking at all. I didn't push back on it. I know by now that if she gets a delusion in her head to just leave it, but she brought it up again and again.

Then last night, she brought it up again. Only this time, she claims he needs a liver transplant (again, not sure if true or not). She mused that maybe she should donate part of her liver to him and asked me for my opinion on that. My opinion was honestly that they wouldn't even let her because she's almost 80 years old, and I doubt even that he will be able to get a transplant since he's over 70. But I can't say that to her, so I just pandered to her ego and self-preservation as I always do. I complimented her and said it was a major, intensive surgery. This seemed to satisfy her. I hate having to feed her like this, but she's fucking dangerous.

But during this, she also brought up that apparently, the doctor told my uncle that his liver disease comes from pesticides. He has never had a job that would work with pesticides, and it'd be incredibly weird for him to get liver disease from pesticides even if he did. So I don't believe this. I also don't believe a doctor would say this. I just completely ignored my mom's mentioning anything about pesticides as an excuse.

Then this morning, I woke up to messages from her going on about how she has been researching liver disease, and she's going to go on a clean-eating diet. All organics! No pesticides! She won't get that blasted liver disease from pesticides! So apparently, she meant my uncle got liver disease from food-borne pesticides. Which is just even more ridiculous. I just told her I don't think she'll be getting liver disease because she has never had the major habits that cause it. I tried to side-step the pesticides angle. I don't think she liked this because she read it and didn't reply.

But throughout this, there has been this underlying current. It's like she's trying to make me say or even believe that my uncle never had a problem with alcohol. Which I will never, ever do. It is too ingrained in my memory and had too much of an indirectly horrific effect on me. But the fact that she's doing this makes me wonder... why? Is it just to prop up her rewritten fantasy that her brother isn't/wasn't an alcoholic? Or is she trying to make me forget because it's tied to something else? I have plenty of awful stuff that I remember, but I also have huge swaths of time (sometimes years) where I have no memories (dissociative amnesia). It was only within the last year that I realized forgetting so much of your life isn't normal, and I started noticing she tries to take advantage of this. So it makes me wonder if she's trying to keep something hidden from me.

Either way, she's being disturbing about this, and it's a really good example of how narcissists try to rewrite reality, regardless of the why.

[This is just a reflection on my own imagination and mental health. I thought others without these conditions may find it interesting.]

I'm in my mid-30s. I only realized last year that this is not the typical dreaming experience, apparently. I dream almost every night. In them, I am always someone else. Different name, gender, age, background, personality... everything. I am also either on another planet or an alternate Earth. These places have their own fully formed societies, histories, environments, and more. There are side characters. And, importantly, there are fully fledged, complex plots, often action-packed and full of drama. The environments and characters are extremely vivid and detailed as well, not blurry at all.

It is a bit like stepping into a movie and watching it while I sleep. I also tend to remember them like memories. I have dreams from years ago that I can still recall. It is easier to recall them if I write down a word or phrase, so I started doing that a while ago. I now have a list of words/phrases, and when I read it, I can recall each dream. Again, it's like recalling a memory.

I find it very easy to go to sleep, and I enjoy sleeping. I'm also a writer, and I have been highly imaginative since childhood. I also have severe dissociative issues like depersonalization and derealization from complex PTSD (I was diagnosed a bit under two years ago), and I think that impacts my dreams. Since things started in infancy for me, I do not know what life is like without this condition, and a lot of things I thought were "normal struggles" were actually symptoms that most people don't have to deal with.

I have also only recently learned that not everyone can picture things in their mind. I thought everyone could picture everything. When I close my eyes, I can picture anything, at any level of detail, with all of my senses (which may be called hyperphantasia). I can then build around it and play it like a movie. This is helpful for when I write, since I can just play the scene in my mind, completely embodying the POV character, and detach from my real body, which goes through the motions of typing or handwriting. I "pause" when I need to correct something, and then I just keep going.

Although, since I can experience so much in my head, it is often very hard to return to reality. It also goes haywire when I am stressed or triggered, and it makes me "see" things I don't want to see. Some of this is in my head, but sometimes, it bleeds into my vision and makes me occasionally see things that aren't there in my peripheries. This is apparently a result of my hypervigilance from C-PTSD blending with my overactive imagination. I am aware these things aren't actually there, but it is still nightmarish, such as briefly seeing things like giant spiders, creepy ghosts crawling out of vents, plushies blinking, etc., from the corner of my eye. They disappear when I look at them.

So, from what I've learned about myself through therapy, this is a result of an unusually active imagination plus my C-PTSD. It's just interesting to step back from myself, see how imagination intersects with mental health, and how my imagination may have been impacted by my condition. It is also something that helped me survive and supports me professionally, so I feel like this, at least, was something good that came from everything that was terrible. (Although I could use fewer jump scares.)

I'm in my mid-30s now. When I was graduating from high school, my mom supposedly came to the graduation with her new boyfriend. I never saw them. I drove myself, and I got there early as graduates were supposed to do. It was on a football field, and family sat in the bleachers. I never saw my mom up there. The lights were too bright to see into the stands.

After the ceremony, there was a tradition where all the family would leave the bleachers to celebrate with their graduate on the field. Out of 125 graduates, everyone had a family except for me. There was a certain sort of loneliness and shame that came from standing there, waiting for someone to come for me, and no one did. I waited long enough that other families started looking at me. I went to pick up my real diploma and left. People just kept looking at me.

When I got home, my mom was eating dessert with her boyfriend. She said they had decided to leave early to "beat traffic," and that she didn't know about the tradition. Of course, I didn't believe this, and she never apologized, either. I'm sure there was notice given, and people probably talked about it. Especially since I was the only one without a family. I knew enough not to fight with her, so I didn't say anything. I started crying (I tried to hide it) and went to my room. She noticed anyway. My being upset made her angry, and I spent the night getting screamed at, insulted, and smacked/grabbed/groped.

Throughout my trauma recovery, I keep minimizing certain things that happened to me. I will admit that I need help for "big" things (like rape and torture), but I keep feeling silly when I talk about the "smaller" things that happened, like this graduation night. I'd never call something like this "small" for anyone else (thus the scare quotes), but I'm crueler to myself, I guess.

Just know that if you have pain and experiences that you minimize or that others make you feel like you should minimize... don't. I've experienced a variety of trauma, and while some things leave bigger scars than others, that doesn't change the fact that they all hurt. They all matter. They all need healing.

C-PTSD is generally more severe and extensive than PTSD. C-PTSD includes the criteria and symptoms of PTSD plus DSO (disturbances in self organization). I mean for goodness sake, it's literally in the name COMPLEX PTSD. It annoys me to no end that somehow people think C-PTSD is less severe or less serious than PTSD when, in most cases, the truth is the opposite.

Of course, both conditions are horrific, and it's not a competition. It's just the misinformation and minimization of C-PTSD annoys the crap out of me.

It's been years now. I'm in my mid-30s now. I escaped in 2018. But the further I am from it and the more therapy I go through, the more I think how fucking absurd it was. I'll try to keep this the short version (post-writing comment: sorry it wasn't as short as I wanted).

My mom kept my finances tangled with hers long into adulthood. She used it as a lever of control over me. Trying to get control over my finances caused punishment and threats. I eventually went to college, and she didn't really like that either. She kept control over me.

I'm queer. I dated people of all genders. She didn't like this. She didn't like the friends I had, who were far less conservative than she was. She didn't like how I dressed or styled myself (she'd always controlled that). I tried to even separate my finances from hers by making an individual account.

After I finished college, things got rockier fast. She wanted me to move back home. I wouldn't. Eventually, she committed fraud and identity theft to steal what money I had and lock my credit. She impersonated me to close all my accounts, even the ones where she wasn't a cosigner. Back then, locking credit was a longer procedure. It wasn't something I could easy undo online. I needed the codes that they'd given her (while she pretended to be me). Without money, I was quickly going to lose my apartment, no longer be able to feed myself, etc. And without credit, I couldn't even get a new lease, couldn't open many accounts, etc.

She told me, "Come back home or be homeless." She's always been abusive. Emotionally, physically, and sexually. I didn't want to go back home, but I didn't have any other option. She had always kept me isolated, even from afar. I figured I'd go back home, and it'd be the same as it was when I was little.

I was both right and wrong on that. When I got home, the abuse was the same, but she ramped up the isolation. She hid the wifi router so I couldn't go online. She hid the phone so I couldn't call out. I still had my cellphone, but she lived deep in the mountains. Signal wouldn't work unless I was outside, and even then, it was spotty. She'd see if I went outside. My cellphone only worked for a month or so, anyway, before it was cut off for nonpayment. She hid the keys, tag, and battery to my car so I couldn't drive away. She lived around a 30-minute drive from the nearest town, so walking away wasn't really feasible. In the couple of times I tried, she'd just drive after me, anyway.

I had gotten a cat while I lived away from her. She tortured my cat. She put my cat in a hot water heater closet and wouldn't let her out. She made her stay in there. Occasionally, she'd put her much larger male cat in with my little cat, knowing my cat was afraid of him and that he might fight with her. She threatened to throw my cat outside, knowing she would potentially die in the wilderness (she killed other cats from my childhood like this).

And she abused me, too. Again, physically, emotionally, sexually.

There were no locks inside the house. I couldn't even escape her abuse that way. I tried to barricade my room door when I could. I would drag the dresser in front of it, but it wasn't heavy enough. She'd still be able to knock it over and force her way inside. I learned to sit with my back against the door, and I'd press my feet against the leg of a desk in front of me so I could brace against the door. She couldn't get in that way, but it was very tiring. She started trying to poke things under the door to make me stand up.

One time, I found the phone and threatened to call the police. I had 911 dialed in. My mom interrupted and told me that if I called them, she'd tell the police that I was hurting her when they showed up. She even smacked herself to make her cheek red. I didn't really have any proof of what she was doing to me, and the local police were her friends. So I figured they wouldn't believe me. I didn't make that call.

Over those three years, she changed me. I pretended to be what she wanted again. She controlled everything about me. She tried to force me to look, behave, and believe a certain way. I faked it. The more I faked it, the more she rewarded me with some freedoms. A little online time, with her constantly checking to see what I was doing/saying. After a year or so, she'd let me drive my car, too, but she'd monitor my location every minute I was gone. I was only allowed to go to college and back (she "let" me go to college for a "more acceptable" major - I already had a master's degree in molecular bio, but she didn't like that.) She still controlled my finances and my credit, threatened to call the police on me, and threatened to harm my cat if I stayed gone for too long. So I couldn't exactly escape still, even though I was allowed to drive a little.

She kept my account passwords and my credit lock codes in a little journal in a safe. I started watching her use the safe and memorized the password. She would take me to town with her sometimes, and when she did, she'd give me a little money. I secretly saved up some of it, and one day, when we were at Walmart and she was distracted, I snuck away and bought a prepaid phone. When she went out one evening, I went to that little safe, opened it, and took pictures of all my credit codes and account passwords. It felt better having this even if I couldn't use it just yet. I also used the prepaid phone to open a little individual bank account. I didn't have anything to put in it yet, but it felt nice.

All throughout this, too, the abuse was still ongoing, and if she didn't like something, maybe even nothing specific, she would lock everything down completely again. No car, no wifi, etc. Not even monitored.

Not long after getting my codes, I finished college again, and my mom started talking about "letting" me get my own place again. I played along. I found a job. I found an apartment. She was with me every single step that I made. She never left my side. Of course, she wouldn't. She made a big show about her unlocking my credit so I could apply to things. How she was "allowing" me to do it. I was twenty fucking eight. And she was "allowing" me to move out. "Allowing" me access to my own goddamned credit.

I moved out literally the next day after getting my apartment. She was offended that I was trying to move out so quickly, and I think that almost tipped her off. But the apartment was already signed. I had nothing. She let me leave with nothing but a little of my own money that I had to use to buy all my furniture and stuff for my apartment. She didn't let me take anything else but some clothes and my cat. She said my other stuff was "safer" with her. She really just kept it there due to control and also to have another lever over me.

As soon as the door shut behind her that first night, I was so relieved. In the weeks that followed, I got everything back under my control. My finances. My credit. Etc. She didn't have that over me anymore.

For a long time, I didn't even think that what my mom did was all that abnormal. Because it was just an extension of what she did to me as a child, and she kept me too isolated to understand it was wrong. Then I started dating someone, and he helped me understand how weird my mom was. I slowly started seeing things as what they were, how extreme she actually is. I've written about this before, but in the past, I framed it with more self-blame, less blame toward her, and minimizing. I can see it better now.

Unfortunately, I've been housebound ever since moving out in 2018. I don't want to be. But I am so terrified of her being out there, amongst other anxieties. I live far enough away that she wouldn't just drive here casually, but it's still close enough that she could. Things feel too unsafe now. I started therapy just under two years ago. Things have become clearer ever since then. Being housebound makes sense for what I have been through, not just those three years but also the decades before them. Everything led to this.

I never realized how fucking weird it is to hear this from your parent. My nmom says it all the time. If she ever sees me expressing affection toward someone else, especially romantic affection, she'll directly ask me if I love her too and fish for affection. Yes, I've realized now that how she treats me is incestuous, and yes, she sexually abused me throughout my life, especially when I was little (rape). I'm just still learning the pieces that hint toward the abuse and wrongness of how she is. I'd like to believe that normal parents aren't comparing themselves to or competing with their kids' romantic partners.

I wrote this originally for the cPTSD subreddit when I was at a low point last night. I'm going to leave it written the same since it provides context (you can see it below the ---), but this morning, I decided I am trying to make some plans to start fixing this, despite my indifferent feelings. I thought this sub may have more tips for that than the cPTSD subreddit, since my agoraphobia is driven by my cPTSD, but not everyone with cPTSD has agoraphobia.

Things I am doing/plan to do: I think that will probably mean starting with a telehealth visit with a pcp. I will also schedule a new consult with an oral surgeon soon and actually let my boyfriend schedule being there for me or try to figure something else out if needed. I do try to exercise when I can here at home, usually with things like VR workout programs, yoga, a treadmill, and an exercise bike, although my energy for it has been waning.

Things I really need help with: Fighting the indifferent feelings and actually having the drive to save myself. Fear with doctors, doctor visits, inevitable testings, etc. Any other tips you may think of that could help me. I'm not asking for medical advice itself, but how to get medical help. (Added this in an abundance of caution to make sure I am complying with the rules. Whew.)

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Original post for situational context:

I feel mostly indifferent about it. I've struggled with suicidal ideation for most of my life. The idea of my death doesn't fill me with fear like it's supposed to. But I think I'm going to die of medical neglect. I don't know when. But it feels like my body is sick and getting sicker. I'm in my mid 30s.

I was diagnosed with cPTSD a little under two years ago. I've been housebound since 29, when I escaped my mom and got my own apartment. I go to therapy in person once a week, but besides that, I may not go anywhere else for months. Before I started therapy, there were years I didn't talk to another human in person for months. I have a boyfriend, but he lives in another state. I do not have anyone else. Most of my family is dead, and my mom always kept me isolated from them anyway. So they never contact me, and the times I've tried to contact them, they didn't seem interested.

I haven't been to the doctor since I was 18. The last time I was at the doctor, I was diagnosed with PCOS and insulin resistance. I was a healthy weight, but I've yoyod a bit in weight since then. I had no other known medical issues. But when I was 19, I tried to commit suicide with a bottle of OTC pain killers. It was stupid. I obviously didn't die, but I felt like I was going to. I can't remember that night well, and i was sick for weeks after. I never went to the doctor for that either, but I have had gastrointestinal issues ever since and pain in areas that feel like my liver and kidneys. I need to go back to the doctor, but my agoraphobia and fear of what I may find out make it feel impossible.

I haven't been to a dentist in two years. Prior to that, I haven't been to a dentist since I was around 21. I've lost teeth. I have pulled out half broken teeth on my own, but the roots are still there. Back ones, so it isnt noticeable when I smile. I need more dental work done to stop infections and pain. I had four crowns put in two years ago along with fillings, but I need one more crown. I also need oral surgery for extractions of the roots and my impacted wisdom teeth along with bone grafts to my jaw so I can get implants. Price is an issue since I live in the US (I've already spent almost $10k on this and will end up spending probably around $50k), but mostly I just don't have anyone to be with me for the surgery. They require you to have someone with you. I don't have anyone to be there with me. My boyfriend has offered to be there, but it feels pretty shitty asking him to come visit so I can get surgery.

With the mouth issues, I have constant infections. I feel like something is deeply wrong with me inside as well. I've been having lots of chronic pain and digestive issues. I get sudden, random pain often, too. Sometimes I feel like I'm going to pass out and have to sit down, and this seems to be getting worse. I feel weak. It's hard to get to sleep, but I keep wanting to sleep more or lie down more. I've done that in the past as a depression symptom, but this feels different. It feels more like I'm sick, and my body is trying to rest.

Lately, I've been eating less. I don't get hungry as often and have to force myself to eat. I can't tell if I'm developing an eating disorder (I'm trying not to) or if my appetite is going away. Because I feel almost proud of not eating, but I also feel like that may just be my brain coping with it. Or maybe it's a mix of both.

I also have had several illnesses and accidents over the years that were never treated properly, even before I became house bound. Broken bones, even. A couple of years ago, I tripped over the doggie gate and messed up my legs. It took months for them to heal. My knee hurts now when I put weight on it. I think something's very wrong with it. I cut my palm so badly a while ago that the adipose tissue popped out. I just pushed it back in and wrapped up the hand while it healed for several weeks.

Lately, I've started having these feelings that I am on a deadline and need to tie some things up. Maybe it's my cPTSD just giving me that dread/impending doom feeling, but something about it feels different too. I feel like I should have a drive to get help for myself, but I don't. I'm trying to fight it and work through therapy to get better mentally. I feel if I do that maybe it'll push me past my fears to get help physically. Because as it is right now, I think I'm going to die like this. No one is meant to be alone in an apartment without care for years. I'm not old, but I don't think you have to be old to start falling apart without care. I do wish I cared about myself. I know that's a cPTSD symptom too. I'm tired of being in pain all the time.

I feel mostly indifferent about it. I've struggled with suicidal ideation for most of my life. The idea of my death doesn't fill me with fear like it's supposed to. But I think I'm going to die of medical neglect. I don't know when. But it feels like my body is sick and getting sicker. I'm in my mid 30s.

I was diagnosed with cPTSD a little under two years ago. I've been housebound since 29, when I escaped my mom and got my own apartment. I go to therapy in person once a week, but besides that, I may not go anywhere else for months. Before I started therapy, there were years I didn't talk to another human in person for months. I have a boyfriend, but he lives in another state. I do not have anyone else. Most of my family is dead, and my mom always kept me isolated from them anyway. So they never contact me, and the times I've tried to contact them, they didn't seem interested.

I haven't been to the doctor since I was 18. The last time I was at the doctor, I was diagnosed with PCOS and insulin resistance. I was a healthy weight, but I've yoyod a bit in weight since then. I had no other known medical issues. But when I was 19, I tried to commit suicide with a bottle of OTC pain killers. It was stupid. I obviously didn't die, but I felt like I was going to. I can't remember that night well, and i was sick for weeks after. I never went to the doctor for that either, but I have had gastrointestinal issues ever since and pain in areas that feel like my liver and kidneys. I need to go back to the doctor, but my agoraphobia and fear of what I may find out make it feel impossible.

I haven't been to a dentist in two years. Prior to that, I haven't been to a dentist since I was around 21. I've lost teeth. I have pulled out half broken teeth on my own, but the roots are still there. Back ones, so it isnt noticeable when I smile. I need more dental work done to stop infections and pain. I had four crowns put in two years ago along with fillings, but I need one more crown. I also need oral surgery for extractions of the roots and my impacted wisdom teeth along with bone grafts to my jaw so I can get implants. Price is an issue since I live in the US (I've already spent almost $10k on this and will end up spending probably around $50k), but mostly I just don't have anyone to be with me for the surgery. They require you to have someone with you. I don't have anyone to be there with me. My boyfriend has offered to be there, but it feels pretty shitty asking him to come visit so I can get surgery.

With the mouth issues, I have constant infections. I feel like something is deeply wrong with me inside as well. I've been having lots of chronic pain and digestive issues. I get sudden, random pain often, too. Sometimes I feel like I'm going to pass out and have to sit down, and this seems to be getting worse. I feel weak. It's hard to get to sleep, but I keep wanting to sleep more or lie down more. I've done that in the past as a depression symptom, but this feels different. It feels more like I'm sick, and my body is trying to rest.

Lately, I've been eating less. I don't get hungry as often and have to force myself to eat. I can't tell if I'm developing an eating disorder (I'm trying not to) or if my appetite is going away. Because I feel almost proud of not eating, but I also feel like that may just be my brain coping with it. Or maybe it's a mix of both.

I also have had several illnesses and accidents over the years that were never treated properly, even before I became house bound. Broken bones, even. A couple of years ago, I tripped over the doggie gate and messed up my legs. It took months for them to heal. My knee hurts now when I put weight on it. I think something's very wrong with it. I cut my palm so badly a while ago that the adipose tissue popped out. I just pushed it back in and wrapped up the hand while it healed for several weeks.

Lately, I've started having these feelings that I am on a deadline and need to tie some things up. Maybe it's my cPTSD just giving me that dread/impending doom feeling, but something about it feels different too. I feel like I should have a drive to get help for myself, but I don't. I'm trying to fight it and work through therapy to get better mentally. I feel if I do that maybe it'll push me past my fears to get help physically. Because as it is right now, I think I'm going to die like this. No one is meant to be alone in an apartment without care for years. I'm not old, but I don't think you have to be old to start falling apart without care. I do wish I cared about myself. I know that's a cPTSD symptom too. I'm tired of being in pain all the time.

Quite literally, it feels like I have been paid for my pain. I'm in my mid-30s now. My nmom liked physical or emotional pain. She tortured me. Not like tied up and cut, but without getting too graphic, she did things like poke at or exacerbate injuries, tell me I had acne on my back then claw at me until I was bloody, spank me, burn me, smack me, push me, grab and squeeze me, put my pets in danger or torture them or kill them to make me upset, find other ways to upset me intentionally, insult me for hours on end, sexually abuse me especially when I was small enough to hold down, etc.

She would do things like this, and her sadistic moods would last like 1-3 days of really overt sadism, just constant during that time, with no escape since she removed the locks from the doors in the house. I could tell she got off on me being in pain.

The thing is, though, that once she was "satisfied" (and I could always tell when she was), it's like a switch was flipped. She wouldn't apologize. She never did that. She never showed remorse. But she'd say something like, "Let's not fuss." Like I had anything to do with it. Or she'd be like, "Let's have a good day now, alright?" And usually she'd give me something material or monetary. Large things. Like shopping trips or large sums of money.

Obviously, these came with strings. She'd hold them over me. She'd often take what she bought me anyway. But it conditioned me to feel like pain = I get something after. Or that I don't get anything without pain first. So I distrust when something good happens to me, and sometimes, I sabotage it if nothing bad happens. The "good" phase only lasted a day, anyway, and she'd build back up over a few days to her sadistic phase. It just kept cycling like that my entire life.

Also, on a similar vein, the one thing I really struggle with in looking back is the fact that I learned to bargain with pain. I realized she liked seeing me hurt from a very young age, so I knew that if I let her do certain things to me at different times, then she wouldn't be so bad later. That meant that, occasionally, I asked her to do things to me in hopes that she wouldn't be so bad later. It made it harder for me to realize certain things were abuse because she told me I was complicit in them, including the sexual abuse. The couple of times I tried to push back on that, she would claim that since I asked for it, it was my fault. I know now that it didn't mean it wasn't abuse. All I was trying to do was satisfy her so she wouldn't hurt me as badly later. But shame gets wrapped up in it all the same.

To be clear, I like it, and it helps me. Sometimes, I get really shy and/or dismissive or more suicidal, and I think about stopping therapy or giving up. Or sometimes I get ashamed to go again because of things I admitted happened to me in the last session, and I'm afraid of being too much or maybe not being believed or something. I even feel guilty about telling my therapist these things. I'm in my mid-30s, so the shame gets even worse, that maybe I'm being childish. There are many reasons why I may sometimes skip a session and feel hesitant about not going back. I usually take a few days and then schedule again anyway.

But in the rare cases I go a week or more without rescheduling, my therapist will send a scheduling request to me. This is basically an appointment that I can confirm, deny, or reschedule. Seeing the request helps me. It reminds me that the shame is in my head, and it helps ease some of the guilt of going to the therapist since it gives me this little confirmation that the therapist is in it and doesn't secretly want me to stop scheduling appointments like my brain tries to convince me. It also feels like a little "Hey, it's ok. Come back. Keep working on it." message.

In the two years I've been with this therapist, it's happened maybe four times total. Because most of the time, I just reschedule myself if I miss an appointment. But those four-ish times have really helped. I go to therapy once a week, twice a week if things get really bad. My therapist has also been awesome and has helped me come a long way.