u/urlocalfbivan

I don’t really know if this counts as childhood trauma, but it may be something close.

Before you ask, I do regret it.

When I was a kid, I used to hit people if I was angry or even just mildly upset with them, or if things weren‘t going the way I wanted.

“People“ included of my friends and my parents. Back then, if anyone tried to call me out on my behaviour, I used to try and justify it. Don’t really remember exactly what I would say, but it would usually be something like “You did [thing]“ or “You made me mad”.

I was slapped on occasion as a child (for ”discipline”) when I did something really bad or something similar. I just started to do it back at my parents if they did it to me or if they did something wrong, and I would get told that it was wrong for me to do that, and that in the future I might end up hitting a friend, or a younger kid.

I ended up growing out of it or something, because now I would usually never think of doing anything like that, thankfully.

I wanted to ask if anyone has had a similar experience, or might be able to name it.

Thank you for reading.

Edit for some extra context: I am really unsure about my attraction to men vs to masculinity. I think I have had one or two crushes on guys, and three-ish crushes on non-men, and I've only had one relationship (currently, with an enby lesbian). I feel very confused about whether it's because I actually liked them or if I thought that I must like guys because that's how Big Society says it should be (doesn't help that I live in a pretty conservative part of the world), and that I just liked girls in addition to it. I feel like being with a man seems very meh in my head, and even if I had a good connection with him, I don't know if I'd feel fully comfortable, vs when I imagine it with women, I feel more comfortable.
I also feel like some friendships I had with girls in the past were much closer to crushes, while with guys I just thought "I'll get married to someone like I'm meant to" or something like that. Idk, I'm just really confused, and I truly don't mean anything bad by this post. I don't mean to insinuate that lesbians can like men, I just came across the lesbian masterdoc when I started wondering if I was a lesbian, read it a few times and started wondering if the times I thought I was attracted to men was because it was comphet I mistook for attraction.

I previously thought I was pansexual because I thought I liked guys too, but now I'm starting to wonder if it might've been comphet because I could never really differentiate my feelings towards boy-crushes vs my feelings towards guy-friends. It just feels really confusing, and I'm scared to say that I am a lesbian, even though it feels like it might be a comfortable label for me. I just feel worried that I'm not understanding the nuances of the label properly or something, or because I've thought I genuinely liked men before I can't be lesbian, and I keep doubting myself. I also think I might be on the aroace spectrum, so it feels even more confusing because I can't really tell what is and isn't attraction.

I also know I don't have to label myself if I'm not ready, but there's a kind of certainty that comes with labels that I like, and I want to be able to know myself. I just wanted to share this, and ask if it's okay to feel this way, and if it's okay for me to want to identify as lesbian regardless.
Thanks for reading.

Hello wonderful people of Reddit, I am in need of some help. I wanna know how much people usually remember from their childhoods.
I've been struggling with my memory because of OCD, and I'm just wondering if these memory issues might have something to do with another underlying issue? Is it just OCD, or maybe depression?
Idrk, and it's genuinely driving me crazy. I feel like I might just be imagining it, but I really don't know.
It feels like I don't know a lot of stuff lately, so it'd be nice to have some clarity.
It feels like there are a lot of blank periods in my head, like nothing actually happened during certain periods of time, but I know stuff did happen, and then I start wondering if I just forgot or if it's something else. I can't really gauge how much it's affecting me or if it's even there, so I just really want another opinion or two.

asklajdsl this is so annoying T-T

Anyways, if you guys have any insights, I would really appreciate it. Thank you so much, take care of yourselves and stay hydrated :)

trigger warning for indirect discussions of gross things, just in case.

Bit of background, because of my OCD, I put off doing things until I physically can’t anymore, and then when I do it, I mess up and get myself dirty, and even if I bathe, the feelings don‘t go away.

I just feel like I keep messing things up for myself, but I can’t bring myself to fix my mistakes by using things like alcohol-based cleaners or bleach because it’s exhausting, and I can’t even ask for help because I feel so ashamed and disgusted that I can’t even tell my family about it or say anything about it to my therapist.

I keep feeling guilty and gross because of this, I can’t stop feeling like I’m contaminating the whole house and all the people in it with my germs. I hate it, and I can’t even properly apologize for it because I can’t bring myself to say anything,

I feel like crying, and it hurts.

I just want to be normal, and be able to function like anyone else.

Why can’t it just stop…

so I’m a mid-teens (14-19, take your pick) female who is really dang confused about my sexuality.

I’ve grown up in a very conservative and hetero-normative society my whole life, and was also quite sheltered as a child, so now that I’m kind of wondering about this stuff, I also need to take the fact that I didn’t know about the existence of the LGBTQ+ community for about 60-70% of my life into account.

Currently, I identify as pan, with a pretty heavy fem lean thats making me raise my eyebrow, and I feel like I‘m definitely somewhere on the aro-ace spectrum. I also might be genderfluid, but this post is mostly about sexuality.

I have had a grand total of 2 crushes on boys my age in the past, and I‘m beginning to wonder if I actually like-liked them or if I just wanted to feel what everyone else talked about.

I remember that I used to kind of romanticize the yearning I felt, and listen to love songs while wishing on dandelions, but I’m not even sure what I saw in the guy at the time.

I think I do sometimes find men attractive, or I at least find the idea of masculine charisma and humor attractive at times, but I don’t know how well that translates to actual men.

I also feel a certain level of uncertainty with the lesbian label, like I might be faking it or something, or denying my pansexuality, but at the same time I feel like it might be right.

And i see you typing, I know I don’t have to label myself if I don’t wanna or if I am not sure, but I like the sort of clarity you get when you have a specific way to describe things like attraction.

Looking for any advice or ways I could figure this stuff out! Thanks for reading :)

So, I’m a mid-teens female with diagnosed OCD, depression and anxiety (currently taking 40 mg of fluoxetine as treatment). I believe the depression and OCD have been around for about 2 years, and the anxiety has kind of always been there, but it doesn’t seem to impair my functioning very much.

I’ve kind of wondered whether there might be something else that’s causing problems that might be the reason why I feel pretty low all the time, but I usually brush it off because I think it’s just me trying to find something else that’s “different“ about me (it’s pretty stupid, I know, and I feel really bad about it).

Recently, I looked into BPD on a whim, and found that I seemed to resonate with some of the symptoms a lot, specifically:

- Identity disturbance: I really lack a sense of who I am, and I usually can’t think of any way to describe myself as a person when asked. I also don’t really know which direction I want my life to go in.

- Memory issues: I struggle with autobiographical memory at times, and things tend to slip my mind. I can‘t recall much of my childhood, and there is a whole year-ish period of my life I struggle to remember because of how bad my mental state was at the time.

- Feelings of emptiness: I don't have a lot of motivation to do stuff, and I often feel like stuff is meaningless.

There are also some that I‘m a bit unsure about. Family members have described me as having mood swings, although I’m pretty sure there is usually an identifiable trigger. I also feel I tend to idolize people and get disappointed when they don’t act the way I want them too (I typically hide it). Recently it also seems that tend to miss a certain person very deeply and I often wish they were with me and that we can stay near each other all the time.

The thing is, even if there might be one or two symptoms, there doesn’t seem to be a potential cause. I don’t think anyone in my family has BPD (although I’m not privy to anyone’s medical records), I think I had a pretty regular childhood, and I don’t think I went through any stressful or traumatic experience as a child. The first period of extreme stress I had was about two years ago, but I was a teen at the time, so I don’t know if it could be a cause.

I brought this up with a family therapist and my psychiatrist and they both said that there could be some different screenings done, but since I’m a minor, even if they test me for BPD, the results will be invalid. Additionally, my psychiatrist, while open to the idea, said that he doesn’t really suspect anything, and said that the symptoms I seemed to exhibit were closer to depression and OCD, but I can’t shake the idea out of my head.

So, I wanted to ask, am I overthinking it, or could my suspicions be true? I‘m open to any sort of advice or responses. Thank you for reading.

My bad if this post seems a bit choppy or confusing, I don’t really know what I’m talking about, I just want to talk with someone. Also this is my first time using reddit for anything, bear with me if I don't understand the etiquette of post-making.
Also trigger warning in case anyone needs it for a short mention of suicidal thoughts, just to be safe.

So, I'm a highschooler on summer break right now. I've had diagnosed depression, OCD and anxiety for about 6 months now, although the symptoms have been present for around two years or so. They kind of started showing up after I learned that my parents were getting separated. Out of all of them, the OCD's been the biggest issue, but since I've been on meds, it seems slightly better.
It's been quite a while since then, and I'd say the symptoms have calmed down quite a bit. But I still feel like there's something off, like there's still something I need to fix or change to feel okay.
My therapist has told me that I have some memory issues because of all these mental health challenges. I don't really know what the average person's memories look like, so I can't really tell. I just feel really confused about who I am, and who I was before any of these issues started.
I feel pretty detached from whatever's going on in my life. I want to care about stuff, I want to get back into living my life properly. But it all just feels really pointless. And I don’t really know why. I don’t think anything really bad has happened to me, aside from my parents separating, which still happened while I was a teen. I don’t really know how much it affected me since the memories are kind of jumbly and confusing to think about.

I do remember one point when my OCD was really bad, when I felt like I wanted to die. But that was a long time ago, and I haven’t felt anything like that ever since, but I still want to understand it, and kind of know what was going on, what caused it, and if it was even real.

I tend to worry a lot about whether any of these feelings are actually there, or if I’m just faking them for who-knows-what reason. I don’t really feel like my experiences were as bad as anyone else’s I’ve seen. And I’m not trying to play trauma-olympics or anything. I just don’t get why I feel so weird about this stuff when, at least in my memory, nothing bad enough to cause these feelings has happened to me.

I’m just looking for some clarity. Why do I feel this way even though my life’s been pretty great? Why do I feel no motivation to do stuff, or procrastinate on stuff I know I love doing on purpose? Am I causing this? Is there something I need to change? Am I just imagining it and using it as an excuse to not do anything with my life? Or is this just that phase of the summer where you feel like doing nothing with your life.

I really don’t know.

Thanks for reading this. Sorry if I’m in the wrong subreddit, but these feelings seemed more akin to depression than OCD, but let me know if I should take it there or something. If you have any advice, or wanna share your thoughts, that would be great. Take care of yourselves.