r/cptsd_bipoc

Anybody have tips or tricks for slowing down, or combating urgency? I’m struggling to turn off the constant reel in my head.

Hey yall Afro indigenous woman here. My question is why do white people automatically assume we would be interested in them ? Like do they not know they some of us rather date other bipoc individuals? I get so annoyed when a white person assumes I’m interested in them fuck no! I’m 5’9 slim built with brownskin and I get disgusted when a white person thinks they have a chance with me. Black and indigenous people are way too beautiful for me not to consider my own people.

I’m in a Current situation where I’ve had to retrieve into myself, in order to self preserve. I could easily continue to get upset, stress myself out and keep talking about it, but I’m honestly mentally and emotionally checked out. And I feel like I would only be harming myself, by sitting here and being angry and stressing out about the situation. This current situation is out of my control and the only way I feel like I can preserve myself, is by retreating inward. I don’t mind my own company. I enjoy being in my own company. It doesn’t bother me. I think also by doing this, it’ll help me to make the next necessary steps in my life. I am in a very vulnerable place in my life right now. physically, emotionally and mentally. In the past, I’ve been stressed out so bad, to the point that I broke out with psoriasis and so I’m trying to do things different this time.

I’m tired of performing. I’m tired of saying I’m OK when I’m not OK and I’m not gonna sit there and be all up in People’s faces smiling and shit , when I don’t feel like it. I’m not doing it anymore.

Anyone else had this experience?

Why is it that everytime a racialized (especially black) woman talks about their own marginilization or discrimination in places like work or worse medical discrimination a white woman comes along to chime in that ALL WOMEN experience that type of bias or medical discrimination. They are the main ones that rant about the oppression Olympics but it is obvious they mean they do not want to hear that racialized people experience severely worse treatment. Everything is a competition for them even getting treated like shit. Why cant they just listen and look up what they are arguing about because there is so much research that prove the horrors of misogynoir and their point invalid.

So sick of everything being a debate for them, even the undeniable truth if it doesnt center their story.

I always had an interest in music and theatre. Thankfully, I went to a high school that was big on performing arts, but it was also in a predominantly white suburban environment. Which meant most of the people doing these things were white, and they acted cliquish and left me out of everything. When I would express interests in the same things as them, they would push me out, act like I do not exist, accuse me of copying them. It got to the point I stopped expressing any of my interests and hobbies, because I was told that it is stupid, people like me should not be pursuing them (a brown girl), and I should just stop copying them. They acted like they are the only people in this world who are interested in music and theatre and only they are allowed to do them, people like me were pushed out.

It's the same with many other things. I was once interested in learning German because I genuinely loved the way it sounded and thought it was a beautiful language. But seeing the way Germany and most of Europe treat foreigners is making me think otherwise. I have also had some negative experiences with Germans in the past. Long story short, they do not want me here. They don't anyone who looks like me to be learning their language. They are obviously not going to say it out loud, but it's pretty obvious with how they treat me.

I know if I am truly interested in these things I would be pursuing them anyway, regardless of what others think. But experiencing constant exclusion, hostility and bullying has traumatised me. Now even if I do get the chance to learn music or German, it makes me think of all the negative experiences I have had which prevents me from learning. It makes me feel like poser, like I am trying too hard, like I am not supposed to do this. It made me feel very conflicted because I am interested in these things. When I was younger and was naive about the world, unaware of systemic racism, I truly did enjoy them. But now, my enjoyment has been ruined and coloured by all these negative, racist experiences. Has anyone else experienced this?

The hatred they have for our children is unfathomable. The visceral hatred they hold when they see little kids that aren’t white, it’s biological for them almost.

Omg, it is so obnoxious to see white people infiltrate EVERY Black digital space. Like clockwork you'll see them in any Black subreddit/thread, Youtube comment section, etc. with:

"I'm white but [insert basic sympathetic comment]"

"I'm white but I like [stereotypical "Black thing"]"

"I'm white, could y'all explain [stereotypical "Black thing"]?"

or the classic "I'm white and had a "racist phase" but not anymore! You can applaud now!"

And like, okay, cool, but why are you HERE. The obsession is real but they always deflect and gaslight about it.

And what's even worse is you will have a large chunk of Black commenters immediately drop to their knees to suck digital dick and clap them on the back, for...what exactly? And don't get me STARTED on the "invited to the cookout" spam. It's sooo pathetic.

ETA: And can't forget the digital blackfacers. They're everywhere. I'm sure there's some lurking right now. Hey, how are you doing? Have anything going on in your life yet?

How does everyone feel about the holiday being celebrated this year? Does it feel dystopian and like a joke to anyone else?

I find myself annoyed with anyone celebrating at all.

I think my question(s) require context so I’ll start there: I've spent almost two decades working on my own CPTSD, in what I'd now call a maintenance stage (basically, not "fixed," but steady, with tools that actually work for me.) I truly don’t know if I would have gotten here if I didn’t get an “insider look” at why people like me seem to be missed in the mental healthcare system. My relentless need to make sense of myself and the hyper-empath in me led me down a path to training as trauma therapist, but the therapy trainings taught me next to nothing to do effective healing work with CPTSD or more chronic / complex conditions in general. I’ve learned WAY more from my own healing process and my clients than I ever did from a textbook or therapy trainings.

I'm posting here because I keep running into the same frustration, both in my own healing and in what I see people describe in spaces like this: good, accessible support for CPTSD is hard to find. It’s a unicorn, really. What's easy to find is often expensive, gatekept, one-size-fits-all, or genuinely retraumatizing because it was built with capitalism or personal gain vs a human’s actual nervous system in mind. I care a lot about changing that, and I have skills I'd like to put toward building free / low-cost / international / self-guided resources instead of sitting on them.

The problem is I have too many ideas and not enough focus (thanks, ADHD). So, instead of guessing what would actually help, I want to ask the people who know best: those of us living it day in and day out.

So here's my question for this community:

When you think about your own recovery, what's the common gap, not just "my specific situation is hard" (though that's valid too), but something you suspect a lot of people here might run into. Things like:

• A type of resource / explanation of the experience you've wished existed but couldn't find anywhere (or found after many internet rabbit holes) 
• Something that keeps being offered but doesn't actually work, or makes things worse
• A barrier that isn't about your individual circumstances, but about how these resources are built or delivered (cost, format, language, accessibility, cultural fit, etc.)
• Literally anything else you thing could be helpful to get me out of this analysis paralysis I’m in on how tf to actually help people 😭

I'm not trying to sell anything here, recruit/promote myself or build toward a paywall I'm just trying to figure out where to focus first so I'm not just spinning my wheels with ideas that never turn into anything.

Thank you for even reading this, and for whatever you're willing to share.

About a year ago when I was doing a course at a uni, there was a WW in my class who seemed very bothered by me. For context, at the time I was very quiet and kept to myself due to some issues going on at home with my family. I just wanted to do my work, get a job, then move out. But this WW seemed very offended by how I wasn't telling her about myself, how quiet I was, how she didn't "know" me. She would give me dirty looks, be nosy, always want to know what I was doing. She would snap at me, one time she even told me to "shut up and stop talking", when no one was around. Then one day when I was watching something on my computer, she demanded to know what I was watching. She came up behind me, hovered over me, with her hands on her hips. I turned off my computer and stared at her. She was shocked, her mouth was wide open. She could not believe I rejected her, I said no to her.

After that she walked off, me thinking that this was it, she will finally leave me alone. But she ended up talking and bad-mouthing me to the rest of the class. I don't know what she said, but it was bad enough for the entire class to go against me. The next day when I walked in, I saw that my entire class was giving me dirty looks, as if I had done something terrible. Not too long after that, I dropped the course.

Unfortunately, this is not the only case. I grew up in the suburbs as a brown girl, and I was always quiet due to some childhood trauma I experienced. And WW always, seemed to take offense to that. It's bizarre how me simply minding my business, keeping to myself and not bothering anyone can trigger them so much. Has anyone else experienced this? Why do they feel the need to "know" you? And how do you cope with that?

It's only the truth. I explained to her that being American is already affording you certain economic advantages, and plus being a white American woman you only get more.

First they don't have to deal with racial trauma like their own flesh and blood hating them for being black. Then the world is much friendlier and supportive. I've known so many white people able to easily make over 6 figures because of racial privileges. My ex therapist we even admitted that she was promoted to director just because of white female privilege. They see white at these companies and automatically assume you deserve top pay and positions. I remember working at a tech sales company and they basically held the hand of my white male colleague, while firing me for no reason. And to just think the "smaller" everyday situations and experiences that add up that they never have to deal with on top of it all.

As a white woman you have both equality and racism lifting you up. So even if you worked that full time job while you worked your other business unpaid; there's still a lot of factors that made it so much easier for you. So no white people, you aren't working as hard as you think you are.

u/leon385 who is a moderator here is pretending to be a person of colour. He outed himself as being 1/4 Spanish and 3/4 white (Spanish is also white so I’m confused too). You can tell from his posts here that he just hates having “tanned” skin and doesn’t want to be treated as a POC. He is fully European.

Europeans are not POCs. I have to seriously side-eye this subreddit and it makes sense that people here complain about some of the posts that are allowed to stay up.

Hey, everyone,
It's so crazy how I am constantly met with this commentary from what I am going to assume are white Europeans, or people who have been brainwashed to believe that all is fair and well in Europe, given that I've heard enough stories to know that is not the case.
How is the culture over there? Why are there so white people (who should not be speaking) for the Black and Brown communities peddling that falsehood? It's always interesting how you constantly see white people trying to silence Black and Brown communities regarding their experiences. "Oh no, it's not that bad," but it's like, bro, you're not even Black or Brown, so why are you speaking for the Black and Brown community?
Nonetheless, how is it really? I have heard both types of opinions from POCs living in Europe. It's very hard to believe that colonizer central is not worse than the States in its own way because they have an air of entitlement, or the belief that they have the VERY rights to those lands.

I was pondering on this earlier today.

It's interesting to see how many white people go ballistic over what's happening in Palestine, yet they don't have the same energy for the fact that they themselves colonized pretty much the entire world. You would assume they would go back to Europe, or i.e. go back to their homeland—where their ancestors are from—naturally. Yet they feel so entitled to fighting for the cause of someone somewhere else, but they don't even have the same energy for the very people they literally plundered and continue to benefit from.
They benefit from so many things in these countries that were originally Indigenous (including Latin American), originally Black, originally Asian, whatever the case may be, and they don't even dare to think about that for one minute.
Has anyone else thought about this?

I need to get this out because I'm spiralling and I don't know who else to say it to.

I (f30) was with my ex (m34) for a while. He's white. I'm South Asian. And looking back, there were so many "jokes" that I laughed off because I didn't want to seem sensitive. Jokes about my culture. About my food. About my family. He never bothered to learn anything about my background — not even the basics. And when I tried to share things that mattered to me, he'd glaze over or change the subject.

When he discarded me, it was brutal. He screamed at me down the phone. Full-on shouting over me, not letting me speak, making me feel so small I couldn't even form words. He used my ethnicity as a reason to end things. Not explicitly, but in ways that made it clear: I was "too different." I wasn't what he wanted. I didn't fit.

Now he's buying a house with a white, blonde, privately educated lawyer. She's successful, rich, from a connected family. Everything I'm not. Everything he clearly always wanted.

And I'm sitting here wondering: did I cause this?

Did I make him treat me that way because I wasn't white? Because my background was "too much" for him to deal with? Because I wasn't the kind of woman he could show off to his family?

I know how that sounds. I know it's not logical. But when you're screamed at, discarded, replaced with someone who looks like the complete opposite of you — it's hard not to internalise it.

I feel like I was the practice round. The one he dated before he decided to "settle down" with someone who fits the picture.

And I feel so ashamed that I let someone make me feel like my ethnicity was a burden.

TL;DR: White ex made "jokes" about my South Asian background, never bothered to learn about it, screamed at me during the discard, and is now buying a house with a white blonde lawyer. Did I cause the abuse by not being white?

It has been for a test, I mean a medical test. She told me I shouldn't breathe so deep, so I adjusted to her and just breathed a few seconds so that she didn't scold me.

Turns out my results haven't been good and the doctor - when I asked her for the reason- told me it could be 'because I didn't use the instrument correctly'

I felt like they were mocking me.

It has been 4 hours since that incident and I'm a bit at loss.

I had to go there but had a very bad good feeling and thought about canceling.

Now I regret that I didn't also because I told them data from me I didn't need to tell them and also didn't wanna tell them.

I'm tired of women trying to clip wings. I feel so lonely.

The delusional double standard that it is socially acceptable for them to use us as receptacles for their childish rage. But if I am not smiling or comforting them 24/7, I am seen as a threat. These abusers need us to comfort them, so they can feel comfortable continuing to abuse us.

More angry at myself for thinking they can act like normal people.

They really do not have anything to be mad about. Their lack of communication with each other is a choice. They do not see us as people and I have been talked to like a dog. Their lack of self regulation, their abusive behavior, them using us as rage garbage cans is a choice.

So tired of their control issues. Needing to control us, choosing not to restrain themselves.

Oh but defending yourself against violence from a white is "wroooooong" and makes you "irrational".

That is all. Ty for reading my rant. Peace to the non-colonists here.

I'm saying this because I'm constantly seeing the queer community (which they can certainly be part of) being highlighted as the center of what I guess Western issues are, which seems to completely disregard the experiences of Black and Brown communities and the fact that Black and Brown communities have had to deal with a hell of a lot more, including death and historical oppression that spans beyond the west.
And this is certainly not an effort to downplay the experiences of the queer community, but I do find that if there is no justice and freedom for Black and Brown communities, then there is no justice and freedom for queer communities either given that they coexist. When there is no liberation in one area, how do you expect there to be liberation in another?
So it's very, very frustrating how white people make themselves the victims of every situation. It's always, "Oh my gosh, I'm being attacked. I'm being targeted because of my gender." Then, if a Black or Brown person tries to make a point, it feels like the white person always wants to override that point with their own experience.
Just an observation that I wanted to put out there.

What are some of the deeper, more honest reasons behind this heavy racial insecurity? For me, it’s this oppressive exhaustion tied to my dark skin. It’s not that I hate my culture or heritage — I actually appreciate some parts of it — but I’m completely drained by the constant racism and the heavy politicization around Black identity.

I’m tired of seeing Black people portrayed as the perpetual victims, the eternal marginalized class. Every other group seems allowed to openly celebrate their history, civilizations, and legacies without as much backlash. We don’t get that same space.

I struggle with the historical side. When I see posts celebrating Black history, comments often point to exaggerations or challenges in the narratives. Many people claim we contributed little of significance or that sub-Saharan Africa was left behind in key ways. When I try to find solid counter-evidence, the research leaves me more doubtful, anxious, and depressed.

I keep coming across foreign influences in African achievements — Arab, European, Semitic — and caveats about places like Ancient Egypt, Nubia, Axum, or Mali. It feels like there’s always something contesting the pride I’m searching for.

Intellectually, I know none of this should define my worth as a person. Collective history doesn’t determine individual value. But I can’t get it out of my head. I feel unlucky to have been born into this racial reality — the one where claiming pride in your roots often leads to doubt and pushback. As a mixed Black woman, I feel like I have almost nothing solid to hold onto, and it’s breaking me inside.

I simply hate myself for feeling this way.

The worst part? Searching reliable sources for major Black contributions to science and intellectual history leaves me with painfully few results that feel unquestionable. All of this is destroying me mentally.

If anyone in this community relates to this racial insecurity and the exhausting mental spiral it creates, I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences. I just need to know I’m not alone.

Bipocs DO NOT get the same grace. We do get the benefit of the doubt. They’ll talk about our race first. The Country of origin etc. tell us to go back to our country… even if you’re born in the states and how we’re ruining America, that’s our culture(all negativity of course). With whites people it’s, “well mental health”.

Mass shooting: mental health

Calling the cops on people minding their business: the unnecessary fear they carry of people that don’t look like them and mental health

Robbing a store: and they’ll get grace, “Oh well, they probably needed it really bad.

Financial struggles: mental health

Mediocrity: mental health

Saying the n word unprovoked: mental disability/ mental distress

Staring at biopic people with a look disgust or disdain: mental health/ mental disorder

Homeless: has to be a veteran or mental health/mental disability

And the crazy part about it is, they’ll do some of the most craziest and dangerous shit. For example: skydiving, explore some the most tightest caves, go hiking and camping in the woods alone, willingly go into haunted houses and mess with spirits, climb Mount Everest, swim with sharks, deep sea diving, keep bears and tigers as pets and get close and personal. Willingly live in houses that they know we’re built on top of a graveyard. And many more examples They’re always putting themselves in these situations that are dangerous. they’ll do some of the most egregious things towards Bipoc’s and mental health is brought up..

All in all to say, that I think the whole cry about mental health is essentially for them to use to their advantage, is a fucking cover-up for how they really just don’t like anybody to have the same playing field, as them. Racism is a part of their culture and they’ve spread it all across the goddamn world and it’s frustrating. They’re treated as individuals; while bipocs are treated as a monolith.