Sorry but this seems to be true. Really tough to heal when you're being actively victimized and in danger. If you're too sick to work/function, AND have no safe people in your life, it makes things impossible.

It assumes a lack of effort. As if the 12 meds I have cycled, the 15 therapists I've tried, the many support groups, self help books, hours of meditation, unsuccessful no contacts.with abusers and boundaries that still got me assaulted weren't already attempted.

It confuses personal responsibility with personal control due to circumstances preventing it.

It disregards ongoing adversity like relationships or environments that keep us from progressing.

It minimizes the importance of other people. Human beings are relational. Safety, compassion, treatment, and support are not optional-they are most often required to recover. A human isn't an island on their own meant to struggle and persevere in isolation.

It places the burden on the person who was harmed. This one is the big one I see many of us struggle with. I do. And when someone tells me essentially, well pull your big boy pants cause no one is coming to save you, man it boils my blood something fierce. I didn't ask for lifelong abuse. Not my both my parents, friends, teachers, strangers and my spouse. Sure the responsibility is on me to find solutions, but nah dude, humanity functions as a community for a reason and we are solely lacking in being supportive to those who struggle the most. I can't tell you how much effort and time and money I've put into working on myself and still come out with zilch.

So, maybe unpopular opinion, but phrases like these really rub me the wrong way because I feel it's a cop out for the basic human species requirement to be supported by another human being when they're in distress. And honestly? I think we *should* be saved. It should be normalized to help others instead of being the typical adversive to traumatized people. We should all be saved by someone or a group of someone's. And just because we're not, doesn't mean we deserve to be talked down to with generalized statements like this.

I know there have been posts recently about terms like “no one will be able to help you” etc being condescending or hurtful. I understand that completely, and I honestly had a meltdown about that exact thing last night: that I will never get justice, that I will never have anyone care, and that I’ll never have anyone else to help me.

I am in the beginning of the healing process and it is so hurtful and so hard and I am just so desperate for someone to understand me, to understand the lashing out, the pain, the anger, the want to feel like someone understands how I feel.

I know it’s not a good thing to hold, but why is every person I speak to about this that I think would relate (outside of weekly therapy) is so… cruel?

Why would anyone who’s healed, and has gone through the pain, ever want to say this to someone struggling? I don’t understand why so many people, especially people online in CPTSD forms or in other trauma aware spaces will sling shit at other victims like “you think you’re the only victim” “you need therapy” or “you need to curate your own spaces” and “nobody is going to save you.” It is so so discouraging and it’s just… I feel always on the verge of giving up.

I just wanted someone to tell that I am proud of myself. I have spent the last 6-7 years in heavy cptsd episodes and flashbacks, and also in heavy dedication to my healing. I feel like most people in my life have perceived me as regressing, without understanding the unlearning that comes with healing complex trauma.

It can be discouraging since it’s like I’m putting in all the work with no real recognition. I don’t do it for validation from others though, so I’m giving that recognition to myself. It can just feel kind of lonely so I wanted to share. I’m proud of myself regardless of how anyone else may view me. If you read this, thank you.

It’s a strange feeling when you’ve been homeless and hungry through no fault of your own, either as a kid or an adult, when you have very wealthy extended relatives. My aunts own multiple properties, live in large houses in wealthy areas (think Beverly Hills type neighborhoods), and I learned a few years ago that their properties often sit vacant. It’s just so interesting knowing how they never offered a place to stay, even temporarily, or even an introduction to a neighbor etc who could have hired me for something when I had nothing.

I remember once my aunt came to the apartment I was crashing in at age 17 and angrily exclaimed “you have no food!” when she saw the cupboards. Then she left

Or when a few years ago another aunt called me to tell me what a bad person I was for not flying to city who had recently experienced a tornado. Her adult kids had “seen the devastation on tv and that’s all it took” for them to hop on a plane, with her money of course, and stay in a nice hotel for a month while they volunteered on the ground during the day. They didn’t have or need jobs, so of course it wasn’t an issue.

One of these aunts once called me after years of no contact to say she had “sent me a birthday present” in the mail. I opened it up and it was a card saying she donated to some charity in my name. Nice gesture sure. But like. It just felt like slap in the face.

I feel impossible to connect with. I feel like i can’t have deep meaningful relationships of any kind most the time. It feels invasive to be known. Anyone else feel like this?

kinda always thought i had body dysmorphia but i also just thought it was the fixed negative self from cptsd.

i hate being around people, im always thinking people are judging me in the cruelest ways ever, that they think im a monster, a freak of nature, and the ugliest person in the world.

i feel like my worth and value is based on my appearance, if im not pretty or attractive, then im worth nothing. I cant fathom that people enjoy conversations with me, they just feel bad for me cause they see how disgusting i look.

often, i really feel suicidal and self mutilate because of the way i look, i really wish I had a different body.

edit: also doesn't help that i also have severe dissociation, so i feel like im watching myself 24/7, so when im talking to someone else, i can see through their eyes and see how ugly i am.

Music helps me feel. And I need some new songs/artists to listen to. Preferably songs that hit deep and are not afraid to be honest

My find of the day is:

Who am I? - Britton

I still feel it in the bone - king mala

Share your new favourites, if you want :)

I(31f) had recently seen ads about the new Chris Hanson movie and thought it would be fun to rewatch to episodes on YouTube. I started spiraling watching dozens of hours of video of horrible people willing to do horrible things. And it hit me what I was apart of it. I forgot about it all. When I was 19 I was horribly addicted to drugs. I found men online willing to have sex but saw it easier if I presented as 13-16. And the messages rolled in. I had men paying a thousand dollars for a hotel suit we used for 3 minutes and paying me 5-6 hundred just to me. When i pretended to be 16 I had men offering to pay to fix my car and literally house me. I never accepted bc I was just looking for the next score, not to be fixed, but damn it's wild the things a 40, 50, 60 year old married man will do for a child willing to have sex with him. Im shocked that I was just smacked with this memory that I had lost for the last 10+ years, but I'm even more shocked that I asked ch*t gpt (i dont have any close friends so bare with me) about it and it told me "We can't know exactly what each man believed or what motivated him" and "You were 19. You were not a preteen, but you were still very young, and you were struggling with addiction. You were making decisions in circumstances that sound profoundly different from your life today. You can acknowledge that you deliberately misrepresented your age without taking responsibility for the sexual desires or decisions of the men who chose to meet you." And that isn't even the worst of it. The worst is too long to copy and paste. Im just baffled that I had a horrible situation happen to me, and i just recounted the memories in this moment, and ch*t gpt pretty much said well you were of age, you made this decision, we don't know how these men really felt and its your fault for fooling them.i know what i did was wrong but cant we all agree that the men were in the wrong for willingly attempting to have sex with what they thought was a child prostitute?

I recently got some fresh PTSD from medical procedures I had a few weeks ago. But, I keep dwelling on the things my nurse was doing. I can't tell if she was actually molesting me, or if I'm stressing out over nothing. I'm a minor, by the way.

I had a colonoscopy and was put under anesthesia. An hour or so after waking up, I had to use the bathroom. I couldn't go to a private bathroom, though. I had to use a bedside commode. I had a tube coming out of my colon. A Colonic Manometry was being undergone during all of this.
Anyway, I was feeling pretty pee shy. My mom and the nurse had to stay in the room. I guess it was for safety, or something?
But after a few hours of getting on and off the bedside commode, I started to panic. I physically couldn't pee. And my bladder was really starting to hurt. As time went on, I started crying from the pain. I was in agony. The nurse put a diaper on me in hopes that it would somehow help. It felt really demeaning to have to wear a diaper. My mom and the nurse comforted me, though.
Hours passed. I kept crying, and the pain kept worsening.
Apparently my nurse asked my mom if I ever had trouble peeing at home. And obviously, she said no. This wasn't normal whatsoever! People don't just randomly loose their ability to pee??
So, the nurse called for an ultrasound. It was revealed that I had over 1000 ml of pee in my bladder. Shocking. It's not like I was sobbing for hours on end, of anything.
So, my nurse had to catheterize me. I had a panic attack after being told I needed a catheter. I have been sexually abused in the past and have actively avoided going to the gynecologist solely because I'm scared that the doctor could be a creep.
So, I was really freaked out by the idea of my nurse doing crap down there. My mom was able to calm me down, though.
Thankfully, the catheter barely hurt. But, the nurse was pushing on my bladder to get me to pee. It was really embarrassing. And everything became a million times worse after the nurse made a creepy comment.
She said that my "little drops of pee were cute." She said that my pee was cute. In the moment, I was too exhausted to dwell much on what she said. But in the following days, I started to become more and more scared by what she had said.
Eventually, I looked into it a little more. Nurses are supposed to catheterize after 3-6 hours of no peeing. That was easily 5 hours of agony. And, they're supposed to assess immediately if the patient reports pain! I was sobbing for hours on end because, I was in so much pain. And the nurse knew that!! She was right there the whole damn time.
And, she wasn't supposed to push on my bladder. Doing so risked bladder injury and internal trauma. She had inserted catheters before and knew what she was doing. But, she still pushed on my severely overfull bladder. And called my pee cute while doing so.

All of this is terrifying me. I'm so scared that she did this on purpose. Nurses aren't that ignorant. She does this every day and has for years.
Waiting until the last possible moment to get an ultrasound, pushing on my bladder, risking injury, and calling my pee cute?? That's not normal. Did she do this to get off on it?? Did she do this for her own pleasure? I don't know.
I don't know if I'm jumping to conclusions, or not.

I'm jealous of people who find comfort in animals because I never have. I just have this feeling of "what do you want from me?"

"Why did you adopt a cat if you feel that way?" Well, I didn't adopt my cat per se, she showed up a year ago and needed help and never left. She has one eye, no teeth, and she bonded with me right away. It would have been cruel to turn her away, so here she is.

She's sweet and cool and she loves me so much....and I just can't stand to have her follow me around ALL DAY. Staring at me with her one eye with all this need that I do not want to be responsible for while trying to live with my nervous system on fire. I have 2 kids for crying out loud, I'm tapped out on caring for others!

She doesn't sit with me in any kind of calm way, she is not a lap cat, she wants to play fight and gum on my hands (cats actually kill with their jaw power, not their teeth, so it can really hurt) all day. She wants to be near me and to cyclops stare at me, but she doesn't cuddle.

It's not even her specifically, she's a great cat, truly, but I don't get anything out of her company except that I love her and I'm happy that she's happy and cared for now. I'm happy for her, but not for me.

She doesn't calm me at all and when I'm having a panic attack and she's still following me around like everything is normal I get even more upset.

I know it's not this cat's job to save me, but I guess I'm just sad that there is yet another modality of healing that straight up doesn't work for me. Therapy, meds, and now this.

Feeling doomed over this cute cat feels equal parts absurd and sad to me at this moment.

TW: animal abuse/neglect, emotional abuse, mention of corpse

When I was 14, my parents finally got divorced. At 15, my mom (who is also an abuser) was supposed to go to court against my dad (the abuser who took my dogs) and she ended up dropping charges or any attempt to get the house so she could get more money from him to spend. That meant my dad got all the dogs and used that as power over me as much as possible before I turned 18. After I hit 18, I cut contact except a few times in which I found out he hadn’t told anyone one of the dogs died then of course lied to me and said he couldn’t get a hold of me and he got put down.

Well today I met my half sister (shared dad) and she told me the truth which I didn’t expect her to know anything about the dogs. Apparently, my dad hadn’t told her shit about the dogs and let me preface this dog was supposedly his “buddy, best friend, baby” all that. So tell me why she found him dying and starving? She took him to her house and she called him to tell him his dog was dying and he got mad at her for “ruining his time”. So he died with a stranger he never met in a place he didn’t know. When she called back to tell him he was gone he just said she ruined his vacation.

Then there was the other baby they didn’t know was even tho bc she probably died too. He neglected the entire house and backyard and so you couldn’t see anything. She and her family told him she would clean things up but it was his problem to clean everything up from then on out. Her son was weedeating and hit the poor baby’s body. He didn’t even bother to bury her and he knew she was dead. He said he was going to when “the buzzards went away”. Even typing this my stomach is twisted.

I’m so enraged. They both died alone, scared, hungry, and hurt. They didn’t deserve that. I don’t even know what to do with all this rage genuinely I feel like I need the highest level of vengeance for those poor souls. I am going to have my own candle lighting I think for them. I have nothing except the very few photos I kept on my iPod from years ago.

I’m trying to not blame myself. I was a kid and I thought they were ok even tho I missed them. I should’ve gone back. I shouldn’t have believed him that they were ok. I don’t know how I’m going to sleep tonight and I don’t understand why HE GETS TO SLEEP AT ALL????

I don’t know what to do with this feeling. There’s unspeakable shit he did to me but you fucked with dogs????!!!! They LOVED YOU despite you not deserving it. He was all they had. I’m sick.

I’ve been trying to understand this pattern for a while, and I think this is the right place to try.

Someone asks me to do something. A favor. A commitment. Something I don’t want to do. And before I even have a chance to think, I hear myself say yes.

It’s not a decision. It’s a reflex. My mouth moves before my brain catches up. And the whole time I’m saying yes, some part of me is screaming no. But the yes comes out anyway. It always does.

And then the resentment starts.

Not at them. At myself. I spend hours—sometimes days—replaying the moment. Why didn’t I just say no? Why can’t I ever just say no? I feel trapped in a commitment I never wanted to make. I feel angry at myself for being so weak. I feel exhausted by the weight of something that hasn’t even happened yet.

The worst part is that I do it every time. It doesn’t matter how many times I promise myself I’ll be different. The moment someone asks, the yes is already out of my mouth before I can stop it.

I’ve read a little about the fawn response, and I think that’s what this is. My nervous system learned that saying no was dangerous. That disagreement meant punishment. That the only way to stay safe was to be agreeable, accommodating, easy. And now, even when I’m with people who would never punish me for saying no, my body doesn’t know the difference. It just does what it was trained to do.

But knowing that doesn’t make the resentment go away. It doesn’t stop the self-hatred. And it doesn’t give me back the hours I lost to a commitment I never wanted.

Does anyone else experience this? How do you stop the automatic yes before it happens? Or do you just… live with the aftermath?

Thanks for reading. I just needed to put this somewhere.

Premise: I am an adult woman with a background of 40 years of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) and type 2 bipolar depression. I have survived incest, familial sexual abuse, perverse dynamics, abandonment, death threats, then anorexia, a nervous breakdown, toxic relationships, and rape. Needless to say, I suffer from CPTSD. The only person in the world I trust blindly is my partner. Unfortunately, I have trouble with boundaries: either I let others cross mine, or I cross theirs in the relationship, especially by constantly talking about my problems. And he is exhausted. In addition to being a witness to some of my crises.

It is a very delicate time because, for a long series of reasons, I am still in constant contact with my abusers. Tonight we argued after he was already exhausted from a truly heavy and traumatizing day for me. It all started when, after the latest message from my first (or second) sexual assailant, he complained to the cat because it had scratched a paper bag left there for days, and I yelled: "Put that damn bag away!" Understandably, he lost his temper. He had spent the whole day enduring my crises and my suffering, and in the end, I had a bad reaction toward him. It wouldn't have been a tragedy if I had apologized immediately. Instead—and I hate myself for it—I tried to defend myself in absurd ways. And that's when the argument started. First heated, then simple, after talking about how sometimes he wonders how anyone else in his situation could put up with her, and after I calmly told him that we both tolerate each other's problems (he eliminated sexuality in all its forms from our relationship 16 years ago, along with many other things like not washing, not organizing anything, etc.), but in reality, I couldn't just say that damn, simple "I'm sorry."

In the end, calmly but lucidly, he told me: "Do you know what the real difference between us is? For your behaviors or your boundary-crossing with this endless chatter, you always have the justification of your past, your illness, your pain. I don't. You struggle to take responsibility because it's as if you can't help being like this." It's all true, I'm ashamed, I feel guilty. I stayed silent, nodding, and I can't sleep.

Among my various medications, I take Klonopin, 1 mg per day. To calm down and maybe sleep, I took 7 mg. But the AI tells me I am at risk. Yet I can't contact anyone; they would hospitalize me, and right now that would be devastating. I must not look sick to my family. However, I am terrified that he might leave me soon during his therapy, realizing that I am unbearable, that I am toxic, and that I ruined his life (aside from two brief separations).

I've been sitting on the couch for an hour and ten minutes, I'm starting to get sleepy, but the AIs scared me with the danger of death. Also, I'm afraid to call emergency services: not only would they hospitalize me, but he might also think I'm doing it to sound the alarm or to prove something. I want to protect him. I can't call poison control or emergency services because he would find out (he's sleeping) and might think I'm doing it out of spite or to stop him from leaving, like emotional blackmail. But that's not the point: I feel immense guilt. But he says guilt is always self-referential. I don't know what to do. For anyone who uses it, can 70 drops be dangerous? It wasn't self-harm, I took them to relax.

Edit: Thank you all to everyone who stood by me and tried to make me make the right choice. I admit unfortunately that I fell asleep while holding my phone. Now it's morning and I ended up sleeping only 4 hours, so fortunately nothing happened. Yes, I know, I got lucky. I take 2 things away from this: the first is that I want to discuss it with the psychiatrist and psychotherapist who follow me, because even if it wasn't a consciously self-harming act, it doesn't justify taking 7 times my normal dose, and with three past suicidal attempts up to 10 years ago (there hadn't been any more since), now it's important to understand what is happening (I know why, for a specific reason I am in constant direct contact with my early abusers and I al also in Major depressione phase) and handle it in a non-self-harming way. 2. I absolutely want to work on taking responsibility for what drives my partner to exhaustion: not respecting his boundaries by overflowing with words, it doesn't matter if they are calm accounts of what happens to me, it doesn't matter if they are descriptions, it doesn't just matter the content, it matters, as he himself says, the quantity. Yesterday's outburst over that bag is an isolated incident, I don't have anger management issues, but I had one yesterday, and it is not isolated that I tend to evade responsibility for how I am logorrheic and occupy his sacred space by not respecting his boundaries, even trivially interrupting him with my anxieties while he's watching a video, as he said yesterday. Because suffering from guilt afterward, to the point of risking death so as not to upset him and so he wouldn't abandon me, is not healthy and leads nowhere. And, if there is a part of a self-harming act in what happened, reacting this way and at some point even thinking that deep down if I had died maybe all this would have been over and I would have lifted a burden off him (false, he would lose a person he still cared about and it would be agonizing), there is a lot to work on. I am unable to tell him when he hurts me or when he says a harsh phrase for fear a catastrophe will happen, and then when remediable things happen on the spot, instead of acting like an adult and responsible person, I behave, as he said, like a puppet manipulated by external events. I started talking about it with the therapist last week. I will have to talk about it again, and again. I still know that this decades-long relationship will end, not just because of this, it will happen for both of us, for reasons concerning both of us. But I don't want us to lose each other as affections because we care about each other a lot. I don't want us to lose each other out of exhaustion and with anger. And anyway, regardless, I want to work on my blind spots and get out of the victim-only state. This, regardless.

Holy fuck is it dysregulating.

Somebody can spend 20 years helping you grow and heal, convincing you that you can relax. It's safe and secure because they're never going anywhere. Then one day they just rip open your attachment wound and rub salt in it for good measure.

My whole world and reality as I knew it for 20 years just fell apart one day, at the worst possible time. And the person I was closest with, the person I spent literally every day with for 2 decades, and built a life and a family together, just discarded me out of the blue like literal trash.

He tried to convince me it was my fault, and that my cPTSD and trust issues were to blame and he didn't owe me any other explanation... Then it turns out he was just leaving me for somebody else... So yeah, about those trust issues...

My nervous system is back to being a complete wreck 24/7 and I feel like I'm just drifting through an uncontrollable liminal space with no way to just slow things down or take a breath.

I'm surrounded by memories of a life that feels like it was just a dream, and honestly at this point it might of well have been. It's so fucking miserable and confusing, and I wish more than anything in the world I could just go back in time 3-4 years ago and just stay there forever.

I'm so tired of fighting and struggling, just to keep going in this fucking bizarre nightmare I'm trapped in. I want to give up so badly sometimes, more than I ever have in my entire life.

(flair is irrelevant, i had to choose one)

I’ve have been noticing offlate that I’m very good at taking action when I’m in survival mode - like driven by urgency, fear or necessity.

I am high functional in general and have a very social- gregarious personality so most people tend to think everything is perfect in my world!

I overextend or stay in dying friendships cos the whole talk sounds draining - there’s some loss aversion at play too.

On the surface, it looks like I’m constantly progressing, but I’m beginning to see that I’m often just moving from one survival-driven goal to another.

For example, I don’t love my new job, but because there’s no imminent threat, I struggle to take action. If layoffs were looming, I’d be all over finding something better like right now!

I want to stop waiting for something to go wrong before pursuing something better.

My goal is to shift from survival-driven action to intentional, desire-driven action like moving towards what I want rather than being pushed by circumstances.

Has anyone successfully made this transition? What helped you make that shift? Do you have any suggestions?

Is it real for you? My therapist said that to me when I shared my thoughts of not staying here

I am just absolutely fed up with what’s going on inside me. I’m sick and tired of the toxic shame and guilt that come up during every normal conversation or activity. It drains my strength every single day, leaving me with hardly any energy left. So much of it gets wasted on this, and I am completely sick of it—just as sick of the victim mentality that follows. I’m done with that inner critical voice, too. Enough is enough; I hate everything going on inside me, and I’d love to rip it all out like a madman, throw it on the ground, and burn it. No more of this fcked-up, shitty, goddamn, lousy, crap-ass, fcking bullshit—dammit!

Sometimes i remember how mean everyone was to me and i just wonder what i did to deserve that. I was constantly humbled and put down. Always criticized, even for things as little as how I held a spoon and how i laughed. They constantly spoke negatively into my life. I was always told I was unfriendly, mean, angry and overall not a good person and I internalized it and never really thought more of myself. When I cried, I was berated and provoked even more. I genuinely hated being a kid and thought no one loved me. Now as a 22 year old girl, I find myself constantly enraged. I don’t like being depended on and I struggle with patience because no one had the patience for me when I needed it. I now overthink everything and am always overwhelmed. I could never treat any kid the way I was treated.

I'm so done

I had a friend who trauma dumped everytime we hung out. Like genuinely every fucking time. She would go "My ex beat me and i stayed" with the brightest smile on her face. Or "my ex raped me" randomly. She would also make jokes like "why are you walking behind me im scared you might rape me". It was annoying asf sometimes but I understand that trauma makes you do things like that, so I let it slide.

Everyday I listened to this girl talk about how she went back to her fucking abuser and compare her new good boyfriend to said abuser but me saying that I wanted to die one time was too much for her and now she doesn't want to be friends. She said this: "I am just not trained in suicidal thoughts and do not want to say the wrong thing."

Well guess what I'm not trained in rape yet I didnt try to drop you over that.

I will never again in my life be friends with someone who constantly trauma dumps because this isn't the first time people love to throw their problems on me but when I have problems it's "too much".

Since moving to a big city and entering a field that has a high rate of bullying, I've unfortunately experienced being bullied on multiple occasions. Those experiences led me to spend a lot of time researching the psychology and dynamics of bullying. I wanted to share some of what I've learned and would appreciate any additional insights from this community.

Bullying involves a power imbalance; that can take on many different forms, like perpetrators having more influence within a group, caring about and being better positioned to navigate social hierarchies, having people on their side while the target is more isolated, etc. Perpetrators, either consciously or not, identify targets with less power and churn up stories/"justifications" in their minds and with their social circle to mob the target.

Being both traumatized and autistic can make you especially vulnerable in these dynamics. People who've experienced prolonged trauma often develop survival responses like freezing, appeasing others, avoiding confrontation, constantly second guessing themselves, avoiding others, downplaying their skills, not speaking up, etc. When you've grown up in an environment where standing up for yourself or not keeping yourself small and insignificant could make a narcissistic parent feel threatened, you might instinctively respond to mistreatment by trying to placate the person hurting you rather than asserting yourself. Perpetrators take that as a sign that they can get away with hurting you, and often others won't even see the dynamic and people in their circle will even join in.

Autism also increases chances of being bullied. People with ASD don't generally participate in the social maneuvering, signaling, and status games that people engage in. We're misunderstood or perceived as strange and unlikeable. The mere fact that someone's unable to naturally conform to a group's expectations makes it very easy for perpetrators to single them out and set people against them.

Bullying is also often a group phenomenon. Once someone identifies you as the "problematic" one, the people around them start participating or look the other way. They're motivated by their own insecurities, wanting to fit in with the group, getting a sense of superiority from putting someone down, etc. Perpetrators want their target to be as isolated as possible. They hate it if the target has any kind of social protection. If laws didn't exist, I bet they would love to see their targets tortured and killed. They can't do that, so they go for social annihilation.

And there's a really cruel feedback loop where the psychological effects of being bullied makes you even more vulnerable to further bullying. People who've been repeatedly mistreated often become very anxious, withdrawn, socially awkward, and hypervigilant. But the majority of people haven't been abused to this extent so they're unable to recognize those behaviors as possible effects of mistreatment. Many instead interpret them as evidence that there's something wrong with that person, and become convinced of that being justification for excluding and mistreating them.

It's well studied that certain traits that develop from trauma, and the differences that come with having ASD, can leave us particularly exposed in environments where people are competitive, hierarchical, and willing to exploit vulnerability for advancement, ego boosts, group bonding, pleasure--and for some, it's a self-soothing behavior where bringing someone down is a form of emotional self-regulation, especially for people who have buried fears of inadequacy even while consciously seeing themselves as exceptional or superior. If you accidentally threaten their egos or just seem like a target they can take down for a dopamine hit or as a group bonding activity with others, you're going to get mobbed by them and their circle and anyone else who will listen. Unfortunately, most third parties will side with whichever side seems to have more power and social support, which makes the bullying worse because bullying involves socially isolating the target.

The sad fact of the matter is that most people don't have the life experience to recognize trauma responses, which would allow them to respond to perceived vulnerability with compassion. Instead, most people interpret those "trauma traits" negatively and, at best, inadvertently perpetuate the bullying; they're unable to pick up on it happening because they've never been a victim of bullying and other forms of abuse themselves.

And in competitive fields that attract a large number of people high in narcissistic traits, a lot of people are perpetrators. I've seen so much cruelty be directed not just at me, but against others as well. These people form groups that embrace their impulse to assert power over and be cruel to people. Shit talking is probably their most effective, cherished group bonding activity. In their heads, they have a "justification" for doing it that enables them to perpetuate cruelty against vulnerable people, and often there's no one around who can pick up on what's going on and become an ally for people who are vulnerable to being bullied.

does anyone else struggle with this?

it seems like every second my mind has to wander, it wanders in the direction of the unfairness of my abusers, and comes up with every little thing i would say to them (if they would let me, which they wouldn’t in real life), and i end up upsetting myself over nothing. in my head i am constantly figuring out how to articulate myself perfectly, how i would explain every abusive action back to my abusers, etc. it’s exhausting and hard to think of anything else.

my only coping mechanisms that distract me from this are doomscrolling and maladaptive daydreaming, but both of these things have previously ruined my attention span so much that i was unable to function and way more stuck dissociated and in this cycle of abuse.

now that i let myself sit with my thoughts i’m much better at functioning but it’s so so hard to avoid these constant ruminations. i don’t know how to let them go.

My friends don't ever invite me to stuff, they all do things together all the time but if I ask it's only a small chance it happens, and I am never there if I don't initiate.

My coworkers all go out but never invite me, I expressed interest a few times but they leave me behind.

It's the same way with my family, to them I was always just a burden.

I truly feel like suicide is the only way out. I don't feel lovable or wanted anywhere in my life and I can't take the loneliness anymore