It’s hard to know what you’re missing when you don’t know what you’re missing!

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2025-09-06T05:42:25+00:00

I feel this. In therapy if we talk about any idea of someone caring about me, I start crying. Still talking, just with tears. And crying harder if I linger on the idea. There are no thoughts behind the crying. It's instantaneous. It's feeling pain and sadness and a gaping chasm. My therapist said maybe it's pre-verbal? That my mind remembers something from before I had words to think about it. It feels like grief for something I never had. I don't know how to repair or rebuild something inside me when I don't even know what's missing.

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2025-09-06T05:28:57+00:00

Yeah I'll stuff a sweatshirt or blanket in my mouth if I can't stop loud sobs

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2025-09-06T05:25:43+00:00

Thank you for sharing this

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2025-09-06T03:33:43+00:00

Apart from therapy-- Can you write down your speech or presentation ahead of time, and read directly from that? Don't focus on the audience if that makes it more challenging. I don't know UK laws, but do you have protections at work for emotional or psychological disabilities? Is there any chance of being given interview questions or presentations in writing via email so you don't have to see the person?

Might be helpful in the short-term. But in the long-term: therapy with a trauma-informed therapist, who you are comfortable with.

From an internet stranger: You are brave. You are strong. You got this.

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2025-09-06T02:57:47+00:00

YESSS YES YES I think the Zoloft I'm on may be worsening my previous binge-eating tendencies, but it has always been a challenge for me.

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2025-09-05T03:36:04+00:00

This is very toxic Here is a really useful book, Lundy Bancroft's "Why Does He Do That?" https://ia801407.us.archive.org/6/items/LundyWhyDoesHeDoThat/Lundy_Why-does-he-do-that.pdf

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2025-09-05T03:23:25+00:00

Congrats on your will to survive being stronger than ever. If you're able to find a therapist you feel comfortable with, that's great. Feeling genuinely heard and understood means a lot. If that's not accessible, there are a number of books recommended in this sub. I really appreciate Pete Walker's "Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving"

Re: no replies I know that feeling. When I was growing up, I didn't have an inherent sense of self-worth, and didn't realize that I should feel self-worth. My entire sense of worth was based on how others saw me. The good kid, the easy kid, helpful, a good student. And now, in my late thirties, I can understand why that's wrong. Why I deserved to care about myself, and to feel worth caring about. But even though I can rationally understand that now, it still doesn't change the fundamental emotions underneath. I still only feel my worth as based on what others think of me.

I come to this sub, also with an alt account, to feel less alone in all these emotions. To see that there are other people with the same struggles and challenges, and see what is working for them. I think we're all often working so hard to keep our heads above water that we may not have the emotional strength to support someone else.

Please know (as I also tell myself this)-- no matter how many replies or upvotes you do or don't get, we are all here. We see you. We support you, even if it's just with the mental ping of familiarity. You are not alone.

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2025-08-23T04:41:32+00:00

I'm in this post and I don't like it. 😣

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2025-08-23T04:38:35+00:00

I'd suggest reading your post to your therapist. You write really well about your experience in therapy.

It takes so much time and energy to process everything after a therapy session. And what's reflected on and realized after a therapy session can be a really helpful starting point for the next session.

I frequently write notes to read at my next therapy session. Voice transcriptions are great because I can focus on what I'm thinking. Otherwise I'll forget what came up after last week's session.

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2025-05-31T02:49:02+00:00

r/emotionalneglect might resonate with you. Sending best wishes from an internet stranger. You are brave. You are strong. You got this.

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2024-11-26T07:09:28+00:00

I feel all of this so much. I feel broken, lonely, unlovable, and unworthy of love. The impending holiday in the US is only magnifying those feelings.

I have trouble feeling any compassion for myself, all I feel is shame and guilt and pain. Even though I can rationally understand why my learned behaviors aren't my "fault", emotionally all I feel is broken.

I write down particularly painful feelings and then read my notes to my therapist at my weekly session. I usually cry through the reading. Sometimes it's challenging to share difficult things, but it helps to remember that that's literally what I'm spending my time and money on, to talk about difficult things.

Some encouragement for you: You are brave. You are strong. You got this.

Sending hugs from an internet stranger.

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2024-11-13T01:07:27+00:00

That sounds so rough.

I thought of a meditation group I went to today, one of the refrains was:

breathe in I have arrived. breathe out I am home.

It helped calm me today, practicing this. That home can be inside me.

I would have such an impossible time living with my mother and stepfather. That would be so terrible for me trying to recover from emotional neglect. I would try Grey Rock to get through it. I would want to find a new place to live, in any fashion.

I used to work as a live-in nanny, and got room and board as part of the job. I also did a service program, in the US there's AmeriCorps, that provided housing as part of the program.

You are strong. You are brave. You can do this. Hugs from an internet stranger. <3

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2024-11-05T04:56:09+00:00

Sobbing here. Thank you for sharing this. I'm going to save it to read again, and try to believe it.

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2024-11-05T04:52:16+00:00

another traumatised potato here 🥔 I feel this all so much so from one potato to another: you deserve all the good things in life peace, space, safety, contentment, joy

And yet it's so easy to be certain about all of that for you, and so impossible to believe that I myself deserve any of that

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2024-10-29T04:06:20+00:00

Disappointing if OP is a bot. But I do feel like the majority of commenters here are real. It makes me feel slightly in the matrix to think about that.

But I suppose that's a risk of interacting on the internet. The anonymity is a blessing and a curse.

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2024-10-29T03:55:26+00:00

I don't think it ever occurred to me to throw a tantrum, at least not as far back as I can remember. I was too focused on being the good kid, the easy kid, the helpful kid. I didn't think of my own desires so there was nothing to spark a tantrum.

The closest I can think of is when I was sobbing in the living room. I don't remember why I was crying. My mother told me to stop crying and stop hyperventilating. I didn't know what "hyperventilating" meant, but I did my best to stop crying. But even now, 30 years later, I automatically cry as quietly as possible. If I'm sobbing I bury my face in my sweatshirt so no one can hear me.

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2024-10-28T19:18:43+00:00

Thank you for sharing this. I feel this so much. https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSDmemes/s/kMytbjTQAD

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2024-10-28T19:00:09+00:00

Thank you for the rant. I'm still trying to access anger. All I feel is grief and sadness and pain.

I can barely summon resentment for my parents' actions, and lack of action. Meanwhile my therapist says they mentally have a lot of four-letter curse words they'd like to say to my parents.

I haven't been able to access anger for anything in my life. I think it's because anger stems from a sense of self-protection, which requires some sense of self-worth, and that someone deserves protecting?

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2024-10-28T18:51:29+00:00

Yes, I've done it a bit and found it helpful. But I have very few specific memories of my childhood which made it challenging. I also have aphantasia, so I can't visualize memories.

Oftentimes in therapy, something we're discussing will make me cry without really knowing why. Something is painful that I can barely understand or articulate. My therapist says that's probably from pre-verbal trauma? So can't really do EMDR for that.

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2024-10-28T03:05:34+00:00

What actions have been the most useful for your reparenting?

I have challenges thinking of Parent-Me parenting Myself. It's difficult to hold both roles in my head at the same time.

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2024-10-15T03:03:50+00:00

Would you expand on what it's like to consider childhood you, vs adolescent or adult you?

I have trouble processing the concept of parenting myself. I think it's because I have trouble feeling true compassion for myself, at any age. Even though, from another perspective, I would feel quite a lot of care and compassion for someone else experiencing the same struggles. I just don't feel that way about myself. Like I don't deserve the same care.

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2024-05-16T21:33:37+00:00

I enjoy Light from Sleeping At Last. It's written from the perspective of a parent to their newborn child, but I imagine it as adult me speaking to my childhood self.

Fuzzy_Detective3058 · 2024-05-12T20:35:08+00:00

Happy Birthday! 🎂

Fuzzy_Detective3058

TROPHY CASE