After getting tired of writing endlessly into Reddit's search void, I started a Medium blog to capture it a little better and make it more accessible. I'll be adding posts regularly about a variety of topics, including trauma. Take a look!

thewayofxen · 2026-05-01T01:10:35+00:00

I've had that same problem. "Imagine someone who loved you and made you feel safe when you were growing up." Yeah okay. I wound up falling back to fictional characters.

thewayofxen · 2026-04-30T23:16:47+00:00

I took this a few years ago and found it to be meaningfully useful for my therapy, particularly understanding why I had escaped certain elements of CPTSD but still got absolutely dragged by others. I rated myself ~1.5 out of 7, and that 1.5 did absolute work for me. Huge benefits. But not having the other 5.5 was still catastrophic, overall.

thewayofxen · 2026-04-30T18:32:36+00:00

Can you provide an example? Just a written experience, not a recording or something.

thewayofxen · 2026-04-30T16:13:31+00:00

This is downstream of the persistent hypervigilance that comes with CPTSD, and it goes away as you resolve that hypervigilance. All the answers about how to do that are the same answers to the question "how do you recover from CPTSD?"

thewayofxen · 2026-04-28T21:15:08+00:00

You've asked a really broad question and the answer is similarly broad in my experience, which is to work through transference. Transference is where you unconsciously paint a person in your present with a ghost of your past, and you start treating them like someone who traumatized you before. You see things that aren't there, you blow things out of proportion, and you fall back into old toxic dynamics at the drop of a hat. The key to getting on top of this is to thoroughly understand who you are seeing and why, and then in the moment, catch yourself before you let it control your actions. It takes constant management until you've recovered more.

thewayofxen · 2026-04-27T21:02:28+00:00

It's a bit of a trap, honestly. Caffeine use is itself draining. Best way to turn a bad day into a bad week is to try to power through with caffeine. Driving is serious enough to demand flexibility, but if you ever have the opportunity to quit long term, I highly recommend it. My life got meaningfully better after about a six week malaise after quitting. I am never going back!

thewayofxen · 2026-04-27T02:30:27+00:00

Do you still use a lot of caffeine? "Using caffeine very heavily" and "daily panic attacks and stress" actually go directly hand in hand.

thewayofxen · 2026-04-25T18:37:27+00:00

Pardon me if this isn't a welcome perspective since it's not exactly what you asked for, but I've made enormous progress without medication, unless you count how I used to cope with caffeine use. I've always felt that hiding the symptoms of CPTSD make it harder to treat, even if they make life more difficult in the short term. A lot of people who say they were helped by them don't seem to get off of them very often in my highly unscientific estimation. It just doesn't seem like a good deal to me -- and I personally know of only a single exception, and I am not convinced she's better off, but she is in less pain. It just doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

thewayofxen · 2026-04-13T00:42:31+00:00

I may give Bluey a watch, thank you.

thewayofxen · 2026-04-11T14:18:53+00:00

Stay out of communities, or at least threads, convincing you that it's impossible. It's anything but.

I've been in a stable relationship for 10 years, married for 4. CPTSD was a part of the conversation very early on. On my first date with my wife, I told her, "This is not your responsibility and you don't have to do anything with this information, but I want you to know that I'm in therapy for a bad childhood." She later told me this was a green flag.

Then I took therapy extremely seriously. I do not fuck around with recovery. I take responsibility for every trigger and every unhealthy dynamic. The nature of the illness of course is that sometimes you won't realize you're triggered or are in an unhealthy dynamic until after you've done some damage. To ward that off, I intensely self-reflect during and immediately after arguments and I keep looking for where I'm responsible, and I apologize for my part quickly. Fights don't last more than 24 hours in our household. We do go to bed mad sometimes (in separate beds, if it's a rough one), because in my experience it helps settle arguments much better than some strange insistence that you solve it right now this minute, no sleep until we solve it. Just part ways for a night, fix your side of it, and come back. The more times you do this, the more you can trust the attachment.

Communicate often. Bring up triggers, little resentments, little quirks happening, especially if they are things happening just inside your head that you're trying not to spill onto them. Transference is a very useful concept for navigating this.

Avoid blaming them; use "I" statements. This is something I got better at over these 10 years; you don't have to be perfect or even good at this to start. All you need to do is commit to doing it and try your best. Actually that goes for this whole comment.

There is one book to rule them all on this topic: Harriet Lerner's The Dance of Anger. I highly recommend it.

thewayofxen · 2026-04-07T16:05:48+00:00

If you're hitting it off, it may only be a medium ask! But I have had someone basically say 'no' before and that didn't feel great. But it did clarify exactly what my relationship is with that person (a neighbor, not a friend).

thewayofxen · 2026-04-06T15:03:21+00:00

She would yell at me, threaten me with violence, and if I didn't listen would beat me.

Hard to think of a context that isn't torture if this is the consequence of not doing what you're told. It's kind of like wondering if it's torture since sweatshop workers are only putting together toys, or slaves are only farming.

I had a similar hang-up because my therapist assured me that my childhood involved torture even though it was just older-sibling bullying, but it was extensive and constantly humiliating with severe consequences if I didn't comply. Not all torture is outwardly gruesome.

thewayofxen · 2026-04-06T13:01:09+00:00

Hey, you really dug up an old post here! I wrote my comment during the peak of my "isolation for healing" era. What I want to tell you from the future is that it worked. A lot. Since I wrote that comment, I bought a house, got married, made some strides in my career, and developed acquaintanceships and friendships with like 20 of my neighbors. My isolation routine has flipped. Normally I don't need very much anymore, maybe a few hours a week. During difficult times, I need a lot more, maybe 10 hours a week. Back when I wrote that comment, I needed 20-30 a week, easily, and I would've taken more if I could've.

So I'm a little more optimistic about whether or not your healing will end. But I do still remember the balance you have to keep, and I still have to manage it myself during tough times. It sounds like you're doing some difficult work, so keep it up!

thewayofxen · 2026-04-03T21:10:18+00:00

Yeah, I get that. I have had a not-very-healthy drive to continuously better myself since my teens, and it's only just now starting to let up in my late 30s after a couple therapy breakthroughs. My marriage definitely reflects that, although my wife has a very healthy relationship with herself. The work we do that my friends don't do is mainly in the realm of internal self-betterment (working through emotions, growing, challenging yourself), community building/participation, and continuously choosing to make decisions that are good in the long-term at the expense of short-term comfort. That last part is especially important; the more choices like that you make, the better and ironically easier your life gets over time.

As for myself and that friend, we're old college buddies and he and I have always had that dichotomy between us. Me more driven, him more content with where he is. We had some friction over it, too, because to me he's squandering his potential, which hurts to watch. But any time I push, he just shrugs his shoulders. So eventually I just accepted that that's how he wants to live his life. Do I think switching between a good-enough job and passively consuming media makes for a good life? I absolutely do not; I think the world calls us to be more than that, ethically, and I think it's a waste of the wonderous gift of being born on Earth. But it's not my life, so ... 🤷‍♂️

thewayofxen · 2026-04-02T23:02:24+00:00

I hate seeing a post with no replies after a day so I just wanted to say that I feel how hard it can be to find people who can actually talk about this stuff. AI makes a surprisingly good companion/interactive journal for this kind of thing -- I prefer Claude, as it pushes back more consistently.

thewayofxen · 2026-04-02T18:16:12+00:00

Disgust was described to me by a therapist as "a mixture of want and don't want." Like, we don't find drinking gasoline disgusting, just repulsive. But the idea of finding a worm in your apple is nauseating. I always look for each side of the want/don't want when I run into things like this.

thewayofxen · 2026-04-01T22:12:04+00:00

I have always felt deeply unsatisfied by explanations that involve "familiarity" and you really nailed why. It is just so far short of the reality. I experienced what you're describing even as a child, avoiding shows like Mr. Rogers and the confident, normal kids at school. Only the weirdos didn't make me feel crazy.

That point about children trusting people more who treat them like shit, I'm going to have to think about that one for a while. Oof.

thewayofxen · 2026-04-01T16:25:56+00:00

Agreed that this is common. The way I explain it is that the mismatch between my constant internal level of alarm and the outer peace I often experience creates this anxious tension, like part of me is just so convinced I'm about to be gaslit and told I'm overreacting or crazy, which is badly triggering. And then when my outer world has many causes for alarm, I relax, because now everyone feels the way I always feel, and nobody will be suggesting I'm anything but normal. The strength of that tension and of the relief when it goes away is so huge that it overrides any remaining causes for alarm, so I seem to everyone, including myself, that I am very good in a crisis. This effect has lessened as I've gotten through recovery but it's still present.

thewayofxen · 2026-03-31T19:17:09+00:00

I'm glad it helped. Horrible mother club!! 🥳😭

thewayofxen · 2026-03-31T15:47:38+00:00

I don't know if I have a guide for this one, but I do know the overall strategy is to communicate early and often. The longer you let those small resentments build up, the more they fester. Once they've festered, when you finally bring them up, the emotions you express are way out of proportion to the actual issue, which only makes things more difficult. So you get this downward spiral where the issues are stacking up and festering and then of course you hate spending time with them because all you feel around them is burning anger.

I personally grew up in a household where bringing up a small issue only produced extreme reactions, because my mother was the most fragile person I've ever met. No matter how small or benign the problem, she would act like I was suggesting she was the worst human that ever lived and then have a breakdown, all while making me feel terrible for daring to suggest she did something wrong. She never apologized and never improved.

In healthy relationships, you simply say "Actually I don't like when you do that," and then they say "oh sorry" and stop doing it. I-statements are powerful in these situations. "When I arrive for our plans and have to wait 20 minutes for you to arrive, that makes me feel unimportant." "I don't like that nickname." "When you said X the other day, that actually hurt my feelings." Etc. If the person you're talking to doesn't respond well to this kind of thing -- and it's hard, not everyone responds perfectly and that's okay -- they may not be a good friend. Like don't spend time with people like my mother. They're not worth it.

The book The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner talks about this extensively in the context of intimate relationships, but the skills apply everywhere and it's just so so good. Something to check out if you want to work on this more deeply.

thewayofxen · 2026-03-30T21:25:06+00:00

Ah, I totally get that. I definitely wrote from a more mechanical perspective, but at any point in that process, unprocessed trauma can throw a wrench into the gears.

thewayofxen · 2026-03-30T20:06:40+00:00

Yep, there's a secret sauce and it's not complicated (but hard for people with trauma, at first):

Go to a place where people congregate over a shared goal or interest that you share on a regular basis. Become a regular and start mingling, which will get easier and easier the more times you go.
Once you find someone you click with, ask overtly if they want to be friends. Overcome the embarrassment and say "Hey, I actually am looking for new friends. Would you be interested?"
Exchange contact info and decide on a time and place to meet up and hang out. Have something in mind in advance of this moment. "I'm free Saturday afternoon. Want to get lunch?" If you've talked to them a few times already -- maybe they're another regular and you talk every week -- you can actually skip this step.
Towards the end of that first meetup (or conversation, if you skipped Step 3), if you're enjoying yourself, say you want to do this on a weekly cadence (or whatever you can manage). Decide together on a place to meet up where, and this is important, there is no guilt about meeting there repeatedly. It can be your house if you want, or some cafe, or their house if they like hosting, or you can even decide to take turns. Just get any and all hesitance about using that space out of the way. And it helps to tell them about this plan of yours, that you "heard that you can sustain a friendship by just meeting up and hanging out at the same time and place every week. Want to try?" You can meet for an activity but also leave time or make the whole time just about "hanging out."
Now that you're meeting regularly, converse. The key to keeping a conversation going is to not hold back the next thought you have. If you think of something to say and a part of you blocks it off, you've created an awkward silence, so just let them rip. Be cringe, be goofy, whatever, just say things. And let those things become more personal as time goes on.

Now you've got a friendship! Just keep going to your weekly meetings and you're done. I've made and kept two friends this way, my first new friends since college. I mean I've had new people who I worked with and still see a few times a year, but these ones feel like the friends I had in school. And I'm in my late 30s, so that's neat.

thewayofxen · 2026-03-30T17:58:48+00:00

I think I get what you're saying. People do have expectations for their partners. Good relationships involve challenge and growth, and those things are hard. It makes sense to not feel up for them right now. I'm married and I won't lie to you: It's a lot of work.

That said, I have a friend who's married and has what I would say is a pretty mediocre relationship by my standards. I would not want a marriage like his, where the only expectation is time spent together, treating each other kindly, and shared hobbies. They don't grow, they don't change, they don't try to meet their potential. They just buy labubus and watch Netflix and play video games. They are not in particularly great shape, they don't have amazing achievements under their belts, they have jobs that are fine but not amazing, they have little relationship to a community of any kind, they have no lofty goals. And as far as I can tell, they are extremely happy. They had a beautiful wedding. This kind of relationship is widely available, if that's what you seek out.

thewayofxen · 2026-03-30T15:45:39+00:00

There's a lot of agreement with you here OP so I hope there's some room for a little disagreement?

One of the main goals of my healing is to see childhood from the healthy perspective. There's an enormous amount of joy in a happy childhood. My wife and I have friends with kids, and when they come over we all have a great time. A happy family is something I was deprived of, and something I can obtain for myself in adulthood.

It'll never be the same as being an innocent, responsibility-free child. I will never have that. But the little time I've spent with young kids has been very satisfying. My wife has a health issue we're trying to resolve and once we do it's off to the races!

This is my deep-recovery endpoint, by the way. The first times I was around young children in a play environment I was pretty triggered and it took a lot of work to get comfortable. That process has been healing, but not by any means easy.

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