“Threshold Seasons”

There are seasons
not marked by calendars,
but by the cracking sound
of your old skin falling
to the floor
like snow.

Moments that split you—
not in half,
but open.

A silence comes,
and you start to see the world
not as it was fed to you,
but as it is—
raw, unfinished, sacred.

Your name begins to echo
differently in your own mouth.

You ask:
Who have I been?
Who am I now?
And—who gets to decide?

In these threshold hours,
the mirror goes soft.
It stops reflecting old injuries
and begins to shimmer
with the shape of who you’re becoming.

There is fear here,
yes.
But also mercy.
Also fire.

Because you remember:
you are not the roles you wore
to survive.

You are the one
who can remove the costume
and still remain.

You are not your bruises,
not your masks,
not your shrinking.

You are the child who hid,
and the watcher who returned.
The one who rebuilds
without blueprint,
with trembling hands,
with holy defiance.

And this—
this becoming—
is not a phase.
It’s the birthright
you buried beneath your silence.

Now
you are digging it up.
Now
you are learning to see.

I don't even know why I'm making this post. I was scrolling a pretty popular subreddit, and a post he made from months ago related to the new post someone else made that I was looking at popped up in my feed. It was a selfie. It had enough upvotes where it showed up on my feed. It fucking jump scared me and I had a panic attack for 20 minutes after that and I'm still shaking even though it's been an hour.

For context, it was like staring back at evil itself. It sounds cheesy and it is, but it's the best way I can describe that man. He was horrible to me. He had undiagnosed psychopathy when we were together, and he's a sadist. He's told me all of this, and it's all completely true, even if I didn't recognize that until after I left him. He lacks empathy and compassion. He gets off on treating people horribly. He would gaslight, manipulate, and lie just to mess with me because he got a kick out of it. He would laugh at my confusion. He was even turned on by it. He has said many times he loved hurting people physically and mentally. Back then I thought he was exaggerating or lying to me, like he usually did. But no. He was super sexually and emotionally abusive, it was crazy. He eventually raped me near the end of our relationship. I don't even know why I'm writing this, but I guess I just don't have anyone else to talk about this with

This maybe seems obvious but hear me out. In highschool (I graduated 2020), I had not yet heard the word “triggered” in a mental health context. The first time I saw the word used was internet memes and jokes at school about people being “too triggered.” The general consensus seemed to be “people who get triggered are exhausting to be around.” My conscious thoughts on this trend were “Well that seems very dismissive,” meanwhile my brain apparently coded the information as “if you use the word triggered or ask other people for things to help you deal with trauma, you will burden the people around you.” This, and likely other internet trends using mental health terms negatively, sort of unknowingly fucked me up.

Anytime I started a new show or book with a trigger warning and any of the trauma listed applies to me, my brain goes “yeah but, I am fully capable of watching/reading anyways, this is fiction so it’s fine.” And then a few hours later, I zone back in and realize that I’m not reading the book at all, I hit a part where they started talking about a trauma I have and I’ve been daydreaming for hours in some fucked up situation in my head that is parallel to my trauma. And I would think “huh, that was weird, why did I start thinking of that out of the blue.” But of course that wasn’t a trauma response, people who actually have PTSD get stuck in daydreams of their past, not of a situation they technically haven’t been in but looks basically exactly the same as their own experience, save a few technical details, right?

So after absorbing media I shouldn’t and throwing myself into mental suffering via flashback remix many, many times, I finally put two and two together and realized that the trigger warning that lists my trauma is triggering my trauma (go figure).

I know this may be obvious, especially laid out like this in hindsight. And yes, even at the time I saw people online saying “XYZ internet trend using mental health terms incorrectly/flippantly will do damage to young peoples mental health!” And I agreed with them, but for other people. Like “yeah that will damage all those people who are struggling with trauma :(” Cause part of my brain always thinks “if I am aware of something potentially causing me mental harm, then it can’t damage me anymore,” as if I can logic my way out of the effects of trauma as long as I know what’s coming.

So basically I’m starting to realize that anti-mental-health trends doing damage to people isn’t actually as abstract/far away as I thought, and I just wanted to throw this experience out there in case anyone else can relate to the way these mental-health-turned-meme words lowkey enabled the denial stage of trauma.

TLDR: The times in my life I started realizing I have trauma was also when pop culture started using mental health terms like “triggered” as memes, resulting in the terminology that’s supposed to help me come to terms with my problems actually keep me in denial longer.

TLDR2: Dead dove wasn’t tasty.

Has anyone been rejected from your moms and dads families because of differences in Class? It’s been until now that i realized how hard i tried to belong to both of my families with no success. One shaming me because my dad’s family was lower class the other doesn’t trust me because of the believe that i only care about money and status. This created a traumatic sense of not belonging throughout my life

I don’t have any friends or family or relationships, and have replaced these things with fantasy connections in daydreams. They go on for hours and hours.

I’ve become obsessed with someone who is unavailable (married), and now all I think about is them. I woke up at 10:30AM thinking about them, and now it’s 4:30 and nothing has changed. Thinking about talking to them, sex with them, etc.

I feel really sick and fucked up and I wish I knew how to fix it.

That’s all.

I recently let go of a friendship that had been slowly unraveling for a while. There wasn’t one big fight—it was more like a slow bleed of misalignment. What triggered the final straw was that my friend started dating a man who’s said homophobic and racist things. She knows I’m queer and Black, and yet still expected me to sit back and… be cool with it?

When I expressed concern, she said I was being controlling and overly critical of the men she dates. And yeah—I have been critical, because they’ve all been some version of emotionally stunted or harmful. This one, though? This one has no redeeming qualities. She was literally bragging to me that he folds his laundry and vacuums. Like… that’s the bar now?

I’ve even apologized in the past for being judgmental. But the truth is, I haven’t been able to stop. Because it’s hard to let things slide when someone you love is dating someone who holds beliefs that directly harm people like you. And when I bring that up, it’s framed like I’m “making things about me.” But… it is about me. I live these identities. I can’t just switch that off for the sake of her situationship.

She claims to be an ally. She says she “corrects him” when he says or does shitty things, and that she’ll keep speaking out. But like… why not just not date him? If you know he’s harmful, if you have to “teach” him how not to be, why is he even in your life—let alone your bed?

She also coddles him like a little project. Even though she says she doesn’t want to mother him—it’s exactly what she’s doing. It’s giving “I’m desperate and don’t want to be alone,” and I say that not out of cruelty, but exhaustion.

She told me it’s none of my business who she hangs out with. And I get that, in theory. But when you’re voluntarily spending time with someone who’s said harmful things about communities I belong to—and then sharing that with me—how is it not my business?

The hardest part is that I don’t hate her. And I'm indifferent to the dude. He's an idiot. I hate what he represents. I miss our friendship. But I don’t know how to be close to someone who can separate their politics from real human harm. Who can be in proximity to bigotry and still call it “love.”

So I’m asking: Have any of you dealt with something similar? Especially BIPOC or queer folks with white friends? I have reached out and said I miss her and want to mend the friendship and she has left me on read.

I’m trying to figure out whether I should try to rekindle the friendship, or let it go. Is this salvageable? Or am I just clinging to something that’s already told me what it is?

I am trying so hard to move out. It doesn't feel real, I'm exhaused, and overwhelmed. What's is really like getting your own place, finally having a home, never having to be under the thumb of a damn abuser ever again, getting to set up your life and pursue hobbies and take care of your loved ones and have your own space?

.TW!

Every once in a while I have dissociative seizures when my cptsd stress gets too high. The other night I got really triggered and ended up having two of them. I fell off my bed and onto my head during the second seizure which really sucked. Luckily my roommate found me and made sure I was safe afterwards.

Does anyone have PNES/dissociative seizures? I don’t have them enough to be worried it’s gonna happen a lot, but when they do happen it’s so scary.

Hi y’all long time watcher first time poster. I’m not going to give a drawn out story but rather the problem i’m experiencing currently. I’ve semi recently received this diagnosis of C-PTSD and ended up in the hospital last week for unrelated reasons. After the hospital they recommended a couple panels of bloodwork due to the symptoms I was having. I got the testing done and to my surprise all my results indicate a hormonal stress response. I’ve been seeking a chronic illness diagnosis for a while now, and this more or less gave me the answers I was seeking sans a named diagnosis. My mother has been aggressively pushing me towards healthcare since I turned 18, even though she took me off her insurance shortly after that anyways. I thought bringing her these results would move her in some way. I told her what I was told about these issues more likely than not being related to trauma, and she has no reaction. Her not having a reaction to anything is something i’m working on with my therapists but it was almost shocking. After a while of silence all she said was “I have to brag that my bloodwork was excellent”. I feel soooooo frustrated at the lack of acknowledgement that YOUR neglect and abuse literally caused me to have chronic illness. I guess I just came for some support and validation that normal moms don’t do things like that

Like now as an adult i’m more outspoken when I talk to my mom about how I felt and what I experienced as a teen/young adult and how difficult that was for me to mentally bounce back from, but my mom like ? over-estimates how much she was there. I was severely neglected and she barely had any interest in me as a person AT ALL on top of her working full-time. She rather just let me fall off into the shadows and she played house with my sister and her dad, but now since their relationship went to shit she claims that she’s “always had my back” and “always defended me.” when truth oftentimes when I would vent to her she would shame me and or call me dramatic or get very frustrated with me very fast. Not really all that nice or kind of a person to me. Somehow she remembers herself being a mom she wasn’t. Is anyone else’s parent(s) like this ?

I've been thinking that I (F16) might have been assaulted as a child but I don't have any concrete memories. I might have buried them, but I feel like there's a chance I could be making it up... here are some signs I think might be relevant:

-At a very young age, I remember having this one weird thought... basically, I remember thinking that if something happened to me like a kidnapping, to get out of it, I would let the men (it was always men) touch or have sex with me. At the time, i didn't even know what sex was, but I knew the touching part. I wasn't even that upset about the prospect-- it seemed normal, or even kind of intriguing.

-I've recently become fairly hypersexual (I hope I'm not misusing that word). I have like.. assault fantasies (me being the victim) and only become aroused with pron with similar themes.

-I'm a lesbian and penises/men in general kind of scare me. I don't think the lesbianism was caused by anything trauma-related, if that's even a thing, because I love women lol, but thought it was relevant. I'm also just SO uncomfortable with men, male family members (minus my dad), or other people with a form of power.

-I have this feeling of almost connection with other SA survivors? It's almost like finding out someone is also from your same town. I've been weirdly fixated on it and I don't know why.

-I hate physical touch from family members and most people in general besides my close friends. I love and completely trust my family, so I feel this weird guilt when I feel repulsed from touch. When I'm on a couch/any sitting area, I can't have my legs touching someone else-- at the least, it's very uncomfortable. I can't fall asleep in the same bed as someone (like a family member) if we're touching somehow. However, I'm autistic and have some sensory sensitivities, so maybe that's it?

-My sister and I did some weirdly sexual things as kids together-- just touching, as I can remember. granted, we were young, and didn't understand anything, so we saw it as a game. I'm not sure if this is normal, but I thought it lended to the hypersexual side of me. but, interestingly enough, I didn't masturbate as a kid.

-I have an amazing memory, partially bc I'm autistic, but I can't remember a lot of my childhood before 8/9yrs old. I have fleeting memories but not much else.

-I had an eating disorder for about a year, from 8th grade to 9th grade. It was mostly about control, like controlling numbers and weight. It was restrictive. I feel so uncomfortable eating in front of people even now, and especially if I'm the only one eating.

This whole thing has been so stressful to figure out. I've heard of people recovering their memories later in life, so since I'm only 16, I'm now panicked and anxious that memories could randomly show up. I currently have a therapist, but I'm so scared to bring this up... I just don't know what to do. Any replies would mean the world-- anything is appreciated. ❤️

I've been receiving therapy for my OCD for a while now online which works great for me since I am constantly going back and forth between two states and need to switch therapists due to state licensing laws. That being said, are there any services similar to like NOCD that do online therapy in a similar way? My therapist diagnosed me with PTSD, but is recommending I start searching for someone specialized in trauma and PTSD and I just need some pointers in what direction to look.

For context I am only formally diagnosed with PTSD, but in my opinion I think my symptoms fit CPTSD a little more (obviously I'm not the authority on that tho).

Does anyone struggle with fear-conditioned places?

Like you live in your apartment or work at an office and with the daily triggering and anxiety you experiance the place becomes fear-conditioned, meaning your brain gradually associates the place with the old traumas just because it thinks you were in danger in that place.

With time being in that place becomes triggering on its own without any trigger.

Anyone experienced this? I've been struggling with it for the past 16 years.

typing this on a phone, so excuse if the format is weird:

my partner (31f) and i (26f) have been dating for four years now, going on five. we’re in a weird situation, well, i’m in a weird family situation. i’m closeted in a religious latino household, but it’s more than just the religious part—my mom and i went through deep trauma together. we’ve been basically on survival mode for years now, first with my brother’s abusive ass, stalking, pedo of a dad, and secondly with the heavy task of financially helping my sick sibling in guatemala.

so now we have this weird, almost enmeshed relationship. i honestly only really woke up to it about a year ago.

i’ve always struggled with depression and dissociation, but i’m just now realizing how bad it was—and how bad it had gotten without me fully noticing. when my mom found out i was in a relationship with a woman, i was 22, said the typical homophobic Christian things and threatened to kick me out and made a lot of threats to my relationship. She said if I left, I wouldn’t have a family anymore. (it’s just her and my little brother with me here)

Anyway, she had a really bad accident at the time, so it was never dealt with. We don’t talk about it anymore because i lied and now i just keep it a secret. she’ll sometimes have really good days with me, and sometimes say the cruelest shit i’ve ever heard, like as if she still feels betrayed, or subconsciously knows. sometimes she’ll say she would’ve died without me. i’ve stayed, i’ve told myself i’m here a little longer for my younger brother, but honestly? i think it’s just gotten way too deep and messy in my brain. I recently started the therapy process.

anyway, sorry about the tangent. i just felt like all those layers sort of help explain my brain and why it’s doing what it’s doing. and i’m a little high and suddenly having the realization like… maybe this second part isn’t normal. so i’m here.

my partner and i haven’t had sex in a long time, maybe like within the last year it’s just every now and then, last time being maybe in Jan/Feb? she’s been patient, but she’s a very sexual person so she makes jokes and it’s been hard. I try my hardest to be affectionate, and am on a good day, but it’s hard for me sometimes. we will tease each other though.

anyway, recently she’s admitted feeling kind of hurt by the fact that i’m only ever really okay with sex when i’m high. she’s like, “how is that supposed to make me feel?” and when i’m sober, it’s hard to answer, i’ll just be like, it’s fine, it just gets me out of my head! but now that i’m high, i’m sitting here like… is that even okay? i tried googling it and couldn’t really find anyone talking about the same thing.

i had sexual trauma in my childhood by my brother’s dad. i’ve done some healing, but sex has always been complicated. i don’t feel disgusted by it exactly, but i feel disconnected from my body. like the idea of sex feels far away, or overwhelming, or like a “no.” when i’m high, sometimes i feel more open to it, but even then, it’s not always. and when i’m sober, i can, but i… can’t. i can’t get into it even though im into it, i can’t get out of my head. i’ll do it myself and that’s okay, but. idk.

idk! i’d appreciate hearing from anyone who’s been through something similar. thank you.

edit: wanted to add- recently i fell down the stairs and it’s been triggering like, falling jump scares and then hand in hand triggering flashbacks. does anyone the same? like. sorry lmao i haven’t talked about any of this really so now i’m going overboard realizing that i can? lol

edit: yal im sorry im hella high. I was going through posts and realized that damn, at the beginning I was so hypersexual. that’s trauma? wtf.

My dad always told me growing up to consider him my boyfriend instead of me dating.

He told me that he could buy me flowers and do all of the boyfriend type of things.

And like now that I’ve grown up I feel like that’s weird but I guess I just want to be assured that it is weird and I’m not overreacting.

Ps. He would tell me in on multiple occasions that I have a nice butt and a body that most women would kill/die for. I don’t think he ever touched me inappropriately but he also wouldn’t let me wear revealing clothes (such as short shorts or a crop top) around him and my brother even if I had just not put on a bra that day and was wearing baggy clothing he would tell me to put on a bra, like it made him uncomfortable. Mind you I was like 12-15.

I've been meaning to post this but I've been postponing it cause I'm so goddamn overwhelmed with it all.

It's been over a decade since I started going into therapy, but my experiences were so appalling that I stopped going again. I only ever had one therapist who treated me with kindness and helped me understand myself a little better. But I couldn't keep talking to her and was redirected to other therapists, despite my begging them not to.

After being abused by three other therapists in two different offices and having terrible experiences as an inpatient, I ran as fast as I could. I didn't feel there was an ounce of understanding and I didn't feel like any of them wanted to genuinely help me. They were just there to belittle me and my experiences.

Well, a decade later, I'm still suffering, so I guess I should call them up and say I wasn't making it up after all.

Anyway, after a terrible mental breakdown two years ago that almost cost my life, I realised I had to give it another go. (I had made some attempts in the meantime but all of them had me running again at the first sign of them showing any kind of authority.)

I tried with the NHS first, which... was terrible. Although they treated me nicer than the therapists in my home country (I moved in the meantime), I still felt like they weren't helping. After begging them to offer me more than talking therapy and CBT (which I have terrible experiences with), they offered me to see a psychiatrist who would be able to give his opinion on what was going on with me (aka diagnose me, even though I already had a few formal diagnoses to my name, but sure).

He was an absolute dick. I felt SO horrible. I ended up going into a full on panic mode in his office and had an autistic meltdown. I was jittering and stuttering and ended up repeating things like "No one will help me, no one will help me." Mind you, I felt like I was watching all this happen from a third point of view.

Needless to say, I ran away again. This guy was never going to take me seriously, I knew that. He told me, to my face, that CPTSD/PTSD is a very serious condition and most people don't really have it, even if they think they do. I spend YEARS figuring this stuff out about myself. I have absolutely zero doubts about me having CPTSD. (Obviously I go in phases where I think I made everything up, but on a core level I know this is what's going on with me.) I think he wanted to diagnose me with something simpler so CBT could become a valid option again and the system could shut me up. (Honestly, that seems to be exactly what happened there.)

So, I ran away again and knew that if I wanted therapy (which I NEEDED), I was going to have to pay for it. I have no money. I have a meagre income and just about get by. I'd saved up some money over the past decade, thinking I'd try to get myself a nicer place some day, cause I don't like where I live at all. But no, I was going to have to spend practically all my savings on a therapist. Unfair, but so be it.

I went and finally I got some understanding. I won't say it was perfect. (She misgendered me and didn't know much about autism.) But she understood CPTSD and trauma very well though and she could immediately tell that I was deeply affected. That was validating in a way I've never been validated by any therapist before.

But here's the thing, after 4-5 months of me going, she lowered her hours and she told me she would no longer be able to see me. She had patients who had been seeing her far longer and she was prioritising them.

Not only did I lose the one therapist who I felt might be able to help me on some level, but I also invested money I didn't really HAVE into something that just fell apart.

There are no other therapists in my area and I'm really scared to try online therapy. For the moment, I'm just breaking down about this with no real idea of how I'm going to get back up on my feet.

I don't want to go at this alone again. I think the past decade have made me so much worse, because I didn't get any help. But I don't know if I have another choice at this point. I'm terrified I'll be alone again, which I feel might well happen.

If you read this far, thank you so much for letting me rant about this.

I used to be anxiously attached, bad at reading people's boundaries, and desperate for attention. But over the past few years, I've become terrified of relationships even if I actively miss them. I think this is partially due to cultural changes in the US. People never accepted needy people, but now especially it's socially terrible to open up your vulnerabilities. And I've been hurt too many times

I'm trying to build new relationships, but my fear of rejection, of myself, and just distaste towards humanity has made it hard to feel engaged. I want friendships, but what's the point if I have to hide myself to be accepted? If people lie about their boundaries? If anyone can ghost me at a given moment.

I'm just having a hard time right now. I've been struggling with SI since my last social group and relationship ended. My therapist tells me to meet new people, but I just can't bounce back emotionally.

I'm so tired. Some days I just want to call quits on this life. I don't feel like I have much to look forward to, if I just can't trust people.

Previous post: https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/comments/12s3ucl/comment/jgz92yg/?context=3

Update 2 years later:

Things are going really well now! Things got worse before they got better - shortly after I made the post I spent 5 days in a psychiatric hospital after repeated mental crises resulting in strong suicidal ideation and self harm (which I had rarely ever done).

The doctors changed my medication and after trying three different SSRIs they put me on Cymbalta/duloxetine, an SNRI. And over the coming months tweaked or added several more medications (lactimal/lamotragine, Lyrica/pregabalin and amisulpride). I can say the medications help so much and I now feel more normal than I ever have in my life.

I also did several months of EMDR therapy and it really helped me, especially with my emotional flashbacks. When I felt like I had got all I could from it I tried to find therapists that did somatic therapy or IFS but that didn't really work out.

I never ever though any medication would work for me and I'm still surprised lol. Highly recommend EMDR too.

Anyway that's my update :) It didn't get much attention at the time but it is good to look back on how far I have come although it feels like sheer luck. Good luck out there

My partner experiences intense rage and anger with her CPTSD and it has been affecting our relationship for a long time and I need to find a better way to deal with it. It’s gotten to the point to whenever she is feeling angry about something and I try to talk to her she lashes out and it’s now triggering me and I respond angrily and it becomes this whole circle of anger and it’s a serious problem.

I need help with how to talk with someone who is experiencing anger. It frustrates me to no end when she is doing something that triggers her anger and I talk to her and she acts angry towards me. I try to accept it but over time it has really chipped away at me. I become defensive and avoidant, which triggers her more. I’ve found that trying to get space from her during these moments also trigger her as she feels abandoned whenever I do that.

So what are tactics or techniques you use to try and be supportive. She pushes me away so whatever I’m saying is not working. How can I be more supportive in these moments? How can I make her feel more safe? I’ve always felt that talking to your partner has always been the best way to approach issues but for many reasons it’s not working anymore. She’s pointed out quite a few things that I’ve done that have made her feel angry or unsafe so I’m doing my best to face my issues with emotions and listening but I need to do more.

She continually asks me to do more research about how to talk to her as she doesn’t have all the answers about herself. I’ve been stubborn unfortunately but now I’m reaching out. How do you handle someone who experiences anger and rage? How do you take care of yourself so it doesn’t affect you as much. How do you speak to someone experiencing anger so it doesn’t come off as condescending or insensitive? Just sitting with them angers them but continually asking questions angers them too. I need to find a better way to be a better partner. I don’t want to lose her and I hate that I am making them feel worse. I go to therapy and take medication for my own depression and anxiety but the fear of her anger is debilitating to me. I just want to be able to confidently help her. How do I not take it so personally?

Sorry if this is rambling is unclear I just seriously need some help. Thank you.

A day late posting but here I am.

Another year. This year was particularly tough, and, dare I say, beautiful.

Staying out of an abusive relationship, moving into my own place and feeling safe, applying for and getting a service dog (in a couple of weeks), and continuing to ask for help and - having the courage to accept that help.

Taking breaks. Taking it slow. Being nice to myself, trying to at least.

Making it through another rainy winter.

Ups and downs. Today is a down day. But I will play The Last of Us Part II, and sit on my balcony and listen to the birds, and look at the flowers I'm growing, and feel a little better.

I can't wait to get my dog.

I'm grateful to all of you, I've been a part of this community for a very long time, and it's one of the only places where y'all just get it, get me, and you're patient, kind, answer questions, and support me. Thank you. I love you all.

I hope that wherever you are in the world, and whatever you're going through right now, you can smile for a second. I'm smiling right now.

💙

Sometimes I feel like I’m too emotionally sensitive for this world. I can get genuinely tearful just thinking about people working in small food businesses. Like a family-owned cafe or a tired-looking waiter and suddenly I’m all tears when I’m alone and can cry in peace lol.

I start imagining how they have to watch other people enjoy the food they serve, while they maybe don’t even have the time or money to eat it themselves. Maybe their boss doesn’t allow them to take a proper break. And I don’t know why, but something about that breaks my heart in a way I just can’t explain.

It probably sounds irrational and really stupid of me. But my brain always goes to the saddest version possible of their story, and I feel this dumb, quiet grief?..

I know people who have been abused are more predisposed to being abused again. I’m terrified that because of my history, if I get in a relationship and that person turns abusive, it would destroy me and I wouldn’t be able to leave. It’s made it so I just don’t date because I’d rather be alone than possibly end up in another abusive situation. I want to be with someone and be loved but I’m so terrified of being hurt again.

Why am I alive?

I don’t know. I have a sense that something unwanted and unfavorable is pulling me away from everyone and everything I love and cherish. I feel near torn apart by this… I have a beautiful family who all loved and supported one another and kept one immature bullshitter (dad) in check. We have our grandparent’s house on a lake some hours away from where most of us are, the fan cave and theater/arcade of my brother meant for entertaining… all of these things meant for entertaining dozens of nerdy, geeky and creative friends. We all loved geekdom and pop culture, attended ren fairs and conventions… there’s like $20k in unique cosplay commissions alone among us.

I love all of this and always have.

I’ve faced douchey friends pushing musical instruments on me I never wanted. I’ve had people judging my family for their wealth and aversions to drug-users. I have some people so serious about forcing me into fatherhood that even after my vasectomy they said “now you can choose the kid you want.”

No. I am sterile because my family is a supportive community with dozens of kids already and I am a supportive, childfree uncle who’s had a lifetime of mental illness and fuck you if you’re deluded enough to think that wealth is enough to sacrifice my humanity and make me bleed for you.

My father’s just walking around burning through money as the only person who gives a rat’s ass about boats in the entire family but we all kinda humor him. At the backs of our minds we know life will go smoother without the added complications if boats on two separate lakes.

I sit here on bullshit disability income my father claimed when I was 15 to pay for a private corrections facility after I did something violent. He then forgot about it all and even kicked me out to live with my girlfriend at 17.

Been on limited income with full financial support and accomodations from family for decades and now, honestly... since starting on reddit near covid, I’ve had everyone start isolating and become... shittier. Like they’re intentionally punishing me for following laws, rules and setting personal boundaries against substances and having children after decades of psychiatric treatment.

It feels like their brains have been consumed by some random blue collar toxic masculine asshole dad brain or something and that brain doesn’t know squat about our history or the loving support we’ve always had for one another. Hell, my dad almost had me working with his friend who owns a 7 figure/yr business doing vehicle and racing vinyls. I also had the opportunity to work with a racing team my father’s friend owns with a half dozen cars.

I don’t know why I’m alive. I just am.

We have two very successful small businesses in the immediate family I could be working for. They’ve both been in busines for 30+ years with wonderful, family service and amazing reviews.

Instead I’m here craving social needs I’ll never quite satisfy on fixed income with no vehicle and dozens of family clusters scattered about 2 hours of driving away from me where I am.

I’m currently struggling to feed myself with an ebt card in limbo and on hold while my father holds yearly parade from Chelsea Proving Grounds to our grandparent’s lake house with all his Viper Owner’s Association friends, Team Viper engineers and exotic car friends. Turns out the Chrysler Crossfire I turned down had a purpose and he hasn’t forgiven me for saying no to it.

...

I fucking hate it.