((Panda)),

That is something I hear a lot from others here. And quite frankly, a big reason I start a thread where I try to talk about my challenges, I feel very exposed and feel that I am going to be told I don't have PTSD or should not feel. It's a major trigger because that is how I was treated not only by professionals but also by my own family.

I remember when I finally found PC, I was really looking for a "live" support group somewhere around me, but there was nothing but PC. At the time I was also seeing a therapist who turned out to be an ex heroin addict and he admitted he had been a habitual liar, and had strong narcissistic traits. When I say my therapist is trying to help me from being traumatized by "bad therapy", he can't believe how badly I was misdiagnosed and misunderstood and mistreated.

When I joined PC, I did not want to have any kind of "saga thread" either. My brain just needed to have an outlet to think tbh. My environment IRL was so incredibly "unsupportive" and because the trauma happened where I live, I could not seem to interact with it at all and I did not even know "why". I did not really have any "help" with that.

I "believe" you when you talk about your root challenge of feeling like you are only a burden, I have struggled with that myself and I avoided talking about it here at PC. Now that I think back, I was "running from that feeling", trying to figure out how to grab onto who OE used to be. You know, I wrote about a lot of things and had a lot of members come to me saying, wow, you are talking about how "I" feel.

And anyone who reacted to me like my "older sister" and believe me that did happen, triggered the hell out of me. But, I didn't really understand that at the time. I had never even heard the term "trigger" when I had joined PC either.

Yes, I believe you struggle with that core belief, I struggled so badly with that that I was in a very dangerous state of mind tbh. And the last place I ever wanted to go was that damn psych ward. I don't think words can describe how strong that state of mind is either, it isn't anything I had ever experienced before either. The average person has no idea what that is like either and my own family was very dismissive towards me about it too. I struggled with intensely strong waves of that for around 6 months, pretty much alone and waking a very dangerous line.

As I have mentioned in the past, what helped me with that was how another member explained to me it is another symptom of the PTSD, to pay attention because like the other challenging cycles it comes in waves but it "does" go away. And with that information, I noticed that was true, so I learned to work through it, and it was so hard, so very hard, expecially since I had "no support" IRL, I had to "hide how I struggled emotionally". However, Panda, as you are "allowed" to express your emotions, and that is why a good therapist is so important, why "support" is so important, these strong dangerous cycles get weaker and weaker and eventually, only come and go with a flutter instead of the driving intensity.

Honestly, if I was a treatment provider, I would absolutely INSIST on meeting with family members to explain to them "not to be hard on the patient in any way" and I would educate them on the fact that the patient is in serious condition and will need a lot of support and "how" to be more supportive too. Once my therapist that I have now heard how challenged I was, he went into immediate action, but I was able to tell him because of the help I got from a member here that explained it to me.

These trapped surpressed emotions "have to come out" and be validated, it is so important. It is not fair to anyone to tell them they need to surpress these emotions.
I could go on and on about how I had to "surpess" my emotions in so many bad situations, abusive/traumatic situations in my life. Well, that is wrong, we are not designed to continually "surpress" our emotions like we are "wrong" to have them, wrong to need to feel them, talk about them and just have another person LISTEN, and for god's sake someone who is not going to respond with "don't feel that".