Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
Find support with others who have gone through a traumatic experience. Whether you have chronic or acute PTSD, we are here for you.
on my long, winding road to recover from child prostitution/pornography, my peer supporters have been my most consistent source of healing mojo. the pros on my healing journey have provided the road maps, but it be my peer supporters who have helped me use those atlases to navigate the journey.
are they friends? there is no doubt it is a friendly relationship, but the expectations are vastly different. my therapy peer supporters don't often ask me to babysit/eldersit or to borrow my truck on moving day. they are often people whose lives are radically different from mine. psych symptoms are **all** we have in common. add in the www of the internet and we don't even have the weather in common. as our respective healing journies progress, our contact wanes with continued support and appreciation for the progress we have shared. once a sibling-in-healing, always a sibling-in-healing, even when we part on less than perfect terms.
my social anxiety remains quite intense. on a social level, i'm still uncertain WTF a friend is. are they characters from romance novels? saturday morning cartoons? at this point in my social anxiety therapy, i settle for being friendly.
i'm not sure what i'm reaching for here, but????? am i making sense?????
reality checks requested.
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Hey All...I hope that you have a lovely, peaceful beginning of your weekI have a bunch of chores that need doing but may put them off til tomorrow and just hang out with my landlord/roomie todayWhat about you?...Anything special going on?Have a great day and take good care of you!!..Xo
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Once again I've had a fever today. I'm not going to the hospital because that's a huge waste of time but I did schedule a dr appointment for Wednesday afternoon.
Friendly acquaintances: co-workers, neighbors, with whom you superficially "get along"
Casual friends: Fun to chat with but you don't seek them out in times of trouble
Friends: reliable, always comfortable, love you warts and all, may even nickname your "warts", may not necessarily understand everything about you/your trauma, but love is there, solid, no doubts.
Peer support: Get the PTSD stuff, may live on a different metaphorical planet otherwise.
That's how I view it.
Be courteous, be kind, let it sort itself out, as my grandma would've said. People tend to show us who they are, and we sometimes cannot be friends b/c our scars are incompatible, if that makes sense.
*paw bump*
i'm not sure i have any IRL friends. of the many i have called, "friend," not a single one of them are in my life today. most often that is because one or both of us moved from the physical space we shared, but other times we just drift away from each other.
am i isolating or **just** working with life sends me.
where's my clear, distinct line?
"transference" has been one of my more therapy resistant psych symptoms. the continual moving throughout my childhood and social distances of child prostitution made for a distorted cultural eye view which makes it hard for me to know love from sex, friend from friendly, sincerity from social platitudes, etc., etc. my understanding of proper social distances is fuzzy, at best.
all that psychotherapy, especially the peer support helped me with the psychotherapy/peer transference, parenting roles, including spouse, but friendship remains a mystery to me.
If I cogitate upon it, I can drive myself into the abyss.
I'm just gonna go be glad I even *have* friends...
I hope it’s okay to say this but yes I consider you a friend. Also peer support, but definitely friend because how I care about you & like you. Geez I really didn’t mean to so sound corny but it’s the truth, if I wasn’t so sleep deprived I could probably explain this way better lol.
Big hug <3
Whatever it is I'll take it!!... It sux that you're struggling Arf.... I hope that you have some relief soon..... Big hug.... xo
being on friendly terms with whatever life sends me is plenty for navigating daily interactions. choose kindness.
the good news is that there is no suffering attached to this particular meander. just sorting. . .