My [32F] alleged "intimidation" problem is apparently more a self-esteem issue, which is even more depressing to me

So I went through really traumatic child abuse, not identical but not too far apart from what you went through. I'm three years younger.

I was like you too. I still am like you in some ways: I find it very hard to connect to people and I find myself very full of low self-esteem. Although your career is more successful than mine, I have a good job and a solid career as well, so I have the same issues too (of not really believing how well I've done, or believing it but not FEELING it, if that makes sense).

The only thing I can suggest is therapy, and that's finding the right therapist. You have PTSD. I have PTSD. It took me like 15 therapists to find the right one. It was brutal, and heartbreaking. Some days I still deal with thinking mine is only in it for money even though she is possibly the most giving woman in the world who would never take a cent if not for needing her own i ncome (she seriously gave me a laptop as a loaner once and told me to give it to someone else who needed it instead of back to her--she's mad cool).

What she's told me and what we're working on is that little voice inside. Maybe you don't have the voice, or maybe you DO but you don't hear it because you don't listen to it; maybe for you it has become second nature.

Anyway for me that voice, it sabotages everything with humans. I'm ok with work, kickass even, but with PEOPLE it sabotages. It tells me they don't care. No one really loves me. No one will stay. No one truly cares. People don't like me.

She has me--when I catch myself sabotaging like that--blow up the voice. I made a mental image for it (12 year old me, a period when the abuse mostly came to a climax) and I just blow it up into a pile of hearts, as dumb as that sounds. She says because of PTSD and how it works, you have to do it A LOT. And you do. I do it probably 10-15 times in a row to "move on." She says it's a bad brain loop.

Is she right? I don't know, but I do know in the six months I've been doing it I am able to connect slightly better and I am working on believing that people really do care even if I can't see it. It let me reconnect with my mom (who made the mistake of marrying said abuser, but otherwise was great) and we have weekly dinners for the first time in ten years.

What I am saying is it's possible. Find someone. Good luck.

/r/relationships Thread