Breaking Point #WotW

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare again, as well as participating in the Word of the Week linky. I’ve been struggling intensely over the past few weeks and am wondering how much longer it’ll take before I reach breaking point. Or whether there is such a thing as a single breaking point, honestly. I mean, I’ve been comparing the build-up to my being quite likely burned out to the horrific experiment (I tell the animal-loving part of myself it’s just a thought experiment, but I doubt it is) of the lobster in hot water. You know, the idea that if you throw a lobster into boiling water, it’ll jump right out, but if you gradually boil it, it won’t notice until it’s too late and then it’ll die. Realizing this actually happens makes my inner vegan sick! But I digress…

First, I’d like to talk about the weather. It’s been mild with daytime temps between 14°C and 18°C, but the nights have been a lot colder. We had a little rain early in the week, but none over the past few days and there’s none in the forecast for the upcoming week either.

Then, let me share how things have been going. I’m increasingly overloaded and have had quite a few incidents of crying uncontrolably over the past week. I’ve also been engaging in some compulsive self-imjurious behaviors, particularly at night. I’ve almost literally needed the night shift each night over the past few weeks. Each evening, I’m telling myself I won’t need them tonight and feeling guilty when I do. Most night staff are still understanding and kind, but it’s only a matter of time before they, like the regular staff, will grow weary.

Unfortunately, my support coordinator and assigned staff aren’t on the same page. The rest of the team are all over the place. Most are struggling intensely with feelings of powerlessness. Some admit that they wish they knew how to help me, while others act out their feelings by screaming in my face that if I go on like this, no-one will be there for me anymore. The first group, I feel some level of compassion for even if I don’t know how to show it. The second, I only feel scared of. I’m currently actually terrified for the times the staff who screams about there being nobody for me anymore the loudest will be supporting me. This is the same staff who shoved the “one chance” rule down my throat a few months back, but she’s also the same staff with whom I used to do quite many fun activities. She’s not a bad person or a lazy staffer, but she’s most definitely overworked.

I see it’s a vicious cycle: I’m distressed, exhibit more challenging behavior, which frustrates the staff, who then act out in more repressive ways, causing me even more distress… and unfortunately it’s the staff who show the least harmful repression to me who see the most of my obvious distress. I’m extremely scared of where this will end. My worst fear is the harsh staff being seen as more effective and their actions therefore being reinforced. I’ve heard of more than one current client at this institution being “bullied” (staff’s words) into compliance and I know even the Center for Consultation and Expertise is all for ABA (applied behavior analysis), including in many cases aversives.

I do try to see some glimmers each day. I however sometimes feel guilty when I can’t appreciate them or end up spiraling over some apparently tiny detail when I did enjoy some meaningful activities that day. I constantly hear the staff’s (same staff who screams that soon there’ll be nobody) words that I have nothing to complain about because I get familiar staff and enough one-on-one ringing in my ears. I try to remember my support is better already than it was at the intensive support home, but that only contributes to more guilt over my inability to be upbeat.

Recently, after a few incidents in which I’ve become physically aggressive, I’ve been thinking I should be forcibly medicated or even euthanized. My inner animal lover sometimes contributes to this. If aggressive dogs are put down, shouldn’t I? My wife, who is a vegan, countered that just because aggressive dogs are currently put down, doesn’t mean that’s the way it should be.

Unmasking…

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’ve been struggling intensely for a while now. The aggressive meltdown that caused me to land with my head on the floor (as I mentioned in the comments on that post, I wasn’t actually thrown) was only the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. I’ve been having chronic headaches and nausea that the doctor says aren’t due to the fall. Last Wednesday, I had a fever just when the doctor took my temp, so she concluded I must have the flu or something. I doubt it, as I didn’t have a fever any other time my temp was taken and I’m not having any other flu symptoms. I’m more sensitive to stimuli, mostly sounds and scents, than I used to be. Unfortunately, my ability to argue hasn’t gone, so the staff believe I’m “oppressing” them when I refuse them access to my room when wearing strong perfumes. This morning, my support coordinator told me to stop pacing my room, saying it’s compulsive and that compulsive behavior only worsens over time. She may be right about that, but it’s not like I’m doing anyone any harm by pacing and it’s not like the staff deal with the reason for my being more compulsive. I’m pretty sure I’m in significant burnout and the obvious solution to my staff seems to be to repress my behaviors that indicate I’m in distress.

I’m trying to read up and listen to podcasts on autistic self-discovery and unmasking. Not that I have the attention span to read for longer than about fifteen minutes at a time. Or that I think any of the recommendations I find, are useful to me, simply because I have an institution and rather behaviorist staff to deal with. I’m also unsure where to draw the line between valid unmasking and infringing upon other people’s rights. For example, apparently I’m not allowed to ask staff to wear less perfume because that’s “oppressive” and I don’t know where it’ll end when I keep “choosing” to be by myself rather than accepting staff who are essentially presenting in a willfully overloading manner.

Joy and the Fear It Induces #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m once again late writing my post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today is another hard day. Last week when talking to my support coordinator, I realized one of the problems might be the fact that I think I don’t deserve to be happy. This is not necessarily all there is to my trauma-related symptoms and, besides, is it still paranoia if they are actually out to get you?

I’ve mentioned the fear of joy before. It has been following me forever, since learning that I was losing the little sight I had at around age seven. I always prepared for the day when I’d go totally blind. That day still technically hasn’t come, although I can hardly call the tiny bit of light perception I do have sight.

Then there is Jolanda Venema. Dutch people who are in their fifties or older will no doubt remember her photo in a newspaper in 1988. She was chained to a bed, stripped naked, in an institution for people with intellectual disability. I learned a few years ago that it was actually the institution I live in now. I am not old enough to have actually seen the original newspaper article, but I did learn about a similar case in a child and adolescent psychiatric unit in Utrecht in around 1997. This particular girl, a 16-year-old at the time whose name I forgot, was even more like me than Jolanda, in that she had a borderline normal IQ. Cases like these have always haunted me, but that got worse when I entered the care system in 2005 and more so when I was admitted to the psychiatric hospital in 2007. At the time, staff literally told me that, when I needed more support than the three nurses to sixteen acutely ill patients (if they weren’t understaffed) could provide, I’d be locked up in seclusion. And I was. And coerced into taking high doses of medication to prevent me being secluded tons of times after that.

I know for a fact that I’m not allowed to be truly happy. The adage in care is, after all, that it’s better to provide okay’ish care to two people than excellent care to one. And I would’ve agreed if care ever had been excellent. But it never was in the 20+ years I’ve been in the system and not in the 20+ years before that. At least not for people like me and Jolanda.

This doesn’t mean I never experience moments of joy and I do try to acknowledge them. I’m not purposefully being more negative in order to elicit better care. If anything, the opposite is true. However, as another incident this evening proved, most people don’t nearly try their hardest and they don’t think others do either. Well guess what? I do! That doesn’t mean joyful moments don’t induce fear, but fear is not a choice. Besides, like I said, is it still paranoia if they are actually out to get you? I don’t think so.

Institutional Abuse: Abuse in the Care System #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to my letter I post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today I want to talk about trauma that I for one didn’t experience in childhood: trauma and particularly abuse experienced in the care system. I’m struggling majorly with this, as just this evening I had an aggressive meltdown that led to me being thrown to the ground by one staff and another staff admitting that the only reason I’m not being locked up or physically restrained is the fact that I’m not strong enough.

I want to say here that my choice of words is a bit tricky. Is it “abuse” if the client was themself aggressive, even if it was “just” verbally? I am struggling intensely with the fact that, on the one hand, my wife never locked me into a room or threw me to the ground even though I was quite a nasty person to her at times when we were living together, but on the other, there are just two staff to ten clients here. I try to understand that staff are people too and not necessarily worse people than others are. My wife sometimes said that the staff at the intensive support home were ill-intentioned at best, but I doubt it. My point is, people are part of a system. When that system is purposefully created to oppress some people, yes, the “low-key” oppressors are to blame too, but that doesn’t make them personally bad people. Many unfortunately don’t realize how much they’re accustomed to using (and abusing) their power. In fact, where it comes to care staff, most don’t even have a clue that they’re higher up in the pecking order than us clients are.

That doesn’t mean that the (ab)use of power doesn’t affect us. I mean, I was once, at the intensive support home, told that if I were dragged to my room, I had probably asked for it with my behavior. The thing is, even if I had, that doesn’t make being physically dragged not traumatic. Similarly, I can totally understand why the staff this evening threw me to the ground (I’m not even 100% sure he intended on me landing on my head), but that doesn’t mean my head doesn’t hurt.

One last thing I want to discuss, is the fact that institutional abuse may technically be a staff’s action (or inaction), but it is the result of a long line of decisions made by management, the Care Office or other funding agency and ultimately the government. It is not the client “choosing” to be restrained/locked up/drugged/etc. with their behavior and, like I said, the staff are the ones doing it, but if the government chooses a lock or shot is cheaper than support, they are the ones ultimately responsible.

Hypervigilance in Trauma Survivors #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to my letter H post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today, I want to talk about a major symptom of (complex) PTSD which I struggle with a lot: hypervigilance.

Hypervigilance is an increased awareness of one’s environment and seemingly unimportant details in it. That is, often people who experience hypervigilance constantly scan their surroundings for signs of threat, but that doesn’t mean they’re hyper aware of everything going on. In fact, they often miss out on actually important aspects of their surroundings, such as missing part of a conversation they’re having.

There is a sensory aspect to hypervigilance, ie. increased sensitivity to noise, smells or other sensory stimuli. However, there are also cognitive and emotional aspects to it. People who are hypervigilant due to (complex) PTSD often overanalyze the things happening around them and too easily perceive them as threatening.

I for one commonly overanalyze things that I perceive. It doesn’t help that people often expect me to appraise already overloading stimuli differently based on other factors involved. Like, due to being autistic, I get very easily overwhelmed by loud noises, crowded environments, etc. However, due to both autism and C-PTSD, I also overanalyze my perceptions. For example, I often judge myself for being overwhelmed because, for instance, my fellow residents “can’t help” making certain noises.

People with complex PTSD often experience hypervigilance about other people’s intentions too. I for one am always looking for signs that the people who mean the most to me are going to betray me. It’s not like I want to, but that’s been my experience most of my life.

Hypervigilance can also show up in physical symptoms. An increased startle reflex is part of the diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Many people with (C-)PTSD also struggle to relax even when there are no sudden stimuli or changes to the environment. Which, now that I type it, I realize is nonsense: the environment is always changing even when people who aren’t neurodivergent or trauma survivors or both, do not notice. I last week had a meltdown because I was overwhelmed by the sounds in the living room, only to be told by the staff that it was totally silent. Well, except for a fellow resident’s tablet, the TV, the dishwasher and I’m not even counting the relatively “minor” everyday sounds, like birds chirping outside, the staff station clock ticking, etc.

Anyway, hypervigilance like I said can show up as physical symptoms. Many people experience an increased heartrate, heavy breathing, higher blood pressure, etc. After all, stress (and hypervigilance is majorly stressful) activates the body’s nervous system.

I don’t yet know what can be done about hypervigilance. I follow movement therapy, but so far, it’s incredibly slow-going. It doesn’t help that, like I said above, the world is ever-changing. In other words, even though my therapist talks about baby steps, I know the real world doesn’t work like that.

Grief As It Relates to Childhood Trauma: Missing Something You Never Had #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to my letter G post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today, I want to talk about grief as it affects survivors of childhood trauma and particularly family dysfunction. I discussed grief in last year’s A-to-Z too. The thing is though, for many survivors of family dysfunction, the grief is not related to loss, but to missing something you never had. After all, for most people growing up in dysfunctional families, the abuse and neglect started before they were old enough to form clear memories. Because of this as well as other factors, many children also grow up to believe their experience is normal. After all, if you’ve never known any different, it’s hard to understand that your experience could be traumatic. This is one reason way too many people still believe that adversity experienced in early childhood has few effects because “they won’t remember anyway”.

I personally greatly struggle with this belief. Like I shared, I quite literally experienced adversity from birth on if not before. As such, even though my parents claim I was a happy child until around age seven, I have very few memories of a happy childhood.

I also struggle with the belief that “it wasn’t that bad” because it was all I knew. This means that, for a long time, I didn’t actually grieve my childhood trauma. This might seem positive, but the grief is all the worse now that I do know that my experiences weren’t normal. Besides, denial is the first stage in grieving for a reason. In other words, not knowing means I’ll never move on either.

Many people who didn’t experience significant childhood trauma, react to those grieving the happy childhood they never had with well-meaning but hurtful comments like “leave the past behind” or “everybody struggles sometimes”. In reality though, I’m not everybody and the past is part of my life.

Family Dynamics: Roles in Dysfunctional Families #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m once again incredibly late writing my contribution for the #AtoZChallenge today. Today’s letter is F and what better word to choose than “family”? After all, with most people who experience complex PTSD as a result of childhood trauma, the trauma originated in the family. This, obviously, does not have to be a birth family, unless you’re talking about the experiences of a traumatic start in life. The traumatic experiences I’m going to talk about here, can affect children brought into the family at any time during childhood.

Often, there are particular dynamics in families in which at least one of the parents is abusive, addicted or otherwise dysfunctional. This is a reason siblings in dysfunctional families often have very different perspectives on their upbringing. In my own case, my sister retreated to her room whenever my parents and I had an argument. As a result, she didn’t see the way my parents reacted and she did hear my screaming. She also resents me for having gotten more attention than she got, even though most of this attention especially when we got older, was negative.

Children and parents/caregivers in dysfunctional families can have many different roles. Some of them, I’ll discuss in more detail later in the challenge. They include:


  • Golden Child: the child who “can’t do wrong”. They are often the family “favorite”, often experiencing being spoiled or having few limits placed on them.

  • Hero: the child who “proves” that there’s nothing wrong with the family. This ties in with the “lost child” role that my sister had: the invisible one.

  • Identified patient / problem child: the child/person being identified as the source of the family’s dysfunction or the reason the family enters therapy. This role shows that, even in families in which one person is clearly the one being obviously abusive, the actual problem is the dynamics within the family.

  • Scapegoat/black sheep: the opposite of the “hero”, the scapegoat is the child blamed for everything going wrong in the family. Usually they get the harshest abuse.

  • Enabler: this is the person, either the not-so-obviously abusive parent or an older child, who maintains the family’s outward appearance and tries to take care of the family at least to an extent.

For clarity’s sake, none of these roles are “good”, in that they all show that a family is dysfunctional. I mean, I was often raised as a mixture between the golden child and identified patient. I regularly tried to deny my golden child attributes, because too often the golden child turns out to become abusive towards their own partner and eventually children. Then again, being the golden child is not that child’s fault. Continuing the cycle once they’re an adult, however, is.

Emotional Abuse and Neglect: What If You Were Never Hit? #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s nearly 10PM as I type my letter E post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today, I want to explore emotional abuse and neglect. After all, many people who survived trauma, wonder whether their experience of complex PTSD “counts” if they were never physically or sexually abused. Unfortunately, many clinicians fail to validate the fact that, yes, emotional abuse and neglect count. I can relate to this myself: I tried countless times to get support for my symptoms of complex PTSD due to childhood emotional neglect and abuse (as well as abuse within the care system) only to be told I was being negative, had probably brought it onto myself, etc. However, when I first shared about the physical abuse I endured as a child, my support staff were pretty quickly alarmed.

Guess what? Even though I was hit many times, it isn’t that which made the most significant impact on my experience of C-PTSD. The worst was the emotional abuse, which came in some quite insidious forms. I mean, losing your temper once and yelling at a child (or someone else dependent on you, like a client in a care setting) isn’t okay, but it doesn’t usually cause lasting effects. What does commonly cause C-PTSD is a longstanding pattern of disregard for the child’s needs. And like I said, this comes in sometimes quite insidious forms.

An example is the fact that, when I learned of the things a child needs growing up, “realistic limits” didn’t ring a bell with me. The reason it didn’t ring a bell to me, was the fact that I was repeatedly told I was being selfish. I also didn’t realize at the time that, if I didn’t get realistic limits set on me (and spoiler: I didn’t!), it wasn’t something I had done to elicit my parents spoiling me. I till this day struggle with this idea, because well doesn’t the fact that I was allowed to set my own bedtime from age nine on, never had limits on screen time, wasn’t made to do chores, etc., mean I’m one giant brat of a person? I can see why my sister, who did get some limits set on her, is sometimes jealous of me.

What else do children need from their parents? Like I’ve shared, they need to have their autonomy encouraged. This may contradict the idea of limits, but really, it’s a matter of balance.

None of the things a child needs from their parents are black-or-white when it comes to emotional neglect and abuse. I mean, obviously a parent should never lay a hand on their child and one incident of physical or sexual abuse can cause significant trauma. With emotional neglect, it’s a matter of “good enough”. What I mean is, a parent doesn’t need to be attuned to their child’s emotional needs all the time (no-one can realistically meet such a standard!). However, when a parent isn’t in tune with their child’s needs most of the time, chances are the child will develop complex PTSD.

Sunny Sunday (April 5, 2026): Green Tea “Without the Hassle”

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today I’m joining Leigha for Sunny Sunday. Today is Easter Sunday. For me, as someone who isn’t a Christian and didn’t grow up with religion, it doesn’t mean much beyond being an excuse to stuff myself full of junk food and candy. I’m grateful that I don’t have a reason to miss my family more than I usually do during these holidays. I mean, I don’t miss the family I have, I think. I miss the family I could’ve had.

Let me, however, share some positives for the day. I made a blueberry, mango and cucumber smoothie for myself and my fellow residents this morning, which we enjoyed as part of our Easter brunch. My fellow residents truly appreciated it. In the evening, we got Chinese food delivered. I ate a lot, but not so much that I got a stomachache.

Generally speaking, I’ve had a pretty good week. Yes, I still experience ups and downs, but overall, I do more meaningful activities than I used to do. For example, yesterday I cooked macaroni (just for myself this time). I had planned on cooking my traditional mushroom macaroni, but couldn’t find the concentrated mushroom soup I needed for its sauce. I used powdered mushroom sauce instead, which was still pretty good.

I’m also finding a way to have my daily cup of tea in the evening despite the change in support hours at my care home. It’s heavily dependent on the particular staff whether it works out or not, but I do hope that as staff learn to understand me more, this’ll improve. Today, I did get to enjoy a cup of green tea. And by green tea I mean green tea “without the hassle”, as I call it, so pure green tea without additional flavorings. I do like a select few flavored green teas, but none that my home usually has on hand and somehow all the green tea they order comes in variety packs with lots of unnecessary flavors. I’m grateful that, today as well as yesterday, the staff were able to find a bag of pure green tea for me.

Dissociation and the Dissociative (Freeze-Based) Trauma Response #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to my letter D post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today, I want to talk about dissociation and the dissociative (freeze-based) trauma response.

Readers who’ve followed my blog for years or who’ve read my “About” page, know that I used to have a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder (DID). Dissociation exists on a continuum from everyday daydreaming on to full-on, polyfragmented DID. I am somewhere in the middle.

First, what is dissociation? Dissociation is a disconnect between the usually integrated functions of identity, perception, thinking and memory. There are basically five different forms of dissociation:


  • Amnesia (memory problems), which can range from brief moments of “spacing out” to years of “lost time” in your personal life history. It can also be full-on lack of memory but also lack of emotional memory. I, for example, often experience the thing where I act as though I have no memory of doing or experiencing something, but do remember it at the back of my mind.

  • Depersonalization, which refers to the phenomenon of not feeling real. Parts of your body may feel numb without a medical explanation. It can also refer to the experience of “watching yourself”.

  • Derealization: the phenomenon of feeling like the world around you is unreal. I experience this on a regular basis, when it feels as though I’m interacting with the world through an invisible wall.

  • Identity confusion. This one has always baffled me and for a long time I thought this is actually normal. I mean, I have no clue who I am, but doesn’t everyone at my age? And even at nearly forty, I struggle to realize that no, in fact most people don’t experience this.

  • Identity alteration. This, at its most severe, refers to the experience of having “multiple personalities”. It can, however, also refer to distinct patterns of behavior, thinking and perception that “do not feel like you”, even if these distinct personality states do not have their own names, ages, etc.

Pete Walker refers to dissociation as the freeze-based trauma response. I’ve always struggled with this, because I rarely literally freeze. I, however, do often “space out”, watching myself from a distance. I also experience the existence of several distinct personality states. Now that I’m older, they are no longer as separate as they used to be when I was in my teens and twenties. However, the identity confusion is still very real, like I said. In fact, I believe it’s a lot worse now than it used to be when my “pieces” still were more separate.