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Grits1910
1 1,141 M Little Steps 3
PathStep 53 Compassion hearts121 Forum posts97 Forum upvotes239 Current upvotes239 Age GroupAdult Last activeApril, 2026 Member sinceMarch 14, 2021
Bio

46 year old, dealing with childhood trauma, PTSD and depression. Feel free to say hi! 🤗

Recent forum posts
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Festive Greetings
Trauma Support / by Grits1910
Last post
 December 24th, 2025
...See more Hi everyone, ​As the year winds down and the holiday season reaches its peak, I wanted to send a message of solidarity to this community. ​For many, this time of year is marketed as a time of perfect joy, but for those of us navigating the effects of trauma, it can often feel isolating, heavy, or just plain exhausting. If you find yourself struggling with the "noise" of the season, please know that your feelings are valid and you are not navigating this alone. ​A short poem for anyone who needs to hear it today: ​The Constant Thread ​When the days grow short and the air turns cold, And stories of "perfect" are everywhere told, Remember the strength in the life that you lead, And give yourself grace—whatever you need. ​If you’re sitting in stillness or keeping the pace, There is room for your heart in this quiet space. The stars in the sky and the glow of the moon, Don’t ask for a smile or a festive tune. ​We are a tapestry, woven and deep, With promises made and the secrets we keep. You’re a part of this fabric, through shadow and sun— Connected to many, while being just one. ​A Gentle Permission Slip ​Please remember that you have full permission to: ​Opt out: You don't have to participate in traditions that hurt. ​Rest: Survival is hard work; it’s okay to be tired. ​Be authentic: You don’t have to perform "happiness" for the comfort of others. ​Whatever today looks like for you—whether it’s a day of celebration, a day of distraction, or just another Tuesday—I am glad you are here. We are holding space for you. ​Wishing you a peaceful and gentle end to the year. ​Warmly, Grits 🤗
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Seeking justice
Trauma Support / by Grits1910
Last post
 April 21st
...See more Three years ago I started a post on this forum asking for advice as I was thinking about reporting my abusers to the police (if you want to, search the forum for the word 'police' and you'll find it). A lot has happened since then - I've pulled myself together and reported what happened. Three video interviews later, many informal 'chats' since, many lows and some not-so-lows later and I've finally found out that the case is going to court. The one abuser who is still alive has been charged with 15 offenses - he's done it before, been in jail before, now even changed his name as he's been in the news locally. Now the external wait is coming to an end - November 2025. Might seem like miles away, but given I've been waiting more than 3 years already, I've become used to it, in a strange way. I know I'm still compartmentalizing and subconsciously avoiding thinking about going to court in November, as the few times I do let my mind go there, it's hard to get back to whatever approaches normal. That said, I'm fortunate enough to have a really good therapist, someone I've bonded with, someone I trust. I know there will be dark times ahead - handling the most difficult situation alongside 'normal' life without any script telling me how to behave, how to respond, how to feel. So why did I write this post? Who am I writing this post for? To all who have considered whether you are tough enough to seek justice - you are! To all who wonder whether there is support to help you through this process - there is! To all who need justice to have their voice heard - come forward! It is not simple, not straightforward nor swift, but you have the right to access justice and to have your voice heard. I don't claim to be stronger than anybody else, there's nothing special about me or my situation. But if I can do this, then I'm hopeful my few words might help you one day to have your truth heard. Yes, starting this process was entirely my decision. Yes, the process is not for everyone. But do I regret it? No. Absolutely not. It is what I need, no matter how long it takes. Grits
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Overwhelmed and struggling
Trauma Support / by Grits1910
Last post
 June 2nd, 2024
...See more I keep on having these periods where I end up in hospital having passed out and stopped breathing. Latest one of these incidents happened at work right in front of my colleagues and I work in a school so this I've happened in one of the busiest parts of my school.... was so embarrassing. I can only guess what my colleagues are thinking of me right now. What is wrong with him? Why is this happening? They know it's happened twice at work. I think I'm one of only two people is ever had an ambulance called to work so embarrassing and I can't cope with people thinking about me, talking about me behind my back - I just want to fade into the background. My wife's really fed up - she is is saying that 85% of the time it's ok but then the 15% of the time where she's getting these calls - he's stopped breathing, I'm having CPR and she's having to explain to my kids what's going on on she's having to look after everything. She is supportive but she's struggling with it. She's cross because it doesn't feel like the doctors are are actually doing anything to stop this, to help deal with this, it's unsustainable. There's no joined up thinking. I see the psych team and they are just talking about the impact, the way I'm feeling and doing nothing about it. I see the neurology team and they are just totally focused on the medical issues, putting me through scan after scan but without anybody sitting back and going this is not working, this does not work. This is happened now this is the fourth time within the past year and a half and I just can't go on like this. It's exhausting. To be constantly on edge trying to think whether I'm going to end up back in hospital again. And the guilt having to cope with people saying, doctors saying, that some of this is psychosomatic. Makes me question why I can't control it. It makes me so so fed up that have no control over this and yet if it is somehow caused by my my body responding to the stress it's under, I need a way to handle this. I'm really worried and I don't know what to do. I don't know what my boss is thinking that needs to happen. Whether she's going to send me to occupational health to get assessed. She's right, this cannot keep on happening and I wish I had some answers I really do. But right now all I have these questions. And hearing my wife last night, I had nothing to say to her as what she was saying was totally understandable. I get where she's coming from. It's just really difficult to handle that I feel so bad for the impact on her, feel so so utterly crap for the stress I'm causing her. But yet no way of stopping it. She is questioning whether I'm looking after myself properly. And I kind of get why she's asking a question as I don't sleep properly. Often I'm the one shuffling around like an old man as I'm not feeling great. And that's the thing that hurt the most last night, hearing her description of me having aged 20 years over the past 2 years. And yet I can't argue with that. My last hospital admission resulted in me coming out with a zimmer frame because I couldn't walk properly. She's right at 43 years old to be shuffling around like an old man on a zimmer frame is just not sustainable. I wish I had an idea what to do how to to control my body and its response to this stress because I cannot see a solution that involves me reducing the stress I'm under on a daily basis. I have 4 kids I have a job a job that I love but it's stressful job all the same. I have responsibilities, I have things that people expect of me, I've things that must do. And yet I need something I need a way to cope and it doesn't feel like I know that way forward right now. Grits
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Friendship
Trauma Support / by Grits1910
Last post
 October 10th, 2022
...See more Before I even begin, I feel like I need to apologize for the somewhat negative tone of my post. It reflects the way I feel, but I'm trying to explain this issue, rather than simply sharing how I feel... Hope that makes some sense! I have never had close friends. I have always felt like the spare part, the satellite moon to everyone else's close-knit 'planet popular'. So when I say that this is about my friend, it's in the true sense of the word. It's also in the singular - my friend, as I don't feel, no, I don't have any other friends. I have people I know well that I have come to know through my wife, I have close family who are very supportive, but in the 'my friends' category, for me there is but one. I met this friend over 10 years ago through work. We work closely together and up until recently we also used to share an office, but due to other reasons, I had to move to the other side of the building. It is this office move that has highlighted the fundamental problem with our friendship. Although I trust that I can talk with this friend about anything, I have become more and more aware recently how it is always me making the effort, contacting her, going to have a chat - giving a damn! And I hate this, the sense that I'm the needy one, that somehow I'm the plus one, the spare part, that if I was not there it wouldn't make much difference. Just recently, I was really unwell, and subsequently have found it difficult to get around at work (I have some residual left sided weakness), and the sheer energy I need, together with trying to get back up to speed has made the last few weeks not so great. Did my 'best' (only) friend get in touch? Yes, one WhatsApp. Has she even spoken to me since I've come back to work to find out how I am? No. I've had a few whispered 'we'll catch up' or equivalent, but no effort to show what I would define as true friendship. I know my own standards are high, and I'm doing my best not to impose them on her. But all the same, it doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel fair. It feels like she doesn't care, that our friendship is one of convenience, not trust. I'm now waiting for her to make the next move, as I've done my bit. I'm not up to chasing this, not right now, as I'm maxed out chasing my own demons. Grits
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Can allies ever really understand?
Trauma Support / by Grits1910
Last post
 August 31st, 2022
...See more By allies, I'm referring to those who are near to us, support and love us. When I have flashbacks at night, I can't normally stay in bed and get up, go downstairs and try to ground myself, calm myself down, distract myself when possible with TV, reading something... Whatever works or seems like it might help. Unsurprisingly, when I don't sleep well, particularly when I have bad dreams I'm a wreck the next day, really tired, unable to function fully. When I attempt to explain why I didn't sleep the night through, and how important it is for me to move, to 'reset the clock', anything to reduce the stress of the whole situation, I keep encountering a simplistic response from those closest to be. When I explain that a trigger can be the weight of the duvet on my body, the response is that I should throw the duvet off me. When I explain that I can't sleep, need to distract myself, to calm down, I'm told that I should turn the light on and read my book, despite me stating that staying in bed is not at all helpful and that I need space and a different environment. I've tried time and again to explain what I experience when I have nightmares, what the impact is, how the route back to some sense of calm is not always predictable, and rarely easy to control. I know part of the response I get is grounded in their frustration, but I can't seem to convey what I need from my allies, how I need them to give me the space to handle things in the way that I find easiest. Part of me wants my allies to hear from someone else, to read up on it, to show a true interest in understanding what I'm going through, rather than reacting in what feels like a judgemental, simplistic and somewhat unsupportive manner. I'm short tempered, irritable and introverted in the aftermath of my nightmares. I need to find the means to communicate more clearly what I need, to care less about the subsequent response, and to focus more closely on doing the right thing for me, without putting others first. How do you communicate, explain, enunciate what nightmares look like through the eyes of a survivor? How do you describe the impact of the terrors, the palpitations, the nausea, sickness, mortal fear? And how do you explain that all of this is experienced through the eyes of a child, not the adult who occupies this body in the present day? How do you make your allies understand? 🤗 Grits
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Impossible to switch off
Trauma Support / by Grits1910
Last post
 August 26th, 2022
...See more Need some advice how to switch off... I'm constantly on hyper alert, unable to relax, to unwind properly, on edge and finding it really hard to cope. It's making me unwell, I'm so tired, can't sleep properly or interact normally with those around me. Just want to let go the anxiety, the fear of being exposed to what I went through before, I want to be able to be me, without having to live life through a looking glass. I feel like I'm always on duty, unable to drop what I'm doing, constantly trying to keep tabs on what's around me, who's around me. It feels stupid, given my abuse was so many years ago, but the sensations are like I'm still in the same body, with the same fears, the same physical sensations. When I try to get to sleep I often wake with a jump, feeling like I'm falling off a cliff, nightmares only round the corner. Help!! Need some advice how to break this cycle before it breaks me. 😞 Grits
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Feeling so isolated
Trauma Support / by Grits1910
Last post
 September 9th, 2021
...See more I feel like I should apologise even before I write this message for its contents, and for the way I'm feeling right now, and for the downright depressing tone of what I have to say. At the moment I just feel completely isolated from the people around me, people who care, some of them know what happened to me. I feel alone, I feel lonely - it's ridiculous but I can't avoid that feeling, it really makes me feel so so worthless that some of those who care that I'm trying to reach out to, I'm having to chase them and I just want to feel like they actually care enough to contact me without having to be prompted. The recent news that the therapy I was counting on has been massively delayed - I've literally gone to the back of the queue easily 6 months before anything starts and even then it's just an assessment prior to another wait before the actual therapy takes place. In the meantime I've cancelled my therapist I was seeing because I don't think she was right for me I don't think she was is experienced enough, and yeah having done that it's just magnified the feeling of isolation that I've got at the moment. It's also strange that having found out not that long ago that one of my abusers is now dead my brain is trying to process it and and I just feel so completely let down. Let down by the system, by life and just disappointed by why what's going on right now. It's only now I start realising how much it would have meant to me to have confronted to my abuser face to face and got him to account for what he did to me, to appreciate, to recognise, to understand the impact it's had on me and those around me, to answer for he did. And in the meantime I'm chasing the police to try and get some questions I need answered and again it's like radio silence. I don't have the energy to chase anymore. I need something or somebody to pick me up and to give me a hand and to pull me along, to pull me up from this dark and depressing place that find myself in right now. I'm sick of these sensations, just not wanting to to approach things that I know I need to get on with just like I don't have the energy, the willpower or the motivation to do things I need to do do. And yeah I've got my family counting on me. I just don't feel like I've got anything or anybody to lean on. And right now that's what I want to do that's what I need to do - I need to lean on something or somebody because otherwise I just feel like I'm going off the edge of this cliff I'm standing on. 😢
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So sick of sleeplessness
Trauma Support / by Grits1910
Last post
 June 14th, 2021
...See more Yet again, here I find myself, not even half way through the night, awake and out of bed as I'm scared of being asleep as I know it will bring on the nightmares. I'm so tired and yet wired and unable to rest, worried how I'll function tomorrow as exhausted as I feel right now. My brain has decided all on its own to replay some events from last week (the first in a series of police interviews) and to remind me both emotionally and physically of the panic-inducing memories that are dominating my existence at the moment. I'm so sick and tired of it, unable to ground myself, do anything that gives me relief, just want to exhaust myself to fall asleep without the dreams. Help!! I'm drowning here...
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