CPTSD: How a Lack of BOUNDARIES Makes Your Isolation WORSE

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[axiomarabians]

I do experience isolation and have made great efforts in my life to keep ‘practicing’ being connected and making choices/boundaries. I have practiced so much that I do have times have great social skills. One of my biggest accomplishments is that over the years with practice I have developed in myself the skill to spontaneously joke around in a social conversation! Can you imagine?! You ptsd s out there know what I mean.
I create a social calendar every week. I try and have just enough to do yet not too much. I try to balance just how much social I can handle before I feel trapped and how much isolation is good for me before I feel trapped.
I feel like if I can’t navigate between these to things I get the feeling I will just die. It is a matter of life and death for me. Seriously.

[danielc]

I feel safe around total strangers, but I'm totally isolated from friends, family, and acquaintances. When I'm around total strangers, I know that the slanders and smear campaigns about me haven't poisoned the well, yet. And, I can be my true authentic self around strangers.

[dreamsofturtles]

Shame attacks ( "i said something wrong ! I showed them how stupid i am!" ) over the most innoculous conversations made me isolate. Now when shame attacks i say "Go away- you have no power over me". And its true. The shame is only in my head and it will only take up as much space as i give it. I practice over and over & the attacks have shrunk to almost nothing. Toxic shame is like an evil spirit attacking- just tell it to go away. It will. I can make mistakes in conversations and its ok.

[melindak.]

I was your text book “isolationist”!
I could only be truly myself when I was alone. I was taught, by my narcissistic mother, that I always had to be “NICE”—which meant to always consider other people’s feelings before and over my own.

[alfecia]

I didn't realize that my intense need for isolation was tied to my inability to say no. Thankfully I am now working with a counselor who is helping me to see where I need to set boundaries. As a people pleaser, it's extremely hard. But I'm working on that too. So thank you for sharing.

[PaperParade]

Because of your videos I’ve decided to push myself socially. I always complain and throw pity parties for myself about lonely I feel, but when people actually reach out I don’t allow it to be good enough, let alone accept invitations to do things. Nor do I try to make things happen. Part of that is from feeling fearful I will be rejected when I try (cause it’s happened). But with your help I realized I’m playing a huge role in my own loneliness. So, a huge thank you for the work you’re doing. I have plans to hang out with a girl from my college next week.

[oliae]

'saying no frees us to stay connected'. Brilliant and very true.

[trudyfox]

Some people you give an inch and they expect a mile with no gratitude or guilt. I had to say no contact for one week. But after that they began to sneak in again and want to chat for 10 minutes which became half an hour and then longer each time until I really put my foot down. Then they began to look for their emotional opiate elsewhere.

[berniebarclay]

My mother self isolated for most of her adult life as a result of childhood and further trauma. Her life has been so limited, contained and restricted as a result. Utterly tragic. And I see now that it was fear. Wow! I'm incredibly gregarious as a result, which has served me well but it was a crappy childhood!
Thanks Anna ❤️

[arieller.]

I do have the capacity to say “no”, sometimes politely, sometimes not so much. My problem is a lot of times people’s’ complaining and even simple small talk makes me anxious. I am not interested in most social gatherings. I find it either tiring or boring. I am not sure what my problem is. It feels like I get too involved in other people’s stories even when I don’t want to. It is hard for me to simply relax and be myself. Is this codependency or people-pleasing behavior? How can I feel better? I have started your free course and I felt better for a while. Now, the anxiety, depression and need for isolation are back. I am not sure what triggered it 😢🙁

[borealiswan]

How do you deal with a friend (and I'm not talking bf or gf) who won't keep her word, won't behave responsibly and keep to what was agreed on, and yet expects you to reciprocate on her own terms ? In other words, she always has to have her way. I'm sorry but I'm cutting her off, she's no longer my friend as of now. Solitude or no solitude. I've had 'friends' who never seemed to respect my boundaries, I ended up not seeing them anymore. In the end I'd rather have no friends then fake ones who lie, constantly manipulate situations to their advantage, and never accept your ways, nor compromise. Sometimes solitude can be a good opportunity to clean house, then you can make new friends. Maybe. Carefully. Thanks for the warning about becoming crazy, but sometimes you've got to eliminate toxic people who don't respect you. They're just plain poison.

[mschrisfrank]

I am a 32 year old woman living with the parents who are my biggest triggers. I will often not even be able to bring myself to leave my room for fear of being forced to interact with my parents.

[craniumproducts]

This must be hitting home, because I found myself shutting down (detaching) twice! Boundaries have always been a mystery to me. When someone asks me what I want, I draw a total blank, and worse, I feel quite anxious! I was raised by a mother who did not get custody and stole me anyway. My purpose in life was to please her, and if I didn't, it was the fist, belt, or fork. The few times I made the mistake of telling her how I felt, she said, "Oh, what a strange little child you are!" I grew up and moved to another state and ended up marrying an animal torturer/killer/wife beater and had children, who also grew up, some of them hating me even now because Daddy was grandiose so I was the problem. He wouldn't work or watch the kids, so I had to stay overwhelmed to pay the bills. Social Services didn't want me leaving the kids alone with Dad, which reduced my options to working from home. Wanting anything usually caused more trouble than it was worth. My friends tend to be somewhat pushy, not outright bullies, but I don't seem to mind others telling me what to do because I have no idea what I want, anyway! I went to therapy for years, working on self-esteem. I started a notebook and tried the DAILY EXERCISE for about 3 days and it didn't seem to do anything because meditation (going blank) seems totally impossible. Don't worry about my safety, the hubby ended up being sedated in the end and died of multiple brain abnormalities recently. Lots of people come cry on my shoulder because they can sense I won't judge them, but when you've had this strange a life, there aren't many shoulders for you outside of therapy, which costs $$$. Most people think you're either exaggerating or making things up.

[pamrjohnson]

I don't answer the door for anyone who doesn't call first. Ugh

[janetvanderpligt]

I am binging your video's now. Both our (adoptive) sons 6 and 7 have CPTSD. This is one of the videos i am sending their teachers. I tell the people around us, if you want to be in their world. Do as you say and say as you do or just don't bother at all. If promise them a purple monkey they will get a purple monkey, if i tell them no tablet time, it's no tablet time. In school the oldest went from doing everything on paper to doing everything on a chromebook. Grades went down, didn't play with his friends anymore. So i told them, he has no holding on to. Doesn't know how long something will take, how many questions. And it takes so much toll on him to still be a "good boy" when hè has nothing to hold on to he just can't. He just wants to be alone. So now they tell him how long a task will take. Go through the line up of the morning and afternoon so he knows what is comming. And he is doing so much better.

[cherylkelly]

I know why I am not so stressed over social isolation involved with COVID19 — I have been in training for it —

[parajacks]

I’m 53 and only this year have I been taking steps to grow which include; starting therapy, going no contact with my grandiose narcissistic mother, I’ve asked my (no intimate) wife for a divorce now (which is going surprisingly amicably) and now I’ve just started a new job as a taxi driver, which is ideal for tackling the social anxiety brought up in the video
My future is very uncertain and I fear some of its probabilities, but I am brave so I go on one step at a time and with slowly growing confidence

[rebeccaboyd]

Even just watching this video filled my gut with a pit of anxiety. This fits me waaay to accurately. And I know what you're saying is true. I know It. But it's honestly like I completely lose my voice when I say "no". I have a lot of situations going on right now that boil down to boundary crossing... a controlling ex who does exactly what you were saying in regards to responsibilities and then uses it as a form of that control because I can't manage to find my voice :(. I just keep bending over backyards for no real reason. But how do you put this into place when you don't even know what you want/need?! As a person coming from trauma.... I feel like I don't know who I am at my core. And a lot of the times that's where I get stuck. Do I want to say no? Do I want to say yes? Should I? And do I do what I *should* do or what I *want* to do? And IS that what I want? A lot of the time I shoot myself down before I start. Maybe my initial response is that I don't want to talk to that sales rep. But then I'm countered with "but what if you're wrong? What if you should open the door? No. You're wrong. You don't want to open it out of -insert inflated reason to minimise-. If you weren't -insert reason- you probably would want to. So you should". It's a long process that 95% of the time leaves me like a deer in headlights and then I just default to what someone else wants/would want. Sometimes it feels easier to please others then to work through the spider web in my head...

[hilarywhite]

I moved to the country and have a large garden. For the first three seasons I did a lot of work outside, but now find that I'm so afraid to be seen by my neighbours that I've been neglecting it. This has been getting worse since the Covid lockdowns really got going, so I guess general anxiety was way up.

[dreww]

The world needs more Crappy Childhood Fairy (Anna Runkle). Your channel is a blessing.