Lineart By @theywhoshantbenamed

The correlation between the development of a guilt complex and emotional trauma

One of the many symptoms of mental illness that I often see go completely unaddressed is the presence of a guilt complex. Disproportionate levels of guilt can be symptomatic of several disorders, but are most commonly associated with trauma related conditions. A guilt complex is most typically defined as an obsessive fixation on the idea of being in the wrong in any given scenario, and assigning oneself an excessive amount of remorse and shame. Many psychologists believe that guilt complexes arise in early childhood, an are caused by unfair attributions of blame in early stages of cognitive development. Due to this association, many survivors of childhood abuse suffer from guilt complexes, and often go for years completely unaware of their condition. Specifically, victims of emotional abuse are extremely likely to have undiagnosed and untreated guilt complexes due to the taciturn nature of the abuse they experienced. Abusers in such scenarios often use manipulation tactics to convince their victims that the abuse they’re enduring is somehow their fault in order to discourage them from seeking help and comfort. This form of Pavlovian conditioning can instill long lasting guilt complexes in teenage and adult abuse survivors, and the lack of available information on this condition make it difficult to seek treatment. Luckily, there are several easily identifiable symptoms of this affliction.

Common symptoms include:

- Pervasive feelings of anxiety and paranoia over a prolonged period of time. Irrational fear and can be prone to panic attacks. Consistent worries and delusions of inferiority to others.

- Extreme emotional sensitivity, and frequent overreaction to minor problems and issues.

- Use of self deprecating humor and dark jokes as a coping mechanism. Often puts oneself down and emphasizes negative traits casually in conversation.

- Fear of abandonment so intense that one may suffer from delusional paranoia about being abandoned or left.

- Taking responsibility for small, unimportant issues in order to suppress subconscious guilty feelings.

- Self-martyrdom and self-victimization. Habitually seeking out suffering and persecution in order to feel better about the guilt.

- An angry or defensive persona.

- Utilizing any kind of “self punishment” to combat feelings of guilt and remorse. This can include purposefully sabotaging healthy relationships, intentional sleep deprivation, deliberate starvation and food denial, and self harm/self mutilating behaviors. These are the most common, but any form of intentional self destruction can be considered self punishment.

- Uncontrolable negative thought patterns and depressive moods.

- A tendency towards becoming addicted to alcohol and drugs, as well as intense hyperfixations on usually non addictive stimuli. This can lead to substance abuse issues that are difficult to handle.

- Compulsive behaviors of many kinds.

- Poor modulation of impulses.

- Low self esteem and high feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness. Feeling “undeserving” of happiness, love, or sympathy and working towards an undefinable state of worthiness.

- Excessive compliance, or inversely, fear of authority figures.

- Having dysfunctional relationships with friends, family, and significant others. Difficulty maintaining close interpersonal relationships with peers and loved ones.

- Nihilistic worldview and loss of self sustaining beliefs.

- Experiencing “compassion fatigue,” or helping others at one’s own expense, and offering continued informal support towards as many people as possible despite any emotional distress this may cause. This form of burnout usually caused by prioritizing the wants of others over one’s own needs.

- Fluctuating/unstable sense of self and identity issues. Distorted body image and intense self-loathing.

- Hypervigilance of one’s own faults and issues. Interpretation of one’s own weaknesses as more of a hinderance than they actually are, and over exaggerating the intensity of any given flaw.

- Codependency and attachment-pattern based behaviors.

- Extreme difficulties in communicating one’s own wants and needs. Facing quandaries upon reaching out for help and setting boundaries.

- Shame associated with sexual intimacy and confusion in regards to sexual identity.

- Poor emotional regulation, unstable mood and regular outbursts or meltdowns. Maladaptive emotional management abilities and poor coping skills. Guilt is exponentially increased by any harm caused by these episodes.

- Blaming self for any adverse childhood experiences rather than the actual perpetrator.

- Pathological self-soothing behaviors, such as rocking, scratching or picking at skin, or hair pulling.

- Sense of brokenness or defilement due to negative stigma.

- Isolation and alienation, as well as a sense of complete and utter aloneness. Feeling inadequate due to lack of social interaction.

- Perfectionism and people-pleasing tendencies. Difficulty distinguishing between others’ wants and needs, and overperforming in most areas to make up for perceived inadequacy.

- Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide. Seeking redemption or atonement through suicide.

If you suffer from six or more of these symptoms, please contact your local psychologist, psychiatrist, or general practitioner. There is help available, and seeking therapy and medication can help you overcome your guilt complex. I suffered from a severe complex around the time of my suicide attempt, but I have been able to alleviate the severity of my condition through working with my therapist and school guidance counselors. I still struggle with guilt and shame, but it’s lessened significantly since I began seeking help. I encourage anyone else struggling to do the same.

what does nccsa mean?

con contact child sexual abuse, its sexual abuse that didnt involve any touching, examples below

A new OSDD/DID combo cheat for terror/panic attack!

- keeping the eyes open to minimize flooding and switching, looking at an object in the room that was gotten in the last calendar year to ground in the present

- heavy stuffy on the chest

- EMDR bilateral music in headphones

- alternate thumbs rubbing on stuffy

- eventually when able to move more, alternate palms rubbing slowly on stuffy's back

- repeating "of course you're scared, that makes total sense, you can be scared right now and we'll hold you" worked for today

- pat the stuffy, soothe the scared part, slow soft pats like on a baby's bum or back to gentle them

- gradually, sit up/change positions and rock and stim to release the rest of the adrenaline/energy

- eventually did a reorienting exercise to ground in the present

The terror ebbed a lot gentler and sooner than I expected! Very proud and grateful. Love having a stuffy with heavy beads in it.

Trauma-Punk (Coining)

Concept

An aesthetic and social group/movement focused on trauma survivors of any and all kinds. You have gone through hell and back and you are allowed to be loud, angry, aggressive, and selfish. Traumapunk is for all the unsavory survivors who don’t fall into society's ideal victim mold. It’s taking back the power from times you could not before, it’s being independent and self assured, it’s saying fuck you to the system that allowed your traumas to occur, saying fuck you to the abusers you may have had. You don’t have to be quiet or docile, you can be loud and aggressive.

All trauma survivors matter, and the discrimination and biases we face on a daily basis should no longer go ignored. This is a movement for all the cluster-b disordered people, all the people with PTSD, all the people with DID/OSDD, and any other trauma induced disorders. Everyone with the “wrong” reaction to their trauma and everyone who has decided they will no longer take anyone's shit.

All trauma survivors can be a part of this, regardless of disorders or the lack thereof. Your trauma no matter how big, no matter how small, is valid.

Trauma Punk Flag

[Image ID: The trauma-punk flag, consistent of 7 stripes which are reflected horizontally. The stripes go as follows; Dark Sienna, Rosso Corsa, Old Brick, Carousel Pink, Old Brick, Rosso Corsa, and then Dark Sienna. The flag is all tinted towards a redish color. End ID]

The flags colors all have their own meaning

Dark Sienna: All the negative feelings and emotions that comes from having experienced trauma, the feeling of being alone.

Rosso Corsa: Anger towards what happened, having to fight to survive. Not being docile.

Old Brick: Any and all people with socially unacceptable reactions to their traumas- including disorders, temperament shifts, and being untrusting of others. (Separate from anger).

Carousel Pink: Recovery and healing

This flag is free to be used and never requires any credit.

Core Beliefs

Pro/Supports

People with Personality Disorders

People with PTSD/cPTSD

Traumagenic Systems (DID/OSDD)

CDDs (Complex Dissociative Disorders)

People with lesser known disorders like RAD, ASD (acute stress disorder not autism), DSED

People with trauma based adjustment disorders

People with trauma based anxiety disorders

People with “problematic” (trauma induced) OCD themes

Anyone with trauma

Low empathy

Hyper empathy

Well researched self-dx

Sex-workers

Hypersexual survivors

Sex repulsed survivors

Trans People

Gay People

Intersex people

Xenogenders

Self-defense

Angry Survivors

Survivors who want revenge

Survivors who want to see their perps be better people

Anti-Psych/Psych-Critical

Psychology/psychiatry should be available for those in need- however there are massive issues within the field and it needs to be addressed. We personally prefer Psych-Crit, but people recognize Anti-psych more.

Anti/Against

Ableists

“Narcissistic/Histrionic/Borderline/Sociopathic” Abuse 

The abuser made their choice, having a disorder will never make someone be an abuser, that abusive person CHOSE to be evil. Your anger should be at them, not fellow trauma survivors.

Trauma Comparison

All traumas are valid, some may be harder to deal with than others but we are still all survivors.

Sanists

Fakeclaimers

You never know what someone is going through it is not your place to decide if they have a disorder or not

Terfs/Swerfs/Radfems

Transphobes

Homophobes

Transmeds

Intersexists

Our DNI does not apply to this and only this post (unless you are part of one of the groups in the "against" section.)

This label is allowed to be used by trauma survivors regardless of beliefs on syscourse as we post a lot of syscourse stuff and thought this was necessary to add.

We are going to finally go and try to chart out / document our system / known parts for our old/current therapist and since we make a lot of organized sheets and stuff for fun I'm sharing a copy of a template for alter information ^^ Feel free to use / make a copy and use on your own and modify and all.

Its BASK + Extra stuff that we find relevant to our system

Google Docs

Copy For Others

Sheet1 Name:,TEMPLATE Picture / Description / Self Depiction,BEHAVIOR:,Important Notes: AFFECT: SENSORY: KNOWLEDGE: Role:,NOTABLE DYNAMICS

Halloween has rolled around, and that means an inevitable rise in “Halloween is bad because of SRA” stuff, and while the temptation to joke about and poke fun at that type of content is overwhelming, I think it is a great opportunity to draw attention to how many RA awareness efforts center around a Christian narrative. People see RA as a spiritual issue and not a physical one. RA is an issue that comes from a need to control people through brutal methods as other people in power selfishly turn their backs on the well-being of children and abuse victims. The guilty protect the guilty, and this involves a lot of people who are powerful, wealthy, and well-respected (although it is important to avoid baseless accusations against anyone – looking at those of you who find random Democrats to shit on and decide they are Satanic ritual abusers because their pupils looked weird in a video). But the rise in SRA accusations in the 80s and 90s poured fuel on an already existing widespread panic about Satanism, leading to everything from Dungeons and Dragons to furbies being declared as part of the problem. Instead of focusing on the pervasiveness of institutional and cult abuse as well as the corruption of people in power as the problems that are central to RA, Christians began to view Satanic and occult influence as the problem. They heard the “Satan” in Satanic ritual abuse and decided that was the main issue. Essentially, Christians were using the problem of ritual abuse as a tool to push their own religious beliefs, as they do with many other things.

And this pattern continues to this day, with people deciding that Satanism and the occult are the main sources of danger, not the systems that were built by and for abusers and actively work against victims. Instead of fearing abusers, they fear Halloween, heavy metal, and plastic devil horns from costume stores. All of which are pretty fucking awesome.

If the people who were targeting Satanism targeted these issues instead, more people would be aware of and care about RA, and so many victims wouldn’t go unheard. Make no mistake, it is Satan they fear, not child abuse. And the way they are fixated on Halloween and Satanic imagery in music videos instead of bringing about real systemic change and drawing attention to evidence…that is proof.

**This is not at people who genuinely struggle on Halloween or are triggered by the holiday**

most of my OSDD comics are gone from the internet AFAIK but I thought this one would be good to reupload (also sometimes you have to google psychologytoday dissociative disorder to get the category to show up)

TW: DISCUSSION OF PROGRAMMING, CULT MENTION (RAMCOA), AND TBMC MENTION. STAY SAFE!!!

Being polyfrag and having programmed parts is so weird. Like one example, having layers is super weird because I don’t even who know the host or co-host are. I don’t know who most of the system is, as our area only has around 22 parts (small for us). Though, I suppose it’s probably for protection as most are programmed and all but one (I think???) has nothing directly to do with any trauma.

Speaking of programming, our host is in huge denial of it!! In our journal xe’re like “yeah we have parts that literally follow a mysterious religious figure nobody has ever heard of and we have parts that are like practicing extremely loyal sex cult followers and parts for enduring TBMC as well as all the symptoms of programmed aka HC-DID but I can’t remember any of it so it must be quirkiness” like ??????? It’s almost as if you’re a supposed to be like that XD

And that’s not even mentioning how large our system is!!! We have exactly 90 logged parts, a little over 3/4s of which are fragments. I know Ellie and probably some others are also questioning if they’re a subsystem (in the alter with alters way) because of slight amnesia and slightly differing roles. And I know that the 90 known, even if nobody known is a subsystem, are not all of us.

We have times where we black out and we don’t know who fronted, but it appears to be somebody who hasn’t been logged. There have been times where we are doing one thing and all of a sudden we’re somewhere doing something we didn’t know we would do, and nobody knows who it was.

There’s so much to us, it’s like an iceberg except the parts of the iceberg don’t know the other parts, and the pieces of the iceberg above and below the surface don’t know the other exists. So strange!!!

do not know how to word my feelings on your post, but it feels very strange to say that because your DID experiences are misery, that means DID itself is miserable, and to imply that non-DID-having bodies can't experience being a system is weird.

yes, what you went through sounds awful, and yes, DID to you would be miserable, but DID does not mean misery. it means (some level of) disorder. for people who are polyfragmented (especially through things like RAMCOA/TBMC), yes, this CAN mean a LOT of misery, but us systems who do not suffer with that same level of misery aren't less of a system because of that difference.

while you can explain your experiences as more painful in your perspective, playing trauma olympics and denying other people's own experiences is weird. it's heavily invalidating, especially as someone who would probably fall under a disordered traumagenic diagnosis, and who loves their system and who sees it as hope and not misery (as it is the light in the darkness, the company that protected me through terrible things. that is not misery for me)

(also, most endogenic systems are not claiming to have DID, not self diagnosed or professionally diagnosed. it is a different kind of plural systemhood that is not connected to having DID. so to say that being endogenic is taking away "everything that DID is about" is just... strange.)

I am not playing the trauma Olympics by saying that what I went through makes me miserable. For you to suggest acknowledging my existence as a trauma survivor is invalidating is really not good.

Also I should clarify: you can love parts and even most of your system, but you cannot deny the fact that it is born out of misery and so it is not all sunshine and rainbows. It comes with PTSD, or one of its forms.

Also, endogenic is taking away everything DID is about because the only scientifically recognized way to be a system is with either DID (or a variant like HC or C), OSDD-1, or UDD. And these, like all dissociative disorders, are trauma disorders. To me being endogenic has always meant cherry picking a glamorized version of the symptoms of these disorders, as I said in the post.

MARCH 2022

Read:

Changing Your Mind Can Make You Less Anxious

Life in the Stacks: A Love Letter to Browsing

Excerpt from We Learn Nothing, by Tim Kreider

World wide open (How deep brain stimulation changes a person’s sense of confidence)

How to gain more from your reading

Assertiveness is a virtue that anyone can develop with practice

Lies and honest mistakes

The Pandemic Did Not Affect Mental Health the Way You Think

The invisible addiction: is it time to give up caffeine?

Curiosity Depends on What You Already Know

“Get Me Off Your Fucking Mailing List” is an actual science paper accepted by a journal

Imagine you could insert knowledge into your mind: should you?*

Want to know, even if it hurts? You must be a truth masochist

Mental disorders are brain disorders - here’s why that matters

Forget morality

Unlocking the ‘gut microbiome’ - and its massive significance to our health

Our Little Life Is Rounded with Possibility

In praise of habits - so much more than mindless reflexes

How Social Media Shapes Our Identity

The Forgotten Women of the Antibiotics Race

Diagnosis as Detective Work: Lisa Sanders and the Art of Not Knowing

Do Brain Implants Change Your Identity?

The Promise and the Peril of Virtual Health Care

Adam Savage on Lists, More Lists, and the Power of Checkboxes

What We Get Wrong About Joan Didion

How to find focus

Biotechnology Greed Is Prolonging the Pandemic. It’s Inexcusable.

Why some of the smartest people can be so very stupid

In praise of possibility

Empathy is, at heart, an aesthetic appreciation of the other

‘I Can’t Stop Trying to Be Perfect!’

Reports of a Baleful Internet Are Greatly Exaggerated

How to Unlearn a Disease

Can Reading Make You Happier?

Expert by Roger Kneebone

Watched:

Vaccines & Freedom

Succession - The Toxic Culture of Success

the problem with plastic surgery

L to the OG: How Succession Uses Music**

Peaky Blinders (S6)

Dopesick

Listened To:

I’m still going round the same playlist as last month

Went To:

Life Through A Royal Lens @ Kensington Palace

Swan Lake @ Royal Opera House