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IndigoWhisper
1 23,177 M Aiming High 2
PathStep 9 Compassion hearts2,906 Forum posts58 Forum upvotes101 Current upvotes101 Age GroupAdult Last activeOctober, 2024 Member sinceMarch 29, 2023
Bio

I am strong and resiliant but often struggle because so many things bring back various aspects of my abusive childhood or connect to other pain in my life.


I want to help people, make a difference, be of value - but my life experiance is being unwanted by the world no matter how hard I try or what I do.

I keep trying, keep going, keep getting hurt - somehow pick myself up only to be hurt again.


Child Abuse leaves difficult scars, existing with a developmental disability and neurodiversity isn't easy either - like many I have trauma.


I'm a perpetual screwup because of lifelong coordination problems, ADD, severe time blindness, learning disabilities, trauma - yet most of my abuse was centered on different bad/"normal" good. So many things I just can't change are connected to the abuse and so when I spill, drop, break something it is a trigger. When I make a "careless" mistake it is a trigger. When I screw up an appointment it is a trigger.


I'm not "allowed" to make mistakes yet I make them all the time and get triggered which then feeds into a vicious circle.


Being 2E/Twice-Exceptional isn't easy.


Even being gifted led to trauma when I understood things I shouldn't have as a child and being both gifted and disabled I was labeled with the R word and many other tough labels.


Its like I can understand and essily relate to bits and pieces of other people's journey - but its hard to even explain mine or be believed.


Almost taking my own life because of pervasive gas-lighting that had me believing I had no hope of ever getting anywhere in life and would probably turn into a monster - and then having to figure out how to put myself back together by myself because my entire childhood is filled with the weaponization of all things mental health - it isn't easy - and I did that over 20 years ago but even reading entire libraries can only get you so far.


I am very resiliant but life still hurts all the time, I know a thousand tricks for coping - and I still hate being unwanted and thrown away. I'm fine as long as my only expectation in life is to always and forever exist alone and on the margins of society.

Recent forum posts
ADHD and/or Neurodiverse chat
ADHD Support / by IndigoWhisper
Last post
 September 16th
...See more Why do we not have a chat room- seriously.  We need a place to discuss topics and receive the kind of real time support relevant to us.  I know ADHD and schedules are awful but if we have a room - or multiple rooms we can put up topics and otherwise have discussions and support. Ideally - there would be three rooms for lengthy discussion/focus groups.  One for sharing and quick support and one for cheering each other up and being social.  But we could also have one room that rotates. I am willing to be among those who try to focus for discussion and open to ADHD friendly training. Topic List Sample Discussions Cleaning and Organizing with ADHD ADHD and and Employment ADHD and Relationships Women with ADHD Adults with ADHD Parenting a child with ADHD When the parent has ADHD AUADHD- when you have both ADHD and Autism Time Blindness ADHD and Trauma ADHD and emotions Newly Diagnosed ADHD in School Coping Advocacy Motivation Procrastination Chasing Dopamine - Safely Hyperfocus Impulsively Theory  Laughing at ourselves ADHD and Anxiety ADHD and Depression ADHD and imposter syndrome ADHD and Dyspraxia/Developmental Coordination Disorder. Epic level screw ups and moving past them. ADHD and Friendships Mourning the Life you could have had if you'd known sooner ADHD and creativity ADHD, Resiliant, and Determined Neurodiversity in general Older with ADHD This is just a sample list off the top of my head- if we have a room and can pick topics for the day or the week or the hour...
Timeblindness and ADHD
ADHD Support / by IndigoWhisper
Last post
 July 22nd
...See more I have ADD/ADHD was diagnosed decades ago but it is only in the last few years that I learned that time blindness is pretty common for us. It has caused me to lose so many jobs, so many people to yell at me my entire life, contributed to so much trauma. I try so hard and I just do not *have* a sense of time. And of course all I hear - is "just set an alarm" - like that actually helps- I save it for super important stuff or it stops working and have plenty of them already. So many that they *create* anxiety. I also hear I need to "care more", "try harder", be "more responsible". I try so hard, beat myself up more then others do for my failings, am so tired of trying so hard and never being good enough. Society does not even recognize this as a real disability issue - It *is* real, I do try, I do care, I am responsible - and I'm just tired of failing all the time and being told I need to feel *worse* about something that is *not* a charactor flaw it is a disability. There are other aspects of ADHD that impact my life but I got hit *so* hard by time blindness. I wish there was a solution but nothing has ever really worked.
How to activate a pop up room or schedule an event?
7 Cups Online Therapy / by IndigoWhisper
Last post
 June 15th
...See more So I've been reading and it looks like in order to do something like this I might need to become a group leader according to the FAQ but when I click on the link I am not taken to how to do that and the only thing I can find is how to become a listener. I may want to try being a listener at some point but right now what I am more interested in is gathering a group either as more of a support group or else to discuss a specific topic. Is listener just a name and a type of account for doing *anything* other then purely providing support? If so, I guess I can make a listener account and then shift to my actual focus? Trying to figure out my next steps here.
From nightmare to healing journey that maybe I can share
Trauma Support / by IndigoWhisper
Last post
 June 24th
...See more Warning - this may be triggering. Decades ago I was trapped in child abuse and gas lighting with so many terrible memories and no one to trust. It went on for years. What you need to know is I was driven some pretty dark places by my abusers, warped, tarnished, and the only reason I *didn't* fully break is because I have a very strong will and they never knew how close it was. Out of pure desperationI I put up walls, and a shell persona, disengaged from emotion and lived that way for more then three years. Years passed, I did a lot of reading, child development and psychology among the topics. While I managed to heal some and my life circomstances improved a bit - It just wasn't enough. I'd tried and tried and shattered glass that is glued together is still shattered glass - I was never really going to heal and always be warped by the abuse - in effect my psyche needed to be reforged but there was no one safe to entrust this project to except myself - which was admittedly not ideal without formal training. And so I started down a desperate path, one where I used a form of self-hypnosis and months of careful planning to deliberately break under my own control and come back stronger. But that is only one piece of what I did. I also created memories I am one hundred percent aware are false. Presenting myself as a time traveler to my younger self, explaining that we couldn't change what was going to happen but it could ve made easier. I am aware that there was no time travel, not even actual interaction between multiple versions of myself - yet it "feels" real enough to provide comfort. Every one of my worst memories goes with a hug, or someone holding my hand, or some one telling me its not my fault and I can get through this - I remember the real version of events right alongside both giving and receiving support from myself. Three memories braided together. How I did this is complicated and I have no idea if it would work for anyone else but I'd like to get a group together to talk about this and *maybe* try. This is *not* something you do lightly but it can blunt trauma a fair bit - and there are a few other tricks that are less extreme people could try first. I want to talk over the risks, the benefits, the enormous amount of soul-searching and planning involved, the safe guards I took. It will not solve all your problems, taking all the pain away, actually erasing memories is to dangerous - or at least I'm pretty sure it is. You can destabilize yourself and end up way worse off. You could lose compasion or other important pieces of who you are, if you mess this up. What this can do is blunt the worst memories. Allow you to put them at one remove so you remember witnessing rather then living a bad experiance, tie comforting constructed memories to which you know to be false to the real event, or even use various tricks to break up a chain of bad memories into smaller pieces. You can try alternate scenarios of a memory, or explore things you wish had happened after a tough moment but the one rule is that you must wake up knowing what is real. The crafted memory is there for comfort, a detour you can take when triggered. Having an adult perspective on some stuff will help but to mitigate a memory you will need to be ready to relive it and that won't be easy. It is a grueling process with risks and I am scared to try and teach someone else but if it can help someone who is in the kind of pain I was -maybe I should. And that is why I was technically diagnosed with recurrent "adjustment disorder" rather then PTSD, why despite still having many issues and triggers - I function reasonably well - because I went through this process. I'm not sure how to get a chat room made or what the next steps should be but I am open to a responsible and cautious exploration of the topic and attempting to help others try it. Please, please be careful with this. I want to help not cause harm. Thoughts?
Dyspraxia/DCD
Disability Support / by IndigoWhisper
Last post
 December 10th, 2023
...See more Dyspraxia is estimated to be quite common yet almost no one in the USA has heard of it. In fact Developmental Coordination Disorder (the name recently adopted in the USA) is just that recently adopted. This condition is life long yet there is little support or identification of kids amd even less for adults. Some kids grow out of it- most manage to mask the coordibation issues that are most obvious in childhood but continue to struggle in different ways as adults. Adulting is just hard for us we struggle with things that most people find easy yet we don't look obviously disabled so people don't recognize how nervous we are and how hard we are working to not be a walking disaster all the time - because our coordination is still really really bad and we are still really clumsy and awkward and perpetual screw ups in many areas we just learned how to somewhat compensate. We still spill, lose, knockover, drop stuff a lot, we put way to much effort in to look kinda normal, we still probably have awful handwriting, we still get lost a lot more then most. We just worked so hard learning to compensate and cover it up that it's not so obvious anymore so we can pass. Having highly traumatic childhoods are sadly common for those with undiagnosed/unsupported Dyspraxia. And they leave a mark. Many of us come out of child hood with huge self-esteem issues, imposter syndrome, mental health issues - we struggle, we drift through life, we rarely reach our potential. We are thrown away. We just don't have the tools or foundation to succeed because the only thing we learned was how to pass and hate ourselves - the world is always beating is up so it's just how it is right?. DCD is not a new condition it has just had a lot of names, some of them very hurtful. It is common for those with Dyspraxia to also have leanings or outright diagnosis with other forms of neurodiversity. Some of Dyslexia, most have *either* ADHD or Autism some have both. Dyspraxia has so little exposure in this country that I was told to just "take" an Autism spectrum label despite very very clearly not belonging on the Autism Spectrum unless it is seen to encompass someone who is in many ways the polar opposite of Autistic. Rather then having restricted interests I have an abundance, I neither require nor desire an over-regimented world. I make eye contact. I can be quite social although like many with dyspraxia I was bullied a lot and ran into social problems for Dyspraxia and ADHD related reasons rather then Autism ones. I fit on the ADHD side of thing the only thing I have in common with Autism is being Neurodiverse and that *some* with Dyspraxia do fit on the Autism spectrum. Dyspraxia can have diverse presentations also. It's cardinal signs in childhood are clumsiness, struggling with right and left, amounts of force to use, difficulty tying shoe laces, problems with handwriting, problems with coordination, spacial perception. Secondary mental health issues are common because we often have really bad childhoods, maybe we are also prone to it but the horrid experiences do not help. Some reasons we tend to have social difficulties as children - Difficulty regulating and recognizing how far away to stand, bumping into people, dropping stuff, seeming carelessness with other's belongings, , often bad at sports/last picked on the playground, difficulty with physical sequences, may have difficulty regulating volume of voice (to soft or two loud), *some* also have difficulties with speach itself, may have joint laxity/hypermobility/and or low muscle tone, poor sense of time, poor spacial perception, poor organizational skills, some have poor balance. Because we struggle with these things we may have poor fitness, no self confidence, few successes in life, we may be labelled with the R word (I was) for the early coordination problems and schools may refuse to educate as (happened to me). This is not an exhaustive list and again many of us also have either ADHD or Autistic overlap/cocurrance. Because of the misunderstandings and challenges of Dyspraxia we grow up bullied, misunderstood, frustrated, often friendless - we don't really get the opportunity for proper socialization and the foundation to be part of society properly. As teens and adults we are awkward, bad at "basic: stuff so why would anyone give us a chance to show them how we can shine and how capable we actually are - many of us don't even know. Many of us are actually very smart and capable but the things we are good at are just nonsensical to society and we learn differently. With support and understanding we are wonderful capable people but by the time we reach adulthood those who don't get support have no foundations and are covered in psychological scars.
Chat/Support for the combination of Trauma and Disability.
Disability Support / by IndigoWhisper
Last post
 May 28th, 2023
...See more For some of us Disability may have come from a traumatic incident. For others we had a traumatic , even abusive ,childhood because we had a disability. For both groups this can lead to the day to day world being full of triggers and new micro-trauma and it can be so easy to be ableist with oneself or fall into learned helplessness. I am a child abuse and gas lighting survivor but because the abuse and gas lighting was centered around the fact that I have a Developmental Disability it took an atypical form. So unless I really get into just how bad it was in graphic detail people tend to brush it off. It was bad, really bad, doubted my own sanity, and almost ended my life as a tween and then had to keep that a deep dark secret bad - as it would have been weaponized against me. As if the schools so called experts were hopelessly incompetent or were actively trying to cause mental health issues and then make any they found worse instead of better. That doesn't mean someone who has been through that much can just forget about the past and walk away - it's not that easy. I went through some really really bad stuff and while life is better today - the scars are still there. When the very act of making a mistake is a trigger because you were taught that passing was your only value in life - its hard to avoid triggering yourself let alone triggers from society. I have subtle but very real disabilities, things that mean I have to concentrate on how I both move and act to seem "normal" or people notice there is something wrong even if they can't quite put thier finger on it. That's the short and detail free version of my story but many of us have dealt with bullying, gas lighting, invalidation,, not being believed, infantiilization and more.
Solution rather then Sympathy based Chat/Support
Disability Support / by IndigoWhisper
Last post
 May 9th, 2023
...See more Sympathetic ears and venting are great but when you are living life with challenges that no amount of emotional validation fixes - the emotional componant is just one piece of what you are dealing with. It might get all tangled up with your disability, you might have emotional reactions like all humans, you might even have secondary mental health issues connected to disability related trauma Meanwhile you are still trying to find solutions to make day to day life easier, find resources, cope with inaccessible situations, etc. Think of this as optional venting followed by workshop/sounding board chat. The goal is to work together with others that at least half get it to find ways to cope and mitigate the things that we need to deal with. Whether it's small challenges of daily life or society just making things worse by creating artifical limitations. How can we help this one person accomplish task X (washing dishes, paying bills, getting to thier art class, going on a date, taking care of groceries, whatever) when they are dealing with disability challenge Y, external situation Z, emotional reactions E. We can't wave magic wands and fix society to actually be accessible, accomidating, understanding, etc what we can do is help each other with tools, strategies, brainstorming, and perhaps even advocacy. It's not fair that we have to work harder and it feels like we are always the ones who need to accept half a loaf then settle for a quarter and then be so greatful that we got a few crumbs. So now that we are done for the moment hating those things how can we support and brainstorm with the guidedog user that got turned away from an uber- again. The challenges of unemployment and underemployment in the disability community and the latest hurdle/concern someone is facing The constant fight of passing or not passing when you have a hideable disability - and the decision stress of one person How do you stand up for yourself when doing certain things on your own is really challenging and it's hard to feel like a valid adult. Where is the balance. How do you explain your disability, when do you explain? How do you have a full and complete life? How do you get task X done while coping with challenge Y.
Mitigating the lifelong damage of early childhood trauma
Trauma Support / by IndigoWhisper
Last post
 May 7th, 2023
...See more Possible trigger warning. I really really hope I am not breaking any rules by doing this or making a terrible mistake. I want to help others who may need this tool - and I'm trying to continue my healing journey by letting out the big secrets that I was always afraid to talk about. Over 2 decades ago, I figured out how to safely edit my own memories - just enough to stay the same person but come out less *damaged* I did this using a form of self-hypnosis to "be" the comforting, loving, understanding, caring adult figure that was never there in reality. It was something I *badly* needed and I recognized this after reading a lot of things on both psychology and child development. We are not talking about full healing, the risks of that were to high, but it made a huge difference and I firmly believe it is the reason I can at least function, cope, and sometimes be happy. I think I can teach others and I'd like to try - but I also want to make sure this is done *carefully* and that people understand that there are risks involved and the only way to know if this can be adapted for others is to try. The memories I created are *not* real, but they *feel* real despite fullly knowing they were constructed to mitigate incidents of trauma. And that is a critical key - you *must* wake up aware the memories are not real. My mind may be uniquely suited to this sort of thing - I have a very good long term memory as well as sensory memory and the trauma I went through did give me certain tools. It's likely others have done things like this and if I'm right about the risks people probably have lost themselves both because they couldn't accept only partial healing and went to far - or else destabilized the very foundations of thier mind. If you've seen inside out, let us just say there is some resonance to the risks of playing with pivotal memories, the sacrifices you may need to make, and the potential rewards. I very nearly took my own life before finally realizing adults could be wrong and being different was not an unforgivable sin. That part is a topic for a different thread. What followed was a multiyear quest to try and sort out my actual mental health status and seperate all the insidious lies from real issues that I needed to address - while still being forced to keep everything secret. I'm not against therapy but it actually was weaponized against me and used as the "boogyman" . I've also had a really hard time ever finding a therapist that gets the trauma of disability and this sort of abuse so just not that helpful -for me - unless it help in coping with a current high stress situation. One thing the school and thier so called "experts" were right about, was that they'd left me with damage that was really really hard to heal after they compounded it with "tough love" instead of actual support andlet it fester for even more years In many ways it was just to late. I needed a time machine but back in the real world they don't actually exist. I had to much trauma that started at far to young an age. Trying to heal certain types of early childhood trauma is very difficult once you get past a certain age according to studies and the outcomes tend to be bad. If the school had tried, but all they did was double-down on trauma by prescribing "tough love" instead of help in healing the damage they had created - while I was still young enough that it would have been a *lot* easier. I came up with a plan to make a virtual time machine in my own mind and "talk" to my younger self . Time machines don't exist in reality but my child self was desperate for any escape and half wanted to believe in it. To my younger self - my adult self was a time traveler and the desperately wished for savior who didn't exactly provide an escape - but gave all that suffering a purpose and gave support every time. My older self told my younger self we couldn't change the time line to much - but it could hurt less. For you, dear reader, the presentation might be different, you know what fantasy it would be possible to fulfill for your younger self. What would it take to get little you to accept and believe just enough to allow healing? I know none of it is real, but my child self only found that out for sure when she was old enough to understand and after it had already made a litteral difference in my "wiring" which I was able to keep. What I did was dangerous, I borrowed heavily from DiD integration theory and intentionally created such a situation in a carefully controlled way - so that there would *be*pieces to reintegrate into a healthier whole. Thoughts?
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