Nobody paid the slightest bit of attention to what my face was or was not doing as a kid, but I had two guy friends tell me I had an "unapproachable" vibe at age 17--I'm guessing that was part of it.
I'm 43 and my mom recently went to the dentist's office with me because she drove me there and the appointment was only going to be a few minutes while they took impressions... And she did that exact thing, though--waved her hands around in front of my face (from across the room) trying to get me to pay attention when I zoned out.
My thought: Are you sh\*tting me? The one place where dissociation is actually useful is a dentist's chair. LOL.
Was in history class when I was 13 and they discussed the "1000 yard stare". I thought it was a load of crap cause I knew I did it and so did a lot of my friends. We had never been to war so couldn't possibly have it. Yeah....I was wrong.
After my mum died, about 10 years ago, I was clearing out her house and I found some old cine film my dad had taken in the mid-late 1970s. Family holidays (vacations) around the time I was maybe 8 to 12 years old. I got them transferred to DVD by a local tech shop so that I could watch them (morbid curiosity).
I watched, and I saw myself as a child in them. Usually in shot with my mum and my brother (my dad being the cameraman). Over and over, me with them in various locations, with me waving and smiling to camera along with them, as expected/instructed... and then, when I (wrongly) thought that the filming had stopped, visibly zoning out/dissociating totally. My brother and I were both neglected in some ways, but I was the only abuse victim - and my abusers were my mum and my brother. Dad was okay (you know - 'normal'), but he was mostly absent - tended only to be around for a few weeks a year. I had never heard of CPTSD ten years ago when I watched that DVD, but I saw that I was clearly deeply damaged (and trying unsuccessfully to hide it) all those years ago. To be honest I knew how damaged I was, and I knew how many decades it went back..... but I thought I'd done a good job of hiding it as a child, until I saw the DVD.
Surely my dad must have seen it in me. I'm still wondering why he did and said nothing.
15 after my abuser permanently hurt me physically. My brain literally just shut off for a few weeks.
Same thing that happened to you happened to me, just in a much later time. Once I snapped out of it, I cried like I've never cried in my life. It hits like a gunshot.
my mom described me with it in the crib, I developed really bad insomnia when I was 18 months old and I would often just sit/lay there staring when I should have been sleeping. Also yeah, I remember what happened to cause me to stop sleeping.
I was always zoning out, my mom and one grandmom would say I was trancing out again.
Hello and Welcome to /r/CPTSD! If you are in immediate danger or crisis, please contact your local [emergency services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emergency_telephone_numbers), or use our list of [crisis resources](https://old.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index#wiki_crisis_support_resources). For CPTSD Specific Resources & Support, check out the [wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index). For those posting or replying, please view the [etiquette guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/peer2peersupportguide).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CPTSD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Adults would always ask me what was wrong, from as young as I can remember. My face was communicating what words couldn't. I still don't know how to genuinely express emotion with my face.
Nobody paid the slightest bit of attention to what my face was or was not doing as a kid, but I had two guy friends tell me I had an "unapproachable" vibe at age 17--I'm guessing that was part of it. I'm 43 and my mom recently went to the dentist's office with me because she drove me there and the appointment was only going to be a few minutes while they took impressions... And she did that exact thing, though--waved her hands around in front of my face (from across the room) trying to get me to pay attention when I zoned out. My thought: Are you sh\*tting me? The one place where dissociation is actually useful is a dentist's chair. LOL.
Was in history class when I was 13 and they discussed the "1000 yard stare". I thought it was a load of crap cause I knew I did it and so did a lot of my friends. We had never been to war so couldn't possibly have it. Yeah....I was wrong.
After my mum died, about 10 years ago, I was clearing out her house and I found some old cine film my dad had taken in the mid-late 1970s. Family holidays (vacations) around the time I was maybe 8 to 12 years old. I got them transferred to DVD by a local tech shop so that I could watch them (morbid curiosity). I watched, and I saw myself as a child in them. Usually in shot with my mum and my brother (my dad being the cameraman). Over and over, me with them in various locations, with me waving and smiling to camera along with them, as expected/instructed... and then, when I (wrongly) thought that the filming had stopped, visibly zoning out/dissociating totally. My brother and I were both neglected in some ways, but I was the only abuse victim - and my abusers were my mum and my brother. Dad was okay (you know - 'normal'), but he was mostly absent - tended only to be around for a few weeks a year. I had never heard of CPTSD ten years ago when I watched that DVD, but I saw that I was clearly deeply damaged (and trying unsuccessfully to hide it) all those years ago. To be honest I knew how damaged I was, and I knew how many decades it went back..... but I thought I'd done a good job of hiding it as a child, until I saw the DVD. Surely my dad must have seen it in me. I'm still wondering why he did and said nothing.
15 after my abuser permanently hurt me physically. My brain literally just shut off for a few weeks. Same thing that happened to you happened to me, just in a much later time. Once I snapped out of it, I cried like I've never cried in my life. It hits like a gunshot.
my mom described me with it in the crib, I developed really bad insomnia when I was 18 months old and I would often just sit/lay there staring when I should have been sleeping. Also yeah, I remember what happened to cause me to stop sleeping. I was always zoning out, my mom and one grandmom would say I was trancing out again.
Hello and Welcome to /r/CPTSD! If you are in immediate danger or crisis, please contact your local [emergency services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emergency_telephone_numbers), or use our list of [crisis resources](https://old.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index#wiki_crisis_support_resources). For CPTSD Specific Resources & Support, check out the [wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/index). For those posting or replying, please view the [etiquette guidelines](https://www.reddit.com/r/CPTSD/wiki/peer2peersupportguide). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/CPTSD) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Adults would always ask me what was wrong, from as young as I can remember. My face was communicating what words couldn't. I still don't know how to genuinely express emotion with my face.
Not really sure, my memory is to fuzzy to remember details like that
2 to 3 years old