- Date posted
- 23w
How do you cope with Internet Trauma?
I find myself getting panic attacks over things that I was exposed to as a teen in my younger years and they still haunt me sometimes.
I find myself getting panic attacks over things that I was exposed to as a teen in my younger years and they still haunt me sometimes.
I have the very same problem. The memories don't ever go away and I don't really know what to do about them. All I can really do is find distractions throughout the day.
@BigGyro09 That works too, I occasionally play video games if I’m getting anxious over my thoughts again. it’s hard though to deal with the guilt of knowing that stuff traumatized you and was unaware of it until you got older, because ocd will use it as proof that you may/may not be a bad person despite having limited knowledge about safety online.
@anxious artist I couldn't have said it better. You're exactly right about all of that. I sometimes find myself blaming myself for finding and even looking for that kind of stuff but truthfully I didn't know better and I didn't get any kind of education on that side of life. I only blame myself because it's not like anyone else showed it to me, I found all of it. It pretty much put a dent in my childhood and it made my teenage years worse than they were looking back. The hardest part is actually trying to sit with those thoughts and letting your mind just think. I tried that the other night and the worst stuff from several different things in life just kept popping up, so it's no wonder I along with other people use distractions all the time
@BigGyro09 We all made regrettable mistakes during our youth and don’t even realize it till later in our adulthood years. Even if you can’t undo the past, the best thing you can do is move forward. Life will keep going either way. As long as you understand that what happened was a result of PTSD, you can still survive, there’s people out there with similar trauma to you with friends and families. A trauma therapist can help you process those emotions and help you get back on your own two feet. Don’t worry about what people say online, as it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. No one is perfect and experiences the same lifestyle.
@anxious artist I dunno, I think this has ruined my life in some ways. It's always those painful memories and I don't feel like I can ever truly move on from them. If I never got exposed to that stuff at that time, I feel like I would have had such a great time in high school and had an easier time making friends. I also think it's held me back from making true connections. I also think it's one of the reasons I even have OCD in the first place because that stuff influenced the way I acted when I was around that age. It just sucks overall and I hate being reminded of it over and over again. It's basically like drugs to me. I hate that I have felt helplessness against it for so long and I just wish I was never introduced to that stuff. I feel like if I wasn't, thing would have gone so much smoother in my teen years. I probably would have had an easier time making friends, anxiety wouldn't be an issue, and I probably would have had relationships as well. It just took so much from me and it's hard to really focus on anything else without the trauma aspect of these things being solved. I hate it so much.
Very brief mentions of pocd and nsfw jokes,id like this to be adults only . Repost bc i had to edit something Does anyone have experience with real event ocd attached to your online footprint etc? I keep checking old messages,trying to find old people i knew i used to talk to etc. To find out every problematic thing I did and if I've ever been unfollowed or blocked by anyone I used to be friends w online/atleast on good terms w. I am particularly concerned abt doing something bigoted,esp racist bc i have racism ocd,and doing something predatory bc of my pocd. I remember hanging around people who could use 'edgy' or offensive humour in my teens and i remember a lot of sex jokes and that i would join in on sex jokes sometimes . i dont remember details w the offensive humour as much,i feel like i didnt join in on it as much but i was definitely WAY passive abt things and prob let a lot of bad stuff slide i shouldnt have bc i didn't speak up it was wrong,I remember one friend in an online community would say slurs and horrible jokes when i was 16. I dont remember my response to it as much but i feel i didnt speak up abt it aside one time i found in the dms where he made a bad joke on a thing i shared for social justice. I cant stop going thru old messages and stuff or trying to find ppl from the past. I feel like if I don't check it now,that eventually it'll come to haunt me or that I'll stumble across it eventually. I worry what if someone messaged me on one of these apps I un-installed or on one of the accounts I don't have access to,confronting me abt all this stuff I did. I had an obsession w this back in 2020 and did check in depth on all my accounts,but now that it's been 4 years the obsession is back in full swing.
i currently am getting over my period and have been having a horrible flashbacks from some real events. it’s a amalgamation of all of the horrible things i did as a child/young teenager. all of it associated with p0rnography + sexual activities i did. i was exposed to sexual activity very young and it lead me down a dark path. i’ve had OCD forever it seems. it’s hard because i can see that i’ve had OCD symptoms since childhood but i constantly doubt wether or not my actions where because of OCD or something i genuinely wanted/was attracted to. i can’t seem to differentiate the two and it’s scaring me. i’m worried i was genuinely into the kind of stuff and it’s constantly flashing in my mind the last two days of things i compulsively did years ago. to be absolutely clear it has been years since i’ve even thought about those taboo things or saw anything of that sort. i’m talking 5 or 6 years give or take. it still feels like yesterday. in recent years i’ve completely pulled away from p0rn and now find it and s3x a lot less appealing. but every so often i get these intense flashbacks on things i did or saw or thought and it puts everything on hold. everything im interested in gets but on the back burner in fear of my intrusive thoughts being thrown into the mix. currently experiencing that now. im mortified of ruining everything i love because of these stupid thoughts. does anyone have any advice or experience with this specifically and have any tips???
I’m a csa survivor which made me develop hypersexuality while actually being a asexual individual. (Where I did CP and talked to groomers and sexted, ect ect) A few months ago I’ve started to heal, but the fact that I’ve seen so many private parts since I was idk, young? I imagine them everywhere, it’s really frustrating and sometimes I also get intrusive thoughts about other kids or my siblings. It’s deeply distributing but I also kind of think of it from a curious kind of aspect which I despise too. Honestly I have a hard time with any kid in underwear, my intrusive thoughts have been ALOT the last months and they’re really really overwhelming. I also easily go into overanalysing them or even trying to figure out more clearer the thoughts to “test myself”. I think, I hope. Idk it’s scary
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