Maybe I didn't always have pure o but I think my perception of myself has been off for a long time. Feeling weird or different or flawed most of my life. Being made fun of and told I was weird growing up didn't help. Anyone else?

Same here

Same. I've said again on this app what my experience was. I grew up in a city where I was a popular boy. Everyone wanted to be my friend and I had plenty of crushes who liked me back. After one of my parents died we moved to another town where I was ignored, set aside, bullied and one rejection came after another. In the scope of my bullying, the entire school heard rumors that I was gay - which was of course false - and I even received a rape threat. All these events, along with other things that happened created a deep wound. And although I was able to repress the memories for a long time and pursue the life I wanted, that later caught up and is eating me up again. I really hate this, but there's not much I can do to change it. I wish there was a pill that I could take to forget all of it and simply reboot.

Do you think some of this is trauma deputy? A lot of good stuff is coming out about EMDR. Some of my issues I find that I can not obsess yet feel intense fight or flight arousal despite knowing deeply there is no problem. I’m happy to feel the anxiety but certain things are hard to do in that state. I’m thinking more EMDR will be useful as part of my brain is not getting past some trauma by itself. Frustrating I know, because it feels like part of our brain is so stuck when the rest of our brain knows it’s so unhelpful and stupid?

I think most of it is trauma. I eventually moved away from that town where all this happened. A few years ago I was going to visit back and I broke down into a full blown panic attack and ended up not going. I've never heard of EMDR. I'll have to do some research on that today. Have you ever done it for yourself?

Yes but I don’t think I did it enough and for enough things. I actually think I need a lot of therapy for a lot of stuff, and need to change a number of things that limit my life. It will be a long road. It took a while to develop the mindset that led to ocd i wasn’t born with it.

That sucks. Do anything it takes to help yourself. Have you noticed EMDR helping you? The little I read about it sounded kind of scary.

I think it needs to happen. I’d rather live the right life or not live. Existing is not living.