PTSD and Healthy Relationships: A Struggle to Cope

I can relate. It's awful that you have to live through that. Unfortunately, with PTSD, the threshold for distress tolerance does tend to be lower. That doesn't mean you are broken. You've been severely hurt—it's understandable that you'd react to stress in such a way. One thing my therapist told me was that we have to modify our expectations to fit our bodies. It was in context of my physical disability, but it applies perfectly to PTSD as well. When you are traumatised, your brain goes through a lot of changes, and your brain is a physical object, after all.

Yes, this is exactly how I feel. When people treat me with kindness, I grow extremely fearful that they have ulterior motives, that it'll hurt more when they eventually hurt me, or, as you said, I'll mess things up. I have gotten severe anxiety attacks and trauma episodes triggered by something as innocent as a hug. Living with PTSD is incredibly difficult. Sometimes I feel like it's my entire identity. The only advice I can give—if you're looking for any advice in the first place—is to be patient with yourself. It can be hard to be fair to yourself, but I found that treating yourself with gentleness and kindness that you'd show a friend can really go a long way, even if you can't believe the things you're telling yourself.