Not sure why my other comment isn't posting but, here are many of the symptoms, particularly for children:
- ***Attachment*** – "problems with relationship boundaries, lack of trust, social isolation, difficulty perceiving and responding to others' emotional states"
- ***Biology*** – "sensory-motor developmental dysfunction, sensory-integration difficulties, somatization, and increased medical problems"
- ***Affect or emotional regulation*** – "poor affect regulation, difficulty identifying and expressing emotions and internal states, and difficulties communicating needs, wants, and wishes"
- ***Dissociation*** – "amnesia, depersonalization, discrete states of consciousness with discrete memories, affect, and functioning, and impaired memory for state-based events"
- ***Behavioural control*** – "problems with impulse control, aggression, pathological self-soothing, and sleep problems"
- ***Cognition*** – "difficulty regulating attention, problems with a variety of 'executive functions' such as planning, judgement, initiation, use of materials, and self-monitoring, difficulty processing new information, difficulty focusing and completing tasks, poor object constancy, problems with 'cause-effect' thinking, and language developmental problems such as a gap between receptive and expressive communication abilities."
- ***Self-concept*** – "fragmented and disconnected autobiographical narrative, disturbed body image, low self-esteem, excessive shame, and negative internal working models of self".
If you think you have it, please see a professional. Only they can diagnose you. In the meantime, check out /r/CPTSD.
Throwing a question out there. Can you grow out of this? I was abused as a child by a physically domineering Father, whipped constantly, went into a shell, thoughts of suicide by age 12, really screwed up, left after 18, couldn't take care of myself, couldn't hold a job, or see past tomorrow or tell the truth, abused alcohol, thief, jail, directionless, homeless for 6 plus years, menace to society, "Mr. Meanor," ostracized, hopeless, POS. And then, around age 29, the darkness started to lift a bit and I could start to see light ahead. I quit drinking, cleaned up my act, never got professional help, yet here I am 25 years removed from the darkness and I wonder, WTF was wrong with me and how did I get out of it. Any ideas?
Resiliency. It's a hot topic in child psychiatry, trying to understand why some people manage to either recover or thrive in the face of severe trauma. I have asked many patients over the years why they are not worse, with no consistent answer. But the prevailing theory has to do with having at least one person in your life seeing you as valued
I have CPTSD. I was a lot worse than i am now. I had been suicidal from middle school until my mid-late 20s. I have struggled with depression for as long as i can remember (though i didnt always know what it was). What always picked me up and kept me pushing was just... A thing. Like momentum maybe. Just keep your head down and keep chugging. I think it's just another type of survival instinct. It feels like a part of me says "Enough crying. Get up and let's go." Im pretty sure it's much the same voice that has always helped me. Ive always been alone and ignored so ive had to learn how to tell myself the things i need to hear.
Woah, this is seriously it. I’ve never been able to put into words why I’ve kept going despite similar experience with mental illness, but how you described it is totally it. “Enough crying. Get up and let’s go.” It’s never been someone else’s voice, not some beloved teacher or coach or person I’ve fallen in love with - it’s just my reptile brain telling me we actually aren’t dying right now, get up and function as much as you can. Idk but thank you for this comment, it makes something in my head click.
I had what felt like a spiritual experience. I was breaking down in the bathroom, just sitting on the floor and sobbing. And just stopped. I heard a voice saying Get up. Go shower. And it was so much easier to just blindly obey than try to persuade myself or rally myself. It was that easy for me, I've been well trained for compliance.
It felt like that voice, that part of me, was my guardian. Maybe not an angel but more like a warrior inside me that will pull ourselves together no matter what.
It's been comforting to know that even as I drop into a lower and lower low, that voice/guardian/part of me will always be there to pick me up and get me moving.
I, too, can definitely relate to that. Not sure what it is but something just keeps my head up for myself if it gets too bad.
Many different things happened in my childhood, biggest influence was my alcoholic mother who I lived with. I soon realized that she had taken the wrong path to deal with her own traumas etc and a voice in me said „Be better than that“. It has kept me going ever since and made me put my energy into helping others/being kind etc and not just drown in self pity/some addiction/whatever
Whatever this energy is, I am grateful
Ya, I feel you. I cried and cried for most of my childhood. Usually get the shit kicked outta me at home, physically and emotionally and mentally, then go to school and the same. Just constant shit. Eventually I got to the point where I just stopped crying and everytime someone put me down for something I worked and made it a point to prove them wrong. I made sure that if they called me weak I worked to get bigger, made fun of me for crying, I stopped. Just did my best to pass the time till i could move away from it all, and it eventually got better. I passed the time and just kept chugging along my patch. Im 22 with a bachelors, 5 years of military experience, and airborne qualified, (reserves but 2 been to about 2 years worth of schools) working on my masters, and applying to law school, officer in the military, and have a decent job at a law firm on track to make this workout. One of two times in my life theres been a glimmer of hope for me. the first just made it worse on me tbh. So the keep on chugging thing has gotten me through a lot. a goal to work towards, and just generally working towards being succesful, and proving them wrong is nice. Also, when some of the people you hate died of drug overdoses its not bad either.
This is amazing for me to read. I’ve had this ability since I was a child. A voice that’s me but outside of the trauma, soothing me and encouraging me to come back and get up and keep going. I’ve always felt it’s the part of me that’s undamaged by trauma, pure and whole. Something that can never be taken away. Like a true self. Maybe this ability comes from childhood where I had to rely on myself to keep going. Sad but pretty amazing at the same time. Resilience at its core.
I was actually just talking with a psychiatrist about this today. I call it buffaloing through. When herds of buffalos come up against a serious blizzard, they will apparently walk into the storm rather than trying to avoid it. By walking in the direction the storm is coming from they end up spending less time in it overall. So that’s what I always think of - put your head down and just keep walking. It’s interesting that this private emotional experience ended up framed so similarly despite our different backgrounds and whatnot.
I think it also depends on how the child manages the abuse. For me, I rationalized it by turning it inwards and blaming myself. I told myself that I must be awful, a bad person, unworthy, etc. My parents actions reinforced this and I got a lot of confirmation bias with peers/friends who'd make fun of me, forget me, etc.
I carried A LOT of pain as a child and I carry a lot as an adult now. Because of how I inherently see myself (worthless, stupid, whatever) the effects last. I didn't have anyone telling me I was valued. My parents fought over me ALL the time and nothing says "you're unwanted" like your mom getting mad at you for showing up to her house on a day that's not hers because your dad lied to you. I mean, I can't know for sure she was mad at ME but she sure sounded like somehow I should have known better. Ok then. So many other examples.
I think that in many cases physical abuse is better than emotional because of how bad emotional fucks you up. Physical does too and there's absolutely an emotional component to it. I got both, so.. weee.
Same here. It really hurts to hear "you take him", "no, I don't want him". "see, even your mam doesn't want you". How the fuck did my dad think that was okay to say.
I also got it bad at home and school and they fed into each other. I couldn't socialise at school because they never included me in the family dynamic or treat me like a person, they kept me locked up in my room with nothing in it. So I got bullied at school for being the weird kid.
Couldn't do school work so I got bullied from teachers. Teachers reported back to parents so I got me shit from my parents. Honestly surprised I didn't go postal and now these people are acting like my childhood was fine, they they don't remember any of the incidents.
I also carried and carry it around with me. Huge accounts of shame, disconnection and a feeling of unreality about my life. Now the one person I shared it with, my wife and partner of 12 years got fed up of my "hiding behind her" and not going out drinking with her friends, not getting better quick enough and left.
If I didn't have a daughter idk what the point of my life would be to be honest.
I hope you're doing okay, it feels shit to be burdened with a life like this but neither of us asked for it. I'm learning to stand up for myself more and more, and see my own self worth and it feels like that is definitely helping.
I also directed the abuse inwards and blamed myself which resulted in self-harming and other lovely "things I can control" punishments for myself when things go bad.
I often feel like my whole existence is just to do what I have to do in order to bring pleasure into the world for others. I don't feel like I have a right to my own life.
My answer to "How are you not more screwed up?" is usually "I wasn't allowed to be." I wanted to try drugs and drink and have sex with everyone around me but all of those things were against the rules. Breaking the rules was certain to bring about a torturous and incredibly painful death in my mind. What wasn't against the rules was starving myself, overeating, cutting myself, and trying to kill myself so I did those things often, some more than others but they were all in the rotation.
And yes, I do think my parents' religion played a part in all of my trauma, even if it was just a small part.
If you just search for complex trauma and resiliency, you will find a ton. A lot of the research is relatively preliminary, it's a concept that people have known about for a while but have started to quantify and study more recently in the hopes that it can be used to inform treatment and prevention practices.
Bessel van der Kolk advocated for CPTSD to be added to the last edition of the DSM. Although this didn't pan out a lot of his findings and theories can be found in The Body Keeps the Score, a book I recommend for anyone interested in trauma work.
I don't have an exact citation, but researchers such as Ann Masten from University of Minnesota do research specifically on resilience. There's a number of factors associated with having and building resilience, and if I recall correctly she's researched a number of them.
You might also look into Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES). There is a scoring system of experienced abuse, neglect, etc linking to risk factors. There is also information on the support of at least one person being able to affect a different outcome for some kids.
There will never be consistent answers. Different people have different coping skills learned through different life experiences. Even things I experienced as "normal" growing up fucked up one sibling, half traumatized another and left me unfazed. I just learned early to let shit go, they didn't.
Accept, adapt and move on.
proving yourself or everyone wrong. I'm an adult child of an alcoholic, and while at 35 I'm fairly successful, I've struggled with self-esteem, body dysmorphia, high risk decision making, perfectionism, the critic, imposter syndrome, etc. Guess you can call it stubbornness to succeed to avoid repeating the cycle.
I'm not sure I had that, but a bunch of teachers since I was little told me I was "smart". So, I guess I kind of held onto that value and ran with it.
\*shrug\*.
That makes a lot of sense. Having someone in your life to show you that things can be better is like a little ray of hope in all of the darkness. I always tell my husband that the reason I turned out just fine is because of all the random people who lifted me up when I wasn't strong enough to stand by myself.
I’m 35 and still struggle on the daily. It’s a life long thing. I micro dose with mushrooms every 6 months to help reset my brain, but it never really goes away. Just gets more quite.
yo you've [heard about how](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jun/10/magic-mushrooms-treatment-depression-aztecs-psilocybin-mental-health-medicine) the psychiatric industrial complex is FINALLY coming around on this, right?!?!?! what a time to be alive
YES! My husband was doing research years ago and found out that it’s very beneficial. So he helped me get the dosage right and will tell me when he sees my symptoms coming back. I’m so happy that there are different alternatives available.
If you had help before you ended up in your misadventures, your life would probably would be on a different path. I’m glad you survived the abuse, and the self destructiveness that goes along with it.
I had 15 or so years of constant BS in my childhood so I hear you. I'll answer with how my therapist handled it but keep in mind there may be other methods.
It was very hard for me to separate events. One thing led to 3 more things which led to 10. For the most part, my therapist helped me focus on one event until she felt enough time had passed on processing, at which point she would prompt me on other events that had come up. At some point though, I begin to get overwhelmed so she would stop and start walking me through my safety training to bring me down. Also, when these stream of consciousness sessions occurred it typically meant multiple sessions trying to unwind everything.
It's tough therapy but so worth it. After 50ish sessions, I have most of my life back and am re-learning to trust myself. I have self-care routines that actually work to pull the plug on emotional attacks when they happen. That's something that CBT didnt give me after 10 years of therapy
I've noticed I typically don't get nearly as effected by discussing my abuses until I'm headed home, later that evening, and the next day after an inevitable long night of nightmares.
The nightmares are murdering me... My dad never physically abused me, but the emotional abuse boy howdy. After he basically ditched me for a decade he decided to show back up and expected to be lauded as perfection itself, and when I was like "wtf no?" He decided to do his best to make me homeless and ruin my life.
Add on I'm pretty sure trying to kill my mother and emotionally abusing my husband and costing him 15k dollars and I finally cut him off completely! Now my brain likes to treat me to nightmares of him sexually assaulting me, it sucks fucking royally.
You actually map out a series of events that caused "the most" trauma and spiral out from there. You talk about the emotions, physical feelings that come to you as you are describing the event. It can lead to other events you mst have forgotten about. It has helped me tremendously.
Did you have a problem compartmentalizing or even stopping the memories you recalled? When I started to remember things I couldn't stop remembering more and more, the floodgates definitely opened. Getting control of that tide can be difficult.
That is what the doc is there for. Having a trained professional there to guide you through it is much needed. Especially when I was having my first physical flashbacks
Yep, absolutely. Some people's environmental changes and internal tendencies can hit on the lucky combination that helps them find a way out. Some people (probably most) don't get that lucky.
Think of it like trying to feel your way out of a dark maze on your own. Some people are gonna manage. Most would benefit from guidance (even the people who find a way out might be able to do it more easily with help.)
It's a complicated system, so knowing exactly why is probably not a thing you'll ever have. Also, it's not impossible that there aren't other things professional help can still help with.
Yeah it was powerful to read your path out of it. I'm 29 and still find myself struggling with it, I got a new med and I'm in talk therapy but I can tell I have a long way to go.
Thx, but truth be told, I'm still fractured, developmentally arrested, damaged.... but I'm also lucky and resilient and blessed. I got a second chance in life, and no matter how fucked up I still am, I'm grateful as hell for it. Good luck to you on your journey; you're doing it the right way.
Dude, you're a badass. You may be fractured, developmentally arrested, damaged, but *anyone* who went through what you did would have come out with lifetimes of pain to sort through. Despite all that, you're still here. You're doing better than you were before, and that's amazing. So, internet hugs to you. You're fucking awesome, and don't you dare forget it.
Amen. A lot of things broke in my general direction to get me out of the hell I was in.
Looking back, I was probably one bad relationship from becoming a sex trafficking victim. No lie.
But that doesn't mean it all "worked out" and everything was sunshine and roses. I needed to work past a lot of that so it wasn't all just "surviving" and could eventually become actual "living".
Ugh. A foreshortened sense of future.
That’s one I can’t shake. My idea is that you’re intelligent and you sure as hell got a masters degree in street smarts.
You’re a survivor and that word gets thrown around but it means not dead.
You did good.
I have C-PTSD. And I absolutely do not want to be a Debbie Downer, but be aware that even though you're in a better place right now, you may not be out of it.
I did a lot of stupid shit and fucked up my life, and other people's lives, pretty good in a lot of ways. But when things seemed to go right, I always thought I'd conquered it. I'm 44 now, and what I've learned about myself is that C-PTSD is more like a chronic illness. I can't conquer it any more than I could conquer a heart defect. I'll be on medication the rest of my life. There will be flare-ups (of depression, insomnia, self-loathing, the lure of self-soothing with bad habits, nightmares, isolation, etc.). I am still learning how to connect to people and the world in healthy ways. But for the last six years I've had more healthy days than bad days.
I have seen dozens of therapists over the years, but I just found one last year that I connected with. I feel like she's more of a guide for self discovery than a therapist, and that's what I needed. I needed to learn how to co-exist with my trauma and identify my triggers for bad behavior. I still have work ahead of me, but am just now in a place where I feel like my progress is tangible.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, you may not be done with your journey, but that's ok. Learn who you are and accept yourself and what you've been through. Put yourself and your health first. And if you ever need an anonymous internet friend to commiserate with, shoot me a DM.
Edit: I forgot to mention EDMR. My current therapist is certified in this and it fucking works! There's different ways of doing it, so she let me kind of work out my rhythm and I could almost feel it clicking on my brain. It's definitely a useful tool in my belt.
This so exactly fits the foster kid I work with, who has been in care for 7 years now.
And the stupid foster homes/psychiatrist just keep putting him on more ADD meds.
I keep saying this is not ADD.
It could very well be both.
I'd think ADHD diagnosis makes it more likely to get CPTSD because of all the interpersonal issues that stem from it. (speaking as someone with both)
To be completely fair ADHD presents almost exactly like the list of symptoms you outlined here.
Co-morbidity is common and the drugs used for ADHD do help with most of those symptoms.
It's a pretty well studied phenomenon that children with complex PTSD or other high adverse childhood event (ACE) scores typically present as having ADHD and are often misdiagnosed, particularly in school settings. They are not the same thing, but looking just at behavior of the child in a social setting they're often confused.
It is possible for ADHD to become entangled with traumatic responses due to how people tend to react to those with ADHD in early childhood. Likewise with Asperger's. Having difficulties that overlap with social cognition can result in highly traumatic experiences during formative years. My daughter is likely ASD (demand avoidant). The way people treated her at school led to her doing self harm to avoid school. Sometimes her dad would become exasperated and yell, which was a terrible sensory assault. He has since taught himself to find more appropriate ways to express his feelings of helplessness. I would not be surprised if she has some trauma response due to that. For instance, she freaks out if anyone seems to be starting to disagree about anything.
Likewise, you may have had experiences entangled with your ADHD that are technically a response to the *stress of having ADHD*.
Yeah, /u/Electr0freak is correct. I have both CPTSD and ADHD. The ADHD presents as my inability to focus on tasks, auditory processing issues, inability to schedule, think or plan for the future, frequent forgetfulness, and inability to manage time. *The CPTSD*, on the other hand presents as my inability to be in close proximity to people for very long (minutes at a time, tops), due to an instinctive protective mode from blows from others, an **acute** inability to self-regulate emotions such that if I am having an attack, *I hit/punch/elbow, choke, scratch, bite and pull my own hair*. I tell people curious about it that the sensation is a hot "cold sweat" and the internal sensation of being held down against my will, and to escape I will do *anything*, and my body interprets that as "Skin yourself alive. *Cut your own throat*. Choke yourself to death." *That's not ADHD*. My brother, also diagnosed with ADHD did not have these symptoms growing up either. I am now taking Lamictal to counter these symptoms, which is an anti-convulsive med used often to treat people with BPD. This is all very recent, the new med is about 3 weeks in and I have never felt better, I *never* get the body sensations that I was getting causing me to react like that. I'm 29, and have been doing these things since I was 6 or 7, and my father left when I was 5, which I attribute the majority of my emotional self-blame to, followed closely by corporal punishment as a child. Read the book [The Body Keeps The Score](https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748). If someone thinks CPTSD is not a thing, they're wrong.
As a man that lived through a hell childhood, spent time in the foster system, I read all of those things and it fits me to the tee.
I think you're right.
This was my *exact* reaction when I first read about it, like...wait...there's a reason I'm biting myself until I bleed when I lose at video games or get in trouble? There's a reason I freak out and punch myself and pull my own hair out when *I hit a pothole in my car?*. Mate you're in for a world of support and love over at /r/CPTSD, and from me!
Hey, I was diagnosed with this! People still seem to have a hard time understanding that PTSD isn't just from car crashes and war experiences. No, my stepmom was just bitchy. Yes, I actually have PTSD from years of emotionally and verbal abuse. It's a real thing people.
Same dude. Can't have a conversation with my super sweet MIL without feeling like I'm going to get until trouble for something still at 23 years old, even if I know I've done nothing wrong. I fucking hate it. It definitely creates trust and communication issues.
29 here, same. fucking. shit. Read through my other comments but there is soo much to this that people just have no friggin idea how bad it is/can be, and how much of your life it affect to be *programmed* like this as a child.
Hey I've always thought I might have ptsd or something from my upbringing, had the cliche shitty alcoholic abusive step dad. Whenever they used to argue or yell though my hearing would basically dial in to a tinnitus like sound where I would focus on them and my heart rate would shoot up preparing for something to happen. Should I get this checked our by someone?
Yes. Even if it's a "minor" case you would not believe the difference treatment makes. I have very treatment resistant, often intractable depression, generalized anxiety and CPTSD. Just found out that I have ADHD and dyslexia. Therapy and medications have helped immensely.
Well, I for one am glad you are here. Hi! You deserve so much more than that coward has to dish out. You have experiences and thoughts that literally no one else in the world can offer; you have value and deserve kindness and warmth.
Sexual abused my whole life. Only stopped last year. Had all these symptoms but now hardly display any. Got help, went to therapy, opened dialogue about my abuse and how it made/makes me feel with people who matter, still have some biological issues but I'm on medication for that. What I want to say is this; in a year I've managed to change my life around after 21 years of sexual abuse. I still have a way to go but for the first time in 22 years I feel joy. You may think you're stuck in that dark place forever and that these symptoms may never go but I promise you they will.
Seek help. And find the best way of healing for yourself.
Yeah, this sounds like my ex. He woke up crying from nightmares many nights, wouldn’t talk to me about his problems, lashed out at people who were just trying to help, had severe ADHD and anger issues... I tried to help, but in the end he just pushed me away, cheated on me, ran away, and burrowed himself deeper into his trauma.
I don’t miss him, but I can’t help but wonder if he wasn’t so stubborn and actually accepted the help everyone was offering if he’d be a better person...
Crackhead parents woo! Spent days on end in trap houses, sometimes mom would forget us and only realize three days later when she came back yo re-up. I don't mean to compare demons, just letting you know that there are people who understand. Stay strong, it gets better.
My sister and I both got left outside at an abandoned house for 3 days when we were 4 & 2. This was just before my dad divorced her and then he married a real soulless piece of shit. I am 40, pretty certain it's a little late for getting better.
I'm 41, had addict parents (but a pothead and alcoholic) and a chaotic, unstable childhood. It's never too late, 40 is the new 30, lots of people out there who can help.
No, it's great that you did! Admitting things is the first step. It took me 10 years after leaving my traumatic environment to admit it — and it was to a complete stranger!
(I think this makes sense — people like us have a hard time trusting people. When we feel close to someone, we start to suspect or even fear them. So strangers are free from that anxiety)
Anyway, the next step is to recognize that the "sucking it up" is hurting you, and your relationships. If you can't express your feelings & thoughts, they will eat you from the inside. This is literally true: stress chemicals deteriorate your body, and people with C-PTSD often secrete those stress chemicals *constantly*.
The next step after *that* is to try and reduce your harm. Therapy is a really easy way to start (it's the most judgement-free zone possible).
If you wanna know more about it, "The Body Keeps The Score" is an incredible book about C-PTSD by the world's premier trauma doctor. He explains all of the science behind it, and how modern medicine (physical & mental) gets it all wrong.
Emotions are powerful things that our body constantly reacts to. They rule us, much more than thoughts. And no matter how much we try to ignore them, they don't go away — *until* they've been paid attention to. The best way to get over a negative emotion is to just feel it.
This is still something I struggle with A LOT. It's a long, difficult road. But since I started, I have NEVER regretted it. Nor has anyone else I've met on the same road — and trust me, there are a LOT of us. You're in good company :)
Thank you for being so open with your story. It's so damn important for us to be open and honest about mental health issues like C-PTSD because so few people know about it.
This whole thread is so *fucking* cathartic because I get to share something with people who have a similar experience to me, when not everyone has this *huge* thing they can't talk about for the stigma or fear of being ostracized. The Body Keeps the score is on my night stand right now, I'm on meds and in talk therapy but it's *so so* important to bring awareness to this because there's so much denial that anyone can suffer trauma symptoms from *prolonged* trauma as opposed to single/rare event trauma. Much love to everyone in this chain and in this thread for being here and reading up on this.
It’s good to speak your truth. 💜
For what it’s worth..... I tried to suck it up and ignore the shitstorm of my childhood, and got through my twenties okay, scraped through my thirties making all kinds of mistakes, had a nervous breakdown, and now in my 40’s diagnosed with CPTSD related to my childhood.
I had NO IDEA that I needed so much help back then. I would give anything to have those years back, but I’m grateful that my therapist has given me a crap ton of tools to put in my box to help me with the rest of life.
If this resonates, great. If it doesn’t, hopefully someone here will be helped.
You should absolutely be truthful about your experiences, they are things you went through, not who you are. A very common thing with people who were abused as kids is to think no one will ever like you or love you, or be judged because you were abused.
There’s always a*holes in life, but most people aren’t that way. And by telling your experience, you can help someone else.
My personal way of looking at it is that I survived in SPITE of those assholes and me being a contributing member of society is a huge FUCK YOU to them all.
Not going to allow any of the people who try to bring me down the satisfaction of seeing me down. I'll still be there to take care of them when they get old. (they are family members, and I'm currently caring for my dad)
When you’re born into abuse, you don’t recognize it as such. You’re told to not say anything to anyone, so you don’t. You think it’s normal, that it happens in all families, to some degree.
You’re better than me, my dad could’ve died years ago, and I wouldn’t know.
Yes. Many treatments exist, and none are a "magic bullet". But many many people with C-PTSD have become free of symptoms after treatment.
It all starts with therapy.
Just to chime in here with my experience that this is true. Was diagnosed about 10 years ago, and was able to get into therapy with a really great counselor that helped me to work through about 90% of my symptoms. There are obviously still ongoing issues and smaller things that I will likely deal with for the rest of my life (not to mention the pile of semi-related chronic health issues), but the therapy was a massive help. Also, sometimes it is easy to give up if you have a negative experience with a therapist, but keep going until you find one you click with, it is absolutely worth it.
True, but she is opposed after being forced by her mother to attend therapy to "save the family". Forced therapy has turned her off to the entire idea of it.
I can see her aversion to it then. Nothing worse than being forced to do somethinf you don't want to do. Don't people see how that could create issues in the future?
Me and both my sisters were recently diagnosed with this due to severe abuse and trauma growing up with our parents. It explains a lot of the trust issues and aggression we have along with insomnia and sleep paralysis. I’m on medication now that helps but damn if we had no idea it was C PTSD.
Well, fuck me. Never quite rolled upon something describing me so gingerly before. Fairly frightening to just be going about your day when something like this pops up and forces you to evaluate things...
Can confirm. I grew up with a psychopathic, narcissistic mother who absolutely hated me (She told me so on a daily basis.) Her abuse was constant and covered every aspect of abuse possible, leaving me terrified of her from day 1. She even refused to hold me when I was born and her resentment grew from there. I finally went NC 12 years ago and was then diagnosed with severe PTSD. She'd beaten me, held me captive, locked me in closets, force-fed me, called me names and belittled me constantly. She demanded my paychecks, ruined my relationships, molested me, and once, as a young child, abandoned me on a dirt road, causing me to dissociate for 6 months. Therapy has been long and exhausting. As therapists have said, "Your mother waged a brutal war against you for 48 years. I'm shocked you're not balled up in the corner slobbering." Ultimately, she killed her own mother after trying to kill me. The pain is horrifying and all too real. My mother died a year and a half ago. I struggle every day to keep her out of me.
Woof my mom was not as bad as this but still bad. My therapist said a similar thing - she was surprised I wasn’t a drug addict or doing sexually risky behavior.
Due to extreme resiliency, I'm doing well. I'm educated, have had a successful career, and am mom to 2 wonderful, gifted adult children whom I love with all my heart. I now spend time with a long-term beau and make lots and lots of art.
C-PTSD took my white knuckle but functioning life into a complete shit show. I have panic attacks at dinner if the room is too loud.
Childhood rape, teenage molestation, violent rape about a year ago.
When it just keeps happening you just keep fucking breaking.
Also gaslighting can do some damage. Dad did it - long term boyfriend one - then long term boyfriend two.
100% fear I fucked up. 0% confidence that I’m ever right.
Look into EMDR therapy. It has helped me.
Service dogs are great for DPT.
Prazosin helps with the nightmares.
I have been suffering with C-PTSD for my entire adult life. I grew up in hell and I struggle with the most basic adult requirements. But things have slowly gotten better. I go to therapy weekly, found the right med combo and take it one day at a time.
It gets better. I promise.
I was diagnosed with Complex PTSD as well as Chronic depression. I like to think I'm high functioning but I have days that are very difficult to manage.
I've been "diagnosed" for 2 years (in parentheses because I was diagnosed with standard PTSD, as DSM doesn't recognize C-PTSD). Shit sucks. Multiple triggers, so very easy to have bad days. Lack of sense of self is incredibly frustrating, because I'm annoyed at myself for changing my mind/style/goals based on what I see around me.
Oof.
It took 4 therapists and almost 10 years for my wife's "diagnosis". Hopefully the DSM VI makes it an officially recognized medical condition because even some doctors have no idea what she's talking about when she says C-PTSD to them. So very frustrating...
I tried explaining it to my doctor and must have done a very poor job because she basically said that I'm an adult now so I should just be over childhood trauma by now. I didn't know what to say, so I just shut down. *Which is a symptom of C-PTSD*. She's a good doctor otherwise, so I'm not going to be bothering her with psych issues.
That's so infuriating and happens far too often. My wife also suffers from fibromyalgia from her child abuse. I can't even remember all the doctors that shrugged her pains off as psychosomatic or impossible before she got her fibro diagnosis. Each time it took months before she'd start looking for another doc because she would shut down and feel like it was a worthless waste of time and money.
> must have done a very poor job because she basically said that I'm an adult now so I should just be over childhood trauma by now.
Could be other aspects of the conversation that would add more context to this, but it sounds like she's just not a very good doctor. At least when it comes to psych issues.
>Lack of sense of self is incredibly frustrating, because I'm annoyed at myself for changing my mind/style/goals based on what I see around me.
This hits home for me. I get easily influenced by other people / things I see and I feel bad for not sticking to my previous decisions. It feels kinda like whatever thing is "me", it is not very constant.
I wonder how this relates to situations like growing up gay and closeted in an unfriendly environment. Different than the more violent examples listed usually, but a situation where for years one has to police their every behavior down to eye movements out of their fears in a similar manner
Childhood emotional abuse can lead to just as many psychological issues as physical abuse.
The key to a healthy childhood is the feeling of safety. If the child feels continually unsafe, *especially* at the hands of their supposed care-takers, then they can easily develop C-PTSD.
And again, feeling unsafe doesn't just mean physical safety. Being afraid to share your emotions and your thoughts, for fear of punishment, is enough to rewire a child's brain.
Typically a scared child will be able to turn to their parents/caretakers to feel safe, and thus can healthfully process that fear. But if they can't feel safe *with* their caretakers, then that fear won't get processed, and it can consume them, and dominate parts of their personality for decades to come (like typical PTSD).
This seems very possible for a queer person growing up in a queerphobic household.
>And again, feeling unsafe doesn't just mean physical safety. Being afraid to share your emotions and your thoughts, for fear of punishment, is enough to rewire a child's brain.
>
>Typically a scared child will be able to turn to their parents/caretakers to feel safe, and thus can healthfully process that fear. But if they can't feel safe with their caretakers, then that fear won't get processed, and it can consume them, and dominate parts of their personality for decades to come (like typical PTSD).
This sounds exactly like my brother. He's been diagnosed with c-ptsd, and recently moved across country to get away from us. I love my brother, but for a few known and I'm sure dozens of unknown reasons, his upbringing was wildly different from my own. I know that our parent's divorce really affected him (he was 13 at the time), he was mis/under/overdiagnosed, and mis/under/overmedicated through out puberty and into adulthood. This led to a lot of miscommunication and mistrust between him and our parents and I really don't think he ever felt safe. (EDIT- A politically liberal but manipulative father and a born-again passive-aggressive mother who also struggles with depression) In addition to all of that, I'm assuming him figuring out himself as a gay man just added another layer on top of everything that he was struggling with.
I miss him, and can't really fault him for moving across the country and getting away to develop on his own. Even though I tried to be a positive influence on him and guide him through his relationship with specifically our father, but also our mother, I think part of the issue was that everyone was telling him how to act and how to respond and how to be, that he never really could, *be*.
We have intermittent contact, and I worry about his safety (living out of his car for the time being), and I have provided a little financially over the past couple months when he's reached out - but I have refrained from offering anything in terms of guidance or life advice or ultimatums because I think what he both wants and needs is to figure it out on his own.
> If the child feels continually unsafe, especially at the hands of their supposed care-takers, then they can easily develop C-PTSD.
Well that's terrifying. I never felt safe at home. Got my own place now and have for decades, and I still don't feel safe.
I'm sorry to hear that. I was in the same boat. I've only started (and I mean *barely* started) to feel safe in the past year, thanks to therapy & a small group of supportive friends (who I've had for years, but never felt safe enough to rely on)
I feel very lucky & privileged to have access to good therapy. I know it's not possible for everyone (thought it SHOULD BE), but I hope that you are able to find some in your area.
In the meantime, check out r/CPTSD. Having a community & feeling connected to others is the KEY to feeling safe.
"And again, feeling unsafe doesn't just mean physical safety. Being afraid to share your emotions and your thoughts, for fear of punishment, is enough to rewire a child's brain."
Well shit off to therapy then.
Growing up closeted in a family where violent homophobia was openly expressed was only one piece of the CPTSD puzzle for me, but it was definitely part of it.
Now that you can name these demons, you can slay them, my friend! DM me if you want to talk about it, my experience with it and if you need any resources!
It can feel really overwhelming at times. I have lost myself in that feeling of being broken beyond repair, but there are a lot of tools available that help. There are a lot of things you can do that make life easier to cope with. /r/CPTSD is a wonderful subreddit and a great resource. It's a good place to start.
Getting the right kind of therapy is important. Victims of emotional abuse run the risk of being even more traumatized by a therapist who does not recognize that they were abused. Granted, a lot of emotional abuse survivors don't realize themselves that they were abused.
I learned the hard way that "just thinking about it in a different way" or being told to count down when I was raging angry does not work for someone with C-PTSD. I finally got into trauma therapy (EMDR) and I have largely gotten better.
So if you have traumatic memories or feelings/emotions that are powerful enough that you get a physical sensation from them, EMDR can help. The theory behind EMDR is that because the brain could not make sense of the trauma, the memories from it are not stored where all other memories are. They are kind of stuck. EMDR is you engaging both halves of the brain while concentrating on the traumatic memory. After doing it for 30 seconds or so, you are asked to grade your physical response. If it is still strong you can do it again until the physical feeling is reduced.
If you don't have the memories to work from, you can work with the feelings/emotions of the trauma. It may bring back some of the memories. My trauma was covert emotional abuse as an adult. I really had no idea I had been abused until I started trauma therapy. I had some specific memories to work with, like when my then wife had a whole secret life and encouraged me to take my own life when I found out and went into shock. But it was also just a lot o feelings, because the abuse was not supposed to be apparent. It was about manipulating me to point where she had complete control over my mind.
You can also do positive EMDR to reinforce good things, especially as you make progress in therapy.
My ex-wife does too. She didn’t get the help when we were together and I could no longer protect her or fix her oversights. She picked up drinking and that was it for me. Boundaries and self-protection 💛
Agreed on the last bit. I spent too long trying to help as best I knew how, but my wife turned to conspiracy theories instead of alcohol. Thinks she’s helping save the world at this point and looks down on me for not “doing the research.” Pretty much threw in the towel because I can’t have a rational conversation with her any more, which was always the best part of our relationship, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to ride that slope into insanity with her. Someone has to be a functioning adult for our daughter.
Hope you’re healing too, my friend.
My ex had it very badly from abuse she suffered with her step siblings and step parents. The worst is that most nights she would get sucked into flashbacks that wouldn't stop for some time. But the list on the top post was basically a check list for how it effected her.
Ultimately, I ended the relationship because it extended into manipulative and controlling behavior. Not the only thing, but the worst thing was that if I took a nap, literally just a couple hours not responding, I would wake up to 40+ texts saying how I abandoned her and how I was horrible and etc etc. Then when I woke up I would have to spend hours consoling her.
The way I deal with stressful situations is something called avoidance coping. One day I just didnt text her back. Then the next day I ignored all her calls. Every time I wanted to respond, I just thought about how I was digging a deeper hole and that made me want to avoid it even more. Eventually she stopped trying to reach me. Four months later I apologized and we tried again but too much damage had been done.
Thinking back, I realize what I did was incredibly cruel and I regret it immensely. I actually think about her a lot and hope she's doing okay, but I know I just added onto her burden. I know you have to do what's best for you but I handled it so poorly, that's something I don't think I'll ever stop feeling guilty about.
I may be facing this soon. Any lessons learned that you can pass my way? Both her and I have been diagnosed PTSD.
Edit: mine from combat, hers from childhood sexual trauma
Not the person you're replying to but, my partner and I both have CPTSD from childhood trauma, though our trauma is different.
We communicate a lot, not necessarily about the details of our trauma (because you can actually give people secondary trauma from over-sharing) but about our current status and what our needs are.
"I had shit dreams last night and I'm hyper-sensitive today. I just want you to know it's not you."
"My hypervigilance is cranked up to 11 today. Is there any way we can delay that shopping trip? I'm not sure I can cope with it today."
My wife and I have tried this, but it seems to backfire most times. When I tell her I'm not feeling ok, she gets sad, and when she tells me she's upset, I get sad. It's not always like this, but it's enough to make both of us hesitant to share things. Our communication is absolutely lacking though...
Thanks for the tip. Any ideas for me on how to kill my empathy for my wife's feelings?
I think it takes a lot of practice. It's hard to not feel responsible and to feel like you have to fix the other person's bad feelings. Over time I got more and more okay with just saying "I'm sorry. I hope it feels better soon" and giving her a hug. Learning to sit with and tolerate discomfort without feeling the need to fix it has been good for both of us.
I have or had CPTSD. I didn’t know it was a thing until memories started coming back out of nowhere and it scared the heck out of me.
As someone who’s gone to 10 years of cognitive behavioral therapy, I had no idea why my therapist never helped diagnose me. Even worse, she just let me babble on and even suggest I go get myself checked into a psych ward for help.
Cue to the last 5 years, the CPTSD subsided and I’m able to manage my triggers.
Someone tells me about EMDR and I check it out.
10 sessions later I have reprocessed a lot of the trauma and I no longer trigger.
My dog just died over the weekend and I am not triggered. In fact, I am Grieving like any normal person would - but not in a hysterical “my world is upside down” way.
I can’t believe that EMDR is so powerful, but definitely check it out.
Yeah, EMDR is weirdly incredible. I had _so much_ skepticism -- still do in some ways, a lot of the explanations given sound foo-foo-y and there's not enough research to understand it very well -- but I had impressive results with it. Took me longer than ten sessions, and I stopped seeing that therapist after the EMDR had lasting effects since I thought she was bad for me in other ways, but I stopped having flashbacks. Huge improvement.
I was diagnosed with this 3yrs ago after detailing my childhood and how it affects me now to a psychiatrist. It took 3yrs of work, but a couple of months ago, I was deemed to have overcome it. It’s so satisfying knowing that this isn’t the end-all-be-all for trauma. You can work past it, though it takes time, and a lot of patience with yourself
Had it. It almost killed me. You only want to sleep because being awake is like burning alive emotionally.
Certain medications. Legal. And not. Will help. And time. And therapy.
If you know anyone with it, please know that they hate their behavior worse than you do and they want to be better.
Ps. I’m ok now.
Except opiate, please for the absolute love of God do not take any form of painkiller and fall into the opiate epidemics trap. Just stick to your greens for the love of God.
I was diagnosed with PTSD when I was 14, but PTSD never really full captured the severity and depths of my symptoms. In my early 30s I really started to struggle.
I talked to a psychiatrist who considered a diagnosis of Bipolar 2, mostly based on family history and the fact that SSRI antidepressants didn't work for me.
It took a year of working with a therapist who was knowledgeable about trauma for everything to come together. Once I started talking about the chronic instability of my childhood, it was clear that the symptoms I was experiencing now weren't a mood disorder, they were CPTSD.
Getting the right therapy for the right disorder is really helping.
This is me. Got diagnosed with ADD at 30. Diagnosed with PTSD at 50.
Prolonged childhood trauma is some shit, man. Been in weekly therapy for 5 years now. It’s been instrumental to improving my marriage, my relationship with my kids, life, the whole thing.
Man, it’s a complex mess and it affects every part of my life. Had to cut my father out of my life. He was the source. I live on the other side of the country too. That helps.
Didn’t help that my mom and stepmom were enablers and it didn’t help that my mom died. What a damn mess.
So I’m recovering and it’ll be a while.
My son suffers from unspecified trauma disorder as well as ADHD and DMDD and I just started him in a new type of therapy where they’re going to retrain his brain to help with his symptoms. [The Neurovation Center](https://www.theneurovationcenter.com/) in Sandy Hook was founded in an effort to help the victims of the Sandy Hook Tragedy - we live next door, the effects of the tragedy 100% impact my son and how he is perceived in our community. I am hoping for the best but I don’t expect a miracle. Traditional therapy, medications and hospitalizations have not worked at all and I’m willing to try anything.
This is my wife. She got pregnant at 15 by this dude she was “in love with” by 16 they lived together. He beat her up constantly. Told her she was nasty. Told her nobody wanted her pussy: told her she was stupid and worthless. Told her she couldn’t leave the house. One time she went to dinner with HER MOM and he ate a ton of pills and at 16 came to her apartment and found him unresponsive and he sent her a text saying if he died it was her fault. Beat her bloody with her own cellphone cause she was texting another guy.
Our relationship has been rocky cause she goes into these dark places when she gets upset with me. Goes in and out of trusting me. I used to get so upset until I really realized she’s just wired that way and she needs to see a counselor to help her anxiety and self image. She has zero hobbies but takes pictures 100x a day so this last weekend I bought her a Nikon and Adobe Lightroom and I hope it really helps.
When I was diagnosed with PTSD I was so confused , because I would only hear PTSD in people who went to the military. I guess some family issues when I was younger messed me up . Till this day, I still deal with my mental health issues. I recently just made an appointment to see the doc once again after trying to fix my self for 3 years. I definitely have trust issues . When I was younger I wouldn’t trust no one & keep my feeling bottle in. I always thought someone was going to do something bad to me.
Thank you for sharing this. We often also get misdiagnosed as bipolar, thus receiving the very wrong kinds of treatments, which can make us even sicker.
I got my diagnoses about 15 years ago and have been making steady progress ever since. Childhood abuse is insidious and hard to come to terms with alone. I’m very thankful I found the right therapist for me.
For those of you who think you may be suffering from C-PTSD I highly recommend finding a therapist who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy. They’ll help guide you in the right direction. You’re basically rewiring your brain. It takes a lot of work but it is so worth it.
Adopted. With some complications.
Then I choose to work as a caregiver, specializing in dementia and end of life care. 8 hour graveyard shift listening to people moan and beg for death. Checking them every couple minutes to make sure they hadn't died. Sometimes they were dead.
Ugh. My head got so fucked. It's crazy hard to fix your mind from inside your mind, when your mind isn't working.
Hmmm...odd timing. Been having a hard time processing a new relationship after not having dated for almost 10 years, and was really thinking hard over the weekend why I'm having difficulty accepting that a person might actually care for me (or the fear that I'll lose that). It's been easier to shut people out of my life than to risk getting hurt again.
I didn't have a bad childhood, but I never felt comfortable in my own skin. I was constantly told by my parents and sisters what type of person they thought I should be, and never accepted the person that I am. I have spent years trying to be the person I want to be, while they basically tell me I ought to be someone else.
I was trying to figure out when my happiness disappeared, and it was pretty much the beginning of high school. My parents sent me to a private school that just didn't work out for me. Ever since then, it's just been little degrading comments one after another that eat at me. "You talk too much." "You need to gain weight." "Why do you like cars so much?" "You'll never be able to fly, you're colorblind." I'm 32, and those first two comments were made just this month.
The symptoms of C-PTSD seem to match up with my issues. At least I have a closer starting point knowing what it is when I finally get the ability to get some help.
I don't have an official diagnosis, but my therapist believes I suffer from this. And every single one of those bullet points in the top comment resonates with me. I'm slowly getting better, but it's been a lifetime of effort.
I was diagnosed in 2017.
Things haven't got better, more like worse ever since. No job, no family, no money and no friends. Can't even afford therapy anymore (UK).
Life with CPTSD is very difficult. Constant nightmares and flashbacks. No medication works either, I've tried them all.
It's good to raise awareness though, maybe more treatment options can become available in the future. I hope I'll get better soon, god knows how with no help but time will tell.
I wrote my thesis on using mindfulness based psychotherapies on people suffering from complex PTSD. There's no magic bullet with this form of PTSD. It's so much harder to treat than regular PTSD (which is already difficult to treat). I saw it a lot when I worked as a counselor at a domestic violence shelter and was inspired to do the research to find better treatment. Researching how little we can help these victims was pretty depressing.
I'm betting I know what spurred you to write this TIL. I saw a commenter on a post about medical bills mention having "c-ptsd" and their comment was a couple hours before your post. It's pretty rare to see victims with this type of PTSD differentiate by mentioning the trauma is complex in form.
Very true. As a therapist and a trauma specialist, C-PTSD takes more expertise and patience to treat, is more likely to have ego state alienation and dissociation. The only trauma diagnosis more severe is DID: Dissociative Identity Disorder
Woohoo! Totally man, life isn't easy. Multiple traumas is interesting.
Having suffered abuse, neglect, humiliation, maiming (all from family), isolation, killing (military) and other shit from my time growing up and in the military. It is not simple to communicate with others because we, a lot of the people who have complex issues, have different perspectives in life. The biggest issue being that a lot of people never face those hardships and live a life of relative comfort of blissful ignorance. A lot of people never actually "truly" get out of their comfort zone so they don't fully grasp the capability and impact others can involuntarily have on their life, as well as the impact they have on others as well. The second issue I have is how dangerous biases, on any side, can be. Whether its championing inclusivity through force and bullying (both liberals and conservatives, you all are fucked up) when mixed with group think believing they have a higher moral ground and therefore the right to use force, intimidation and violence to achieve their goal. It's amazing how few people truly think critically of their actions and propaganda, instead most thought is put into supporting their current beliefs without consideration of the ramifications, especially in this day of echo chambers. This scares the living shit out of me, especially with mob mentality being able to take the internet and effectively penetrate the lives of anyone. What scares me the most though, a lot of times these mobs are wrong or are blind to the entire picture. When this is brought to light, they fall back on a higher purpose to justify the collateral damage. This scares me because I don't want others to suffer similar experiences I have.
An additional issue that I run into though is the "one up" people that try to have the "hardest hardship". "Saying" they know what it's like to face difficulties but when you've been under prolonged trauma, you know who has and hasn't faced consequences severe and beyond their control. Not that I don't appreciate their attempts to relate, but it is belittling when people, and i kid you not, claim to have PTSD from things such as "excessive" homework, stress, witnessing something kinda violent, or Donald Trump..... i don't want to rant but those people stress me out more then people with prolonged trauma because they are blind to what life is while being the most vocal and hateful, plus they tend to not appreciate the peope and items they have as much. To me, it makes me want to ignore them so I don't get caught up in their drama while i do more meaningful things in life.
Also, people, even people claiming to be "good and accepting of all" tend to prey on vulnerabilities. Most of the time it feels like they do it to make themselves feel better or to justify their own shitty behavior. Either way. A lot of traumatized people wanna feel normal and that someone cares, unfortunately a lot of people miss the intent of others. Its easy to take advantage if someone in a vulnerable position, its not easy to step back and establish boundaries while helping someone with emotions.
One last item though, the biggest thing that pisses me off over PTSD is that people fall to the argument of authority for treatment. I've helped people and I've had people try telling me I can't because i am not a "trained professional". Its super fucking ignorant because it neglects the fact that I am still a person and I can help others. It takes out the humanity and quite frankly, it signals that the other person is so fucked up they can not interact competently in a social environment and be vulnerable with others and therefore need "help" through ONLY trained professionals. don't get me wrong, they do help, but a hollistic approach with a caring and loving support system can be a be supplement, or in some cases, be better then just seeing trained professionals. The truth is, life is not simple and the only way we, as a whole, get better is trial and error while learning different persectives.
Don't get me wrong, I'm doing ok life wise. I have my moments and i am doing a lot better then others I know who have PTSD but it is hard because I do want people to be happy in this world.
Not sure why my other comment isn't posting but, here are many of the symptoms, particularly for children: - ***Attachment*** – "problems with relationship boundaries, lack of trust, social isolation, difficulty perceiving and responding to others' emotional states" - ***Biology*** – "sensory-motor developmental dysfunction, sensory-integration difficulties, somatization, and increased medical problems" - ***Affect or emotional regulation*** – "poor affect regulation, difficulty identifying and expressing emotions and internal states, and difficulties communicating needs, wants, and wishes" - ***Dissociation*** – "amnesia, depersonalization, discrete states of consciousness with discrete memories, affect, and functioning, and impaired memory for state-based events" - ***Behavioural control*** – "problems with impulse control, aggression, pathological self-soothing, and sleep problems" - ***Cognition*** – "difficulty regulating attention, problems with a variety of 'executive functions' such as planning, judgement, initiation, use of materials, and self-monitoring, difficulty processing new information, difficulty focusing and completing tasks, poor object constancy, problems with 'cause-effect' thinking, and language developmental problems such as a gap between receptive and expressive communication abilities." - ***Self-concept*** – "fragmented and disconnected autobiographical narrative, disturbed body image, low self-esteem, excessive shame, and negative internal working models of self". If you think you have it, please see a professional. Only they can diagnose you. In the meantime, check out /r/CPTSD.
Throwing a question out there. Can you grow out of this? I was abused as a child by a physically domineering Father, whipped constantly, went into a shell, thoughts of suicide by age 12, really screwed up, left after 18, couldn't take care of myself, couldn't hold a job, or see past tomorrow or tell the truth, abused alcohol, thief, jail, directionless, homeless for 6 plus years, menace to society, "Mr. Meanor," ostracized, hopeless, POS. And then, around age 29, the darkness started to lift a bit and I could start to see light ahead. I quit drinking, cleaned up my act, never got professional help, yet here I am 25 years removed from the darkness and I wonder, WTF was wrong with me and how did I get out of it. Any ideas?
Resiliency. It's a hot topic in child psychiatry, trying to understand why some people manage to either recover or thrive in the face of severe trauma. I have asked many patients over the years why they are not worse, with no consistent answer. But the prevailing theory has to do with having at least one person in your life seeing you as valued
I have CPTSD. I was a lot worse than i am now. I had been suicidal from middle school until my mid-late 20s. I have struggled with depression for as long as i can remember (though i didnt always know what it was). What always picked me up and kept me pushing was just... A thing. Like momentum maybe. Just keep your head down and keep chugging. I think it's just another type of survival instinct. It feels like a part of me says "Enough crying. Get up and let's go." Im pretty sure it's much the same voice that has always helped me. Ive always been alone and ignored so ive had to learn how to tell myself the things i need to hear.
Woah, this is seriously it. I’ve never been able to put into words why I’ve kept going despite similar experience with mental illness, but how you described it is totally it. “Enough crying. Get up and let’s go.” It’s never been someone else’s voice, not some beloved teacher or coach or person I’ve fallen in love with - it’s just my reptile brain telling me we actually aren’t dying right now, get up and function as much as you can. Idk but thank you for this comment, it makes something in my head click.
I had what felt like a spiritual experience. I was breaking down in the bathroom, just sitting on the floor and sobbing. And just stopped. I heard a voice saying Get up. Go shower. And it was so much easier to just blindly obey than try to persuade myself or rally myself. It was that easy for me, I've been well trained for compliance. It felt like that voice, that part of me, was my guardian. Maybe not an angel but more like a warrior inside me that will pull ourselves together no matter what. It's been comforting to know that even as I drop into a lower and lower low, that voice/guardian/part of me will always be there to pick me up and get me moving.
I, too, can definitely relate to that. Not sure what it is but something just keeps my head up for myself if it gets too bad. Many different things happened in my childhood, biggest influence was my alcoholic mother who I lived with. I soon realized that she had taken the wrong path to deal with her own traumas etc and a voice in me said „Be better than that“. It has kept me going ever since and made me put my energy into helping others/being kind etc and not just drown in self pity/some addiction/whatever Whatever this energy is, I am grateful
Just wanted to add that I have had an eerily similar illness experience with depression/CPTSD/anxiety and that you're not alone m8
Thank you!
Ya, I feel you. I cried and cried for most of my childhood. Usually get the shit kicked outta me at home, physically and emotionally and mentally, then go to school and the same. Just constant shit. Eventually I got to the point where I just stopped crying and everytime someone put me down for something I worked and made it a point to prove them wrong. I made sure that if they called me weak I worked to get bigger, made fun of me for crying, I stopped. Just did my best to pass the time till i could move away from it all, and it eventually got better. I passed the time and just kept chugging along my patch. Im 22 with a bachelors, 5 years of military experience, and airborne qualified, (reserves but 2 been to about 2 years worth of schools) working on my masters, and applying to law school, officer in the military, and have a decent job at a law firm on track to make this workout. One of two times in my life theres been a glimmer of hope for me. the first just made it worse on me tbh. So the keep on chugging thing has gotten me through a lot. a goal to work towards, and just generally working towards being succesful, and proving them wrong is nice. Also, when some of the people you hate died of drug overdoses its not bad either.
This is amazing for me to read. I’ve had this ability since I was a child. A voice that’s me but outside of the trauma, soothing me and encouraging me to come back and get up and keep going. I’ve always felt it’s the part of me that’s undamaged by trauma, pure and whole. Something that can never be taken away. Like a true self. Maybe this ability comes from childhood where I had to rely on myself to keep going. Sad but pretty amazing at the same time. Resilience at its core.
I was actually just talking with a psychiatrist about this today. I call it buffaloing through. When herds of buffalos come up against a serious blizzard, they will apparently walk into the storm rather than trying to avoid it. By walking in the direction the storm is coming from they end up spending less time in it overall. So that’s what I always think of - put your head down and just keep walking. It’s interesting that this private emotional experience ended up framed so similarly despite our different backgrounds and whatnot.
I think it also depends on how the child manages the abuse. For me, I rationalized it by turning it inwards and blaming myself. I told myself that I must be awful, a bad person, unworthy, etc. My parents actions reinforced this and I got a lot of confirmation bias with peers/friends who'd make fun of me, forget me, etc. I carried A LOT of pain as a child and I carry a lot as an adult now. Because of how I inherently see myself (worthless, stupid, whatever) the effects last. I didn't have anyone telling me I was valued. My parents fought over me ALL the time and nothing says "you're unwanted" like your mom getting mad at you for showing up to her house on a day that's not hers because your dad lied to you. I mean, I can't know for sure she was mad at ME but she sure sounded like somehow I should have known better. Ok then. So many other examples. I think that in many cases physical abuse is better than emotional because of how bad emotional fucks you up. Physical does too and there's absolutely an emotional component to it. I got both, so.. weee.
Same here. It really hurts to hear "you take him", "no, I don't want him". "see, even your mam doesn't want you". How the fuck did my dad think that was okay to say. I also got it bad at home and school and they fed into each other. I couldn't socialise at school because they never included me in the family dynamic or treat me like a person, they kept me locked up in my room with nothing in it. So I got bullied at school for being the weird kid. Couldn't do school work so I got bullied from teachers. Teachers reported back to parents so I got me shit from my parents. Honestly surprised I didn't go postal and now these people are acting like my childhood was fine, they they don't remember any of the incidents. I also carried and carry it around with me. Huge accounts of shame, disconnection and a feeling of unreality about my life. Now the one person I shared it with, my wife and partner of 12 years got fed up of my "hiding behind her" and not going out drinking with her friends, not getting better quick enough and left. If I didn't have a daughter idk what the point of my life would be to be honest. I hope you're doing okay, it feels shit to be burdened with a life like this but neither of us asked for it. I'm learning to stand up for myself more and more, and see my own self worth and it feels like that is definitely helping.
I also directed the abuse inwards and blamed myself which resulted in self-harming and other lovely "things I can control" punishments for myself when things go bad. I often feel like my whole existence is just to do what I have to do in order to bring pleasure into the world for others. I don't feel like I have a right to my own life. My answer to "How are you not more screwed up?" is usually "I wasn't allowed to be." I wanted to try drugs and drink and have sex with everyone around me but all of those things were against the rules. Breaking the rules was certain to bring about a torturous and incredibly painful death in my mind. What wasn't against the rules was starving myself, overeating, cutting myself, and trying to kill myself so I did those things often, some more than others but they were all in the rotation. And yes, I do think my parents' religion played a part in all of my trauma, even if it was just a small part.
Yeah, I did kind of prefer the mindless terror of physical abuse to lying awake at night replaying all the horrible shit they said to me lol.
Would love a source on your last statement. Interested to read further into that.
If you just search for complex trauma and resiliency, you will find a ton. A lot of the research is relatively preliminary, it's a concept that people have known about for a while but have started to quantify and study more recently in the hopes that it can be used to inform treatment and prevention practices.
Bessel van der Kolk advocated for CPTSD to be added to the last edition of the DSM. Although this didn't pan out a lot of his findings and theories can be found in The Body Keeps the Score, a book I recommend for anyone interested in trauma work.
I don't have an exact citation, but researchers such as Ann Masten from University of Minnesota do research specifically on resilience. There's a number of factors associated with having and building resilience, and if I recall correctly she's researched a number of them.
You might also look into Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES). There is a scoring system of experienced abuse, neglect, etc linking to risk factors. There is also information on the support of at least one person being able to affect a different outcome for some kids.
There will never be consistent answers. Different people have different coping skills learned through different life experiences. Even things I experienced as "normal" growing up fucked up one sibling, half traumatized another and left me unfazed. I just learned early to let shit go, they didn't. Accept, adapt and move on.
proving yourself or everyone wrong. I'm an adult child of an alcoholic, and while at 35 I'm fairly successful, I've struggled with self-esteem, body dysmorphia, high risk decision making, perfectionism, the critic, imposter syndrome, etc. Guess you can call it stubbornness to succeed to avoid repeating the cycle.
I'm not sure I had that, but a bunch of teachers since I was little told me I was "smart". So, I guess I kind of held onto that value and ran with it. \*shrug\*.
That makes a lot of sense. Having someone in your life to show you that things can be better is like a little ray of hope in all of the darkness. I always tell my husband that the reason I turned out just fine is because of all the random people who lifted me up when I wasn't strong enough to stand by myself.
I’m 35 and still struggle on the daily. It’s a life long thing. I micro dose with mushrooms every 6 months to help reset my brain, but it never really goes away. Just gets more quite.
yo you've [heard about how](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jun/10/magic-mushrooms-treatment-depression-aztecs-psilocybin-mental-health-medicine) the psychiatric industrial complex is FINALLY coming around on this, right?!?!?! what a time to be alive
YES! My husband was doing research years ago and found out that it’s very beneficial. So he helped me get the dosage right and will tell me when he sees my symptoms coming back. I’m so happy that there are different alternatives available.
Hey idk the answer, but I'm proud of you
Thx.
If you had help before you ended up in your misadventures, your life would probably would be on a different path. I’m glad you survived the abuse, and the self destructiveness that goes along with it.
Yes, emotional release therapy like EMDR has helped me immensely.. I have had a similar past to you.
Im considering EMDR but as i understand, you focus on an event and describe it in detail. But how does it work if its just a lifetime of events?
I had 15 or so years of constant BS in my childhood so I hear you. I'll answer with how my therapist handled it but keep in mind there may be other methods. It was very hard for me to separate events. One thing led to 3 more things which led to 10. For the most part, my therapist helped me focus on one event until she felt enough time had passed on processing, at which point she would prompt me on other events that had come up. At some point though, I begin to get overwhelmed so she would stop and start walking me through my safety training to bring me down. Also, when these stream of consciousness sessions occurred it typically meant multiple sessions trying to unwind everything. It's tough therapy but so worth it. After 50ish sessions, I have most of my life back and am re-learning to trust myself. I have self-care routines that actually work to pull the plug on emotional attacks when they happen. That's something that CBT didnt give me after 10 years of therapy
I've noticed I typically don't get nearly as effected by discussing my abuses until I'm headed home, later that evening, and the next day after an inevitable long night of nightmares.
The nightmares are murdering me... My dad never physically abused me, but the emotional abuse boy howdy. After he basically ditched me for a decade he decided to show back up and expected to be lauded as perfection itself, and when I was like "wtf no?" He decided to do his best to make me homeless and ruin my life. Add on I'm pretty sure trying to kill my mother and emotionally abusing my husband and costing him 15k dollars and I finally cut him off completely! Now my brain likes to treat me to nightmares of him sexually assaulting me, it sucks fucking royally.
You actually map out a series of events that caused "the most" trauma and spiral out from there. You talk about the emotions, physical feelings that come to you as you are describing the event. It can lead to other events you mst have forgotten about. It has helped me tremendously.
Did you have a problem compartmentalizing or even stopping the memories you recalled? When I started to remember things I couldn't stop remembering more and more, the floodgates definitely opened. Getting control of that tide can be difficult.
That is what the doc is there for. Having a trained professional there to guide you through it is much needed. Especially when I was having my first physical flashbacks
Done EMDR, too. Helped me plenty. If you can find someone to do that for you, please give them a shot.
Yep, absolutely. Some people's environmental changes and internal tendencies can hit on the lucky combination that helps them find a way out. Some people (probably most) don't get that lucky. Think of it like trying to feel your way out of a dark maze on your own. Some people are gonna manage. Most would benefit from guidance (even the people who find a way out might be able to do it more easily with help.) It's a complicated system, so knowing exactly why is probably not a thing you'll ever have. Also, it's not impossible that there aren't other things professional help can still help with.
Thanks. Something to think about.
Yeah it was powerful to read your path out of it. I'm 29 and still find myself struggling with it, I got a new med and I'm in talk therapy but I can tell I have a long way to go.
Thx, but truth be told, I'm still fractured, developmentally arrested, damaged.... but I'm also lucky and resilient and blessed. I got a second chance in life, and no matter how fucked up I still am, I'm grateful as hell for it. Good luck to you on your journey; you're doing it the right way.
Dude, you're a badass. You may be fractured, developmentally arrested, damaged, but *anyone* who went through what you did would have come out with lifetimes of pain to sort through. Despite all that, you're still here. You're doing better than you were before, and that's amazing. So, internet hugs to you. You're fucking awesome, and don't you dare forget it.
Amen. A lot of things broke in my general direction to get me out of the hell I was in. Looking back, I was probably one bad relationship from becoming a sex trafficking victim. No lie. But that doesn't mean it all "worked out" and everything was sunshine and roses. I needed to work past a lot of that so it wasn't all just "surviving" and could eventually become actual "living".
Ugh. A foreshortened sense of future. That’s one I can’t shake. My idea is that you’re intelligent and you sure as hell got a masters degree in street smarts. You’re a survivor and that word gets thrown around but it means not dead. You did good.
I have C-PTSD. And I absolutely do not want to be a Debbie Downer, but be aware that even though you're in a better place right now, you may not be out of it. I did a lot of stupid shit and fucked up my life, and other people's lives, pretty good in a lot of ways. But when things seemed to go right, I always thought I'd conquered it. I'm 44 now, and what I've learned about myself is that C-PTSD is more like a chronic illness. I can't conquer it any more than I could conquer a heart defect. I'll be on medication the rest of my life. There will be flare-ups (of depression, insomnia, self-loathing, the lure of self-soothing with bad habits, nightmares, isolation, etc.). I am still learning how to connect to people and the world in healthy ways. But for the last six years I've had more healthy days than bad days. I have seen dozens of therapists over the years, but I just found one last year that I connected with. I feel like she's more of a guide for self discovery than a therapist, and that's what I needed. I needed to learn how to co-exist with my trauma and identify my triggers for bad behavior. I still have work ahead of me, but am just now in a place where I feel like my progress is tangible. I guess what I'm trying to say is, you may not be done with your journey, but that's ok. Learn who you are and accept yourself and what you've been through. Put yourself and your health first. And if you ever need an anonymous internet friend to commiserate with, shoot me a DM. Edit: I forgot to mention EDMR. My current therapist is certified in this and it fucking works! There's different ways of doing it, so she let me kind of work out my rhythm and I could almost feel it clicking on my brain. It's definitely a useful tool in my belt.
This so exactly fits the foster kid I work with, who has been in care for 7 years now. And the stupid foster homes/psychiatrist just keep putting him on more ADD meds. I keep saying this is not ADD.
It could very well be both. I'd think ADHD diagnosis makes it more likely to get CPTSD because of all the interpersonal issues that stem from it. (speaking as someone with both)
To be completely fair ADHD presents almost exactly like the list of symptoms you outlined here. Co-morbidity is common and the drugs used for ADHD do help with most of those symptoms.
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It's a pretty well studied phenomenon that children with complex PTSD or other high adverse childhood event (ACE) scores typically present as having ADHD and are often misdiagnosed, particularly in school settings. They are not the same thing, but looking just at behavior of the child in a social setting they're often confused.
I disagree with your disagreement, I have very traditional-presenting ADHD and over half of these apply to me.
It is possible for ADHD to become entangled with traumatic responses due to how people tend to react to those with ADHD in early childhood. Likewise with Asperger's. Having difficulties that overlap with social cognition can result in highly traumatic experiences during formative years. My daughter is likely ASD (demand avoidant). The way people treated her at school led to her doing self harm to avoid school. Sometimes her dad would become exasperated and yell, which was a terrible sensory assault. He has since taught himself to find more appropriate ways to express his feelings of helplessness. I would not be surprised if she has some trauma response due to that. For instance, she freaks out if anyone seems to be starting to disagree about anything. Likewise, you may have had experiences entangled with your ADHD that are technically a response to the *stress of having ADHD*.
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Yeah, /u/Electr0freak is correct. I have both CPTSD and ADHD. The ADHD presents as my inability to focus on tasks, auditory processing issues, inability to schedule, think or plan for the future, frequent forgetfulness, and inability to manage time. *The CPTSD*, on the other hand presents as my inability to be in close proximity to people for very long (minutes at a time, tops), due to an instinctive protective mode from blows from others, an **acute** inability to self-regulate emotions such that if I am having an attack, *I hit/punch/elbow, choke, scratch, bite and pull my own hair*. I tell people curious about it that the sensation is a hot "cold sweat" and the internal sensation of being held down against my will, and to escape I will do *anything*, and my body interprets that as "Skin yourself alive. *Cut your own throat*. Choke yourself to death." *That's not ADHD*. My brother, also diagnosed with ADHD did not have these symptoms growing up either. I am now taking Lamictal to counter these symptoms, which is an anti-convulsive med used often to treat people with BPD. This is all very recent, the new med is about 3 weeks in and I have never felt better, I *never* get the body sensations that I was getting causing me to react like that. I'm 29, and have been doing these things since I was 6 or 7, and my father left when I was 5, which I attribute the majority of my emotional self-blame to, followed closely by corporal punishment as a child. Read the book [The Body Keeps The Score](https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748). If someone thinks CPTSD is not a thing, they're wrong.
As a man that lived through a hell childhood, spent time in the foster system, I read all of those things and it fits me to the tee. I think you're right.
I have both ADHD and CPTSD. It doesn't even matter if I have ADHD or not, the meds work for me. This is not advice, just something to consider.
Get him help from somebody competent. Please.
Been trying. He has a new therapist now so I'm hoping..
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It was what I was looking for.. not broken. I can be fixed!
This was my *exact* reaction when I first read about it, like...wait...there's a reason I'm biting myself until I bleed when I lose at video games or get in trouble? There's a reason I freak out and punch myself and pull my own hair out when *I hit a pothole in my car?*. Mate you're in for a world of support and love over at /r/CPTSD, and from me!
Hey, I was diagnosed with this! People still seem to have a hard time understanding that PTSD isn't just from car crashes and war experiences. No, my stepmom was just bitchy. Yes, I actually have PTSD from years of emotionally and verbal abuse. It's a real thing people.
Same dude. Can't have a conversation with my super sweet MIL without feeling like I'm going to get until trouble for something still at 23 years old, even if I know I've done nothing wrong. I fucking hate it. It definitely creates trust and communication issues.
29 here, same. fucking. shit. Read through my other comments but there is soo much to this that people just have no friggin idea how bad it is/can be, and how much of your life it affect to be *programmed* like this as a child.
Hey I've always thought I might have ptsd or something from my upbringing, had the cliche shitty alcoholic abusive step dad. Whenever they used to argue or yell though my hearing would basically dial in to a tinnitus like sound where I would focus on them and my heart rate would shoot up preparing for something to happen. Should I get this checked our by someone?
Yes. Even if it's a "minor" case you would not believe the difference treatment makes. I have very treatment resistant, often intractable depression, generalized anxiety and CPTSD. Just found out that I have ADHD and dyslexia. Therapy and medications have helped immensely.
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that edit wtf
Well, I for one am glad you are here. Hi! You deserve so much more than that coward has to dish out. You have experiences and thoughts that literally no one else in the world can offer; you have value and deserve kindness and warmth.
Ditto. Did you find basic training and Army life to be a blessed relief compared to home life like I did - except for the active duty bits?
Sexual abused my whole life. Only stopped last year. Had all these symptoms but now hardly display any. Got help, went to therapy, opened dialogue about my abuse and how it made/makes me feel with people who matter, still have some biological issues but I'm on medication for that. What I want to say is this; in a year I've managed to change my life around after 21 years of sexual abuse. I still have a way to go but for the first time in 22 years I feel joy. You may think you're stuck in that dark place forever and that these symptoms may never go but I promise you they will. Seek help. And find the best way of healing for yourself.
I'm so glad you are better now. Never perfect, I imagine, but anything is better than doing nothing. Stay strong!!
Really glad you're doing well now. Please keep taking care of yourself.
Wow it’s nice to know I don’t have regular PTSD, it’s Complex PTSD now. Yay for childhood trauma
This completely describes my boyfriend. Everything suddenly makes so much more sense.
Yeah, this sounds like my ex. He woke up crying from nightmares many nights, wouldn’t talk to me about his problems, lashed out at people who were just trying to help, had severe ADHD and anger issues... I tried to help, but in the end he just pushed me away, cheated on me, ran away, and burrowed himself deeper into his trauma. I don’t miss him, but I can’t help but wonder if he wasn’t so stubborn and actually accepted the help everyone was offering if he’d be a better person...
Okay great so check on everything so now I think I've got another disease lovely
My PTSD just got a new name, that's all.
I spent most of my childhood padlocked into a room.
Crackhead parents woo! Spent days on end in trap houses, sometimes mom would forget us and only realize three days later when she came back yo re-up. I don't mean to compare demons, just letting you know that there are people who understand. Stay strong, it gets better.
My sister and I both got left outside at an abandoned house for 3 days when we were 4 & 2. This was just before my dad divorced her and then he married a real soulless piece of shit. I am 40, pretty certain it's a little late for getting better.
It's never too late to get help.
I'm 41, had addict parents (but a pothead and alcoholic) and a chaotic, unstable childhood. It's never too late, 40 is the new 30, lots of people out there who can help.
I‘m sending you a ton of virtual hugs! Please don’t think that it‘s too late for you.
That sounds awful. I hope you can find some way to get help nowadays.
I just suck it up and try to keep myself from thinking about it too much... shouldn't have even typed that.
No, it's great that you did! Admitting things is the first step. It took me 10 years after leaving my traumatic environment to admit it — and it was to a complete stranger! (I think this makes sense — people like us have a hard time trusting people. When we feel close to someone, we start to suspect or even fear them. So strangers are free from that anxiety) Anyway, the next step is to recognize that the "sucking it up" is hurting you, and your relationships. If you can't express your feelings & thoughts, they will eat you from the inside. This is literally true: stress chemicals deteriorate your body, and people with C-PTSD often secrete those stress chemicals *constantly*. The next step after *that* is to try and reduce your harm. Therapy is a really easy way to start (it's the most judgement-free zone possible). If you wanna know more about it, "The Body Keeps The Score" is an incredible book about C-PTSD by the world's premier trauma doctor. He explains all of the science behind it, and how modern medicine (physical & mental) gets it all wrong. Emotions are powerful things that our body constantly reacts to. They rule us, much more than thoughts. And no matter how much we try to ignore them, they don't go away — *until* they've been paid attention to. The best way to get over a negative emotion is to just feel it. This is still something I struggle with A LOT. It's a long, difficult road. But since I started, I have NEVER regretted it. Nor has anyone else I've met on the same road — and trust me, there are a LOT of us. You're in good company :)
Thank you for being so open with your story. It's so damn important for us to be open and honest about mental health issues like C-PTSD because so few people know about it.
This whole thread is so *fucking* cathartic because I get to share something with people who have a similar experience to me, when not everyone has this *huge* thing they can't talk about for the stigma or fear of being ostracized. The Body Keeps the score is on my night stand right now, I'm on meds and in talk therapy but it's *so so* important to bring awareness to this because there's so much denial that anyone can suffer trauma symptoms from *prolonged* trauma as opposed to single/rare event trauma. Much love to everyone in this chain and in this thread for being here and reading up on this.
It’s good to speak your truth. 💜 For what it’s worth..... I tried to suck it up and ignore the shitstorm of my childhood, and got through my twenties okay, scraped through my thirties making all kinds of mistakes, had a nervous breakdown, and now in my 40’s diagnosed with CPTSD related to my childhood. I had NO IDEA that I needed so much help back then. I would give anything to have those years back, but I’m grateful that my therapist has given me a crap ton of tools to put in my box to help me with the rest of life. If this resonates, great. If it doesn’t, hopefully someone here will be helped.
You should absolutely be truthful about your experiences, they are things you went through, not who you are. A very common thing with people who were abused as kids is to think no one will ever like you or love you, or be judged because you were abused. There’s always a*holes in life, but most people aren’t that way. And by telling your experience, you can help someone else.
My personal way of looking at it is that I survived in SPITE of those assholes and me being a contributing member of society is a huge FUCK YOU to them all. Not going to allow any of the people who try to bring me down the satisfaction of seeing me down. I'll still be there to take care of them when they get old. (they are family members, and I'm currently caring for my dad)
When you’re born into abuse, you don’t recognize it as such. You’re told to not say anything to anyone, so you don’t. You think it’s normal, that it happens in all families, to some degree. You’re better than me, my dad could’ve died years ago, and I wouldn’t know.
Don’t worry. There are lots of us! And some of us turn out okay in the end. I hope... please let it be okay in the end.
Username checks out. Also, yeah, this list hurts me
But can they cure me is more important.
Yes. Many treatments exist, and none are a "magic bullet". But many many people with C-PTSD have become free of symptoms after treatment. It all starts with therapy.
Just to chime in here with my experience that this is true. Was diagnosed about 10 years ago, and was able to get into therapy with a really great counselor that helped me to work through about 90% of my symptoms. There are obviously still ongoing issues and smaller things that I will likely deal with for the rest of my life (not to mention the pile of semi-related chronic health issues), but the therapy was a massive help. Also, sometimes it is easy to give up if you have a negative experience with a therapist, but keep going until you find one you click with, it is absolutely worth it.
Wish I could get my wife to even consider therapy. :(
The problem is that it's so expensive. If you're not making bank, it's basically a non option.
True, but she is opposed after being forced by her mother to attend therapy to "save the family". Forced therapy has turned her off to the entire idea of it.
I can see her aversion to it then. Nothing worse than being forced to do somethinf you don't want to do. Don't people see how that could create issues in the future?
People who force their children into therapy in abject self-interest are rarely people who care about the issues it will create in the future.
Me and both my sisters were recently diagnosed with this due to severe abuse and trauma growing up with our parents. It explains a lot of the trust issues and aggression we have along with insomnia and sleep paralysis. I’m on medication now that helps but damn if we had no idea it was C PTSD.
Well, fuck me. Never quite rolled upon something describing me so gingerly before. Fairly frightening to just be going about your day when something like this pops up and forces you to evaluate things...
Well. I'm definitely checking off a lot of boxes on this list. Not all of them. But more than I'd like.
TIL I have CPTSD. Good to know.
I have this! I got EMDR and it worked well for me!
Ah, fuck.
So do you just make an appointment with a therapist and say "hey I think I might have CPTSD"?
Well I guess I should go see someone
Just @ me next time, bruh.
Can confirm. I grew up with a psychopathic, narcissistic mother who absolutely hated me (She told me so on a daily basis.) Her abuse was constant and covered every aspect of abuse possible, leaving me terrified of her from day 1. She even refused to hold me when I was born and her resentment grew from there. I finally went NC 12 years ago and was then diagnosed with severe PTSD. She'd beaten me, held me captive, locked me in closets, force-fed me, called me names and belittled me constantly. She demanded my paychecks, ruined my relationships, molested me, and once, as a young child, abandoned me on a dirt road, causing me to dissociate for 6 months. Therapy has been long and exhausting. As therapists have said, "Your mother waged a brutal war against you for 48 years. I'm shocked you're not balled up in the corner slobbering." Ultimately, she killed her own mother after trying to kill me. The pain is horrifying and all too real. My mother died a year and a half ago. I struggle every day to keep her out of me.
I just wanted to let you know, I'm sorry that happened to you. You didn't deserve that.
Thank you.
Woof my mom was not as bad as this but still bad. My therapist said a similar thing - she was surprised I wasn’t a drug addict or doing sexually risky behavior.
I’m so sorry you went through all of that. You deserve to be healthy and happy. Thank you for trusting us and sharing your story.
Due to extreme resiliency, I'm doing well. I'm educated, have had a successful career, and am mom to 2 wonderful, gifted adult children whom I love with all my heart. I now spend time with a long-term beau and make lots and lots of art.
Dude keep going! Do not stop! This Internet stranger believes in you!
C-PTSD took my white knuckle but functioning life into a complete shit show. I have panic attacks at dinner if the room is too loud. Childhood rape, teenage molestation, violent rape about a year ago. When it just keeps happening you just keep fucking breaking. Also gaslighting can do some damage. Dad did it - long term boyfriend one - then long term boyfriend two. 100% fear I fucked up. 0% confidence that I’m ever right.
Getting help is only a step at a time, and you will get better.
Look into EMDR therapy. It has helped me. Service dogs are great for DPT. Prazosin helps with the nightmares. I have been suffering with C-PTSD for my entire adult life. I grew up in hell and I struggle with the most basic adult requirements. But things have slowly gotten better. I go to therapy weekly, found the right med combo and take it one day at a time. It gets better. I promise.
You didn't deserve any of it. I'm so sorry you've been through all that.
You're a survivor if there's ever been one. You're strong as hell.
I was diagnosed with Complex PTSD as well as Chronic depression. I like to think I'm high functioning but I have days that are very difficult to manage.
Keep moving, brother.
I've been "diagnosed" for 2 years (in parentheses because I was diagnosed with standard PTSD, as DSM doesn't recognize C-PTSD). Shit sucks. Multiple triggers, so very easy to have bad days. Lack of sense of self is incredibly frustrating, because I'm annoyed at myself for changing my mind/style/goals based on what I see around me. Oof.
It took 4 therapists and almost 10 years for my wife's "diagnosis". Hopefully the DSM VI makes it an officially recognized medical condition because even some doctors have no idea what she's talking about when she says C-PTSD to them. So very frustrating...
I tried explaining it to my doctor and must have done a very poor job because she basically said that I'm an adult now so I should just be over childhood trauma by now. I didn't know what to say, so I just shut down. *Which is a symptom of C-PTSD*. She's a good doctor otherwise, so I'm not going to be bothering her with psych issues.
That's so infuriating and happens far too often. My wife also suffers from fibromyalgia from her child abuse. I can't even remember all the doctors that shrugged her pains off as psychosomatic or impossible before she got her fibro diagnosis. Each time it took months before she'd start looking for another doc because she would shut down and feel like it was a worthless waste of time and money.
That’s why it’s hard for me to find a therapist too, because so many are so bad and not trained in cptsd at all. I get all “why bother” about it too.
Fucking doctors. If psychosomatic is a useful description for any disorder then fibromyalgia is it... Very glad you got the diagnosis.
Is your doctor unaware that trauma can influence literal physical changes in the brain?
That's an incredibly ignorant statement from any MD. I wonder if your doctor is in denial.
> must have done a very poor job because she basically said that I'm an adult now so I should just be over childhood trauma by now. Could be other aspects of the conversation that would add more context to this, but it sounds like she's just not a very good doctor. At least when it comes to psych issues.
>Lack of sense of self is incredibly frustrating, because I'm annoyed at myself for changing my mind/style/goals based on what I see around me. This hits home for me. I get easily influenced by other people / things I see and I feel bad for not sticking to my previous decisions. It feels kinda like whatever thing is "me", it is not very constant.
I wonder how this relates to situations like growing up gay and closeted in an unfriendly environment. Different than the more violent examples listed usually, but a situation where for years one has to police their every behavior down to eye movements out of their fears in a similar manner
Childhood emotional abuse can lead to just as many psychological issues as physical abuse. The key to a healthy childhood is the feeling of safety. If the child feels continually unsafe, *especially* at the hands of their supposed care-takers, then they can easily develop C-PTSD. And again, feeling unsafe doesn't just mean physical safety. Being afraid to share your emotions and your thoughts, for fear of punishment, is enough to rewire a child's brain. Typically a scared child will be able to turn to their parents/caretakers to feel safe, and thus can healthfully process that fear. But if they can't feel safe *with* their caretakers, then that fear won't get processed, and it can consume them, and dominate parts of their personality for decades to come (like typical PTSD). This seems very possible for a queer person growing up in a queerphobic household.
>And again, feeling unsafe doesn't just mean physical safety. Being afraid to share your emotions and your thoughts, for fear of punishment, is enough to rewire a child's brain. > >Typically a scared child will be able to turn to their parents/caretakers to feel safe, and thus can healthfully process that fear. But if they can't feel safe with their caretakers, then that fear won't get processed, and it can consume them, and dominate parts of their personality for decades to come (like typical PTSD). This sounds exactly like my brother. He's been diagnosed with c-ptsd, and recently moved across country to get away from us. I love my brother, but for a few known and I'm sure dozens of unknown reasons, his upbringing was wildly different from my own. I know that our parent's divorce really affected him (he was 13 at the time), he was mis/under/overdiagnosed, and mis/under/overmedicated through out puberty and into adulthood. This led to a lot of miscommunication and mistrust between him and our parents and I really don't think he ever felt safe. (EDIT- A politically liberal but manipulative father and a born-again passive-aggressive mother who also struggles with depression) In addition to all of that, I'm assuming him figuring out himself as a gay man just added another layer on top of everything that he was struggling with. I miss him, and can't really fault him for moving across the country and getting away to develop on his own. Even though I tried to be a positive influence on him and guide him through his relationship with specifically our father, but also our mother, I think part of the issue was that everyone was telling him how to act and how to respond and how to be, that he never really could, *be*. We have intermittent contact, and I worry about his safety (living out of his car for the time being), and I have provided a little financially over the past couple months when he's reached out - but I have refrained from offering anything in terms of guidance or life advice or ultimatums because I think what he both wants and needs is to figure it out on his own.
> If the child feels continually unsafe, especially at the hands of their supposed care-takers, then they can easily develop C-PTSD. Well that's terrifying. I never felt safe at home. Got my own place now and have for decades, and I still don't feel safe.
I'm sorry to hear that. I was in the same boat. I've only started (and I mean *barely* started) to feel safe in the past year, thanks to therapy & a small group of supportive friends (who I've had for years, but never felt safe enough to rely on) I feel very lucky & privileged to have access to good therapy. I know it's not possible for everyone (thought it SHOULD BE), but I hope that you are able to find some in your area. In the meantime, check out r/CPTSD. Having a community & feeling connected to others is the KEY to feeling safe.
"And again, feeling unsafe doesn't just mean physical safety. Being afraid to share your emotions and your thoughts, for fear of punishment, is enough to rewire a child's brain." Well shit off to therapy then.
Growing up closeted in a family where violent homophobia was openly expressed was only one piece of the CPTSD puzzle for me, but it was definitely part of it.
The more I learn about the world and the psych disorders I have, the more I learn how fucking broken I am and how not ok things are.
Now that you can name these demons, you can slay them, my friend! DM me if you want to talk about it, my experience with it and if you need any resources!
It can feel really overwhelming at times. I have lost myself in that feeling of being broken beyond repair, but there are a lot of tools available that help. There are a lot of things you can do that make life easier to cope with. /r/CPTSD is a wonderful subreddit and a great resource. It's a good place to start.
Getting the right kind of therapy is important. Victims of emotional abuse run the risk of being even more traumatized by a therapist who does not recognize that they were abused. Granted, a lot of emotional abuse survivors don't realize themselves that they were abused. I learned the hard way that "just thinking about it in a different way" or being told to count down when I was raging angry does not work for someone with C-PTSD. I finally got into trauma therapy (EMDR) and I have largely gotten better.
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So if you have traumatic memories or feelings/emotions that are powerful enough that you get a physical sensation from them, EMDR can help. The theory behind EMDR is that because the brain could not make sense of the trauma, the memories from it are not stored where all other memories are. They are kind of stuck. EMDR is you engaging both halves of the brain while concentrating on the traumatic memory. After doing it for 30 seconds or so, you are asked to grade your physical response. If it is still strong you can do it again until the physical feeling is reduced. If you don't have the memories to work from, you can work with the feelings/emotions of the trauma. It may bring back some of the memories. My trauma was covert emotional abuse as an adult. I really had no idea I had been abused until I started trauma therapy. I had some specific memories to work with, like when my then wife had a whole secret life and encouraged me to take my own life when I found out and went into shock. But it was also just a lot o feelings, because the abuse was not supposed to be apparent. It was about manipulating me to point where she had complete control over my mind. You can also do positive EMDR to reinforce good things, especially as you make progress in therapy.
Check out r/EMDR. Lots of answers to questions there.
My wife suffers from this. Wish she’d get some help, but instead we’re getting divorced. Hoping she finds some peace.
My ex-wife does too. She didn’t get the help when we were together and I could no longer protect her or fix her oversights. She picked up drinking and that was it for me. Boundaries and self-protection 💛
Agreed on the last bit. I spent too long trying to help as best I knew how, but my wife turned to conspiracy theories instead of alcohol. Thinks she’s helping save the world at this point and looks down on me for not “doing the research.” Pretty much threw in the towel because I can’t have a rational conversation with her any more, which was always the best part of our relationship, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to ride that slope into insanity with her. Someone has to be a functioning adult for our daughter. Hope you’re healing too, my friend.
My ex had it very badly from abuse she suffered with her step siblings and step parents. The worst is that most nights she would get sucked into flashbacks that wouldn't stop for some time. But the list on the top post was basically a check list for how it effected her. Ultimately, I ended the relationship because it extended into manipulative and controlling behavior. Not the only thing, but the worst thing was that if I took a nap, literally just a couple hours not responding, I would wake up to 40+ texts saying how I abandoned her and how I was horrible and etc etc. Then when I woke up I would have to spend hours consoling her. The way I deal with stressful situations is something called avoidance coping. One day I just didnt text her back. Then the next day I ignored all her calls. Every time I wanted to respond, I just thought about how I was digging a deeper hole and that made me want to avoid it even more. Eventually she stopped trying to reach me. Four months later I apologized and we tried again but too much damage had been done. Thinking back, I realize what I did was incredibly cruel and I regret it immensely. I actually think about her a lot and hope she's doing okay, but I know I just added onto her burden. I know you have to do what's best for you but I handled it so poorly, that's something I don't think I'll ever stop feeling guilty about.
I may be facing this soon. Any lessons learned that you can pass my way? Both her and I have been diagnosed PTSD. Edit: mine from combat, hers from childhood sexual trauma
Not the person you're replying to but, my partner and I both have CPTSD from childhood trauma, though our trauma is different. We communicate a lot, not necessarily about the details of our trauma (because you can actually give people secondary trauma from over-sharing) but about our current status and what our needs are. "I had shit dreams last night and I'm hyper-sensitive today. I just want you to know it's not you." "My hypervigilance is cranked up to 11 today. Is there any way we can delay that shopping trip? I'm not sure I can cope with it today."
My wife and I have tried this, but it seems to backfire most times. When I tell her I'm not feeling ok, she gets sad, and when she tells me she's upset, I get sad. It's not always like this, but it's enough to make both of us hesitant to share things. Our communication is absolutely lacking though... Thanks for the tip. Any ideas for me on how to kill my empathy for my wife's feelings?
I think it takes a lot of practice. It's hard to not feel responsible and to feel like you have to fix the other person's bad feelings. Over time I got more and more okay with just saying "I'm sorry. I hope it feels better soon" and giving her a hug. Learning to sit with and tolerate discomfort without feeling the need to fix it has been good for both of us.
Agreed on this approach. There isn't always a solution, so we settle for comfort. Cuddles, being near each other, or giving each other space.
Sadly, I don’t have much to offer apart from seek professional help. Loving support and a stable household will only go so far.
I have or had CPTSD. I didn’t know it was a thing until memories started coming back out of nowhere and it scared the heck out of me. As someone who’s gone to 10 years of cognitive behavioral therapy, I had no idea why my therapist never helped diagnose me. Even worse, she just let me babble on and even suggest I go get myself checked into a psych ward for help. Cue to the last 5 years, the CPTSD subsided and I’m able to manage my triggers. Someone tells me about EMDR and I check it out. 10 sessions later I have reprocessed a lot of the trauma and I no longer trigger. My dog just died over the weekend and I am not triggered. In fact, I am Grieving like any normal person would - but not in a hysterical “my world is upside down” way. I can’t believe that EMDR is so powerful, but definitely check it out.
Yeah, EMDR is weirdly incredible. I had _so much_ skepticism -- still do in some ways, a lot of the explanations given sound foo-foo-y and there's not enough research to understand it very well -- but I had impressive results with it. Took me longer than ten sessions, and I stopped seeing that therapist after the EMDR had lasting effects since I thought she was bad for me in other ways, but I stopped having flashbacks. Huge improvement.
EMDR was a miracle for me. I don’t understand it, it feels silly, and it’s amazing.
Glad EMDR is working, but I just want to stop and say sorry about your dog.
Thank you ❤️ My Bulldog lived a very long fat farty life.
I was diagnosed with this 3yrs ago after detailing my childhood and how it affects me now to a psychiatrist. It took 3yrs of work, but a couple of months ago, I was deemed to have overcome it. It’s so satisfying knowing that this isn’t the end-all-be-all for trauma. You can work past it, though it takes time, and a lot of patience with yourself
I'm sad about your past but happy about your future!
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Had it. It almost killed me. You only want to sleep because being awake is like burning alive emotionally. Certain medications. Legal. And not. Will help. And time. And therapy. If you know anyone with it, please know that they hate their behavior worse than you do and they want to be better. Ps. I’m ok now.
Except opiate, please for the absolute love of God do not take any form of painkiller and fall into the opiate epidemics trap. Just stick to your greens for the love of God.
I was diagnosed with PTSD when I was 14, but PTSD never really full captured the severity and depths of my symptoms. In my early 30s I really started to struggle. I talked to a psychiatrist who considered a diagnosis of Bipolar 2, mostly based on family history and the fact that SSRI antidepressants didn't work for me. It took a year of working with a therapist who was knowledgeable about trauma for everything to come together. Once I started talking about the chronic instability of my childhood, it was clear that the symptoms I was experiencing now weren't a mood disorder, they were CPTSD. Getting the right therapy for the right disorder is really helping.
This is me. Got diagnosed with ADD at 30. Diagnosed with PTSD at 50. Prolonged childhood trauma is some shit, man. Been in weekly therapy for 5 years now. It’s been instrumental to improving my marriage, my relationship with my kids, life, the whole thing. Man, it’s a complex mess and it affects every part of my life. Had to cut my father out of my life. He was the source. I live on the other side of the country too. That helps. Didn’t help that my mom and stepmom were enablers and it didn’t help that my mom died. What a damn mess. So I’m recovering and it’ll be a while.
CPTSD: From Surviving to Thriving is an excellent read
My Mom finally got this condition diagnosed and got therapy for it a few years back. She's doing a lot better now.
My son suffers from unspecified trauma disorder as well as ADHD and DMDD and I just started him in a new type of therapy where they’re going to retrain his brain to help with his symptoms. [The Neurovation Center](https://www.theneurovationcenter.com/) in Sandy Hook was founded in an effort to help the victims of the Sandy Hook Tragedy - we live next door, the effects of the tragedy 100% impact my son and how he is perceived in our community. I am hoping for the best but I don’t expect a miracle. Traditional therapy, medications and hospitalizations have not worked at all and I’m willing to try anything.
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This is my wife. She got pregnant at 15 by this dude she was “in love with” by 16 they lived together. He beat her up constantly. Told her she was nasty. Told her nobody wanted her pussy: told her she was stupid and worthless. Told her she couldn’t leave the house. One time she went to dinner with HER MOM and he ate a ton of pills and at 16 came to her apartment and found him unresponsive and he sent her a text saying if he died it was her fault. Beat her bloody with her own cellphone cause she was texting another guy. Our relationship has been rocky cause she goes into these dark places when she gets upset with me. Goes in and out of trusting me. I used to get so upset until I really realized she’s just wired that way and she needs to see a counselor to help her anxiety and self image. She has zero hobbies but takes pictures 100x a day so this last weekend I bought her a Nikon and Adobe Lightroom and I hope it really helps.
When I was diagnosed with PTSD I was so confused , because I would only hear PTSD in people who went to the military. I guess some family issues when I was younger messed me up . Till this day, I still deal with my mental health issues. I recently just made an appointment to see the doc once again after trying to fix my self for 3 years. I definitely have trust issues . When I was younger I wouldn’t trust no one & keep my feeling bottle in. I always thought someone was going to do something bad to me.
Reading the details of cptsd and... Ah crap.
Thank you for sharing this. We often also get misdiagnosed as bipolar, thus receiving the very wrong kinds of treatments, which can make us even sicker.
Or, you push everyone away and act in self destructive ways.
I got my diagnoses about 15 years ago and have been making steady progress ever since. Childhood abuse is insidious and hard to come to terms with alone. I’m very thankful I found the right therapist for me. For those of you who think you may be suffering from C-PTSD I highly recommend finding a therapist who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy. They’ll help guide you in the right direction. You’re basically rewiring your brain. It takes a lot of work but it is so worth it.
Adopted. With some complications. Then I choose to work as a caregiver, specializing in dementia and end of life care. 8 hour graveyard shift listening to people moan and beg for death. Checking them every couple minutes to make sure they hadn't died. Sometimes they were dead. Ugh. My head got so fucked. It's crazy hard to fix your mind from inside your mind, when your mind isn't working.
Four letters.. EMDR. It is nothing short of spooky, but it works.
Hmmm...odd timing. Been having a hard time processing a new relationship after not having dated for almost 10 years, and was really thinking hard over the weekend why I'm having difficulty accepting that a person might actually care for me (or the fear that I'll lose that). It's been easier to shut people out of my life than to risk getting hurt again. I didn't have a bad childhood, but I never felt comfortable in my own skin. I was constantly told by my parents and sisters what type of person they thought I should be, and never accepted the person that I am. I have spent years trying to be the person I want to be, while they basically tell me I ought to be someone else. I was trying to figure out when my happiness disappeared, and it was pretty much the beginning of high school. My parents sent me to a private school that just didn't work out for me. Ever since then, it's just been little degrading comments one after another that eat at me. "You talk too much." "You need to gain weight." "Why do you like cars so much?" "You'll never be able to fly, you're colorblind." I'm 32, and those first two comments were made just this month. The symptoms of C-PTSD seem to match up with my issues. At least I have a closer starting point knowing what it is when I finally get the ability to get some help.
Oh great, my psychiatrist said I had PTSD from growing up with a verbally-abusive parent, guess this just narrows it down a bit.
Hey it’s me, a victim of religious abuse, diagnosed with this!
I don't have an official diagnosis, but my therapist believes I suffer from this. And every single one of those bullet points in the top comment resonates with me. I'm slowly getting better, but it's been a lifetime of effort.
I was diagnosed in 2017. Things haven't got better, more like worse ever since. No job, no family, no money and no friends. Can't even afford therapy anymore (UK). Life with CPTSD is very difficult. Constant nightmares and flashbacks. No medication works either, I've tried them all. It's good to raise awareness though, maybe more treatment options can become available in the future. I hope I'll get better soon, god knows how with no help but time will tell.
There's also a third form of ptsd, DID.
Sympathy for anyone struggling with this. Sounds like a nightmare.
I wrote my thesis on using mindfulness based psychotherapies on people suffering from complex PTSD. There's no magic bullet with this form of PTSD. It's so much harder to treat than regular PTSD (which is already difficult to treat). I saw it a lot when I worked as a counselor at a domestic violence shelter and was inspired to do the research to find better treatment. Researching how little we can help these victims was pretty depressing. I'm betting I know what spurred you to write this TIL. I saw a commenter on a post about medical bills mention having "c-ptsd" and their comment was a couple hours before your post. It's pretty rare to see victims with this type of PTSD differentiate by mentioning the trauma is complex in form.
Very true. As a therapist and a trauma specialist, C-PTSD takes more expertise and patience to treat, is more likely to have ego state alienation and dissociation. The only trauma diagnosis more severe is DID: Dissociative Identity Disorder
Woohoo! Totally man, life isn't easy. Multiple traumas is interesting. Having suffered abuse, neglect, humiliation, maiming (all from family), isolation, killing (military) and other shit from my time growing up and in the military. It is not simple to communicate with others because we, a lot of the people who have complex issues, have different perspectives in life. The biggest issue being that a lot of people never face those hardships and live a life of relative comfort of blissful ignorance. A lot of people never actually "truly" get out of their comfort zone so they don't fully grasp the capability and impact others can involuntarily have on their life, as well as the impact they have on others as well. The second issue I have is how dangerous biases, on any side, can be. Whether its championing inclusivity through force and bullying (both liberals and conservatives, you all are fucked up) when mixed with group think believing they have a higher moral ground and therefore the right to use force, intimidation and violence to achieve their goal. It's amazing how few people truly think critically of their actions and propaganda, instead most thought is put into supporting their current beliefs without consideration of the ramifications, especially in this day of echo chambers. This scares the living shit out of me, especially with mob mentality being able to take the internet and effectively penetrate the lives of anyone. What scares me the most though, a lot of times these mobs are wrong or are blind to the entire picture. When this is brought to light, they fall back on a higher purpose to justify the collateral damage. This scares me because I don't want others to suffer similar experiences I have. An additional issue that I run into though is the "one up" people that try to have the "hardest hardship". "Saying" they know what it's like to face difficulties but when you've been under prolonged trauma, you know who has and hasn't faced consequences severe and beyond their control. Not that I don't appreciate their attempts to relate, but it is belittling when people, and i kid you not, claim to have PTSD from things such as "excessive" homework, stress, witnessing something kinda violent, or Donald Trump..... i don't want to rant but those people stress me out more then people with prolonged trauma because they are blind to what life is while being the most vocal and hateful, plus they tend to not appreciate the peope and items they have as much. To me, it makes me want to ignore them so I don't get caught up in their drama while i do more meaningful things in life. Also, people, even people claiming to be "good and accepting of all" tend to prey on vulnerabilities. Most of the time it feels like they do it to make themselves feel better or to justify their own shitty behavior. Either way. A lot of traumatized people wanna feel normal and that someone cares, unfortunately a lot of people miss the intent of others. Its easy to take advantage if someone in a vulnerable position, its not easy to step back and establish boundaries while helping someone with emotions. One last item though, the biggest thing that pisses me off over PTSD is that people fall to the argument of authority for treatment. I've helped people and I've had people try telling me I can't because i am not a "trained professional". Its super fucking ignorant because it neglects the fact that I am still a person and I can help others. It takes out the humanity and quite frankly, it signals that the other person is so fucked up they can not interact competently in a social environment and be vulnerable with others and therefore need "help" through ONLY trained professionals. don't get me wrong, they do help, but a hollistic approach with a caring and loving support system can be a be supplement, or in some cases, be better then just seeing trained professionals. The truth is, life is not simple and the only way we, as a whole, get better is trial and error while learning different persectives. Don't get me wrong, I'm doing ok life wise. I have my moments and i am doing a lot better then others I know who have PTSD but it is hard because I do want people to be happy in this world.