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Hi Blue Sky

I am new here too. I'm glad your google search brought you here to OOTS.

I am sorry to hear about the abuse you suffered as a child and teen and the impact that has had. It is tiring holding the pain on the inside while to others our external lives can look ok, even lovely as you describe.

I get frustrated too with how long this healing journey seems to take, there are so many layers to it! It is generational trauma and it has passed to us, we are the chain breakers and remembering that always gives me hope and motivation to keep moving forward.

Let's keep moving forward one step at a time

Thank you for the welcome Kizzie, I moderated for a while at OOTF many moons ago, so it really does feel like a safe and home like place to land here at OOTS. I am grateful to be amongst you all.

Thank you all for the welcome wishes and hug 

Hi everyone

I was a regular at OOTF back in the day some 15 years ago as I exited a relationship with a man who had AVPD. It was around that time I came across Pete Walker's work and read Judith Herman's book. Like a lightbulb going on, I realised then that what I had been/and continue to suffer from is CPTSD.

There was so little recognition of CPTSD then and little support that I could find, so I did what most of us do and hobbled on picking up modalities that help here and there like inner critic work, grounding techniques and breath work. I also applied for a psilocybin trial for depression in 2015 with Imperial College London but on the date of my screening my nervous system was calm, I didn't hit the criteria! I took part in a ketamine study in Oxford and it helped at the time but it's an expensive treatment to keep up. I have researched Iboga for the last 15 years and I am building up to attending a reputable Bwiti/Medical retreat facility in Portugal. Out of all the medicines, I feel this one is having the best success with re-wiring the traumatised brain, it is having huge success with war veterans.

My adaptive defaults (from childhood/adolescence survival) are Fawn and Freeze. Fawning seemed to get me through life when things were going good enough and when they weren't, I descended into Freeze. I am currently slowly emerging from 4 months of Freeze, this trigger was a big one linked to my core traumas.

I lost my beloved father to suicide when I was 7 and my emotionally cold, workaholic mother to cancer when I was 22. I was then trapped in her family legacy business for 30 years with my older NPD (then alcoholic) half brother. I did all the heavy lifting, he got a free ride and refused to sell. Eventually he agreed but it all went down badly involving a friend of his which resulted in me being financially swindled, that was back in 2021. For 50 years I had let my brother abuse me in one form or another and I realised then that wounded child part of me had been waiting for my big brother just to love me for all that time. I had fawned and he had abused.

I took flight for a while visiting far flung friends in Egypt, avoiding the pain but it hit me eventually. So this episode feels different, a rock bottom perhaps now that final illusion has been completely shattered. I am no contact with my brother and his wife but I miss my niece and nephew. We all live in the same very small town so when I am well enough I plan to move, the place itself has become a constant trigger. It is scary to start from scratch at almost 60, though I hope to embrace this somehow as a new beginning. At the moment I feel stripped back to the core and very raw. New healthier ways of being and operating in this world are going to be essential....with the help of Iboga possibly!

I have two beautiful adult daughters who I raised as a single mum. My deepest shame is the effects my trauma has had on them over the years. It is for them that I keep going. I am as open with them as I can be (save for the depth of abuse from their father) I hope one day I am able to forgive myself.

So, it is good to be here amongst those who understand. Support forums like this are a lifeline for those of us who suffer from these developmental injuries. I am hoping to find a CPTSD informed IFS therapist to work with online if anyone can recommend someone via PM? UK based is probably best but not essential.

Thank you for a place to leave my opening vent, it helps. I look forward to sharing more uplifting posts in future as I find more balance step by step and learn from the posts and resources here at OOTS.

Thank you, BL