Messages

Thank you all so much for your warm welcome and words of encouragement. It is a great comfort to know you are all there. 

Hi everyone

I am both glad and sad to be here, because the more I understand about myself the lonelier I feel and the sadder I am that CPTSD is something that so many people struggle with.

I have always felt something was up, though I couldn't put my finger on it. Superficially, my parents divorcing at 3 years old seemed to be the only thing that was amiss with my childhood. I was both wanted and loved by my mother, so why did I feel the way I did? Why was I so "troubled"? I started searching for something (anything!) as a pre-teen, jumping between various flavours of spirituality, self-help guides, medications - prescribed and otherwise, CBT and other therapies, and whatever else I could find to try to alleviate the emptiness. But nothing helped. Not really.

After a tumultuous period of becoming aware of the cracks in my relationship with my mother and then diving headfirst into a tumultuous relationship, I started seeking help again. Luckily, a few months ago I found my current relational trauma-informed therapist, whose gentle guidance led me to subsequently find Pete Walker's CPTSD book. I wept over the words that seemed to be written about me. I finally felt seen. I finally had a reason for how I am and how I feel.

I have been devouring information - Lindsay Gibson's Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents, Peter Levine's In an Unspoken Voice and I'm currently busy with Waking the Tiger, Marshall Rosenberg's Non-Violent Communication, and I have just started to work my way through Suzette Boon et al's Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation (having realised how much of my behaviour is dissociation).

About two months ago I started to unravel as some repressed and deeply internalised trauma from my teenage years surfaced and refused to be pushed back down again. After 20 years of carrying the secret around with me I finally told my therapist (experiencing the most intense emotional reaction I have ever experienced), then my partner, and finally, a good friend. I am currently on a rollercoaster, holding on for dear life. All the emotions that have been blunted and numbed through years of repression and dissociation-related compartmentalising have decided this is their moment. I am so easily triggered. When I resurface from the numb disconnect, every cell in my body is flooded with intense sensation and I soon tip back into dissociation. It's exhausting. It's confusing.

Sometimes I long to press pause and catch my breath.

It is marvellous to me that some organisms illuminate the darkness with the light that they make in their own bodies. It is a hopeful reminder that I too can grow my own light within, to find my way through the darkness.

It also reminds me of my favourite poem, which always makes me smile...

I wish I was a glowworm,
For a glowworm's never glum.
Because how can you be glum,
When the sun shines out your bum?

Feel free to call me Glowworm or Glowy for short. I am glad to have found this community.