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Here's a few notes about my current efforts at recovery. Studying my past, I realised that I had had heightened anxiety levels since I'd gone into care at the age of three. This was exacerbated by long-term abuse within the care system. The end result was hypervigilance and anxiety but very well hidden (because I got through my childhood by acting calm to protect myself).

The beauty of knowing all this is that when I hit crises at work, such that I don't want to open my email account or answer the phone, I am better at understanding what is going on. This makes it easier for me to force myself to do what I don't want to do and hence prevents the problems from getting worse. Such challenges happen every day. The people around me don't see them, but I don't mind that so long as I know how to deal with the issues. A year or two ago, I was often avoiding emails and phone calls for days. Now they often still raise my anxiety levels but I am far more likely to 'feel the fear and do it anyway'. Central to that is understanding what is going on in my own head. If hadn't spent years studying myself I don't think I would have made as much progress.

Nowadays, even a bad day is better than it would have been five years ago.

Hello C,

I'm pleased that you found my description helpful. My practice of re-reading and editing what I write about my past is important. It leads to insights and progress that I don't think I would get otherwise. As well as writing about my past, I also keep a daily journal which I dip into frequently. I find it helps me pull back from my everyday emotional reactions and get some perspective on them. I also find writing a very calming experience.

Good luck with your journey,

Jimmy

Hello Gashfield,

Welcome. I was sorry to read about the symptoms you experience. I hope you find ways forward. It is important to find people who understand. Child abuse is more openly discussed now but I don't think enough people grasp the massive emotional and psychological carnage it leaves in people's lives. This leads to a lot of isolation in trying to deal with it. Like you, I was pleased to find this site.

Regards,

Jim

Hello Kizzie,

Thanks for your kind thoughts. They were helpful. In terms of techniques, I will probably write more elsewhere. However, it is worth stating my main one. This is based around writing up all my childhood memories and reflecting upon them. I do this by editing them. This is important, because it is easy to brood and go round in circles if one is not careful. However, I find that a process of writing, reading, editing and reflecting helps me to move forward gradually. I see patterns that I have never seen before, for one thing. I even write separate 'essays' on different aspects of my past experience, often using reading. I have hundreds of thousands of words (probably around half a million, by now) written up in this way. I also use photographs. It is very rare for children in care from my era to have many photographs from that time, but I am lucky to have quite a few and I use them in my reflections.

I would also count myself as a Stoic, in that I use a lot of Stoic philosophy and try to incorporate it into my life. I have lots of other techniques, so that if one isn't working I can switch to another. For example, I often think about my own death and that it could happen at any time. I can think it through in detail. This helps me to appreciate how precious the present is and that I should get on with enjoying life while I still have the time. There are plenty of other techniques I use but that will probably do for now.

Thanks again,

Jim

Welcome. Good luck on your journey. I have a friend who had a narcissistic father and a mentally-ill mother and she's still dealing with the consequences. Counselling may help and is not a bad place to start even if just to get some things aired. I've had counselling and therapy over the years and found it of some use. Indeed, the latter was where I was diagnosed with C-PTSD and that was a big breakthrough. However, the biggest improvements I have managed to develop myself through writing and other forms of self-analysis. I would say it is worth finding as many tools as you can and experimenting a bit. See what works. You might want to switch between tools as they often work at some times and not others. We are all different and only we find out what works for us.

Good luck,

Jim

I'd better start this journal with some background. As a child, I lived in children's homes for fourteen years (my mother was mentally-ill and had been taken into a hospital. She never came out). Some of these homes were OK, if institutionalised. However, the main home I was in, called a 'Family Group Home', was run by a woman who gradually descended into terrorising the children in her care through rages, random acts of violence and constant controlling supervision. The worst period lasted for about five years, until eased by the local authority appointing more staff to work in the home. During that five year period, all the children in her care had to be alert, whenever they were in her presence, that she could flip into a rage at almost any time for a multitude of trivial reasons. I won't go into what went on, because it would take too long, but the legacy it left in my case is one of daily hyper-vigilance, easily-resurrected fear of other people and a frequent preference for invisibility and escape from the world.

Fortunately, I have developed an arsenal of tools for dealing with this. The most important is writing. I keep a journal and when I am in the mood I can easily write three or four thousand words without stopping. I find it immensely helpful and regard it as one of several 'healthy addictions'. If I have had a tough experience for any reason, I invariably feel much calmer after writing about it than I did before. I also have other tools, such as using my imagination and various calming thoughts.

Yesterday, for example, was a rough day at work. A lot of things came together in a firestorm of problems. I have recently taken to measuring my anxiety levels on a ten-point scale. Yesterday, at times, they reached a ten. I was able to bring them down to nine by talking with a friend and then, through taking action rather than hiding away, eventually to a seven. This was a big achievement. I feel blessed to have such tools at my disposal.

I will record experiences here from time to time. It helps to have an audience that might understand and for whom it might even be useful. I'm on a journey of recovery that I believe is heading in a very positive direction. I'm in my fifties now and believe that I am finally addressing issues from the past in ways that bring very slow and small but lasting improvements. It's a good place to be, even though I know I'll be dealing with the aftermath of the past for a long time yet and probably forever. I don't mind that so long as I can live a productive life with what remains. 

Thankyou Anamiame,

I appreciate your kind welcome. When I was introduced to C-PTSD a few years ago by a therapist I instantly recognised that it was the appropriate description for the after-effects of my childhood. Indeed, it was the description on 'Out of the Fog' that I read first. There are various ways of dealing with it, I think, and I feel lucky to have found things that help a lot. Even today, after an extremely stressful day at work, I'd give myself about 7 out of 10 for how I handled it.

By the way, although most people call me Jim, I chose 'Jimmy' as my Forum name because that was what I believe my mother called me as a child, before she entered a mental hospital when I was three. After that, only my father ever called me Jimmy. It is a nice way of remembering her to use that name here.

Good luck with your own journey,

Jim

Thanks for your post, Shadow. I enjoyed reading it. Good luck with your journey.

Jim

Hi,

I'm pleased to be able to join this Forum. I know that C-PTSD results from a wide variety of circumstances. However, I chose to highlight that I grew up in children's homes because I know that many other people who grew up in children's homes and/or foster care with a family will be dealing with C-PTSD and I thought they might be interested in my own experience. I will write about that at more length in other posts.

For now, I just want to say a few things by way of introduction:
- I was in children's homes for 14 years as a child. One or two were OK but the main one was run by a strict, violent and abusive woman for many years.
- I'm in my fifties now but I still deal with the effects of my childhood on a daily basis. The symptoms of C-PTSD loom large, as does an attachment disorder.
- I am getting better, year-by-year. About five years ago, I took a year of unpaid leave from work because I was gradually getting worse at everything. Since then, I have been slowly gaining more control of my mind and emotions. I have a long way to go but at least I am heading in the right direction.
- I have been relatively successful in career terms and am aware of many others from my background who had very difficult experiences when growing up in care and have had their lives very badly effected.
- I have worked with various therapists but the bulk of my recovery has been through extensive writing about my past. I have written and edited hundreds of thousands of words about it and it has slowly helped me to understand myself and make different choices in life.

I will look forward to engaging with many of you.

Jim