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Thanks everyone for your words and support!  I  was able to get in to see my new therapist yesterday and he was very helpful.  His focus tends to be on doing.  At first I felt invalidated but he explained that he completely understood why I felt the way I did, and that I was very justified in feeling that way, but he wanted to focus on the solution.  As I have had 2 years of venting and grieving, I was ready to try something new.  He wants me to try various Meet Up groups.  He explained that 80% of the time there will be no connection with the activity or the people but to keep trying and that I could work out my feelings and reactions to my experience in his office.   I am going to take his advice.

I have always struggled with depression and anxiety and been in and out of therapy for most of the life-more than 40 years- but many times therapy left me feeling worse-embarrassed that I am so negative, so angry...embarrassed that I was still blaming parents, embarrassed that I can't seem to get out of the depression, like a failure, etc. When I read Peter Walker's book 2+ years ago It was a revelation.  It was the first time in my life anyone had explained what I was going through.  I had thought I wasn't working hard enough, was just too negative of a person, was blowing my experience up out of proportion, and was pretty much, hopeless.  I was able to find a great therapist who completely understands CPTSD and was able to start telling my story all the way through to someone who didn't cut me off and try to white wash everything with forced gratitude, and positivism and create an action plan before I had time to fully vent and grieve.  I had to recently stop therapy with this great guy recently after 2 years because he did not take insurance and I could no longer afford sessions.

I am in a bad flashback right now and can't seem to kick it.  I am sure it is in part mourning the end of my therapy  (I have found a new therapist who seems good enough so far) but mostly it is that I am still so angry at my parents, especially my mother, who has borderline personality disorder.  She is a waif borderline (sorry to use labels but will in the interest of short hand on an already long post!), very much the victim always,  and she is now elderly and in need of support both physically and financially as is my dad.  I am enraged that they were awful parents and now need to be taken care of.  I am enraged that not only were they unavailable emotionally, but in a constant war of the roses on the verge of divorce (still are after 60+ years!) and isolated us from any possible support by constantly moving (16 times by the time I was 13..all different schools ).  I am especially enraged that my mother who checks out the second anything gets emotional or tough....and for her EVERYTHING is a major ordeal.
anyway
I am so angry!!
I am in my late 50s and divorced.  I live in an area of the country that is conservative and traditional-I am neither-so I struggle with making connections even though I do make effort.  I am scared that I may never have a chance to be happy.  I function very well with day to day things...my bills are paid on time, I have a house and car on my modest salary by having a roommate and having bought a fixer upper that  I have made beautiful. But I am so sad and so angry. I feel so alone and the energy it takes to make it through  the day is monumental and leaves me no energy for my true loves-art and music.  And I am so angry!!!  One last thing.  I am triggered daily due to the situation with my parents and also with my sister who works at the same place I do and is very dysfunctional. 
I dream of moving to the west coast, a place I love, although I understand that there is no magic place and where ever you go, there you are. I can retire next year with life time medical benefits but will most likely have to work at least part time for the rest of my life.
I guess I am just looking for some hope and reassurance that it isn't too late to have a happy or even happyish life!

you are so welcome Dutch Uncle.  I have enjoyed many of your posts.  You are smart and wise!

Hello Laynelove and all,

Your response to the delayed text seems that it was in part due to emotional flashback. I don't think it is unreasonable to be annoyed by the long delay but perhaps sending an angry and/or abusive text is a bit of an over-reaction.   But don't beat yourself up!  CPTSD is not an easy or minor little thing.  Emotional flashbacks catapult us back to a time of abandonment and danger and lashing out with our external critic might have been your survival in the past.   There is nothing wrong with letting the person know that you are sorry for over-reacting.  There should be no shame in that.  For me it is important to only have people who understand my situation in my inner circle.

And, as far as Peter Walker.  I am a HUGE fan.  I think he literally saved my life-or at least made me want to keep living. Like many of us on this site, I had been to many therapists and endured many diagnoses including depression, anxiety, eating disorder and "feeling phobia". I pursued many spiritual paths and have been to various workshops.  I even got a degree in psychology and work in psychiatry research.  Peter Walker is the first person to hit the nail on the head as far as what is going on with me.  After reading his books I called him up and I am lucky enough to be in therapy with him.  What I can tell everyone is that it does get better.  I have moments of peace now where I didn't before.  Peter has taught me that it is OK to be as angry as I am...It is OK to hate my parents........that I don't have to force myself to forgive and that I need to mourn the losses of my life as a result of my childhood.  I think in this day and age we are ashamed if we are not happy and joyful and forgiving 100% of the time.   As we have all heard many times, the only way out is through and for those of us with CPTSD it means feeling, venting and mourning...there is no other way.  It is not bottomless though, and surprisingly it starts to feel so much better than suppressing "negative" feelings . Ironically, when you don't force yourself to forgive, forgiveness sometimes comes (and sometimes not-which is OK too).  My current task is learning how to how to hold compassion and even forgiveness and still protect myself. For example,  sometimes I think that I have done enough work to be able to tolerate being around my FOO, that I "should" be evolved enough or healed enough to be around them...I usually pay with a good long EF after a visit...I am not sure I can ever spend much time with my parents or sister.

To wrap this up, I am not sure how long it takes to recover from PTSD and I think it is different for all of us. I have been working with Peter for 14 months and had read his books before then. I have seen great progress in this time, although I did many things for many years before then that probably helped too, if not nearly as much.  I think  As you begin to see that progress is possible, that you can experience peace and happiness, the amount of time becomes less important. You are on the right path Laynelove and even being on this site shows that you are open and already making progress.

That is a tough question but I do think it gets easier.   When my emotions are accompanied by a sense of dread or panic-that "pit" in the stomach feeling- and when a tough situation ends with me living on the street or dying in some awful way (catastrophization), they tend to be emotional flashbacks.
Those of us with CPTSD have strong and harsh internal critics that either beat us up with perfectionist standards of which we fall way short and/or scary projections of doom and gloom.  If my thoughts are self-punishing and panicking, if there is a lot of guilt or shame, it tends to be an emotional flashback.  There is never a reason to be unkind to yourself or to abandon yourself.  I find that abandonment of self is much more painful than even great sadness or anger.   

I don't mean to invalidate anyone's experience with Peter Walker's book, however, I think he is pointing out that many people who have been labeled with various diagnoses, including personality disorders,  may in fact be suffering from trauma and NOT from personality disorders or simple depression or simple anxiety or whatever.  I see the term CPTSD as simply a way to communicate an array of issues instead of having to explain all the aspects of suffering prolonged abuse and neglect any time you want to talk about the subject.  I don't think using the term dismisses anyone's individual experience nor is it meant to be worn as a label or to define anyone.  Yes the book can be overwhelming at times and triggering but it also gives one hope and contains some very concrete methods for recovery (shrinking the inner critic, flashback management).  I had been to many therapists before discovering Peter Walker.  He is the first one who really got me and was able to put it together in a way that finally made sense.  but, if the book isn't working for you, there are others.  No one approach is meant for everyone.  There are a lot of good resources on this site.

I completely relate to you CreativeCat. I make the mistake of thinking I can handle my family and/or other dysfunctional relatives whenever I am feeling good or strong......or even better after a long EF or period of depression.  For me it is because I still feel guilty for having to distance myself.  My inner critic has used many of the new-age dictates of letting go and forgiviness and compassion, not to mention the main stream idea that family is the most important thing, to beat me with and create a list of "shoulds" concerning my family.  I, as I am sure you too, have heard from others "when are you going to let our parents off the hook?", "get over it", 'don't dwell in the past", etc. etc.

Do not feel guilty if you need to continue to minimize the time you spend with your family (ha! easy for me to say!).
There is no reason why you should want to be around people who had little or no regard for you at a time when you desperately needed them for physical and emotional development and survival.

Kubali,

You are not alone!  I feel the same way about my mother.

I think it can be much more difficult to deal with covert situations because they tend to make you question yourself, question your perceptions, and eventually abandon yourself.  A physical bruise or scar, while certainly no little thing, is clear, others can see it (if you show them), and the perpetrator has crossed a line that is fairly well delineated.

I don't have quite the same situation in that while I think my mom was negatively narcissistic, I don't think she quite meets criteria for NPD.... but she was very covert in her dysfunction and co-dependence with my Narcissistic father.  My mom is a freeze/flight and would simply check out when things got tough...and EVERYTHING was tough for her...any little responsibility.  When she wasn't disassociated to the point of not talking, she would frantically do busy work.  Her favorite busywork was moving and we moved 16 times before I was 13, each time changing schools and even states. The biggest problem was that my mom was so NICE that others could not imagine why I would be angry with her.  She would get SO HURT when I expressed any anger.  She would tell me in a NICE voice that anger wasn't good for me.  When I expressed any pain it would panic her and I would have to hear about all her challenges and why she couldn't' have done anything differently.  My growing anger (and hatred of her at times) caused me to feel like an absolutely awful person. At 58 I am still crawling out of a hole of self hatred.
but
I am determined to get healthy and happy!

I hope this helped.

Hello * and Welcome,

I second that BeHea1thy-thank you for introducing yourself and your well written introduction.   You have worked hard and come a long way and hopefully you can give yourself a lot of credit for that. 

If this next leg of your healing journey doesn't go as quickly as you would like, don't get discouraged. Kubali has a great point about the "hurry up" program being part of CPTSD.  CPTSD can be tough to uproot because is insidious. Many of it's programs were installed in our first years of life and effect the way we perceive ourselves and the world.  As BeHea1thy stated, many of us also had narcissistic parents with the result that we learned to question our perceptions of reality.  We learned to see ourselves as too needy, negative, demanding, etc. for seeing things clearly or for wanting what any kid or human wanted and needed.  My dad used to call me a "kill joy" and an "alarmist" for pointing out the craziness of many of his actions. My most basic needs expressed were labeled "selfish" and mean for making my poor parents feel badly. I, like many of us, beat myself up for wanting anything and for feeling anything other than "positive" feelings. And in the past 30 or so years, we have what I call "New Age Shame" which can support our denying our feelings and needs. 

The fact that you can separate yourself from your thoughts is huge and is the key to healing CPTSD (or any issue, really).  Just remember that whenever you are feeling that deep sense of aloneness or panic or despair, look at what you are telling yourself....look at your thoughts.  They may not necessarily be obsessive but they are most likely overly critical and catastrophic.   I have found Peter Walker's article "Emotional Flashback Management" very helpful.  He gives a list of concrete tools that you can use when in the midst of an EF.  You can find him on the internet and there are many articles you can read for free.  I have both of his books they are excellent.

This is a lonely path in some ways.  Very few people want to go as deeply into themselves as we with CPTSD want and need to in order to be happy and healthy.  Most people run for the hills when and if you share any aspect of your recovery or internal struggles.  Most people throw you in the category of "negative" or "complainer" if you try to vent in an effort to let go and heal.  But we on this site are on the road with you!!  And we do live in the world, although scattered.  The great news is, that those of us on this path, and anyone on a path to true self discovery, those of us who have struggled and have worked hard, are pretty cool people and can be a lot of fun to be around!

Spryte and all,

yes-the term "help rejecting complainer" is used by the counseling community, and now in general,  to explain people who present terrible situations and then have a "yes, but" for any solution you offer.  True help rejecting people don't really want a solution and when they complain, it is not true venting because they never let go, it is bottomless negativity. They are more or less out to prove to you, and anyone who will listen, that their situation is worse than anyone else's, that it is someone's fault, and that you should simply feel sorry for them. For those of us with CPTSD who are on the path to healing, venting and grieving are important parts of the process and ARE NOT the same as when a help rejecting complainer complains!
I think we all know a help rejecting complainer. My next door neighbor is one and what Peter Walker calls a "narcissist in co-dependent clothing"...(or is it the other way around?!). She gets in by asking you how you are and then launches on a monologue that goes on for up to a half hour at a time, that details all the bad things in her life, where there is even a pause where you can make an excuse to get away!!
anyway
I didn't mean to go off on that tangent!

Do you think that with your brother and father that they put the forced positive layer on top because they can't handle their own powerlessness regarding your history? They may also feel they need to fix your situation, make you feel better, etc.  There may be guilt too on their part over what happened to you?
Many people in my life have tried to re-frame my past in a more positive light because they either don't want to deal with it or want me to be OK.  It always makes it worse .....  It makes me feel invalidated and that my feelings are frivolous, overly dramatic, etc.  I am now with a therapist who is validating my experience-that my childhood was absolutely awful, and it actually helps me let it go.  We all need to be heard and seen and we all want to be loved for who we really are...not some image we portray.    To tell the truth about our experience when it wasn't good is not complaining, it is freeing.  And we can be totally OK while acknowledging what happened to us.

I love this thread!!!
I too get so angry with all the "positive" platitudes, forced joy, and forced forgiveness that is rampant in our social media and in the society in general.  It feels so disregarding and it does not allow a person's process.  Forgiveness might come but if it is true forgiveness, it comes in it's own time, at the end of a process, and not because someone has forced or shamed you into forgiving.  Forced/faked forgiveness goes underground and becomes convoluted usually turning into something more insidious like passive-aggressiveness.  And there are times when forgiveness is just not possible, especially when the abuse is so heinous.

There is a big difference between a chronic help-rejecting-complainer and someone who is telling their story and/or venting as part of their healing process.  It seems that many people throw you into the help-rejecting-complainer category with any of what they term "negative" and run for fear of being contaminated.

Spryte-great and articulate response.
I could not have said it better-just wanted to add for bee a few things..

What you describe bee is not at all weak or a setback...in fact, it can show how healthy you have gotten....how hard you have worked.  When we are immersed in the abuse/neglect and dysfunction, it is sometimes hard to see what is going on.  In order to survive, we have to numb ourselves and/or engage in other defense mechanisms because the reality of the situation is way too much for any child to bear or even understand. Many of our defenses were brilliant survival mechanisms for the time and situation.  The problem is that these behaviors stop working and sabotage us in later life.
Once we start on the road to recovery we begin to see clearly how awful our childhood situation was and we begin to learn new ways of living.  For many of us it become MORE difficult to spend time with our abusers.  I know that is true for me.  When we encounter our abusers from a more healthy perspective, we see how badly we were treated and how sad it was that the sweet and innocent child that we were was treated the way we were treated.  Why would a healthy person who loves themselves or is learning to love and take care of themselves, choose to spend time with someone who abused them as a child? Just because that person is biologically related is not a good enough reason.
also
Sometimes when we are strong enough, we are able to let go and grieve.  That may have been what was going on with you that day.  Tell the internal critic to SHUT UP and leave you alone.  You handled the situation just fine and the grieving will prove healing in the long run.  There is no reason that you need to spend time with your Mother again. She doesn't deserve your presence. 

Hello All,

I have been working with Peter Walker for almost 1 year and also had a lot of therapy before then.  Although I don't like labels,  "CPTSD"  explained me like no other ever has and I now see this label as a shortcut for explaining my experience.

I feel as if I have made a great deal of progress and have a good understanding of myself and my triggers, however, this past 10 days has been awful.  I am on the verge of tears all of the time and feel that I am close to a break down.  A large part of it is that I feel very alone.  Very few people understand or are interested in understanding the experience of CPTSD. (and I work in the department of psychiatry at a big university!) It isn't that I want to turn my friends, and certainly not my coworkers, into therapists, but I long to connect with people on a deeper level and that involves that they know at least some of what I am going through.  It seems that everyone I know is not interested in going that deep (except when they have an issue!) and I have not met many new people who are interested in true self growth.  Of course, I am in a fairly conservative and very cliquey area of the country.  I am hoping to move west in the next couple of years and in a few months I will be able to retire.. although I will have to continue to work at least part-time.
anyway
Help!
How is it for others as far as support? the process of recovery? feeling alone?
Thanks all!