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I took my puppy to the dog park for the first time in her little life. She had the best time and socialized way better than I ever do. But I also socialized with other dog owners while there... So I consider that a win.

This book is what got me started on the path toward healing and living instead of existing and surviving. It's also what made me make the choice to go to a therapist. It is incredibly story, data, and experience-driven from the therapist's side. He's someone who's worked with children, women, and men of all ages.

This book explicitly deals with PTSD, while C-PTSD is not differentiated, so it made me doubt for a while that I could have PTSD, since a lot of the cases covered were more sudden and more unimaginable. But since all of the symptoms and reactions matched, I kept reading. In the book, all manifestations of trauma are eventually covered, even the long-term developmental kind. Memory problems too. 

He writes a good bit on the ACE test and how childhood adversity affects health and longevity. Apparently if you score over a 4, then you're more prone to autoimmune and earlier death. I took the test and scored a 6. This book is what helped me realize that my "ADHD" was actually trauma. I'd always wondered why taking ADD medication didn't really calm the storm, but intensified it. It taught me that my invisible "autoimmune disease" and "food allergies" were somatic symptoms. It explained why CBT is not a great therapy option. In C-PTSD, we have all the symptoms of PTSD plus the more complex developmental problems, but since they're hard-wired into the entire nervous system, the logical rationality of CBT doesn't fix the problem. I learned about Internal Family Systems (IFS) and EMDR.

I can't say how much validation this book gave me for my PTSD symptoms and the physical basis of it. It's a book you wanna quote when you need to educate someone else on trauma or if you need to draw boundaries with them based on your own health.

I've turned to more C-PTSD focused books now, but I thought I'd share for anyone doubting that C-PTSD is still definitely PTSD.

Eightpartqueen-

Welcome to our site - it's nice to meet you.  You writing very clearly describes some of the things lots of us have endured, including somatic symptoms of CPTSD, feeling very incapable of managing so-called normal life despite having things looking great from the outside, being triggered by political events as well reactions others have toward same....this world is sometimes quite a minefield for anyone who is sensitive, let alone those of us who have disregulated nervous systems.

Your reading list is impressive!  Many of us have gotten quite a lot from the Pete Walker books.  He is a therapist who also has CPTSD and is very much in touch with the patterns which develop as a result.  His writings are in the Reference section of this site and he also is featured in the Blog. 

You have made a great decision joining this forum,  and I hope you keep writing here.  May your puppy help you remember that you ARE a person, and an important one at that.  Be gentle with yourself, and keep up all of the great reading, writing, meditating, and all other self care routines you have established.  You are obviously very bright, caring, and strong.

Glad you found Us!

Thanks so much for your response.There's nothing at all like feeling heard and understood for once in your life. I'm also relieved to know that I'm not just overly dramatic for suffering more as a result of the world today.

Yes, I devour any tome that might break this stupid curse, so I'm very happy to find out about a book series on the topic that is actually helping people. That it's written by someone who actually experiences what we do makes it even better.

I do think my puppy is helping a good bit with that so far. She is having a wonderful grounding affect on me.

I plan on sticking around and hope to see you around more!

Nice to meet you too EPQ     It sounds like you are very focused on recovery and I hope being here will  help you on your journey 

As Jdog wrote - glad you found your way here 

Thanks so much! I feel very strongly that being on here will help a great deal!

Hi EPQ, Welcome 

Wow, I admire your courage to share your story with us in such detail. I know that writing about CPTSD-related experiences can be triggering for us. I'm glad you're here!

Sounds like you are hugely motivated and disciplined, reading good books too.  I recognise a few of those. I'm reading an Internal Family Systems book at the moment, which is very eye-opening and useful. I agree with Jdog about Pete Walker.

Wishing you luck with your novel. Maybe the storyline can be developed to become a pleasant form of escapism? I hope so. Sounds like you have a talent there.
There's a Writers Lounge page in the Community Corner/CreativeExpressions that might interest you. Look forward to seeing more of your posts.

Thank you so much for that! I hope very much that as I heal the writing will become more healing too and less of black hole! I've always written; it's been my only talent in life, so I'll be damned before giving it up.   

I'll definitely be checking out the books you all have mentioned. Thanks!!

  Hello.

I'm here to connect with others who are deep in the fog too.

I grew up in the bible belt as an outcast who didn't go to church. I lived between two homes of two addicts and alcoholics who were each emotionally abusive, narcissistic, and neglectful in their own ways.  I was a child parent, who was diagnosed with ADHD and struggled with depression and prescribed medications but was never taken to a therapist. My sister and I supported each other growing up, only a year apart; however, she graduated and moved across the country before I finished college. My friends all moved their separate ways too. Later as an adult after I graduated college, married, and moved to a new city away from it all, I was still suffering from severe difficulties managing normal life.  Despite accomplishing things I never believed I would, having a great husband and job, I didn't feel real. I felt like I was a computer. I felt guilty for being alive. I felt like everything I'd built would certainly fall apart on top of me  . I still had irrational emotional flashbacks, dissociation, distinct states of mind, and trust problems that weren't based in the present. Somatic symptoms were even worse and made me think I was either suffering from tons of food allergies or else dying of undetectable autoimmune illnesses. My final year in school when I was still at home, I started having brain fog, arthritis/inflammation symptoms, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, skin problems, and more . They blew up even worse over the past two years. I went to several doctors until recently one just finally said, "Stress can really mess up the gut, so all of this is probably a product of the nervous system. Will you consider going to a psychologist?"

I went and was soon diagnosed with C-PTSD.

I'm currently trying to write a novel, but being left alone in my head has proven to be a very scary thing.

As we established earlier, I don't feel like a person, and I've realized that it has something to do with why I can't connect to others anymore / vice versa.

I've met with other writers, started volunteering, attend a meditation class too. But I'm not feeling any more competent, capable, or stable no matter what I try.

I read extensively, trying to find the one thing that will snap me into reality:
The Power of Now - Tolle
A New Earth - Tolle
The Gifts of Imperfections - Brene Brown
Self-Compassion - Kristin Neff
The Body Keeps the Score
The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety
The Autoimmune Solution

I'm currently working through one about Internal Family Systems and another about the Survival/Attachment styles........

I recently also got a puppy and I think somehow having her to think about and take care of has helped get me out of my head. But it hasn't helped me feel more "myself".

Another problem is politics. I can't connect with  most people from my past because politics is a very sensitive subject to me, and yet, we're in the most politically charged times I've ever lived through. Half the people I know constantly call to attention the things that trigger every fear I have; the other half represent them. It's tough, because some of them were some of the only stable connections I had growing up, but now I feel they've sided with the abusers. I can't seem to perceive it differently.

I've tried mindfulness and even CBT. But being that my nervous system is the deciding factor instead of rationality, I honestly just feel like I wish I didn't live in this world. 

And yet, I do crave life....

Nice to meet all of you. Hope you're all treating yourselves well today.