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Has anyone here had effective treatment? If so, what has really been helpful to move you forward?

I have been on anti-depressants in the past. When things got really bad and I pretty much had a break down, I was prescribed Ativan. This was a long time ago. These days I am not in the depths of depression, but I do experience a lot of anxiety. The anxiety is always because of a trigger. This makes me think my anxiety is really a flashback. When I come out of it, I can feel grounded and am able to enjoy the good parts of my life.

I am constantly being triggered and I have not been able to get a grip on this. I have not needed an anti-depressant for a number of years now, something I have been happy with. I don't experience panic attacks, I had those for a brief period years ago, so I know what those are like and that's not what's happening. But, I am starting to wonder if I need to consider medication for the anxiety when triggered. It really is affecting my life. I cannot self-soothe.

I don't really want to be taking any kind of medication, but I don't know what to do instead. Recommendations for breathing, meditation, mindfulness don't help. I can't do those things. I also can't do exercise. I can't. There's a part of me that flat out refuses to do any of these things.

Any thoughts on this? Are people taking medication to help manage anxiety that is the result of being triggered?

I really struggle to help myself calm down when I get triggered. Any advice on what I can do? I can't seem to apply breathing, my mind just keeps going in circles about the thing that's distressing me and I can't stop. What helps is to talk to someone about what's happening for me but that's not ideal because more often than not, I don't have a person available to me. I need to be able to help myself but I don't know how.

I'm at a point where I really am in need of friends. I am socially very isolated and it's really hard. I don't really know how to go about changing this, especially given the pandemic now. Has anyone managed to build a supportive group of friends, and if so, how did you do it? One thing I really struggle with is the feeling so different from others (being from a somewhat different culture factors into this as well). I just feel too different and can't imagine anyone ever really understanding me.

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this post.

I'm really struggling. I had my session yesterday and I kept throwing up roadblocks. Then our time was up and I felt such anger that nothing was any different. What it really comes down to is that a huge part of me wants to keep things as they are. Presumably because it's known and familiar, and therefore "safe". But I feel horrible. I can't keep living the way I do. I can't keep feeling the way I do. Since the session I've been having a lot of thoughts of not wanting to live (just thoughts, nothing more). I can't keep feeling this way. I don't know what to do. I want rid of all the horrible feelings, but there's a huge block to do anything about them. I'm trying to do IFS but this massive part of me keeps saying no and won't step back enough for me to have a sense of Self.

I woke up again feeling sick and anxious. I can't keep doing this, it's horrible.

I'm struggling with this again today.

What does treatment need to look like for CPTSD?
What has been shown to be truly effective? Has anything been shown to be effective?
Has anyone really recovered from this?
Are therapists just taking their best guess when they try to help us?
What to do when the resources don't seem to be available?
How do I even know what the resources need to be?
Does the expertise even exist?

Or is all of this just a big merry go round?

I feel like I have been losing extra hair for the past 10+ years now. I put my fingers through my hair and there's always a few hairs that come out. Is this normal aging (I'm in my mid-forties) or is this stress?

Also, I have also had ringing in my ears for as far back as I can remember. Does anyone else suffer from this, and could it be trauma related? Could it improve if I manage to heal?

I'm feeling pretty low today. During my session today it became so very clear how resistant part of me is to moving forward. There is massive resistance and it feels like I accomplished nothing in the session. Part of me is so very angry at me trying to move forward. I felt such anger! Overcoming this resistance feels futile. I hate myself. I have been stuck for so long and it's been nothing but an uphill battle to make progress. I don't like how I feel at all. I don't like being at odds with myself. It feels like a war zone inside me, part of me so badly wanting to heal, another part not having it. I don't want to waste more time, I've already lost so much time to this stuckness.

Hi everyone, I hope someone might be able to give me some insight and help me with this, it's something I've not really been able to resolve for several years now. Waking up in the mornings and realizing it's a new day feels unsafe to me. The moment I wake up and realize it's morning I suddenly have anxiety. My body just tenses up and I am on guard. I don't feel relaxed and I just feel on edge. It takes me a while to ease into the day and to start to feel safe and get grounded. I can wake up in the middle of the night and be fine, I can sleep in the day and wake up and be fine. It's mornings in particular. Any idea what might be going on here and what I could do? I really would love to be able to have a good night's sleep and wake up rested and relaxed. Most of my nights these days are fairly decent sleep wise. The mornings that I have nightmares I wake up with the anxiety worse. I do tend to still go to bed later than I should, resulting in not quite enough hours of sleep. I tried IFS this morning and tried to check in with different parts of me, but it's like they didn't know I was there. I couldn't connect with myself. I'm still somewhat in that state. It was a bit harder to do too because I felt really groggy. It's like none of my system is online yet when I wake up and by default my guard goes up.

This is the third day in a row that I have woken up from a nightmare surrounding my mother's death.  Her death was very sudden and happened really fast. The cleaning out of her home and the sale of the home happened on far too fast a timeline that I had no control over. I feel traumatized by all of this, that things couldn't go at my pace. Had I been able to manage things, her home would not be sold for another year, and I'd have the time to think through what to do with her things. The nightmares are about being back in that situation, being rushed, having no time, having to make snap decisions, and she's not there. I can't find her anywhere, I am trying to find her but she's gone. I can't wake up and tell myself I am safe now, that it was just a bad dream. The situation in the nightmares is the situation when I wake up. This horrible thing happened and I can't change it. The awful feelings that go with the nightmare are real and I don't know how to work through them. Everything still feels so fresh. I can't tell myself it's in the past now because it isn't really, this is my reality right now. I don't know what to do.

Does anyone else have fairly good physical health but at random times have a random, sharp pain in a random location in your body? I will have this happen from time to time, and months can go by without anything happening. Then, out of nowhere, not linked to anything, I'll have a pain that lasts for a couple of minutes, eases off, and disappears. I have always found this very odd, because there is no pattern I can discern, and nothing I can seemingly link it to.

I've done a lot of work on trying to heal, but one thing I haven't done, is working at trying to take the next step. The next step is terrifying, and I just realized this week that I have been avoiding this step without realizing it. I still have my walls up and my guard is up. I can't let people in. I realize I have been keeping my partner out without meaning to. There are times I feel quite close and connected to him, but.. there are still some walls. They are my safety and protection. This served me well through the years, it kept me safe, but now it's hurting me and hurting him. I think the time is here to work on bringing down those walls. I know it's necessary. It's not healthy to still have them in place - I will continue to live in isolation and feeling so separate and different from others, the pain that comes with that will remain, and it will ultimately push my partner away. I am petrified of connection. I am petrified of opening up. I am petrified of allowing myself to be seen by others, to become real, to stop being invisible. It is terrifying and I am scared. I'm not sure how to go about this when not all of me is feeling safe, even though I know that this is where I need to go next. Any thoughts or input around this would be welcome.

I'm flooded with fear right now, petrified of being abandoned. Trying to calm but it's really really hard.

I am quite nervous to start this journal, but part of me is really drawn to do so. I feel a bit scared to, as if I haven't been here long enough to be allowed. I only just joined in the past week, so who am I to deserve to write about my experience and ask people to listen to me?

I don't quite know how I found this forum, but it was out of desperation that I tried to find a forum for people with complex trauma. When I first found this place, I still felt very disconnected, and like it probably wouldn't help much either, nothing else had. But I started reading, and.. it feels like coming home. I belong here. I have never felt like I belonged anywhere, but I belong here and I'm not alone anymore.

I have been so frustrated in the past because past therapists, helplines and online articles I'd find would always suggest grounding techniques for dealing with what I now think were emotional flashbacks. It would upset me because all that was doing was dismissing my distress. It was just another way to get rid of something unpleasant that no one wanted to deal with. It increased the pain, that no one was there for me, that I was expected to just solve it on my own - exactly the message I got from my parents every time I was upset. I refused to apply those techniques. I refused to work on practicing breathing as a means to calm myself down. I suffered through the agony of the flashback and the rage and hopelessness that nothing would ever work. I raged against the idea that only I could help myself. I couldn't - I didn't know how, and no therapist I talked to seemed to get that. I kept telling them, I do not know how to do this. I don't think they could grasp that, as it was likely so different from their own experience. I felt unheard and unseen and left to deal on my own.

I have spent a lot of time distracting by researching trauma online, and found myself drawn to anything to do with parts. It resonated with me. It scared me at first, but kept reading about it. I came across Internal Family Systems maybe 5 years ago, but it was one of many therapy approaches and too "new" for it to be available to me where I live. I muddled on, found Pete Walker's website, but found his style of writing too hard to read. I couldn't really follow a lot of what he was saying. Some of it seemed interesting, but not applicable. I have gone back to him this week, decided to not let the more difficult writing get in the way. More of makes sense to me now, and also, after reading on this site the 3 additional symptoms of complex PTSD, I feel like this fits for me.

There is more I'd like to say but I think I'll leave it at this for now.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this. I am in an EF right now. It's been worse lately. I am learning to try to use my breath so I have calmed somewhat, but still there. There is a part of me that is just petrified, I can just feel it under the surface. I woke up this morning and from one moment to the next I felt terror. I can't quite completely calm things down and I'm scared. I started with a new therapist and am fighting the urge to contact him as I don't know if it is ok. I'm scared of feeling this way for the next two days.

When I am in a flashback, I really struggle to help myself come out of it. Eg the steps of flashback management, I don't want to do them. I just find myself in desperate need for someone else to come help me and the fact that there's no one there keeps me in unbearable pain. Has anyone else dealt with this?

I've been reading some of the threads here about people's struggles with social interactions and friendships. It all is so familiar. It drives home the point that my experience as a teenager - not really feeling part of the group, clearly not being included in conversation, clearly not being invited - is part and parcel of CPTSD. It was always painful, but to see it here In black and white, to see it as a natural consequence of the trauma in my childhood, is hard. In a way I think that kind of experience is another trauma.

I have become more isolated since then. I get along fine with people on a surface level, and seem to be well liked by people I meet for the most part. But I can't take it to the next level. I don't know how to not be too much. I am so fearful of being too much that I keep people at arm's length. The teenage experience of being part of a group but not really being included has made me withdraw more from people. I always likened it to being a kid outside a store, face pressed up against the glass watching everyone inside having a good time and being happy. Not getting to be a part of that.

I have tried to open up a bit to one or two people here and there. But inevitably something always happens that makes me retreat. The realization that other people have their own problems, which makes them unlikely to be there for me. Or red flags that pop up that make me feel unsafe. At the slightest hint of danger, I retreat.

Everyone is wounded, and those wounds feel like such a barrier. I think I am desperate for some kind of parental figure, someone who is wise and caring. Someone who gets it. Someone who can step in and help me with the problems that are overwhelming me. Instead I see nothing but limitations in people. I have spent years working on myself, trying to heal. Then when I run into people saying things like "you need to focus on the good", I get discouraged because it feels like they have so much of their own growth they need to do, and they can't meet me where I am.

I'm so desperate for friendship, love and support. I feel so terribly alone. I don't know if I am being too picky about people. It's really hard. I have two people I tried to connect with, but I think they keep people at a distance too. Then a third, she said some things that made me want to pull back. And a fourth, I just started to try and connect a little. But because I am feeling miserable I want more than just a surface level, nothing-too-personal-connection, and so I don't want to reach out and talk about "nothing" because I need someone to really see me and support me.

The pain of the isolation and being alone is too much. I'm too scared to change it. I'm too scared of being disappointed. I end up feeling hopeless and in agony.

I'm having difficulty going to sleep at night. No matter how tired I am, I feel anxiety about having to go to sleep. I end up staying up much later than I should, and don't get enough sleep. Waking up in the morning feels like the worst part of my day. It's like the reality of the past and present is inescapable. I can't seem to break this pattern. Anyone else struggle with something like this? What can I do about it?

Hello everyone, I'm new here. I grew up in a dysfunctional home. Father drank, mother tried to cope and shield us. I did not get the warmth and nurturing I needed. Both are no longer living and I am left grieving what wasn't and what should have been. I'm dealing with a lot of memories that feel like they are flooding me at times, like my life is continually flashing before my eyes. From very old, ancient memories to the most recent ones, and a sense of unreal-ness to it all. Part of me is still lost and trapped in the past and I can't rescue me. I can't stop this story from happening, I can't change it, I can't change the ending before it's all too late. I am in the midst of grieving mother whom I lost recently, and it hurts more than I can bear. I still can't believe the pain and terror I experienced from the missing emotional attunement  that is so critical to a child's development. My parents tried, but trauma was passed on to me.