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Firstly welcome, secondly, my God, you have really been through the wringer. No doubt about it. I have been here a while and I have found nothing but understanding, non-judgemental people who have gone through the same * as I, with different "inductions" into the same cptsd experience. I have felt and been safe and respected here, and I am certain that same courtesy will be extended to you. Not least because you deserve respect after coming through all of that.

I felt both relieved and furious at the same time.

Oh dear God, can I relate to that.

and with a huge smile said how she and her dad loved to watch them together. I felt the tears come immediately, but thankfully was able to hold them until I got back to my car.

And that. No matter how aware I am of my triggers for EF's (Emotional Flashbacks) we are still sometimes caught off guard, by what seems the most innoccious and innocent remarks. But we are strong and we have proof of that because we are still here! A cliche I know but cliches are cliches because they are true.

When we begin to show ourselves a fraction of the endless patience and care we have shown others then we are finally beginning to find the right track. When we realise that this condition makes us ripe for exploitation and then have sensible, natural boundaries before we find out who is genuine and who is just a psychic sponge then we are beginning to find the right track.

Wishing you a far better life that you have ever had, and now that you have found your compass, why not?! - Flooky

Hello Stella,

Welcome aboard! I was astounded when I found this place. The fact that so many shared experiences I thought to be impossible for others to go through was amazing; and the ways we have found to negotiate the ebb and flow of this condition are really extraordinary. Some may work for you better than others, and that's part of the beauty of this place. We have all been so severely critical of ourselves that I think we have no taste for judging anyone who has gone through the same hells, the same darkness. Rather there is a huge amount of mutual respect that we survived. The rest we build as we go along.

The main thing is that your compass is set and you know what's going on. I can't believe it took me over 30 years to get a diagnosis; after some misdiagnosis it has to be said. My perpetrators are dead which (and I know this may sound harsh but cptsd is a pretty raw condition) makes things a bit easier as I am useless at confrontation. Having said that I have discovered the one thing in me that can motivate me to confront stuff, injustice and unfairness.

I am, to a large degree, still hidden from my family. My close friends know I have CPTSD but the perpetrators walked on water as far as the rest of my family goes and it's not for me to damage the precious memories they have of our parents and my niece and nephews grandparents. It is such a strange situation, basically I'm the only non born again evangelical in our family, and the youngest by a huge degree, so they never saw what happened when my parents converted and the exorcisms began because they had moved out leaving just us in the family home. The excesses inflicted on me were never spoken of by them to anyone else. If I had only believed so much would have been different. So I carried it all inside and tried, and tried and tried. I even got somewhere. I ended up, much to my amazement, with a career in social work, a beautiful home, a lovely wife...but all through suppressing and resisting the growing...turmoil and darkness within me. In 2005 I could no longer hold it together, I lost it all in five weeks flat.

It took another nine years before I got diagnosed.

So yes, I was an excellent actor. But that kind of dysfunction cannot remain hidden. "There are three things which will not remain hidden, the sun, the moon and the truth" - The Buddha

In so many classical ways I'm a practical mess, my physical health is shot (fibromyalgia) and my general awareness is pretty vague but boy, am I hypervigilant. But I have learned and grown from that life implosion in 2005. It is only when everything was blown apart could I look beyond what imprisoned me; a false sense of fractured self that lay in bits. Rather than try and rebuild it I was prompted to look beyond it. A fantastic book around this time was Pema Chodron's "When Things Fall Apart" - I can't recommend it highly enough.

So welcome to the forum from me. I'm pretty much a junior member here but have found this to be an incredibly non judgemental, supportive, kind and warm space. Out of the storm, indeed. Of course, we still have to leave the harbour from time to time but we can now do so with the backing and support of those who truly know what this condition is all about. And that is so, so valuable.

So welcome dear frootles and I hope that we can all be a part of each others recovery and healing!

do the turtle

Sounds like a disco dance...

Trees, I hide a lot of the time. My curtains are permanently drawn and I have to force myself to use the phone. Oddly writing is far easier for me than talking.

Learning to feel safe is a long process. My wife tells me I have swapped awareness of my surroundings for hyper vigilance. It's as if I can only be so aware of anything, that there is a limit to how aware anyone can be and most of mine is reserved for how people - including herself - are feeling and about to act at any given moment. I'm brilliant at it. Yet fail to notice a tree down the lane has fallen over.

But we are creating a new path through the woods. There is a path through the woods called "the path we always take". It is broad and well trodden. It leads first through a smelly bog where we get wet and stinky. Then it rises into sharp and jagged rocky slopes where we trip and get bruised. Then it goes through a meadow where we are chased by wasps and stung. We burst out of the woods where we are smelly, bruised and stung.

This path has been created for us by our abusers and perpetrators and society and everything else.

But one day we stop and think..."hold on. Today I am going to create a NEW path through these woods, one that doesn't end up with me getting smelly, bruised and stung." So we get a map (Pete Walkers work is an excellent one) a flask of tea and some sandwiches and set off. We avoid the bog and the rocks and the bees but we can't avoid the undergrowth of brambles and stinging nettles! We find we have to unpeel the brambles from our clothing and skin, and trample down clumps of nettles (and get stung a few times as we do so) and whoops, we tripped over that hidden log...And so we emerge from the wood sweaty and exhausted and stung. And when we look back, instead of seeing a new path we see a darker line through the undergrowth to tell us where we have been.

The next day however, we can see that darker line and use it to guide our way. The brambles are a bit less problematic, but we avoid the nettles, in fact we stop to stomp them down more. We forget about the hidden log though and go bottom over nipple. However we *know* next time we will remember where it is and avoid that pitfall.

So we come out of the wood, look back and see that the line of darker green is more defined, and that although we are scratched and a bit bruised it isn't as bad as first time out.

The next day we remember the hidden log and step over it! However we slip and get stung...but we got back up and marked where the slippery bit of our new path is for future reference.

When we come out of the wood we can clearly see where we have been and feel pleased for remembering where the hidden log was and also that we marked out the slippery bit. And that there is no nasty smell, no rock induced bruises and no wasp stings. Things are looking up.

So each day we re-create that new path, making it wider, getting to know where the easy bits are, shoring up the slippery bits and making it much easier for ourselves. It still takes effort but we know its effort well spent.

But what happens to the old path as we create the new on?

Because of our lack of use, it starts to become overgrown; one day it will be as overgrown as our new path once was. As overgrown and as difficult to access. Our new path however becomes broader and easier to use through our use of it.

And that is what it is to inculcate a new mental pathway. A new way of being. It is (I think) a lovely and hopeful analogy. I hope it is a helpful one as well, Trees.

Firstly I am really sorry that you are going through such a challenging time keepfighting. It is so hard when we are already undermined...but when I look at this forum I realise that trauma and being undermined aren't the only games in town, thank God.

I know how increasingly difficult things are when I'm tired and find it really useful to remind myself that a lot of the feeling of difficulty is down to tiredness, not my actual capabilities when I'm not tired. It's a small thing but I hope you find the suggestion useful. Thinking of you and your H and wishing you both every happiness.

I'm glad you're all here with me. It's mind-blowing what a difference it makes, knowing I'm not alone.

Thank you Cat. I assure you the felt difference is shared!

Hello Stella h!

I have got to the point where I also live two lives inside my own head, my traumatised brain pumps out the trauma based thought and feelings and my mind, running parallel to it processes and by passes and transcends it and disproves it any old way it can. my experience is defined by the relationship one has to the other.


I have noticed that over the past couple of years I have become more reclusive. I just haven't the energy to engage with people on an everyday level any more. It sounds far more depressing than it is. I just prioritise and staying out of the way wins as it has far more appeal than trying to engage with the world in all but either most practical or political ways...things that I feel most passionate about. But even those are stymied by my fibromyalgia.

I feel pretty neutral towards a lot of thoughts that used to crease me "I f**** hate myself" "I'm a useless c****" and so forth. It's just neural pathways throwing up thoughts that have no basis in reality. My biggest trigger thoughts are towards my perpetrators...I don't want to feel angry or upset or sickened or abandoned. But they have been far more evident since diagnosis of PTSD and latterly of CPTSD. I suppose that's providing the next round of acceptance and forgiveness practice. If I may quote from my own website...

"The Greek word for forgiveness is 'apethis' which literally translates as "releasing" or "letting go". But releasing what?

Releasing the negativity, the frustration, the anger (and more) that we uselessly, and consistently, hold onto when we are hurt; because those feelings drive our unhappy and repetitive thinking, robbing us of the possibility of peace.

We are weakened by our propensity to hold onto our grievances at the times we need all the strength we can muster, because we are holding onto that which drains and weakens us. Frustration, regret, resentment...and other useless and draining emotions. In this sense, acceptance and forgiveness represent a liberation from our own personal negativity; an opportunity to let go of such damaging feelings."

Each moment of mindfulness, each recognition of the trauma as trauma and a positive healing response to it...each step we take is so meaningful. Because at these junctures we choose, and discover the power of choice rests with us. It becomes a new habit. It can take a while to embed, but our new choice does embed because it's easier when we move towards the light than blunder in the darkness.

After finding a career I absolutely loved and was good at I had to retire due to my fibromyalgia overwhelming me. I found the career by volunteering at something I thought I'd enjoy and that would be worthwhile. I met amazing people and things just naturally developed from there. You can volunteer to tidy up gardens for the elderly to helping out at soup kitchens to...well...there are so many people who need our efforts. Placing effort where people need it never really feels like a mistake. Volunteering has a certain moral cachet to it which means one is free from criticism whilst doing it, and it can open up a new chapter of ones life. Just a thought.

Absolutely, adaptation is one of life's great strengths, as long as we choose what to adapt to wisely. As Doris Lessing once wrote "The human being may be alone in all the life forms of the galaxy to be found under some corrugated iron, in a bombed out city, frying a rat and thinking "well, this isn't so bad after all..."

Trite advice is a big turn off for me. It is intellectually lazy on the part of the giver for a start as they are often repeating something rather than thinking about how it really applies in their lives, let alone the lives of others. In worst case scenario's they may even just be trying to make life easier for themselves by fobbing others off with pseudo-wisdom from a motivational poster they happened to come across on Facebook the previous day.

Well, that's my outer critic up and running.

Even the term "Fake it" has no real place in a dialogue that is supposed to contain some wisdom. Yeah, like being artificial is a really, really wise thing to do.

Better to concentrate on the sincerity of one's heart and learn to respect it. That at least has some authenticity to it!

I think for non-traumatised people "fake it til you make it" can be good enough advice...but to a person whose need to somehow fit in, to make it work because we are hiding and frantically paddling under the surface is acute then it can feel more like a life or death strategy. Sometimes I think CPTSD is just like the average human condition ramped up to an insane degree. Everyone hurts but if you are CPTSD Jeezy Creezy does it hurt SO much more! We all have moments of self doubt but if you are CPTSD it feels like the bottom has fallen out of your very being...So coping strategies attain such an importance that we forget they are just coping strategies, not actual principles we can live full, productive lives with.

Unlearning stuff is hard but at least it's easier when it so manifestly fails in it's main mission.

But then do we really feel we have 'made it' until a degree of self-acceptance and healing has taken place? Without that foundation there can be a lot of window dressing...but just being here, discussing stuff amidst people who have and are living this stuff marks, at the very least, a solid start in that direction.

You have a good heart, voiceless :-) and that is more important than any trite advice or results thereof :-) As far as I'm concerned you have most certainly made it.

Good to know you are in a space where you can progress! Thanks for letting us know how you are getting on :-)

I wish my father had lived long enough for my recovery. I wouldn't ever have seen him again but I deserved a right of reply after over three decades of one way traffic. Ah well.

One thing (not the only thing) that helped was this forum. Again and again, people talk about their family's or partner's or friends' abusive behaviour. And that one simple thing helped - MENTIONING the elephant in the room, calling a spade a spade, saying it as it is, no whitewashing, no excuses, just clarity. 

Totally. Even understanding the behaviour of perpetrators doesn't excuse it. In a strange way not being crystal clear about the damage done by whom kept unhealthy conditions in place. Yes, I understand why my parents and brother acted as they did. Yes, I do feel compassion for them. No, I don't think my anger is unjustified or an unnecessary part of my recovery. Compassion and empathy isn't about becoming or staying a doormat.

I read, earlier on today, a quote by Einstein. "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

Ace reasoning and ace approach, frootles.

It is perfectly possible to have compassion towards those who have made their own beds and are forced by circumstance to lay in them. Compassion is "omni directional" - if we have compassion for others we must also have it for ourselves otherwise it isn't compassion, just sympathy. And sympathy is a very poor second. "Sympathy requires a hierarchy, compassion is a deal between equals" runs the maxim.

Compassion means we take care of ourselves so we are in a position to help when we can. Compassion recognises potential wasted effort and stops us, as it would deplete our usefulness to ourselves and, therefore, to others. So compassion encourages us to be healthy and together for the sake of as many people as possible. I have a little saying - "it's wonderful when I can help and it's wonderful when I can't". Because to deplete myself on situations I can't affect or would deplete me if I tried would be to drain me of energy and resources that can be best used elsewhere.

I'm told that I'm a kind sort so I don't think this is a recipe for selfishness; compassion, in this sense, is enlightened self-interest.