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Im trying to find a way I can chill out when I start feeling angry or triggered, I think I have been in flashbacks for a couple of months even though I kept trying not to think about my foo etc and get on with my life and stay positive, but I had two outbursts during this time like maybe it was building up?, the last one yesterday I shattered the window with my hand, just didnt even see it coming, wasn't even trying to stop or breathe or get out of the situation, how can I think straight when Im angry? or catch myself before i get too triggered?thats my question. I don't want to do anything like this ever again.

How can I move to a safe place when Im angry, how can I think about it while I'm triggered and step back, I always plan to do this when Im angry but I think maybe I was in a flashback but I smashed a window with my hand yesterday and i never want to do anything like that ever again.

I was talking to my T and I told her about how when my mother beat me too long I would somehow go limp and go into a different place and I wouldn't feel pain. She asked if that is how I respond to different situations in my mind now too. Without actually collapsing physically anymore, I hadn't thought about it before but then I realised I block things out and go to a different place in my mind to stop the pain, if I try to sit with the pain like I have been able to do at times right now if I try it I am like a stuck record just full of confusion and I can't make sense of anything. Anyone else experience this? I'm just wondering how long it will last.

I found out in Pete Walker's book that it was called the collapse response.

I love this song and Lenka,
These songs help me and also the songs I write.

Here's the link for one of Lenka's songs.

http://youtu.be/elsh3J5lJ6g

Anyone else got music and songs that help them?

I keep leaving pans to burn on the stove, I start making lunch or breakfast and then one of my children call me, they need help with something and I only remember I had something cooking when I smell it. Am I just absent minded? It's happening every few days since I got the facial tic. So I think it's somehow stress related?

My husband was the first person to show me that my mother wasn't your average mother. He was appalled when it was he day before our wedding and she scratched me on my arm and made me bleed. Then he hasn't got over when she texted him when I ate an apple at my parents house while I was pregnant and she told him tell "my name" to get her own fruit and don't bludge off us. ( I used to be the "mother" from age 14 to 22 as she was never home. Plus I had to pay board. There are many horrendous stories I could say that she did to me but I'll stick to the light stuff as I read that trigger alert thing so I won't go into details about anything. All I'll say is that when she was home any little thing could set her off, finding one of my hairs on the bench for example, or if she was angry at my father, first he'd gets beating so I'd take the younger children with me and lock us in the bathroom so they won't see it even though we could hear it, then she'd come storming to the bathroom door and a couple of times she made her voice soft and told me open the door I promise I won't hurt you so I open the door and she was lying to get me to open the door so she can hurt me. So now I'm confused because she sent an email because for the sake of my father I sent a photo of our children to them last week and she thanked "my children" for the photo and sent a photo of her and my sister and her children and a child my mother is looking after in the weekends she has cerebral palsy and I had a dream that she sat that child down roughly one day when she was angry and is dreamt I was there and tried to call the police but they had disconnected the phone and my mother dug her nails into my arm. I know that part is just a dream but I am so confused she is all nice and mellow now and changed and apparently is sad about my and her relationship ( according to my brothers) just feel pretty * about it all and I am angry that she can show herself to be such a wonderful person in public and even be allowed to look after a child after everything she has done. But then none of us are perfect and maybe in her older age (60) she is mellowing out.  ( not that 60 is v. Old)

We have two guys living with us, we are helping them out, one is a very longstanding friend who was adopted at two yrs old in NZ from Thailand ( he was found in a box on police doorstep when born) and one is an Afghani refugee who saw many cousins and family members etc killed in front of him by Sunni Muslims. Thankfully his parents are fine and well living in Pakistan ( where my husband is from, although my dh is not Muslim this guy is. I have been thinking about him as he definitely has CPTSD flight type and drinks quite a lot and is a workaholic too.
I really love having these guys around and feel they are a blessing from G-d as the children really love them and they are like uncles as my bros or sisters and dh bros or sisters don't visit. They are also very relaxed and love the children a lot. I thought this morning how pathetic I am trying to fix my problems when they and dh have so much worse things to try and get over, then I realised each of them have supportive parents who ring up and encourage them or they ring their parents who actually support them with their words. This made me see how much us humans can get through if only we have supportive parents. I am wondering if having anyone supportive helps just as much, I know when my T started supporting me and my dh when he supports me it helped a lot, but my T is working on that we can be at peace and happy with ourselves no matter who is there for us or not. But there is always the isolation feeling that I am not a part of my immediate family, my brother has been to visit (fly from Aussie to NZ already 4-5 times this year) and he lives 5 hrs drive from me and I haven't seen him once. Although he said he's coming for my b'day..... But then my younger bro said he's coming and then he didn't come. But he has come once so maybe I shouldn't compare. But my T said siblings should be closer to each other than parents.

Lots of times I quit relationships, jobs because I wanted to get away from certain people that made me afraid. Something you said Kizzie that those people triggered you and made you have flashbacks. Now I realise that's what was happening. I have done this recently with a lady about my mother's age from the church, all she wanted to do was come every Friday and read cs Lewis book chapters to my children to help me out. But when my daughter got up to get a drink of water while she was reading she said something like " don't get up again" and I freaked out and told her that we won't do the story reading but she can come to my daughter's birthday ( because I knew my husband would be home)
Now she doesn't come anymore, which I am relieved about but also confused because I know she meant well.

Is this anything to do with having CPTSD?
Because I noticed I first started regressing when I lost a baby at 4 mths gestation. He came out at home and I held him in my hand he was already dead and I haemorrhaged and needed blood transfusions and the Dr came and told me I almost didn't make it. The hospital told me I needed 3 mths complete bed rest because of the blood transfusions. My mother rang the hospital during that time and told me that she was coming to Australia to help me, I hadn't asked her she just "amazingly" offered the hospital asked me if I needed them to organise home help for me and I said "no my mother is coming"
Anyway a week later at home she rings me and tells me she's been invited to her cousin in Australia in a different state and her flight being paid for so she can't come anymore.
So I had no home help looking after 3 young children, my husband tried to help more but he works full time and he stressed a lot of the time during those months as I was too.
During that time I regressed. ie. I tried to escape from the real world, also was very suicidal but hadn't made a proper plan at that stage Is this part of CPTSD?
I was also self harming scratching my arms with objects over and over until I felt better.
I have stopped that now thanks to my now therapist, I rang her once about that and she said you are inflicting more pain on pain even though you think it's taking away your pain, you are adding to it.
She said why not " sit with the pain, feel it,  as pain can be your greatest teacher" after that every time something happened where I felt like self harming I would sit with it and start writing and then I started playing piano and songs came out ( I learnt piano from age 4-5) so I was astonished I could play. So now on soundcloud I have about 30 songs ( I've written more) all from times of pain and they are very healing to me and to others.

For me the hardest part to recovering is that I am very isolated in this discovery. I have one brother who lives 5 hrs away and he believes me that I am stressed because I told him I have a facial tic.
I have many symptoms and feel like staying in bed all day everyday for weeks and months without getting up for anything but I force myself to not think about how I feel. I have 4 children who need me and the last thing I want for them is to become a basket case like my mother was and spend months away getting therapy. ( she got the wrong therapy, as she is NPD and never showed anyone her true feelings and actions, just got therapists to back her up against us for even more control on me)
My husband is telling me to stop believing I have cptsd and it will go away.
Well I wonder all the years I was depressed and suicidal and angry and I didn't know I had this but I still had the symptoms.
He pushes me almost every day to use the money I'm using for therapy to buy new clothes or buy a coffee table for the house, anything and everything except for what I feel I need.
I already doubt myself in everything and this makes me doubt myself to the point I feel like giving up.
I am starting to want to tell people what I have been diagnosed with but I fear mockery and that I'm just feeling sorry for myself and I need to get over it. Which I do need to get over it.
He tells me to stop writing on here so much.
The only time he doesn't complain about something I'm doing is during ( you know what) and when I'm cleaning up the house, the rest of the time I feel his disapproving glances, and listen to his disapproving talk, but I'm exaggerating, a lot of the time he doesn't say anything and we talk about stuff that he is interested in. And also stuff I'm interested in except this topic.
He talks to people a lot but he has never told them what I'm going through and this makes me feel isolated, I can't bring myself to talk about it to anyone.

I always thought my family was like every other family.
I thought my life was normal, all mothers did this stuff, all mothers smiled outside the house and beat you and shouted inside the house.
Why I had to cook and clean and look after my younger siblings? That was simply because I was the oldest daughter and who else would do it if my mother was gone for months on end.
Why did she wake me in the middle of the night and pull the covers off and drag me out of bed to clean up some mess outside? Not sure, something I had to forgive her for. Why did I spend most of my time trying to figure out where to run away to, or hiding in my cupboard as a teenager? Not sure, but really needed to try and disappear for as long as possible so I could try and think and stay away from HER anger, try to keep myself safe from her stabbing me again maybe or threatening to kill me with an axe again.
But I had to stay, my youngest brother needed me and I had to take him with me into the bathroom and lock the door, so he wouldn't see her beating my father and keep him from being there if I was next, which I usually was.
Thought I was unscathed when I left home, just wondered why for about 10 yrs I couldn't open my mouth and speak to people outside of the house.
Wondered why I always had a foreboding feeling and thought about death and suicide all the time, and up until recently after many more things happened in my life with my mother adding more pain to pain I finally made a proper suicide plan, that's when I felt so sad and chilled by what would happen to my husband and 4 gorgeous children that I decided I needed to talk to someone.
Luckily I have found a good Therapist or mentor who is helping me, she is very insightful and I thank G-d he brought her into my life. I currently haven't been back to my family of origin for almost 9 yrs.
I am also grateful for this type of forum as it helps me to make sense of things.