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I definitely think that ADHD is somehow connected to my C-PTSD. I just recently realized how many symptoms that I have of, well, ADD, not ADHD. But, I also learned that it presents differently in adults, and in women...and in looking back at my childhood, wow...BUT, it has to be connected, because the symptoms wax and wane for me and a lot of it is connected to how well I'm taking care of myself - and I feel like the more I heal emotionally, the more control I have over it? It may not ever go away, but I really do think that there's something in the wiring that gets crossed when we're young that has something to do with the damage that happens with the C-PTSD. I don't think that's the case for everyone with ADD or ADHD, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if either of them weren't significant co-symptoms of C-PTSD.

I also have obsessive traits that I'm exploring right now with a book called Too Perfect, which is about perfectionism and it's related obsessive traits.

I do the obsessive research thing too. I get "stuck" on stuff. I get super excited about stuff, and then just...lose interest. It's all related though because a lot of it is also "distracting" "numbing" "checking out" stuff. I can get lost in research for ever, because I can't stop (obsessive) because I find it fascinating (hyper focus) and because it's easier to research than to put any of the things I"m researching into practice (avoidance). Such a multifaceted problem.

I think that there's a lot of healing power in some substances, and they've been used forever in other cultures. My boyfriend and I have talked about this a lot and we think that the biggest problems started when so many of these substances (MJ, hallucinogens, etc) became divorced from the healing rituals that they were attached to. Using something like MDMA in the context of therapy would be reintroducing the "healing ritual" to the use of the substance, and would therefore give the experience a kind of direction rather than just getting lost in the "experience" of the substance.

I am fascinated by the use of Ayahuasca in other countries for this very purpose. In fact, they are using it in more clinical settings in places where it's legal to help people break addictions.

All of that being said, I have used pot in the past to self-medicate. Numbing. Definitely. Thankfully, it not being terribly addictive, and me being ever the people pleasure back then...when I started dating someone who didn't like it, I quit. It wasn't until then that I realized how much I'd been self-medicating with it.

But, I LIKE it, and used in a reasonable and responsible way, it does help me relax when nothing else will. I am ever, ever grateful that I don't seem to metabolize alchohol well because I am almost certain that if I did, I'd be an alcoholic. Much more socially acceptable, I have many more friends who go out drinking to excess, much cheaper and easier to get. I don't actually metabolize many drugs well actually.

I have used MDMA. I want to use it for therapy purposes in the future. I think current health issues have made metabolizing it a problem and it just...stopped working. The handful of times that I took it, the biggest thing that I walked away from the experience was this...

I got a glimpse of who I could be without all of the self-protection. I felt like I got a glimpse of the "real me". It does smash all the self-erected walls and boundaries. (I don't know where the line is in "advocating" a substance Kizzie, so if this is too far, feel free to edit or let me know).

Sasha - I'm an emotional eater, and my therapist has suggested that some of my addiction issues with food, could be a form of self-harm because I do it, even knowing that I'm going to be in pain later (eating stuff that I shouldn't because I have sensitivities to it) In addition to that, also...

...

and bouts of some strange other more private urges, that I tend to use to relieve tension and anxiety, nothing over the top just some self love to put it the only way I can. however I really feel the traumatic reanctment thing could have to do with a lot of this stuff? any thoughts??

Yes. Not sure exactly what you're referring to, but I am an emotional and physical masochist. I've spent a LOT of time picking that apart, connecting it to things in my past. For me, indulging in safe physical masochistic stuff is both anxiety relieving, "blowing off steam" and re-routes serious urges that I have had to hurt myself in other ways that were definitely not healthy. I've definitely wondered about the re-traumatizing thing and there has been a lot written about the healthy aspects of exploring certain things in the context of an "alternative" lifestyle or "scenes" in a BDSM context. (I'm happy to talk about any of that if anyone is interested in starting a new topic, but it can get pretty...ahem...personal.) I've used several aspects of it along my healing journey.

I wanted to post a level up from last night:

Last night was full of win.

I went to a yoga class. I kind of had to talk myself into keeping the apt. Having registered and paid for the class already was actually really beneficial with that.

At the beginning of the class, she asked us to dedicate our practice that night to someone. I dedicated it to myself. Then, she asked us to set an intention for our practice that night. My intention was to get through the class without being too hard on myself, and comparing myself to others.

It was a tough class for me. But, as we went through it, I noticed why. We were moving through the asana's too quickly for me. We did the sun salutation several times. I don't have the poses down well enough first of all, and then there's the additional component of transitioning to the next pose. I didn't feel comfortable that I was doing the poses right, or that I was getting any benefit out of them or transitioning correctly.

But, I kept up for the most part, and Ms. * Face Meany Pants stayed quiet. Which was nice.

I did still feel self-conscious, but it wasn't too bad.

Afterward, I talked to the instructor. I felt bad, the look on her face seemed sad that I didn't like her class when I asked if there was a slower one. I asked her if my issues, which I'd explained, were things that she thought could be addressed in her class and she said yes. She got kind of excited and asked me to come back next week and she'd put together a different kind of class. So, I'm going to go back.

All in all, I was pretty happy with it.
I went.
The critic stayed quiet.
I definitely got something out of it. The backs of my thighs are already sore.
I did even difficult moves for me. I stopped when I needed to.
And I talked to the teacher afterwards.

All really good steps forward for me.

*There was a time when I wouldn't have gone, even if I had paid for it in advance, I would have just eaten the $15 and stayed home watching TV.
*There was a time when I'd have been near tears by the end of the session because my critic would have been riding me so hard the entire time.
*There was a time when I no way would have even talked to the teacher afterwards, not wanting to seem like I was "complaining" about the class, too embarrassed about my inabilities to even ask for help, or if there were ways for me to adjust things. I would have just walked out, and never come back, telling myself that I'm just going to do yoga at home in the privacy of my own home, so I didn't have to be so uncomfortable...and then likely never doing it.

Badmemories - You know, I'm not even sure that learning how to speak up for myself was even really a choice for me. When I was really struggling with my dissociation (which for me, back then, was "tanking") me stuffing my feelings (once I realized I was having them) and NOT speaking up for myself was a one way ticket to tanksville, every darn time. Learning how to speak up for myself almost became more of a survival mechanism than the stuffing, if I wanted to become a healthy, emotionally function human being.

BUT, those "mistakes" are just stepping stones on the path. I used to get really hard on myself about those times, until I started learning how to analyze them and use them to my advantage. What happened, how did it happen, when did it happen, why did it happen, how can I make sure that it doesn't happen again? The more you notice those times, and the results, the better you'll get!

So, there's this thing that I'm kind of getting started on and I was wondering if anyone else would be interested in joining in.

Long story short, I have always had an absolutely terrible relationship with my body. My mother criticized my body and my weight from an early age and basically taught me how to hate my body. When I became a teenager, instead of learning to use my body for my own pleasure, I learned how to use it as a commodity for "love" and "attention". The critic in my head has been 24/7 relentless in it's emotional abuse of my body - until my body started breaking down on me because that was the only way it had to tell me that it had had enough. Enough of the constant stress and anxiety, enough of me abusing it with crappy food, enough of the 24/7 vitriol that my brain was spewing at it, enough of me not paying any kind of positive attention to it, or taking care of it.

So, I'm starting my Body Project. Much like the way that we sort of externalize our Inner Kid's in order to really figure out what they need, I am going to externalize my body. Make it separate from me, so that I can really "hear" what it's saying. Figure out what it needs. Smash the negative filters that I have in regards to my body, and start to see it for what it is. Strong. Capable. - maybe a five pound weight is heavy for me, but I can get out of bed every morning, and that's something. Maybe walking five miles isn't possible for me right now, but I can walk to my mailbox. And I can walk across a parking lot. This project is to help me start loving and taking care of my body. I have a sneaking suspicion that in doing this, my health is going to naturally improve, and my weight problems might start to improve as well.

So far, here's what I've decided to start this project.

I am going to start a notebook.

I am going to take pictures of myself, and let my boyfriend take pictures of me (which...gulp, I'm working up to) in fun poses with the express purpose of cutting my head out of the pictures, or blocking it out, so that it's JUST my body. So, I can completely externalize it, see it as some other "friend" rather than "me".

I'll glue those pics collage style, into my notebook.

I'll write to my body. Letters To My Body - telling it all the things I feel like it needs to hear.

I'll meditate on my body - I did a great meditation the other night which involved going through all my major body parts (eyes, ears, mouth, etc) and recognizing all of the really great things that all of those things are capable of.

I'll keep track of the things that I'm doing to take care of my body and work out ways to better do that. IE. I started a yoga class this week. I'll write about how that went.

I'll work out rituals to start paying more attention to my body. I found this great Ayurvedic self massage thing the other day which I'm going to start incorporating into my life.

Abhyanga - http://www.mapi.com/ayurvedic-knowledge/massage/benefits-of-an-ayurvedic-abhyanga-massage.html

It's a work in progress, but a start. I'm thinking I might not be the only one with poor body image issues.

If anyone else wants to join in, I was thinking maybe we could start a more organized thread...I'll write a better introduction to the project, and we can use it as a place to share - talk about different things we are incorporating into our individual projects, issues that we face, maybe share pages of our journals, or pictures - just...whatever, fun things we can think of!

Milarepa - you do make an excellent point although I do think that Kizzie has the right of it. To me it really seems more about the type of abuse than it does the gender. I think that the reason that the majority of the trauma PTSD cases that you see being "believed" are men, is because historically, it's been men coming back from war. I'd be really interested though to know more about how women who have specific trauma induced PTSD are being treated currently in the military.

I think the problem is that the constellation of symptoms of c-ptsd really do mimic a lot of other mental illnesses, like PD's. I think it was Rain who said in another thread that if C-PTSD were included in the DSM, most of it would become obsolete.

I recently went into a psychiatrists office to be evaluated for ADD (which I think is also a symptom of my CPTSD) instead...I got a diagnosis of BPD and an emotional breakdown - which of course, just served to strengthen her (and a second psych's) opinion of PD.

I got home and poured through the criteria for BPD with my cousin who is a psychologist who treats PTSD in vets. Her opinion? No. Not a chance. My secret opinion? Well...if you turn this tendency this way, and that tendency that way...could be...except...all of those things? Are things that are direct results of my abuse, they are not innate. They are fixable. And most importantly of all...I am fully aware of them, of how they have been impacting my life, and I have ALWAYS been looking for what's wrong and how to fix it, unlike most people with PD's who are very invested in "there's nothing wrong".

I think that statistically, more women deal with the kinds of trauma that cause c-ptsd and the sad truth is that there just aren't enough therapists who know how to tell the difference between it, and personality disorders. And, because I do know just as many men who have been in these kinds of relationships, I also know that men deal with it differently. Men are less likely to go to therapy, to even be diagnosed. I think symptoms in men present differently, sometimes more aggressively or in feelings of repressed anger - so maybe if they are going to therapy they are getting different diagnosis like bi-polar, ADD, anger issues.

I do whole heartedly believe that the fix is for EA to become something that is studied more, talked about more, and recognized in the medical field and courts. It's just horrific to me that there are so many of us out there, and so many still so sunk into these situations. I desperately want to be a therapist, but I have had to accept that there is very little that I can do (other than raising awareness) to "save" people from these situations before the damage is done...and instead, can only be there with tools and resources for afterwards, to help them put the pieces back together again.

I honestly think that's why so many people turn their heads when it comes to emotional abuse in families. There's just nothing anyone can do about it.

Kizzie - I really do think that's a lot of it. I haven't really spent as much time thinking about it, but I do know that for ages now this whole "being and adult" thing has just felt like an absolute farce to me. It's weird for me though because my adult side IS pretty competent. She can "do" the whole adult thing without anyone really being the wiser that...Ok, so anyone seen Men In Black? There was that one alien in one of them where like, the little guy was inside the big guy, steering him? That's totally what it feels like a lot of times...that my terrified little kid is inside, steering the adult. And I guess I just walk around amazed that no one ever notices...like, "What's wrong with you people?? Can't you see what an absolute fraud I am?"

And now that I have started doing some inner kid work, I kind of get it now. I'm starting to actually separate the two and see that I am an adult, and that in many ways I am capable and take comfort in that. But that there are still all these ways that my inner kid needs to be taken care of. It's all really convoluted, lol. It's hard feeling so fractured.

Bad Memories - the hygiene thing. I get it. It's hard to talk about. To be honest, I've been absolutely terrible about it. I don't take care of myself nearly the way that I should, and it's a big source of shame for me. It's one of the things that I've been looking at and for me, I think it's a couple of things...one of them is the demand resistance thing. You'd be surprised how people seem to think that they have any right to determine how often you shower, or to comment when you don't. Even when you don't need to. Both my father and one of my exes had this notion that you had to shower every. single. day. And that if you didn't, you were gross and disgusting. I don't like showering every day, I never have. So, part of it I think is kind of a rebellion against that.

The other part, the larger part, which has always been true for me I think, is this complete abandonment of my body that I've got going on. I'm going to write about that in a different post - but lets just say that my body has been in an emotionally abusive/neglectful relationship with my mind for as long as I can remember, and the ways that I take care of it/don't take care of it, definitely reflect that. It's something that I'm starting to work on with this new Body Project thing that I'm starting and I'll post about that later.

Cat - sadly, I actually have the same reaction that your mother does. My sound sensitivity is way worse when I am stressed - and for me, stress keeps happening with this recurring trifecta that I haven't quite got a handle on yet of lack of sleep, lack of food, and too much coffee. When I am well taken care of (by me) my sound sensitivity is way less prevalent. I think I will always just prefer quiet to loud though. I listen to music, all day long I listen to music. But it's MY noise. *I* have complete control over it. It's the sounds that I have no control over that immediately put me on edge.

I was SO happy that the completely random restaurant that I picked for my birthday last weekend was both tasty AND completely empty. Lol

Cat, I love what you wrote. All of those things are really important and I hadn't considered any of that before. I get so impatient with myself to just...feel this stuff, and get it over with already!

whitecat - I'm so with you on this. Anger was not a safe emotion for me to feel as a child at all. It might set my mom off and result in getting hit - but, in a wider context I think subconsciously I just decided that it was better to internalize it because what was the use? There was no way out. I think at some point, it was just easier for me to decide (with her prompting of course) that there was something wrong with me. Then, when I finally DID get to move out of her house, into my fathers, any time I tried to stand up for myself with him I was metaphorically smacked down with "Don't talk back to me!"

Anger wasn't safe for me to feel, and it wasn't safe for me to be around people who were angry - so I have lots of issues with both sides of the coin. Feeling my own anger, as well as dealing with panic reactions when I get around other angry people.

I think that Cat has some really great points. For me too though, my anger didn't really start coming in until just recently and I think there were a few things that triggered the actual FEELING. I don't know if it will be helpful to you, as it seems like your body is accessing the anger just fine, lol.

I just got tired of all of it. I had a moment where the ridiculousness of the emotional reaction that I was having over something so minor was enough for me to just...get angry. Prior to that, I'd started having these "F&ck you!" thoughts about my mom. I was just...so tired of all this hard work, feeling really resentful about all of it, and this mantra started in my head. "F&ck you! F&ck this!" Pretty strong words in my head to kind of encompass all of my frustration with all of that. Eventually, it did start to feel like anger. I remember the day that I was having that dumb reaction to the minor thing, I drove over to my boyfriends house and asked for a pipe to go beat on his punching bag with.

It felt ridiculous, but I felt better afterwards. I may actually have the opposite problem from you, which is having a harder time showing anger than actually feeling it. I got really really good at stuffing it. Sounds like you got too good too.

No great advice, just a general "me too!" I do think it will come in its own time, when you're ready.

Everything I read about the court systems and child custody cases, the people in charge do not know or understand anything about Pd's behavior. The Spouse that is driven crazy because of the other spouse often does not get the kids...Some of the PD's on a higher working life ( forgot the right word here! higher functioning level don't seem to be as crazy as they make US look!  That alone caused the kids to be sent to a crazy living situation that makes them have Cptsd.

This is exactly what happened to me. My mother abused my father until he left. He didn't have many resources to try to fight for my brother and I, and I'm still trying to work out how much he would have even wanted to...but at one point recently, he did make a comment about how hard it is to prove emotional abuse in the courts. Even if they'd brought me in to testify, a judge never would have given custody to my single father because of the bias that the courts have towards mothers. And as an adult, I've watched that same thing play out time and time again with male friends who have PD ex's - and the kids are the ones who really suffer.

Aside from benefits, I'm just really angry that more therapists don't know more about it. My therapist had never even heard of C-PTSD and she works in a family resource center. I was diagnosed with PTSD 3 times, and yet no one ever tried to address it because I didn't have "traditional" PTSD reactions and the ones that I was having were not what was significantly impacting my life. All the other C-PTSD symptoms WERE.

For those interested in a creative way to raise awareness this might be a thing you could do.

It might be easier to show an example than to explain it.

http://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=psychology&term_meta%5B%5D=psychology%7Ctyped

Pintrest is a pretty great way to get info out there. All you need is a graphic to be able to link to. The graphics get shared many, many times, and if you click on it, it takes you directly to the source. So, if someone started a blog, or found a blog, that talked about C-PTSD and then linked it to Pinterest, that would be a great way to make the information visible. All I did for the link above was type in "Psychology" in the search bar and all those really interesting sites and info-graphics came up.

To get specific though, something like this could be done:
http://thepsychmind.com/page/3

I've seen these kinds of blogs on tumblr for several different topics. This one is specifically geared towards psychology facts. One could be made for C-PTSD "facts" (I don't know how many actual "facts" there are about C_PTSD, how much research has been done) You'd want it to be really based in the information that's already out there I think.

Just some thoughts. I would love to do it, but I have too much going on right now. If I'm not mistaken though, those blogs can be set up so that more than one person can contribute ideas, so that might be a direction to go in.

The physical responses to this stuff really fascinates me. I have noticed recently that the nausea feeling in my stomach has actually moved up into my throat. I'll be reading stuff, and realize that my throat really HURTS. It's like the tight throat feeling you get when you're trying not to cry...but I don't have any other feelings of wanting to cry. Couldn't even if I wanted to. It's like it's "stuck" in my throat. I'm kind of curious about where that's going to lead and I've thought about trying to find someone who does energy work of some kind to help me work on that area.

Doing stuff with your inner kid sounds like fun. There are things that I like doing that I never really associated with my inner kid, like coloring and playing in puddles. My IK has been wanting galoshes for the longest time and we're supposed to have a rainy cold winter here. I think it's time I buy her some. 

There is so much, and it is such a long slow road. And sometimes we fall down but as long as we keep getting up, that's all that matters!

I haven't read anything about emotional abandonment. What are you reading? How does it differ from emotional neglect?

I think the "stages" thing actually might be common, at least in as much as their behavior changing - which would cause different trauma's  at different times, one of which being emotional abandonment. My mother was very different after my brother was born, then things changed when I became a teen, and again when I was an adult. There were even times when we emotionally connected while she was "happy" (mostly having to do with having a man in her life)

Thanks Kizzie!

I never really thought about it like that, but you're absolutely right. I'll bet that's why I don't go through my pictures that often. It's a really intense experience. I sat down and showed my boyfriend a box of pics one time and nearly flew through them, not really wanting to spend a whole lot of time explaining what was in them.

A family member passed recently, and the family photo albums have been pulled out several times. I've looked at them, and taken a few pics of pictures of me and my brother/parents when I was really young. That was really intense too. They don't evoke memories for me, mostly when I look at them...especially the ones where I'm older and WOULD have had memories, it's like looking at a stranger. But, the story teller in me puts together what I know from how things were when I was little and it just gets...surreal.

I'm glad you didn't throw them away.

Learning about these responses to trauma, it's been really interesting to me in that very detached....hmmm yes, fascinating! (said in my best Sherlock Holmes accent) kind of way. In my brain, it seems very formula like. There aren't a huge range of responses to these abuses and those four F's seem to sum them up nicely. If you do X to a child over and over, Y,Z, A or B is likely to be the response. It's really no surprise that I became a Fawn/Freezer.

Yes. I'm completely NC. She tries to contact me every now and then. I used to respond, that never ended well, so now my rule with her is "complete non-engagement".