Is there even a cure?

[BlancaLap]

I wasn't talking about parents, caregivers, adults... I wss talking about classmates or people of your age that made you suffer...

[pit_bull]

Have you ever read or heard about an adult who had gotten cured of CPTSD?

When I read of PTSD that vets got after a tour in a warzone I often come across the "he wasn't himself afterwards".

But what exactly is "myself" if I had gotten CPTSD in through my childhood, through things that happenned ibn my formative years? My personality is a huge scar. There is no happy and healthy "myself" to get back to, because it never had a chance to develop.

I've been through a lot of therapy and sometimes it helped for a while, sometimes it made me worse (dismissive therapists).

If my life is going to be this continuous struggle that eventually spirals back to pain every time, what kind of quality life is it? Is it even worth it?

I'd like to believe that complex PTSD can be overcome and put behind us, or at least our symptoms can become manageable to the point where we can hold down jobs, apartments, take care of our families, be a part of a church, etc.

[Skier Anonymous]

Sara, this is almost a philosophycal question, to be or not to be. Finding meaning and purpose while suffering from PTSD is hard. When, in my life, everything spiralled down, the only way up for me was making art, through painting and using mixed media I found new meaning. This question you ask still pops into my head every once and a while. Disturbing? Yes. Insurmountable? No.

For me it's all about acceptance.


You nailed it Sara! Nothing can change without first being accepted, its the key to the kingdom. The truth that finished my acceptance process is that CPTSD is only a blessing, it has only helps us become the caring and capable people that we are today. Takes everyone their own amount of time to get there, but we HAVE to always be willing: Can I? Will I? I Must!"

Lingurine

[Kat]

I think we're all on different journeys toward healing--some of us choose EMDR, others CBT, etc.  Some of choose a combination of treatments.  Some of us choose self-treatment and avoid therapy and therapists.  I can only speak for my own experience and understanding of healing.  I'm certainly not "healed" and doubt I ever will be totally, but I know that I've worked hard and am a much, much, much healthier, more whole person.

I've been in long-term psychoanalysis--looking more deeply into the unconscious processes.  As I understand it, when the trauma occurs so early in life, the personality disassociates.  More accurately, it simply never "associates."  Picture pieces of a puzzle strewn across a table.  Each piece is a part of you, but none of them is linked to another.  We live as those separate pieces.  Sometimes our "scared child" piece is leading the show.  Other times it's the "empathetic child," or whatever.  Through therapy, I've been able to consolidate those pieces into a more whole me.  When my personality was more fragmented, if I was one piece, I could not see or acknowledge the other pieces.  I was that piece and only that piece.  So, when I was triggered and devastated by something I went straight to suicidality because there was no more to me, nothing to fall back on--all was bad.

The other part of therapy that has been helpful is practicing relationship.  Childhood-onset CPTSD is in part an attachment disorder.  Pete Walker describes CPTSD in part as a number of arrests in natural child development.  We're robbed of experiences necessary to develop the way a healthy child would.  It makes sense then that part of healing is finally getting those developmental needs met.  For me, that took a safe relationship and lots of practice.  As my therapist pointed out recently, for many years she was not even a real person to me.  Through much practice whereby I tested her over and over and she over and over proved herself to be trustworthy and safe, I began healing.

I'm not explaining this very well.  I hope you get the gist of what I'm saying.  Maybe I'll try it again later. 

[BlancaLap]

I underatand perfectly what you are trying to say, but let me disagree in one thing: I believe you CAN be cured completely, just like simple PTSD. I saw it, I can't explain it but I saw it, the end of this journey... more than saw I felt it. At least the C-PTSD generated by my school bullying. I'm sure I also have C-PTSD because of the abuse in my house, but that's another story.

[Erebor]

A lovely boyfriend and a generally peaceful life are good. And by the way, there's no point forgiving if people
don't acknowledge what they've done, apologise, and demonstrate that they'll never do it again.

I really agree with this, I spent so long forgiving, forgiving, forgiving and wondering why the pain never got better. I always felt I had a moral duty to forgive, or else I would be as bad as them - FOO used this and would emotionally/spiritually blackmail me into forgiving them by making apologies that had as much integrity, remorse and care as a rock. They never meant a word of it, and I could feel it - but they had said the words, so how could I argue that somehow the apology wasn't an apology? I think I could muster a case for it now, but certainly not then.

Pete Walker talks about the unhelpful effects that come from too-early forgiveness that is given before processing and grieving has taken place... that really helped me to feel validated and justified in not forgiving the unbelievably cruel things FOO did. I think early forgiving can sometimes be another way of fawning or avoiding the pain, a way of going into denial. It was like that for me at least.

As for whether or not there is a cure, I think as Blueberry said, there will always be problems that people without CPTSD don't experience, but that doesn't mean we can't experience a happier, healthier life. To poorly paraphrase something my one good FOO-member read recently, CPTSD isn't a sentence to a non-life, it's a valid life, just with an uneven bumpy rocky road. We can all slowly recover who we really are, and learn to thrive - not all at once, in every area at once, without any cloudy days or wind or rain, but we can get there. One step at a time, with a lot of self-compassion and acceptance - things that many of us were denied when we should have been given them by others.  We can get there. We can thrive. We just need to accept the times when we don't without crushing down on ourselves, as hard as that can be.