Learning I have CPTSD and Trauma-Related Dissociation

[feyre24]

I'm nervously posting this because I feel ready to start sharing my story with others and join an online community of support.

I was recently diagnosed with CPTSD as well as trauma-related dissociation. I realized a year ago that I had suffered long-term CSA from a relative from my pre-teen years into my mid 20s. I began to realize this after a series of unhealthy relationships in which my partners reminded me of my abuser. I recently reported the CSA to the authorities but don't yet know how I am going to move forward with pressing charges.

Recently, memories of other abuse is coming back to me. There's fragments of episodes of the CSA that I forgot about. There are emotional flashbacks that feel like I want someone to hit me and scream at me about how I ruin everything. There's a fragmented memory of me being assaulted on the college campus where I did my undergrad.

My therapist and I talked about the possibility that I suffered additional CSA from the age of 5 years old. Sometimes I dissociate into 5-year-old me, including one night I spent in the behavioral health unit at the hospital because of the stress of remembering the fragmented memory of being assaulted in college.

My panic attacks and emotional flashbacks are frequent and exhausting. It has made it difficult to complete day to day tasks related to the PhD program I am enrolled in. It makes it extremely difficult to set boundaries with people. If someone wants me to do something, I go into submission mode and give them what they want. This has also created challenges in my relationships with friends and my live-in partner who don't understand what I'm going through. Luckily they have all been very supportive and loving.

I'm hoping that beginning recovery means that I will start finding help and being able to start to heal from the underlying chronic trauma. I think I am finally ready to heal now that I have a support system and a loving FOC and I am distancing myself from my FOO. My mom is still very much a part of my life and that has brought me comfort.

It's important to me that I note that I am Latinx and I believe that there is a cyclical pattern of abuse in my FOO in which the youngest female in the family is the victim of CSA. A second pattern is the individuals in the family taking advantage of the financial security and well-being of the youngest female (asking to borrow money, emotional blackmail, isolation, etc.).

I hope that I can finish my PhD and support Latinx students in the future. I hope I can overcome the voice in my head that wants me to give up and submit. I hope I can pass my comps exam this summer. I am very fortunate that my PhD advisor agreed to give me a month's extension on both my exam as well as my first-year paper (both of which I have to pass to continue in the program).

I hope to hear from other members and I hope to be here to give support to others. The therapist in the hospital told me something  that really inspired me, and trust me, therapists say a lot of "inspiring" things that don't get through to me. He said that people recover from this and that I deserve the experience of healing. I hope that I can allow myself the healing I deserve.

[woodsgnome]

I felt your heart as you chose to tell a bit of your trauma. Relief is such a relative term, but I hope you at least found it helpful to risk sharing your story with people here who are traveling the same road.

Dissociation is indeed a hazard, but it's also natural and not a sign of weakness by any means. You seem to be aware of this, which may help you avoid its interfering with your PhD program. I had trouble noticing it for a while, but have been doing better at sensing when I'm retreating from an emotional flashback and/or trigger event.

Living with these memories is difficult, but there are many folks here who share the struggle, with all its stress, loneliness, and despair. It sounds like you've had some useful support from your therapist so I hope that bodes well for your continued efforts to maintain some equilibrium with all this. It might be difficult balancing this in your PhD program, but it seems like you're on track so far to enable you to work around the cptsd.

The key is to continue doing these good things for yourself, in my opinion. It's hard, but so good to see you're aware of the drawbacks but also the advantages of learning how to live as best you can despite what's happened.

[sanmagic7]

hey, feyre,

thanks for sharing, for taking the chance at posting.  very brave of you.

i agree, you do deserve to heal.  it's something we're all looking for here, a life goal, if you will.

it sounds like you have a nice support system in place, which is always helpful.  i'm glad you chose to join us - i've found this place to be a life-saver and game-changer.  wonderfully supportive, caring, kind, and generous people.  they've helped me a lot with my own healing.

keep taking care of you as best you can, ok?  we're here for you.  sending love and a gentle hug if you like.

[Andyman73]

Welcome Feyre...I am so so so sorry you been hurt like this. I know....my past is full of that stuff too. I'd like to say that I'm coping but I'm not. My memories only started coming back January of last year.  All I can do...to even stay alive, is to hide all that stuff away...and only take tiny little peeks at it from time to time. It looks like one of those animated closets where if you open the door, more stuff falls out than actually fits into the entire house!  just like that.

I am so sorry you got hints and feelings and hunches of early childhood traumas.... I know that one all too well....and dissociating....yeah..that too. We .... we just be here. San and others are so so wonderful to us. Be wonderful to you too.

If okay give  ?

[feyre24]

My apologies for the insanely belated reply. I am having a difficult night and found myself back on this amazing forum. Thanks for the support, everyone.
@woodsgnome Thanks for your kind words. I definitely need to share my story more than ever. I feel I need to be heard and I need to hear others' stories. I really like my therapist and I feel like she's saving my life. She is really amazing at treating trauma. As for PHD, I am on medical leave, and I don't know if I'll be going back. It's an incredibly stressful lifestyle that I don't feel I have the energy for. Doing good things for myself can be really hard. I think I've made a lot of progress 😊
@sanmagic7 Thank you! 😊 I am really lucky to have this support system. Been trying to take much better care of myself nowadays. Hoping I can keep it up especially since I am distraught about possibly leaving my PhD.
@Andyman73 Thank you for your kind words. I am so sorry to hear about your pain and the memories you are getting back. It is not easy to say the least. I am having a difficult night and I know what you mean by taking little peeks from time to time. I think tonight I looked at it too closely and now I can't sleep.
If it's okay, I'd like to ask a question. It can be rhetorical if you'd like. How do you deal with the memories coming back and feeling like maybe you are making it up but deep down you know you're not?

[sanmagic7]

glad to have you back, feyre, altho sorry you're having a bad night cuz of peeking a little too much.  that's happened to me as well, and it's no fun.  i'm happy for you that you can turn to this place, even if it's been a long time away.  i do hope that eventually you'll be able to start putting some of those memories down here, get them out of you.  i know that's helped me a lot in the past - and present, for that matter.

wishing you all the best, restful sleep, and sending love and 

[Three Roses]

Feyre asked -

If it's okay, I'd like to ask a question. It can be rhetorical if you'd like. How do you deal with the memories coming back and feeling like maybe you are making it up but deep down you know you're not?

I'm just wondering here, but something that's been helpful to me has been telling my story here on the forum. There is something about putting things down in black and white that is affirming and validating, and something about hearing from those who've read it and are supportive.

Another thing that's helped me in the past when feelings won't go away is to just sit and feel them instead of trying to avoid them. Also, the steps on Pete Walker's site on emotional flashbacks are helpful.

Best of luck to you!

(I've copied the steps from Walker's site below. Sorry for the bold print, I couldn't get rid of it.) 

MANAGING FLASHBACKS
1. Say to yourself: "I am having a flashback". Flashbacks take us into a timeless part of the psyche that feels as helpless, hopeless and surrounded by danger as we were in childhood. The feelings and sensations you are experiencing are past memories that cannot hurt you now.

2. Remind yourself: "I feel afraid but I am not in danger! I am safe now, here in the present." Remember you are now in the safety of the present, far from the danger of the past.

3. Own your right/need to have boundaries. Remind yourself that you do not have to allow anyone to mistreat you; you are free to leave dangerous situations and protest unfair behavior.

4. Speak reassuringly to the Inner Child. The child needs to know that you love her unconditionally- that she can come to you for comfort and protection when she feels lost and scared.

5. Deconstruct eternity thinking: in childhood, fear and abandonment felt endless - a safer future was unimaginable. Remember the flashback will pass as it has many times before.

6. Remind yourself that you are in an adult body with allies, skills and resources to protect you that you never had as a child. (Feeling small and little is a sure sign of a flashback.)

7. Ease back into your body. Fear launches us into 'heady' worrying, or numbing and spacing out.
  [a] Gently ask your body to Relax: feel each of your major muscle groups and softly encourage them to relax. (Tightened musculature sends unnecessary danger signals to the brain)
  Breathe deeply and slowly. (Holding the breath also signals danger).
  [c] Slow down: rushing presses the psyche's panic button.
  [d] Find a safe place to unwind and soothe yourself: wrap yourself in a blanket, hold a stuffed animal, lie down in a closet or a bath, take a nap.
  [e] Feel the fear in your body without reacting to it. Fear is just an energy in your body that cannot hurt you if you do not run from it or react self-destructively to it.

8. Resist the Inner Critic's Drasticizing and Catastrophizing:
  [a] Use thought-stopping to halt its endless exaggeration of danger and constant planning to control the uncontrollable. Refuse to shame, hate or abandon yourself. Channel the anger of self-attack into saying NO to unfair self-criticism.
  Use thought-substitution to replace negative thinking with a memorized list of your qualities and accomplishments
9. Allow yourself to grieve. Flashbacks are opportunities to release old, unexpressed feelings of fear, hurt, and abandonment, and to validate - and then soothe - the child's past experience of helplessness and hopelessness. Healthy grieving can turn our tears into self-compassion and our anger into self-protection.

10. Cultivate safe relationships and seek support. Take time alone when you need it, but don't let shame isolate you. Feeling shame doesn't mean you are shameful. Educate your intimates about flashbacks and ask them to help you talk and feel your way through them.

11. Learn to identify the types of triggers that lead to flashbacks. Avoid unsafe people, places, activities and triggering mental processes. Practice preventive maintenance with these steps when triggering situations are unavoidable.

12. Figure out what you are flashing back to. Flashbacks are opportunities to discover, validate and heal our wounds from past abuse and abandonment. They also point to our still unmet developmental needs and can provide motivation to get them met.

13. Be patient with a slow recovery process: it takes time in the present to become un-adrenalized, and considerable time in the future to gradually decrease the intensity, duration and frequency of flashbacks. Real recovery is a gradually progressive process (often two steps forward, one step back), not an attained salvation fantasy. Don't beat yourself up for having a flashback.

He has a lot more to say, here's the link...
http://pete-walker.com/flashbackManagement.htm

[woodsgnome]

Feyre24, it sounds like you've had doubts about some memories which are not explicit, but deep down you know that something 'not right' happened that hurt you. My story has been like that; some of it I remember crystal clear (while wishing I didn't) and others are vague but the surrounding evidence, and especially the 'gut' feelings, wipe out any doubts about the memories I am inflicted with.

For instance, I can vividly remember many incidents that happened at a religious  school I went to; but there was something in 3rd grade that for whatever reason I know took place but the specifics have never resurfaced. For a while, I tried to resurrect it, but honestly I'm glad I haven't ... I know enough misery from what did happen around me at that time to not want to re-open the potential for deeper inner scarring. There were similar, almost daily, incidents -- some sharply remembered, others not -- that happened with one parent. I've actually come to feel grateful that the specifics escape me; it feels like my system shut out whatever it was, maybe even in a protective mode. I don't know, but I do sense and trust that gut feeling I have; and that's quite enough.

It sounds like your therapist is someone you trust, so you might want to propose the same question to her. If she's like mine, the details aren't ever the whole issue, but the results are. While the memories -- specific or vague -- can shed light on the background of the pain you feel, the project now is to stay with the healing.

So of course this is just my opinion, but based on what you mentioned, your memories are valid and indicative of why you're seeking help. I hope you'll continue to seek, and find, that help.