Something I Want Others to Know About CPTSD is ...

Saluki · September 28, 2023, 02:41:50 AM

I just thought of something else: I pretended to be doing better than I was to my therapist because I thought I SHOULD be doing better. I was in some ways but not in others. I got stuck in everyone wants a happy ending land so I wrote my own happy ending but then I couldn't live up to it. I tried: I really really tried. But I couldn't do it. I think it's important professionals are aware a lot of us do that: pretend to be okay when we're not because it's expected of us. It's expected of a lot of us to pretend to be okay from birth. We learn to shut up because our crying gets us punished.

Bert · September 28, 2023, 08:41:32 AM

I couldn't agree more with Saluki... And not only to my therapist, but to everyone.

Moondance · September 28, 2023, 11:12:32 AM

Yes I agree as well. I believe it's very much ingrained in us to pretend we are okay when we are not.

NarcKiddo · September 28, 2023, 02:35:42 PM

I agree, too.

I want people to know that our logical brain can perfectly well understand that a situation is safe but that does not stop our emotional brain from sounding the emergency klaxon and battening down the hatches. Until our emotional brain has lived experience of safety it WILL NOT respond to reason, no matter what our logical brain does. The dissonance between the logical and emotional can be unbearable. This means that healing can sometimes feel like one step forward and ten steps back. The one step forward is when you engage your logical brain and understand in theory that, say, person X is safe. Then person X does or says something that does not feel safe due to your trauma, and emotional brain kicks in. The ten steps back feeling is when logical brain is engaged just enough that you can see your own emotional (over)reaction but cannot alter it.

Healing is not linear and a ten steps back blip does not mean that healing is not happening.

Bermuda · September 29, 2023, 07:17:25 AM

That is so so true NK.

Moondance · September 29, 2023, 01:28:48 PM

Yes so very true Bermuda and even some trauma informed people really don't get it so yes I would very much would like others to know this.

I would like for others to know that being pushy about anything at all, whether covertly or not that this pushiness is retraumatizing especially at the beginning of recovery or healing.

LilBrokenFae · July 03, 2024, 06:39:50 PM

Something I want others to know about cptsd..

I work in the medical field- surgery specifically. I'm surrounded by people who show no inkling of understanding of the complexities of trauma, much less cptsd.
I don't have a baseline personality to get back to. All the time my brain was supposed to be making me into a person was spent in a cycle of shame/survival mode. I was in ongoing trauma for 8 years, up until I was 16. I'm a person built of reactions and self-soothing. It makes it hard to get along with the lay-people. I feel things more acutely and I don't fault people for the ways they've chosen to survive.
I think it makes me a superior caregiver despite it all.

Dante · July 07, 2024, 11:55:35 AM

Oh my gosh, LilBrokenFae. This is me, to a tee. "I don't have a baseline personality to get back to." "I'm a person built of reactions and self-soothing." I can so relate to this. Thank you for writing this.

Chart · July 07, 2024, 01:16:10 PM

This is actually supported by Neuroscience. Scans of the brain indicate an absence of activity in the regions of the brain associated with the identity of 'self' in persons suffering from developmental trauma.

Sebern Fisher explaining the fundamentals of Neurofeedback treatment for Developmental Trauma (DT)
https://youtu.be/fiG3DXysqBs?si=BGe8Dtz1ZZWCSf4j

Desert Flower · July 09, 2024, 06:28:18 PM

Wow! I didn't know that Chart. And one of the things I was diagnosed with a long time ago was an 'Identity Disorder'. I just didn't know who I was. And still don't know who I am when I'm not constantly worrying, seems there's nothing else there.

Desert Flower · July 09, 2024, 06:30:09 PM

Quote from: rainydiary on August 16, 2020, 03:31:56 PMI want others to know how hard I have to work to participate in my life and with others.

Right. I agree. They have no idea how hard we (have to) work to keep up.

Denverite · July 16, 2024, 03:01:58 AM

Something I want others to know about C-PTSD is that they are almost never really seeing "me." They're seeing a protective mechanism, a force field that I'm constantly generating because I had to ever since I was a child. I come across as aloof, arrogant, or standoff-is so often when I'm just trying to share space with others without panicking.