Hi! I'm new here.

[Heartly]

I am in my 68th year and have been recovering from cptsd all my life, predominantly with therapy.  My last therapist specialized in cptsd, and I got the most benefit out of this relationship.  She has retired.  Recently, I've been retriggered, and I also recognize that there is more work I can do.  I found and joined the cpstdfoundation.org in the US where I saw people who knew what I was talking about.  Today, I found this group and decided it can't hurt to belong to both, especially as I am Canadian, although I realize there are members here from all over the world.  Looking forward to sharing.

[Blueberry]

Welcome to the forum, Heartly I love your name and the reason behind it!

I'm in my 50's and it feels like I've been either suffering or recovering for my whole life. Suffering in childhood obviously, recovering since, getting re-triggered, back in recovery etc.

I'm sorry your T retired, mine did too.

I get a lot of support on this forum, I hope you do too. Looking forward to reading more about you when you feel ready.

[Hope67]

Hi Heartly, Welcome 
Hope 

[Bermuda]

Hi Heartly, welcome. I think we all are from different countries, so you're not alone there.

[Kizzie]

Hello Heartly and welcome to OOTS. Fellow Canadian here  

[Papa Coco]

Heartly, Welcome to the forum!

I'm glad you found it. This forum has been a godsend for me. I'm 63 and have been dealing with CPTSD my entire life, and only just got a diagnosis a few years ago. The healing is a lifelong process, but from my perspective, doing with others is so much more heartfelt than doing it alone. I have a note over my pc monitor here that says "Together We All Win". The most damaging thing for me for 60 years was feeling alone. Nothing helped. I tried it all. But I now have a good trauma therapist, and this forum, so I'm just now finally starting to gain control over my life. And it feels wonderful.

I'm looking forward to more sharing with you. And remember, you can share as much or as little as you are comfortable. Go at your own pace. The people here have been of the kindest and most understanding of anywhere I've ever shared before. I hope you find that to be true as well.

[Heartly]

Thank you, everyone, for your warm welcome.  After reading several posts, I feel that this is a warm, supportive place, and I'm grateful to have people here who understand what having CPTSD is all about.  At this point in my life, I now have supportive friends who care a lot about me, but I feel that they wouldn't really understand my issues.  I don't think I'm just not giving them credit ... I think that unless you've been there, you can't really understand it.  And I'm also grateful that there are many people here who have been working on this all their life as well.  When I was in my late teens and first started therapy (and in those days there was no CPTSD), I figured I'd be "cured" in a few years and just needed to hang in there.  A lifetime later and I've accepted that it's an ongoing process, and will be with me forever.  I made the best progress working with a therapist who specialized in CPTSD (the one who has retired), so I know that there's something to this.

[Kizzie]

When I was in my late teens and first started therapy (and in those days there was no CPTSD), I figured I'd be "cured" in a few years and just needed to hang in there.  A lifetime later and I've accepted that it's an ongoing process, and will be with me forever.  I made the best progress working with a therapist who specialized in CPTSD (the one who has retired), so I know that there's something to this.

Personally I think that's a big step, realizing recovery is actually a matter of learning to manage symptoms better, reducing them but not getting rid of them altogether.

That's case now because research into treatment is still ongoing but will likely improve with time so who knows? I was just talking yesterday with a therapist and university professor about this and she agreed treatment needs to be top down - bottom up or holistic in other words. The problem right now is that therapy generally only involves talk therapy of one sort or another so it's costly, but I foresee a time when there may be dedicated centres for trauma survivors in which there is one-one therapy, group therapy, art and movement therapy, and so on. (CBT is used a lot and is less expensive because it's time limited but it only helps so much.) There's a centre in the UK that's very much what I envision/hope for called Body & Soul Charity - http://bodyandsoulcharity.org/about/.