Best treatment for Complex PTSD?

[proper_human]

Hi everyone :-)

I have struggled with severe depression for most of my life, and have recently come to a place where I am managing it quite well.

It was around this time, where I was feeling better than ever, that I soon began feeling a sense of dread start to build up within me.
I has this constant feeling of dread, anxiety and borderline panic.
I realised that there were things from my childhood and early adult life I had not properly dealt with, and the trauma of it was still present in my body, and had permanently impacted me in a negative way.

A therapist friend of mine spoke to me about Complex PTSD, and recommended a book for me to read about it.

I saw myself in the book so clearly, but found it triggered a panic attack every time I read it. Even just thinking about Complex PTSD, and I begin to feel my throat tighten.

So I've realised this whole time, I've probably gone untreated for Complex PTSD and I am feeling like a complete mess. Now I get such terrible anxiety and regularly get panic attacks, which was never really a thing I overly struggled with even during when I had severe depression.
It's almost as if the depression was masking CPTSD, and now that that is being managed, this other stuff is coming through.

I am at a place where I know I need professional help, but am not sure where to even start. I've done a lot talking therapy from when I had depression and found it borderline useless. I last thing I did was PSH Hypnotherapy which did wonders for me, but at this stage, I am not sure that I could physically stand sitting quietly with my eyes closed without going into a panic attack.

Does anyone have any therapy style suggestions? I am considering Somatic Therapy or EDMR, but I am scared because I know I need to deal with it, but every damn thing is almost a trigger for me.

I go from laughing, to crying, to anxiety, to panic like some sort of weird cycle.

[stillhere]

Hello, Proper_Human, and welcome to this site. 

You're certainly asking a compelling question, maybe the most compelling question anyone with CPTSD can ask.  No one wants this condition.  Everyone wants it to go away.  Unfortunately, too little research or too much complexity or some combination makes the way forward murky.

I've done some reading about treatment and have pretty much the same questions.  Like you, I saw my experience reflected in a book.  The same reflections appear on this site every time I check in.

Chances are, though, your depression was part of your CPTSD -- that is, you've addressed some of your symptoms and now are coming to a recognition of deeper difficulties (just when you thought you'd hit bottom, right?). 

I've come to think that talk therapy has limits.  I'm intrigued by the notion that trauma becomes "hard wired" neurologically so that treatment requires attention to mind and body.  Somatic therapy and mindfulness meditation make sense in that context.  I have no experience with EMDR, though I think I've read that it's more effective for single-event trauma.

Seems many people on this site engage in ongoing trial and error.

[KayFly]

Hey Proper_Human,

Great question. I've been in EMDR Therapy for about 10 months now. I have made more progress in that time, than I have in my entire life. I also had debilitating depression and anxiety when I entered this therapy. I had done mostly talk therapy before starting EMDR, and soon am entering trauma group therapy. I heard group therapy can be really good for trauma. So I start that next month.

I had to part ways with my birth family over a year ago because of sexual abuse from my parents and bullying from my sister. My mother was a Narcissist. I was also diagnosed as having a major depressive disorder, as well as bi-polar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and possibly more.

EMDR has been helping me tremendously with processing the trauma, and also helped me move through grieving. It certainly moved the process along for me a bit faster, as I was avoiding processing and facing what I now do in EMDR. But there is a lot of talk therapy that I do with my T also. It's not EMDR all the time. Talking about these things is quite helpful, especially with a professional. In EMDR I have worked primarily on one trauma, but that trauma has stemmed to a lot of other trauma's. It has been important for me to look at that. And as we continue, suppressed memories come up, and then we go to the next trauma, or the next thing. You can use EMDR to help with addictions, and just processing anything that's going on really.

My therapist diagnosed me with CPTSD, encouraged me to find an online forum and gave me the reference to read Pete Walker's book on it. So I trust her with helping me deal with this condition. And I think it is definitely possible that in EMDR, you can work on several traumas, not just one. I mean, if there were a 1 time trauma being worked on, it would certainly be dealt with a lot faster, because it's only one thing, but having CPTSD, will naturally take longer.

My anxiety and depression have been around since I can remember. I can't believe how much it has improved in the past year.  I thought I would live with it forever, but no. I still grieve, of course, cry my eyes out, but my periods of depression have shortened, and my anxiety is less present. By dealing with the underlying issues (the trauma), we essentially heal the manifestations that take place in our body, like depression, anxiety and much more. Like you were saying, that chances are, Depression is part of CPTSD. I believe that.

I know someone who does Somatic therapy for his anxiety which seems to work very well for him.

I love the idea of mindfulness meditation. Mediation is super hard for me, but I'm becoming better at it, and I certainly agree being mindful is a very good tool for CPTSD.
Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wVG_H5olyQ

That guy is awesome. He's a life coach and has CPTSD himself, and he's great. I'm a big fan. So I just showed you that so that you can see how sometimes meditating with this condition can bring out your demons. And make you feel like you are under attack. So you have to find good strategies to protect yourself, if you are going to go that route alone.

Also reading Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker has helped me immensely. I love this book. I'm not all the way done reading it, but it's helped my life so much, so far, in being aware of my own thoughts, mind, and really its helped me turn my mind into a more positive direction, or really just it's taught me that most of the things I think are just wrong. Now I think much more critically I suppose.

That's some of my experience, but different things work for different people. And so I wish you all the best and if you do get a therapist in any form, I hope you find a great one.  And if you choose mindfulness meditation, I hope you find a safe way to use that tool, to where you are moving forward and not getting hurt, or maybe have a great teacher for some good strategies on dealing with trauma through meditation

All the best, and so Glad you are here 

K

[Kizzie]

Hi Proper Human and a very warm welcome to OOTS. 

Your story is so much like mine in that I was diagnosed with chronic depression and there things sat for several decades until a few years back when I began to have really bad social anxiety/panic attacks.

This happened about the time when I began to look around on the Internet and realized my family was not simply "dysfunctional" but they were abusive. My F was an alcoholic and my M and B were "hard to deal with" although just how hard I didn't know why until I learned about personality disorders and realized they are both covert narcissists. Triple whammy = CPTSD. My symptoms started to flare up as I acknowledged what I had been through, to see and feel how deeply traumatizing that personality disorders on top of having an alcoholic parent can be.  The depression had been masking much deeper feelings, much like what you are describing - very scary I know 
 
What I held onto throughout that first stage of recovery from CPTSD was something Pete Walker writes about, that these symptoms are a cry for help from within, from that the hidden, silenced part of us.  Mine was  telling me it was time to do something about the pain. As scary as it was, the wounded, traumatized part wanted to be heard, acknowledged, validated, soothed and loved and was trying to help me. It was also very frightened thus the internal chaos and struggle which felt like the roller coaster ride from *, But, it did slow down and even out.

What helps?  We talk a lot here about taking it slowly, learning to self-sooth and having great compassion for yourself. This tends to be something few of us do well at first, but once we get the idea recovery seems to flow, we begin to make progress.  With respect to therapy, what works is different for everyone perhaps have a read through that section and see if anything resonates for you.

Again welcome, and so glad you found your way to OOTS 

[Aml]

What I did to find a treatment was to contact a non profit counseling center that only deals with survivors of trauma and crime. The one they use is seeking safety, which goes through treatment in stages, the first stage focuses on coping skills and safety, the second on processing trauma, and the third is reintegrating the trauma with your life. It has been helpful so far.

[Kizzie]

Glad to hear this Aml