How I learned that I have CPTSD and what I did to make my life bearable
You may get worse before you get better.
Anyone who promises you full healing in N sessions for Y dollars or after buying their book should be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck does not understand how trauma works.
It may take months or even years before you have enough power to say your first "No". All this time people will keep secretly thinking that you are a princess, that you make things up, that you must "just do it", that you are lazy, that you are gay (if you aren't). And you will have to remember to hug that child inside and tell him/her "It's OK. I am here. They are not out to get you, they just don't know. We will make it. I am always with you."
It is hard work. Not the act itself, but remembering to act. Remembering to interrupt your default reaction with a gentle wave of love, support, and forgiveness that can come from nobody else but you at this stage.
It's new, and psychology at large is dominated by people who don't know what to do with it. Let's appreciate their trying.
Very few licensed specialists even among those who mention trauma know what you are going through, let alone how to fix it.
You may have to see 3, 5, a dozen therapists before your find The One. It's OK.
You may be misdiagnosed along the way. The sooner they come up with a confident verdict the clearer the sign that your quest is not over.
It will cost you, but isn't your peace worth it?
You are probably still alive because of your coping mechanism, which is part of the same machinery that makes you miserable.
Dissociation, hypervigilance, people-pleasing - these WORKED when you needed them. Self-medication isn't weakness, it's survival.
Your body could not think of another way of keeping you safe. Remember to thank it for its efforts.
You can't just "stop" without replacing the function. Indulging in shame about your coping mechanisms makes them worse - I suggest appreciating the effort.
Understanding how or why things work is not the same as changing it. The work still needs doing. But self-compassion should be the foundation and the start of every thought and action on this journey. Remember: it is not your fault. It is not who you are, it's what happened to you.
Baby steps, baby steps.
Remember that the goal is YOUR peace, not somebody else's.
There are people who benefit from your being small and paralyzed. As you develop boundaries, some people - even the closest ones - may feel shortchanged. Don't be afraid to lose the relationships that required you to be broken.
No more than you can satisfy your hunger by reading recipes.
You cannot get your body to stop with panic attacks just because you know their biochemistry.
Reading and understanding is invigorating and breathtaking, but it's only the first step.
You will need to retrain your body, to replace years or decades of conditioning.
Enter therapy, physical exercise, meditation, etc. It's a commitment, but it's absolutely worth it.
Support that you need to give yourself costs money, time, energy, changed plans.
Therapy should be done weekly. Hiking requires decent gear and gas money. Quality art supplies are expensive.
But what's the point of hoarding resources that you feel nothing about?
When I tried to explain to my mom why I am what I am because of my childhood, her only response was "Well, that's what everyone did. That's how we all grew up. It wasn't how you describe."
They will most likely never apologize to you.
Stop expecting anything from them. They are prisoners of their own demons. It is not their fault, just as it isn't yours. Let the dead bury their dead.
Focus on doing your work, on making you feel better.
You are all you have until you allow anyone else to come close.
Even if you simply learn to hear your own tiny voice, saying "I want this and I don't like that", it's already a revolution.
And you will need to keep working even just to stay where you are.
I start every morning with "Today not everyone is an enemy" and I listen to my body simply so that I don't lose that skill.
It's like starting every day from zero. It sucks, but that's the hand I was dealt, and I am and will keep doing the best I can out of it.
Any time my body thinks that I am under attack, I have to reassure it. I tell it that we are not bad, we deserve all the good things, and people who seem to be attacking us (1) are probably not meaning for it to look that way, and (b) even if they did, we are big and strong enough to stand up for ourselves.
The carrot behind all this work is that occasionally I feel calm and not at war.
It's discipline. It's something that you would rather not do.
But remember that we are getting good at what we do the most. If we are mostly taking care of ourselves, then we are getting good at this. If we are mostly not taking care of ourselves, then this is what we are getting good at.
I mourned the childhood that I never had. The person that I could have grown into. The joy that I could have felt. The family that I could have had.
I mourn it every day, but I don't dissolve into it. I let myself grieve, then I get my stuff together I do what's in front of me here and now.
If you want to be angry, no problem.
For me it made sense to apply the same logic to others: It's not their fault. They are the product of a long chain of events that has no beginning and no end.
But I also understand that they had a choice. And I don't want to be near people who choose what they chose.
I don't waste my energy on them - I avoid them. I don't want them to occupy space in my mind. Let the dead bury their dead. I want my life to be them-free.
The worst for me was when I felt elated all of a sudden, and thought that this was my new normal. I would start making plans.
And the next day the lightest of clouds would hurl me out of the solar system on a nail-biting tour of anxiety and panic.
(This rollercoaster is the reason for yet another misdiagnosis of CPTSD: as BPD or cyclothymia.)
I learned over time to treat the good times as a blessing and not to make any plans, not to start anything big.
I enjoy these periods, and I know that they don't disappear forever, but I also know that my good old paralysis is always within my arm's reach.
It is neither good nor bad, it's the hand I've been dealt.
I wanted to give up many times. And I wouldn't even be upset with myself - I've had a generous serving of shit to work through.
I personally know a handful of fellow traumatized humans who lost the game to drugs or to their own hand.
I cannot judge them. I know how it feels.
What has kept me around were my kids and one more thought:
I don't know why I am here. I did not choose to be born to the world where feeling like this is possible.
I did not put myself here. So it is not my call to relieve myself. It will happen when my time is up. In the meantime, I can do whatever I can think of. What's the worst that can happen?
Maybe the whole purpose of my being here is to write this sentence. Or this one. Or maybe there is no purpose at all, and it's about noticing the blue sky, green grass, music, mountain vistas.
If you cannot invent an occupation, don't punish yourself. Sit back and enjoy the show, because before and after life there is nobody to feel.
In this frame, it does not matter what you feel, it's the ability to feel itself, to perceive, that is valuable.
You are different.
You may be more vigilant than the next guy, more empathetic, more resilient.
You may have trouble trusting people.
Don't pretend that you are who you aren't.
Just treat yourself as a team of professionals, each of whom is good at a certain set of tasks.
Let your devops take care of the devops tasks, and your sales manager to take care of the sales manager tasks.
"I am a good person. I am doing what I can and not doing what I can't."
I'm not a therapist. I'm not healed. I sell neither hopes nor promises.
I'm someone with CPTSD who hated himself and then slowly learned to forgive himself and others.
This website is planned as a record of what worked for me and what did not. See if anything here makes your life easier.
If you're here after googling "why can't I just be like everyone else" - I am you.