Cptsd - Blog Posts

What is Burning?

locked in my head again

It’s awfully dark in here

I can’t find my way

•

I’ve found a pathway, maybe - a hint of ruby - it sparkles

•

I can smell something.. burning?

Following the scent - Rubies rain from the top floor of my mind

Plates shatter, tables fly

Shes looking me in the eye

Silently, she’s screaming

H e l p

PLEASE HELP

The floor caves

I’m falling - fast

So fast

I’ve hit the bottom of my mind

An abyss, if you will

I can’t reach the door

The windows are boarded up

It’s hard to breathe

There’s too much smoke

I’m suffocating

I’m suffocating

Rubies - my skin, rubies

My mind, obsidian

My body

Ash

S. S.

The Moonlight, the stars, the willow outside the window.. stuffed lamb on the floor

Deep inside this memory filled dream

Locked behind this door

Holding my secrets

My cries, my screams

Childhood dreams

Memories of ruby drenched sheets

The only ones

Who have seen the unseen

S. S.

When I found that you were sad

All I wanted was to help

I loved you dear mom and dad

I would try to make you well

All my friends are full of color

Vibrant lights of time and change

Even so I helped them over

Fading colors brought by rain

Every hue that I contained

Full of angersadnessrage

I would take the time to drain

For no one else would do the same

Whether idle hands or aim

They all bled thru me the same

Till I could no longer take

No matter what was at stake

What will you do when I go

When my body overflows

When my glass container breaks

Leaking all the muted fakes

I have nothing left to give

Nothing further here remains

Leave me to my muddled colors

I will never be the same.

What an odd unexpected morning...

Last night, after getting some flashbacks and remembering something that happened to me when I was 15 with a 21-year-old. We had a very toxic, manipulative, and abusive relationship. A lot of suicide guilt trips, and other unsavory things. I couldn’t exactly leave even when I tried, because he would threaten himself and me. I got into this weird dissociative fog after a massive panic attack, rereading old logs we had shared nearly 8 years ago. Something in me snapped and pressed that I needed to reach out. So I did. I didn't think I would ever get a reply back, but just the attempt felt enough. Surprisingly...He did, in fact, reply, hours later. I felt a little more than horrified, and of course, broke into another panic attack, my heart was racing and I was trembling. But.. we talked. For a short period of time. I told him why I had messaged him. What he did to me and how I felt and how I still felt. He told me he was sorry for what he did and had/has been in therapy since then and is a better person than he was nearly 10 years ago. He asked me if he could have my forgiveness and I told him I could forgive him as a person, but his actions would take longer. Overall things went ok, and a part of me feels better. He was only one of many who had hurt me, but probably one of the only ones I’d ever be able to get an apology from and know they felt guilt and remorse for what they did to me. So.. I’m glad I was able to do this for myself as scary as it was. In a way at this point in time that scary awful toxic abusive guy that I knew is gone, I don’t have to worry about his existence anymore, I have one less person to be afraid of. He can’t hurt me anymore ever again. I hope somewhere deep inside that this has healed at least a tiny part of me.

Our inability to effectively cope with our anxiety resulting from our cptsd that shaped us into a system to begin with is going to be the death of us

addiction gene

The outer critic 

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

Everyone cares so much about abused kids until they grow up to be broken adults.

How to Survive Fourth of July With Hypervigilance:

Independence Day can be rough for Americans living with hypervigilance related issues. The loud noises can make your heart race and your head spin. It may even feel hard to breathe. You’re gonna have to be strong. Fortunately, there are some things you can do to help.

Put in your earbuds. Listening to music will not only drown out the sound, it may also help you calm down. Music has been shown to help reduce anxiety and stress levels by up to 65 percent.

Use noise reduction headphones. If you want, you may even be able to see the fireworks! Just make sure you slip on a pair of noise reduction headphones. They can reduce the noise by more than 70 percent!

Spend the day with someone you love. Just being around someone we love can help steady our heart rates and calm our breathing. While it may still be rough, spending the time with a loved one is likely to make it a little less torturous.

Take a shower. It’s gonna be a long shower, but the noise of the water will drown out the fireworks.

Cuddle with a furry friend. Pets can be hugely therapeutic to people struggling with any sort of mental health issue, and even more so for those struggling with anxiety and ptsd. (Note: this may not work if your pet is just as panicked about fireworks as you are.)

But most importantly, especially for anyone struggling with any past trauma, remind yourself that you are safe. Do something that requires you to interact with your environment to help yourself stay in the here and now. It can be hard to stay in the present when faced with certain triggers, especially if you are alone.

You are strong and you will make it through this. Everything will be okay. I promise.

A couple of other things from my experience:

Unless you know for a fact that they are comfortable with it, always ask before touching them in any way. I’ve had a couple friends trigger panic attacks that way.

If you’re in a relationship try to have some sort of code for when it is and isn’t okay to be super intimate. My ex and I had a color code for what level of intimacy I was comfortable with and he would always ask what color I was.

I often flinch and put my hands up at any sudden hand movement. Don’t get offended if someone does that. It’s just an instinctive response.

Don’t slam doors, stomp around, or make unnecessary excessive noise when possible. It can often cause anxiety attacks.

Never, and I mean NEVER, refer to someone’s anxiety/panic attacks or PTSD episodes as a “tantrum” or “fit” EVER

If I say, “can you not do that? It reminds me of my abuser.” It isn’t me comparing you to them. It’s simply me trying to let you know that whatever you’re doing/saying triggers traumatic memories.

You are not alone and it is NEVER your fault if you are a victim of abuse.

THINGS TO BE AWARE OF WHEN IT COMES TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN ABUSED: 💬

we all experience it differently, but these are the most common ones to me.

Since I grew up in a abusive household,

• I could tell the mood to the person who abused me by their steps, and I remember not being able to breathe when the person was mad because the footsteps were fast and heavy. I still get scared when people walk like that.

• I get scared when a person comes home without saying anything to me because it was what the person who used to abuse me did when they were angry at me.

• I still tip toe around the house at night on my way to the bathroom, scared that the smallest sound I make will get me in trouble.

• I jump at the slightest movement because I’m afraid it’s aimed at me after all the years of being threatened and hit.

• I never refuse to help with anything even if I can’t, because I remember what happened when I refused or didn’t answer right away.

• I am very observant because it’s how I got away from being abused for days, I see one thing outta place at home and I know that day will not be a great one. Is everything at place? a day without abuse.

• If a person gets a bit angry, starts rising their voice or looks at me with a sharp look, I feel like running away and never coming back because it’s how the person who abused me would intimidate me.

please, take these things into consideration and be aware of them, it would mean a lot to me and others who also went through the same things. don’t make fun of anyone who acts like this, you have no idea what they have gone through.

if you have other things to add, please do. it’s important to be aware of the things that might trigger people who have been or are still being physically abused. and if you know someone who’s being abused, please help them. it could do so much good for them.

and if anyone ever needs to speak with anyone, just know that you can message me and I’ll do my best to help as much as possible. I’m also here if you need a friend as well :)

I have talked about my mental illness many times here on my blog. it is not an insult to me to be truthful about the fact that I am indeed mentally ill. I have severe CPTSD a lot due to my Queerness and how I was treated for it. I am very Suicidal. and have chronic depression and chronic Anxiety. non of this makes me stupid or a bad person. but Saying Aaron was mentally ill is not an insult to him... because he wouldn't have killed himself if he were not. I wouldn't have attempted it when I was a teenager if I were not. that's just how mental illness is mate. I'm sorry if you think that isn't how it works but it is. and to those like me struggling, hang in there and stay safe! I care deeply for you and hope it gets better:)

me, being born to parents incapable of love: ah but this just means I will do the impossible! I will be a perfect child! I will do so good and try so hard they'll see it and then decide to love me! This can happen!

me, sometime later, with cptsd: and perhaps,,, I will not do the impossible,,, also help--

So I'm reblogging this from a fandom person I follow but it's on brand for the shit I post so, hello! I have OSDD and CPTSD (both of those disorders have a HUGE amount of symptom overlap and are caused by severe, prolonged trauma). I have different types of flashbacks, triggered by different things, so I'll try to organize my answer below but please be aware that my answers might be triggering especially for anyone who has experienced childhood sexual abuse and/or child trafficking. These terms are just what I use to discuss them with my therapist, so idk if they are official terms or not.

• Tactile flashbacks, also called tactile hallucinations

In these, I am entirely aware of where and when I am, but I feel sensations that were occurring during my trauma. It's usually triggered by experiencing pain from old injuries. For specifically (TW!!!!), I occasionally get nerve pain in my vulva from an injury where I was penetrated with an object and it damaged my cervix severely. Sometimes that nerve pain triggers a tactile flashbacks, where I can feel hands and the object touching me exactly the way it felt when it was really happening. It is so realistic that the first few times it happened, part of me was shocked that I wasn't bleeding or hadn't sat on a knife or some weird shit. It makes it feel like I don't even have pants on. It's fucking disorienting and PAINFUL and scary.

I've spent years training myself to show it as little as possible if it happens in public, because it's not the kind of thing that's easily explainable. But the added stress of hiding it triggers me even more- because hiding was an important job I did to cover up for my abusers, so hiding pain is both instinctual and triggering now- that it kind of just makes it worse. So if I'm around someone, they might see me grimace or shift on my chair a bit, I've also heard that I get pretty pale, but I almost always lie and make up an excuse like cramps, which people tend to believe.

But in reality it's horrific and once I'm in privacy, I am pretty useless for the rest of the day unless I have a close friend or my husband around to help me stay grounded and get back on track.

•Emotional flashbacks

This happens a lot when I'm triggered by an everyday normal occurrence that in normal life, is totally fine, but in my past was something I used to know whether or not I was in danger. Probably the most annoying one is the sound of dishes clanging as someone puts them away. If that happened in my childhood, it meant I hadn't put away the dishes in time, and would be punished (but not grounded because my parents were fucking monsters- punishment for me was things like being locked in very small spaces, being forced to braid my hair in high pigtails and hairspray it and go to school looking stupid, not getting food for a few days, having things thrown at me, sometimes the dishes themselves being physically broken on me).

So imagine what a child's emotions might be, knowing they're about to undergo a severe punishment- fear, regret, remorse, defence, desperation- and then transplant all of those emotions into my 32 year old body. It makes me have some wacky ass responses to my husband putting away the clean dishes. I've spent YEARS working on it but we've been together since I was 19, and just last year I got to the point where I could let him put dishes away without me actually yelling at him, or apologizing, or crying. Thank god for therapy.

Emotional flashbacks can really have drastic, immediate control over my behavior, which makes them pretty dangerous when it's not a situation as innocuous as putting away dishes. It's very hard for me to control what I say and do during these episodes, and it's one of the reasons I was diagnosed with OSDD, because my therapist thinks that when I have emotional flashbacks, I dissociate and another part of my personality kind of takes over. And it really is a dramatic personality shift. Still a part of me, but a much younger version. I used to have total amnesia of these episodes and only knew they were happening because my husband would explain them to me. Now I manage to stay conscious (sometimes called co-conscious by people in the OSDD/DID communities) but still have partial amnesia. It makes it very difficult for me to understand what someone is saying to me long enough to formulate a response that makes sense. It's horrible and really challenging to hide or control.

•Visual/dissociated flashbacks

These have only ever been triggered by sex, and they're very similar to the way flashbacks are portrayed in the media, like in movies. Either all or most of my visual field changes from the current situation to a traumatic sexual abuse memory. I completely dissociate, have no idea where I am or what's happening, but the difference from this and movies is that even within the memory, I don't understand what's happening. I don't go into it with my knowledge of what's happening and 15 years of therapy, I'm right back in the exact mindset I was when it was happening, just with the added idea that something is very wrong. Sometimes it feels like I'm asleep in a nightmare, sometimes it feels like I'm literally living it. They don't last more than maybe 30 seconds or so, and my husband tells me that he knows it's happening because my eyes get really wide, I go totally limp, and don't respond except in a way that's similar to how people might talk in their sleep. Once I come out of it, it's straight to having a panic attack, which as you can imagine is kind of awkward when you're in the middle of trying to fuck your partner. My husband is amazing about it all, but when we first got together it scared the shit out of both of us.

•Some other notes: I often try to ground myself so that I don't dissociate during or after a flashback, but for years the only way I knew to ground myself involved pain. I eventually tried to switch to methods that would hurt but not injure me (pinching the skin between my fingers, punching my thighs). But now I do grounding in a way that doesn't hurt myself- or at least I try to. I talk to myself, out loud, to remind myself where I am, what year it is, what's happening, etc. I do breathing exercises, sing loudly, try to hold a conversation. All of those things can help me stay in the present moment. Unfortunately they don't always work, but hey ya can't win 'em all.

@z-mizcellaneous-z I know that's a LOT but lemme know if you have questions or want any more details/info! I'm happy to share!

Call for People who Have First Hand Experience with PTSD

(Part of The Research Game, question by @z-mizcellaneous-z)

We are wondering if anyone who has first-hand experience can share with us what PTSD flashbacks look or feel like to you, as well as what it might look like from the outside perspective (such as witnessed by friends/strangers).

(please only share if you're comfortable. You can also send me an anonymous ask instead!)

Everyone else, reblog this around until we can find someone who has the answer!

(Otherwise, there's a Youtube channel I know of that aims to spread awareness of PTSD and may help you here: https://youtu.be/vdLfrJSzMY8, though it's important to note she has Complex PTSD, which is slightly different and is characterized by prolonged trauma rather than a single event)

How abuse affects your friendships and relationships

Friendships/relationships

Abusive childhood teaches you to stay in abusive relationships

Children of abusive parents are more likely to tolerate abusive friends

Abuse will make toxic friendship feels normal.

Abusive parents teach us to chase people whose love we think we can ‘earn’ or obtain by removing boundaries and suffering more abuse.

Abuse can trick you into believing you have to love people unconditionally even if they abuse you.

Abusive fails to teach you the signs of an abusive relationship.

Abuse makes us scrutinize our own actions and behaviours, but never others’.

Abuse will make you completely disregard subtle red flags in friendships.

Long term neglect can make us long for any kind of attention

Neglect makes us extra vulnerable to Love Bombing and Mirroring

Abuse makes us vulnerable to Future Faking.

Abuse makes us tolerate more pain than anyone normally would tolerate in a friendship/relationship.

Abuse can teach us that neglect, lack of positive attention and engagement, lack of consideration for our needs and wants, is normal and acceptable in our friendships and relationships, leading us to tolerate it.

Living in abuse and using fantasy and idealism to endure the reality, will encourage the development of Magical Thinking in adulthood.

Abuse makes us emotionally vulnerable to grooming, and likely to bond with groomers.

Abuse makes it impossible to notice the signs of an abusive relationship.

Abuse can groom you to accept and tolerate abuse from others.

Sense of self

Neglect causes low self esteem.

Abuse greatly amplifies the human fear of being unlovable, unwanted and dying alone.

Being raised in abuse can make you feel like you’re 'not normal’ and make it difficult to relate to people.

Abuse can make you feel like you’re a constant inconvenience and always left out.

Abuse forces you to keep secrets that alienate you from friendships or feeling like a part of community

Abuse in isolation makes us feel like the world abandoned us.  

Attachment disorders

Abuse can lead to intense, over-attached, idealized, unstable, disorganized, or detached and fragile attachments as opposed to stable and healthy ones with boundaries and realistic expectations.

Neglect can cause abandonment issues, which then cause intense stress, anxiety, insecurity, and overall traumatic response to a break of a friendship/relationship

Neglect can cause craving of being ‘taken care of’ or ‘being the caretaker’ rather than pursuing equal and completely mutual relationships

Abuse can lead you to bond intensely with a 'favourite person’ which puts you into a position where you can easily be groomed or exploited, and unable to get out of it.

Abuse leads into idealizing people who show us even the minimum of kindness.

Abuse can make us crave ‘feeling important’ even from abusers

Parentification

Parentification teaches you to take care of other people as a Survival Strategy

Abusive parents can set you up to live as a resource to others

Abuse teaches you to keep your pain secret while tearing yourself apart to care for other’s pain.

Socializing

Abuse starves us out of conversation, touch, gentleness, community, and it can be painful to introduce ourselves (back) to it.

Abuse makes casual socializing anxiety-inducing and frightening.

Social abuse can invoke social anxiety.

Abuse can make attention feel dangerous.

Abusive parents can sabotage you socially, making your real entrance into social life only after you get away from them, and by that time you’ve missed out on valuable development of social skills and you’re starting with a disadvantage

Suffering the pain of abuse alone can make you feel like isolating yourself and being away from people is the only safe way to exist.

Suffering long-term abuse can make you intensely doubt people’s intentions (and sometimes you might be right).

Abuse can make any criticism in a social situation extremely painful and triggering for us

Abuse can create strict double standards for how we’re allowed to live and feel, and what others are allowed.

Intimacy and closeness will trigger emotional flashbacks, painful memories and personal crisis, making you unwilling to try and be close to people.

Long term abuse makes it painful for us to receive or accept comfort.

Abuse can make us feel indebted for comfort.

Abuse makes us feel like we’re craving abuse when we’re only craving comfort

Abuse makes us look for positive attention in non-effective or dangerous ways.

Abuse can make you blame yourself for any social interaction that hurts you.

Abuse makes us dismiss our own discomfort with others.

It's like:

Sometimes I want my nanny back even though I know she was selling coke on the side and probably endangered my life, all I remember is her hugs and teaching me to sew and making me snacks and not letting anyone hurt me.

And then I'm forced to reconcile how a literal drug dealer who harboured her fugitive adult son was a better mother to me than the woman who brought me into this world.

I can't believe I'm 31 and still putting pieces together.

Shortly after reporting my stepfather to the police for rape, his father, the man I had called grandpa for a fucking decade, started coming to the burger joint I worked at. I couldn't get a restraining order because he didn't do anything but order a burger and sit at a table directly across from the register and stare at me. He'd leave when he finished his food.

When I told people, their reaction was always "why would he do that? That's so weird." But knowing what I know now, knowing he'd been paying my mother thousands of dollars over the years to keep both of us quiet, knowing he had effectively been paying my mother to let his son use me-

It was just intimidation. Money wasn't keeping me quiet so he wanted to scare me into silence. Wanted me to know he had more power, more resources, more time.

And they did win the court case. And he did scare the shit out of me. So much so that I nearly quit my job.

I was just faulty merchandise to him. God.

feeling trapped

i think one of the things i'm struggling with the most is the feeling of being trapped. it's what the majority of my nightmares focus on, either with memories of real events or invented trauma-based dream nonsense, but i haven't parsed out exactly why this is such an issue for me still.

for all intents and purposes, i'm not trapped anymore. i've been out of that environment since 2008. i've been no-contact with my abusers since 2018. i'm married, living in a different county, in my own house with my partner and two dogs. i am the least trapped i've ever been.

though i do feel trapped in my body- it's maddening sometimes, having to deal with my chronic illness and disability on top of this mental health baggage. it's frustrating. but i don't really think that's what the issue is, with this trapped feeling.

i know it somehow relates to my trauma, but i can't put my finger on why my brain feels the need to process this now. what even is there to process? i was trapped. often physically, always psychologically, but like why does my brain keep telling me there is something deeper about this that i'm not understanding? it's like having a word or phrase on the tip of my tongue. there is something but i don't know what.

one of the reasons my therapist suggested writing online, anonymously, is because my trapped feelings can be triggered when i want to talk about my trauma but get stuck in the potential consequences of doing so with my identity attached. my abusers have both, separately, threatened me with lawsuits should i ever attempt to report them again or go public with my story. defamation, libel, countersuits if charges are pressed again. as if i would even want to go through the trauma of legal proceedings, all over again, since all it ever did was make my life harder. that court experience was worse than some of the rapes i remember.

so i'm writing, to see if putting this out into the world helps this feeling. or maybe it will help something else inside of me. part of me wonders if i'm just using it as an excuse to lean into the trauma more, since feeling broken down is more comforting than feeling strong, even now. the pain of it feels safe.

For those saying "you CAN heal!!" or stuff like that- no, we can't.

Like, yeah, we can go to therapy and live meaningful lives, but people with C-PTSD's brains develop differently. That's something we have to live with forever.

It's not a 'woe is me' thing or 'guess I'll never try to heal'. I'm happy. I live a great life.

But it's a lot to process and come to grips with, no matter how much work we do on ourselves. We deserve to be able to grapple with the enormity of that without positivity shoved down our throats.

insane to me that because of how my parents acted towards me as a child my brain was irrevocably changed and now i just have to suffer the rest of my life because of it