The mental mind field of having CPTSD that I face on any given day can be quite challenging. The intrusive thoughts slip in when I least expect them to, or worse, when I feel I am doing okay. They poke holes in the fabric of that illusion I have built, and with those thoughts come the flashbacks.
When I say flashbacks, I am not talking about what you see in the movies. When a trauma survivor is transported to a scene in their mind, and they relive it. It’s not a hallucination. No. It’s emotional. Consciously, I am completely in the present, but emotionally, I revert back to my childhood, to the ages of 5 to 9 years old. The fear. The unknowing. The waiting. The hiding. But I am not a child. It’s 2024, not 1977. I am a grown adult. That doesn’t seem to matter, though. The flashbacks have gotten a hold of me, and guilt, anxiety, shame, terror, and unworthiness are at the forefront of my mind. All those feelings resurface, and I am left stuck in that emotional flashback, beating myself up. What ever I have done to bring on this episode, be it a a small mistake or that I’ve royally screwed up, the intensity of the fall out feels like a nuclear bomb going off in my head.
What trauma does to a person is it makes them feel like they don’t deserve love
What follows is an exhausting head trip. The battle. Emotional dysregulation and hypervigilance. And the frustrations. There are so many frustrations because you know what is happening but are not able to stop it. Around and around you go on the Merry Go Round. And what makes the whole thing worse is that you believe it is always going to be like this. That no matter what I do, No matter how much effort I put in to use the tools I learn in therapy, to help myself, I somehow always find myself right back in these moments. That I am unlovable. And that’s the true power of trauma. What trauma does to a person is it makes them feel like they don’t deserve love.
But we do.
And that is what I have to keep reminding myself of. That I am worthy. I do deserve love. My trauma doesn’t get to define me, and it certainly doesn’t get to write my story. CPTSD has lied to me and done so for most of my life, and I am doing everything in my power to take back what was lost. One day at a time. No matter how long it may take me or how many mental mind fields I may go through, because, as the saying goes, “what doesn’t kill us, only makes us stronger.”