Let’s just get this out of the way: being a man who was sexually abused as a child messes with your head in ways that are hard to explain, and harder to talk about. I’m no therapist. Or self-help guru. I’m just someone who’s lived it. And if you have, you know that this kind […]
CPTSD vs Depression and Anxiety
It’s important to know that while CPTSD often comes with symptoms like depression and anxiety, it’s not exactly the same thing. A lot of people with CPTSD end up getting misdiagnosed with things like major depression, generalized anxiety, or even borderline personality disorder. That happens because CPTSD can look a lot like those conditions on […]
Where Does the CPTSD End, and Where Do I Begin?
I came across a question today that got me thinking: “Where does the CPTSD end, and where do I begin?” At first, I gave the kind of answer that felt honest enough. I tried to untangle trauma from truth, to draw a clean line between what’s mine and what got wired into me through fear, […]
The Shame That Shouldn’t Be Mine: Surviving Abuse with CPTSD
There’s a kind of shame that wraps itself around trauma survivors like smoke after a fire. Invisible and suffocating. If you’ve lived through abuse and now live with CPTSD, you know exactly what I mean. It’s not the shame of doing something wrong. It’s the shame of having survived something that never should have happened […]
Post-Therapy Fog? How to Beat the Therapy Hangover
It’s wild how, surprisingly, no one really talks about therapy hangovers. Sure, everyone says “therapy’s great,” but almost nobody warns you that right after your session, your brain and body might throw a full-on tantrum. But you know what? you’re not broken or doing it wrong. Rather, your nervous system is just throwing a little […]
CPTSD and the Trauma That Gaslights You
There’s no polite way to say this, but CPTSD is a mindfuck. It doesn’t just hit you with trauma. It follows up with a fun little side dish of self-hatred that convinces you the trauma didn’t even count. You survive something awful, sometimes for years, and instead of your brain saying, “Wow, that was terrible, […]