Somewhere along the way in my healing journey, I’ve stopped seeing myself as CPTSD personified. I don’t know the exact moment it happened; there wasn’t some grand epiphany or movie-montage-style healing moment. But slowly, quietly, I started seeing myself as… just me. As Jack. A messy, kind, resilient, funny, often-exhausted guy who happens to have […]
How To Love Someone With CPTSD And Trauma
I don’t claim to be an expert on all things love and relationships. My love life has been a bit of a bomb site, but I am knowledgeable in living with CPTSD and attempting relationships after trauma. Loving with CPTSD is kind of like trying to build a treehouse during a windstorm. You’ve got the […]
Letter to My Younger Self: A Message for Healing
I was asked to write a letter to my younger self in therapy this week, and I have spent some time thinking of what to write. It turned out to be a lot more difficult than I thought it would be, but I eventually came up with this. Hey, Younger Me, I know things feel […]
The Difficult Truths of Trauma Recovery
There are numerous challenges involved in recovering from trauma and CPTSD One of those difficulties is that recognizing something that heals also meant recognizing something else that hurts. For example, If I acknowledge that it was my abusers fault, then that meant there was nothing I could have done to help myself. Or If I acknowledge that I can now be the person […]
Finding Peace: A Journey Through CPTSD and Self-Discovery
Recovery means something different to everyone of us who have dealt with a lifelong diagnosis of living with cPTSD. We have faced pain and uphill struggles that none of us would wish on anybody. One thing I have come to realize is that non-traumatized people have less potential to achieve the deep inner peace that […]
The Dopamine Habit And CPTSD
Those of us that have experienced childhood trauma missed out on so much. One of those things was the feel-good feelings that occur naturally. For us, the simple act of praise from a parent could even make us cautious. Our brains become wired to seek out danger and even something innocent puts us in a […]