Living with CPTSD means emotions don’t always look the way people expect them to. On the surface, I might come off as calm, maybe a little distant. Like, I’m trying to remember if I left the stove on. But inside? It’s a full-blown Greek tragedy. The chorus is wailing, the lead actor is mid-monologue, someone just shattered a priceless vase in slow motion, and I’m pretty sure there’s dramatic lighting involved.
What I’m saying is I feel things. A lot of things.
Like Olympic-level, rereading-the-same-conversation-from-three-years-ago levels of emotion. But when your brain’s been trained to equate vulnerability with danger, sharing your feelings starts to feel less like connecting and more like stepping into oncoming traffic wearing a sign that says “Hit me.”
The Inner Chaos vs. The Outer Calm
It’s not that I don’t want to open up. It’s just that my system is overloaded. Like trying to funnel a hurricane through a bendy straw while someone’s tapping you on the shoulder asking, “Hey, why are you being so distant?”
Spoiler: I’m not being distant. I’m just short-circuiting.
See, I may not do the big, sweeping emotional gestures. But I’ll remember your weirdly specific coffee order. I’ll send you that oddly perfect meme at the exact right time. I will even share my music that I find hits me deep. I’ll think about how you’re doing, even if I don’t always reach out. And I will make you laugh, because humor becomes the bridge between the internal chaos and the external world, and it can provide relief, even if just for a moment.
That is love. Don’t let anyone tell you differently. It just comes wrapped in twelve layers of emotional bubble wrap and guarded by a very intense bouncer named Avoidance. He takes his job seriously.
A Heart That Still Believes in Connection
People like me, we’re the quiet stormers. The ones who flinch at tenderness because it feels foreign but never forget your favorite snack. We love deeply, just not always loudly. Our affection shows up sideways: in sarcasm, in unwavering loyalty, in those tiny moments that seem like nothing but mean everything. The fact is, I’ve got a tender way of caring. It’s low-key but full of heart. And that kind of love stays.
So if you’ve ever found yourself on the receiving end of my “emotionally constipated but extremely loyal” vibe, know this: it’s not indifference. It’s overflow. It’s a heart doing everything it can to speak a language it was never taught.
And sure, it doesn’t always come in the form of flowery declarations or grand displays. But it’s steady. It’s thoughtful. It’s real.
Because underneath the armor, beyond all the walls and safety protocols, there’s a core that still believes in connection. It just takes a little longer to open the door, partly because we’re checking every lock twice and partly because, well… the door might be booby-trapped by trauma.
But if you’re patient. If you see past the silence and the sarcasm and the meme diplomacy, you’ll find someone who cares. Deeply. Loudly. Beautifully. Even if, on the outside, they just look like they’re wondering whether they left the stove on.
Remember, you don’t always have to express love in a conventional way. Whether you have CPTSD or not. It’s in the subtleties, the small acts that show up when words can’t.
Photo by Mahdi Kalhor on Unsplash