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, neglect, or survival.

But the longer I sat with it, the more I realized..

This isn’t the kind of question that wants an answer. This is a question that requires a soft and honest place to settle.

When Trauma Starts to Wear Your Name

Because the truth is, CPTSD doesn’t replace you. It wraps itself around you, like a too-tight skin. Where it moves in quietly, settles into our nervous system, and starts rearranging the furniture. It shapes how we see ourselves.

How we see others.

And how we prepare for the worst even when we could be standing in the best moment of your life.

It reshapes the way you move through the world.

• Hypervigilance becomes instinct.
• Self-sabotage starts looking like self-protection.
• Trust feels like a loaded weapon.
• Intimacy? Like walking into traffic with your eyes closed.

And over time, it can start to feel like your entire identity. Every reaction, every silence, every anxious spiral starts to wear your name.

You start to wonder if this is you. If this is all you’ll ever be.

The Truth Beneath the Fear

But that’s not who we are.

That’s our nervous system doing exactly what it was taught to do: survive.

That’s our heart defending itself the only way it knows how, with distance, with doubt, with disappearing acts.

So where do we begin?

We begin in the part of us that notices. The part that asked this question in the first place. And the part of us still awake, still reaching, still wondering if there’s something more than this storm.

We begin in our curiosity. In our tenderness. In our quiet rebellion against the trauma script we didn’t write but somehow memorized anyway.

Healing Happens in the Middle

We begin every time we say no, even when it costs us. Every time we say yes, even when it terrifies us.
Even the moments we stop to check in, to breathe, to ask, “Is this mine, or is this the past trying to live itself out again?”

We begin in the messy middle. Crying when it doesn’t make sense and laughing when it hurts. Sitting in the discomfort instead of sprinting away from it.

We begin in the friendships that teach us we don’t have to perform for love. And in the moments we choose to stay, when everything in us wants to run.

We begin every time we say, “I’m scared… but I’m still here.”

You Are Still the Author

CPTSD might be part of the story. It might be the shadow that follows us some days, the ache that flares up without warning. But we are the ones telling the story.

And that means we still get to choose what comes next.

Even if we have to write it with shaking hands. If we have to whisper it at first. Or if the only thing we know how to say is “I want something more.”

If that’s where you are, on the edge of feeling again, this piece on embracing the feelings we fled might land right where you need it.

That’s where healing begins.

Not with certainty. But with the courage to ask the question and stay long enough to hear your own voice answer.

Healing doesn’t come all at once, and it doesn’t come neatly packaged. It shows up in the small moments where you choose yourself, even when it’s hard.

So today, I invite you to start where you are. Notice that question within you. Sit with it. Write it down. Talk to someone you trust. And remember: every small step forward is a victory.

Photo by Pontus Mattisson on Unsplash