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What are some symptoms you’ve had that are related to your CPTSD
QuestionOh my god. I didn’t put it together until you said this. Every single morning I’ve got this irritated, angry narrative playing in my head. I wonder if it isn’t connected to the natural increase in cortisol upon waking. Maybe our collective traumatized body baseline is already higher.
I'm on meds that lower my cortisol levels. Otherwise I'm none functioning. It caused my body's immune system to just quit. So there is a connection.
May I ask what you take? I’m sensing an oncoming deep dive
I messaged you
Hey, could you message me your message too?
Did you ever have gallbladder problems due to stress?
I have!
Ohhh is this why my mental health is so so much worse in the mornings? That makes a loooot of sense.
I completely second this once your trust has been broken or abused it is so hard to build it back to what it was before the trauma. Especially CPTSD. We don’t remember who we were before the trauma where as people with ptsd know who they were before the trauma and want to get back to that. We have to build our lives from scratch
I remember being 20 months old . I know who I was supposed to be. I knew who I wanted to be. I just trusted all the wrong people. You know family.
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1mo
Oh, I have a no morning rule. Approaching me before a 2 hour mark is dangerous . It's never personal. I just need to be alone. Once I cycle through the thoughts and body shit ,and accept it. It's easier to move about the day. I have to focus on what I can do each day. Instead of my past or future . Only current events can matter. No dreams, no hopes, no plans.
Brother claims the steroids they gave him when he was a child have messed up his immune system for life. Has many body aches and ailments. Takes medication Each day. I wonder how much of it is to so with the troubled upbringing and trauma from childhood that's still un dealt with or faced 30 years later. Want to help but find there's next to no way of him opening up and accepting help or belief systems that challenge the one he's embellished for himself
For as long as I can remember, I have always been extremely anxious and uncomfortable around loud men, and men in suits (think elevator full of lawyers) make me feel like I'm 5 years old about to get yelled at. That didn't ever happen btw, my mom did all the yelling. Idk i just hate it and I GTFO ASAP.
I can’t stand men yelling anywhere near me, especially at sporting events.
Authoritative fear is how my old therapist described that but he made me sound like a punk. I get irreparably guilty around women and scared around men.
I dissociate and my flight mode engaged whenever I'm dealing with authority. When my boss pulled me into the office for questioning why we weren't getting overtime pay for working over 8 hours in CA, she made it a personal attack on me and why I would do this to her. Then she put a listing for my job online that night.
Left shortly after because fuck you Lindsay. I was such a good employee and did everything to help everyone, even if it meant working through my break.
Same with me, but more so with women.
Oh men yelling is a big one for me too! Yesterday this nice old lady I know stopped in the road while driving to wave hello at me while I was out walking and this middle aged man behind her absolutely lost his shit and started screaming at her calling her an idiot. I haven’t felt my stomach drop like that in years. I absolutely froze, and cried later and he wasn’t even yelling at me directly.
I see you. Living in constant fear of Angry Man shouting and angering was my entire childhood.
I can imagine how uncomfortable that would be though hearing a man screaming and shouting whether or not it was directed at you I’m sure it was scary
This one for me. I feel terrible when my husband is just joking around and has a louder voice, but loud male voices scare the shit out of me sometimes and I panic thinking someone is yelling at me. When I calm down though it's obvious he was just joking around.
That and anxiety and panic attacks.
Oh and I always have to drive my husband. I'm terrified if I'm not in control of the car or the motorcycle that he'll die too.
From every party, event or wedding I go to I always have an independent way out. I don't trust people to take me back nor I stay in people's houses. If I want to leave, I need to be able to leave at that exact moment, not wait until they feel like leaving. Social panic and hyperindependence combo
SAME
Edit: I actually must be able to drive myself out of any situation. If I am forced to have someone else in control of a vehicle or my way out I get VIOLENTLY sick.
Absolutely. Feeling out of control in a situation in an absolute no
I actually crashed my car in February driving to a different state to pick up my nephew. My sister ended up having to drive me home and the 4 hours it took for me to get home, I threw up probably a dozen times in her car. If someone's a bad driver, its a thousand times worse.
Yes I much prefer to be the driver to any event!
Had a panic attack once when I went to a party with a boyfriend and I didn't know anyone. I wanted to take an Uber home and when he got upset that I wanted to leave, I busted out in ugly crying. The party host came down and it became a whole thing. He was mad at me for embarrassing him about this til we broke up- but fuck you if you just let me take an Uber home you wouldn't have been in that spot to begin with.
Omg yes! Gotta have a way out
Never connected this to my CPTSD, but yes... I always have to have a vehicle and the ability to leave. I'm far less comfortable without it.
SAME HOLY F SHIT
I never thought much about it, but I need to feel like I'm safe abd I can't rely on others just as you said. I have paid to sleep in hotels when traveling to close cities where family members live just because I can't do it.
Edit to add that also already spent huge amounts on Uber just to come and go from places
I have the same thing, I find it really difficult to go places where I can’t leave myself, meaning I always drive myself places. I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve tried going somewhere without my own transportation in the last 10 years or so. I get very overwhelmed when I feel trapped
Hey, don’t know if this helps, but for what it’s worth I know exactly what you mean with the leaving-pit-in-your-stomach feeling. I get it too 🫂
When my abusive grandma demanded 3 phone calls per day or all hell would break lose, if see her name pop up on my phone and I’d just freeze and panic and want to start crying.
She didn’t want reciprocal love, kindness, and respect. She wanted control and obedience.
If you didn’t answer every phone call you could feel the tension as things were about to erupt into fighting .
I was and still am SCARED of my grandmother and my uncle.
You get treated like a dog. How?
They want to merely feed you and cloth you. But since you are a animal you don’t need that (income stream), so give your disability checks to me !
And you let me decide when you need walks and want to go play, because you can’t go out alone without me there , I won’t let you!
Just OBEY
God I relate to this. Thank you for sharing. I am in constant fear of being called because their expectations are so high about how much contact I should have with that. And you’re absolutely right that it’s about obedience, it’s never that they actually care about what I have to say or how I’m doing - they just want me to do what they want me to do. God, thank you. I really needed this explained in this way in this exact moment. Know that you helped a stranger today
Given how badly I’m feeling after making a small mistake at work (the trauma they inflict always made me too hard on myself), I appreciate your reply a lot :).
Absent the internet so few of us would understand what was going on, and I’m pretty sure it’s the only reason the world is becoming more knowledgeable about narcs.
Part of me thinks my grandmother was so used to her strategies working based upon controlling knowledge, that she can’t cope with the internet and text messaging spreading information quickly.
Hell, when she would lie about me I’d figure it out getting yelled at, given her lies being SO huge, she’s just use to big lies not causing people to lash out at the target because she REQUIRED the target to stay around her constantly. She can’t do that anymore.
With knowledge comes power, and we both can escape this abuse with knowledge :)
Me too- my mom always took the trip home from an event to go over everyone’s behavior at the event with a deeply critical eye; I can’t leave events without worrying that everyone is doing this about me, and I assume I did some horrible faux pas without realizing it and everyone knows and hates me— this is something she would drive home about some pretty innocuous behavior from her young children.
Not sure how the 2 correlate but they do
I have it too. My theory is that everywhere we were leaving, we were heading back to our abusers, back to the place where the danger was.
I didn't get u, can you explain?
I think they mean that nowadays you still get feeling in your stomach when leaving, because your body still remembers leaving a safe place as going back home to where your abuser is.
If I try to open up about stuff I've been through with someone I know, I will lose the ability to speak. I won't even be able to write. It will take quite a while before I'm able to talk again.
I have this too (although it’s gotten much better as I’ve gotten older). I never understood why until I read about it in The Body Keeps the Score-
SPEECHLESS HORROR Our most surprising finding was a white spot in the left frontal lobe of the cortex, in a region called Broca’s area. In this case the change in color meant that there was a significant decrease in that part of the brain. Broca’s area is one of the speech centers of the brain, which is often affected in stroke patients when the blood supply to that region is cut off. Without a functioning Broca’s area, you cannot put your thoughts and feelings into words. Our scans showed that Broca’s area went offline whenever a flashback was triggered. In other words, we had visual proof that the effects of trauma are not necessarily different from—and can overlap with—the effects of physical lesions like strokes.
Wow, thank you for sharing this info! I have such a ridiculously difficult time putting thoughts and feelings into words, especially when I am emotional (writing them out is an even bigger challenge). It’s fascinating to know the physiology of my shriveled brain.
I kind of have this. I’ll become so distraught I can’t speak. I just cry. I think it may be related to my abuser getting in my face when I was in their “care” and screaming for any perceived infraction, and screaming more if I “talked back,” or misspoke, or gave them any other excuse to abuse me more.
I have this too! I feel so ridiculous when it happens and I want to work on that. My partner doesn’t get it either because I can’t explain it
It's really weird. A few people I've known about this issue have never been able to understand it either. I can talk about anything, but when it comes to that it's impossible.
I always thought I was the only one who had this issue. I hope your partner is understanding of it.
I was codependent for a long time.
I get emotional flashbacks, and my failures tend to crush me pretty seriously. I have terrible attention problems and get distracted so, so easily.
My physical self-care is terrible.
I feel like I wrote all of this.
If you’ve gotten better with codependent issues, may I ask what helped you overcome it, even a little?
I basically rationalized my way out of it. I had a few boyfriends in college, but once I was out of school and really fending for myself, I was just totally consumed with not being alone. Even though I knew nobody I was dating was anyone I could marry, I just hated the bleak loneliness.
Three years or so of this kind of trainwreckiness, and I realized that if I was going to take my future seriously and start looking for someone I could spend the rest of my life with, I absolutely had to figure out how to be okay with being alone, or I was fucked, because people really just recoil from codependency (or the other person is also codependent, which is like an addict hanging out with other addicts, and just makes everything so, so, so much worse).
So that's what I did. I dated for awhile and refused to get serious with anyone. There was a guy I was super into, and he liked me a lot, but he was married to his job and I knew he'd never change, and I didn't want to get emotionally involved with someone again unless it was for realsies, so we eventually ended things, and I maintained emotional distance the entire relationship.
It's the one part of my CPTSD I managed to address without any form of external therapy or help. I just knew I had to do it and be serious abouit it if I didn't want to end up permanently alone. It's not easy, but all of this gets easier with practice, because we're rewiring bad habits and behaviors that we've learned from a very young age. Keep at it, and it will help tremendously.
Thanks so much! I really appreciate your response and effort :)
Now that I think about it, I’ve been doing the same over the years. I’m so much better now than I was before, however I was very codependent with best friends (only a few but different ones since childhood to early adulthood) and hated the idea of a romantic relationship, which was trauma related. Eventually, I realised I was extremely codependent and it was ruining my life, and since then I’ve worked hard on it with my friendships.
I guess I had never actually expected to be in a long term relationship (8yrs now) and it’s taken me a long time to realise that codependency has come up again but within my relationship/with my partner - which has set me back quite a bit in different ways. It feels awful to experience the same consequences and emotions again, especially because I truly thought I had worked through this issue.
You’ve inspired me to work hard again to overcome this particular issue, even if
I guess I had never actually expected to be in a long term relationship
I struggled wtih this for years. For a long time with my now-husband, I didn't believe it was going to last, because none of my relationships (friendships too) ever seemed to last.
It takes awhile to overcome the gunshy reflex, so to speak. I'm glad you found someone!! Keep at it, because it only gets better with time.
Thank you so much!
It’s so nice to read that you and your relationships have gotten better over time - gives me hope! Wishing you the best x
Do you mind if I ask what codependent means? I wound like to give you support or advice but I’ve not been educated on with particular symptom is😊
I'm no academic, but to me, codependency is when you are so emotionally dependent on someone else that you can't function without them. It's often mistaken for intense love. In reality, it's your inability to cope with being alone, translated into emotional intensity to keep someone close.
It happens because we were deprived of assured love, protection, and validation from our guardian(s), (Mods: this is not a diagnosis. It's a statement made by putting two and two together: children who are deprived of love generally aggressively seek love as adults. It's one of the biggest symptoms of this disorder.)
Hyper vigilance. I see every minute movement /body language. Too stay prepared. And it almost never off...
A little twitch of the lip when u lie. How u gesticulate while articulating. Darting eyes, fidgety hands.
Its soooo bothersome. Because i cant control other peoples behaviour. So ita good in bad situations. But bad in normal ones. Because everyone is a villain until you prove me otherwise through your actions, values and morals....
100% agree. Than we are blamed for making “assumptions” . The last time I didn’t analyze every move someone was making it nearly cost me my life so I’m sorry if it bothers you but until you prove you’re not a threat than I’m going to analyze every breath you breath
This... omg if only common courtesy and manners were still a thing.......❤️
Absolutely. We are so misunderstood . We are not bitches or whatever for being so alert , we are protecting ourselves.
Going mute. Dissociation. Big anxiety. Hyper vigilance. Depression. Low self esteem.
Every time I have a sexual thought my body seizes up with cramps.
Yes I have a very deep shame response when it comes to sex. I feel stunted mentally in that aspect, it's like I'm a 12 year old girl all of a sudden.
I feel you on this one. Even masturbation is difficult sometimes getting flashbacks and a feeling of disgust
I’m male and I can trace all of this back to something a woman did to me when I was 5.
CPTSD is a many-splendored thing 😒
I hope you are healing 🫶🫶
2 years of weekly EMDR sessions have helped greatly. 🙂
Wow amazing. If you feel comfortable can you explain it to me? My psychiatrist recommended it to me but I’m unsure about what it actually is as I never see anyone talk about it
My experience with it was that the therapist guided me through memories using eye movements to draw them out and process them. I was skeptical after 10 years of talk therapy that did nothing. I have an ACE score of 9 and had dozens of awful memories to process. The day after some of the sessions were horrible and I still have those moments of dissociation but I am able to work through them. I live where cannabis is completely legal and that has also helped.
I’m glad that helped you. Safe healing and recovery ❤️🩹
And also to you. Take care.
Same. Except it's any indication of sexual thoughts towards me. Even if it's by a person that I might find attractive.
Becoming a robot. Basically living on autopilot is the only way I can function, hold down a job, etc. I also have noticed how socially awkward I can be, like I have a lot of idiosyncratic behaviors in friendships that are definitely not “normal”. One example is some coworkers asked me to go out to lunch and I didn’t know them super well yet, so when they all got in one coworker’s car, I assumed that because I wasn’t explicitly asked to join the carpool that I had to drive myself, so I just got in my car and left without question or pause. They all then asked me when we got to lunch why I did that and I realized how ingrained/automatic my response was, like I just didn’t even think to ask if I could carpool. Essentially I have a lot of moments like that.
It’s amazing what our bodies do to try and protect ourselves.
Wow spot on! Same here, I never even dare to assume someone would include me.
Chronic pain, especially in my legs. When I feel trapped emotionally, my legs begin to ache badly. This can be trapped in any way that my brain views as a trap, regardless of whether or not it is truly accurate. So a long lecture for school - if I feel like I can't leave - may initiate leg pain. Being around men that I feel unsafe around. Being around women that I find scary. The good news is, my legs have been a bellwether for unsafe people for me, so if I start to feel this pain before I realize I find someone to be scary, it's a clue to me that I need to avoid them going forward. Also, I've learned enough about these triggers that I've built a nearly pain-free life for myself after years of effort.
I was being emotionally abused so badly my already painful neck got so bad I was laying down all day.
And she flipped out that I didn’t love her because I was “being lazy”. “No one has pain every day like this”
I hope you were able to leave the situation.
Thankfully yeah, since I had section 8 I was able to go back to the old apartment I never got rid of. She kept pretending to be nice and trying to have me fully get rid of it, and now I understand why she was doing that.
Once there, I got a job that allowed me to work from home.
My former boss/second chosen family dad gave me his car and let my adapt it for my disability and then pay him back.
And after 2 years of having her still trying to get me fired and torture me, I moved to another city and took a job offer.
Ironically? They only found out 6 months after the fact when they came to my house banging on the door demanding something be done for them.
The leg pain warning is actually very cool. Not cool that you had pain but really interesting and helpful that it kicks in before anything else as a warning. I'm going to have to pay closer attention to my body to see if I have a similar thing.
Thanks, it took me years to figure it out and also to retrain my brain into not getting triggered by situations that I truly am free to leave (a long boring lecture or a shitty job) and then additionally I've learned to navigate dealing with avoiding people much more quickly whom I don't feel comfortable around, before the pain is activated, usually.
Well done on finding out your triggers that’s amazing!!
Thanks it's an ongoing process.
i have a lot of problems with my digestion. i get diarrhoea a lot of the time, especially when my trauma feels more prevalent. it feels so embarrassing and out of my control. whenever i have to do something that i find scary (like a big conversation or going to the doctors) i get an upset stomach. i have to take imodium a lot which i think isn’t good for me but it’s the only way i can go to big events (e.g on holidays, weddings) and not be in the bathroom half the time. i am often consumed by fear if i’m going to away from a bathroom for an extended period of time which makes me anxious and more likely to have a stomach upset. i should probably tell my therapist or see a doctor but it’s embarrassing and it feels like my own fault. it feels like i just need to get over it and be able to manage my emotions better.
I get that it can feel embarrassing but you have nothing to be ashamed of and you are doing the best you can❤️
Ive also had this. For me its because I have IBS but now that I have less stress my symptoms have gotten easier. You could maybe take a look at the FODMAP diet? It helped and made me feel a ton better.
It’s so weird how ptsd can affect the body physically
hey i can relate to GI issues. i suggest activated charcoal. i know it got a bad rep recently in the wellness industry, but it was used primarily for kids who ingested a toxin b/c it absorbs so well. i take some when i get gassy, diarrhea (won't help you immediately, but probably within an hour or something), and nausea. may not be for you, but a lot of people don't know about it so i just wanted to let you know. you can ask your pharmacist about it, i think activated charcoal is being kept behind the counter now.
I didn’t hear that it had gotten a bad rep lately. What are they saying is wrong with it?
Going mute, dissociating, flashbacks, brain fog, always alert, jumpy, anxious, always tired.
Night terrors. When I try to go to sleep sometimes (at least once a week)I get first slightly nervous, this then amplifies radically to massive panic/anxiety until my body is emptying it self completely. Think of the most violent stomach flu you ever had, 5+ of vomiting. No sleep until the next morning. While enduring this I feel like my life is about to end.
Typically after triggering situations like a Mondays, going on vacation or discussions with my partner.
20+ yrs of therapy. Nothing helped, only lorazepam.
I can’t put into words how that must feel for you. FUCK CPTSD
have night terrors since little weed has been helping for a few ears now
Dissociation, I have a memory of a fish and I can’t remember the majority of my life especially preteen and teenage years. Chronic pain, my neck and shoulders hurt as hell whenever I’m anxious. Trichotillomania and insomnia.
Do you go to therapy?
No cause therapy in my country is useless.
I’m sorry you aren’t able to access mental health care
Some of my symptoms:
feeling like a bad person
don’t want to go to sleep at night
people pleaser
lifelong depression
need a lot of time by myself
hard time having relationships
feel disgusting
difficulty doing basic self-care things
difficulty regulating my emotions
isolating a lot
not wanting to touch my skin
Compliments never have any effect on me, because my tormentors caused me to feel so worthless that I don't feel anything good about me is true.
It’s so hard to believe what other people say when you’ve been made feel like your worthless time and time again
Not alone there.
I really minimize how I'm feeling to most folks, even my loved ones sometimes. I understate a lot.
I do let my partners know about this upfront and try to help by having them ask something like, "How are you actually feeling?"
That deeper question helps me to not give a canned answer I'd give a NT person or someone I don't know well.
My closest know that when I say, "this thing stings" or, "I'm so tired", they know it's very bad.
It's a result of a family that had trouble expressing emotions and my own way of trying to gloss over my own trauma and emotions so I can just keep going.
It’s hard to express emotions if you were never thought how to do so or if your emotions and feelings were belittled and made out to be nothing when you were a child
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I suffered from it so badly that my dad (now passed but former target to his abusive family) kept bringing me to doctors and couldn’t figure out an answer , because they kept telling me everything was fine.
After he died and I moved out of one of the abusers homes to avoid being abused, after 6 months I began noticing this ever so small decrease in fatigue.
3 years out I’ve been performing at my job so much better because I’ve experienced something akin to a 75% reduction in the chronic fatigue.
AND I’ve verified it MUST be the abusers. How ?
I went no contact and they tried to blackmail me through turning my empathetic cousin into a tool. “I’m paying for your wedding (my cousin), you might be able to decide if you invite that monster, but you’ll have to accept the consequences that im so angry things may start happening if I see him and he “disrespects me” (ie: doesn’t let him and grandma abuse me while I’m being calm).
Thankfully I was uninvited , and I see that as a benefit now.
Because that interaction had me negotiating trying to not let my boundaries down at the same time as making my cousin happy.
I was exhausted after that one week for at least 2 full weeks. I was sleeping yet again 12 hours a day. It was awful.
They hit me so badly emotionally, that I almost regain 100% of my chronic fatigue the moment I interact with them through even a nice person.
Isn't it crazy how much emotional energy is burned in bad relationships, either romantic or platonic? Blows my mind.
My grandfather seemed like a scapegoat according to what I heard. So was my father. They both died of cancer in their 50s. I genuinely think the stress the abuse caused killed them both early.
I have frequent migraines. They often happen with no cause, but I know for sure I’ll get a particularly severe one if I’m emotionally distressed for several hours.
Digestive problems, neck pain, anxiety, drug addiction (I’m sober and in recovery), fear of older men and I’m terrified that people will yell at me so I use all my energy pleasing people and making sure people around me are happy.
But the worst is the chronic feeling of being worthless
And nothing anybody says can give you back that hope and worth you once had. It’s a horrible feeling
Waiting for people to come over to my house or pick me up. I used to be so anxious I'd be crying when my dad was coming to pick me up from my mom's house because I knew I was going back to the bad place, and now I feel the same anxiety during the waiting period. It ruins whatever I'm about to do. I much prefer just picking other people up.
I remember that anxiety, dreading visitation with dad. It was always an enormous relief when something came up and it had to be cancelled.
My dad would often be an hour late and would get pissed off if he had to wait for more than like 30 seconds for me, so I'd have to be sitting there with all my shit packed and ready to go just dreading going and knowing that I couldn't do anything in the meantime because it would have to stop immediately when he arrived.
Mine would do that too. Not to mention all the horrible tension when he and my mother had to interact with each other. I learned to get myself out the door quick to avoid that.
One time (long before cellphones) he brought me back hours early with no warning. Of course, my mother wasn’t home at the time. It was the middle of the day and she didn’t expect me home until evening. I couldn’t have been more than 4yo. We sat on the steps to her apartment and he spent hours telling me that she must not love me, because if she did, she would be there waiting for me. I was inconsolable when she finally came home. Clung to her and sobbed for hours.
My insomnia which is derived from bad things happening at night. I would have panic attacks laying down for the night, and always wondered why I woke up mad and irritable; it's because I was automatically waking up in fight or flight from my mom waking me up in terrible ways. Falling asleep and waking up are dangerous to my brain 🙄 I've improved this symptom somewhat (I don't have the panic anymore) but I still get pretty bad insomnia, especially right before my period. I used to regulate through this by cleaning at night which helped combat my extreme executive dysfunction and messy house, but eventually life + this + not treating my cptsd lead to a complete burnout and now I can't use that "cheat" anymore. Which in hindsight that was not a healthy coping mechanism bc I was still awake all night, I was just productive, and that isn't a healthy relationship with self at all lmao.
I will say that for ANY of my symptoms, the only relief I've experienced is from applying somatic theories/practices. Emdr helps to move through something but don't even think about emdr until you can emotionally regulate somatically first lmao I intellectualize my feelings and have even went as far as pursuing a PhD in Clinical Psychology, so trust me, no amount of understanding, reliving and letting go, is going to relieve your body/emotional symptoms. It may reduce flashbacks of that event, but the majority of the problems we have are because of the trauma stored in the body and an extremely overactive nervous system. Think of it as our bodies autopilot is set to high and we can't switch it off, so we have to switch to flying manual for a while until the computer can learn the path, altitude, speed :)
So advice for anyone experiencing the symptoms in this thread, get. In. Your. Body. Its super scary and I hate it 🤣 but it's truly the only thing that helps.
And if you're in denial like I was and think you're super in tune with your body, answer these questions HONESTLY: 1. Do you often describe yourself feeling not like your body, like you're just a floating head, or just your brain? 2. Are you hyper sensitive to touch, pain (even if you're really good at enduring it), light? 3. Do you find yourself with a shrinking posture, often realizing you're slouching in stressful situations? 4. Do you not have a keen sense of your bodily space? Do people call you a clutz or clumsy because you bump into things or drop things? 5. Do you find sitting in silence hard, or meditation? 6. Have you tried things like cold plunge etc and realized you had 0 tolerance for the cold? Not even able to force yourself to get longer than 10-30 seconds? 7. Do you have rhythm, and enjoy dancing?
Went on a bit of a tangent there but I think CPTSD is so hard to treat because 90% of the world doesn't understand what's going on so I want to give my symptoms + solutions because no amount of talk therapy, emdr, etc helped me to stop having melt downs, or deal with life's stressors and all my triggers
lol, phd in neuro here and YUP i feel you on the intellectualizing
Same :’) on a leave of absence currently
wow, just read your comment more thoroughly and , are you me ? i get the insomnia before my period too and used to try cleaning before bed to help. i answered yes to ALL of the questions.
I noticed hormones play a huge role in how severe I experience my CPTSD symptoms. Eg before my period is a peak, but nothing compared to post partum and when weaning. Those were truly horrific times.
Hey! Thanks for sharing all of this. Would you mind giving more specifics on the steps you’ve taken to help go “manual”/work somatically?
Absolutely! I'll give you an example of what I do now and the dif techniques I roladex through when one thing isn't working lol
This can be tricky if you haven't developed what I call "the pause" so if you haven't developed a very good "pause" in times of stress, don't worry! The more you apply these things the more this "pause" develops, making it easier and easier to use these tools. I was always so frustrated when people would say "just pause before you react!" Like bruh what pause 😅😅 so before reading these techniques remember to give yourself grace and time to develop it, because it is a SKILL!
Start by noticing the emotion in your body. I will link here a wheel of emotions that will help you work through this. How do you feel? Angry? Take that further. I feel exasperated, disgusted etc.
Where do you feel this emotion in your body? Take a second to close your eyes and let the emotion take over you. This is scary, I know. But lean into it gradually, slowly, until you can identify it. Eg I feel it in my chest, my stomach etc. Feel your entire body. Toes to head lol
Regulate your breathing. Once you've grabbed onto the emotion and where it's at in your body, take deep breaths in and out through the nose/out the mouth. I like to breathe in 4 seconds, pause 4 seconds, breathe out 4 seconds, pause, repeat.
Utilize EFT Tapping to help yourself move through the emotion. Here is a link that explains what that is. Basically tap certain parts of your body to stimulate the vagus nerve while trying to cognitively think through the emotion, integrating your body AND your mind.
If tapping isn't enough, jump around, flail your arms. Best on your chest. Dance! Run! Move! Your body is in fight or flight so let it express itself through the body bc often we are just storing it continually! Try to utilize the same thought patterns that EFT does and what I've outlined above.
Bonus stuff that I find helps that is centered on the body:
I listen to my body now when I'm uncomfortable. Tired? Go take a nap WITHOUT guilt. You aren't a failure or lazy. Lazy doesn't exist! We literally evolved to absorb vitamins d through our skin to get us out of our dens 🤣🤣 and not only that, but do you shame a friend with a broken leg for not being able to run a mile? Ptsd is an injury. CPTSD is sustained injuries. Treat yourself as a recovering person.
Before bed I create a "safe" place. I shower which always helps me feel safe, I do nice lotions and smells. I make my bed ultra comfy. I lock my dogs out for the evening (I tend to care more for their needs than mine to the point I neglect myself then burn out or have a melt down lmao). Again, all about listening to the body and honoring what it's telling you instead of judging it.
I take psychedelic mushrooms after a month or two of intense talk therapy work. For me I feel it actually cements what you've been working on in therapy. Think of it as the old saying "set and setting". I work on that specific trauma with my therapist, trip, get more insight on what I'm missing/integrate it into self. Wash and repeat. I find this to be more successful than microdosing. But I think it works bc it takes your defenses down and let's your mind express itself through the body. Its like you strip away the trauma response and are instantly connected in with your body. This one comes with heavy warnings on dosage, less is more, a heros dose sent me into psychosis bc I was overwhelmed by my trauma, I ended up having and accident and frostbite so yeah nothing to play around with. I was young and naive and didn't treat it like a medicine, took too much in a bad setting with 0 work on my trauma. Not good lmao. Do all the other work I'm telling you first. Get in the body, unpack, repeat. Until you are at a stable place because the fear will eat you up. But treating it like a medicine and being careful, it's an indescribably great tool for ptsd/cptsd folks. It actually foreshadowed my heroin addiction, but that's an essay for another day 🤣
Marijuana. Another caveat; only if you've done enough work. It can either 1. Shut down all your dissociation abilities, sending you into fight or flight panic, or 2. Cause you to ONLY emotionally regulate through weed. So make sure you can be honest with yourself because it can be a GREAT tool for cptsd but can also be our worst enemy if we emotionally cope through substances (again, coming from a heroin addict who spent 5yrs abstinence until I developed a good relationship with self and was able to treat things as medicine. Give your brain time to heal, it takes YEARS. I still don't touch alcohol (literally 0 benefits, it's a poison), and inly dabbled with coke one time due to peer pressure and immediately was like wow this is shitty and I feel shitty lmfao I do not enjoy this, then was unable to unpack why I tried it again etc just an entirely different relationship with substances. Again, abstinence for years is paramount! These are all chemicals. Think of drugs as a button you press for your brain. You're forcing it to give you these chemicals. Give it a rest and a reset!
This became crazily long but tbh my recovery and cptsd is my passion and I'm having an outstanding writing day (you wouldn't believe the way I yap but my trauma often keeps me from writing...smdh I hate how it ruins the good stuff too) so enjoy my musings and life story 😅🤣
Diarrhea
Constipation
Stomach pain
Bloating
Tmj
Neck tightness
Pelvic floor tightness
Hard flaccid
Jaw tightness(cracked molars)
Fatigue
Brain fog
Anxiety
Depression
Horrible ADHD (possible dopamine dysregulation)
0 motivation
The feeling of needing to be on the run from something
No sex drive
Erectile dysfunction
Bad balance
Terrible muscle activation (can’t feel them in gym at all like I used to. No mind muscle connection and no pump)
Sometimes I’m so weak I just can’t make a fist. Like when you wake up first thing in the morning
Numb lips
Taste of metal in my mouth
I also have TMJ from CPTSD I never heard of anyone else with it. I’m glad I’m not alone. You are not alone either I feel you I understand
I wrote this spaced out in a way I thought it’d post. I’m not going back to add punctuation. Have fun you guys
On mobile you need to add 3-5 spaces after each line or double space, which gets annoying. I forget how to format for bullet points.
Fixed it
The core symptoms of CPTSD are listed in the ICD-11. It's used all over the world for doctors to diagnose CPTSD. Core symptoms means everyone with CPTSD has them. There are many other things we can have too. We often have several or more other major mental conditions.
https://icd.who.int/browse/2024-01/mms/en#585833559
The symptoms I've had for CPTSD are the same as in the link. It's basically severe PTSD and 3 other severe symptoms. I've also had depression, suicidal ideation, substance abuse, self-harm and physical illness.
I get mutism because of this. The moment my anxiety around people goes up, I can't speak, and I have to push through a 1000 layers of anxiety to be able to say the little I do say.
Anxiety, throwing up, always running away whenever there is a slight disagreement with anyone.
I think I understand. If I think I might have an argument or disagreement with someone I will leave them first so they don’t get the chance to hurt me
Sleeping over at other peoples home. Big nope!
i go mute when i’m having a stressful conversation. i want to speak but literally can’t. i can write simple stuff on a paper to explain what’s happening but it’s like sometimes my body overrides all communication, because i guess what i learned from the abuse was that talking or trying to verbally work things out always lead to further/worse abuse
Common. The Broca region of the brain is responsible for converting thought into speech, but it is also tied to internal thoughts.
Long before I found out about this, I could feel that portion of my brain shutting down. Physically where it is located. Weird sensation.
It is the only time my mind is actually quiet. The only time I don’t want it to be.
was it on the side of your head sort of? i feel a weird feeling on the side of my head when it happens, not numbness but kind of similar without the prickling. i also have a big problem with internal thoughts coincidentally. i go into little fits of mentally attacking myself that almost make me feel schizophrenic.
If I get triggered, I feel like my brain shuts off, I can’t think straight. I get so tired and foggy, everything takes me significantly longer to do. It’s incredibly frustrating when it happens, and it usually takes at least a week to get back to normal.
Dissociation, memory problems, my short term memory is fuuuucked, I have to have a list of things I need to do in order to remember them (and then I have to put alarms because I will forget about them too), and if I don't do what the alarm was for immediately I will forget it in 2 seconds (no exaggeration). I live in constant fear all day, so that brings me stress that exarberates my dissociation. I hate living in my body (one of the most traumatic experiences was around my body not being safe and mine) so I'm not in them all the time, but I hate feeling like I'm floating so I want to go back in it and vice-versa. And my energy depends on how I woke up, if I woke up in bad mood (depressed, angry, upset) I will have almost no energy. I need to do naps and I know it, but going to sleep is dangerous to me because of the nightmares and that I'm exposed to danger because I can't protect myself, so I can't sleep even if I tried.
Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be a regulated and "normal" person. To be able to enjoy things without be constantly seeking if a dangerous situation or person is around. Or if I will ever be able to sleep properly and not waking up feeling that I got beaten up while I sleep and didn't rest at all.
The short term memory thing hiiits. And waking up feeling horrible. I wish doctors could help me with that so much
Extreme sound sensitivity.
Through therapy and psychological assessment, I’ve discovered that pretty much everything I do and think is related to C-PTSD. How jumpy I am, how I perceive comments, my lack of self esteem, fear of confrontation, imposter syndrome, over sharing and then having anxiety about it, continuous issues with sleep, stomach aches, tight muscles and knots, a past eating disorder, extreme fatigue… the list goes on. I truly wonder who I’d be if I’d had a different childhood
I feel you on this one. I have many of the same symptoms. With ptsd people know who they were before the trauma and try to get back to who they were. Where as with CPTSD we don’t know any different than who we are today , we don’t know who we are trying to be or trying to become because our childhood and adolescents have been essentially stripped from us. I hope you heal
Emotional flashbacks are a huge one for me, especially when trying to make new social connections. Little things can easily make me feel rejected or abandoned, which sometimes triggers intense panic and despair. I also get a muscle twitch on the left side of my head/neck and left arm (my head twitches to the left and my left arm tries to go to the right across my chest) and it worsens when I’m stressed. It’s the same position I used to take to try to protect myself when my mother would corner me and physically assault/strangle me.
thanks for posting this, and validating everyone's responses. this has been really cathartic for me!! just reading other peoples, and having some comraderie
I guess I took the term "speak when spoken to" too harshly growing up, and took it into adulthood as, "you don't have anything valuable to say." when my boss is talking to people in a group setting like a meeting, I absorb all of the information given to me, but I've never felt like I could bring any ideas to the table that haven't been thought of before. just recently, I've gotten more comfortable with speaking up when something doesn't seem right or can be done more efficiently, and regardless of whether the idea gets shot down or not, I've noticed that I feel less of a weight on my shoulders when the meeting is over.
I’ve experienced what you shared a lot
It’s hard to put into words
My PTSD is so severe that I get migraines and seizures among many other physical and mental symptoms
Ptsd sucks. I hope you heal 🫶
Thank you ❣️. Same to you my friend.
Shit short term memory
Small talk. I don't trust it. It is a way for people to get information that I don't want to give by lowering my guard. Or it is a way to attack me.
Just browsing around here today as I’m in the midst of an epically bad IBS flare. Since getting my CPTSD diagnosis, it’s been eye opening to watch the physical symptoms pop when emotional stressors are high. I’ve been dealing with stomach troubles as long as I can remember.
Dissociation (derealization), emotional numbness because I am subconciously escaping my difficult feelings because I was trained to do so and fibromyalgia and ibs :/
limerence. limerence. limerence... i just can't stop being obsessed with people who have never been into me. i get stuck on one person and imagine myself with them non-stop every day, it can go on for 1-2 years till i find someone else to become obsessed with. i'm a 24 year old woman, i have never had a relationship or have never been on a date. why can't i just stop thinking about people who don't even care about me? people at my age already got married or have been in long term relationships. i hate to be this way. it destroys my self confidence. i don't want to feel ugly anymore. i want to feel beautiful and desirable. i want to be seen even though i am scared of being seen at the same time. i want to be loved but idk what i would do with that love, it would scare the shtt out of me. i want intimacy but i don't want people to see the real me, cuz i am scared that they'll feel disgusted by me and leave me. i'm scared that there is something inherently wrong with me and i wish that's not true but i can never ever be sure. i wish i could get rid of this emptiness i feel in my chest everyday. i wish i could feel joy, connection and happiness more often. i wish i could stop this inner voice that tells me that i look like shtt and i am not good enough. i wish i didn't dissociate from my body and the world this much and be more present in the moment.
sorry for the rant... i was feeling A LOT and i just wanted to share.
P.S. i've never been diagnosed with c-ptsd but i think i might have it.
Thank you for sharing, I hope you got a weight of your chest. You are beautiful and worthy off love and don’t let anyone tell you different🫶
I coulda wrote this myself. Be glad you’re learning these things now I had to go through extreme bouts of limerence during the early days of the internet and can remember being so incredibly triggered by it I couldn’t sleep. The horror stories I could tell you about what limerence did to me before I knew what the word was
I have an extreme startle reflex so I can't drive. If there is sudden stress, I get a severe pain in my lower back and can barely walk because my knees are shaking. If I'm triggered, I disconnect from reality and don't know what going on. I can't figure out right from left. I cant remember what name I'm using. ( 2 divorces and a nickname plus my maiden name gets confusing) I get severe digestive upset. I feel like I'm waking up every morning in Groundhog Day the movie. The only thing that keeps me going everyday is my love for my sons and trying to help them heal from being raised by a mom with serious mental health issues.
That is exactly how I feel right now. My cptsd stems from my dad’s damaging temper throughout my childhood. I’ve been building boundaries from it, but a couple weeks ago, my dad went off on my husband… this triggered something within me. I’ve been “off” ever since and for the past week, I’ve had that pit of dread in my stomach and I’m extremely self conscious.
I’m sorry to hear that happened. Something similar happened me. My dad spent my whole childhood in jail but before he was he abused us and neglected our feelings and emotions as well as his own and just turned to anger. He has been out for a few years now and I went to visit him which is do regularly but this time me and my baby sister was there and he belittled me every couple of seconds saying I don’t know how you are honours student , I don’t know how u gonna make it in life when u can’t do this that and the other and just constantly shouting at me. I was so triggered I cried the whole trip home and even had to admit myself to hospital because I was so badly triggered. Even after I thought u was healed enough to deal with this sort of stuff it’s hard to deal with
I think it’s a deeper type of trigger… one that is also physiological. That’s how it is for me, too. I have tested the waters many times and every time he vents his extremely judgmental and highly critical opinions, I’m right back in it.
It sounds like you are in an emotional flashback. Possibly in freeze? What helps me is moving my body, and putting my body through hot and cold Temps. I go to a wet sauna, then cold plunge, back and forth a couple of times. A cold/hot shower may work.
Wow. Emotional flashback… That is what it is! I appreciate your input very much. Thank you!
I used to be super codependent with partners but thankfully I was finally able to break that cycle in myself. But I still struggle to set boundaries with myself and follow through on goals I set for myself. I feel paralyzed when I procrastinate, and I procrastinate often because of executive dysfunction. I’m also really hedonistic, I overeat and escape my responsibilities through TV, comfort crafting, sleeping, etc
Four-F responses. I hold my breath subconsciously sometimes so I breath manually a lot when I'm anxious. My doctor has never heard that one before. I have dissociated so strongly I had "black outs" and don't remember what happened, several times. Sometimes ending up in a strange place or crying profusely and not knowing why. No one can tell me what happened or why I'm crying. Aches/pains, sleep problems and stress dreams, multiple sensory sensitivities that are getting worse as I get older. Difficulty judging/moderating my social skills. Distrust of platonic friends and aversion to putting myself out there and building relationships.
being quiet, hyper vigilance, depression, anxiety, dissociation, stomach issues
I have anticipatory anxiety.
Brain fog/ feeling of pressure in head near daily. Purely psychosomatic. I can't stop it.
If I'm at a party or crowded gathering, I lean on the walls. Someone touching me from behind triggers my fight or flight from a SA experience.
Eating disorders
I get the same pit! When I realize I’m about to be alone after an event of some sort, it’s one of the most depressing and low feelings I get deep down in my tummy. I was emotionally neglected and alone a lot of my childhood.
Yes I feel this too!! I grew up with no parents and for the short time I did we were abused so I feel like my fear of being neglected/rejected leaving an event stems from this
Seizures
Severe anxiety, will get sweaty and nauseous. In really intimidating situations where I’m feeling bad anxiety I will develop a rash on my chest.
Where are my fellow psoriatics up in here!
Social anxiety, hair loss, fidgeting, depression, low self esteem/ very self conscious. I also had terrible ovary problems that went away so I wonder if that was related. I was told that it’s weird and uncommon case considering my age
Extreme insomnia, schizoid thinking, roller coaster emotions, extreme anger just right below the surface, extremeee nervousness/anxiousness that goes up and down my solar plexus to throat that literally is there 24/7, shaky at times during the day, I shake at night before bed, don't trust anyone, threats everywhere, never any peace or relaxation, little will to live, almost complete hopelessness, depression, etc etc...
Rosacea, diarrhea, stomach burning, throwing up fits, hot burning sensation in my face, body itching.
Detachment. I can care so much and then not at all.
The doorbell rang today and my heart jumped. I got shakey and sweaty. It took me 20 minutes to calm down (physically - mentally I knew it was just pest control!). This is with years of therapy. I just had surgery and haven’t been feeling well physically so I think I’ve regressed a bit. Doing the tango!
I’d aggree with thatv
I feel this!!
Horrible constant pain in my neck, shoulders and back. Probably from being tense for years due to the trauma
Crying randomly is the weirdest one I've noticed. I've had to get used to it. Like, I cried the first time I did a leg press. I've cried while talking to people. It's like a good cry. But definitely not helping my social life.
I get the random crying. I wear gradient sunglasses all the time for this reason
The urge to leave the house.
It put me in way too dangerous situations in my teen/early twenties — really imprudent, but to this day I can't be at home too much, it feels like a prison whenever.
extreme dissociation when stress rises and it gets triggered like the work around goes blurry and i can’t see clearly and zoning out starts like this feeling of dread arises and doom. it feels like i entered an endless void of terror and feeling of absolute chaos
Going into dream world - aka Spacing out - or I call it Lala land. 😬 I do try to practice some grounding techniques to bring myself back in the moment if that happens (and that usually happens if I get triggered out of nowhere).
I'm a guy, but am far more comfortable dealing with, trusting, and interacting with women than men. I have a female doctor, dentist, and therapist, by deliberate request. I've hired far more female employees than male. I work in a male dominated field, and can successfully work with guys, but there's a clear preference in terms of comfort being around. I do have male friends, but it's a super small circle.
me too i never knew why. i avoid going out now because i hey an empty feeling going back home
Disassociation when my social bucket is empty - can happen mid-sentence
Mostly, it have affect it my digestive system. Any anxiety or feeling I have will be reflect on my stomach, so I have to try to stay calm when im anxious or angry. Besides that, I have lost a lot of hair through the years since I was teenager due to high levels of stress. And lastly, I have allergies or symptoms in my skin too (if I'm too stressed or anxious). It sucks cause I'm so young and I already deal with my physical health, the cptsd really shows.
Also, because of a lot of traumatic experiences I developed agoraphobia. Which makes all of my symptoms get worse. Like, if I go out or see people my age my body will get tense and start being hypervigilant.
Well whenever I try to open up to someone, i pretty much lose the ability to communicate. Start stammering, at a loss of words. It's tough. Unless of course I'm drunk.
Fibromyalgia, colitis, dysthymia,.
Lately I’ve noticed that i very easily and intensely can feel rejected over the most minor things, like not being in a conversation even if it doesn’t interest me
Ocd
Chronic tense shoulders/neck. The only relief I’ve found is acupuncture, which usually isn’t covered by insurance so whelp.
Disappointment in myself whenever I have even the smallest of failures.
Nightmares. Every. Damn. Night.
Touch from others feels uncomfortable but I crave it.
Facial expressions feel weird on my face. A lot of unconscious forced expressions.
Dissociation. I’m working on this one through meditation and yoga, which are helping a lot.
One that is the most prominent is that my shoulders and back are always super tense and it's hard to train my brain to not need to be in hypervigilance fight or flight mode to a point where it causes pain.
Stuttering. It’s actually what got me my diagnosis. At first we thought it was related to my autism. I didn’t start stuttering until after a hugely traumatic event and it made school a living nightmare. I was picked on relentlessly. Even in my late 20s I still stutter and talk really fast but it’s luckily nowhere as bad as it used to be. When it does happen I just say I have a speech impediment that sneaks up on me.
insomnia - i literally can never sleep without something playing in the background or someone being next to me i find it so hard to keep a normal sleep routine.If i get to the stage where i’ve fixed “ my sleep i’ll self sabotage it it’s like i don’t want to be in a so called “normal” routine. when i was young i used to have such a fear that someone was breaking in nearly every night i used to sleep with knives under my pillow
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Competitive degradation, aphasia, my leg is numb, random burning skin patches (neurological pain), depression, anxiety, perfectionism, and a bunch of other crap I can't even remember because of the first thing on my list.
Heightened startle response, skin picking, sugar addiction.
I have chronic fatigue syndrome, and I can't focus on any one thing because my brain has to make me do a lot of things at once to prevent any thinking about things, I have nightmares especially if I don't take anything to help me sleep, sometimes I'm just so fucking angry about it all but there's nowhere to put that anger so I just get mad at myself, I don't trust men on the whole, I am terrified of police and I can't engage with the NHS anymore because they're all related to past traumas and I just don't trust them at all on any level. Oh and my memory is truly awful and bounces around constantly. Substance abuse. Probably a ton more I don't even recognise as symptoms tbh.
High cortisol levels. Destroyed my immune system. Every morning, the memories and anger are full body. If I don't sit with it long enough in the morning, it will break through the whole day. I trust no one. Ever. For any reason. I want to. But I can't do it.