My C-PTSD Awareness
Before anything else. C-PTSD is something that has been done to me. NOT something I was born with (just to make that understood as well). NOT something I choose for and not something I asked for. As a victim I most likely will be dealing with the results for the rest of my life while the ones who caused it live happily ever after.
I am currently on my second part of therapy and I do not know how many will follow. I have followed a course called vroeger en verder thats basically a stabilization course for handling emotions etc. That course helped me a lot with understanding whats going on with me and helped me making plans on how to deal with difficult situations and triggers etc. Right now I am doing Linehan therapy also known as DBT Dialectical behaviour therapy that’s a type of psychotherapy that combines behavioral science with Zen concepts like acceptance and mindfulness. which has been created by Martha Linehan. She is a Professor of Psychology, Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle and Director of the Behavioral Research and Therapy Clinics. Her primary research is in borderline personality disorder, the application of behavioral models to suicidal behaviors, and drug abuse. She believes she was wrongly diagnosed with schizophrenia while she thinks she had borderline personality disorder.
My healing path truly begun with awareness. Just that little label someone stuck on me; C-PTSD. Its just that, a label for not anyone with C-PTSD label will be equal to another person with C-PTSD. To begin with the suffered abuse differs, the age it appeared may differ, the length of time and the combination of more abuse and how was dealt with by people close to the victims differs. So yes it is just a label and each and everyone of us survivors ( Ill come back to the word survivors later on) have to find for our self what works for us. We need to find our own healing path. What woks for one person doesn’t work or the other. I love listening to music but at times I am being triggered I better stay away from music for its unpredictable to me f it will trigger me or not. Other people tell me they calm down from music. It helps them relax and focus on something else.
Back to awareness, the worst for me is the overwhelming emotions. Once I am triggered its a tsunami of emotions followed by another tsunami and another etc etc. Often I have no clue what hit me and that’s exactly what I am working on to become aware of so that I can act on it differently which leads to easier being able to handle the flood of emotions. I am even positive that once I fully understand where they come from and I have dealt with my past that they become less and less strong. So in other words, once you know and accept whats going on you can make changes. What changes? wait what? I can change C-PTSD?? No, I wish, you cant but you can change how you react on the symptoms which makes them more easy to handle and when you start to become aware of what triggers you you can learn to act on it differently so that you don’t become overwhelmed by emotions.
Since I have been aware of my C-PTSD I have done what I could to learn about it so I could understand what is happening to me. I understand its important for the people around me that I am close to that they understand what is going on with me so that they know it is not their fault. It is my traumas and not them. Yes something they did or said might have triggered it but please my reactions is exaggerated and not in context with the reason I got triggered. My reactions to triggers may vary but they usually spring from extreme fear and may result in anger and intense sadness.
After the triggers and my reactions to it comes shame and guilt and more sadness. An unbelievable amount of shame and guilt because the other person who triggered me had no clue what was so bad about what he she did if it was bad to begin with at all. And no matter how you try to explain it they may understand but they still had to deal with me at that moment. So more sadness is triggered because I really do not want to hurt anyone around me or make them feel bad about something they should not have to feel that bad about. I am aware it is happening and I do not approve of my behavior (the anger or jealousy or whatever). I Usually do apologize after wards but its not a fair apology because something DID trigger me, This can be very well something that was not nice to say or do to me. But please understand that is not a good reason for my exaggerated reaction.
One of the things I have learned to help me coop with my issues as a survivor was trying to control every situation. That worked for me for a long time but now its working against me. My own survival technique is backfiring on me because I don’t need this technique anymore. My fears however push me to keep trying to control all situations. I am working hard on this issue too for it limits the people in my surrounding. People need to be free and not have to be limited to my C-PTSD. Still I explain that I do it and why I do it. That doesn’t make it right I just hope that the people near me understand it well enough to help me by not making things to difficult on me. I can’t deal well with changes of plans which goes against my nature as a gemini what makes me easy to adapt to situations easily. Sometimes I can but often I cant. I have a hard time dealing with surprises and last minute changes of plans which in my current relationship is a huge problem. I don’t have the right to control this but at the same time I know my own reactions when I am triggered and its usually one of the two. The control helps then with letting the situation not get out of hand. Now this control does not mean I make all the decisions and I have full control over what happens. I just need to know things early on. Although it helps me as a surviving technique its not fair to the other people. They should be able to live their life just as they want without being hold back by my issues. So this is another important factor I’m trying to work on.
Then last but not least I always had an issue with the word survivor because the person I was did not survived, the person I was is no more. However I also came to aware that I am still surviving and therefor the result of this is me being a survivor I guess…
Enough for now I think I typed up too much already for anyone to have patience for to read. If you made it this far thnx you are awesome!
