Complex PTSD and no help available

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Comments

  • rete
    rete Online Community Member Posts: 17 Connected
    edited July 2019
    Think your missing the point a wee bit . Going into a supermarket is only balanced if you are not carrying baggage from the past. like  me it's not so much the supermarket it's self. we carry the truma from the past within us our inner child . The place is a trigger that sets us back there and we become that child again at that moment we are no longer an adult we feel all that we did at that momment in the past but in the here and now .There  is no magicwond or answer We have to work through it and change our inner response it takes work and time .
  • HollyGCat
    HollyGCat Online Community Member Posts: 79 Empowering
    I don't much mind the labelling.   I don't feel I have an identity anyway, so its no different that hearing my given name.  I think from reading the comments on here I have been lucky in my area with the NHS.  It was a six month referral process but I have been seeing my psychologist for three years weekly.  I don't however, appear to be improving though I am told I am.  I am still in stabilisation and yes, drugged to the eyeballs with benzos, anti D and such.  I was upset to see CPTS(D) or not (D) was not categorised in DSM as separate to PTSD.  Was this done to prevent offering treatment?  I fear reading your posts that treatment may be withdrawn at some point.  I rely upon it to

    TRIGGER****


    Not self harm or attempt suicide.  I do have a lot of diagnosis, and some of which confuse me greatly.  I have been told under the umbrella of CPTS(D) that I also meet the clinical criteria for BPD.  I suffer greatly with Dissociation but have no real understanding of it.  I look at PODS website and it talks of OSDD and DID, but I feel that OSDD does not really fit.  I have a thing about names, as in, I do not identify with any.  Therefore, my critical child or as I label them, younger me, child at 13, 19 etc, do feel very separate from each other, but are not named 'ROD JANE AND FREDDY'.  I feel I am miss or over diagnosed and I feel that the treatments that might help, (DBT) (EMDR) are not available to me.  One because it is only offered in a group session and I am totally unable to do this as I dissociate in groups and the other because I don't make eye contact.  I am in my forties, room bound and feel totally isolated and non-existent.  I lost a career I adored due to this condition.  I don't know if anyone else on here can help by explaining their dissociation and if they feel the CPTS(D) with dissociation doesn't seem valid?
  • Chloe_Alumni
    Chloe_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 10,506 Championing
    edited July 2019
    Hi @HollyGCat and a very warm welcome to the community! Thank you for taking the time to introduce yourself and share such an interesting perspective. There's a lot around diagnosis and whether or not someone believes it fits with them. Have you ever had the chance to discuss your diagnoses through with someone?

    We are not mental health professionals but if you feel we could help in anyway then please do let us know :)
  • HollyGCat
    HollyGCat Online Community Member Posts: 79 Empowering
    Hi,  I am trying to research the dissociation and am intending to speak to the person who diagnosed me next week.  But I am worried about upsetting them when the lady has been excellent.  I just feel a bit uncomfortable saying I don't think she is right, when she is the expert.  Its so difficult though to access help when you can't sit in a group and can't look at anyone.  All the (co-morbid) diagnosis makes it even more confusing.  I am just trying to understand what I can do to get some form of life, as I don't have one right now.  Just had to miss my daughters graduation, which was so awful and I feel so guilty.  Thanks for responding and your welcome :)

  • Waylay
    Waylay Online Community Member, Scope Member Posts: 966 Trailblazing
    @HollyGCat I dissociate, although I don't really know how much (I spend most of my time alone). It's different, depending on the situation, but it always starts when I get triggered by something (usually something sexual, as much of my trauma is sexual in nature).

    1. When I'm alone, usually in my room, it usually happens so fast that I don't even realise what's happening. I just go away - nobody home. It lasts 40-70 minutes. When I come back, the only way I know it happened is that my back is stiff & painful from staying in one position (chronic pain, whee!) and the angle of the light has changed. I wonder if it happens for shorter periods that I don't notice, too. Kinda scary.

    2. When I'm talking to someone (usually my counselor, but sometimes a partner or friend) and I get triggered by the topic of conversation, I can usually feel it happening. It feels... Slidy? I fight it, but I've never been able to stop it. I go blank for a few seconds, but only my counselor and people who know me really well notice. When I come back, I've completely forgotten what we were talking about. I also often forget what we worked on in a counseling session as soon as I walk out the door, and she has to remind me the next week.

    3. This has only happened about 5 times that I know of, but I'm pretty sure it's happened many times in the past. Something will trigger me while I'm being sexual with a partner, and I'll either curl up in a little ball and go silent or I'll start babbling about something completely non-sexual. I don't remember these episodes - I'm gone, and I only found out that they happen when my partner mentioned it one day. He assumed that I was aware of it and just didn't want to talk about it, but I had no idea! I was horrified. I wonder how many times it's happened in the past?

    4. Anywhere, anytime (which can be dangerous!), I'll suddenly get incredibly sleepy, to the point that I can't stay awake (I tried drinking a couple of cups of coffee right away a few times, but I just ended up semi-conscious for a couple of hours). I fall asleep sitting or lying wherever I am. It can last minutes to many hours. A few times it's happened in the middle of a conversation. My nearest&dearest just put a blanket over me and go on about their business. Sometimes this is triggered by something sexual, sometime by emotional distress, but usually it happens for no apparent reason. I'm pretty sure it happens because I'm about to have a back spasm, so my brain shuts me down. The complete relaxation of deep sleep will often head off a spasm. I'm not sure if this counts as dissociation....

    Voila. Hope that helps.
  • HollyGCat
    HollyGCat Online Community Member Posts: 79 Empowering
    edited July 2019
    Waylay, thanks for taking the time to write such a comprehensive response. I recognised so much of what you said. I seem to be triggered by so many things. I to can feel a sliding loss of me (foggy) before, often, because I do tend to put myself in risky situations, when close to being fully dissociated, I will call a MH crisis line or even 999 before if I am aware that I am losing ability to stay safe and realise I’m likely to dissociate fully, though rarely the latter. I don’t remember usually anything after the events. I dissociate from anger or stress but also without knowing why.

    It also though happens on a daily basis to a lesser extent. I might be aware but feel like I’m detached from the situation. It leads to me doing things the ‘now me’ wouldn’t do. It seems in those moments that what I do is to someone who is not me. Consequently I have caused myself injury. I feel anger at times that is feral, but sometimes it’s like it’s not mine. 

    I do drift off into somewhere on other occasions and my daughter or husband frequently tell me something they claim they have already told me. I am completely unaware and I will insist it’s never happened.

    I will ‘probably rightly do’ feel completely shocked or humiliated by some things I do in such states. Certainly my neighbours will have seen me in full flight out of the house (which I don’t do unless dissociated) in various states of dress!!!  not good for them or me. 

    When  I look in the mirror, sometimes I don’t feel the image looking back is me.

    I lose so much time in a day from just being somewhere else. My husband says he can see it. I will appear almost trance like and I won’t hear him or speak back, I don’t know it.

    I just feel that after three years, something should have improved. I don’t feel like I’m getting any better. I can’t stop these things happening because MH helpline is so slow to respond, by the time I might have stopped it, I’ve left the building, so to speak.  

    It feels like there is little on offer to help other than a weekly chat about how ‘badly’ I’ve been the week before. I basically just take pills, worry about when it’s going to happen again. It’s never ending.

    Trigger***** my abuse was throughout my childhood but my memories are all over the place with many gaps. It was SA and emotional. I was also adopted and this added to injury thanks to the rejection by my birth mother at 19 who I think I thought was going to save me. 

    I never told anyone, I shut down emotionally. I don’t think in the 1970/80’s I would have been believed. I did try a couple of times, but it was not within my ability. 

    I to was a strong resourceful driven person. One day, something else happened. I was 45. (4 years ago). My world fell in and I have never got back up. 

    What you describe certainly does sound like dissociation to me and your response has broken a lonely day and was very helpful:)
  • SurvivingTara
    SurvivingTara Online Community Member Posts: 56 Empowering

    Reading all posts, since my last post about Complex PTSD, saddens me how many are lonely and suffering in this western world, without genuine empathic and unconditional support, and are bound by the medical model of health, where pharmaceutical drugs, (with an iatrogenic factor, e.g. you take them for one thing and they give you another condition), are given, and that seems all there is for people on the NHS., because it is governed today by the pharmaceutical industry and GPs are the gate keepers of this business, trained to alleviate SYMPTOMS only, indefinitely. Private practitioners working in the field of traumatology are connected to clients needs and to finding the root cause of suffering, knowing how early emotional attunement of caregiver/mother and child, has implications for adult good health, and many of us have been affected negatively today. In fact the suffering is epidemic, but caregivers/mothers were only doing the best they could with the skills they had been given.

    Complex PTSD is related to developmental trauma, (e.g. when children are exposed to major or minor traumatic emotionally neglectful experiences, with no comfort), which many clinicians and people in western society in general are afraid to acknowledge. However, developmental trauma now is pervasive, acute not understood or treated in a therapeutic way without pharmaceutical drugs. As Barry Weinhold says in Developmental Trauma (2015),  a game changer for health professionals, if they were allowed to listen, (not part of their training for various reasons),  that when a caregiver /mother dissociates or shows facial expressions & behaviours to infants that appear scary or rejective or dangerous, (briefly or constant) infants feel afraid, then the brain stem activates a protective response that causes them to retreat, and another brain signal, the mammalian wiring fires unconsciously telling the child to escape. So an infant or child psychologically dissociates and is anxious and wounded. The process affects the infant`s fragile brain and nervous system, and thereafter impacts adult health. But this is rarely discussed within the medical model of health.

    As Rete made the valid point on their post, developmental trauma in childhood environments causes us to carry  baggage from the past into adulthood and it impacts health. This is NOT acknowledged by the medical model, or if it is the chemical cosh shuts us up.

    Holly G Cat`s post on 12th July expressed the concern that it is felt they have no improvement, and symptoms and suffering of the inner child suppressed with medication. Also saying CPTSD not categorised, by medical model of health. No it won`t be as it exposes lots of things. NHS expects OUTCOMES in all its approaches, and expects human begins to oblige, therefore the quickest and easiest, in a time based environment, an outcome is symptom suppression. Searching for a root cause and healing exposes many things about society.

    Then when there are OTHER negative or traumatic environmental experiences in a person`s life it compounds the developmental trauma issue, hence CPTSD.

    Waylay talks about challenging dissociation. DISSOCIATION via distracting activities or mental processes is only one of the symptoms of CPTSD, others are, EMOTIONAL FLASHBACKS (triggered in any environment), A TYRANNICAL INNER CRITIC, SELF ABANDONMENT (because we believe we are not good enough), ATTACHMENT DISORDER, ANXIETY (social or otherwise), TOXIC SHAME or GUILT, FEELINGS OF LONELINESS and ABANDONMENT the many other symptoms of childhood and further trauma. Staying indoors the scared inner adult -  child feels safe.

    FURTHER if as Holly G Cat fears they may experience, someone being upset by them being proactive in your health and healing, it is disempowering and, it reveals something about the so called care system and people in it. For example, the practitioners may be unhealed, (and have issues or baggage triggered) and the medical model of health, is authoritarian and controls the patient, with what they expect the patient to do, take medication and will frighten them into doing as their told.

    The medical model and traditional therapies (like CBT), that are offered on the NHS, will usually give medication to suppress SYMPTOMS, leaving the ROOT CAUSE of our health issues untouched, therefore, we are not going to heal if we do not discover the cause of our suffering.

    The goal of healing trauma, anxiety, fear, abandonment depression etc, etc is helping clients interrupt the fight and flight adrenaline cycle and modulate their sympathetic nervous system, with therapy sessions of nurturing, comforting, and understanding protective language which holds clients in a therapeutic experience for re-wiring of the neurons of the brain and healing. Or, outside of therapy, spending time in nature, all which brings the brain mind/body/spirit into present time reality,  to process intense experiences, emotions, and suppressed energy in the body, by witnessing and surviving in a safe therapeutic space. Clients do not need re abuse or traumatizing, with invasive practices.

    So those on the posts have said they felt they are not moving on in healing, this won`t happen until we get to the ROOT CAUSE of our distress and suffering. It is like peeling the skins off the onion, our issues are many layered.

    It must be remembered NHS or conventional health services, for us conditioned westerners is, pharmaceutically and business driven, to suppress symptoms and get as many people as possible on medication. Everyone since the 1940`s and free medical care, (when all other complementary therapies and healing were outlawed in favour of NHS), is conditioned to go to a GP for a `cure` today, they will suppress/treat your symptoms or refer you to a specialist who will help with suppression of symptoms, after a short time based talk. Suffering, it is understandable we will grasp at anyone who looks like offering support, once in the medical model system or loop it is challenging to break free.

    Also, many experiences and feelings of people who have been traumatized in some way,  who end up at the GPs surgery, are usually pathologised, when in fact they are having a spiritual crisis, (or experiencing a dark night of the soul), which feels frightening, without appropriate knowledgeable support in transpersonal matters.

    If any of you may want to try energy medicine, complementary therapies or transpersonal therapy, here are some of the methods for anyone to look at and ones I have used with some success, but it can cost and the allopathic orthodox-traditionally trained practitioner of today may not support your healing with these therapies and poo, poo,  methods and your questions, (it has to be expected), if you ask them about these alternative approaches, so it needs to be a  proactive role we take in our inner healing and searching out appropriate therapists for ourself  :-

    You can look at or search out Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) on the internet. EFT helped me, and I still use it often.

    Book:  The Body Speaks Its Mind, by Debbie Shapiro (1998)

    Book:  Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, (leading Authority on CPTSD and sufferer) by Pete Walker MA (2013). He gives you tools for coping in the book, which was the first of its kind.

    Book: The Tao of Fully Feeling, Pete Walker (2015)

    Book : In Case of Spiritual Emergency,when there is no one to assist, Catherine G Lucas (2011)

    Book:  You`re  Not Going Crazy You`re Just Waking Up Michael Mirdad (2013)

    Book: You May Not Be Mentally Ill, Charles L Whitfield (2011) (Misdiagnosed and mistreated when adults are actually suffering from effects of  childhood neglect and developmental trauma and other later trauma,  so neuro developmental and patho-physiological results of growing up in certain environments affect their emotional and behavioural patterns and health. CPTSD is a normal reaction to an abnormal experiences. 

    Book: Healing The Child Within, Charles L Whitfield (1989)

    Book:   Healing Trauma (program for restoring wisdom to the body and exploring root causes of the symptoms, Peter Levine PH.D 

    Book: An Unspoken Voice of Trauma, Peter Levine (2010).

    Book :Developmental Trauma (2015), by Barry Weinhold

    Book: Stop Treating Symptoms, Heal The Hidden Cause, by Sandy C Newbigging (2013)

    Book: For Your Own Good (the roots of violence in child rearing), Alice Miller (1983)

    Book : Thou Shall Not Be Aware (society`s betrayal and cover up of the wounded child) Alice Miller (1990)

    Book: The Body Never Lies (physical illnesses are the body`s response to disregard of its needs, and emotional neglect) Alice Miller (2005)

    Try if you can to seek out a therapist or transpersonal therapist/counsellor/traumatologist or trusted genuine empathic other who can support your healing journey, which is your right. The way people are not being treated and supported empathically, is "Mans inhumanity to Man".




  • gillian72
    gillian72 Online Community Member Posts: 303 Empowering
    Omg I thought I was beginning to lose my mind till I found this post I to was abused in care ( I have never told anyone about what happened in there )I was there for about a year then my mum got me back then I was abused by a family friend aged 10 I reported it years later and it ended not enough evidence I attempted taking my life many times after went a bit wild got in with a bad crowd for a bit then moved away , about 4yrs ago my past was triggered since then I have slowly isolated myself to my bedroom I sleep with 2 knives under my bed an I hammer under my pillow but I know it's not right but can't help it , I have Health problems as well which doesn't help and I was meant to go to my pip appeal on Tuesday I never went my kids are fuming with me but I find it hard it go to ppl in authority because I always feel not believed no matter what the out come maybe but I can't help it if makes me feel ill so I can understand how everyone on here feels aswell 
  • SurvivingTara
    SurvivingTara Online Community Member Posts: 56 Empowering
    So sorry gillian to hear about your experience in what should have been safe environments. Your inner child is so scared right now, and has been for some time. It does not feel good. There is nothing wrong with the innate good gillian self, it is what you have experienced which should never of happened, that has caused your fear and symptoms of abuse. I am believing more and more the therapists who can deal with this are being excluded from NHS arena, help has to come from private sector atm.I feel your emotional pain and empathize. It is not your fault at all, fault and shame lies with those who abused.
  • Didee51
    Didee51 Online Community Member Posts: 6 Connected
    Hello! I'm new here 
    My name is Di and I'm so glad to have found this community. I've just been diagnosed with complex PTSD as a result of childhood abuse and trauma. Hope to gain some support and insight into how others are coping and offer any support I possibly can. 
  • SurvivingTara
    SurvivingTara Online Community Member Posts: 56 Empowering
    Welcolm Didee.
  • Didee51
    Didee51 Online Community Member Posts: 6 Connected
    Thank you so much! 
  • April2018mom
    April2018mom Posts: 2,863 Championing
    This thread is very helpful. Thanks for the list of book recommendations too! 
  • HollyGCat
    HollyGCat Online Community Member Posts: 79 Empowering
    Found the book 'The Body Keeps the Score' as suggested on audio on google.  Only listened to the first 15 mins.  Cannot believe how much I have in a common with a Vietnam survivor!!!  Would not have called that.  Though I was once an avid reader, I now cannot summon the concentration.  Audio much easier.  Just the statement 'feel dead inside' and I was startled by the list of symptoms of this former solider and his coping methods (unhelpful but work in the moment).  Thanks to everyone on here.  It is really helpful to have peoples experiences and feel like you are not alone in this.  Welcome to those who have just joined.  I hope we all keep this going as I already feel its going to help me:)
  • SurvivingTara
    SurvivingTara Online Community Member Posts: 56 Empowering
    Wonderful Holly G cat, you found some info and had a wow moment of help. So important we have knowledge and support to empower us all against those who seek to miss the cause of our suffering and medicate our symptoms in an attempt to make us forget and supress us from saying  how it is or was. No more will us folks of suffering be victimised, talked down to and supressed because of our experiences at the hands of others. Why should we be hushed up to make it more comfortable for others?
  • HollyGCat
    HollyGCat Online Community Member Posts: 79 Empowering
    I could not agree more Surviving Tara.  The talking down to is a common trend I find.  I will borrow a little of that strength and spirit of yours:)  Thanks so much, have a lovely evening and may we all get a good nights sleep.
  • Adrian_Scope
    Adrian_Scope Posts: 11,712 Online Community Programme Lead
    Hi guys, this is a really interesting (and important) thread and it's great to see you all working to support each other. Please remember though that we are here to support you if you need us and we'd be happy to advise or signpost you towards resources if there's ever a need.

    Also: welcome to the community @HollyGCat and @Didee51. :smile:
  • HollyGCat
    HollyGCat Online Community Member Posts: 79 Empowering
    Hi,  tried to start a thread to your MH expert, I can’t find it, I think I did it wrong. Are you able to find it and put the title and content together? If you can’t I’ll try again:) thanks for making me feel so welcome. 
  • Didee51
    Didee51 Online Community Member Posts: 6 Connected
    Thanks so much for warm welcome, I very much appreciate it. 

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