Abuse

Below is a link to a song that I wrote about the debauchery of substance abuse that I have experienced over the years. It is not a great song by any means but give a listen if you have time and please then comment on this post if you feel like you want to! 👌👍🙏

Weekend Rockstar 🎶

#MightyTogether

For those that know me, tattoos are a big part of my life. I have six, now seven with the mushroom pictured below. For years I struggled with body dysphoria as a transgender male and body image issues from abuse and body shaming brought on by relatives. At one point, I even considered being anorexic because the abuse was bad. I still struggle with the abuse and with a lot of shame. I was taught to be perfect but I never will be and it’s about time everyone wakes up to that realization.

Body modification is a way to reclaim my body. It’s a way to say this is mine and I will decorate/modify how I please. It makes me feel unique and like I can express my individuality which was always seen as a negative trait when it’s what makes me most beautiful. I got this mushroom because well I have been smoking a lot of ganja and it brings me, most times, a sense of peace. I also love science fiction stuff and this mushroom looks like it could be straight out of an H. P. Lovecraft story. What are your own unique ways of healing? ❤️‍🩹 #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #Bipolar1

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD), also known as complex trauma, generally stems from enduring repeated traumatic events, frequently within a close relationship, over an extended period.

Unlike single-incident PTSD, complex trauma can lead to a range of psychological and emotional challenges manifesting additional symptoms, including impaired emotional regulation, altered consciousness states, distorted self-perception, and relationship difficulties.

These challenges can significantly impact your daily functioning, relationship dynamics, and overall wellbeing.

Causes of Complex Trauma

Causes may include physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, consistent neglect (especially in childhood), bullying, exposure to domestic violence, or living through intensely threatening circumstances (such as war, for example). However, complex trauma can also develop in adulthood due to ongoing mistreatment, such as domestic violence.

Childhood Abuse or Neglect: Physical, emotional, sexual abuse, neglect, or bullying can have a profound impact on a child’s development.

Witnessing Violence: Exposure to violence, such as domestic violence of parents in your childhood, or community violence, such as repeated fights at school growing up, or worse, can be traumatic.

Prolonged Exposure to Traumatic Events: People who are repeatedly exposed to traumatic events, such as war or natural disasters, may also develop complex trauma.

How to Recognize Complex Trauma

Psychological and Emotional Symptoms

Complex trauma often manifests through intense emotional experiences, including deeper shame, guilt, or feelings of alienation. You may experience altered states of consciousness, such as memory gaps in adulthood when trying to recall parts of childhood, or a sense of detachment from your emotions or physical self. To cope, you might avoid certain places, people, or experiences in general that trigger discomfort.

Complex trauma can also affect your psychological wellbeing. You may experience a persistent sense of worthlessness and shame, significantly affecting your self-perception and self-esteem. Emotional regulation can become really challenging with C-PTSD, leading to outbursts of anger or prolonged periods of sadness. It can also lead to phobias and fears that seem to be irrational, or anxiety that danger is lurking in places (or people) even when they aren't displaying actual signs of danger. These issues can significantly disrupt social interactions and daily functioning, limiting your life, making healing a complex (but essential) journey.

Physiological Symptoms

Complex trauma can also manifest physically. You may experience hyperarousal, feeling constantly on edge with heightened startle responses. Physical symptoms often include panic attacks, light-headedness, brain fog, fatigue, nausea, recurrent headaches and migraines, persistent muscular tension, gastrointestinal distress on a consistent basis, and more. These stress-related reactions can significantly impact your daily functioning and overall health.

Healing

Complex PTSD needs a mind-body therapy approach rooted in trauma healing. While this should involve some coping techniques, a trauma approach generally requires getting to know and work through what you are carrying on a deeper level in order to reduce and be able to shed the power these traumas have asserted over your emotional, psychological, and physiological wellbeing.

Other Coping Strategies

Self-Care

Self-care plays an important role in managing complex trauma symptoms and enhancing overall wellbeing. This includes anything from diet, to regular physical activity, such as walking, running, yoga, or swimming, for example. Physical activity generally helps to reduce stress, release tension, and help with mood regulation. Self-care also includes finding things that nurture you in other emotional ways, as well -- for some this can be reading, writing, art and other creative outlets, seeing friends, and anything else that's helpful for you.

Trauma Therapy

Remember, self-care is an essential part of healing, but it doesn't replace the deeper healing work that needs to be done. Often people try to use coping techniques to replace the deeper healing, and what eventually tends to happen is the deeper traumas that go unaddressed start to grow and take over, and can make it so the coping tools are no longer as effective. It's important in therapy to figure out the coping techniques that work for you, so you also have them available to you alongside the deeper explorative work.

#complextrauma #Trauma #Anxiety #MentalHealth #Depression #Migraine

I think I subconsciously or consciously , I collect comics and love anime because it’s my way of salvagaing what little bit of a childhood I had. Watching these batman shows and comic book character shows, was the only way one of my parents and I bonded and I feel like deep down I always want to keep those memories alive because in those short instances amid the abuse I endured, I felt loved. I felt like it was all about me. It was Kai’s chance to be who they were. This parent inflicted horrifying abuse on me and my siblings but the part of me that’s a little kid remembers how good I felt to be able to do this with this one parent who showed more affection to me than the other…

So on I went to New York City Comic Con. I bought comics, autographs, pins, and collectibles that brought me back to my youth. Tamagotchi? Yes please. Dragonball Z, yes please. Yugioh! But of course! I’m so proud of myself for going alone to this convention and not missing out, for taking time to play like a younger Kai briefly enjoyed, for smiling wholeheartedly with other comic loving aficionados. Truly my heart was touched. Truly I felt visible and seen. #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #DistractMe

Dr. Vohra (my psychiatrist), I think now we have hit the bullseye with regards to the meds. However, I’d like to give you some feedback and input about it from someone who has lived it. Firstly, it’s going to be an opinion with a heavily biased psychopharmacological perspective. I was prescribed Mirtazapine at the start of my treatment. It worked wonders. I’m not sure how it’s classified now as a NaSSa or a an atypical antidepressant. I know though that it works on Serotonin and Dopamine. I was prescribed Sertaline after a while, maybe because my doctor thought it had become ineffective. The sertraline is an SSRI and with my history of substance abuse, I can only compare it to ecstasy or MDMA. I experienced tingling and sensations in my jaw which caused it to shake. After a couple of weeks this subsided, but it’s from then it made me feel awful. I was prescribed Tramadol at the time for sciatica and I subsequently had three epileptic like seizures. I professed to the health professionals that cared for me that I was on the two drugs and I was maybe experiencing serotonin Syndrome. This fell on deaf ears. I have since come off both medications and had no repeat incidents of fits.

As a result of this, I was awaiting my appointment with the psychiatrist and my GP prescribed me Depakote. It’s an anticonvulsant as you know and it’s strength of dose targets the ailment. It’s around 500mg for migraines, 1000mg for epilepsy and 1,500-2,000mg for bipolar disorder. It’s also used for schizophrenia too. So you can surmise it is a potent drug. I attended my second appointment with my psychiatrist after commencing Depakote therapy and I wasn’t able to speak to the psychiatrist. I wasn’t able to even grunt or shrug my shoulders. Medicated to the point of anonymity.
With a mood stabiliser like Depakote and an antidepressant like Mirtazapine, it causes a monumental shift in mood for Bipolar sufferers that are exaggerated to the extreme boundaries ever experienced. You are calm one minute then you’re orbiting the moon the next. You are more spaced out than Neil Armstrong ever was. I don’t fully understand how it works, but you have a drug to stop you going too high, another drug to stop you going too low, then a further medication to hold everything in place. Some drugs work in tandem with others to achieve this.

For example, I was on Depakote as a mood stabiliser. I was also on Quetiapine as an antipsychotic. These two however have the potential to be detrimental to each other and effect how proficient each one is in treating your problems. I know it’s not up to me to pick and choose what I take but if I’m taking something then I want it to be the best possible medication I can have.
I now take Lithium (600mg), Olazapine (20mg) and Fluoxetine (20mg). Olazapine and Fluoxetine work well together. Olanzapine is an atypical antipsychotic, just like Quetiapine I was on previously. The dosage for Quetiapine ranges from 200-800mg, at the end of my relationship with Quetiapine I was on 750mg a day. The pharmacist at my local chemists pulled me to one side as I went to pick this up to double check it was right. They’d never administered a dosage like it before.

So I’m taking an SSRI, so it stops my serotonin being recycled and keeps it in the part of my brain to be effective. I’m not sure of why this is but I’m taking atypical antipsychotic which effects my serotonin and with Olazapine it blocks my dopamine too. I don’t think Quetiapine does this. Dopamine is the pleasure monoamine that causes reward pathways. Cocaine for example hits every major monoamine in the brain and stops their re uptake to cause an overload of brain chemistry. Crazy isn’t it?!?!
I feel disinterested in some activities that arise and my participation in my hobbies is wavering to say the least.
The one thing I can categorically say is that medication for mental illnesses might control the severity of the extremes a person goes through but it also stifles any expression a person has and you are bereft of any enthusiasm to be the person you are.
#MightyTogether #BipolarDepression #Depression #lithium