childhood trauma survivors

Recently I’ve been having a very hard time staying present. I have struggled with #DissociativeIdentityDisorder for probably a long time but only a few years ago got diagnosed. This past week I haven’t stayed present, I’ve been overwhelmed with flashbacks and images of my childhood, and I have started to feel the same fear I had back then. I’m absolutely terrified to be in reality, and I escaped my abusive home. I escaped my parents choice of raising us but I fear that I held my trauma in for so long that I won’t be able to push past it. I was SA in July of 2021 and working through that is hard but it’s nothing compared to trying to sort out my childhood memories. I use to find dissociating calming, it was my own escape from the world but now it feels frustrating because I just can’t focus. #CPTSD #PTSD #DID #DissociativeDisorder #Anxiety #ChildhoodTraumaSurvivors

I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so seen by a meme. As I enter what will hopefully be the home stretch of all of the hard work of five years of therapy, I am having to reconcile the fact that … I like who I am becoming and what I can do, such as starting adult and present in most moments. But I’m wrestling with the idea that the “old me” is all I’ve known for the better part of five decades. Who am I now, If not a ball of hyper vigilant anxiety? This is one of my big personal goals of 2023, to try and define who I am and what I would like my life too look like moving forward.

Love and light to all on your own journeys of discovery.

#ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #developmentaltraumadisorder #Anxiety #ChildhoodTraumaSurvivors

I don’t know about you, but being sick has taught me many things. Yes—it’s come at the cost of my health, and I can’t say what my life would look like without being chronically ill, but I’m not sure I’d trade in the things I have learned these many years.

Being sick has, I think, broadened my understanding of the world and myself, in ways I could never have imagined.

I don’t think I would understand so well the struggles of others, if I had not faced adversity myself. I have become more politically conscious, because I know (too well) that there are choices being made by my government that affect the healthcare and support I do—or don’t—receive. I’ve come to better understand myself, who I am, and what matters most to me. I’ve sifted through the regrets of the past so many times, that I’ve been able to make peace with my demons. It’s only taken 40 something years, but I finally feel at home in the body I live in. Of course I wished it worked better, but I also understand that my childhood traumas made me prone to getting ill, and that I subjected my body to many harmful things in the fruitless pursuit of trying to ‘fit in’.

There are things I’ve learned that I would not wish on my worst enemy. That in my lowest point of health, I realised that if I was an abandoned dog, I probably would have received a world of care compared to the medical neglect and gaslighting to which I was subjected. I’ve learned that most people, including those sworn to do no harm, are capable of inflicting the worst kinds of harm against others.

Even more so when you are vulnerable, and at your lowest point.

When you have nothing left to give, you find out who your truest friends are, and in my case this doesn’t include most of my family. But I think of how much energy I would have carried on wasting, continually trying to win and keep the approval of my dysfunctional family. Like a puppet on a string, dancing and giving of myself on command for nothing real in return… other than a few empty words of praise designed to keep me dancing and giving.

I regret the wasted years of good energy on trying to take the best Instagram photo, instead of just living in each moment. I regret wasting energy trying to impress people I didn’t even know. I regret trying to curate my life, instead of appreciating fully, all the good I had—particularly in times of better health. I have learned to cherish more the life I have in this moment, because I now know just how much worse things can get. I have come to appreciate how much damage every one is carrying around with them, and how this effects the way we interact with each other, that seldom leaves a bridge for kindness and understanding. I’ve come to understand that the world has taught many to hurt others, before the world can hurt them.

Being sick has taught me all this and more, and though it feels like good health is wasted on many of the healthy, I don’t think I’d give up all that I’ve learned. How about you?

#MightyTogether #ChronicIllness #CPTSD #ChildhoodAbuse #ChildhoodTraumaSurvivors #Childhoodtrauma #MyalgicEncephalomyelitis #HypothyroidismUnderactiveThyroidDisease #InvisibleIllness #MedicalTrauma #Gaslighting

I’m new here and wanted to say hi. The chair in the photo represents how I feel when I’m down and not doing good.

#Depresion #Anxiety #CPTSD #Aspergers #ChildhoodTraumaSurvivors #MedicalTrauma #religious Trauma #Workplace Trauma #significant childhood trauma #ChildhoodAbuse #EmotionalAbuse #PsychologicalAbuse #Rejection #Selfhate #hopelessness #Loss #selfsabotage

I like this quote because it aptly describes what it is to suffer from a chronic long term illness, because societal norms make us naturally displaced.

If you are also afflicted with childhood trauma or CPTSD (as I think Jeanette Winterson most likely is), the displacement becomes part of your fabric. No matter where you go or what you do, you never quite feel like you have arrived at the right place.

You are forever searching.

Growing up in an unsafe environment, meant that my ability to trust in the outside world was forever tainted. No matter how much time passes, because time in our minds is an abstract concept.

Trauma does not obey the laws of time.

For this reason; the only truly safe place that feels like home are the nooks and crannies in my mind. The only hiding place that no one can invade or take from me. Self comfort was something I was forced to learn from the start, so I belong very securely in my inner sanctuary… it is the outside world that gives me trouble.

After years of forced silence, I find that I can no longer hold back my truths. Unfortunately people don’t want to hear the truth, we are supposed to engage in odd games and superficial niceties. Particularly if you’re British—because complaining is a social faux pas that has somehow become encoded into our culture. Even if you suspect your waiter spat in your meal, you’ll still gush about how great everything was if questioned, then perhaps rush home to leave a bad online review.

It’s the new angry letter to the editor.

I’m not convinced this is a particularly healthy way to live your life, but when you’re a spoonie, sometimes you have to choose your battles wisely. Be a nonplussed ‘big dog’ as my therapist calls it.

And, if you’re bedbound or homebound, it can be difficult to find your tribe when you do not have any of the usual things that foster relationships. Work, parenting, hobbies, or trustworthy family members with a healthy respect for personal boundaries.

I think this is why I find nature so comforting—it does not care who or what you are. Outside the world of material and man made things; wherever you are, there you belong.

If any of this describes you—welcome to the Displaced Person’s Club! We don’t have regular meetings or a fixed meet up spot… it’s a work in progress. But you’ve probably been quietly wearing the badge all your life, which gives us all something in common ❤️‍🩹

#ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #Childhoodtrauma #PTSD #Trauma #ChildhoodTraumaSurvivors #Anxiety #ChronicIllness #Selfcare #Selflove #Selfworth #Spoonie #Relationships #HealthyBoundaries #Loneliness