Complex Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

All of my life, I have always had a hard time regulating my emotions. I don't care to admit it, but I am an emotional person. When I was a child I had a lot of what we call now "big emotions ". These big emotions were met with anger from my mom, and I got yelled at for it. Now I'm met with irritation when I'm emotional about something. I feel like i had to stifle myself every time I cry. As an adult, I can go months without crying. But when i finally do, I'm weepy the whole day. For some reason I can't stop. I was never taught to regulate my emotions in a healthy way. Its still very hard for me now. I haven't had a fulfilling cry since I was in therapy. And that was because it was allowed. It's a painful thing that I carry and for that, I tend to bottle everything up. #MentalHealth #Depression #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #Anxiety #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #Trauma

I had therapy today; we did IFS. It was hard and I was very dysregulated.

Historically, my mom and I have had a rocky relationship. We are very different in our approaches to things and ways of thinking.
Some of my trauma stems from my childhood. My mom and her husband have been together for a long time- maybe 25 years? Her husband was abusive to me when I was a child and I easily spotted his lies as a teen. Him and I hardly have a relationship and we can’t be in the same room together for very long. My mom didn’t defend me and didn’t see the things he did as abuse until I explained it later to her as an adult who is good at advocating for herself.

I live in Ohio, my mom lives in Indiana. A couple of months ago she told me her husband was cheating on her. She said it but kind of dropped it until last week when she told me again and said she was thinking of leaving him. We talked about it a little bit and I told her to move back home because there is no reason for her to stay in Indiana. I told her she could stay with us since we have an extra room.

She called me about an hour ago. She is leaving her husband in October and moving in with us. We will come up with a plan then.

I am a little concerned because my mom doesn’t go to the doctor, is a tobacco smoker, and also is a heavy drinker. She has experienced trauma but I think she has numbed herself to it. She also struggles with anxiety. It makes me cry when I think of what my mom has had to go through and I wish i could encourage her to go to therapy or AA. She doesn’t want to go to therapy and I don’t think she would go to AA, even if I went with her.

I guess we will see what happens. I hope I can make the best out of it. 😬

#ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #MentalHealth #Agoraphobia #PanicDisorder #CheckInWithMe

It took a long time for me to get to this point, but I’m officially done with this family.I’ve subjected myself to staying home throughout my 20s because I believed I didn’t have many options, or I’ve sabotaged myself from doing more. I don’t trust the stepfather, and after all the things that I have observed last week, I don’t trust my own mother either. On top of that, one lingering thread in my life is that I never felt emotionally safe with her. I’ve been aware of her problems since I was a child, but she started telling me her problems when I became an adult. I have reached me point. All my life, I’ve been waiting for her to do better for herself and I don’t think I’ll ever see that happen. I told her to leave me out of the loop with her marriage. All the while of me facing this, I can’t help but grieve. As of yesterday, I’ve been finding places to rent in other cities. I’m giving myself to the middle of next year (July or August) to move out. I don’t care if I have to find a roommate or I’ll go it alone. My mental health has suffered enough and I will NOT carry this into my 30s. I’m just done… and hopefully I can stay on track with you goal. #MentalHealth #Depression #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #Trauma

In a different dimension where we made a different decision, our blog is called "Doing It Differently" instead of "Thriving While Multiple".

There’s a lot of doing it differently in Dissociative Identity Disorder. Early, chronic need for this natural dissociative response permanently altered our brain structure. Not wrong, not crazy; our brain just does it differently.

We’ve always been the odd one out. Always saw things a bit sideways, always marched to the beat of our own cello, and I firmly believe being a square peg in a round hole saved me, saved my life, and saved my sanity.

Doing it differently brought me to where I am today. Doing it differently helped me through the intolerable. Doing it differently makes me who I am. Doing it differently lets us thrive while multiple.

#DissociativeIdentityDisorder #dissociativedisorders #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #DissociationDisorders

Hi!
I have a question for other people with chronic illnesses who see a number of specialists.

I have two therapists, a psychiatrist, a case manager (finally!), a primary care doctor, a neurologist, and an autonomic specialist. Most of my symptoms come from unrelenting panic attacks and high anxiety which trigger severe intractable migraines. The autonomic specialist is helping with the symptoms more related to pots- movikity, nausea, lightheadness, dizziness, fast heart rate, etc.

I’m on a number of medications to treat multiple conditions. I am medication hesitant; my providers know and I discuss my fears with the people who prescribe anything so I can feel comfortable taking it.

There have been far too many times where someone (a medical professional) who doesn’t understand the complexity of my conditions and the severity of my symptoms try to tell me I’m on “too many meds.” Which just starts the fear all over again. I end up spending my sessions trying to talk to my therapist about if I “really need it” or if I am “damaging my brain.” I talk to my psychiatrist about seeing if I can reduce my medication yet (I cannot, we still are trying things out). Not only that- probably almost half of my meds are as needed- especially for panic and migraines.

I may have told this story on here before, but last year a pharmacist wouldn’t let me pick up my adhd medication unless I explained why I need it. (BTW- I specifically request the psychiatrist test me for this because I’ve had the diagnosis but never was tested, and i wanted proof before I started meds again). I told him to talk to my psychiatrist because she advocates for me and I’m tired of explaining over and over again why I am on what meds. I was able to pick up my meds by the end of that day and my psychiatrist reported him because there was no interaction and I have been taking these meds for awhile and picked them up from that pharmacy.

Last week , someone from insurance asked me to explain my meds and why I am on them. And now I’m recycling these fears and know that my trauma therapist and I are going to have to work through that fear again.

I’m going to type out a document with all of my medications and what they are used for because it really does activate me and make me less likely to take my as needed medications like I’m supposed to.

My question is: Does anyone else experience this frequent request to justify their medications to not just all the service providers, but also other people who are “involved” but don’t know me (pharmacist, insurance people, intakes to get new services)? Does anyone else get triggered when this happens? Is it just me?

Thanks to anyone who read through my long essay on being afraid to take my as needed meds, again. ❤️

#ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #MentalHealth #Agoraphobia #PanicDisorder #ADHD #AutonomicDysfunction #PosturalOrthostaticTachycardiaSyndrome #Migraine #ChronicVestibularMigraine #ChronicIllness #Disability

In my area, 7 people were recently indicted for Medicaid fraud- they were all providers billing for services that weren’t provided to clients.

This isn’t the first time I heard that providers are often the ones who are responsible for the (relatively small) fraud that occurs. And in fact- it reminded me of something.

When I was unhoused, an agency was supposed to be giving me case management services (especially for housing) and didn’t for months. I lost my housing voucher. I had to final a grievance against the agency all while telling them that they were billing my health insurance for services they weren’t giving to me. Then I had to file a grievance with the adamhs board. All those months they were billing for services I wasn’t getting.

If this is the waste, fraud, and abuse that’s happening- why are we scrutinizing the people who need it rather than the agencies? My previous posts on here detail the amount of times I have had to switch agencies because someone at an agency was violating my rights. I know i am not the only one who experiences this.

#Disability #Agoraphobia #PanicDisorder #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #AutonomicDysfunction #PosturalOrthostaticTachycardiaSyndrome

The more I think about things, I get all the more angry about the complexities involved in generations of abuse. The same people who taught me to have self-respect for myself and how to set somewhat reasonable boundaries in relationships are the same people who didn't have it for themselves. It’s like realizing that your heroes who seem to save everyone were incapable of saving themselves from tragedy. My grandparents' relationship was abusive and codependent, and I think it's the same with my mom. Her husband can't make certain life decisions without someone telling him what to do. My mom, who has not only been said person, but I also believe that she can't be by herself for extended periods. Things seem to be back to normal after he had discarded her for the last few weeks. As angry as I am about all of this, I truly believe neither one is ready for change. A narcissist and an eternal hopeful person are a painful combination to watch. #MentalHealth #Depression #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #Anxiety #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #Trauma #Abuse