CSPTD

I should be over this by now, I feel myself as I leave the office for an unplanned mental health day.

It’s been 9 years, shouldn’t I be over this by now? As I continue shaming myself, the truth comes in: yes, it’s been 9 years of freedom, but it was 22 years of captivity, neglect, and torture. Could expecting my mind, soul, spirit, and body to heal from all the trauma in less than half of the years it took to traumatize me be unfair? I don’t know, all I know is I am so tired, tired of endless therapy, tired of walking down to the altar for prayer, tired of journalling, tired of mental health days, and tired of the realities of living with CPSTD.

“I think you have Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” my therapist said to me one day in session while I was sitting on her couch. My mind immediately started spiraling, trying to connect all the dots in my mind. I had wondered, I had seen some videos online about this term, I had even talked with some friends about it, but this was the first time a provider had ever said anything. According to the VA, CPTSD is defined as a mental health condition resulting from prolonged, repeated trauma—often involving captivity or entrapment—such as childhood abuse, domestic violence, or trafficking. While PTSD  often stems from a single event, CPTSD is the result of ongoing, non-escapable long-term trauma, often caused by abuse or torture. My first therapist had diagnosed me with Generalized anxiety disorder and moderate depression, but she had not had the training or qualifications to see the symptoms of CPTSD that I was showing. Unfortunately, CPTSD is not formally recognized at this time, even though many Mental health professionals and the World Health Organization acknowledge and treat it as such. Even though I cannot get official paperwork, having a name for what was happening in my mind and body was very helpful.

    Living with CPTSD is exhausting, my body was stuck in a hyper-arousal and survival state for so long that it doesn’t know what to do with quiet or peace. It took me years to learn how to relax and breathe. For years, I was plagued by panic attacks. I would be fine one moment, then something or someone would trigger a flashback in my mind, and suddenly, I wasn’t in the present moment; my brain would travel to the past, and I would hyperventilate. Othertimes, high stress would start one. These would happen at work, they would happen anytime I tried to set foot in a church building, they happened while driving, at parties, in the middle of Sams.  I would have to run somewhere private, and many times I ended up on the bathroom floor in the public restroom.  I would get write-ups and warnings from uninformed bosses who thought I somehow had control of the panic attacks, as if anyone desires to be hyperventilating and so dizzy they have to lie on the germy tile of a public bathroom.  As if anyone likes crying so hard their whole body shakes, and they vomit. As if anyone would choose to do all four of those things in a 20-minute span in the middle of the workday.  No one likes being found huddled in the fetal position on the breakroom floor, bawling their eyes out and hyperventilating because their abuser showed up to their place of employment. No one likes going to parties or work events and ending up in the bathroom trying to remember how to breathe because someone is wearing their abuser’s cologne.  It took a year, but slowly and surely, I started learning my triggers and the warning signs, and then I was able to learn regulation techniques. Most of the managing I did on my own, people would compliment me for being “better,” but in reality, I had just learned to cope. What people don’t often understand is that CPTSD does not just magically go away; you don’t hit a milestone or “healed” moment (unless, of course, God does a divine healing), they also think just because I am not having panic attacks several times a week that I no longer suffer from it. This is not to say that I haven’t slowly been healing from it. Through lots of prayer and therapy, I have seen progress, but on days when I am driving home from work or leaving a party early, it feels like I am still that same broken girl from 9 years ago.

Only this past year have I truly come to terms with the full impact of what happened to me. It was not just abuse, it was not just neglect, or my abuser being mean to me. I was tortured for years; what he did to me was willful, it was intentional, it was in full knowledge of the pain it caused me. I will never understand how someone does that to their own child. Yes, I have forgiven him, yes, a lot of those wounds are healed up, but I will always have the scars. Yes, he was my abuser, but he was also my father, and I don’t know if my brain will ever be able to fully process that. Yes, I survived the battle, yes, I filed police reports and gave evidence I found (after I escaped),  to keep him in jail until his trial. But what happens when no one comes to rescue the captive princess from her tower, and the monster holding her captive has escalated and expanded his torture , no longer content to just hurt her with his emotional and mental mind games, with his physical neglect of her, but he’s doing worse to the village around them. What happens when she has to climb down herself and slay the monster, desperately searching his eyes for even a hint of the father she loved? The whole village rejoices in the aftermath, but she can’t celebrate with everyone else the same way.   Freedom came at a high price.

 Some days, I wish God would just heal all of it in one big swoop. Every time I think I am close to being healed, another layer is revealed. Day after day, year after year, layer after layer, box after box of pain, but at the same time, I am glad God and I are doing this slowly. A few weeks ago, I was seeking support and comfort among one of my small groups, and a dear friend mentioned something about how if God healed me instantly, would all the good, joy, and freedom be too much for my brain and nervous system to handle? That question hit its mark because the answer is honestly yes, yes, it would. There are days I feel like a warrior in one of my books, one who can look back at the battlefield behind her and say “ I survived that”, one who defeated her enemy and lived to tell the tale, and live her life in peace and freedom. Other times I feel like a cripple old woman, my soul knows that we suffered and endured more in the first twenty years of life than a lot of people who experience in their whole lifetime. An old woman who mumbles to herself, “I am alive,” softly, it’s not a victory cry, it’s a whimper of not quite believing she made it, because something in her bones knows there is no way I should still be here. I look back and think, “How did I survive that?”People often  tell me how proud they are of me and how  amazing it is, how far God has brought me, and I need to hear that, but  I just get a wave of sadness, wondering who I would have been? How can you miss someone who never existed? How can I miss someone whom I never got to be?

  I wish I had gotten help sooner, but at the same time, I know that my brain and body could not have handled EMDR and some past situations I got myself into, while stumbling around trying to find my bearings. For so many years, I believed the lie that I was on my own; my friends did their best to support me, to help regulate and comfort me, but I had no one to help me heal.  Escaping my abuser came with a high price; it was just also traumatic, and it wasn’t an easy or clean getaway. In 2017, when everything came to light, and I finally was able to start forming words for what had happened to me, I knew I needed help. I felt like an open wound. CPTSD has affected every area of my life. For me, living with CPTSD looks like a lot of appointments, exhausting  therapy visits to work through the trauma, assessments, talking it all out, EMDR, writing exercises, grounding techniques, INFS, and homework. It looks like calling my best friend in the crest parking lot because I can’t stop crying.   It looks like balling my eyes out into a pastor’s shoulder, asking for healing again and again. It looks like pastor counseling to deconstruct and understand the verses used to justify my abuse.  It looks like trying new things only to end up in a bathroom stall, shaking all over because every fiber of my being is screaming I am in danger. It looks like shutting down when in pain.   It looks like jumping at every sudden sound, or unexpected touch, because you don’t know if that hand being laid on you in prayer is friendly or not.  It looks like the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn  response for every  conflict. It looks like chiropractic appts from living in survival mode for so many years, from curling inward and walking with head down, from sleeping curled up in a ball to feel safe. It has looked like a disrupted workflow after hyperventilating in a stairwell. Or working at a slower pace because my hands won’t stop shaking, and my heart is racing.  It looks like having to remind myself how to breathe around my abuser’s favorite foods and drinks, or feeling my cortisol spike because I smelled is cologone. Sometimes it’s my being late to a party because I had to pull over on the side of the road because I couldn’t breathe, and my cognitive abilities were shutting down. It has looked like waking up screaming, covered in cold sweat, or having nightmares that set my heart racing and my body shaking.

There are some who would say I should not “claim” CPTSD; they worry that naming and claiming means giving that label authority in your life. I disagree, naming it brings it to the light, and gives the logic part  of my brain a term. Has the diagnosis helped me know how to pray about it and which therapies to use on my road to healing. Others might say that I just haven’t prayed hard enough for healing, but God doesn’t always heal in one big wave. Sometimes it’s a thousand small waves and hundreds of small steps. I have also seen some cases where people have said that suffering from CPTSD means you haven’t fully surrendered that pain to Jesus and forgiven those who caused it. Sometimes that may be true, you have to remember the traumatic event to turn it over to God and forgive the one who hurt you, so as each memory comes up, sometimes you have to forgive, again and again. I write this not for sympathy but to educate people. It’s so hard to explain CPTSD to someone who has never experienced it. It is not just anxiety or taking things too seriously; it’s not just stress or nerves. CPTSD affects mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health. It takes time to heal from and learn how to manage symptoms. I wish people understood more, but at the same time, I am so glad they don’t because I wouldn’t wish this on anybody. Recovery is exhausting and often requires processing the victim’s worst memories and traumas. You don’t have to have experienced something directly to have empathy and compassion for those in pain. After 9 years, I am just now getting to a point where I don’t have regular symptoms. Healing has been slow and painful, but through prayer, therapy, and a supportive community, I have slowly but surely started to feel safe again. There are still times that it trips me up, trauma anniversary dates, Father’s Day, or certain places I still struggle to visit, and maybe they always will this side of heaven. If you are someone who suffers from CPTSD, say with it, stay in therapy, keep working towards healing, pray for comfort, and invite the Holy Spirit to find a safe community to help you along the way. If you are someone who is a leader, boss, teacher ,  or community member of someone with CPTSD, educate yourself, listen, and learn about how to help and suppport your person. Don’t let them walk this journey alone. I hope that sharing some of my story and journey, it helps you with yours.