I am one of those unfortunate enough to have experienced violent trauma in my early development, thus completely reorganising my brain, and have gone on to cope by developing multiple addictions due to the anxiety, depression, emptiness, feelings of toxic shame etc.

I do not see that there is much that can be done for me. It is the cruellest of disorders, for my life has not been worth living since the age of 3, yet people just see my outside, hear me speaking and assume I am like them, especially as i have a high dose anti-depressant, giving me seratonin. If they could experience internally for just one second what i am experiencing they would be devastated entirely. I get 1-2 hours of sleep a night maybe from 5am to 7am if i am lucky and so am chronically tired as well

Susan, I know this is a late reply, but I’ll leave it here in case you see it (and for the benefit of others who may read it).

Your experience of receiving a variety of diagnoses, only to finally figure out that you actually suffer from Complex Trauma, is common. There are a lot of us as old as our 60’s (or older) who’ve had this same experience. It’s only recently that the medical/psychological communities have begun to be aware of CPTSD. So misdiagnoses are more the norm than otherwise.

I just want you to know that you’re not alone.

You totally nailed it !
Thank you for your services.

I disagree with the last sentence.
The notion is that people are competing about the gravity of their trauma is sign of social apathy, not empathy.
While i agree that with the apples and oranges principle, which means that people with different traumas have different needs,need different kinds of treatment and should Not be all put into the same bag, yet that is EXACTLY what you did in the next sentence.
The idea that all people with traumas somehow “percept” the same amount of pain is ridicilous.
This is exactly the kind of thing you can expect from the “happy people”.
Its too said that you didnt have the courage to say, that a lot of of traumatized people are exaggerating and playing the victim card, cause then i would at least know youre honest.
Its the same like when white people blame black people for playing the racist card without realizing that their(the white people”s) behaviour is actually racist. I mean what are they supposed to do, Not play the card? Like did they ever think about what choice do those people actually have?
If you are a victim, you are supposed to just shut up and suffer and accept the martyrdom?
Because thats what happens a lot of the time.(If not most, and we will never know how many people died in silence, cause we only see the tip of the iceberg)
The victims get ignored (in better case) or straight up discriminated against or both.
Those same dumb ignoring people are usually those who think theyre helping,while while hurting you even more somehow, and then when they dont get gratuity for their “help” they just turn their backs and say you cant be helped.
After a while you lose all trust in humanity as society loses trust in you and thats a point of no return.
Also i dont think adding new names and diagnoses is very helpful. I think helping the people who need help is helpful.
Material help, not just therapy, and the material must come first.
Therapy is useless if you cant afford it, and does nothing for your material situation.
Majority of psyciatrists are blindly prescribing pills like they were oxy,without really knowing how they work,and being manipulated and brainwashed by the pharmacological industry about their effectivity/benefits.
There are drugs routinely prescribed to people, that have seriously harmfull side effects, played off by the media,and the doctors themselves as something mundane,no problem(HOW???), and do 0% good for the patients apart from numbing them(as in making them tired, not feel better,just feel less – if you wanna call that “good”) yet they still take them like nice docile sheep and then get heart attacks, all sorts of internal health defects,and they accidentaly kill other people while driving cars, cause they were tired and on the pill.

Thank you. Shirley

Have you looked into Peter Levine, Irene Lyon and the likes? Peter Levine’s Somatic work is geared towards nervous system regulation, or dys-regulation which is what has happened to us with CPTSD.

By healing the nervous system, the body tends to do the rest by itself. If we can learn to sit with what comes up and not try to run, numb it out, or disassociate. That requires all the pre-work which takes time, but within 7 years, when our cells have all been renewed, if we do the work in the meantime… we can fully heal. I have just now learned about all this, and have started researching it deeper on a daily basis. It seems very promising, as the ANS, CNS and nervous system at large, is responsible for controlling everything. So it makes perfect sense when we don’t have the capacity to regulate it like normally, that our body won’t function as it should.

I wish you all the best. Stay safe and be well!