The flashbacks were extra intense one night, and my internal anger was boiling over. As an adult, I have always lived alone, so my apartment was my little oasis (and also my torture chamber) where I could express my emotions without people noticing. Most of the apartments I lived in after I left my parents’ house were situated such that I had a decent amount of privacy on the edge of the building without tenants close by, so my screaming and yelling in the privacy of my room to get my emotions out were a regular and private occurrence.
I was used to putting on a smile in public and controlling what was going on inside of me to the point where I got many comments from people in my life that they would never have guessed the level of suffering I was experiencing due to how well I concealed it. There were many times I lashed out at people, but almost everyone has had those instances at some point in their life. In general, it was a daily ritual of mine to power through school and work, which were great distractions for me, with a smile on my face, offering those around me the kindness that I wasn’t able to give myself, and I would return home to begin my rituals of self-torture and punishment.
That night, I was trying to think of ways to calm myself down. I wanted to understand better what I was so angry about. I thought maybe I was getting super angry because I hated all the people who hurt me and hadn’t forgiven them yet. I had been searching for practical ways to forgive for so long because I couldn’t seem to figure it out. I read books, listened to podcasts, and analyzed scriptures. I started questioning if I had ever had hatred for another human being in my heart and, if so, who?
But when I finally got my answer, I hated one human being
I even got out a pen and paper and started trying to write down the names of all the people I hated. I sat there dumbfounded. There has to be at least one, I kept thinking as I shook my pen, trying to figure out who it was. I couldn’t think of anyone. I never once hated another human being and repeatedly worked to forgive and see the goodness in those who hurt me, even when they hurt me deeply.
But when I finally got my answer, I hated one human being. And I hated her with a fiery, burning passion hotter than the heat of the bright, burning sun.
It was me. I hated her. I hated my own guts.
In fact, I hated my own name. I hated even thinking about it. Anytime someone called my name, even if it was a family member or friend trying to get my attention, it would spark flashbacks, and my body would jolt.
I very reluctantly started writing my own name with shaking hands and got through the first three letters, “Nat,” which is a nickname that many people in my life call me, before the tears started viciously flowing. I really did hate every fiber of my being, and I punished myself in ways that were too personal to mention.
I Wasn’t Born Hating Myself
I wasn’t born hating myself. Society taught me to hate myself. The control systems of the world taught me to hate myself. Other people taught me to hate myself. I taught myself to hate myself. But unfortunately, no matter what was done to me, it was me who had become my biggest abuser.
I couldn’t see the goodness in myself or forgive myself like I could with others. I couldn’t see what other people saw in me. I was punishing myself for things that weren’t even my fault to begin with. And over time, I hated my own guts more and more.
Living in a “Never Good Enough” Society
Almost from the moment we are born, we are constantly shown signs of why we are not good enough. The indoctrination starts just about as soon as we exit the womb. We are fed marketing campaigns to tell us that we need these shoes, that makeup, this car. We are put in school programs that stifle our creativity as we try to make perfect grades and hit the requirements of what is asked of us to prepare us to follow rules and conform. Western society convinces us that we need labels, gimmicks, and symbols of status and prestige. We’re told that all these things will make us happy. But no matter what I obtained, they didn’t truly fulfill me. I was trapped in a cycle of needing the “next best thing” to keep up with constantly changing trends.
Eventually, no matter what I obtained for myself, I was still in so much pain. I was willing to trade in all my material possessions and live in a cardboard box if it meant having freedom in my mind and body. I no longer cared about what I knew wouldn’t bring me fulfillment. I truly just wanted peace and contentment. It took much undoing and untraining for my brain to realize that I never needed all the gimmicks I thought I needed to be worthy or “good enough.” I can still be successful in my own way, and it doesn’t require labels. For me, my greatest success has been working my butt off to heal from the pain in my body that was in survival mode for the majority of my formative years. Nothing else mattered to me once I experienced true freedom, and the temporary things that I once thought would bring me fulfillment became last year’s news once I started being genuinely content (you can’t take your stuff with you when you die!). Of course, it is important to take care of ourselves and have enough to live comfortably. But I no longer felt the need to be a superstar in the corporate world, even though that was a goal of mine at one point. As a teenager who was passionate about computer science, I once dreamed of becoming a Chief Information Officer of a big tech company. But my life has changed so much, and my trauma made me reevaluate what was really important to me so that being a leader in the corporate world is actually the last thing I want. I’m currently working a simple job that works for me, pays my bills, and gives me enough to save and experience fun things with my family and friends when I’m not working. I spend the rest of my time on my healing journey and pursuing my personal passions that I don’t want or need to monetize. I don’t feel the need to run my version of the rat race. In fact, today, I am quite a minimalist and am content with my possessions, my finances, my home, and the simplicity of my life of newfound freedom. I truly do feel free. I also believe that, since I am in my mid-twenties, this doesn’t mean that once I take some time to relax and enjoy a simple life, I can’t go back to being ambitious in other ways but on my own time. Then, I will be able to conquer those things with peace and freedom rather than with constant anxiety.
True Contentment Comes From Within
True contentment was always within me. I never needed anything else. Once I became content with myself, I made the decision to do the things that make me happy and not worry about chasing after the next best thing. For me, my greatest possessions are my moments of genuine contentment and freedom. Loving myself has allowed me the opportunity to love others much more than I was capable of before.
The notion that loving ourselves and taking care of ourselves is narcissistic or selfish is pretty foolish to me. The fear of being labeled narcissistic, arrogant, cocky, selfish, or a braggart was what kept me in my self-loathing for so long. I was terrified to appear too confident in myself because I knew that I had made some people uncomfortable before. I had many moments of confidence and personal success, and when I received pushback from others who were not happy for me but instead angered by my joy, I began to question if I was acting arrogant for feeling proud of myself. However, this is not logical. We are absolutely allowed to feel proud of ourselves when we reach personal milestones. I also believe it is possible to find a healthy balance between confidence and humility without being arrogant. The easiest thing for an outsider to do—if they feel upset about, jealous of, or threatened by someone’s genuine contentment and confidence—is to label them negatively to make themselves feel better about their own self-loathing and their fears of embracing their own self-confidence for fear of the same pushback they give to others.
I had to get over my fear of loving myself as well as the fear of what others would think about that. Loving myself and taking care of myself is not selfish. It is a requirement to survive. It is a requirement to maintain a job. It is a requirement to make a difference in the lives of others. It is a requirement if I desire to be a wife and mom in the future because I cannot take care of other people if I cannot take care of myself.
We Must Love Ourselves as Much as We Love Others
For the longest time, I had so much love to give everyone except for myself. It got to a point where I was overcompensating by giving to others because I thought my worth came from what other people thought of me. My giving nature drove me crazy, especially when it got to the point that it was at the expense of my own well-being, and I could not take care of myself. I had to take active steps to start genuinely loving myself before I set back out to love others even more than I did before. During my healing process, I finally started to see bits and pieces of the deep love that the other people in my life always had for me. Loving myself has made loving others so much easier.
I always wanted to help others by sharing my story. But first, the process had to start with me. Once I put in the work and overcame my own challenges, I felt ready to share my story with the world.
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For the longest time, I thought I was inherently “messed up” and broken beyond repair. I spent about a decade running around in circles in the medical system trying to figure out what was “wrong” with me and how to “fix” it, managing all this while attending school and holding full-time jobs. I thought the way I felt in my body was “normal” because I had no sense of what the other side was. My complex trauma symptoms manifested as crippling anxiety, depression, obsessive compulsive symptoms (in the form of religious and moral scrupulosity), extreme dissociative symptoms, insomnia, sleep paralysis, night terrors, and narcolepsy. My symptoms began at age 13 and continued into my mid-twenties. In general, I endured multiple types of traumas throughout my formative years, including numerous situations of both individual and large-group interpersonal cruelty, some of which caused me to have to switch environments. Due to what I was going through, my body couldn’t fathom what was happening, and my nervous system shut down. I felt guilty for simply existing. I saw danger everywhere, operated in a panicked survival mode, and lived in fear, anxiety, and isolation. I did my best to appear “normal” on the outside, keep a smile on my face, and control what was happening on the inside, distracting myself with extreme workaholism and doing nice things to serve others. I took active steps to keep branching out in confidence again, but these traumas kept piling onto each other and overlapping, so I couldn’t fathom what was going on. I wasn’t ready to give up yet, though, because I knew my family and friends would be distraught if I did. The most difficult and heartbreaking part of my story is that the two communities I set out to seek healing in—religion and the medical system—caused further trauma when some religious leaders, congregation members, and medical professionals chose to take advantage of my vulnerability for their own motives. In most of these situations, I didn’t even realize I was a victim until outsiders pointed it out for me and that my vulnerability and naïveté made me a target of malicious people. Each future situation of being targeted was just salt on the wound of the original incident. As an extreme empath, I absorbed the negative emotions of others as if they were my own, and I did not know how to release them from my body. In my solo healing process, I had to quite literally disappear from everyone and everything to protect my vulnerability and allow myself to process what I had been through during my formative years using my own mind and body without the persuasion or invasion of others.
What I went through all those years was so severe, and my symptoms and physical body reactions as a result were so excruciating that I went as far as to see a neurologist, concerned that my symptoms were the result of some sort of nervous system disorder. However, he returned with no paperwork in his hands to inform me that there was nothing wrong with me but that I was simply completely traumatized, and my body reacted accordingly. I finally realized that my symptoms were not the result of an inherent mental or physical illness and began to take a trauma-based approach to my healing after many years of believing that I was “sick” for the rest of my life. My true progress began when I finally rejected the lies that were told to me that I would have to “manage my symptoms” for the rest of my life and made the decision to believe for myself that I was fully capable of healing from my excruciating pain, even if others did not believe in me. I still do have tough days and moments, but I have gotten to a place where I am consistently living a quality of life that provides peace and comfort in my mind and body since I have given myself the tools to overcome my tough moments when they return.
Many C-PTSD survivors receive numerous diagnoses before ever hearing anything about complex trauma, and some are overmedicated to try and “fix” their symptoms, usually to no avail and with further side effects. I was told I would need to “manage my symptoms” and be on medication for the rest of my life. It was all lies. Today, I am on zero medications (including sleep medications) and am completely divorced from the disease management system.
I am excited to share many tips for natural, somatic, and holistic healing that have helped me overcome my complex trauma symptoms, such as extreme dissociation, excruciatingly painful flashbacks, severe sleep challenges, anxiety, hypervigilance, worthlessness, and more. I began to pursue unique methods of healing after many years of not seeing much progress through westernized care, and this was the catalyst for fast-tracking my healing. I have so many exciting tips to share related to grounding, nervous system regulation, somatic healing, and more to offer survivors other ways they can learn to regulate their nervous systems on their own without spending any money. I aim to help survivors overcome their feelings of self-guilt, blame, and humiliation and help them realize that their bodies had normal reactions to abnormal situations.
I am on a journey of rediscovering who I am at my core after letting so many other people infiltrate my mind for far too long. The five most important things to me in my life (in order of importance!) are: my health, my happiness, my family, my friends, and my creativity. My parents, my sisters, and my friends are my absolute rock and biggest cheerleaders. They were cheering me on all those years, fully believing that I was capable of overcoming my excruciating pain, even when I did not believe so myself. While I was repeatedly able to forgive others and extend the olive branch, I was never able to forgive myself. My loved ones kept telling me that there is nothing I need to feel humiliated about and that I should be able to see what everyone else sees in me. I have finally given that kindness to myself and have started to see what other people saw in me all along.
I am so glad I didn’t give up when my pain felt unbearable. I know what I’ve survived. I know the work I’ve put in to overcome it. I know that I still chose to keep a smile on my face and be kind in the face of it all. In reality, it’s because I didn’t want another person to go through even one ounce of the suffering I was in. I am finally living a life of consistent peace and contentment, and I am sharing my story from the other side. My story is not a story of defeat but a story of victory.
I have enjoyed embracing the free spirit I always was and adopting a simpler life to focus on the things that are meaningful to me. I am still healing every day. I believe our healing is a lifelong process. I made the decision to escape my version of the rat race (big city life) and move to my happy place. I am catching up on many hours of much-needed rest and spending lots of time outdoors. I am reconnecting with the people I lost while I was in isolation. I invited the passion that saved my life growing up—dance—back into my life. I am passionate about fighting for other survivors in any way I can.
I hope that by sharing my story, I can convince other survivors that there was never anything wrong with them to begin with and that they are capable of living healthy, happy, and fulfilled lives. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did not become a voice for the voiceless and share how I overcame it. I aim to live my life in love of both others and myself, understanding that everyone has a story of their own. I am grateful to the CPTSD Foundation for giving me an opportunity to share my story.
“My story isn’t sweet and harmonious like invented stories. It tastes of folly and bewilderment. Of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.” ~ Hermann Hesse
