Time to Turn the Tide: Helping Children of Complex Trauma Survivors
I’m a domestic violence victim and I’ve been healing from symptoms of C-PTSD since September 2024 and for the first time ever, I saw what C-PTSD looks like in someone else.
Just the other night, I arrived at the edge of the driveway to pick up my 16-year-old son from his dad’s house. Now mind you, I say “dad’s house,” but we are not yet divorced so it’s technically the marital home because I’m on the deed and mortgage. It was exactly 7pm because that’s what the court order defined as my pickup time and I’m a girl who knows how to follow the rules.
I waited. No sign of my son.
I adjusted my weathered grey bucket hat and smoothed out my custom designed t-shirt that my daughter created for me several years back when we were all still pretending to be a happy family: navy blue with a light blue heart over my chest and a Leigh Hunt quote on the back saying “The groundwork for all happiness is good health.”
After the longest five minutes of my life, my son marched down the front walk of the house I can’t get into followed by my daughter who is in college now. As the parent who left, they’ve come to perceive me as the bad parent even though I’ve been operating in the shadows to protect them: most recently, I prevented an unnecessary knee surgery that my ex was pushing on my son.
Yet, all I saw were deadened faces. Solemn shuffles. The essence of their personalities absent. As they approached, my daughter had her phone up videoing the whole event.
A year ago, I hired a bankruptcy lawyer. Five months ago, the court ordered appropriate support payments and confirmed our 50-50 parenting plan. Then, the dam broke: It felt as though my estranged spouse claimed my son didn’t want to see me and stopped allowing pickups. More court battles began. That night, I sat at the driveway’s edge with another order defining pickup times, drop-off times, and my extra weeknight dinner on off weeks.
Those ghost-like versions of my children curdled my stomach.
I rolled down the window to greet them. The cool breeze reminded me to take a deep breath.
You’re okay. You got this.
Ever since I filed a police report against my spouse and left the marital home, I struggled with picking up my son. The bodily sensations that arose when I was anywhere near that home were almost too much. I’d been through numerous EMDR sessions and desensitization trainings with my therapist to execute what I politely called the “extraction.”
Now, not only did I have to deal with my potential dysregulation, but the forms approaching my car were not the children I’d raised to be loving and warm, compassionate and caring, absolutely extraordinary human beings.
My handsome, athletic, strong of heart and strong of mind son stood back from my window, crossed his arms, and stated for the camera that I was “manipulative” and he was “scared.”
After I left my marriage, and started healing from my symptoms of C-PTSD, my dad said to me, “I didn’t know where you went, but I’m glad to have you back.” At the time, that sentence struck me: I hadn’t gone anywhere. What did he mean?
Over the past few years, I’ve realized that when you are undergoing subtle emotional abuse, you don’t know it’s happening. You are ever so slowly changing to the outside world, but only the people closest to you who have known you your whole life can perceive the change.
I can tell you now that I felt my true self drifting away throughout my marriage and some other self replacing it. There was a darkness taking over my thoughts that I didn’t understand. I couldn’t share that darkness with the world, so my whole life became an act.
I understand now that emotional manipulation rewires the brain. For me, it felt like white turned into black. Happy into sad. Good into bad. It even turned a happy, optimistic person determined to do good work in the world into someone suicidal. But that wasn’t the real me. That was an irrational thought. That was my rewired brain talking and I had to undo the rewiring.
C-PTSD deeply impacts your ability to interact with people since it often results from an extremely close relationship, someone you trusted. As you heal, your behavior is strange and you’re processing a lot of anger. You need people in your life who will still love you, even when they don’t understand why this happy-go-lucky person is now so embittered.
Luckily …
- I had a few close childhood friends ready to help me heal. I needed to reboot my real self, and they had the original source code.
- My parents came to my aid as well in the greatest display of unconditional love I’ve ever known.
- And my therapist, the woman who put the right label on my mental malaise, we’ve done critical work together to bring my psyche from a place of believing I was bad, broken, and unlovable, all the way back to better.
My healing journey also included trauma-focused yoga, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and a lot of natural supplements, journaling, reading and reflecting. My brain doctor was thrilled with my last set of SPECT scans. She’d seen thousands and she described the healing I’d achieved in only one year, “incredible.”
Now, I know I’ve rewired my brain back.
A loving marriage would never cause C-PTSD.
I’ve made peace with that. I am also proud of the work I’ve done to bring myself back. If you can believe it, I am grateful for what I have been through. The sun shines brighter. The air smells sweeter. Every moment is more precious than ever.
I have a dedicated therapist who promised me we’d discover the root cause of my mental health mess, and we did. I have the best relationship I’ve ever had with my parents: a deeper, more meaningful connection than ever before. And, I know who my real friends are because they did not judge the person I appeared to be on the outside when I was suffering the most, they remembered who I was on the inside, and they helped me find her again.
Now it’s my turn to help.
Seeing my kids that way the other night meant that I am now healed enough to see C-PTSD in other people, but it also means that my children need to heal now too. I’m ready to be a therapist, a parent, and a good friend all wrapped into one.
I am the only one who has loved them unconditionally through spilled milk, temper tantrums, car accidents, and more. I am the only one who has observed them closely—with empathy and curiosity—and quietly questioned and actively listened to understand how they think, who they are, and where they want to go in life.
I am the only hope my children have of reclaiming their real selves and it’s time to turn the tide.
Photo Credit: Pixabay
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Hi, I’m Denise. I love learning and I’ve always loved helping others find the joy in learning. Now that I’ve experienced the symptoms of C-PTSD, I hope to help others by sharing what I’ve learned about enduring complex trauma and how to come through to the other side … happier, healthier, and healed. I’m working on my next memoir called, “Beautiful Scars: A Memoir of Unknown Abuse, Divorce, and Healing.” You can find me at www.denisemarieryan.com.
Thank you for sharing this Denise. I have some understanding of the journey you’ve been and I commend you for the work you’ve put in to reclaim yourself. I’ve walked a similar path of domestic abuse along with extreme coercive control, leaving the marriage after twenty two years. I have also received a diagnosis of CPTSD. While my husband, after my departure, never manipulated our three children, who were in their early twenties and late teens, into thinking I was the “bad parent” I realised later that the youngsters had no idea of what my life had been like within the marriage and so they did carry some resentment around my leaving and breaking up the family unit. You say in your article that you are the only hope that your children have of reclaiming their real selves. I would respectfully disagree. Our children can be manipulated by a parent whose only agenda is to prove the other to be in the wrong. And they can choose to live with this belief for a long time. A mother who leaves, especially when the courts become involved in custodial arrangements, can give the children a message that their wants and needs mean nothing, which in turn is used by the husband to attack his wife. The love and care you showed your children when they were growing up in the family home with both parents will not ever be forgotten by them. And it is easier for children to be angry with the parent they feel safest expressing that anger. If they have to be with their father, who seemingly is so unloving that he is attempting to turn them away from you, then they may feel unable to openly disagree, while also carrying their resentment and unhappiness at the situation. I found, myself, during the thirty years that have elapsed since I left, that my sons have taken time to sort out their feelings about their parents. And I found, to my cost, that my attempting to explain my side of the marriage and reasons for leaving, caused them to feel as though I was loading them with a burden that wasn’t theirs to hold. I have learned that they have the intelligence and empathy to come to their own conclusions about both parents. The time I was able to spend with them as they grew into adolescence gave them the knowledge that they were loved. And that has helped them to show both love and understanding as they have grown. I know your youngsters will eventually be able to see through manipulation and uncaring and grow into adults who can make up their own minds about how to live. Really, like each of us, they are the only ones who can.
Oh Denise, reading this made me feel your pain from an adult perspective. I’m an adult survivor of childhood trauma and abuse. I have also witnessed a friend go through divorce after an abusive marriage.
C-PTSD can happen to anyone and there are many people who are stuck in violent and abusive relationships. You are strong to have managed to get away and I understand that it;s not easy when kids are caught in the midst. Many people can’t do that and I applaud you for reaching out to your parents, friends and therapist for the help you needed. I’m sure you will guide your kids away from everything that’s been and onto a healing path.
Take care of you and your family. God bless you.
Love from Lizzy (This is my story: http://www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com)