In seventh grade, the children at my middle school traded their Nintendos and Polly Pocket dolls for iPhones and Barbie dolls–in the form of minions for their social cliques. Soon after the school year began, CHABELCK was established, and the name might as well have been trademarked.

So, what was CHABELCK? It was the official name of the “friend group” composed of all the popular girls in our class. I look back and chuckle at the name. They could have worked harder to come up with something catchier; to me, it sounds like the remnants of something a dog threw up! They simply took the initials of their first names and combined them into one word. Almost immediately after the group was created, the term CHABELCK and the girls who held that title loomed over the school, feared by all who encountered them. I took an observer’s perspective, watching in bewilderment as many of my innocent friends neglected our friendship to join CHABELCK–and consequently morphed into power-hungry monsters. 

CHABELCK’s presence at school was boisterous. The group’s name was plastered on binders, folders, and whiteboards. They took over online forums, cyberbullying other students whom they deemed unworthy of a spot in their cool kids’ club. A few members of CHABELCK were ultimately expelled from school, while others were disciplined. 

Groupthink, peer pressure, and tribalism throughout human history

I’ll never forget CHABELCK. It was my first exposure to the aggressive presence of tribalism and groupthink in our society. 

Why does the cacophony of the groups I’ve encountered throughout my life ring louder than the whisper of my own conscience? Humans are social creatures, and tribalism originated as a survival mechanism. We hunted and gathered to protect our own. He who strayed from the tribe vanished into the jaws of the enemy. To be excluded was to die. 

The battle between my internal desires and external expectations

Although tribalism is ingrained in my human DNA, I’m very much a free spirit. From a young age, conformity felt like an internal death sentence. I fought a daily battle between my disdain for Western civilization’s obsession with fortune and fame and my desire to escape into solitude. In environments filled with materialism and superficiality, I felt pressured to be someone I was not in order to be liked and accepted. The seduction of the herd was enticing. 

With every group I tried to join, I was eventually ostracized or, in some cases, viciously bullied out of them. Starting at a new school when I was thirteen, I quickly became the target of a situation of large-group interpersonal cruelty–the first of several such instances. This was the first time I came home from school expressing to my parents that I had thoughts of suicide. I switched schools, but the bullying continued as I navigated new peer environments. I tried hard to fit in, so that I wouldn’t be seen as an antisocial loser. Some mental health providers even pathologized the fact that I didn’t have friends. 

But even if I disregarded others’ opinions, I didn’t need a tyrant to criminalize me as a friendless outcast. Whenever I changed myself to fit in, I became my own jailer. Even when I was initially accepted into social groups, I felt like I had betrayed myself. I hated being like everyone else. The tug-of-war between my authentic self and my desire for acceptance was more painful than the rejection from those whose approval I craved. 

The anatomy of groupthink

I have developed intellectual friendships with social psychologists and philosophers like Arthur Schopenhauer and Solomon Asch, whose research and observations suggest that societal expectations of conformity can strip individuals of their freedom. As I reflected on my personal experiences with groupthink, I noticed some recurring patterns.

While these groups seemed powerful at the time (there is power in numbers, as they say!), they were actually quite weak. Much like the structure of a cult, these groups typically had a leader (or multiple leaders), with followers obediently trailing behind and idolizing them. When I interacted with these group members on an individual level, I noticed they were often insecure and relied on the group for validation. They frequently spoke poorly of other group members and revealed their secrets to me, indicating that their friendships were not genuine and that the group was performative. I recognized that if they spoke about their “friends” in this way to me, they were likely doing the same thing to me behind my back. 

My final straw before rejecting it all

I’ve learned the hard way that the petty high school behavior doesn’t stop after high school. When I moved to the countryside to begin my healing journey, I found myself isolated in a retirement town in the middle of nowhere, with a population of 1,942. I got to know a group of friends there, and was initially invited to their breakfasts and bonfires. I thought I had finally found my people. 

From the get-go, I had an internal inkling that, like with past groups, I would eventually be kicked to the curb. I found myself trying very hard to gain their approval. I changed my personality and overextended my generosity, spending money I didn’t even have in order to remain relevant to them. 

Unfortunately, my gut instincts turned out to be right. After the initial “love-bombing” phase, I was soon deemed unworthy of being in their presence. Around town, they went out of their way to make me feel inferior–snubbing me, humiliating me in front of others, and playing mind games with hot-and-cold behavior. It was bizarre! For months, I ruminated, trying to figure out what I could do to be good enough for this group and to coexist with them in the tiny town without tension. But nothing I did was good enough. 

After a few months of continuous rejection and their attempts to stifle success in my healing, the stress finally took its toll on me. One night, I woke up with itchy legs. My entire body had broken out in hives! Over the next two weeks, I visited the emergency room four times. Each time the ER managed to control the hives, they returned again within 48 hours. I wondered if I had an allergy, and ended up driving to the big city to consult with an allergist. 

Facing the pain of rejection and uncovering subconscious memories

There was no allergy: the hives were stress-related. Yes, the rejection stung (and itched!) that deeply. The rejection didn’t hurt because these people were particularly special; in truth, they barely took the time to get to know me before they discarded me. If it had been strangers behaving this way, I would have brushed it off immediately, reminding myself that their actions stemmed from their own misery and insecurity. However, because I had met these people at the beginning of my cabin journey, they became my final hope of solidifying a friend group I could rely on for the rest of my life. When I was rejected, they became the symbol of all the interpersonal cruelty I had faced during my formative years.

It was painful to be ostracized by the people who promised me they would be on the other side of my success. Still, there was a silver lining: with each instance of being belittled by this group, I brought my feelings to my therapist. Together, we worked through the physical sensations I felt in response to these moments using a technique called brainspotting. During each session, subconscious memories connected to these emotions resurfaced–memories of the hurt I had experienced from groups in my peer environments and religious communities. Through brainspotting work, those buried memories were processed and healed. 

I will no longer participate in it

After years of chasing a dangling carrot held by various groups, I grew tired of hearing, “If you just do this… then you can finally sit with us.” I decided to stop trying to prove that I am “good enough” for these groups and instead realized that I am too good to participate in their infantile behavior. 

My entire life, I had questioned whether these kinds of people wanted to be friends with me. But things changed when I learned to ask myself, “Do I even want to be friends with them?” 

I refuse to march around in aggressive cults and pretend to have disdain for people and groups whose stories I know nothing about. I do not feel superior by making others feel inferior. I find no satisfaction in mocking or intimidating innocent people. I don’t enjoy latching onto narratives or rumors based on hearsay. I cannot bow in submission while my heart screams in protest. I refuse to trade my authenticity for acceptance. 

My path to true freedom

In a world where the crowd roars with confidence, my solitude felt like madness. But when I quieted my mind in the countryside, I discovered that my greatest fear as a radical nonconformist was not the herd itself: it was becoming like the herd. 

Today, I’m not a part of any friend groups, and I don’t want to be. I do almost everything alone, and I actually prefer it that way. Despite how medical providers pathologized my introversion in the past, I now know there is nothing wrong with wanting to be alone. Once I found freedom in my individuality, I no longer needed the approval of those I had previously put on a false pedestal. I’ve built authentic and easygoing friendships with people who have no agenda and do not require me to participate in activities that conflict with my values. 

I will not pretend to be someone I’m not just to feel like I belong. To me, true belonging means being at home within my own soul. I will continue to stand strong on my own two feet and keep my head held high, never surrendering to the crowd.  

Photo by Dibya Jyoti Ghosh on Unsplash

To my readers who have been following my journey: I am excited to share that I have created a personal blog called “Little Cabin Life.” This blog chronicles my healing journey, where I share my experiences and the things I am doing to support my recovery. You’ll also find tips that have been helpful to me along the way. If you’re interested in following my story, please feel free to visit www.littlecabinlife.com.

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Natalie Rose

My name is Natalie, and I am a survivor of about 13 years of absolute psychological torture from Complex PTSD symptoms. For the longest time, I thought I was inherently sick and broken beyond repair. I spent over a decade running around in circles in the medical system trying to figure out what was “wrong” with me and how to “fix” it.

♡ What is Complex PTSD? ♡

Complex PTSD symptoms come from severe, prolonged, and numerous incidents of trauma, typically of a relational nature. Symptoms can come from any type of trauma, though, and the trauma doesn’t necessarily have to stem from childhood — adults can develop CPTSD as well. Trauma can damage the brain and shrink the hippocampus, causing many of the symptoms of CPTSD. I decided to go public with my story to be a voice for the voiceless. There are too many survivors being told CPTSD is a lifelong sentence, and they are not being given the tools they need to overcome their symptoms.

♡ My Story ♡

I endured multiple types of traumas starting at around age thirteen, including numerous situations of both individual and large-group interpersonal cruelty. Some of these situations forced me to switch environments. My body couldn’t fathom what was happening, and my nervous system shut down. 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 for others. I took active steps to keep branching out in confidence again, but these traumas kept piling onto each other and overlapping. 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 itself—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 made me a target of malicious people. Each future situation of being targeted was just salt on the wound of the original incident.

♡ My Struggles to Find Answers ♡

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 that I was fully capable of healing from my excruciating pain.

♡ Finding My Own Healing ♡

I am excited to share tips for natural, somatic, and holistic healing that have helped me overcome things like dissociation, flashbacks, sleep challenges, anxiety, hypervigilance, 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 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’m 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 am finally living a life of consistent peace and contentment, and I am sharing my story from the other side. I hope to encourage 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 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.

♡ Personal Blog ♡

To learn more about my healing journey, please visit my personal blog, “Little Cabin Life,” at:
littlecabinlife.com

My father finally died a few months ago. Survivors will understand the word finally. I thought he would never die. Billy Joel’s song “Only the Good Die Young” was certainly true in this situation. I had gone no contact about seven years before, but the shadow of power this man wielded over my life continued, whether I was in contact with him or not. I even moved all the way across the country to put space between me and him. Space between the present and the past. The constructed reality he demanded everyone agree with, the dominating presence where no voice save his was heard, the judgmental pronouncements of doom and gloom over your life, the complete lack of understanding or empathy. These were just a few of the ways his brainwashing impacted me. 

These were just a few of the ways his brainwashing impacted me. 

And when he died, instead of the relief I felt at my mother’s passing, a terrible door that had been shut for over sixty years was opened. The parts of me from childhood that had split off and carried the load felt free to come forward, and it was hard. Hard to face them, hard to talk to them, and hard to become an ally to them instead of an enemy. 

There are no words to describe the damage and loss that occur when your parents choose the path of narcissism. To their very grave, my parents never had the slightest inkling of self-awareness or took any personal responsibility. In fact, my sibling and I were “disinherited.” The old threat to keep me within my father’s orbit finally came true. For me, I could understand it; I walked away years ago. But for my sibling who provided for my father financially and took care of his ex-wife, our mother, who otherwise would have been homeless, it was a low blow. Yet again, the narcissist showed his true colors. It did not matter what you did for the man; he did not know how to do anything other than hurt us. His final message? “You are worthless.” 

But I survived, and guess what? My father was wrong. It took everything I had to slog through the twisted spider web of lies he had spun. I spent decades trying to understand, reaching toward the truth that seemed to dissipate into mist at the slightest stress. To quiet the dissonance in my mind, heart, and soul. I used every technique and read every book I could get my hands on, but you know what? I made it. I have written a new chapter, established new relationships, and I walk in truth. What does the Bible say? The truth will set you free? Yep, that’s what it says. I can wonder at the joy in life, pursue dreams and goals I never thought reachable, and more than anything else, I can finish well, leaving a legacy of peace, encouragement, and kindness to my children. 

I pity my mother and father. They never knew how wonderful life could be. It is still hard sometimes, I suppose I will always bear the scars to a certain degree, but I made it. I made it out, and I am so thankful I did not give up. Defy trauma, embrace joy. It is worth it.

If you are interested in my newsletter or reading more content like this, please go to:

https://rebekahlaynebrown.com

Photo by Robert Anasch on Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Rebekah Brown

Rebekah Brown, a native of the south, now resides in the Great American West. Surviving a complicated and abusive family system makes her unique writing style insightful as well as uplifting. Rebekah is the proud mother of two and grandmother of four.

What’s the tightrope I walk of being a woman in the society I live in? 

When a woman knows her worth, some men feel threatened by her.

When a woman knows her worth, some women feel threatened by her. 

If a woman is confident, knows what she wants, is assertive, and keeps her head held high, she’s arrogant, she’s a braggart, she’s another word that also starts with the letter “B,” and she needs to shut up.

If a woman is soft-spoken in her mannerisms and voice, she’s weak, she’s a pushover, and she’s not a team player.

If she falls in the middle, she’s lost in the background and has nothing to offer.

If her dresses are too short, she’s promiscuous and was asking for it.

If her dresses are long, she’s a prude and has no sex appeal.

If her dresses fall somewhere in the middle, she’ll get catcalled regardless, and it’s still her fault for being a temptress.

If a woman gets married and has children in her early 20s, she’s “rushing her life,” and she’ll be divorced in 10 years anyway.

If a woman doesn’t get married until her late 30s, she’s “an old maid,” and it’s such a shame that no one wanted her while she was in her prime.

If a woman never marries or has children, she’s not carrying out what she’s “supposed” to according to societal expectations. 

As a woman, I’ve gotten criticism from every angle throughout my life.

I began my undergraduate studies in computer science and learned on the first day of class that wearing a bright yellow sundress to class probably wasn’t the best idea; the stares that the guys in the class gave me showed what they were really thinking: “She’s lost.”

I would stand in line at the career fair for internships at technology companies and get comments from my male peers in the line like, “This booth is for Software Engineering roles only” and “Well… you don’t look like a computer scientist.” I thought to myself: Then, what’s a computer scientist supposed to look like? 

Even churches weren’t immune. Although I had just turned twenty, I was always asked, “Where’s your husband?” When they found out I was still single, they’d say with great fervor, “Well, don’t you worry, we’ll find you your knight in shining armor!” Am I really some sort of damsel in distress who needs a knight in shining armor to come to save me? 

In high school, I was the only female on the robotics team with about 25 other boys, and many of them were so uncomfortable with my presence that they couldn’t even look me in the eyes or call me by name. I never felt uncomfortable around them, but the fact that they felt uncomfortable around me made me feel uncomfortable.

I tinkered with robots and Arduinos at school; then after school, I threw on my leotard and tights to go practice my pirouettes at the dance studio. This was my norm. I was never ashamed of embracing my femininity and holding my own while pursuing what I was genuinely passionate about, no matter what kind of environment I was in.

When I reflect on the conflicting standards of womanhood our society holds, they don’t make sense to me. I’ve come to realize that I’ll never please everyone, nor should I have to. The closed-minded opinions people hold about a woman’s role only result in confusion and judgment when they encounter someone who breaks their static view of what is “normal” in our society. And I’m finally okay with that.

What’s my personal definition of womanhood?

I lose track of time for six hours designing a website, and then I’ll go dance my heart out at dance class so I can get a break from the laptop. The clothes in my closet range from bright, flowery, frilly dresses to sweatpants and ginormous T-shirts, as well as my Jiu-Jitsu training gear. (It’s great for self-defense!)

Although I’ve struggled with acne and rosacea for many years, I don’t wear any makeup like I did when I was a teenager. I embrace the imperfections on my skin and no longer feel the need to cover up those blemishes. I love my natural hair color, so I don’t get it colored at the salon. In the mornings, I don’t flat iron or curl my hair either; I just let it hang loose the way it is or throw it into a messy bun and get about my day. It’s a rarity that I get my nails done anymore—in the past, I only kept up with that expensive hobby to fit in with the other women in the environments I was in. Over time, I decided that money could be spent on more productive things such as online courses and other opportunities for personal growth.

Although it seems that many women my age are already married and on their first baby, I am confident in my singleness and the time I’ve had to embrace my journey of healing and self-discovery. Establishing fierce independence at this age has given me the confidence to know that if I ever do get married, I will know who I am at my core and will not need to depend on another person to take care of me.

I’ve regained the ambition and creativity I had during childhood, and I’m putting in the time and effort to decide how I want to live the rest of my life and achieve my personal goals. I forgive easily, am not afraid to listen to someone who has a different opinion than my own, and have a “live and let live” philosophy. I own my actions and don’t shy away from hard conversations.

Regardless of my ability to be social when needed, I’m not one to hang out in large crowds, go to concerts or sports games, or revel in gossip circles or petty drama. My idea of weekend fun is cozying up at home alone with my fuzzy socks and blanket, lighting my favorite cranberry apple-scented candle, and losing myself in a good book.

This is my personal definition of womanhood. 

I love embracing what makes me unique in my womanhood and not letting anyone define my femininity. Although I second-guessed myself in the past, I no longer feel guilty when I don’t submit to any standards of who a woman “should” be according to the world I live in. I choose my own path the way that I want to walk it, without fear of admonishment or punishment from others. In a society that profits off of women’s insecurities and fears, this can be a lonely path, but I no longer feel threatened by other people’s closed-minded opinions.

I am proud that I have finally gotten to the point on my journey where I no longer feel the need to change who I am to make anyone — whether a man or a woman — approve of me.

I am Natalie Rose, and I am proud to be me.

Photo by Brian Mann on Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Natalie Rose

My name is Natalie, and I am a survivor of about 13 years of absolute psychological torture from Complex PTSD symptoms. For the longest time, I thought I was inherently sick and broken beyond repair. I spent over a decade running around in circles in the medical system trying to figure out what was “wrong” with me and how to “fix” it.

♡ What is Complex PTSD? ♡

Complex PTSD symptoms come from severe, prolonged, and numerous incidents of trauma, typically of a relational nature. Symptoms can come from any type of trauma, though, and the trauma doesn’t necessarily have to stem from childhood — adults can develop CPTSD as well. Trauma can damage the brain and shrink the hippocampus, causing many of the symptoms of CPTSD. I decided to go public with my story to be a voice for the voiceless. There are too many survivors being told CPTSD is a lifelong sentence, and they are not being given the tools they need to overcome their symptoms.

♡ My Story ♡

I endured multiple types of traumas starting at around age thirteen, including numerous situations of both individual and large-group interpersonal cruelty. Some of these situations forced me to switch environments. My body couldn’t fathom what was happening, and my nervous system shut down. 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 for others. I took active steps to keep branching out in confidence again, but these traumas kept piling onto each other and overlapping. 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 itself—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 made me a target of malicious people. Each future situation of being targeted was just salt on the wound of the original incident.

♡ My Struggles to Find Answers ♡

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 that I was fully capable of healing from my excruciating pain.

♡ Finding My Own Healing ♡

I am excited to share tips for natural, somatic, and holistic healing that have helped me overcome things like dissociation, flashbacks, sleep challenges, anxiety, hypervigilance, 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 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’m 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 am finally living a life of consistent peace and contentment, and I am sharing my story from the other side. I hope to encourage 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 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.

♡ Personal Blog ♡

To learn more about my healing journey, please visit my personal blog, “Little Cabin Life,” at:
littlecabinlife.com

I wouldn’t inflict the extreme torture of Complex PTSD on anyone. No one deserves to feel like this – perpetually hating, punishing, and castigating myself – all while pretending like nothing is wrong with the rest of society. Even in sleep, there is no solace – the insomnia, night terrors, and sleep paralysis are often worse than my pain during the daytime. 

What does Complex PTSD feel like to me? 

It is a daily solitary confinement sentence in a shrinking prison cell of my own mind and body. The tiny walls close in on me, and the claustrophobia sets in. 

It is daily reruns of excruciatingly painful traumatic flashbacks, unable to exorcise them from my psyche. 

It is my family and friends who love me and just want to see me happy. They know my worth, but I can’t see it.

It is seeing the goodness in everyone else but being blind to anything good in me. 

It is never forgiving myself and consistently punishing myself while being wracked with constant anger and rage at both everything and nothing at the same time. 

It is never having hatred for another human being but hating myself with a fiery, burning passion. 

It is not allowing myself to believe I have trauma because, on the outside, I live a blessed life and should have no reason to feel so miserable and afraid. 

It is seeing a neurologist because I’m confused as to why my body is experiencing such unusual symptoms, and I need to rule out disease. 

It is not knowing who I am anymore and wanting to return to the light I had before it was almost completely blown out. 

It is protecting myself in isolation but enduring further anxiety and depression from the isolation. 

It is throwing away the clothes that remind me of my trauma because I can’t bear to look at them. 

It is looking in the mirror and not being able to recognize myself or believe that I am real. 

It is constantly reliving the past, unable to focus on the present or the future. 

It is losing the academic ambition and creativity I had growing up and not knowing how to get it back. 

It is having involuntary face and body tics while violently yelling things to shake off the flashbacks that are infiltrating my mind. 

It is trying every form of treatment without results, only to have even worse side effects. 

It is compulsively repenting to God and reciting Bible passages I memorized so I can be forgiven for how awful I am. 

It is desperately trying to hold onto the hope that there is a loving God out there, even after the years of spiritual abuse that shook my faith to the core. 

It is waiting to die so I can finally be at peace. 

It is vomiting randomly because my body can’t take the pain. 

It is developing random bruises on my body for no reason other than the extreme stress and hypervigilance I am under. 

It is receiving 25 different diagnoses over many years from professionals ignorant about trauma, being degraded, dehumanized, and feeling like a disgrace to society because I am “mentally ill.”

It is putting my trust in medical providers and them taking advantage of my vulnerability. 

It is seeking help to understand my symptoms, being laughed at and told, “That’s not normal.”

It is trying so many different medications, nothing working, and experiencing even deeper side effects, like increased suicidal ideation, weight gain, akathisia, and medication-induced psychosis. 

It is going out of my way to be kind and loving to everyone I meet, no matter how much torture I am in on the inside. 

It is not offering that same kindness to myself. 

It is walking down the street and seeing the faces of my past tormentors on strangers’ faces. 

It is not being able to say “no” even when I am uncomfortable because I want to please everyone and get their approval. 

It is being terrified of everyone and everything and feeling inferior, even to the water bottle sitting on my desk. 

It is experiencing constant panic attacks at random times, even in public. 

It is being drawn to abusive personalities because I think that’s the way I deserve to be treated. 

It is turning my camera off during Zoom meetings so my coworkers don’t notice that I’m dissociating or experiencing trauma responses. 

It is experiencing sleep paralysis that is so painful I’m terrified to go back to sleep. 

It is setting 15-minute alarms when I sleep to wake me up from the night terrors, taking a few minutes to catch my breath, and then setting another 15-minute alarm for the next set of night terrors. 

It is being raped by demons in my sleep, slammed against the walls of my apartment by evil entities, and being given CPR by four police officers, feeling all this physically but not being able to distinguish reality from fiction. 

It is experiencing narcolepsy, falling asleep involuntarily in the middle of my daily tasks. 

It is believing that those who relentlessly criticized, controlled, mocked, and hated me were right about me. It is seeking their approval and working to “fix” the things about me that anger them so much. 

It is internalizing others’ negative emotions about me and making them my own. 

It is hating hearing my own name being said out loud. 

It is walking into a room where people are laughing, and I think that they’re laughing at me. 

It is masking my pain so well that people are shocked to learn the depth of my suffering. 

It is regularly typing things into search engines like, “What is the percentage success rate of jumping in front of a train?”

It is wishing someone would just stab me in the side so the blood would be visible, and I could be taken away to heal the wounds that I have no idea how to heal. 

It is not allowing myself to pursue the hobbies I enjoy that allow me a moment of freedom and peace. 

It is being terrified of social situations. 

It is thinking that everything is my fault and blaming myself for everything, even when I am the victim. 

It is forcing myself to get out of bed when I just can’t. 

It stops me when I laugh or smile and prevents me from experiencing it because I don’t think I deserve it. 

It is throwing away my TVs and not allowing myself to listen to music because I feel guilty experiencing joy. 

It is believing that the top three most evil human beings to ever exist were Hitler, Stalin, and me. 

It is believing every compliment is given with an ulterior motive. 

It is being angry at myself because my brain and body are stuck at a younger age in their survival mechanisms from when I was first targeted. 

It is wishing that someone – anyone – would empathize with the level of pain I’m in. 

It is trying desperately to explain it to them, but not being able to put it into words. 

It is constantly dissociating in the middle of conversations or work, not understanding why I can’t focus. 

It is believing that people are out to get me, that I’m constantly being watched, analyzed, and criticized. 

It is wanting to live in hiding and isolation so that no one notices my flaws or even thinks about me. 

It is physically and emotionally punishing myself with self-harm. 

There’s so much more I could say, but there really is no other way to describe the pain of Complex PTSD besides absolute psychological torture. I really want to believe that the symptoms I am experiencing are not problems that are wrong with me but a result of what happened to me, but it has been difficult to find someone who can help me and understand me. I think it is time I take this into my own hands. 

I have fought so hard for so long, and I’m lucky to be still alive and fighting. It’s so difficult to heal from this, but I’m making the decision now to begin trusting in my innate ability to heal myself, no matter how long it takes or how painful it is. Healing is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I refuse to believe the lies that it isn’t possible to heal from complex trauma symptoms. I was told I would have to manage these symptoms for the rest of my life, but I will 100% heal from this. I will never land in the hospital again. I refuse to give up and let the pain overtake me. 

I’m not weak. I can do this. I’ve spent years bending over backwards to offer forgiveness, love, and kindness to others regardless of the extreme torture I was in on the inside. I have so much love to give to everyone except for myself. There’s no reason why I can’t give that to myself. There is no reason I can’t overcome this. Everyone else is walking free and living their lives. Why shouldn’t I be able to do the same? I will never again allow another human being or institution to have control over my life, my thoughts, my belief systems, or who I am. No one but me knows and understands my full story. 

I am going to figure this out. There will be a day when life will be easier. I will live with peace, joy, and freedom without even trying. It will be effortless. I will find my confidence again. I will rekindle the light I had. It’s what every human being deserves, and that includes me. I have to first believe this myself – that I am worthy, that I am capable, that I deserve to exist. Then, I will share how I did it with others. I will encourage them to believe the same things about themselves. 

You were always good enough, Natalie. It was all lies. Keep fighting. 

Natalie Rose

My name is Natalie, and I am a survivor of about 13 years of absolute psychological torture from Complex PTSD symptoms. For the longest time, I thought I was inherently sick and broken beyond repair. I spent over a decade running around in circles in the medical system trying to figure out what was “wrong” with me and how to “fix” it.

♡ What is Complex PTSD? ♡

Complex PTSD symptoms come from severe, prolonged, and numerous incidents of trauma, typically of a relational nature. Symptoms can come from any type of trauma, though, and the trauma doesn’t necessarily have to stem from childhood — adults can develop CPTSD as well. Trauma can damage the brain and shrink the hippocampus, causing many of the symptoms of CPTSD. I decided to go public with my story to be a voice for the voiceless. There are too many survivors being told CPTSD is a lifelong sentence, and they are not being given the tools they need to overcome their symptoms.

♡ My Story ♡

I endured multiple types of traumas starting at around age thirteen, including numerous situations of both individual and large-group interpersonal cruelty. Some of these situations forced me to switch environments. My body couldn’t fathom what was happening, and my nervous system shut down. 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 for others. I took active steps to keep branching out in confidence again, but these traumas kept piling onto each other and overlapping. 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 itself—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 made me a target of malicious people. Each future situation of being targeted was just salt on the wound of the original incident.

♡ My Struggles to Find Answers ♡

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 that I was fully capable of healing from my excruciating pain.

♡ Finding My Own Healing ♡

I am excited to share tips for natural, somatic, and holistic healing that have helped me overcome things like dissociation, flashbacks, sleep challenges, anxiety, hypervigilance, 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 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’m 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 am finally living a life of consistent peace and contentment, and I am sharing my story from the other side. I hope to encourage 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 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.

♡ Personal Blog ♡

To learn more about my healing journey, please visit my personal blog, “Little Cabin Life,” at:
littlecabinlife.com

The Advent Season

The build-up to the Christmas season is what Christians call the Advent Season. It is usually four weeks and a few days before Christmas Day to prepare and get ready for the holidays. As each week goes by, a candle is lit, and the Sunday before Christmas is the day when we have four lit candles on our dinner table and in our living room. The final fifth candle is to mark Christmas Day. The day that 2,000 or so years ago, Christ was born in Bethlehem. Those weeks of advent can be extraordinarily busy for some people. If you have a family with young children, there is always the build-up of anticipation and excitement for Santa Claus to come. Kids may have an advent calendar to mark off the day by opening one window with a chocolate or small toy treat inside. We decorate our houses with Christmas trees, decorations and tinsel and maybe even put a Christmas wreath on the front door. We light up our houses inside and out to make our homes bright and cheerful. My own kids have been vibrating with excitement and energy for about a month now, and everyone is tired but happy. Keeping the kids busy before the holidays is always a challenge because if you live in the northern hemisphere, it is also getting dark early. I usually bake and do craft activities with my kids, and the board games come out in the evenings. We make gingerbread men and Christmas toffees and also build toy models out of wood or Legos. I get my guitar and flute out and play Christmas carols with my kids and their friends. It is a time for us to gather as a family after a busy day at work and school and be together. We light the advent candles before dinner each night and cozy up as the day folds into darkness. Traditionally, where we live, our kids do a Christmas pageant, a Christmas talent show, or a nativity play in our elementary and middle schools. Every state and county has different traditions. At work, there are usually Christmas parties, dinners, and drinks to celebrate another year gone by and to wish everyone a happy Christmas.

Families are usually spread out and no longer living in the same cities and towns as we used to do 100 years ago. There are always people in the family who have to travel. Some of us usually travel far and wide to visit with family over the Christmas holidays. Airports, freeways, buses, and trains are fully booked just before the holiday starts. Retail businesses are also unbelievably busy before the holiday begins, with grocery stores, food markets, and other retail businesses bursting at the seams with food, Christmas presents, and all you can think of to buy. You can buy pretty much anything before Christmas. If you are in marketing, you will have been campaigning for weeks to get customers to buy the products you are selling. Delivery vans are speeding up and down the streets to deliver parcels and gifts to people everywhere. The Christmas holiday season is big business.

Celebrating Christmas

Christmas Eve arrives, and time slows down. People have all their loved ones in one place, and all the decorations and gifts have been bought and wrapped. Most countries in Europe and Asia celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. All Christians have their own traditions of food, drinks, treats, and the time they exchange their gifts. It is as individual as our faces, and all families are slightly different in the way they celebrate. What we all have in common is that we have come to spend time together. It is a precious time of year. In the US, UK, and Australia, we celebrate Christmas on Christmas Day. That is the day we have our Christmas dinner and exchange gifts. It is a day when our Christmas table is filled with happy faces and joy as we share Christmas food and laughter around the table. We always have our “emergency chairs” come out from the cupboard as we don’t normally have 12 people around the table. If you are religious, you may go to church on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day or maybe one of them, depending on when you can fit everything into the day. When it is time to exchange gifts, we gather together in one room and often spend hours laughing and enjoying each precious gift. The kids get so excited about their presents as there is a flurry of wrapping paper and tape that gets catapulted around the room with whoops of joy and happiness. It is all part of Christmas – sharing joy and happiness.

Not everyone has got family at Christmas. I used to be one of them because I chose to move away from my own family due to abuse. It was my choice and the right one for me. Christmas can be a very lonely time, and if you are one of those survivors who do not have family, I think of you. I hope that wherever you are in your healing journey, you keep well and take some time for yourself. Spend some time with a friend and in a happy place. Try not to be alone for the whole day. Look after yourself and know that you do matter and you are not alone. There is a new year just a few days away with an endless amount of opportunities and possibilities. The future is always bright.

I wish you all a happy and joyful Christmas!

With Love,

Elizabeth

Photo by Yevhen Buzuk on Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Elizabeth Woods

For more about me: https://www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com

Elizabeth Woods grew up in a world of brutal sex offenders, murderers, and inconceivably neglectful adults. Elizabeth is passionate about spreading awareness of what it is like to survive after trauma. She is the author of several books and has written her memoir, telling her childhood story: The Sex-Offender’s Daughter: A True Story of Survival Against All Odds, available on Amazon Kindle and paperback.

Elizabeth is also the author of “Living with Complex PTSD” and the Cedar’s Port Fiction series: “Saving Joshua”, “Protecting Sarah”, “Guarding Noah” and “Bringing Back Faith,” and “Restoring Hope,” available here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0BCBZQN7L/allbooks?ingress=0&visitId=7e223b5b-1a29-45f0-ad9d-e9c8fdb59e9c&ref_=ap_rdr&ccs_id=931f96e2-c220-4765-acc8-cc99bb95e8bd

www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com/

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. 

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Natalie Rose

My name is Natalie, and I am a survivor of about 13 years of absolute psychological torture from Complex PTSD symptoms. For the longest time, I thought I was inherently sick and broken beyond repair. I spent over a decade running around in circles in the medical system trying to figure out what was “wrong” with me and how to “fix” it.

♡ What is Complex PTSD? ♡

Complex PTSD symptoms come from severe, prolonged, and numerous incidents of trauma, typically of a relational nature. Symptoms can come from any type of trauma, though, and the trauma doesn’t necessarily have to stem from childhood — adults can develop CPTSD as well. Trauma can damage the brain and shrink the hippocampus, causing many of the symptoms of CPTSD. I decided to go public with my story to be a voice for the voiceless. There are too many survivors being told CPTSD is a lifelong sentence, and they are not being given the tools they need to overcome their symptoms.

♡ My Story ♡

I endured multiple types of traumas starting at around age thirteen, including numerous situations of both individual and large-group interpersonal cruelty. Some of these situations forced me to switch environments. My body couldn’t fathom what was happening, and my nervous system shut down. 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 for others. I took active steps to keep branching out in confidence again, but these traumas kept piling onto each other and overlapping. 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 itself—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 made me a target of malicious people. Each future situation of being targeted was just salt on the wound of the original incident.

♡ My Struggles to Find Answers ♡

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 that I was fully capable of healing from my excruciating pain.

♡ Finding My Own Healing ♡

I am excited to share tips for natural, somatic, and holistic healing that have helped me overcome things like dissociation, flashbacks, sleep challenges, anxiety, hypervigilance, 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 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’m 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 am finally living a life of consistent peace and contentment, and I am sharing my story from the other side. I hope to encourage 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 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.

♡ Personal Blog ♡

To learn more about my healing journey, please visit my personal blog, “Little Cabin Life,” at:
littlecabinlife.com

Recently, it was nearing the decade mark since I made the decision to leave social media.  I jumped off all platforms at a prime, formative age when these apps were at their height, and it was “weird” for a person my age not to have any social media accounts. 

My Struggles Growing Up in the Digital Generation

Growing up, I struggled with social media and had personal trauma associated with it after being a victim of cyberbullying.  Once I realized how much my participation in these platforms was affecting my mental health, I made the decision to jump off.  It was definitely isolating in some ways, and when people I met in real life tried to ask for my Instagram handle or Facebook name to connect with me online, I had to respond, saying that I didn’t use any social media at the moment.  I would awkwardly respond with something like, “I could give you my number or maybe my email?”  Their eyes glazed over like I was some stranger from a distant planet, and some even reacted in ways that suggested they were frustrated they wouldn’t have an easy avenue into information about me or my life.  During these years without any social media presence, there were times I tried rejoining so that I could interact with my family and friends, but I ended up jumping off again when I realized I still wasn’t ready for it.  

After being on social media during my childhood, I found that I was projecting a façade of my life online as if it was an exhausting life of perfection and bliss. I felt like I had to do it to be accepted socially in my environment.  Everyone around me was doing it, so I had to as well.  The era and society my generation grew up in have been so pressured to project perfect versions of our lives online to prove to people that we are worthy of love and validation.  We’ve missed the opportunity to actually go out, live a real life, and not seek external validation through a screen.  I’m sure others who consume social media feel these annoyances and are guilty of similar feelings.  We were all copying each other’s posts, we all had to follow the trends, and we had to make sure that everyone else knew the things we were doing and achieving.  How important it was to make sure all our followers knew that we had the most amazing sandwich at brunch on Sunday! 

My Real Life Became an Online Life

Even when I hung out with my friends in real life, many of the conversations and actions (including taking bunches of pictures) centered around our online lives.  My friends inspected my Instagram page in front of me and critiqued the things I was sharing, telling me I looked a little too big in that photo, and, oh, here’s an app you can use to photoshop your body.  When I told a friend how excited I was for my upcoming family vacation, her initial reaction was, “Oh my gosh, I can’t imagine how amazing the photos for your Instagram are going to be.”  I overheard a conversation between girls talking about another girl and how she wasn’t worthy of their time because she had “only” 700 followers (which is quite a bunch in my book?!).  I had someone tell me that they would never post some of the things I posted because they were “cringe.”  I wanted to post the things that I wanted to post, not the things that anyone else wanted me to post, but there was constant judgment and pushback from people who had to conform to the “standards” of online life for fear of the exact same criticism they were giving to me.  I ultimately concluded for myself that the very act of posting our personal lives on social media is “cringe” because never before in human history had it been a requirement to lay bare your entire existence to the World Wide Web.  I concluded that the people there, including myself, were taking it way too seriously.  And I wanted to hang out with people who were enjoying living real life, not in a virtual, dystopian world.  It was difficult to find these people, though.

Going Dark and Deleting My Accounts

Living an online life was exhausting.  I was putting so much brain space into the pettiest things that could have been spent on more productive things.  When I entered new environments, it made it more difficult to heal and move on from my past with constant online reminders of my trauma.  And I no longer felt the need to participate in it and try to seek the approval of others.  I wanted to inspire others with my healing story one day, but I needed to actually start working on my own healing. 

So, I permanently deleted all my social media accounts, stopped looking at what everyone else was doing, and went through a deep, soul-searching process, asking myself what I really wanted.  Did I want a simpler life?  Yes.  Did I want everything to stop being a life-or-death situation when these things really didn’t matter?  Yes.  Should I start saving up for 100 acres and a tiny home?  Maybe.  Should I move to Europe?  Sounds nice.  Should I go back home? Not yet.  Should I become a Buddhist?  They seem genuinely content.  Should I set off on a pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago in Spain that I heard about on that one podcast, where the guest speaker reported that her life did a complete 180 after she walked it and returned to America?  Should I do that thing that Aaron Rogers did where he locked himself in a dark cabin for a few days, forcing himself to sit with his own thoughts?  What did I want?

My fulfillment and consistent contentment are found within me

This process and the questions they produced spanned many years.  It was actually really amazing giving myself the time and space to ponder these things without the temptation to compare my life to the carefully fabricated highlight reels of others.  As much as I tried to tell myself I could handle social media, I couldn’t, and I knew that for myself, so I finally pulled the plug and got off everything.  I was off for almost 8 years, giving myself years to discover who I was and take all the time I needed to find myself.  I can’t say I’ve fully found myself yet (has anyone?), but I am now able to participate in online communities as long as I set limits for myself, not think about it too hard, and remind myself each time I enter the app that nothing on there is real life. 

My True Fulfillment Does Not Come from a Screen

I finally recognized that my true fulfillment does not come from anything external or materialistic.  It especially does not come from the temporary validation of others.  My fulfillment and consistent contentment are found within me.  Regardless of the external things in my life, I can be content where I am while still having ambition for the future.  There is no need to put an insane amount of pressure on myself.  I do not need to think that I have to do what everyone else is doing to be worthy because that isn’t the case.  Most of the things I thought I had to do growing up were only because I saw that everyone else was doing them and they were shoved into my face all the time through social media, but I knew deep down these things wouldn’t bring me fulfillment.  I didn’t know at the time that there were other options for personal fulfillment besides what I was seeing online, but when I started seeing bits and pieces of a wide world out there of endless possibilities that more closely aligned with who I wanted to be, I no longer was even tempted to think about what everyone else was doing on social media as I started exploring those options for myself.

Understanding that nothing online necessarily equates with reality

Healing is on my own timeline.  And I like the little life I’ve built without the pressure to achieve any societal milestones imposed by others.  I would stand beside others and celebrate theirs when they had them, but I knew that I was not ready to jump into things for myself just because I felt like I had to.  I was able to reenter online communities almost a decade later with a new mindset based on a foundation of contentment with myself and an understanding that nothing online necessarily equates with reality, so there’s no need for me to feel like I’m not doing enough or that I’m not good enough.  I will share the things that I want to share, the things that are meaningful to me, and the things about my story that may lend a helping hand to others struggling. 

Everyone has a choice.

Everyone has a choice with social media.  Everyone has a choice with what they share. Everyone has a choice with what they consume.  It is a choice if we look at what people share and allow ourselves to feel negatively in response.  Although I made the choice to rejoin one platform, I have very strict limits for myself, and I prioritize my contentment first.  True contentment, for me, comes from embracing the imperfections and messiness of real life while not taking anything too seriously. 

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Natalie Rose

My name is Natalie, and I am a survivor of about 13 years of absolute psychological torture from Complex PTSD symptoms. For the longest time, I thought I was inherently sick and broken beyond repair. I spent over a decade running around in circles in the medical system trying to figure out what was “wrong” with me and how to “fix” it.

♡ What is Complex PTSD? ♡

Complex PTSD symptoms come from severe, prolonged, and numerous incidents of trauma, typically of a relational nature. Symptoms can come from any type of trauma, though, and the trauma doesn’t necessarily have to stem from childhood — adults can develop CPTSD as well. Trauma can damage the brain and shrink the hippocampus, causing many of the symptoms of CPTSD. I decided to go public with my story to be a voice for the voiceless. There are too many survivors being told CPTSD is a lifelong sentence, and they are not being given the tools they need to overcome their symptoms.

♡ My Story ♡

I endured multiple types of traumas starting at around age thirteen, including numerous situations of both individual and large-group interpersonal cruelty. Some of these situations forced me to switch environments. My body couldn’t fathom what was happening, and my nervous system shut down. 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 for others. I took active steps to keep branching out in confidence again, but these traumas kept piling onto each other and overlapping. 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 itself—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 made me a target of malicious people. Each future situation of being targeted was just salt on the wound of the original incident.

♡ My Struggles to Find Answers ♡

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 that I was fully capable of healing from my excruciating pain.

♡ Finding My Own Healing ♡

I am excited to share tips for natural, somatic, and holistic healing that have helped me overcome things like dissociation, flashbacks, sleep challenges, anxiety, hypervigilance, 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 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’m 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 am finally living a life of consistent peace and contentment, and I am sharing my story from the other side. I hope to encourage 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 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.

♡ Personal Blog ♡

To learn more about my healing journey, please visit my personal blog, “Little Cabin Life,” at:
littlecabinlife.com

I was driving through East Texas one sunny morning in January for my tiny home retreat. (A tiny home was my spontaneous idea to minimize distractions and focus on myself to kickstart my healing journey.) I stopped at a quaint little coffee shop. As I walked in, I saw a group of about eight townspeople singing folk and worship music amongst the beautiful sounds of harmonicas, guitars, and a harp. 

I started walking to the back of the coffee shop to order, and I looked over at a community table with three friends catching up with each other and casually said, “Do they always play music in here?! It’s so nice!” 

“Oh, you have PTSD, too?”

I got my drink, and soon simple small talk sparked introductions as they invited me to sit at their table. Almost immediately the conversation turned personal, and someone asked me, “Oh, you have PTSD, too?” I’m not really sure how it happened that way, but it did, and, these people almost immediately became some of my biggest cheerleaders. It turned out I was sitting with veterans who had survived the horrors of combat, and although my trauma looked different from their trauma, healing from PTSD was not foreign to them.  

It was interesting that this happened because—even before that morning—I had been desperately searching for people outside of the medical system to understand my C-PTSD as I didn’t see much progress through westernized care. I had already been thinking to myself: “If there’s any community that would understand PTSD, it would be the veteran community,” and had even downloaded some books to read up on their experiences. 

Making a New Friend

I quickly poured my heart out to one of the guys at the table, and we ended up spending most of the day together, and we talked about the deepest, craziest topics. It was so refreshing coming from the superficiality of a big city. I learned that he was a couple of years into his healing journey from some pretty intense PTSD, and I saw him as someone who had gotten to a place where I wanted to be. He had a light and calmness about him that I wanted for myself. I wanted to know everything he did to get to the healing place he now was because I had heard him talk about some of the gruesomely traumatic experiences that affected him for many years. 

I ended up extending my stay in the area, and we kept hanging out all week. He started pointing out everything that I was doing to myself that was hurting me and making my PTSD worse. This was not because he was an abusive friend but because I actually asked him to do this for me. And I dealt with and processed the emotions that came up when he pointed these things out to me. Looking back, I don’t think I would have made such a great amount of progress if I hadn’t asked him to do this for me. 

Calling Out My Tendencies to Check My Reflection

One of the things he noticed was that I was obsessed with looking at myself in the mirror. Not in the way where I was admiring myself because I actually thought I was atrocious. I was checking mirrors for every single flaw and blemish on my body. Whether it was staring at the pimples on my face in the mirror in my bathroom, checking my body in the window reflection of a shop or restaurant as I passed by, peeking up my head to check in the rearview mirror in my car at a stoplight, or opening up my camera on my iPhone and checking my face in selfie mode, I couldn’t escape it. I didn’t even realize how much I was doing it. It was even to the point where when I was working and on my Zoom calls, I was checking my little Zoom box for my face there, making sure that no one could see the blemishes that I could see. I critiqued every flaw on my face, each pimple that popped up, that my teeth had gotten pretty yellow because of all the tea I was drinking, that the scar that I had from when I scratched myself as a baby was, of course, still there, and people could obviously see on my face that I didn’t get but a couple of hours of sleep. 

“It’s just vanity,” he told me.

B.S., I thought. I was so angry to hear that. I’m not vain, I thought to myself.  

I looked up the definition of vanity and it said: vanity is inflated pride in oneself or one’s appearance. That made me even angrier. Was he calling me cocky? Was he saying that I think of myself too highly? If only he knew that I’m looking at myself because I hate myself and I’m trying to fix all my flaws. Maybe it was a bad idea to ask him to point out these kinds of things I’m doing. These are the kinds of emotions I had to process. 

My Love/Hate Relationship with Mirrors

Mirrors were always the absolute death of me. Growing up as a dancer, the mirror was my best friend and my worst enemy all at the same time. Mirrors were the way that I noticed my flaws and mistakes in dance and worked to fix them, and it became a habit throughout my life to check my personal appearance in mirrors as well. Over time, I began to have extreme body dysmorphia. Standing next to girls who were not as curvy or muscular as me, I always felt like the heavy one, and I really internalized the criticism I received from teachers who told me I didn’t have the body type to be a professional. I was used to my dancing being looked over because I didn’t fit the body type.  One of my most vivid memories was of being one of about 15 finalists at a dance audition in college where we had to stand in a horizontal line in front of the mirror while the coach slowly walked down the line inspecting our thighs, and I automatically knew that I would not make the team as I looked in the mirror at the thigh gaps on the other girls, knowing that my body type didn’t fit the bill. 

My new friend challenged me to stop looking at myself in the mirror, and he even said that I needed to cover the mirrors in my apartment somehow. He told me to get a bed sheet and drape it over each mirror or get some of that fake snow stuff and spray it all over each one. No way was I about to do that, I thought. He also told me to get a sticky note to put over my face on Zoom calls so that I don’t look at myself. I just laughed at him.

After about three weeks of thinking these ideas were ludicrous, I began to notice even more that he was right. I was obsessed with looking at myself in the mirror, doing that was only hurting me. So, I begrudgingly trekked to Walmart, got some of that fake snow stuff, and bought some pink sticky notes. I took one last look in my bathroom mirror and sprayed the snow all over it, watching my face disappear behind the white flurries.

I did not have an avenue in my home to look at my overall appearance

Thankfully, I stopped wearing makeup on a daily basis many years ago, so I didn’t have to worry about not having a mirror for that, but as of that moment, I did not have an avenue in my home to look at my overall appearance. There was no more checking myself for what I looked like before I left the house. There was no more making sure my jeans fit me just right and flattered me in all the right ways. There was no more looking at the pimples that I despised. Each time I jumped on a Zoom call, I had my sticky note ready to place over my face on my computer screen, and, rather than looking at myself, I looked at others and paid better attention to the conversations that were going on. 

After I did all of the above — and I finally stopped looking in mirrors so often and became more confident in my appearance and just accepted it for what it was — I finally admitted to myself that I was pretty vain. Though not in the sense that I thought of myself super highly, because I obviously hated the way I looked. It was in the sense that I thought the people around me noticed all the same flaws I was noticing in myself. My appearance was so important to them that where they absolutely noticed every flaw about me that I noticed. When, in reality, they didn’t. I was just another person in the crowd. 

Letting Go of the Constant Self-Loathing

In the past, when people commented on my beauty, I always felt there was an ulterior motive. When people told me that I had a nice body, I thought it was a jab at the fact that I obviously didn’t look like the other girls, and I was just a unique change. This is just where my mind went previously. But that was never the case. People were actually genuinely complimenting me. People actually saw the complete opposite of what I saw in myself. 

Even though overcoming my ingrained vanity was a tough process, I’m thankful my friend pointed it out to me. He helped me confront the fact that my insecurity was holding me back and taking away from the true beauty that everyone else saw in me. I was the only one that didn’t see it. 

If I hadn’t covered up my mirrors, I wouldn’t have realized that there is really nothing to be afraid of when I look at myself in the mirror. I wouldn’t have realized that all my “flaws” that I thought were flaws were never really flaws in the first place. 

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Natalie Rose

My name is Natalie, and I am a survivor of about 13 years of absolute psychological torture from Complex PTSD symptoms. For the longest time, I thought I was inherently sick and broken beyond repair. I spent over a decade running around in circles in the medical system trying to figure out what was “wrong” with me and how to “fix” it.

♡ What is Complex PTSD? ♡

Complex PTSD symptoms come from severe, prolonged, and numerous incidents of trauma, typically of a relational nature. Symptoms can come from any type of trauma, though, and the trauma doesn’t necessarily have to stem from childhood — adults can develop CPTSD as well. Trauma can damage the brain and shrink the hippocampus, causing many of the symptoms of CPTSD. I decided to go public with my story to be a voice for the voiceless. There are too many survivors being told CPTSD is a lifelong sentence, and they are not being given the tools they need to overcome their symptoms.

♡ My Story ♡

I endured multiple types of traumas starting at around age thirteen, including numerous situations of both individual and large-group interpersonal cruelty. Some of these situations forced me to switch environments. My body couldn’t fathom what was happening, and my nervous system shut down. 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 for others. I took active steps to keep branching out in confidence again, but these traumas kept piling onto each other and overlapping. 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 itself—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 made me a target of malicious people. Each future situation of being targeted was just salt on the wound of the original incident.

♡ My Struggles to Find Answers ♡

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 that I was fully capable of healing from my excruciating pain.

♡ Finding My Own Healing ♡

I am excited to share tips for natural, somatic, and holistic healing that have helped me overcome things like dissociation, flashbacks, sleep challenges, anxiety, hypervigilance, 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 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’m 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 am finally living a life of consistent peace and contentment, and I am sharing my story from the other side. I hope to encourage 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 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.

♡ Personal Blog ♡

To learn more about my healing journey, please visit my personal blog, “Little Cabin Life,” at:
littlecabinlife.com

I am not rejecting all of you amazing people, I am rejecting the honey that has brought all of us bees together. Honestly, how many of you truly want to be in this club? Like ALL of you, one of my favourite phrases (usually followed by some very inventive swear words) is, “I’m sick of this shit”.

Opening Pandaora’s Box

The best and the worst of the CPTSD journey is near the beginning when the land of CPTSD Oz has been revealed and you’re both fascinated, relieved, and revolted. The dream of a better life just became real, but you can’t unsee flying monkeys and you can’t unsee CPTSD. I have heard so many of us on this site talk about “opening Pandora’s box” and wanting to slam it shut, but it was too late. That is certainly how I felt.

Suddenly, CPTSD was coming at me from all directions. I couldn’t turn a corner or have a conversation with someone without a flashback, brain fart, or emotional aha moment. CPTSD stalked me all my life in the shadows. I always knew something was there and it terrified me, but I could never fully see it or put a name to it.  However, once I fully saw it and named it, it no longer stalked me—instead it moved in, took over my closet, put its feet on the coffee table, and asked what I was making for supper. Every. Damn. Day.

I had transformed into “Super-CPTSD” who could leap tall flashbacks in a single meltdown and could disassociate faster than any memory could catch me.

I could not get away from it, even for a moment. So, I decided that I was going to be the best CPTSD buster that ever lived. I was going to “get over it” and jumped into the books, podcasts, therapy, and support groups. I had transformed into “Super-CPTSD” who could leap tall flashbacks in a single meltdown and could disassociate faster than any memory could catch me.

This phase lasted for about two weeks from my initial “OMG” moment. Then, a particularly nasty flashback that put me on my butt and into my bed for a couple of days brought me back to reality. This was not another achievement or notch on my life belt. None of my previous tactics or tools were going to defeat this sucker.  While all my previous emotional work and healing had prepared me for the battle, I needed more.

This is the point in most self-help articles where I should be giving you the magic recipe to defeat that emotional monster in three easy steps and start a new and improved life. But, if you’re like me and someone tries to tell me I can do something in three easy steps, I want to slap them with the book they’re recommending.

There is no easy fix. We have all tried that whether it be denial, addiction, or the other myriad of quick fixes we attempt to get through this as quickly and painlessly as possible. But, there is a fix and it is actually quite simple. We need to feel the pain and as Brene Brown says, lean into it. I know you’re thinking, “What? Are you insane? I’m trying to NOT feel the pain anymore!” Well, that’s the conundrum of healing from trauma: to no longer feel pain, you need to feel the pain. But this time, you will be able to access your adult self and a solid system of support to reach in and truly heal that pain, so it is the last time you feel it to this degree.

Yes, the pain will end. Soon enough, you will find yourself in a new club, and this one you will definitely want to join—the CPTSD Healed Club. In this club, meetings aren’t so regular because you don’t really need them. They are fun though and filled with lots of smiles and knowing nods as we reminisce about how deep our pain used to be. Membership is open and we are always actively recruiting because we want everyone to join our club. If you are reading this, it shows that you are already on the right path to joining this club. Welcome!

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog post do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Belinda Pyle

Belinda lives on beautiful Vancouver Island where she fills her need for nature with hiking, horses, ocean, and any furry critters she can find. She is completing her post-grad certificate in Addictions and Mental Health Counselling and looks forward to helping others as she has been helped. As a third-generation survivor of trauma, she comes from a long line of crazy but strong women who have somehow succeeded in making lives that don’t completely suck.