***TRIGGER WARNING: The following article discusses childhood trauma and could be triggering.***

I found the photo not long after being diagnosed with CPSTD. Little broken me looking into the camera with a depth of pain and sorrow that no child should have to bear. Repeated sexual assaults and denigrating abuse continued for two years until my great-grandmother discovered that I was covered in bruises and welts from the neck down. I lived with extended family after that, joined by my mom months later after she was able to remove herself from that failed marriage. While I was safe, there was still plenty of chaos in the family. Alcoholism, trouble with the law, and all manner of dysfunctional behavior were ever-present with other family members.   

It was the early 1970s, and my family wasn’t the type to talk about emotions. You got over whatever it was and moved on. On your own. Whenever I brought up the subject of those terrible memories, I was met with frustration and told to be silent and learn to live with it. My mind fragmented, and I was two very different little girls: the quiet kid who walked to the library on her own and spent hours at a time hidden in little nooks that adults passed by without noticing, and the wild rebel who tore up the neighborhood with her other wild child friends. There were multiple suicide attempts, all disguised as the kinds of reckless things that kids do—except I knew what I was doing—and yet somehow I survived one extremely dangerous daredevil stunt after another.   

Hiding in cabinets and attics became my safe space. Everyone else thought I was playing. Nothing could’ve been further from the truth. I curled up, muscles painfully tight, often holding my breath. I coped through maladaptive daydreaming. Depersonalization and derealization were twin phantoms that pushed me far away from the world. Obsessed with reading, after I got through the kids’ books in the library, I moved my way through the young adult section and eventually dove into the adult stacks, topic by topic, and found solace in folklore and mythology, history, literature, and science. I created worlds of my own and didn’t want to be here. I hated being touched. I still do.  

The wild child phase ended in junior high when sexuality started to emerge, and people started making jokes, flirting with each other, and going steady. I wanted none of it. Sensing my awkwardness, the bullies found an easy mark. The dissociation deepened.  

Somehow, I was an ace student who participated in an exchange program my senior year of high school, doing my best to come out of my shell as a burgeoning witchy Goth girl in West Berlin a couple of years before the Wall came down. I came home and worked for a while to earn money for college. After a disastrous first year fueled by binge drinking, I checked out again and spent the next several decades lost—disconnected from a world in which I felt I had no place. I felt like some creature abducted from the Otherworld, belonging neither here nor there. I went through the motions—got excellent grades and went through a series of jobs in my twenties, having no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I honestly didn’t expect to be here this long. Beer and mead brewer, an entry-level assistant at a record label, and a bunch of meaningless desk jobs.  

Relationships came and went, and after leaving an emotionally damaging marriage that I have no explanation for getting into in the first place, I established my Fortress of Solitude, hanging out with a very small circle of friends and working myself to exhaustion in academia. Between 70-hour workweeks and getting one academic degree after another, I had no patience for people until an old crush from high school found me on social media. Slowly, things began to change. I left the soul-crushing job in academia and found my way to working in healthcare in an environment that I truly enjoyed.  

They say when you actually start to feel safe, everything crashes, and the trauma surfaces. That, combined with the hormone chaos that is perimenopause, brought it all to the surface, and the crisis hit hard. At the age of 51, I was diagnosed with CPTSD.  

Suddenly, it all made sense. The many medical problems that plagued me. Too many trips to the hospital to count. The diagnosis came just as I was struggling to get help with fibroid tumors and endometriosis. Research studies indicate that girls who suffer severe sexual abuse are around 79% likely to develop endometriosis and other chronic pelvic problems. The chronic pain worsened over more than 20 years, and by the time I finally had surgery, the damage was extensive and the tumors were so big I looked pregnant. But I was finally on the road to recovery.  

I disliked wallowing in talk therapy and found somatic therapy to be a much better fit. Once I learned about the biology of stress and how the autonomic system functions, managing flashbacks became easier. According to my nervous system, I was still that child hiding in the cabinet. I finally convinced her to emerge and breathe a sigh of relief.  

It’s been 3 years since that diagnosis rocked my world and changed me forever. My work as a disability advocate pairs nicely with my day job as a digital strategist in healthcare. I fight for better quality care and equity every day, making the case for the widespread practice of trauma-informed care. It’s for more than PTSD/CPSTD—people with chronic medical conditions who struggle for years to be heard and taken seriously deserve trauma-informed care as well. Over the past year, I’ve been working with instructors in medical schools and other educational organizations to talk about CPTSD and all the medical problems it brings with it and talk about trauma-informed care from the patient’s perspective.  

And I’m finally finding myself as well. The witchy Goth girl who blossomed in West Berlin has become a content bog witch who still enjoys plenty of quiet with my husband and dog, but now I’m writing, crafting, illustrating, and expressing all the things that have been trapped inside for years.  

There are moments when the grief takes hold, and I mourn all the time lost to dissociation. How many years were wasted working myself sick? I felt like an awkward child around my peers like somehow I had never grown up. I finally found an amazing trauma-informed coach who can help me navigate through the pain and help make somatic therapy more effective. I may be in my Crone years, but I’m not going to waste a moment of it. This Crone has found her power. No matter where you are in your complex trauma journey, there’s hope. Today, when I look at that photo of that terrified child, it still hurts, but she’s the one who empowered me to embrace who I am now and encouraged me to do what I can to help others who have had similar experiences. There’s a place for us out there, and we deserve to savor every moment we can.  

Photo by Lee Frost

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Lee Frost

Lee Frost has worked for nonprofits and marketing agencies focusing on healthcare for the past ten years. She’s a patient advocate and recently launched a blog about menopause and CPTSD called the Sinsemillier. She grew up in the Boston area and has a BA from UMass Boston and a master’s from Harvard Extension School. Lee lives north of Boston with her husband, where they both love to nerd out on sci-fi and fantasy.