Ok here’s my second post...
Sooo, I have complex ptsd from various (horrific) things in the past, so can empathise with you lots. Not exactly the same stuff, but bad stuff nonetheless.
I started to do some trauma based CBT and other types of therapy earlier this year. Annoyingly I had to pause it as life got in the way but I’ll be going back as this is definitely the way forwards. It’s helped loads already, and I thought I was utterly untreatable!
Anyway, the reason I’m telling you this is that one of the most powerful things I’ve found is working on identifying when it’s the ptsd grabbing me. To do that I had to work on clearing it away a bit to find me underneath again, so I can identify what it feels like to be me, without the weight of all that trauma pressing down on me... it was nice to ‘meet me’ again and feel hopeful there is a me without trauma, as tbh, I’d lost me and started to think I WAS the trauma and bad stuff, and it had consumed me entirely. But weirdly it hasn’t, and I was there under the surface, just waiting to be rediscovered.
Anyway, it took a few mental leaps and bounds to get that far, and that’s why I think anyone needs a good therapist to help them get along the journey as it’s so much to do on your own. But, I will zoom along to the practical stuff in case you’re following me :)
After that I found I can sometimes catch the ptsd in whatever form it’s sneaking up to grab my brain, for me usually huge triggering reactions to something in the present, that takes me back into the feelings and pain of the past. And I can say to myself ‘this is not now, this doesn’t belong here. It belongs in the past and I don’t have to feel it right now’ it really works, because it makes it kind of feel smaller and I can kind of snip it away from right now, and not just have it roll over me like an oncoming storm that I can’t push off no matter what I do. I guess the difference is being able to recognise that it’s happening, being able to acknowledge that what happened in the past was bloody awful and it’s ok to have a dark cloud around that, but that darkness doesn’t have a place in the now so you can snip it away and let it float off back into the past where it belongs so you can feel what you should be feeling in the present without having all those hangers on grabbing you by the throat and mixing the past and present together in a really horrible and traumatic way.
I’m supposed to practise ‘being in the present’ for a couple of minutes each day. Sitting down and focusing on an object or a physical feeling like the grass under your feet... and just opening your mind and senses up to it for a minute. I was a bit baffled as to how this had anything to do with last trauma, but my therapist explained that it works in two ways... firstly it anchors you into the present more, and it helps your brain remember what it’s like to have a nice simple and pain free connection without the ptsd barging in! So you can start recognising a healthier state of mind basically... and the second reason is just to give you an emotional break from the miserable awfulness that is dealing with such terrible raw emotions everyday. Basically, giving yourself a break! I rather liked that idea.
Anyway, I don’t know if any of this helps. But I hope there’s something in what I’ve written that might be interesting to you.
It’s worth trying to find the right therapist / counsellor to work with. You’ve actually inspired me to go do my visualisation exercises now.
You’ve had more than anyone should ever had to bear and it’s not surprising that you’re brain needs help to process it and leave it behind. I think you deserve not to be dealing with these awful feelings now. And you definitely deserve to shrug off the abusive people in your childhood and adulthood. And not carry their effects with you. Living well is absolutely the best revenge (!).