C-PTSD: transcending the suffering and finding meaning

[Sean_S]

Hi all,

I've been reading through the threads and I am stunned at the wisdom I'm finding in there. Tearing up often at people's stories. I hope to make some contributions to this community as I go about healing. I feel like I'm only beginning my journey overcoming the trauma. I have CPTSD (preliminary diagnosis from a psychiatrist) and am currently working on finding a trauma-informed therapist that is bulk billing (fingers crossed).

Briefly, my story. I have alcoholic parents who were drunk every night for all of my childhood that I can remember. I was harassed and hounded at all hours of the night, consequently I developed a severe sleeping disorder. My bedroom was not a safe place, and I eventually learnt to block my door with furniture. I moved out to begin university, I was free temporarily, met a woman I loved but in 2013 I was diagnosed with stage IV Hodgkin's lymphoma. I was 20 years old. We stayed together for 7 years, but I never fully recovered. She left me, understandably. I have chronic inflammation in my joints, despite being only 27. Vestibular migraines which cause me to be violently ill. I've been living back with my parents the past year which has been hell. So, I've been rather beaten up by life but am desperately trying to get healthy, get my independence and be free.

I'm suffering existentially and trying to find a sense of meaning that can sustain me. Confusion and desperation is what I feel. Overwhelmed by complexity. I'm always in a state of chronic hyper-arousal, my sympathetic nervous system is hammering away. It's becoming harder to avoid taking anti-anxiety medication (which is addictive). I've started taking cold showers everyday, to try to switch of the trauma response. It helps. I'm reaching out for help wherever I can. Trying to chart a path that can carry me out of the hell I'm in. I crave insights.

I want to know: for those of you much further down the pathway towards healing, what sustains you at your darkest moments? When you feel utterly hopeless, stuck between a rock and a hard place, suffocating? What did you use as your beacon, or your foundation? It would really nourish me to hear.

I also want to know: if you could deliver a message to your younger self about what you have learnt, what you believe is most fundamental in treating complex trauma, what things would you direct yourself towards? What things do you regard as irreducibly important to know?

Sean

[smallwolf]

Hi. Hope you don't mind a very quick post now, but I will respond tomorrow. As an exercise for my psychologist I have written a letter to my younger self and can reply to that. Secondly, one thing that I also do when I come upon something I struggle with I try to find other stories similar to mine to (1) recognise I am not making it up and (2) find ways of moving forward. I hope you have a good night and will reply more tomorrow.

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi Sean,

Welcome to the forums and thank you for posting. This is definitely a post that's made me think, and I admire your intellect and ability to push through being back at the place that started your CPTSD in the first place.

In my darkest moments, my little beacon is hope. That maybe one day things won't feel this way. Granted, the hope has been incredibly small when I struggled with suicidal thoughts and feelings, but it was enough to flicker. The practicalities of suicide also kept me alive even though that's a little dark to share.

My psychologist asked me to write a letter to my younger self too, but I couldn't do it. I think part of me knows that nothing could have changed that, so a letter wouldn't have meant anything. But I think what my younger self needed to hear was that it wasn't her fault. That she deserved better, and that this was not okay.

Every kid everywhere needs 'good enough' parents. Security, stability, food, nourishment, shelter. They are the absolute basics. It wasn't until I was in therapy that I realised exactly how important that was - as a kid, your parents (or caregivers) are everything to you. So when they don't provide a safe space, it truly is the foundation for trauma.

I think what's probably important for you to know though is that you are an adult now - and you may know that logically but often with trauma it's a very stuck feeling. So if there are things that can remind you that you're an adult, find them and notice them - maybe that's your height, your clothes, your hobbies, music that you like, the books that you've read.. These things might sound simple enough but they can be really strong messages about how different your life is now vs when you were a kid.

I hope this helps a little

rt

[Sean_S]

Hi RT and Smallwolf,

RT, what you've said about reminding myself that I am an adult has really resonated with me. I've observed that one of the consequences of my trauma is that when the stress reaction kicks in I actually do feel like a small child. It's like an involuntary delusion. I'm 6ft1 but when I hear the loud footsteps of someone almost half my size it feels, comically, just like it did when I was a kid. My brain screams danger.

Thanks for the tip. I'll put it into practice.

Yeah hope is a tiny handhold to hang onto when things are that dark, I'm sorry that you have those feelings. Is there a thread where I could read your story?

I do hope that things improve for me, but I struggle with deciding on a framework/philosophy to guide me. I'm terribly indecisive by nature, prone to obsessively deep reflection, and when I wake up in the morning I literally think 'What the hell am I meant to be doing? Where am I going? What do I focus on? Why even get out of bed?' It's tricky to express. I get stuck in rumination about how to make the suffering worth while. Some people seem to make sense of their suffering and capture it's energies and commit themselves to something meaningful. I'm envious of that. Whereas I mostly just feel muddled confusion which only compounds the more pain I feel each year.

I know the soothing feeling of certainty, and meaning, and a path. I've felt it, temporarily. It reduces the complexity of the world and focuses me, but it is not an easy state to remain in. Doubts creep in, the trauma activates and suddenly I don't feel I even have a grip on reality. In those moments I feel like an aimless fool and everything I do or think seems to be wrong, and I feel lost and adrift.

[smallwolf]

back...

I wrote my letter to my younger self after having looked at few online via a google search. I also had the benefit of having seen my psychologist for some time.

like RT I cannot change what happened but it helped in coming to terms with what had happened back when. And for me it was acceptance of an alternative path I took and how I have turned out to be OK and not to feel shame about my choices etc. I also have to say my psychologist made it do it 3 times because there was still some negativity that had (?) to be removed. My letter included words like perseverance, commitment, etc.

so if you get stuck writing that letter, google is good at going you some ideas of what to say.

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi,

It's really good to hear back from you. You're also very welcome and I hope that it helps to put it into practice. What you've said makes complete sense. With any trauma, be it from a car accident, a war or with parents- our brain has issues with time, so we're 'stuck there'. While we may logically know that we're adults, the car accident is over etc our brain hasn't fully made sense of that yet.

I don't actually have my own thread weirdly enough, but thank you for asking! I think my thread is probably scattered around thousands of replies on the forum! But you are more than welcome to ask me anything.

When you talk about a framework/guide/philosophy, what do you think that might look like if you had one? I'm not sure if I fully understand as I feel like it could be a felt sense, or a physical framework - like I really want to cure cancer or I have to get up because work/study starts at 9? I hope you can elaborate on that because I'd like to understand more.

I don't think you've mentioned it yet, but who is in your support system- do you have friends/therapist that you can talk to about these things? Trauma is hard to deal with on it's on, let alone the need to have a philosophy as well 🙂

rt

[Sean_S]

Hey rt,

Regarding 'what do you think that might look like if you had one?' I've had it, at times. It's lovely. For instance, mindfulness and eastern philosophy like Taoism. There were periods where mindfulness became my guide to life. The trauma symptoms diminished significantly, my sleep improved, I was less reactive, more confident and strong. I felt that although I'd suffered a lot in life at least now I had something of deeper value and meaning.

But things took a sharp turn and the suffering got worse, and worse, my circumstances more and more awful, and I lost it. I've explored existential psychotherapy, CBT and DBT, MBSR, Stoic philosophy, and am now reading about Peter Levine and somatic therapies for treating trauma. Read countless books on various topics, but ultimately I'm not getting anywhere. I just want to stop suffering, and it's becoming unbearable. I want a way out. I want clarity, not confusion. Direction, instead of aimlessness. Contentment, not misery. Strength, not feelings of weakness. Certainty, instead of debilitating doubt.

That's really the core of my posts so far. My main urge is to know: How have others with Complex Trauma overcome it, or at least dramatically improved it?: Both practically (ie, things like grounding, cold showers, support, medication) but also abstractly (personal values, morality, spirituality or philosophy). How do they make sense of the fact that they were abused and tormented and then go about their lives? Where does their strength come from? What are they aiming at in life?

I know these aren't easy questions. Rather than discover everything on my own I want to know what other people have done/thought.

For instance, I've had a sleeping disorder for over 10 years, and received comprehensive treatment. Lets suppose someone just got diagnosed with one. I could literally write a book on what they need to do/know, what works/what doesn't. I've gathered a huge amount of insight into the nature of sleep through self-observation, trial and error.

So with the trauma, that's what I'm after. As many little golden nuggets of wisdom as I can collect. I want to hear how other people have helped themselves, and how, exactly and precisely.

Your and smallwolf's sugestions have been very welcome.

To your other question: I don't have any support, yet. Working on finding a therapist.

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi Sean S,

It sounds like with everything going on with moving back in with your parents, (hard enough really), you've been harder on yourself trying to find frameworks and philosophy. With trauma, our brains are trying to cope. I know with my own trauma, philosophy, meaning, purpose- it just has to take a back step. It's still important, but if I'm in the middle of a flashback I know what takes priority! I'm honestly not entirely sure you can think of a philosophy if you haven't got the foundation of safety yet.

I'm so glad that you were able to manage your sleep after 10 years- that's wonderful and battling with sleep issues is so hard. But personally I'm not entirely convinced that what works for sleep with you is going to work with others. We're so complex!

I wonder if maybe instead of thinking of the 'big things', you can look at the things that matter to you- your values. How do you see yourself as a person? What are your strengths? Flashforward 5 years what would life look like? This can also be a way of not just finding meaning, but meaning through trauma. ACT can also be really useful for this as well.

rt

[GimZim]

Hey Sean S

I read through this a little bit ago but wanted to let it sit in my brain for a bit.

I think for myself there's been musing on what suffering is, why we suffer, etc. It's one of those questions that pops up in all philosophies and religions and we all have different answers to it. Unfortunately for a lot of us here our suffering has come from others but as with you there's also chronic illness, neglect (debatable how intentional or malicious things like that are, depending on our own experience).

Much of what I suffered was neglect by a family that simply didn't care about me and I internalised this, wondered what I did or didn't do, why I was unlovable. Now I think it's more about how my parents were quite selfish and cold people, not necessarily malicious.

On the idea of the suffering itself. In Christianity you'll find ideas like original sin and redemption through suffering, in Buddhism and Hinduism you have this concept of overcoming the suffering that is inevitable or even universal which I think is almost similar to some treatments for PTSD in a weird way? Remembering what happened to us and contextualising it, reflecting on it, sitting with it, tolerating the distress and I suppose aiming to transcend it.

I don't like ideas that imply that suffering is "good" because you come out of it "better" than you otherwise would be (people also using it to excuse bullying), at the same time I think it changes who you would become otherwise and I think a lot of us have a certain strength or tenacity about us that we might not have otherwise, compassion too. I think that's part of what makes writing to our child selves difficult, we're mourning what could have been and hurting for what we knew would come to that child.

I think where I ended up is somewhere between absurdism, existentialism and nihilism. Those philosophies are often characterised as a bit dark but that's not really what I've taken from them. I think I need to take and make my own meaning out of these experiences, I don't think there's a universal one. Have you read any Camus? He was also chronically ill and it influenced his writing. If you google "21 Albert Camus Quotes to Help You to Stop Overthinking Your Life" (dumb title) but it's a list of ones I really like.

Sorry if this is a weird ramble, I have dyslexia and find it hard to organise my thoughts, I hope something here helps or is at least interesting.

[Sean_S]

Hey GimZim!

You are not at all rambling, not anymore than me anyhow! You're speaking directly to the underlying things I'm grappling with.

I can relate to the shift in the way you view your parents. I've moved from wanting approval and affection to wanting liberation and detachment. To now viewing them as essentially under-developed human beings lacking character, alcoholics with an angry 4 yr old's personality. I'm still grappling, though making progress, with the fact that not only can we as humans hurt others, but derive great, obvious satisfaction from doing so.

"Remembering what happened to us and contextualising it, reflecting on it, sitting with it, tolerating the distress and I suppose aiming to transcend it". I love that. That process you've articulated.

I too don't like the notion that the suffering is intrinsically good, or necessary. Good, necessary suffering is going for a 15km jog or something, not child abuse. It has certainly sharpened my sense of morality though, as my family perform as case-studies of 'how not to be'. As you've said, it's the transcendence of the (undeniably bad) suffering that is the attractive idea to me.

"I think I need to take and make my own meaning out of these experiences, I don't think there's a universal one"

I'm also concluding that their is no universal meanings to be made, and that I have to ultimately decide for myself (which is weirdly comforting and empowering!). Since making my original post I've been madly reading through Irvin Yalom's Existential Psychotherapy (Camus is mentioned) because I was only vaguely familiar with their ideas and knew that my recent darker sense of meaninglessness and despair was well within existentialism's purview.

I'm happy to say that the feelings have eased significantly. All my problems remain, but my heads on straighter. I'm reading through the chapter on Meaning currently and noticing drops in hyper-arousal as I do. It's hitting something fundamental. And it doesn't at all erase any other philosophical or religious commitments, or require that. His main point is that we must find a meaning to guide us, not to validate that meaning in any ultimate sense.

It sounds as if you've gone to similar places in your ponderings and it's really, really heartening to detect that similarity and know I'm not alone. Thank you 🙂

I might in the future post a summary of dot points from the book for any others that might read the thread and relate deeply to these themes.