You know you have complex trauma when......

[Ronin]

So many of the issues in your life stem from not knowing, understanding, or being able to stop.

Simple orders are the hardest.

& When your best traits lead to the worst results. Loyalty & Honor can both bite me.

 

[Ronin]

Shifting relationship with one person alters how you perceive relationships with most other people. Not about them, as about all the trauma tidbits in your life you ignored to keep going.

& When you return to major trauma for comfort. Just because you're past it. It was heckuva bad and do not want, but the comfort bits within? Are strength I'll live on, now.

& When you're aware a lot is just you getting older & worse at handling stress, not worse situations, meaning you've got this, but it still pisses you off how (weak f*cking pussy oh right we don't use that word, a friend'd kick us hard for that one) softer you've gotten.

 

[Ronin]

The simplest things about your trauma are the most panic inducing.

Because they're the basics. And they went downhill so many ways, so many times, & aren't they supposed to be always working ones, hence 'basic'?

But you feel better: reasons why I'm so retarded with those basics aren't as retarded as I thought. :rolleyes::banghead::sneaky:

 

[zephcat]

You know you have complex trauma when can spent years totally alone, with any desire to begin with another person, when "having a normal conversation" is impossible ,
when you can spent years crying everyday with no reason
when your only friends are your pills, or shot or whatever

 

[Gaining-clarity]

When you heal, and are able to see where you used to be, even just one week ago, and it all seems so clear now, how crazy it has been, how difficult it has been, how really and truly traumatized you were and how it changed how you see, feel, think, act, and you fall to your knees and praise God for the long way he has brought you, and for the gift of gaining clarity, and for the taste of healing, and finally knowing what love is.

 

[Ronin]

@Gaining-clarity , that was so beautiful & thank you for your words. ;)

 

[WhisperingUnicorn]

You know you have complex trauma when taken completely off-guard by the "simplest" of life disappointments throwing you completely into an active flashback .. when your internal "others" argue with each other - the "littles" enraged and despairing over a present "loss" (which isn't even real here and now, but very much WAS back when) .. and the "grownup" selves are trying to quiet down the incessant noise but not in agreement about HOW to do this (torn between "comforting" the "littles" and chastising/abusing them for being stupid) and all the energy is wrapped up dealing with the internal upset so that the "simple" circumstance itself and all other "normal" conversation becomes almost impossibly too much to manage ..

But, as @Gaining-clarity so beautifully put it, my husband (sufferer) IS healing, and at least now is able to RECOGNIZE a "flashback" as such, instead of automatically importing it into his perception of the here and now, and though it took a few hours this past weekend for him to "come back to himself" after one (unexpectedly disappointing) incident - it was ONLY a few hours! (Not DAYS) and the "fallout" was only as deep as his feeling embarrassed enough to apologize for not being able to "be present" with me at the time - (Not confused/ashamed/physically ill, just matter-of-fact - "I had to deal with it") ..

And we do - BOTH of us! - "fall to our knees and praise God" for how far he's brought us .. :inlove:

We've taken, lately, to calling it our Beautiful Strange .. :) :inlove::inlove::inlove: :)

~WU

 

[Friday]

When in order to tell a story, wait... We have to go back... Wait. Skip forward to a couple years ago... Wait. Back. Forward. Back. Lateral. This other thing. This other person. This other time. This other place. No the other, other place.

f*ck me.

9 stories later, just to make the 1st story make sense :banghead:

But I got stuck in story 7. And my brain broke for 2 days. With my mind and heart on different continents, in different times, and both trying to speak at the same time. And I had to start over.

***

My timeline looks like a chandelier. >.<

Designed by Tim Burton. And Doctor Seuss. On acid.

 

[trying2movefwd]

I do this too.

 

[DharmaGirl]

When in order to tell a story, wait... We have to go back... Wait. Skip forward to a couple years ago......

Love this!!!

 

[GwenDR]

When you have no idea what the f*ck you have, but you're reading this entire thread and nodding the whole time? Even though nothing you've been through is anywhere close to as bad, but it all sounds kinda familiar. And you start feeling bad that you're being terrible by even comparing, and it can't possibly match, because it wasn't bad you were just weak and pathetic and could never grow up. Or maybe not, I really don't know.

 

[David Ferdinand]

You know you have C-PTSD when you cant remember anything from your past. Its all just washed out. I remember fragments, some good, some bad, but it makes is so much harder not remembering why I'm scared all the time.