I have cPTSD. I f'ing hate it. The abuse started before I was four, it encompasses my earliest memories and development. I didn't know this at the time. I'm currently in therapy doing EMDR. I'm on year two of EMDR there are so many traumas to process and schemas to unlearn / change. I can tell you that as a young child, I had depression, anxiety / panic, and felt like the world was unpredictable and terrifying as a result of what was going on around me, but I shut off my own feelings which were constantly overpowered by the two mentally ill / terminally ill people who I called parents. I lived with at least one of my abusers for all my childhood, ran away constantly (and got brought right back) and thought by leaving the house and state at 18 that I could just start over, that their craziness was theirs and I was fine. I was wrong. The patterns are so ingrained in me I ended up being assaulted and then marrying a clinical sociopath. Only as an adult, having left the marriage and going through significant therapy is it clear to me that all the things that happened when I was a kid shaped who I grew into. So now I spend all my effort and time on unlearning all that is bad and backwards. (And trying not to resent normal people who have no conception of what this is like.)
But yesterday I found out my dad was a pedophile. And I'm starting to unravel.
Back on point: cPTSD is a real thing. It's horrible. And it comes when you're trapped in the trauma / abuse and can't leave. Children can get it because they literally can't leave or escape. You rely on your abusers for food (if they'll give it to you), shelter (whether it's safe or not), and any other survival needs. Something fundamentally horrifying happens when you have to rely on the very same people who regularly hurt you.
