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Wow that was a lot!
I will think about what you wrote. I hadn't heard of Kati Morton before but have just checked out her youtube videos and she is fab! I will definitely be watching some more of her stuff!
Thanks

Wow thank you all so much for your replies! I really do feel alone in this and its amazing to read that others have similar experiences! Indigochild what you wrote was wonderful thank you! The psychiatrist i am seeing at the moment is wondering where to place me next. He is considering the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. I have no idea if that diagnosis fits. I have problems with it. He says that it is basically the same as C-PTSD and seeing as the latter doesn't exist as a diagnosis then treatment for borderline is the next best thing. I feel extremely confused and in a spin. From what i read about borderline, manipulation is a major component and it horrifies me to think that i may be able to control this need more yet dont so that i receive care from others. I really need to find some way to comfort this DESPERATE child myself. The whole experience of being comforted is terrifying and extremely stressful for me even though i feel unable to stop the urgent need to try and get it. I think a lot of the terror is - what will this do to the other person, is this ok, what will it do to the relationship, how will this make me suffer later, WHAT AM I DOING!!! etc etc. FloatBoat your reaction sounds similar to what i mean in that the need RACES forward like a sudden desperate need for air and then massive parts of me fights it and lashes at it ferociously. Do any of you know of any useful tips for controlling/stopping up this need when it is triggered? At the moment i feel unable to be around women because of the feroceous mummy need and unable to be around men because i feel vulnerable and easily stressed by them. Really really hard.
SO grateful for all your thoughts and kind words!!!!

Hi Woodsgnome,
Im new here too and like you i  am so thrilled to have found this lovely community. It is amazing to be with people who truly know how it is to live with C-PTSD. Your introduction post was really beautiful and touching and i hope you do find some comfort by this cozy fire with fellow travelers.
I am squeezing your hand 

Trees - thank you. And thank you more. Your response made me cry it was so lovely. I will try to believe in my worth and accept this amazing help. 

Hi,
Thank you both so much for your responses.
lightbeneaththeearth what you shared is very encouraging. It sounds like you have made a huge leap by managing to separate yourself from other peoples' feelings and reactions. I hope you are really proud of yourself for working to get to this point. It is certainly a huge thing.
Indigochild I have not read the book you mention, but do own Pete Walker's book Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving which i think is amazing. Have you read that one?  I am not currently in therapy but have had several years of it at different times of crisis in the past. There doesn't seem to be much talking therapy on offer these days on the NHS, i am on a LONG waiting list to see someone from the trauma team. I can't afford to go private. I do have the issue that my enormous mother need means that i attach to therapists STRONGLY straight away and it makes life fairly torturous every second im not in that one hour a week with them. I often wonder whether the distress of attaching so strongly and then inevitably loosing each professional outways any good done in the years of therapy!? I am asking for help and accepting everything i get offered - so far drugs and recovery college courses.

Hi Kizzie,
Thank you for your response. I am not currently in therapy but have had several years of it at different times of crisis in the past. There doesn't seem to be much talking therapy on offer these days on the NHS, i am on a LONG waiting list to see someone from the trauma team. I can't afford to go private. I do have the issue that this mother need means that i attach to therapists STRONGLY straight away and it makes life fairly torturous every second im not in that one hour a week with them. I often wonder whether the distress of attaching so strongly and then inevitably loosing each professional outways any good done in the years of therapy! God its all so hard! I am asking for help and accepting everything i get offered - so far drugs and recovery college courses. At the moment it is this urgent need for protection that is flying out at safe women that is my main problem. I'd love to know if anyone else here has experience of this. It is the need of a tiny baby for protection against death. Primal.

I've been on fluoxetine (Prozac) for 14 years but recently it hasn't been affective on its own. I tried Quetiapine which didn't seem to work and have now been prescribed pregabalin  (lyrica). The psychiatrist I have is extremely experienced so I assume he knows what he is doing. The problem is the expense of this drug. I am fortunate in that in the uk I have the NHS but have been made aware that one month of pregabalin is costing the NHS about £500!! I have been paying prescription fees (£8.20) all these years for Prozac which costs v v little but still! I feel unworthy of this expensive medication especially as I'm yet to see any improvement with my anxiety. Does anyone else have experience with pregabalin? I wonder if we didn't give quetiapine enough of a go!? (That is very cheap too). I'd never considered that I would be prescribed something do costly!

Hi Im completely new here and wondered if i could share a problem im having to see if it is something any of you are also experiencing. I cant seem to understand it or help it.
The issue is that i fall to pieces when with caring motherly women. Feeling SAFE and cared for makes me dissolve. Its terrible. Today i was attending a class at our recovery college on journaling. It is a lovely safe feeling environment and the teacher is so caring. I couldn't control my need. My child. I felt myself go small and panicked. I got tearful and detached. I excused myself form the class and the teacher came out to see if i was ok. I was shaking and crying and clinging on to her for dear life. HELP. HOLD ME. DONT EVER LEAVE ME. I hardly know this woman but her safe motherlyness brought out this MASSIVE uncontrollable feeling desperation. Its like an urge - like needing the loo or needing food. It is primal and i dont know how to control it. I am fine with strangers but with people i find safe i turn to jelly. These women all react calmly and seem untrubbled by me - they sit with me, hug me, tell me to breathe and that im safe. I think my behaviour is actually very tame compared with the wild feelings of NEED. It is causing me such distress though. My child jumps to the front and is desperate for comfort and my critic is screaming abuse for being week and needy and pathetic.
Any thoughts? All the stuff ive read so far seems to assume C-PTSD = inhibited/closed off reaction. I am the opposite completely. I cant stop talking about things and feeling and this child need for a 'mummy' is so powerful it makes me feel ill. I cant function when i always become an emotional wreck around people who are caring/safe/motherly. 

Hi!
I have just found this forum whilst searching for some more information/help with my difficulties. Following a MASSIVE amount of stress and loss during 2013, a 'final straw' that Christmas shattered my feeling of safety and i've been having massive difficulties ever since. I was having panic attacks at work, curling in a ball in my bosses office shaking and crying. TERROR. NOT SAFE. In August last year i was urged to take time off work as i was falling to pieces on them regularly and was clearly unwell. In December a psychiatric nurse suggested C-PTSD. She couldn't diagnose me as its not an officially recognised disorder yet but suggested i was suffering from that. I hadn't heard of C-PTSD before and bought the book C-PTSD from surviving to thriving. I also read all i could find online. Reading about it made me so excited. It fitted me and my difficulties exactly! I had 'a thing' i wasn't just broken and crazy!! I am RACING with memories and feelings and need. Emotions flying all over the place. Every trauma from the past surfaced at once and i felt all the feelings and memories. I can't hold it in, my ability to be professional and adult and coping has gone completely. I feel a  hideous feeling of being out of control. I have been in and out of mental health services since i was 11 (im now 32) with anxiety, suicidal thoughts and intent, severe anorexia... and see now that that may all have been aspects of C-PTSD. All the different ways i tried to manage my hurt. I feel there are three parts to myself. There is a child who is TERRIFIED and DESPERATE, a raging mess part who is self destructive, critical and frightening and there is a wise adult part who can be there for others, be clever and calm and rational and who until lately has provided a strong professional front. The adult is far back now. The child is screaming for help and the messy bit is giving me * for being such a mess and having need.
So that is maybe me in brief. I hope i haven't written too much