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If something good and helpful can come out of this, by all means, hijack away.

There's a ton of good information on that site. I'm going to look at it in more detail when I have time. Thank you for that. Maybe sometime down the road I could use the information to either start a support group on my own, or con somebody else into doing it so I can attend

Thank you all from every inch of my soul. It helps so much just knowing I'm not alone. I don't know anyone else personally who has PTSD or CPTSD, so most of the time I feel like I'm fighting all alone.

I printed out the PDF version of the 13 steps - I really appreciate that link. It made me smile, because a lot of it was the same thing my therapist would tell me. I changed jobs just about a year ago - I used to be an EMT. It was a great mask for my disorder, because I had no set sleeping schedule, I was working in the midst of trauma and chaos on a regular basis, and everybody in that line of work is a little odd. It's easy to lose yourself in somebody else's nightmare and say it's for a good cause. I didn't quit because of my CPTSD, though - I had injured my shoulder while working, and when I came back to work, several people had resigned and they were using all of us full-time people to fill in. My hours became insane, and I was having a hard time taking care of my daughter. But when I went to a stable desk job and had to be "normal," that's when I started falling apart. I had no idea how to sleep / eat/ function on a regular schedule. Plus I had tons of time while sitting at my desk for my brain to start rehashing everything that had happened in my life. Holidays always trip me up and are rough to get through.

I did manage to go back to community college in January for a semester - and got straight A's - but one of the assignments I was assigned was a presentation on whether or not prostitution should be legal. I didn't choose the topic, it was given to me by my professor. I was determined to prove I could do it, but the research led me into rape statistics, human trafficking, and childhood sexual abuse and I went spiraling down for a long time. It took me most of the summer to get back from that. Then I tried to go back this fall semester, but the school lost my high school transcripts and it took forever to get new ones sent for some reason. By the time my registration was complete, the classes I needed to take were full and there was no point in me wasting time and money on classes I couldn't take. I felt like I lost even more of my life because I can't get out of the low-paying job I'm in to get a better one if I don't get trained to do something else. I start to panic whenever I feel trapped, which I feel right now because I'm not doing anything to improve my financial situation.

Like I said, I do okay for a while, then crash. I have an appointment with my MD for the 23rd of this month to talk to him about some medication. I don't want anything to turn me into a zombie, I still want to be me. I just can't stop the thoughts and anxiety on my own anymore.

It's taken me 24 hours to write this, because I never know what to say to people. My life sounds ridiculous.

I'm Mary. I was sexually abused throughout my childhood by 3 different men. My first husband went to prison for child molestation of an 8 year old neighbor kid. My second husband was very emotionally abusive. My mother blamed me for being raped when I was 12, and would always tell me how I screwed everything up. She's bullied me my entire life, and tried to get me fired from my job on several occasions. When I was 36, I was stalked by a 69 year old bipolar man for 9 months and they couldn't stop him because I worked in a government office at the time and all the laws are designed to make government open to the people. It took him calling 5 different politicians that were trying to protect me and threatening to kill them and their families before he was finally arrested.

So yeah, I have CPTSD and I know it's not going away. I was coping pretty well for a while, but over the past year I've had some good days, a lot of not-so-good days, and back-to-back weeks of flashbacks and crashing and burning. I completed therapy back in January 2013, and I know what's going on when I start crashing, but it's becoming more severe and happening more frequently. I was trying to find a local support group, but the closest one I could find was 2 hours away. So I thought I'd give this a try and see if it helps.