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Well I for one are hugely proud of you Hellipig. Articulating this stuff and getting analytical on its scary components is a major leap in recovery.

You will get there in the end, and it will happen because you are learning to gain objectivity and to own the situations you are facing and the legacy of your traumatic past.

Knowledge is power. Keep pushing out and testing your reactions, build up the best picture you can.

It hurts, but you are winning.

Hi Bart

welcome.

Knowing is winning in this game. You can't fight C-PTSD unless you understand it. Look at it as an injury rather than a mental illness and it all slots into place. Long drawn and trauma and stress will alter the structure of your brain and this is the result. The good news is that thanks to neuroplasticity, it's repairable if you create the right conditions.

You got here with negative reinforcement, so positive reinforcement is the antidote. Remove as many negative influences as you can from your life and start being kind to yourself. Listen to your body and don't push beyond your energy levels. Accept the moods as natural and a part of healing. No doubt you have experienced some of the same trauma as many of the rest of us, maybe it's unique, but the result is most definitely going to be something the people in here will recognise. Tell your story and listen to advice. And when I say advice, I mean in here. No one readily understands trauma and aftermath, many will never get it or will dismiss it. Folks in here are very grounding and very kind. Help and be helped, it's a great healer. You are not alone.

It doesn't cure fast, but even if it doesn't fully cure at all, remember that life will never be as bad as it was when this injury was caused.

Believe in life.

totally agree

In the lack of a forum, I am writing this on word for later use!

Been a month of contrasts. I started my drug tapering and was fine until it blended seamlessly with the flu. And when I say flu, I mean flu. The aussie flu virus is a pig. I spent most of Jan in bed looking at the ceiling with barely enough energy to feed myself and stop the flat decaying into a plague pit.

The drug thing is interesting to say the least. My thoughts are changing. My mood is not as negative as I expected, more a sense of bewilderment and anger at what I was put through. Why the major people in my life thought it was ok to push me to the edge like that is beyond me. But I wouldn't call the resulting mood depression, it's more a "fed up" kind of thing. I'm wading through chronic fatigue, I can't take the action I want to get the momentum up and that is what is getting me down. I'm way ahead in dealing with the realisation of what happened, now it's about the fight with my current toolbox.

I loathe the fatigue. The effect of the meds and the PTSD supercharged by the flu has just been dreadful. It's that sense of drifting. I hate drifting. I want to fight back and I feel like I'm bed ridden. Not a good mix.

Now the good news.

As I've mentioned before, I write. Bit loathed to paste details of that on an open forum because I know I am being monitored by my ex and my brother and it's an easy way for them to see me using google alerts (yes really, I've had ample proof that this is going on I'm afraid, plus they've both told me they've done it to other people.... sigh) and I don't want to let them twig I have been expressing my feelings in a way that they can use. Isn't that deeply depressing ? that we have to build in such evasion to our lives instead of just living.) But suddenly, the effort I've put in over the last 8 years has begun to work for me in unexpected ways.

I'm an indie author for now, which means I'm self-published on kindle. Well, I'm charting. I'm also now making a modest living from the books and when I move to Wales, then I go professional to an extent as my lower costs meet my rising profit. It's not millions, it's a modest salary, but it serves to enable me to sever the last of my ties to my old restrictive life.

But wait... there's more.

Last week I was approached about TV and film rights. I was incredulous at first and assumed it was a chancer, but the guy checked out, I made some enquiries and sure enough, it's real. I rang around and through some old contacts, by the end of friday I had an agent in Los Angeles ready to fight my corner over money if the thing escalates.

But here's the thing, I don't feel that much. My senses are so suppressed that I don't have a buzz about it. It's a flat feeling even tho I know it could potentially be life-changing. It was a stark demonstration of how C-PTSD smothers your feelings both for good and for bad. But you keep going forward. That's what you do, because as the plusses begin to outgun the minuses, your feelings can and will return.

But you don't have to be perfect, you don't have to reach some kind of altered state of euphoria, you just need your life back and even if that life is depleted and singed by its history, it is YOUR life. Learning to accept that is key to surviving this thing. We don't need perfection to win this, we just need our control back. We lived other people's failures for them, so managing our own is a breeze, right?

This TV thing and the writing may fade out or go nowhere, they may be amazing, they could be anywhere in between, but the thing is that it's one aspect of my past reaching out to me. But even without that, anything that makes for progress and a return to the world is good.

Two days ago I heard a seagull. I grew up by the sea and it brought a flood of good memories with it, not about people, but about environments and seasons and hot weather and the smell of the sea and it felt really good. It's a small thing, but that is a big thing right there. The world is not the people who used us. It is not about the neglect and the abuse we endured. It is about light, smells, the seasons changing, laughter and life.

I am going to roll with this C-PTSD thing. Fighting it and feeling the deep frustration is no use, it just makes it last longer. It's a spider web and struggling causes more issues that it solves. Rest, self-care, pride in having come so far and to be cared for by my growing new circle, that's what counts. We often don't hear the love we need, we have long tuned out such things because we could not afford to be so sensitive, but there will come a time when it will come home to us.

All of us in here share a shocked disappointment in people. We were by nature, loving, trusting and hopeful. C-PTSD is the shock, a long drawn out shock, at the depths to which others will go to satisfy their needs. But they are not the world. Trust is not going to be easy, I know that, but I am not willing to let the legacy of these sick people be loneliness and isolation. We need to confound them by thriving, growing and shouting our defiance by living the life we wanted before they corrupted our senses.

Live long and prosper.

PS. Since writing this, a second TV company has approached me. gasp!

behave? not a chance

coming back at the world with fire in my eyes.

Time to live

(after a nap)

film and TV rights under discussion. Watch this space

Hi all

can't get rid of me that easily! New log in because the old one wouldn't behave.

onwards and mostly upwards!

Not sure why, but my old log i details won't play ball. So here I am in new glowing form.

Usual ups and downs but generally up. Meds are a chore to taper but I'm nearly there. Clearer head and adrenalin back in the system. About to move. Potentially huge development with my writing, Watch this space.