Newbie's hello. I've acccepted my C-PTSD & now improving my quality of life.

[Flutterbye]

Hello fellow C-PSTD people, I'm really glad to have found this forum.
I'm new here at the forum and have been finding the OOTF and OOTS sites so helpful for a while & continue to, there's so much info there I keep coming back to.

I've accepted that I have C-PSTD and that it was caused by my abusive childhood; sometimes I call that 'chronic early life trauma' or 'developmental trauma', each term helped me to understand & eventually accept what happened to me that was not ok to a kid, what damage it did me then and what damage I am living with now in my early 40's.  I'm now able to identify what symptoms I'm experiencing when and am gradually developing my ability to manage them, mainly with mindfulness. I think that all took me about some years. Lots of hard work in therapy, psycho-education & self-help.

These days I'm focused on my quality of life, I've had to take an early retirement due to injuries, relational/emotional probs, difficulty concentrating & fatigue but in a way this is the best time in my life! I like researching neuroscience ideas about how to feel better; I put my energies into what I can do with my diet & lifestyle to help and especially like things that can help with neurogenesis. I'm no expert of course but those topics give me hope & inspiration at this point in my recovery. I started high intensity exercise a few months ago & finding it helpful. To my great surprise as I'm the least sporty person I know & until now had a strictly yoga-bliss-out kind of approach to life.

Sometimes I slip back into denial. One pit-fall for me is I compare myself to people who don't have C-PTSD. Warm personalities, terrific fitness & stamina or very goal-oriented/ambitious people at times can overwhelm me & make me feel like a failure as a human being. I have to remind myself I'm working with some difficult damage & am a work in progress. I'm sure I'll find lots of shared experiences here & feel less alone in my limitations. Look forward to being part of the forum.

[Dutch Uncle]

Hi Flutterbye 

Wow, what a nice introduction. You've come a long way and sound very upbeat about it. And you can, you've done a lot of work. I'm looking forward to your insights and experiences. I've been on the track of cPTSD for almost a year now, and I feel very encouraged by your post for the prospects of recovery. Thanks for sharing.

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Dutch Uncle

[Kizzie]

Sometimes I slip back into denial. One pit-fall for me is I compare myself to people who don't have C-PTSD. Warm personalities, terrific fitness & stamina or very goal-oriented/ambitious people at times can overwhelm me & make me feel like a failure as a human being. I have to remind myself I'm working with some difficult damage & am a work in progress. I'm sure I'll find lots of shared experiences here & feel less alone in my limitations. Look forward to being part of the forum.

Hi and a warm welcome Flutterbye     It's hard not to compare I know, we moved to a city about 8 months ago that is filled with very active, fit, go, go, go people and it makes me feel even more beat up.  Your sentiment "I have to remind myself I'm working with some difficult damage & am a work in progress" really resonated with me    Given all that we here have been through we are veritable Olympians in the challenges we have met, overcome and continue to tackle aren't we?  Go Team CPTSD!   

[Boatsetsailrose]

Thank you flutter bye for your post
I am currently off work as can't cope ( nursing) and am seriously thinking about getting out of the profession all together ? I am interested what u say about the Neuro
I have real problems with concentration , memory and weighing up / relating information is this common in cptsd do you know ?

[Jewel]

Hey, Flutterbye.  Welcome and thanks for your post.      You sound very focused on moving forward--kudos and all best wishes.  I've only been part of this community for about a week, but I'm so happy to have found this forum.  After decades of suffering from undiagnosed CPTSD and only a couple of years of working to heal, I am incredibly relieved and grateful to find this community.

I related to your comment about comparing one's self with those who don't have CPTSD.  I've stopped doing it.  I'm happy for folks who don't have it, but I've learned that comparing myself only makes me feel worse about myself.  I've accepted that, at 53, my life will likely always be an accommodation to the abuse that began in my infancy.  And I'm okay with that.  I can't change my history.  But I can face each day doing my best and being as kind and compassionate to myself as I can.

My life is difficult.  I'm fairly isolated, in debt with no savings and no retirement savings, have a damaged career, and have struggled with addictions.  Sometime I can feel like I'm a total failure.  But here's the compassionate message I've been reminding myself of instead: I had a HORRIBLE life, starting in infancy and lasting for decades, and I am an AMAZING SUCCESS in that I'm simply still in life.  That is my crowning achievement--despite it all, I'm still in life.  And still hopeful.  And as long as I'm here, great things are still possible.

Looking forward to future posts.  In the meantime, all best wishes to you--and the rest of the CPTSD community.

Peace

[TakePainsBePerfect]

Dear Flutterbye,

Congratulations on finding yoga; I'm sure your hippocampus is pleased. I also enjoy learning about the brain; I find it calming to strip away the murky subjective stuff and think about the biological side of things.

I also compare myself to people without CPTSD; there is much I envy. It's hard. I try to remind myself that although I can't do as they do, I'm an incredibly interesting person. I bet you are too

All the best