Is it a Flashback?

One of the top issues and symptoms of PTSD and CPTSD is Flashbacks. Like many psychological events, these experiences come in a spectrum from the benign Deja vu to the ferocious being dropped back into a hellish memory. It wasn’t until I had an extreme flashback that I finally understood the horrific power that past…

Words to look up

People online complain that their therapist/psychologist/psychiatrist will not use CPTSD as a diagnosis.  According to their own manual of disorders DSM-5, it doesn’t exist, so for insurance purposes some other set of letters are used.  My counselor wouldn’t even give me PTSD, until my work wanted to know exactly what I was living with. My…

Victim Mentality

My counselor asked me why didn’t I tell?  At first I didn’t know, because I didn’t remember.  To help me get in touch with my feelings he gave me a children’s coloring book about feelings to use.  Color this page happy and what color is sad and so on then came the page “What would…

Complicating things

I actually maintain 3 different blogs.  My picture blog I’ve hardly touched in a year.  I kept getting it more and more complicated until I found I couldn’t keep up with it any more.  It started out 1 picture a day….then I made it more complicated.  I have my We are One blog and it…

Fawning

I grew up learning about fight or flight ad nauseam.  I blew it off.  I didn’t fight, I didn’t run.  I figured it didn’t apply to me, which in a way it didn’t.  I eventually learned about freeze.  Then I read an article by Peter Walker outlining the 4 F’s: Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn. …

Grief and happiness coexists

Dissociation from my emotions is a symptom of PTSD/CPTSD.  I was numb.  I didn’t feel pain but I didn’t feel happiness either.  I was so completely detached from my feelings that I couldn’t tell you at any given moment what I felt.  I knew I had feelings….sometimes I was happy and sometimes I felt bone…

What it is not

In the media, online and gossip around me have some fairly messed up ideas about PTSD.  PTSD/CPTSD is not rudeness, cruelty to others, or criminal behavior.  Recently, I heard someone say that the reason a person was so rude was because they were mentally ill.  WRONG.  Missing social skills, yes.  Lack of proper upbringing, yes. …

Survivor’s Guilt

I am doing a bit of light Summer reading.…(please read that with intense sarcasm.)  If talk of mass shootings is triggering for you…..please skip today’s post. They Call Me “Mr. De”  is the book written by Frank DeAngelis, former principal of Columbine High School.  This high school was one of the first mass shootings after…