Trigger Warning!!! Ptsd, Cptsd, child abuse and neglect, self harm and suicidal thoughts and actions, nightmares and flashbacks

To all you parents out there, I’m guessing this school year couldn’t come soon enough, unless of course you are one of those parents who feels this time of year is more bitter than sweet.

To all you educators at any level and of any subject, I wish you well, and I hope you have as little stress as possible and that your students and you get the best of your time together.

And most importantly, to any children, teens, or even college students who may be reading this I hope you get all good things out of this school year and that if bad things do happen this year, you are able to take time to feel your emotions, then use them to push you forward (I actually hope that for everyone reading this, and everyone not reading this).

To the students who have difficulty with school and school work, I hope you find the right support and learning tools to help you do your best while feeling your best this year.  To all the students who deal with bullying, I urge you to find a sipportive adult who can help you navigate this rough situation, and that you are able to find relief from whatever pain you are in.

To those who may bully others, I hope you take time for self reflection so you may determine what leads you to do what you do, and that you get the supports you need to become the best version of yourself, it will take courage and determination to change your behaviors, it will take support and proper guidance, but change is possible for those who truly wish to.

With all that being said, I’d like to get to the point of this post. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). While the awareness month for PTSD is not until June, This month is National Suicide Awareness Month and for me, one of the main reasons I have ever made an attempt, or had thoughts of self harm, were because of issues with my Complex PTSD.

PTSD is a disorder that people who go through a traumatic event can develop in response to that event such as from war, from a major disaster, or from being a victim of a violent crime. It can take time to develop or it can start right when the event is over, and it has several traumatic symptoms like hypervigillence (or never being able to relax and always being on guard), intense nightmares and flashbacks where you get flooded with memories of the event these may come with panic attacks, or even avoiding activities or places that remind you of the event or where the event happened.

Complex PTSD is what some people develop as a result of consistent occurrences of several traumatic events over a period of time like from child abuse, which is what led to tge start of mine. It can come with the same symptoms mentioned above, but there can be additional symptoms such as issues with emotional regulation, issues with your identity or your sense of who you are, and trouble forming or maintaining healthy relationships (https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24881-cptsd-complex-ptsd).

Now that we have a basic definition of what PTSD and Complex PTSD are, I would like to share how mine has been affecting me and the factors that led to me developing Complex PTSD. I will talk about the top 5 things I’ve been doing to cope with mine.

My story…

My life didn’t start out the best. For the first 15 and a half years of my life, I was abused and neglected in one way or another nearly every day. We didn’t have much money, and whatever money we did went to other things besides food so I often didn’t have basic nutrition, and one of my mom’s boyfriends didn’t let me eat when I was grounded, and he always grounded me for one reason or another, plus often times my siblings and I were left on our own and I was the oldest so I was parentified often taking care of my siblings, getting them ready for school, bed, feeding them when we did have food, and trying to take care of my mom who was suffering with addiction.

There was also quite a bit of physical abuse, though my brothers relieved more than I did, I still didn’t get out of childhood without being physically abused plus feeling helpless watching my brothers and mom be abused hurt me too. Aside from that, there was a lot of verbal and emotional abuse and manipulation that I went through from my birth father, starting from when i met him at 10, and also from my moms many boyfriends. I also am a survivor of asexual abuse at 7 from one much older cousin, then from 9-15 from another older cousin, and once from my biological father. 

All of this led me to develop maladaptive coping mechanisms. I often slept or stayed in my room watching TV instead of playing outside like other kids my age, and I started experiencing hypervigilence, having panic attacks with heart palpitations, sweating, hyperventilating and ultimately passing out. I also started experiencing severe and vivid nightmares and flashbacks, which led to the attacks. I went to many doctors for several years and they couldn’t find a medical cause, so I started going to therapy at 14 and we found out it was PTSD, then as an adult I was diagnosed with Complex PTSD.

From 13-18 and a half, (I was using the internet to talk to strangers, many of whom were adults who knew I was only a teenager. That led to me being manipulated and led to more trauma when I met one person in real life. I just wanted to feel loved, and I chose the wrong places to look.

During this time period I ended up going into foster care, speaking up about the abuse my cousin was doing (he had gone to the sane home as me so I was being abused there too), getting yelled at by my fostermom for telling and almost getting her foster care license taken away, and moving to a new foster home with my one sibling who stayed with me, then getting adopted at 16 by my new family).

That was all so much to go through, and it led to even more ptsd symptoms and maladaptive coping mechanisms. Plus I felt guilty for choosing to be adopted and leaving my birth family (I don’t anymore, and I am incredibly greatful I got adopted, even if my adoptive father, and some of my siblings are estranged).

As a young adult, my adoptive parents, whom I was living with while going trying to go through my first semesters of college, got divorced, and that led to trauma because even though I was an adult I was just getting used to a semi stable family life. After the divorce, my mom moved to a different town with 4 of my siblings (all younger and other children she adopted), and my bio brother, who got adopted with me, stayed with my dad. Things got difficult between them during the separation, then they got a bit better a few years in, then they got a lot worse when the divorce was finalized and he got his new girlfriend pregnant.

From then on he and his girlfriend quickly pushed each of his children out of his life one by one, until now he doesn’t even talk to us, except my one kid brother who moved in with him after difficultly following my mom’s rules. But sadly, that brother is no longer able to talk to us because my dad doesn’t want anyone in his life who talks to my mom.

I didn’t move with my mom, I rented my first apartment with my aunt with both of us paying have the bills. At that time, I was doing my first job full time (Dunkin Donuts) and school half time while managing stress that my birth parents were still causing me, and the stress of my adoptive parents not getting along.

I started getting really depressed and started missing work and school and feeling really suicidal, turn I got into a fight with my adoptive mom, which was the final straw for me. I made an attempt to die by suicide, and that ended up being the last my aunt could handle as that activated her trauma from her childhood.

While in the hospital for my mental health, I was told that I had to move out of my apartment with my aunt. I lived with my mom until our unhealed trauma made it too hard to live together and was sent to an adult group home called Transitional Living. I lived there for about a year, and while there, I ended up quitting my job and dropping out of school for a few years.

I ended up forming a relationship of sorts in the house, because I was never told that was against the rules, and I just wasn’t in the head space to figure it probably wouldn’t be wise. This relationship messed with my mental health and led to a pregnancy scare, which led to my mom finding out and bringing me back home with her because the group home ultimately wasn’t good for my mental health.

Eventually, I was able to get in a good enough place with my healing that I was able to move on to my own to, the senior and disabled adult apartment building that my great grandma lives in. We lived on different floors, but she was nearby if I needed her. That and the fact that both my mom and I found quality therapists that we matched well, which made our relationship so much better, and I did really well on my own for a while. Well enough to finish getting my associates degree in 2021. After the group home though,

I began dating people online again, while different this time because I was a legal adult, mentally I was stunted at a younger age and should not have been dating yet. I ended up going through one night stands and a few relationships suffering more physical, mental, and sexual abuse and manipulation, except for one of my relationships which was almost perfect, but ended because he thought my mental health struggles would impact him trying to keep custody of his son. 

I mostly went through so many people because i was trying to explore who i was and especially my sexuality, which I had repressed for so long due to the abuse I suffered. Plus, I started to feel lonely living on my own and still has some maladaptive coping mechanisms.

Even though I had done a lot of healing, all of this relationship turmoil had led to symptoms of my PTSD coming back as well as my suicidal ideations. I had insomnia, and I ended up developing Bipolar 2 and not taking my medicine like I should have, which caused more dangerous symptoms like hallucinations and paranoia (due to the Bipolar not the ptsd).

During covid my mom had me stay with her a lot because she saw be going back down hill, then we decided to have me move to low income housing right behind her apartment complex. We figured that if I was closer to my family (multiple family members lived in the same complex) that I would do better because I would get more interaction).

While I totally stopped dating after the move, and still am not until I am ready, or ever, my condition got extremely worse. I already had a bit of a Hoarding problem with difficulties staying clean and tidy, but it got so bad at mu new place that my kid siblings who loved spending time at my place, totally stopped coming over (sadly I never picked up on why thus change happened, I attributed it to them getting older and getting more friends.

Plus, I developed an even unhealthier relationship with food than I had already developed previously and was eating all my feelings away. this made my blood sugar and weight skyrocket (At 24, I was diagnosed with diabetes which was another major hit to my mental health. I’ll explain the link in another post.) I ended up needing to move back in with my mom last year, and things have been going great between us for the past year and a half.

We are both healed enough that we don’t argue often, and even when we do, it doesn’t lead to catastrophic events. Plus, I no longer suffer with suicidal thoughts or urgent ti self harm. Also, not only did I get my bachelor’s last may, but I just got accepted to a Masters program at a New York State graduate school. I’m still not able to work, but I am incredibly happy with my life now for the most part. 

That being said, there are still difficulties resurgence with my eating patterns and gaining more weight after I just had a great loss.  My nightmares have also come back almost every night despite taking my medicine properly and still being in therapy.

So now that you know my story and what has led to my trauma, I will now share the top 5 things I am doing to cope with the trauma and the disorder.

Top 5…

1. Getting on a healthy schedule, whichever includes taking care of my physical and mental health needs, which includes sleep and taking all of my meds on time almost all the time.
2. Setting clear boundaries with people in my life when needed and taking a break from people who cannot respect those boundaries
3. Consistently going to therapy and opening up to trusted people, including to my professional therapist.
4. I am volunteering and helping others as much as I can so I am able to turn my trauma into growth.
5. And last but definitely not least, making use of resources like hotlines, warm lines, activities out of the house with friends, or myself in the community, attending trauma recovery workshops, and trying to start a support group for PTSD and recovering from trauma. I also use self reflection and self exploration to find out how trauma has affected my self-concept and to discover who I am without traumatic events constantly being part of my life.

So this was a pretty heavy post, but I really felt I needed to get out what’s been going on with me, and how I’ve been coping with it in case my story and recovery help anyone in a similar situation. If anything in this post has been too triggering, I apologize and hope you will use the resources on the resource page of this blog or any others in your local area to get help getting through these difficult emotions.

The new US. Nationwide  988 crisis hotline is always open and can provide support to prevent a difficult mental health situation from turning into a full mental health crisis. Best of all, they only utilize 911 as a last resort if they feel someone is at immediate risk of self-harm or dying by suicide. Though, if you or someone you know do need extra support that seems like an emergency please do call 911 for help.

That is all for this blog. Also, as part of Suicide Awareness Month, I am volunteering for the 4th year at an American Foundation for Suicide Prevention  Out of the Darkness Walk that is happening in my community. At some point this month, I will make a post about my work with them and why I had to step down from the planning committee.