Living with Complex PTSD
If you have read some of my
previous blogs by now you will get a theme or flavour on how I write and how I
share my feelings on various points of view, now this one follows on or could
follow on from respecting my mental health, but of course, this is up to you or
you may be coming to this new as you are interested in what I have to say, this
is up to you.
Here goes... I have Complex
PTSD because when I survived my school life, I say survived it because it was
hell, especially the secondary school part of it because I went to the boarding
school of hell because when I entered that place for the first day of my
academic life I was physically bullied, not just the name-calling but being
physically kicked, punched, spat at, etc. I wanted to run away but I could not
because I had Autism which made me freeze to the spot, which I gather now is a
type of reaction that the human body takes over which is a defence strategy to
overcome stress and anxiety.
It made no difference if I
tried to report this action which a person had violated against me because it
seemed like everyone was against me whatever route I took and even my horrid
tutor was also my science teacher made my life unbearable and even encouraged
the bullying, or having meltdowns, they even accused me of being my own worst
enemy. Later when I was 12, I had my first sexual encounter and I was abused I
am not going into the details because it is revolting, and I had to endure this
every term I was there and right up until I was 16 nice especially when you are
trying hard to study for your CSE’s and the staff were useless and ignored this
behaviour.
To cut a long account short I
later found out that this type of behaviour and actions is what is now known as
Complex PTSD, now you have some of the backgrounds to why I have it, it helps
you find out why I behave in certain ways which unfortunately I cannot control,
some psychiatrists and doctors would want to put me on medication, however, I
cannot take medication because this has nasty side effects and possibly it
reacts with other medication that I take for my other complex conditions. The
school of thought now is to take the other approach such as CBT, or other
therapies, which could be music therapy and art therapy, which are just as
effective as taking medication.
Talking therapies do sometimes
tire you out, but at least you can get over them quickly and sleep them off
when you have finished your therapy whereas this is not the same as taking
drugs.
My experience with
psychologists has not been a good one as not all of them are the same, my
nightmare journey was with a mental health trust, which employs people who just
cannot speak English and who are not qualified to cope with people who have
complex trauma or people with my condition, and have no idea what they are
dealing with such as suggesting that you go to a secret place and that you have
a box for hiding things in, but is this appropriate for someone who has complex
PTSD and what I have been through I don’t think so and I had to go through
endless drivel for this every time and worksheets of blame which was doing
nothing to address the underlying problem and after several months of this I
discharged myself.
I then decided to refer myself
to CARA which is a charity dedicated to helping people like myself overcome
historical and current child sexual abuse, which in my case I am finding more
helpful and to the point and by someone who has also been through it. We do not
use the concept of the box to hide things in as we want to expose what has gone
in there to try and get things out as this does not help us, for example, I
hate small and confined rooms as I find it very apprehensive and frightening,
my brain will shut down and I will tend to focus on the one important thing to keep
myself going and to keep myself safe.
Coping with the apprehension of
it all is itself dreadful, let me explain my body will tremble, but most of all
my thighs and it is not like a restless leg, it is so bad that my hands can go to
the point that people think you have Parkinson’s (I don’t, I have essential tremor)
it’s like your fitting, so the only way to control this is to do box breathing
or imagine blowing out the candles on a cake, so we hold up our hand and as we
blow we put down a finger to represent the candle to cope with the stressful
situation that we are about to face or I might use humour as people do in a
hospital to cope with the stress and this is where people have got it wrong,
people on the outside, think it helps!
Another problem I have is
mindfulness or the body wave (the standard process that people use) I can’t do
it as it reminds me too much of pain in my body and is painful because it
reminds me of being sexually abused and raped, so this is why I will walk away
or turn my camera off and the sound off. There is an alternative that I would encourage
people to use to be aware of people who have problems both physically and
mentally and this is one whereby we focus on nature and we talk about the
curvature of leaves, the freshness of the grass that has been cut, take a deep
breath and feel the taste of nature, perhaps some back round music or even
birdsong,
What helps me when I have a stressful
moment is now to listen to jazz fusion up-tempo music as it helps my mind calm
down not easy when you have been raped and sexually abused. The other problem I
have is my subconscious is all over the place when I go to sleep so I might
dream about a WhatsApp message or text and believe it is real and literally and
they can be distressing, and some have been horrible when they are about your
close work colleagues and or friends. When they first started to happen which
was about two years ago I would wake up and look at my phone and believe that they
were there and I was so relieved that they weren’t but this kept happening for
weeks and months before they settled down.
I do suffer from deep sexual
dreams that are horrid, to the point that everything around me goes dark around
me and closes in like a box about to collapse, I can tell the difference from a
gay dream to a dark disgusting rape dream as this is my subconscious playing
up, but now if I get the text dream, I have created my way of telling myself it
is rubbish. Under a previous regime, I was told to wake myself up and go for a
walk and then chuck some water in my face and then go back to sleep, but this
is not advised as to why would you break your sleep as it can be more difficult
to get back to sleep!
I have recently found out that
some the Complex PTSD has elements of Autism, but I already have that as a separate
condition, so I get a double whammy, oh dear another brick wall moment I stand /sit
here, and do I take it, no I have to develop strategies to try and overcome the
issues I have.
I do not take medication as it
causes problems so I instead look to other ways of dealing with it, I write and
blog posts, I also paint and have taken to working with wax (encaustic art) I am
a very visual person and a creative as this helps me deal with some of the
problems however I still need a lot of support trying to cope with this mental
illness and live an everyday existence.
There are people out there who
have been helpful to me and they know who they are and some of them I have
spent a lot of time talking to, they know I need a lot more help in social
care, but I currently live in North East Essex and social care is becoming a
joke, not to laugh at, but to show how bad it is a system whereby I am trapped,
yes I am hoping to move to Greater London to get out this trap, and hopefully
get more help.
If you want me to talk about mental
health/ illness and how it affects me be this at a coproduction meeting as this
is the way I work best and through Personalisation or around a table, get in
touch with me at, remember the Tea & Coffee and chocolate biscuits!
@autismbuddies12
No comments:
Post a Comment