TRIGGERS
C-PTSD has ways of popping up when you least expect it. The simplest of things can be triggers. They can come just about any form. For me, mine have included:
1. Gentle rubbing of my arm or a hand on my shoulder
2. Men older than me getting too close or being alone with an older male
2. Laundry rooms
3. Sports cars
4. Phone ringing
5. Hand bells in a traditional church service
7. Certain smells-musty houses, foods, etc
There are more but I don’t like trying to recall them all. When I am triggered the first thing that happens is my heart rate and breathing increases and my mind goes to a panic disorganized state. Flashbacks come to me in pieces and flashes. In the beginning, I would trace the flashback and find it’s origin buried deep in my memory. It would come out in nightmares or fragmented memories. This was in the beginning of my healing journey. It was important to me to know what I had repressed and to explore how those things affected me and why I have the coping strategies and habits of self protection and perfectionism that I have.
But there came a time that these details no longer mattered to me. I knew enough, and I was ready to start healing, not just remembering. I asked my therapist if it was necessary to uncover everything to fully heal, because I really had no desire to dig further. She said it’s different for everyone, but I knew I was done digging.
Now I had identified what was stealing my joy (C-PTSD), why I had it in the first place, and now I was ready to take my life back. It became a battle to become my authentic self. The self that wasn’t damaged, that wasn’t scared, and was most importantly whole.
Once that became the goal, things happened fast with regard to my healing. I had wayyyy fewer flashbacks, and when I did I saw it as saying F-you (only phrase strong enough) to the devil when I used strategies to stay present, control my breathing, and not let the flashback cause me to dissociate or steal my enjoyment. Then saying F-you to the devil became addicting. Each time my new strategies worked I stole more and more power from the C-PTSD and aquired more power for my new “whole” authentic self. As this repetition happens, neurologically speaking we develop new neural pathways. This is the basis of what I do as an OT with kids, help them develop and through repetition solidify new neural pathways for motor, sensory, emotional, and behavioral responses to stimuli. I knew this worked, I had seen it over and over in OT practice so I was excited each time I had the opportunity to deepen my new neural pathways by not letting my old strategies surface when triggered. It became self perpetuating, the more I did it the better I got at it and the more confident I became that I could have my life back.
Life has a layer of spiritual warfare happening all around us that we are not always aware of. The devil will take note of our struggles and try to keep us distracted by the pains of the past. My battle with C-PTSD is a spiritual battle and through deepening my relationship with Christ, spending more and more time with him in prayer and meditation on His word, I found the power I had from God to fight the evil in my own life with wisdom and self control. The importance of alone time, time with God, and self care was TREMENDOUS. God gave me this in a very strange way. My physical health was not good, likely due to the emotional stress of C-PTSD and some physical issues I was having that were unrelated. This resulted in time out of work and lots of time alone. This became a blessing that allowed time for true healing emotionally and physically.
Trauma shapes us but it doesn’t have the power to define us, we can choose to take the power back and weaken it to the point that even when it raises its ugly head we can say F-you, stay present, and enjoy the present without the past stealing our joy.
I still have times that the triggers will alter my mood temporarily (a few hours now) but they no longer cause me to dissociate, panic, or have physical responses like chest pain, diarrhea, etc. I’m now on a mission to keep them from even altering my mood and making me grouchy. I’m hoping that once they don’t have any power at all they will disappear completely, because the frequency of their occurrence now is minimal. But my goal and prayer is that they will be extinct!
If you are experiencing your own battle with C-PTSD, please know healing is possible.