CPTSD & Me ...

[asupportedlife]

Today’s sensory support is in the form of smell. Our beautiful plum tree smells amazing as it blossoms. Sitting only two feet away from it while my son has a bounce on the trampoline feels good.

[asupportedlife]

A whole year ago, this is how you do sensory support! Let your child play in water…it dries.

Image description: a small child stands in a huge puddle on a large grass field. The sky is blue with fluffy white clouds hovering and the trees line the field. The child is knee deep in water, and wears a dark blue jumper and black pants.

[c-ptsdrecovery]

Emotional Flashback Management

When people think of PTSD and “flashbacks”, they often think of someone re-experiencing a traumatic experience like combat: seeing and hearing the traumatic experience almost like a hallucination. But Complex PTSD often involves a kind of flashback known as an “emotional flashback”. These flashbacks do not have a visual or memory component to them: they are simply a sudden flood of negative emotions like shame, fear, anger, sadness, helplessness, and hopelessness. People with C-PTSD therefore often don’t realize that they’re having a flashback, or even that they have PTSD. One of the key parts of C-PTSD recovery is learning to recognize and manage these flashbacks to traumatic childhood experiences.

The best source I’ve found so far on emotional flashbacks is Pete Walker’s book Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. In this book and on his website, Walker suggests the following steps for emotional flashback management:

MANAGING EMOTIONAL FLASHBACKS 

1. Say to yourself: “I am having a flashback.” Flashbacks take us into a timeless part of the psyche that feels as helpless, hopeless and surrounded by danger as we were in childhood. The feelings and sensations you are experiencing are past memories that cannot hurt you now. 

2. Remind yourself: “I feel afraid but I am not in danger! I am safe now, here in the present.” Remember you are now in the safety of the present, far from the danger of the past. 

3. Own your right/need to have boundaries. Remind yourself that you do not have to allow anyone to mistreat you; you are free to leave dangerous situations and protest unfair behavior. 

4. Speak reassuringly to your Inner Child. The child needs to know that you love her unconditionally– that she can come to you for comfort and protection when she feels lost and scared. 

5. Deconstruct eternity thinking. In childhood, fear and abandonment felt endless—a safer future was unimaginable. Remember the flashback will pass as it has many times before. 

6. Remind yourself that you are in an adult body with allies, skills and resources to protect you that you never had as a child. (Feeling small and little is a sure sign of a flashback.) 

7. Ease back into your body. Fear launches us into “heady” worrying, or numbing and spacing out. 

Gently ask your body to relax. Feel each of your major muscle groups and softly encourage them to relax. (Tightened musculature sends unnecessary danger signals to the brain.) 

Breathe deeply and slowly. (Holding the breath also signals danger.) 

Slow down. Rushing presses the psyche’s panic button. 

Find a safe place to unwind and soothe yourself: wrap yourself in a blanket, hold a stuffed animal, lie down in a closet or a bath, take a nap. 

Feel the fear in your body without reacting to it. Fear is just an energy in your body that cannot hurt you if you do not run from it or react self-destructively to it. 

8. Resist the Inner Critic’s catastrophizing. (a) Use thought-stopping to halt its exaggeration of danger and need to control the uncontrollable. Refuse to shame, hate or abandon yourself. Channel the anger of self-attack into saying no to unfair self-criticism. (b) Use thought-substitution to replace negative thinking with a memorized list of your qualities and accomplishments. 

9. Allow yourself to grieve. Flashbacks are opportunities to release old, unexpressed feelings of fear, hurt, and abandonment, and to validate—and then soothe—the child’s past experience of helplessness and hopelessness. Healthy grieving can turn our tears into self-compassion and our anger into self-protection. 

 10. Cultivate safe relationships and seek support. Take time alone when you need it, but don’t let shame isolate you. Feeling shame doesn’t mean you are shameful. Educate those close to you about flashbacks and ask them to help you talk and feel your way through them. 

11. Learn to identify the types of triggers that lead to flashbacks. Avoid unsafe people, places, activities and triggering mental processes. Practice preventive maintenance with these steps when triggering situations are unavoidable. 

12. Figure out what you are flashing back to. Flashbacks are opportunities to discover, validate and heal our wounds from past abuse and abandonment. They also point to our still-unmet developmental needs and can provide motivation to get them met. 

13. Be patient with a slow recovery process. It takes time in the present to become un-adrenalized, and considerable time in the future to gradually decrease the intensity, duration and frequency of flashbacks. Real recovery is a gradual process—often two steps forward, one step back. Don’t beat yourself up for having a flashback. 

[youre-myfavoritebird]

I find it helpful to focus on my surroundings, naming 5 objects I can see, maybe some things I can hear or smell or feel.

Talking to a loved one is also great!

Weirdly sleeping seems to break up my (emotional) flashbacks.

[c-ptsdrecovery]

Oo, good addition! Grounding techniques are really helpful for Step 7, “Ease back into your body”. When I had trouble with flashbacks, one thing that helped me was to hold something from the freezer in my hands, because the shock of the cold helped me stay grounded in my body.

[asupportedlife]

[asupportedlife]

(Your child’s) toilet triumph. Share this far and wide, I cannot even stress enough how little support there is for visual learners out there. People will tell you till the cows come home that visuals make the biggest difference, but they often don’t exist, they don’t know where to find them or you don’t even know who to ask or what you’re looking for.

There are a million barriers in communicating with your own child. In my life I’ve always been the person to pay it forward. A few weeks ago I met a woman who suggested this video to us to help my son learn to use the toilet. It’s called Tom’s toilet triumph and is available on YouTube. My appointment was for myself, I didn’t know this woman would also have an autistic son and that we would spent the majority of the time talking about our sons.

When she offered me this gem I knew it was something that was going to be good. Our son watches YouTube a lot, it’s how he experiences things and communicates with us, it’s how he plays and has fun and it’s also how he learns. I put the video into his playlist and sure enough he found it on his own and has been enjoying watching it on repeat. It also helps that our son is really fucken into frogs as there is a frog that pops up like a cheerleader.

I broke it down to the most important parts and took screenshots, using the same language as the video where possible as to keep continuity for the user. I cannot take credit for the art/imagery/video but I do take credit for turning it into a working visual aide. When you print them off, print your child’s name in the blank space above the words “toilet triumph”.

So yeah, going to the toilet is something neuro typical, able bodied people, very much take for granted. Learning to use the toilet should be a supported activity and I hope that this is shared far and wide so people can benefit from it. There is no shame in needing to use nappies of course but having the choice and learning how to use the toilet is also fucking awesome for your young person/family member.

Image description: Broken down steps of how to use the toilet for learners of all age who have a penis. Wees and poos visuals.

[asupportedlife]

When you smack you child, you show them how to hit mine.

When you call your child names, you show them how to do that to mine.

When you put your child down and make them feel small, you show them how to do that to mine.

When you ignore your child and punish them with silence, you show them how to do that to mine.

When you’re cruel to your child, you show them how to be cruel to mine.

When you’re scary and make your child feel powerless, you show them how to use their anger to make mine feel powerless and scared.

You are your child’s first teacher and you can be their first bully. You can show your child just how to react with anger, bully and torture another child, simply by doing all of the above.

If we want school and workplace bullying to end, we must start with our parenting. We must take responsibility and choose to break the cycle. We must look at our own childhood, take it apart piece by piece and find out why we hold the belief systems we do.

We can make change, we just have to be willing to start and say, actually, this is my problem.

[asupportedlife]

Yesterday’s sensory support was auditory, in th form of a text to speak app.

Depression takes hold and I struggle to maintain a constant sense of self. On the way to my appointment yesterday I found myself unable to speak. My partner was talking to me about our new house, tiles of all things. I quickly googled a text to speak app and started using it to join him in conversation. It was funny because at first I typed, I’m having trouble speaking…the voice that came out was Australian and sounded so robotic, nothing like my own. He’s gotten so used to me using AAC in those really hard moments, that he knew what I was doing and just continued on. Which is amazing, he just kept going and when I wanted to talk I typed and then signalled with my hand when I wanted to say my piece. I’m so proud of myself for choosing to support myself in this way.

[asupportedlife]

Went for a specialist appointment yesterday, we spent more time talking about my son than we did on the issue I was there for. Turns out her son is autistic too. And at least she was on the same page we are in that ABA is fucking abusive bullshit. She said I could ask her anything, I asked what her son’s language looked like when he was younger. And still I didn’t connect. I’ve not met one parent who’s child’s language is developing the way our son’s is. Our son didn’t follow the “typical autistic pathway” in that he never had language to lose. Most kids start talking and then have a period where they seem to withdraw and lose their words.

It’s so fucking hard living every single day as a guessing game as to what your child needs and having no one that understands. The combination of my mental illness and him being autistic makes for a very fucking lonely life.

[asupportedlife]

No sensory support, just worry. Worry our whole country will be put into lockdown all because people wanna keep having holidays despite covid killing people left right and center. I mean, I guess if you have to holiday in the sun, then everyone else be damned 🤷🏼‍♀️

[asupportedlife]

Tonight’s sensory support is heat, because it’s fucking cold here

Image description: gif of a roaring fire in a black fire place with glass door, sitting on white tiles, the wall behind it is white also.

[asupportedlife]

This morning’s sensory support is touch, in the form of modelling clay. My son loves bugs, not real ones but toys are ok. He loves the caterpillar I made the other day and I know he will love these just as much. They’ll be a neat find for him when he comes home from kindy.

Image description: four small multicoloured handmade worms sit on white baking paper. They’re made up of red, light and dark blue, pink, purple, white and yellow modelling clay. They have very small eyes and are all in their own form of wiggly shape.

[asupportedlife]

Tonight’s sensory support was touch, in the form of cleaning the kitchen. Being an adult and all that entails is fucking hard, then add mental illness and a child and it’s even tougher. We are downsizing and moving later this year or early next year. Something I struggle with is taking care of things, my house included. This is a direct result of not being cared for as a child the way a child should be.

Anyhow, I’m very proud of myself that I achieved this clean kitchen. I was so proud of it that I put the picture on Pinterest 😂 (laughing crying emoji).

Image description: photo is of a kitchen with white cupboards that have black handles. Dark grey tiles line the floor which matches the dark grey stone bench top. The walls are grey with white subway tile going half way up the wall. There is an oven tower at the end of the bench. A toaster and jug sit on the bench at one end, the sink sits in the middle of the bench and there is a fake cactus at the other end. A clock sits high on the wall, it has a white face with mint green surround, the time reads six o clock. The window is obscured by a Roman blind that is white with a duck egg blue and light brown flower pattern.

[asupportedlife]

Re post from @omgheyrose over on Instagram, one of my fave queens💜🌈(Purple Heart emoji and rainbow emoji).

This hit me like a tonne of bricks, I don’t usually reblog or share things here but I felt compelled to because of how much I felt this internally.

If you are living in a home that does not accept you, please know there is love beyond your home environment. You aren’t bad or damaged, you were born who you are and that’s ok. Parents can be really fucked up simply because of the way they were parented. It’s not to excuse it, but can help give us perspective when thinking about it all.

You are worthy, you have value as a human being, you are uniquely you and cannot be replaced.

You matter, you always have and always will.

Image description: words on a rainbow background, they read, Pride is still important because someone tonight still believes they’re better off dead than being themselves. The artist or profile tag at the bottom reads @gregoryarlt

[asupportedlife]

Yesterday’s sensory support was visual, bought to me by my son in the form of him building a train track. Out of the 30 or so pictures I took, I do really love this one. His little hand trying to put broken track together reminds me of the determination he has. Bear in mind, we have lots of track that isn’t broken. As he persisted in playing with the broken pieces, it became clear that there was something about the struggle that he was enjoying or learning from.

Taking a moment to step back and allow him to be frustrated is how I allow him to build resilience. When a parent takes over and fixes things for the child, it teaches the child that someone else knows best, they don’t learn to trust themselves and that can have dire consequences in adulthood.

By staying close, giving him gentle encouragement and support, he was able to move through the frustration and keep his play going.

Image description: the pale hand of a small child can be seen putting pieces of blue train tracks together on a white table.

[asupportedlife]

This afternoon’s sensory support is touch, using modeling clay. I’m no artist, although I can make many different things well. Making things like this has never been my forte.

The things you do as a parent though. I keep different sensory things around and decided to make some little things for my son to play with. Growing up we did a lot of crafting at the kitchen table. We were always making little pencil holders out of tin cans and yoghurt pots. We would use scraps of fabric and ribbons Mum gave us, we could always use the button box too. Looking back, it was just recycled things that she could give us and we could have something new at the end without us having to spend any money. It really is magical as a kid being able to create that. And while my son isn’t at the stage yet where he actively understands making something from scratch, I still enjoy making things for him from little bits around the house. Or in this case, from something I’d saved for a rainy day activity that was very cheap and will go a long long way.

This was not only a bit of fun for me, as I sat along side him I got to ask him questions about what he thought about what I was making. He was using the playdoh and pointing out the colours to me as he saw them. But now he gets to have something that he can use in different ways with the toys he already has. In the past hour I’ve watched as he is showing his toy bee the flowers. It’s so awesome to watch him enjoy them so much ❤️ (heart emoji).

Image description: six small handmade clay figurines sit on a flat tray that is white. There is a black spider with a large red spot on its back, it has six white eyes and eight legs. The spider is the larger of the pieces. Underneath the spider sits a flower with pink petals, it has a yellow middle and two toned green leaves. Sitting next to that is a small purple rose bud that is wrapped in a green leaf. Below that is a small orange pumpkin. Next to the pumpkin is a two tone green caterpillar. It has two white eyes and black feelers. It is light and dark green. Above that is a butterfly, lighter blue, darker blue, purple inside and a silver cashew in the center.

[asupportedlife]

Today’s sensory support is touch, in the form of gardening. I had to first weed the top half, then weed all around the strawberry plants, make space for more of the runners. Transplant new strawberry plants I was given last week, and also plant the cornflowers I grew from seed. I can’t wait to see their beautiful display of bright blue, hopefully they take off now that they’re in the garden. This activity was hard for me because I hate getting things on me, especially mud and dirt. Having said that, I found out not long ago that if I start, and just focus on pulling the weeds then I can withstand the feeling of the dirt. And afterwards I wash my hands a lot and use hand cream to help with the dry feeling that I also don’t like.I’ve always felt like a human catch 22. If you also live with BPD, you’ll likely understand what I mean.

Image description: a large rectangular garden bed made of wood, filled with strawberry plants and they have hay scattered around them.

[asupportedlife]

My sensory support for today, Taste! Perhaps not though because it tasted like you’d just smoked a j from grass grown in the bush. Living with CPTSD means I also live with chronic pain. Trauma, especially childhood trauma, often leaves people with life long physical pain that they cannot get rid of and there is no treatment for. So, taking things into my own hands because there is nothing else I can do, I decided to try some CBD oil.

I also live with Somatic Pain Disorder, essentially it is emotional pain from my past that my body has stored and is now releasing it in the form of physical pain within my body. In particular today I’m being affected by allodynia again. To me it feels like I am simultaneously being burned and frozen in different parts of my body. Having had third degree burns from the sun as a teenager, this feeling is comparable and not at all exaggerated.

This pain is always triggered by something but this time I’ve not been able to joint the dots. Never mind, supporting myself through it is all I can do now, dwelling on the why is never helpful for me. I’m hoping that this oil helps my body heal as it’s pretty much the last thing I’ve yet to try.

Image description: a thin bottle with a green label sits on a grey bench in front of white subway tiles. There’s a cannabis leaf on the top of the label, it reads Maki’s Cannabis Essential Remedy, cannabis roots and thc infused rice bran oil.