It is okay if you donât have the âtextbookâ story of success. It is okay if your life doesnât live up to the âfairytaleâ expectations that weâre fed as children. It doesnât mean that youâve failed.
Something I struggle with immensely is feeling as though Iâm not enough. I see my peers achieving things that I wanted for myself and interpret that as a sign that Iâm âbehindâ in life. University and career expectations, partners, children, financial stability - all things that I thought would be a part of my life by now but arenât. It hurts that they arenât, and my âdefaultâ position is to assume that this is due to my own incompetency and inadequacy. My peers have achieved things and I havenât, so that obviously means Iâm inherently a failure, right?
I know Iâm not alone in this feeling, and I know that it can arise from a lot of different situations. I want to unpack it in the context of cPTSD.
Trauma f*cks with your development. It messes with your cognitions and you have to put in considerably more effort to achieve what others seem to achieve easily. It doesnât make you flawed, but Iâd be lying if I said it didnât make you different. Your experience of life has been shaped by an extended period of horror. While others were developing healthily, your entire existence revolves around trying to survive. Others didnât face the threats that youâve faced - they had time to socialise, to develop skills and talents, to lay their roots and work towards their future. All of this takes cognitive and physical energy - cognitive and physical energy that you couldnât spare, because if you WERE to spare it, it may have cost you your life.
A person who hasnât experienced complex trauma does not have the same starting line as you do, so itâs unfair to yourself to measure your successes on the same scale. CPTSD evolves because youâve survived horrific circumstances - the key word being that you survived. How is living through something that very well could have killed you not a sign of the utmost success? You defied the odds - you are alive and that is not something to be taken lightly. The nature of cPTSD makes that fact very difficult to take on board but the reality remains - it is fact.
Next time youâre comparing yourselves to your more âtraditionallyâ successful peers, remind yourself that youâve spent most of your life in survival mode. If youâd focused on study or work or friends or ANYTHING other than simply making it through, you might not be here to tell your story. And your story is amazing. It is a story of triumph and of strength and of resilience, and that is your very own version of success.
