Off the rails : CPTSD Cycle

Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

is a bitch.
I was trying for something more academic sounding, but let’s face it, I’m not on that plane today. Nope, today is one of those days where I’m just trying to figure out where I put my sh*t. Or, more accurately, where I lost it.

I know when. That much I am certain of. But, where all my bits scattered to after that I have no bloody idea. I’m off the rails, ground to a halt and trying to find a way to right myself and start moving again.

I hate this.

A cornerstone of my CPTSD

And yet, I know this process very well. This is a cornerstone of my CPTSD. This cycle repeats itself ad nauseum. Every time through this process these days I’m better at being able to identify which part of the cycle I am in. That, although it sounds trivial is a huge step.

It used to be that I didn’t know what was happening. My CPTSD manifests in many ways. The aspect being activated here is my emotional dysregulation. The cycle goes something like this.

It almost seems like nothing’s wrong.

Calm, cool, collected. Moving forward with life tasks and goals.
Small emotional moments are managed by either listening to the emotion or ignoring.
The sum of the emotion is no change in my equilibrium.

CPTSD : Normal or Intensely dangerous? From the inside I really can’t tell.

An event of intense emotion.
The event can be almost anything and can trigger almost any emotion possible. The track-record is more to the negative, but positive emotional events have also kicked the cycle into motion.
In the event there is a sharp dichotomy about expressing or not expressing what I am feeling. More often than not I fall to the side of repression. Which, as loved ones have told me, can feel deceptively normal – or intensely dangerous. I’ll admit, from the inside I can’t tell the difference.
On the upside, I am at least getting better at acknowledging that I am feeling ‘something’. Even if I cannot always identify the emotion, these days I am at least aware that I am feeling. It may sound inconsequential, but for someone who has lived with emotional paralysis for 40+ years, this is a huge step.

CPTSD : Believe me when I call it work.

Working my way out of ‘the moment.’ Because of the confusion surrounding my emotions, their muted state and sometimes just the delay in determining what is happening, the ‘moment’ of emotion can last. It is like sitting down and teasing apart lines of rope that have been coated in tar. Laboriously I peel apart the strands of what I am thinking from what I am feeling. At the end of the process I need to sit with that feeling and try to not only understand it in a rational manner, but to also process it at an emotional level. That processing is another intense period of labor as the creaking and stunted machinery of my inner emotional self is prodded into motion.
Previous patterns of attempting to ignore or stuff the feelings away results in anger, depression and intense self-loathing. Enough of that and I will begin to start longing for ‘out’.
So, these days I work through it. Believe me when I call it work. It is.

CPTSD : The aftermath is all encompassing.

The aftermath of one of these events is all encompassing. Every system of myself suffers under the impact of such an event. Physically there might be muscle spasms, stomach upset, migraines, exhaustion. Emotionally the rawness caused by this unprepared for intensity leaves me in one of two states; hyper-aroused or depressed. Periods of hyper-arousal are followed by emotional numbness.
There is another feature in all this backwash. The question inevitably comes up of “Why am I doing this again?” Why am I spending time and effort and money on trying to connect with these emotions when I was doing well-enough as an automaton?
All those storylines where an android wants to ‘become a real boy’ – wow, I’m pretty sure I could talk them out of it. Because, seriously – why am I doing this?

CPTSD : Recovering my balance.

Much as I wish that recovery from such an event was as simple as recognizing that I am in the midst of one, it isn’t. Recovery takes time. Time to process the emotions. Time to process the event that caused it. Time to herd the physical and mental processes back on-line. Time to pour it all out onto a page in an effort to move past the wreckage. Time to reflect, but not to fall into an old pattern of over analysis.

That is where I am, right now.

I’m trying to feel my jaw unknot. I’m coaxing my shoulders to relax. Telling my stomach that this too shall pass and to try to stop cannibalizing itself. Above all reminding myself to breathe.

I will end with a couple of quotes from Winston Churchill:
First “When going through Hell, keep walking,” and the second – “Success is never permanent, and failure is not fatal.”

So – here’s me, walking.