Dear Bloggers,
As some of you might
know that my wife is suffering from Complex PTSD caused by her managers over a period of
three years and then something in her brain just snapped. Since this event she
has been in therapy and until today there is no way to cure her fully. This
means that there are no opportunities for her to do any kind of job. As there
are to many triggers out there and she might be harmful towards other people.
Instead of working she is going two mornings in a week to a farm with care for
people with mental challenges and she is learning to do some light tasks and
learns to ride a horse.
Complex PTSD is a
traumatic experience due to workplace bullying or sexual abuse. But as more
attention is paid to these kinds of experiences and exactly what they can do to
victims, we are beginning to understand more about this condition. And this
increased understanding should, in turn, give hope to the hundreds of people
who find themselves subjected to workplace bullying every day.
Because the victims of
C-PTSD do exhibit some of the same symptoms seen in standard PTSD, it can
easily be misdiagnosed. But C-PTSD sufferers also exhibit some other symptoms
that are more specific to the condition. These can include difficulties
regulating emotions such as prolonged sadness, inability to control your temper
or inhibited temper, and even suicidal thoughts. My wife became a victim of
workplace bullying by her manager.
Other symptoms of
complex PTSD include either forgetting or consistently reliving traumatic
events; feeling detached from your own body and thoughts; overwhelming feelings
of helplessness, shame, guilt or stigma; a distorted perception of the bully.
Workplace bullying is so much more than just making your job more difficult. It
is a very real form of abuse that can undermine a person’s entire sense of
well-being.
By understanding the
realities of C-PTSD, we can begin to break through the wall that surrounds
workplace bullying and begin to let victims know that they are not alone
and healing is very much possible. It will not work after three years of
constant abuse at the certain point you might just snap.
Just an example of what
you encounter with a partner with C-PTSD
All of a sudden
a loud scream and she is sitting straight up in our bed her heart is pounding,
I am fully awake at 2 am. She is totally panic-stricken and consumed with
terror in her eyes. And mumbles: “He is throwing me out of a window”.
Our bedroom is
quiet. There are no intruders, only our faithful hairy friends Fedde and Heiko
are standing on the other side of the bedroom door.
I wonder if her
loud screaming has scared any of our children.
After 5 minutes,
maybe 10 minutes as I lie in a snoozing mode again, I feel her and she is
terrified in our darkened room. I try to decide if I should call a doctor to
give her something to calm her down… perhaps I’m having it wrong and is it only
just a bad dream. I am both afraid and confused. I know that it is safe in our
bedroom, that there is no immediate threat, but her body and emotions are
hijacked, and without my consent I find her immersed in past horrifying events.
Thankfully I do
know now, from more than 8 years of experience, that a panic attack will
eventually pass.
It feels like
it’s going to kill her, but it won’t. but her body and emotions are hijacked,
and without my consent I find her immersed in past horrifying events. I have to
wait it out.
PTSD is
typically the result of a specific, horrifying event, Complex PTSD is the
consequence of numerous traumatic events, over a longer period of time. CPTSD
is frequently caused by childhood abuse and neglect or, in my wife’s case,
being trapped for many years in a very abusive workplace.
Complex PTSD and
PTSD share symptoms, but there are some symptoms unique to CPTSD. If you are
interested in a somewhat detailed list of symptoms for both PTSD and CPTSD, you
can scroll to end of this post.
When I look
objectively at the symptoms of PTSD and Complex PTSD, I can check off 99% of
them (anger isn’t a symptom for her and also low self esteem has never been an
issue) but still she tries to live in denial that she has CPTSD… until she is
triggered and panicking so badly that she is struggling to speak’
Every morning she is waking up and begins her day with
limited emotional energy. Our children are priority so she does everything to
work around her limitations with PTSD to be available for them. She carefully
plans her day tasks and she is trying to avoid crowds when she has to go to the
shop.
One crowded, overwhelming event can sideline her for
several days afterwards, so she is choosing her activities carefully, mindful
of the probable fallout.
Still, 8 1/2 years after escaping her abusive
managers, she still has nightmares and panic attacks. She is having huge gaps
in her memories of the past years.
CPTSD is basically an emotional injury ~ an invisible
illness. Since it isn’t as tangible as a broken bone I frequently have to
remind her that living so much of her life being on “high alert” and in “panic
mode” is both emotionally and physically exhausting.
According to my wife: “For me, being triggered causes a level of
overwhelm that is very difficult to describe. Research done by PTSD
patients has shown that when someone with PTSD is triggered and panics,
the right half of the brain “takes over” and the logical, thinking left side of
the brain is sometimes almost totally “shuts down.” When this happens to me it
becomes almost impossible for me to speak and I can’t think. All I am aware of
is the panic and a desperate need to hide. If I were walking with someone else,
we would have to stop talking until the truck has passed because there would be
no way to hear each other over the noise of the truck. For the minutes that the
truck is roaring past, there is only the truck. I am totally consumed by the
noise and vibrations of the passing truck.
I’ve been told repeatedly that in many ways my situation was (and
continues to be) somewhat extreme and unique. I am still struggling and doing
little steps forward.”
There’s no way
around it: PTSD sucks. There are ways that she has improved a lot in the past 8
years though. I can now write about it here on my blog. As horrible as CPTSD
is, I want you to know this: there is still joy in the midst of the struggle.
I still laugh
with my children. We have so much fun together. Our girls love to make us
laugh… it’s become a bit of a competition between them to see who can show the
funniest memes each day.
I have been
blessed with two Shetland Sheepdogs, one of them is being a service dog for me.
They bring all of us so much joy. Truthfully, I am not sure that She’ll ever
will totally “conquer” her CPTSD but she is slowly but surely learning to
manage it.
Instead of
actively working she is trying to learn new ways to heal and better manage the
symptoms of PTSD while she embraces her weakness and
struggles. Many people do recover from PTSD and even CPTSD. There are numerous
healing resources to explore. Perhaps you are also in the thick of PTSD or
CPTSD.
CPTSD is a more
severe form of Post-traumatic stress disorder. It is delineated from this
better known trauma syndrome by five of its most common and troublesome
features: emotional flashbacks, toxic shame, self-abandonment, a vicious inner
critic and social anxiety.
- CPTSD emotional
flashbacks do not typically have a visual component. Emotional flashbacks
are sudden and often prolonged regressions to the overwhelming feelings of
past abuse/abandonment.
- Fatigue with symptoms
of or similar to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
- Numbness, both
physical (toes, fingertips, and lips) and emotional (inability to feel
love and joy)
- Clumsiness
- Hyperawareness and an
acute sense of time passing, seasons changing, and distances travelled
- Feelings of
worthlessness, rejection, a sense of being unwanted, unlikeable and
unlovable
- Social isolation,
avoidance of relationships
- night terrors, chronic insomnia
- Variations in
consciousness, including forgetting traumatic events (i.e. Psychogenic
amnesia), reliving experiences (either in the form of intrusive PTSD
symptoms or in ruminative preoccupation), or having episodes of
dissociation.
- explosive or extremely
inhibited anger (may alternate)
- Changes in
self-perception, such as a chronic and pervasive sense of helplessness,
paralysis of initiative, shame, guilt, self-blame, a sense of defilement
or stigma, and a sense of being completely different from other human
beings
If I could share
one thing with you it would be this: please be gentle and take care
of yourself.
The Old Sailor,
