(Part 3) Top products from r/CPTSD

I want to encourage you and say your CPTSD won’t affecting your parenting and you providing her with love and security is enough, but I also don’t want to delude you into a false sense of security. To answer your question as to how I do it: Firstly, I put in a massive amount of effort everyday to keep myself grounded and mindful and conscious of how I’m acting/reacting towards my child. On top of that, I never let myself slip into depressive states. On top of that, I have learned to manage and control all of my triggers so that my emotional states never negatively affect my child.


One major element of CPTSD is that it is an attachment disorder. This attachment disorder WILL affect your ability to provide a consistent sense of safety and security to your little one unless you learn how to manage and counteract those insecurities. Another element of CPTSD is that it causes you to develop a distrust/distaste for humans, and a desire to avoid human interaction. This will be absolutely detrimental to your child as he/she ages. All children rely on their parents to provide them with safe, healthy and consistent family and friends. It’s a very tiring and very difficult job, but it creates a ‘safety net’ of security on which your child can lean. How you interact with and value others will turn into how your child interacts with and values others. You will have to spend lots of time around other moms, letting your child play with their child. It’s a strain on you emotionally and mentally, but it’s necessary for healthy child development.


The best advice I can give you as a fellow parent with CPTSD is to start searching for a trauma psychologist and get an appointment scheduled ASAP. Of course anyone can recover from CPTSD without the aid of a psychologist, but when you add a child to the mix, quality and speed of recovery becomes a very important factor. Getting a psychologist to help you process your trauma and learn newer and better ways to do things will save you a lot of time and heartache. A psychologist will also teach you the importance of obtaining and maintaining friendships, and how to better manage all the triggers that parenting will bring up for you.

In the meantime, here is a short list of my all-time favorite parenting books. I’ve read probably hundreds of parenting books at this point: most are bad, a few are great. These are the best, most knowledgeable books I’ve found for ‘people like us’, at least in my opinion:

The Conscious Parent: Transforming Ourselves, Empowering our Children

ParentSpeak: What's Wrong with How We Talk to Our Children--and What to Say Instead

The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind

The Parents We Mean To Be: How Well-Intentioned Adults Undermine Children's Moral and Emotional Development

The Attachment Parenting Book : A Commonsense Guide to Understanding and Nurturing Your Baby

No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind


Feel free to PM me anytime :)

First, you're welcome. It helps - often! - to have an outside observer.

So, her PTSD and your CPTSD are going to be different: hers is a single incident from an untrusted stranger; yours is repeat incidents from somebody you are supposed to be able to trust. So, she will need help understanding that.

> I'm just scared. I want to tell her all of it.

Do it!!

> I want to give her my diagnoses but it feels dumb why should she need to know or care?

Because she loves you.

I know that I felt so .. trusted and treasured .. when my partner told me.

It almost broke my heart, because I could see that she expected me to leave her in response.

> She said I could always look to her for help. She says that now but does she mean it?

Neither of you can know that until she knows the entire picture. So, yes, its a risk, but it also allows her to make an informed decision:

If you tell her this, and she opts in to loving and supporting you ... then you know she chose you as you are, and knowing what the costs will be.

> I want to care for her.

You do care for her.

> I want to touch her and be affectionate but my dumb brain stops me and tells me she doesn't want it.

I all-but-guarantee that she wants it.

I know I do, with my partner. I pine for her touch. She is almost unable to -- but knowing how hard it is makes those times that she does touch me very impactful:

She was hurt by something, and walked away hurting one night, and I was afraid that I'd lost her .. but she came back, knocked on my door, and when I opened it, hugged me .. it may have lasted five seconds, and then she had to pull away .. but knowing that she chose that discomfort for herself in order to tell me that she still loved me even if she was hurting ..

God. Unless your partner is touch-repulsed, she wants your touch.

> Ugh. You're right I'm just so fucking terrified vulnerable and feel like I'm asking too much a lot from her no matter what I do.

FTFY.

Yes, you are asking a lot of her.

Being the partner to somebody with CTPSD and a history of CSA is not easy!!

It isn't for everyone.

Here's a book you might recommend for her:

Allies in Healing: When the Person You Love Was Sexually Abused as a Child

I'm wishing you all the courage and love in the world ... it is tough to tell somebody.

You can do it!

<3 <3 <3

p.s., either of you are welcome to PM me any time

Yep shame is the poison that isn't talked about. Depression and anxity get all the lime light but shame kills and wreckes lives just as much or even more.

Sexual surragacy is illegal here. Sex work and therapy are legal but not togther. It got to the stage that paying was the only option left, I was thinking about it for 10 years before it happened and it took my therapist encouraging me to get there, it was rough. Luckly the escort I chose is really good and she's had lots of other beginners so it went really well. I can only afford it like twice a year.

The pressure of knowing how sex, dating, flirtling works after we get past our early 20's is immense. It's super hard to deal with and I've also found it super hard to find help with. I ended up talking to a therapist that specializes in sexual abuse, she also said she doesn't work with many men. She's really good but also expensive, for me anyway mostly due to currency exchange rate. The videos are mostly geared towards women but it all applys to men as well.

The trap I'm trying not to fall into now is thinking that the only way for me to get affection is to pay for it. Wishing you all the very best, it's heart wrenching I know. I cannot find words for how hard it is really.

I highly recomend his book if you haven't read it

I actually just mentioned it in my reply to this thread here. Gendlin's work is highly influential in the world of psychotherapy, in particular what is called "experiential therapy" (therapy that focuses on creating healing experiences, rather than focusing on just working with thoughts). Gendlin's influence is cited by van der Kolk in The Body Keeps the Score, Peter Levine, Ron Kurtz, Diana Fosha (the founder of AEDP, the form of therapy that helped me), and a bunch of other trauma-oriented therapists. I'm not sre if Pete Walker mentions his work, but he's definitely been influenced by people who are familiar with Gendlin.

Focusing itself is not a form of therapy, but it's a process that all good therapy should facilitate: tuning in to your body and putting words to the experience in order to learn what is there. Just doing this simple thing can give you what Gendlin called a "felt shift." I would describe a felt shift as a tiny instance of healing. So many felt shifts, over time, add up to eventual healing. If you've experienced some form of healing in your journey, you've probably already experienced a felt shift, in fact. Many people do focusing without even realizing. Gendlin only put a name to what he observed successful therapy patients already doing.

Gendlin's original book on the topic is a good one, but a lot of people do find it vague and abstract. I still think it's worth reading, just to get it from the horse's mouth. It's cheap and a short book. But, I do think Ann Weiser Cornell's The Power of focusing is probably the most user-friendly and practical guide.

Hey, it’s fucking bullshit that cost is a factor when we’re facing a life-threatening injury. It’s bullshit that you have to figure out how to do this on your own. However, I know that you can do this. You’re already doing it — asking for help is the first step. Allow me to believe this for you until you can believe it yourself.

I have had unearned privilege that granted me immoral access to resources, some quite expensive or even elite, and I’ve worked my ass off, and I am living a meaningful life worth living.

However, I hope you find it encouraging that I made the most progress in reparenting myself using books that you might even be able to get at the library.

Complex PTSD: From Surviving To Thriving — Pete Walker

Codependent No More — Melody Beattie

Codependent No More WORKBOOK — Melody Beattie

Facing Codependence — Pia Mellody

Breaking Free WORKBOOK - Pia Mellody

Codependent behaviors and motivations overlap significantly with CPTSD, and codependency can be at the root of all kinds of trauma responses (freeze, fawn, fight, flight). So, strategies developed for codependence often include an element of reparenting, inner child work, etc.

I found going to co dependents anonymous meetings to be another cost-effective resource. (Usually suggested donation of $2, only if you have it.) Being around other people openly struggling towards healthy and loving relationships with themselves helped mitigate the shame I felt.

One important step in the process that I think it’s easy to skip over is giving thought about what kind of parent you are using to parent yourself? What are their qualities? Things like ‘patient, quiet, attentive, sober’ might come up.

Then, when you’re in need of reparenting,
You can ask yourself ‘how would a parent with the qualities I chose respond to me right now?’

It’s important that you’re activating your imagination in the reparenting process — try not to think of your ideal parent as the opposite of your actual parent. You’re trying to open up the brain to accepting a new idea — putting a splint on the trauma injury — so it’s not helpful to remind it of past patterns when you’re trying to write new ones.

I hope that made sense! Feel free to ask clarifying questions.

Her book on love is maybe the best book I’ve ever read. I’ve given it to like five people and I found it so helpful in my healing journey. Also, this quote is from that book. Ha. :)

Here’s the link:
https://www.amazon.com/All-About-Love-New-Visions/dp/0060959479

I recommend reading The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World.

yes these are definitely a sign that something went deeply wrong in your early childhood.

you might benefit like I did from this book on repressed memories

I didn't remember sexual abuse that occurred when I was 4-7 until I first deduced something like that must've happened to cause my behaviors and symptoms. we don't get powerful responses like your fear of the shower out of nowhere. something happened to give us those triggers.

Agreed. You and your kid(s) should also check out the Todd Parr book It's Okay to Make Mistakes :)

did work for me, maybe not for everyone: Hesse's 'Siddhartha'

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Not fictional although it made me feel like I was in the adventure of my life all throughout the book, two years later I read The Heart Of The World. Only in retrospective can I tell how much this fueled my seeking, not in my mind but in, at last, manifest action.

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I'll come back if I recall others.

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There's actually a book called "Boundaries," a friend recommended it and it helped me a ton! I don't know that I'll ever have "normal/healthy" boundaries, or if that's even possible for any of us, but the book helped me tremendously! Here is is if you want to check it out.

They argue in this book that you need to heal the attachment issues before the cptsd issues. I heard the author speak on it once and don’t know anything else about it .

I do have a source? I just told you. The image is a picture of text that IS from an academic source.

> Being an academic does not make everything you do academia

Ok but being an academic doing academic work does.

> has no peer review process and clearly has an agenda (promoting "psychiatric drug withdrawal). It's not academic. It's simply promoting pseudoscience and selling "education" for $100 a module.

and it links to academic papers... Mad in america is an aggregate for the papers not its publisher...

> If you want to talk goal posting shifting, why are you discussing SSRI's now? They're an entirely different class of drugs and aren't even used to treat adhd. So I take it you don't have anything to add about the long term impacts of stimulants and we'll call that one settled.

Because the discussion was about psychiatric drugs. I have never mentioned stimulants nor do I really care about the efficacy of them.

> Not for adhd. And even for the shift to discussing depression it doesn't support your claim.

Im not talking about adhd, well if that one paper is off there is a whole book on it.

Have you read Kelly Brogan’s A Mind of Your Own? She is of the view that depression is a symptom of inflammation and shares how to heal via diet, sleep, etc. I haven’t read it but have been reading up on the Immune-Cytokine Model of Depression.

I’m dying over here. I hate being nuts. I gotchu fam. I barely post anymore cause I get a part that goes back and deletes things.

Feeling Unreal: Depersonalization Disorder and the Loss of the Self https://www.amazon.com/dp/0195385217/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_J17nDbS9C8JM5

You can check out The father of Spin
https://www.amazon.com/Father-Spin-Edward-Bernays-Relations/dp/0805067892
It's about Edward Bernays, Freud's nephew, who pretty much started it all.
It's not exactly a feel good book.

A more positive one, is what I read now.
Privilege, Power and Difference by Allan Johnson.
https://www.amazon.com/Privilege-Power-Difference-Allan-Johnson/dp/0072874899
It takes a honest and non-judgmental approach about the structure of dominance and how to see it and change it.

About suicide. It's kind of expected that she wouldn't agree, right? Her job pretty much is to keep you alive. There is this conflict of interest there.

I am not suicidal now, but I do get it. When the fear of living overwhelms the fear of dying, there is really no other option. At least that is how I feel... I have no idea, if it's like that for all.
And the world is very fucked up and scary.

I really hope you find another option.

There is a great book called How I stayed Alive when my Brain was trying to kill me. The author has bpd and tried to kill herself many. many times. She talks about addictive/compulsive suicidal thoughts.

Anyway, one of the great takeaways is to say to yourself, I feel angry, sad, betrayed, unloved, lonely, etc and I have thoughts of suicide. So you learn that "suicidal" is NOT a feeling, it is caused by what I am feeling that I do not acknowledge or want to feel. Highly Recommend it.


https://www.amazon.com/Stayed-Alive-When-Brain-Trying/dp/0060936215/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?crid=16VALLPQRHAKU&keywords=how+i+stayed+alive+when+my+brain+was+trying+to+kill+me&qid=1551094286&s=gateway&sprefix=how+i+stayed%2Caps%2C214&sr=8-1-fkmrnull

Yes I have experienced this. I feel like stopping and listening to my thoughts/feelings can be a slippery slope to having a flashback. As a trauma survivor, it’s as if a movie is continuously playing scenes in the background of my mind related in some way to my past trauma. It’s as though I cannot or don’t have the will/way to stop playing the scene(s). Almost like a tv in another room, I can hear and see it, but mostly avoid going all the way into that room. When a flashback happens for me, I’m “in the tv room” and it consumes my thoughts completely. Along with these intrusive memories, I feel floods of intense emotions related to the memories followed by body sensations starting with shivering then excessive sweating, more shivering, and I feel like everything is wrong and I need to do something but there’s no way to decide what to do since the trauma happened in the past and is not currently occurring. That run-on sentence is a great example of how my mind starts just going haywire. I have conversations, fights and arguments with my violators, I replay the trauma trying to figure it out or remember more, and I start twisting situations in my current life to be worse than they are and find signs that I’m perpetually doomed. I let my thoughts totally victimize me, shame me, and give me the feeling like I’m worthless in the same way my violators did at the times of the trauma.

I can ignore “the tv” well and avoid being consumed by it by going through daily life distracting myself as much as possible. This manifests in over-working at work and at home. I read The Tao of Fully Feeling by Pete walker and he talks about how we become Humans Doing rather than Human beings when we try desperately to avoid our traumatic memories. With all of this said, meditation practice puts you in the position to fully focus on yourself, your thoughts, and feelings mentally and physically. Confronting this is very uncomfortable for someone with trauma because you cannot avoid the reality of how you feel and what the contents of your mind and personal experiences are during meditation. Or at least it seems this way. I haven’t read it yet, but there’s a book that promises to provide alternative way(s) to meditate. It’s called Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness https://www.amazon.com/Trauma-Sensitive-Mindfulness-Practices-Transformative-Healing/dp/0393709787/ref=asc_df_0393709787/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312034012759&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=467801134514274600&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9007820&hvtargid=pla-426954383014&psc=1