A good friend of mine has just experienced yet another in a long line of betrayals that left them feeling sick, ashamed, filled with rage and ready to give up on their dreams…again. Some of you are inwardly snickering at the melodrama. The majority of you are here because you know me, you know my channel on Twitch and you know what we do there and what matters to us. You are not laughing.
So many of us deal every day with a horror we have yet to define or understand. The pain of betrayal. The disbelief in humanity that is seemingly confirmed every time we dare to hope and love again. The absolutely endless parade of shaming situations and burdens of guilt we shift sadly onto our own shoulders once again because we never realize it is not ours to carry. Of course it is. Everyone has always told us it was.
If you live in this world with us, there is no explanation needed. As I am not writing this to the ‘rest of you’ but only to ‘us’, let me say this. You WERE alone. You are not alone now. You never will be again.
You may think I’m way off track with my own belief in the reason we are here. Before you write me off, google it. Just look it up. See if it’s you, too. I was where you are not 1 year ago. My stream is a living testament to how far I’ve come and how much things have changed for me once I realized one simple thing. It was not my fault.
These are recurring statements I hear from several people in my life who I believe are suffering just as I was because of the same essential reasons.
“There is always someone out to get you.”
“I have been a real failure and let down the people who are closest to me.”
“I will never be good enough.”
“I’m a terrible person and I hate myself.”
These are beliefs we all have. Where do we get these wretched ideas? Why are they so ingrained in our psyches? Because someone else, by narcissistic purpose or sheer neglect put them there year after year. Children don’t sit on their own for hours telling themselves what horrible people they are and how much they hate themselves unless it was instigated.
Through many months of research, self discovery, reading; daily steps toward a life where I’m not always raging at inanimate objects, crying because a cup fell on the floor and it’s my fault and I’m a terrible person, deleting social media accounts just to avoid the condemnation and guilt I feel from everyone around me; I am becoming free of this virus in my mind bit by bit.
Complex PTSD is a thing. Millions are afflicted with it and there is still very little awareness of it. PTSD is not just something that affects military personnel or victims of violent crime. The complex version is arguably longer lasting and more intensely affects the lives of it’s afflictees in silent, deadly ways. Anyone interned in a long term POW situation or kidnappees held in captivity for 20 years exhibits much the same symptoms as a child who spent the first 20 years of their lives in a family situation which was just as neglectful, violent, verbally/mentally abusive and inescapable. The complex part of the acronym refers to it’s inescapable nature. This is what causes the twisted defensive postures and self-blame to perpetuate beyond endurance. It affects every area of our lives, including relationships, naturally.
There are many blogs, sites and YouTube channels which have been helpful to me, but I would find it difficult to name them all. Instead, here are the 3 key books which I found to be essential-each in a very different way.
cPTSD: From Surviving to Thriving
Healing the Shame that Binds You
There are so many more, but as a start, they are my favorites. For a detailed look at CPTSD and it’s symptoms, the first book is amazing. For those of us who have never expressed emotion because it was dangerous, and hence feel somewhat dead and cold when it comes to feeling anything, the second is key. The third was the most instrumental in helping me deprogram the worst part of my childhood trauma-my inescapable feelings of shame, guilt and unworthiness.
So. I have learned to be angry…at the cause, not the symptom. I have realized I needed to cry over losses I never allowed myself to see. I have found that I am not the only one, which is why I created a stream built around a community of us.
We are not alone, and sometimes that’s all we need to begin the journey towards freedom.
Lost in Words 