A long period of time.
First 16 years of life.
- Hypervigilance (felling that nothing is safe)
- We can never relax.
- We cannot really sleep properly. (plagued with nightmares and night terrors)
- We hate ourselves.
- We are drawn to highly unavailable people.
- We are sickened by people who want to be cozy with us. (I can’t sleep with another person).
- We are prone to lose our temper very badly.
- We are paranoid and worried things are going to go bad again.
- We like being alone.
- We find living so exhausting and so unpleasant, we do sometimes long that we don’t exist anymore.
- We are rigid about our routines. OCD.
- We throw ourselves into work.
The root cause of complex PTSD is an absence of love.
And the cure for it is the same path. We need to love someone we hate…
Ourselves.
Wow, this packed a punch for me 😌 guilty! 🙏🏻💜 But healing every day 🌱
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So glad u r healing
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Thank you for this insightful and inspiring post, Gavin, and for being brave enough to share parts of your life.
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Thanks very much.
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Ouch…it’s tough for sure.
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Agreed
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I can relate to absense fo love eben though I have not heard that before. My mother never gave me love and asused my emotionally and physically. She would beat me then say I made her do it. She was filed with hate. She caused so much damamge to the younger me. Thank God i have had two great therapist. Without them helping me understand the comlpex relationship I had with her, I would be no telling where. I’m thankfull I can’t mark many on that list anymore. There was a time when almost everything on the list had my name on it. Great post Gavin.
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I really hear you about you mother. Must have been hell. Good to be with you on the road to recovery. Gavin.
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You’ve come so far since we met, you are so strong now!
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Thanks 😃🙂👍
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I had never heard it described as “absence of love”, but that makes sense! My 14 year old has cptsd…recovery is long. Touches all the points on your list.
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“absence of love”
Yes. I liked how they said that…and can relate.
Healing thoughts for your 14 year old.
Gavin.
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