On that page,I was reading in the section about knowing when you are in emotional flashback...and Walkers description of not being "shiny enough" for his mother really hit me like a sock in the gut.

My mom always told me to "sparkle" and anything short of that was not tolerated.

It's a bit off topic,but that was my experience. It hit me so hard I had to go write a poem about it. They just seem to pour out of me when I'm pissed...lol.

Yes, because our family business was church work, my family wanted us kids to be "ON" when in church. Sparkle even if you're dying inside.

Then there were beatings in the car on the way home if you didn't sparkle quite enough...

Yes, Lilly, dissociating to survive and then being punished for not paying attention, being called ADHD. I REALLY had to dissociate at church with my abusive father up there in the pulpit getting all that love from the congregation while he put on his saintly act.

It was too much cognitive dissonance for a child's brain sitting down there in the church pew. Sometimes before church he would already have popped me one in the mouth for yawning or something. Other times he'd climb down from the pulpit and grab someone in the car by the hair and bash their face against the car window while he was driving us home from preaching at church.

With such a Jekyll and Hyde, dissociating only made sense. And that's just dear old dad. There was dear old mom's abuse to contend with, too. And that way she had of deflecting his abusing her onto giving us a beating instead to save herself one.

Who wouldn't have dissociated?

But it was misdiagnosed at first.

You had thyroid issues, too? Hm.. A whole other interesting topic.....

Yeah I still have trouble with religion and faith and spirituality because my mom was so big in the church. She still is. They all love her and think she's so wonderful...

Sparkle dammit...

I'm so trained to effing sparkle that I can't feel any real emotions unless I'm alone. I sparkled in therapy! I can't NOT. And so I present so well that nobody even knows how painful it is to BREATHE and EXIST.

I'm so trained that even when I can't concentrate, I'm dissociating, or I'm so anxious I'm dizzy and close to passing out I can still appear fine. Everything I do is a performance...

Oh the ranting I do sometimes...I'm more real here than in the real world.

P.S. Funny, Dr ordered thyroid tests for me...hm...

Excellent Site! Thank You for Sharing It!

I was misdiagnosed in 2000 with Bipolar from a psychiatrist who specialized in the medicine of psychiatry, and yet, he didn't know that the first anti-depressant I was put on by my family doctor at the time in 1996, gave me symptoms of a full blown Mania, which resulted in the lost of my college career, to say the least... and I had learned that from a book in 2008. DUH! He is long over retirement now, and yet, our community lacks psychiatrist, so they keep him on, and he made it quite clear to me that he wanted to retire when I had asked him for a referral with a new female psychiatrist in 2008. The old guy won't say no. He had even got me mixed up with another patient, whom I knew, before I stopped seeing him, included him in the Ignorant Mental Health Care I had removed myself from to heal on my own.

Good thing I was born a "Self-Learner" or may Nurtured to be one ... LOL

I've never heard of Complex PTSD before, so this site will be very informative ... and help me to gain more Self-Knowledge. I'm already familiar with his 13 steps for managing symptoms of PTSD, as I have taken them on my healing journey through several resources, however, his descriptions are well worth exploring deeper into my unconscious mind before, during and after future triggers.

I've gone 5 years addressing other thing rather than the PTSD, even though I knew the PTSD was there. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (which reached it height after the trauma), Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety, an addiction I used to cope with PTSD . . .

It wasn't until I went to a psychiatrist at Mayo Clinic that I was finally told, "All these other things might be secondary . . . partially products of your body trying to deal with the PTSD."

So even though I wasn't misdiagnosed, my care was misdirected.

Hi, I have had complex PTSD, as diagnosed by someone who specialises in trauma. It is/was from a combination of some childhood trauma/abuse and some adulthood trauma/abuse.
Well, I first got extremely ill in 1987. By the early 1990's, I'd been diagnosed as schizo-affective and that is what's stuck.
It's fitting in that I have a psychotic disorder, but 'complex PTSD' is more appropriate.
I'm doing a lot better these days, albeit with a fair whack of psych drugs on board. still get pretty anxious at work, and can't work full time - need too much 'downtime' and sleep - but I'm feeling pretty good these days. haven't been in psych hospital for a year and a half.