Yeah, I've had Complex PTSD my whole life, and Dissociation....it's a hard thing to deal with.

Yes, i statred having PTSD because my mom tried to abort me when i was in the womb, with unconventional methods,because she lived in a country where abortion is illegal., and she really didn't want to have me.They told me as soon as a was born if my mother held me i would freak out, i never let her breast feed me or hold me.........As far as insomnia, yes, for 2 weeks i did too, my hair fell out in patch like circles on certain areas...
I'm sorry you're going through this, people treat me like i'm not trying or something and also Docs or meds never helped.....One doc told straight up "i graduated Harvard but i just can't help you".

Well no help here but you aasked if anyone else felt like you and yes, i do too.
huggs

Yes...I was seperated from my natural mother at one month old...went into the foster care system...well...not to go into too many details...my second foster mother called the adoption agency because I didn't act like a "normal baby." I was clearly afraid of fire (I was burnt with a cigarette) and I didn't cry for changings and hunger like other babies do. (I was clearly neglected and saw no hope that my needs would be met if I cried)

After that...my life was filled with traumas.

I have been at a point in life where I had insomnia for a couple of years...and couldn't get out of bed as well.

I began therapy at the age of 5.

It wasn't until I was 17 that therapy began working...because that was when I chose to go to therapy.

Really...it got to a point that I hated myself so much that I decided that I wasn't worthy of dying. Like dying was too easy and I deserved to be tortured...by the act of living.

Anyway...I'm sorry that you're not finding what works for you right now. (meds helped for me but only to a minute extent)

What has worked for me is the yeeeeears of therapy after I was 17. I was lucky to find an excellent therapist that I trusted. She saved my life.

Also what worked is gradually creating a more emotionally healthy enviornment. I had to first get rid of the unhealthy people. I am still learning now how to find the healthy ones to add to my life.

Why should you wake up tomorrow?
You believe in God.
You have kids.
You have grandkids.
You have a future...even if you can't see it right now.

There are always people that love you and have faith in you when you don't believe in life or yourself.

You have a lot of work to do...to create the life that you will love.

So how 'bout you think of one thing to look forward to tomorrow...and try to focus on that one positive thing tonight. (notice the lack of question mark at the end of the sentence...that is intentional)

Lynn,
My trauma started when I was just under 2 years old, and continued with my Mother until I was 19 or twenty. It was, as you say, trauma after trauma.

Why get up tomorrow? Because there is healing. You need the right therapist, and maybe the right drug, and a little time. But trust me, when you start seeing the other side of the chasm you'll know why.

It's not easy... but nothing worth it ever is, and you have friends here who will support you and be there when you need advise and when you just need someone to listen to the cry in the night and say "It's OK. We're here too... let's help each other".

and believe me on that too... this is by far and away the most supportive place you'll find with people who are right there with you.. struggling to find the reasons to wake up.

We wake up together.

D.

Yes. I started using drugs very young to cope. I was smoking pot and would drink as early as grade two or three. No one really noticed or cared.

My therapist teaches here and in London and has told me that I am in the top 5 of worst cases of abuse and complex PTSD with dissociation she has ever treated.

I went 12 days with no sleep and was hallucinating...they tried several things and ativan 4mg worked...

I was raped at 3 years and continued being abused till I was 16 and left home and then went to an abusive marriage...well, anyway, so many traumas that I could be in therapy for years and still not get them all...

I know how you feel about not wanting to live like this anymore but I have to keep getting up and having faith that someday I will find the right meds or will finally have enough coping skills and such that I can deal and move on...

Good luck and keep getting up.... it is faith... the belief that sooner or later it WILL get better that you have to rely on to keep going....

I thought it is called Chronic Childhood PTSD, but yeah its fricken Complex. ")

I have been traumatized since early infanthood. I have these feelings that are not attached to any thoughts, they are from pre-thought time.
Maybe they are dissociated feelings like Msbook says.

Its been a long road of hell my entire life. I am finally coming to grips with it.

I get up cuz of DS and people I met here. It gives me hope I have a place where I am truly understood.

I have been told recently I have PTSD and I have had it probably since I was a little child as young as 2 at least if not earlier. I had too much trauma my whole life until I was 19 and them some more major issues that caused it at times to flair up I went to therapy but was never told why I was so odd until now. I am now 24 and only got diagnosed because I Google'd my systems and went to my 2nd therapy and surprised my dr and asked could I suffer from PTSD? She was shocked and looked it up and was like well yes you do, and I told her how I came upon it on a whim I Google'd the systems I had and there it was. She has seen said yes I do deffently have it I probably have since I was 2, which is when my dad got beat by police for trying to protect me from my mother and brother he kid napped me so the swat time stole me right out of the house as the police were detaining my dad and I saw them hit him and beating him with their black batons. It was hard to see at only 2-3 yrs old. I was also abused sexually by my brother & 1/2 sister and often taken advantage of because my mother didn't care for me and let me o as I wanted and age 5 I was responsible for myself 100 % even my own house key and walking to and from school and cleaning,. cooking and such for myself. If I had no lunch it was because we had no food. I also lived quite poor and off government cheese even at one point. So I had a pretty rough life and yes even infants can suffer from PTSD. Its sad it took them 20 + rs to diagnose me. But I am glad you know why you are the way you are too. HUGS

I have been told about 5 months ago that I have Chronic PTSD. I've been an insomniac pretty much my entire life. My parents obviously never saw it as anything...I couldn't sleep in my own bed as a child. And then when I could...I couldn't sleep in the same room by myself. If ever I slept at all...the minute I woke up...even if it was after 5 minutes of sleep....they could NEVER get me back to sleep.

I'm not 100% sure as to why I've had so much issues with sleeping as a child...but when I was 6 I started noticing a lot of things around me after my dad's mom died. She died about a month to a month and a half after I turned 6. That drove my insomnia into overload. When I was 8 I ended up in manipulated sexual abuse and shut off all my feelings. The list goes on and on....and I guess, I do have Chronic Childhood PTSD. But the doctor just said Chronic PTSD. It's slowly all coming back to me....EXCEPT for the therapy I was apparently in for 3 months when I was about 8-9. I don't remember a thing about that.

Complex PTSD since infant. Multiple sexual abuse as child, mother blamed me- didn't protect me, ignored me and my hell. Two physically, emtionally, and sexually abusive husbands.
My first therapist said he had never seen someone with more pain that me. I was in therapy with this therapist until he retired-Now my pdoc continues my therapy.
It has been and continues to be a long and hard road.
Most of the time I want to stay in bed or just quit. But my pdoc says it will get better. I HAVE to believe her.

yes lynn, i too have a huge burden to carry every day of my life...since right after birth. (i apologise for this very long reply!) i read the replies and am choked up by reading of these people's suffering..i am glad to know of others like myself but pained that anyone else should suffer the way i have. this is not like "regular" PTSD at all. i have been told i have more trauma than any of the many therapists i've gone to have ever seen. it started as an infant. my body has memories of terror that my mind cant comprehend. i hope no jewish person takes offense at this but my jewish psychologist who has studied the holocaust and its effects says i suffered more damage than surviving holocaust victims due to chronic life-and-body-threatening trauma being from birth, having no mothering (my mother was in post partum depression and was seriously impaired from childhood trauma herself) and no others like myself to connect with. my life was threatened steadily for 10 years and intermittantly until i was in my 30's thru what was basically medical torture during childhood. my dr-professor-researcher father wanted me operated on all the time like a guinea pig (and he had wanted me aborted). life was full of chronic pain, isolation, no school, seperated from other children, full of horror and terror..in effect, pure unrelenting hell. when i was 6 i saw my first therapist who said i was very disturbed and was being molested but no one knew by whom. at 12 i put myself in a psych hospital, there for 3 years. they revictimized me..sexual relationship with therapist...and so it went on, every day wanting to die. the worst nightmares any therapist has ever heard of. finally i got someone who realized what i had: complex chronic severe PTSD. then i read judith hermans book trauma and recovery, and my bizarre internal life finally started making sense and improving. i am 56 and have been severely impaired in dealing with humans, and keep being interrupted by devastating flashbacks...therefore impaired in functioning..but can be with animals and feel safe. i have been facing and processing one trauma after another since finally diagnosed correctly.for the first time my emotions are engaged directly with my experience instead of just relaying the experience without any feeling and then the feelings coming out somewhere else. it will probably take the rest of my life to recover some things that seem to be just repressed body memory. BUT now i have times of joy, of spiritual faith, of feeling loved and loving, of hope, and moments of true healing, and have made remarkable progress. i am valued an value myself for the extraordinary gifts developed from all that i have been thru..things i can offer others to help them heal too. there IS reason to carry on lynn, there is healing eventually if you get the right help and surround yourself with supportive constructive people. more is being learned about complex PTSD all the time. one foot in front of the other my dear "fellow traveler of this rough and painful journey". there are rewards to come, that are greater than what the average person can comprehend..because of what deep lessons, wisdom and insights you will learn, and because of your incredible triumphs!

Your story made my mouth drop open you are so much like me, I understand the body memory, I was abused since birth and dont rememeber my mother killing my little sister but I cant stand to hear a baby cry, my grandmother told me my sister cryed all the time. I was 18 months old and my sister 9 months when my mother shook her and slambed her head on the head board I do remember my mother calling me dad for help and saying the baby fell off the bed and I remember think no sir that is not what happened. I have been told how awful I am because I have never loved my mother but she was not safe. and in 1961 child abuse was not looked at to close my sister suffered alot her arm was broke when she was 3 months god only knows what all happened to me. I do know I have double scoliosis from being yanked by one arm out of my crib. I learned to stay away from my mother and to not cry. the fear and panic would set in at night when my dad went to work. and get this my dad was a cop and so was my grandfather. big wigs in this small town so her death was never looked at closely. My dad became the top inspector for child abuse and never saw what was going on in his own home. I am 48 years old and suffer both in my mind and body from her.
please tell me how you got your faith back I lost mine. so much tramua after tramua being in a plaster body cast preg for 9 months the rods in my back. being molest being raped being beat. watching my son get ran over. I really cant take any more there is no safe place. last year I tried to take my life but I woke up 2 days later face down in my hall way and thought crap God doesnt want me either. You have had it really really bad do you just except that your mother was bad becasue she suffered with this to.? DO you talk to her?
I cant even here my mothers voice with it triggering me deep in side. Please tell me how you ended up with faith after all you have been through.

Oh gosh, am I reading my OWN profile or yours...I can completely relate...

I could not sleep...2-3 hrs a night...sleep meds no longer worked...I was at the end of my rope in everyway that you are talking and then...

I happened upon this new gal..an RN/DR in my area who saw me twice and said, "I want to test you for sleep apnea:"..

well, I thought
"that can't be a problem for me"...but I was desperate and nothing else was working so I got tested and sure enough I had it...

by the time someone suggested this I had put my heart and brain at great risk because no one ever even mentioned this...other dr's wanted to keep adding to my sleep meds, which only increases such issues and I didn't know that...

so, it took one night to be tested and the second night they gave me "air" to breathe (not oxygen like for COPD people etc).

After forever of being a complete wreck and not knowing what to do and dr's just prescribing all kinds of stuff that wasn't working cause it didn't address the real problem, I actually got help...with the
help of a small machine I got 6 hrs of sleep the night after they diagnosed me...went right to sleep with NO medications what so ever...and it basically saved my sanity and life....

I do not know if this could be your problem at all, but I sure had to write in and tell you because everything you said was
exactly what I could have said.
earthlake

Anyone notice a recurring theme in our replies? So much pain and extended trauma for years...I can relate to sks because I told my dr that I thought only war veterans suffered from PTSD and she said I had lived through my own Viet Nam....
I am so glad (and sad) that there are so many of us on here as my friends all are in shock when I talk about my childhood.
You all understand that to me this was "not that bad" because someone always had it worse than me and I just didn't realize the abuse was so bad until I was grown.
To me it was just my life....

>> You all understand that to me this was
>> "not that bad" because someone always
>> had it worse than me and I just didn't
>> realize the abuse was so bad until I was
>> grown.
>> To me it was just my life....

Oh my dear MsBook.... that, I believe, is one of the differences between PTSD and Chronic (or complex) PTSD. Those of us who grew up being traumatized for our entire childhoods (or what you may want to call a childhood.. mine certainly wasn't)... we ALL share the feeling that it wasn't all that bad.. someone had it worse, this was just my life feelings.

D.