Reminding myself that I am not a trauma imposter

I am reading a complex PTSD workbook and it is very validating and interesting to read. I learned today that healthy Adult Social Relationships can be very healing for fragmented parts of ourselves. I think this is, luckily, why two of my siblings are so healthy - particularly my brother. He has been with his girlfriend since they were old enough to date and have known each other since they were two years old. Amazing. I feel very grateful for his happiness and health but also so confused why I struggle, and he doesn’t. It leaves me also feeling broken and ridiculous. Like a trauma imposter.  

I see how happy and healthy my brother is and I can't help but wonder what is wrong with me. These thoughts of inner shame, inner critic flow through me, triggering fatigue and sadness and depression, unworthiness and pain. But reconnecting to myself and to reality again I can remember 2 things. My experience of childhood was different than his (he didn’t know my dad) and according to this information he is eons ahead of me healing his nervous system by being with a wonderful girl for him. I am not unworthy, I am not making this up, my depression is valid. I didn’t need a healthy relationship to heal but I needed healthy relationships – and I isolated my adult-self in the ER, in the North, with secret relationships and with partners that ultimately continued to trigger painful parts of me that were deeply wounding.  

As a child I didn't have Me. I know that could sound a bit narcissistic but while the world was chaotic and loud, I was always emotionally available to my siblings - I taught them what it was to be kind, listening, there for someone. I don't know how they would have done without me. My mom was incredibly angry/unpresent/mindless and unavailable. I raised my siblings. My dad was obviously deeply abandoning and shaming, so were all my male role models… but I was present. I was there for them. I never left them. And as therapist puts it.... if there were a different sibling order it doesn't mean they would've stayed and helped. One sister fully checked out. The other fought. My brother would've been amazing, could he have understood my sisters like I did? And then there was me, who did I have to bounce my emotions off of... my diary. I taught myself. I created resiliency when it was not taught to me. It makes sense that I have to learn social comfort now and be there for the fragmented parts that were "exiled".  

This workbook is really amazing because I have reaffirmed several things this morning...  

"treating complex PTSD involved 'parts work' as a way to understand symptoms" 

First of all, the fact that you know and understand this feeling completely means you have COMPLEX PTSD. You’re not a trauma imposter. And victims of trauma commonly question themselves and their experience. 

"Ego states are often parts that reflect younger developmental phases of your life related to traumatic experiences. This is why, sometimes you might feel like a wounded child or a rebellious teenager". 

I know this completely. I feel the little girl or the teenagers presence completely, and in my experience it isn't voluntary. Sometimes I recognize it less... this is around my ex-partner. Because in this fragmented piece I am lost completely in the part of me that has been previously "exiled" or is holding the weight of my traumatic experiences. How painful and sad for her. I hope I can help her.  

In the complex PTSD workbook, he describes three parts of us: the exile (carry’s the burden of trauma, the part that we disconnect from our consciousness as a way to distance ourselves from painful memories and emotions like rage, shame, loneliness, grief). The Manager protects you from being vulnerable by staying in control, being self-critical, planning and caretaking.  The firefighter represses the exiles as they try to emerge through dissociation, self-harm and substances. Makes perfect sense.  

“With C-PTSD it is common to react to situations in ways that can be irrational, or not based in reality”.  

Poly-vagal theory. “If you can’t resolve the stressful situation, or facing a life-threatening event, you will resort to an earlier set of evolutionary mechanisms”. There are two ways to put a break on this. One is healthy and one is not. The first “break” is embolizing defensive actions: fatigue, depression, and dissociation. The healthy way to do this is activate the Social Nervous System part of the parasympathetic nervous system, this increases health, emotional well-being and helps you rest/digest and relax into feelings of safety and connectedness. THIS IS STRENGTHENED BY REPEATED PRACTISE. It would make sense then to continue to find healthy relationships and depart as quickly as possible from triggering or unhealthy ones.  

• To regulate your nervous system remember Goldilocks. Too hot (anxiety, pent up, panicky, irritable, dissociation) --> Relax. And too cold (depression, shutdown, hopelessness) --> re-energize.   
  
   
  
  Tips from this workbook are: 
  
  - developing a relationship to the SELF, the core of who you are. The SELF is your own source of wisdom or inner knowing, then you can regulate the other parts of you.  
  
  - Resiliency is learned (therefore if you’ve gotten this far, you can learn even more). This book was quite affirming that I am clearly on the right track with therapy and yoga and Qigong.  
  
  - Stay connected to your community rather than isolating! 
  
  - I do still feel quite alone (in my day-to-day life) regarding my healing journey but psychotherapy has been huge. 
  
  - Mindfully work through difficult emotions (As you do with therapy) without judgement. Mindfulness is often deeply humbling and it is helpful to surrender and let go.  
  
  - Self-awareness (as you do with therapy)  
  
  - Express yourself (journaling, support group, connection with friends and family) 
  
   - Believe you have the capacity to shape the course of your life, now!  
  
  - Trauma sensitive yoga, Qigong, movement.  
  
  - Sequencing: movement of tension from the core of the body to the extremities, sometimes involuntary. I felt that last week doing QiGong and had sudden tremors in the practise. “Sequencing is helpful because it allows the releasing of tension patterns related to freeze, fight, flight or fawning”.