Dancing with Complex-PTSD and the Darkness of its Depression

One of the worst realities of complex-PTSD (C-PTSD) is how it keeps your brain and body hostage. Even with years of therapy, gaining significant insight and awareness on the effects caused by my trauma, I don’t often feel free. There are moments I do – even whole days, and for that I am incredibly grateful. So grateful on those days that I can’t keep it to myself! I let everyone know how happy I am, wholeheartedly believing that my depression is over.

But the feeling of free wears out. My brain feels tortured again and my body feels exhausted from the pain of shame. I’m given all these lit-up paths to freedom and I take them when I can find motivation, but I seem to wake up the next morning sunk back into dark, mucky, tar – sadness – wishing for a savior to grab my hand and pull. How long can I do this?

There is deep grief and emotional turmoil in C-PTSD. It feels like screams that won’t leave my gut to even get close to my throat.

I had a hard time watching the Harry Potter movies – if felt like my own darkness was depicted on that screen – Voldemort’s Dementors lurking in my world, looking for moments to close in and suffocate me. It was unnerving to put a visual to my darkness. “The Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself… soul-less and evil. You’ll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life…. they don’t need walls” because they hold you hostage “trapped inside their own heads”.

Reaching Out Feels Impossible

Voicing my pain to others seems like burdening them. No friend, no partner, no acquaintance wants to pull you out of the muck again and again and again for as long as it takes. That’s how it feels. So I don’t ask. Therapy has taught me I SHOULD ask…that someone WILL understand. And I admit when I reach out…yes it does help. But I can’t ask 100 times! A 1,000 times! I can’t be that big of a burden! So I just don’t ask. I stuff it all back down inside. Silence seems safer.

I’ve also learned that when you ask, the person usually wants a reason. What happened? What triggered you? I thought things were going well. The people who truly care – they may be kind and gentle, genuinely concerned, just wanting to figure out how to help. But the truth is – these sort of questions always feel like accusations when I don’t have answers to give.

I DON’T KNOW why my brain is always in pain! I have no answer to give you! So it makes more sense to keep it secret.

I Can’t Make Sense of Me

I crave physical touch and dread being touched! I want friendships and to be around people and have fun…and then I shut down and want out, overwhelmed and my darkness closing in. I want deeper connection to a close friend or my husband…and then when given the chance, I want to be alone. I want to have sex…and then when my skin is touched I get panicky.

Dilemmas like these are maddening for me! My mind is filled with ironies and confusion that brings on more depression.

C-PTSD also makes your reactions and emotions rarely match the situation. I smile and laugh at the wrong moments. I have no shock or fear when I should. I don’t know how to feel what others feel and I look for cues. I am aware of my mismatch and constantly embarrassed by it  – always trying to fit in and use logic to know what emotion to show to others. In the end I’m left with stomach pain or diarrhea and none of the right emotions. I’m ashamed of myself and stuck again in depression.

I Search For Reasons for My Darkness

I want a reason for my bouts of depression. Why now? Why today? I can usually come up with something that may have triggered me…but it is often a guess. And it doesn’t encompass the vastness of this state of mind. So I keep the darkness secret and avoid questions…believing I will only look dramatic and childish…needing constant help without reasons.

I’ve already covered all these damn stories in therapy. I’ve already done EMDR with this! I can’t blame today’s depression on the same things. What else do I have?!?

Dancing With the Pain

I’ve learned self-care. I practice mindfulness. I do yoga. I slow my breathing. I force myself to be with others. I scribble down things I’m grateful for today. I exercise. I use my CBD oil. I get massages. I find ways to stimulate my vagus nerve. It all helps some.

Dumbledore’s response to Harry Potter’s grief brings me both consolation and more pain:

“You do care. You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it.”

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Many days it feels impossible to keep caring…to keep living. But in the end, I do care. I care to keep trying. I care to not give up looking for human connection so that I can be the mom my children need, the wife my husband needs, the friend my friends need, the sister and daughter my family needs, the servant God needs. And something in me must care about me. Something in me craves love….deserves love.

My therapist reminds me that if you’ve felt the freedom of depression lifting even once, your body will be able to get back to that state. The body knows how. This gives me hope. I’ve felt my darkness lift many times over the past few years. I will navigate this healing journey with all its messiness, all it’s shapeshifters and death-eaters and Dementors, all it’s steep climbs and steeper drop-offs. I will keep reaching out for both divine and human connection. I will learn to connect with me, with my own body. I will continue the dance with C-PTSD and my depression, hoping one day it lets go of me.

---

You are Worth Finding Help

Self-compassion is key to healing from C-PTSD, depression, and suicidal thoughts. Although you may hate what you are experiencing, your body is responding in this way for a reason. Many reasons. Give yourself the love and understanding that you’d give a hurting child – even when everything inside you feels you should hate yourself! You are worth receiving support – reach out to others for help. Find a professional counselor that understands the effects of trauma on the body and integrates attachment theory…one that has such training as Somatic Experiencing or Bioenergetics (or other somatic therapies) and EMDR.

If you find yourself in a crisis situation, please, dial “988” to be connected to the National Suicide and Prevention Mental Health Crisis Lifeline.