Complex PTSD Read online

  Surviving Versus Thriving

  Recovery involves learning to handle unpredictable shifts in our inner emotional weather.

  Perhaps the ultimate dimension of this is what I call the Surviving Thriving continuum.

  Before we enter into recovery, it may feel like life is nothing but a struggle to survive. However, when recovery progresses enough, we begin to have some experiences of feeling like we are thriving. These may start out as feelings of optimism, hopefulness and certainty that we are indeed recovering.

  And then, the bottom inevitably drops out because recovery is never all forward progress. Oh so unfairly, we are back to feeling that we can barely survive. To make matters worse, we are amnesiac that we even had a respite from surviving. Another flashback has hit and we polarize back onto the surviving end of the continuum. We are stuck in the anxious and deadened feelings of the abandonment mélange.

  In survival mode, even the most trivial and normally easy task can feel excruciatingly difficult. As in childhood, it is all feels just too hard. And if the flashback is especially intense, Thanatos may start knocking down the door. Thanatos is the death urge described by Freud and in a flashback it corresponds with the suicidal ideation we looked at in chapter 1.

  Once again, it is important to repeat that this feeling-state is a flashback to the worst times in childhood when our will to live was so compromised. As mindfulness improves we can recognize suicidal ideation as evidence of a flashback and begin to rescue ourselves with the chapter 8 flashback management steps.

  As recovery progresses, polarizations back into survival mode do not take us to the utter despair end of the continuum so often. Nonetheless survival mode can still feel pretty awful, especially when it is characterized by high anxiety or immobilizing depression.

  Being in survival is especially difficult during those times when flashback management is less effective, and feelings that life is a struggle can hang on for days and even weeks. This is the territory where flashbacks morph into extended regressions.

  I believe regressions are sometimes a call from our psyche to address important developmental arrests. In this case, it is the need to learn unrelenting self-acceptance during a period of extended difficulty. It is also the need to develop a staunch and unyielding sense of self-protection. This fundamental instinct of fiery willingness to defend ourselves from unfairness needs to strengthen progressively so that we can withstand inner critic attacks.

  Moreover we can grow in our ability to survive “survival” by using the chapter 13 mindfulness techniques to practice and build enduring self-compassion. Moreover, if we are far enough along in recovery to have a safe ally, we can enlist their support to help us verbally ventilate out our pain at being stuck in survival.

  Temptations can be great at such times to revert to the less functional ways of self-soothing that we learned when we younger. Depending on your 4F type this commonly manifests as increased eating, substance abuse, working, sleeping and/or sexually acting out.

  Sometimes we are triggered into self-medicating in this way because we are desperately trying to keep ourselves on the thriving end of the continuum. Desperately clinging to thriving is a hard impulse to resist, even when we are in reality way past its expiration date.

  Yet as recovery and mindfulness increase we begin to notice that this type of self-medicating indicates that we are in a survival-flashback. We are no longer authentically on the thriving end of the continuum. We have compounded our regression, by regressing further - by self-medicating to unnaturally prolong a preferred experience. At such times, we benefit most by reinvoking our intention to practice self-acceptance – by recommitting to being there for ourselves no matter where we are on the continuum.

  As bears repeating, all human beings are existentially challenged to handle disappointing shifts out of thriving into surviving. We survivors however have greater difficulties handling these transitions because we were abandoned for so long at the surviving end of the continuum. Yet as our recovery progresses, we can learn to become increasingly self-supportive in times of being stuck in survival.

  Difficulties In Identifying The Signs Of Recovering

  Some readers may work on their recovery for a long time, and erroneously and shamefully feel they are not making any progress. Because of the all-or-none thinking that typically accompanies Cptsd, survivors in the early stages of recovery often fail to notice or validate their own actual progress.

  If we do not notice the degrees of our own improvement in our recovery work, we are in great danger of giving up on recovering. Because of black-and-white thinking, we can regularly fall into the trap of not acknowledging and valuing what we are actually accomplishing. Perfectionistic dismissal of improvement that is not 100% is common in early recovery.

  Here are some common areas where I see that recovering survivors fail to notice and self-validate their progressive degrees of improvement.

  Less intense launching into a 4F response

  Increasing resistance to the critic

  Increased Mindfulness about flashbacks or inner critic attacks

  Increased time feeling good enough about yourself

  Progress in meeting arrested developments listed in chapter 2

  Decreased overeating or use of self-medicating substances

  Increased experiences of good enough relating with others

  Decrease in the painfulness and intensity of flashback feelings

  In terms of number 3 above, it is important to note that even when mindfulness does not immediately terminate a flashback or critic attack, noticing and identifying these Cptsd phenomena is more progressive than just being blindly lost in them. Moreover, ongoing recognition makes effective ameliorative action more accessible. It makes us increasingly likely to remember to use the flashback management steps listed in chapter 8.

  Furthermore, it is important that we notice the gradually decreasing intensity of the flashback feelings of anxiety, shame and depression. In this regard, social anxiety can gradually reduce along a continuum that stretches from panicky withdrawal... to a more tolerable social discomfort... to periods of social ease. Additionally, depression can gradually diminish along a continuum that stretches from paralyzing despair... to anhedonia – an inability to enjoy normal life pleasures... to a state of tired, and relatively unmotivated peacefulness. Of course both these processes typically improve at a vacillating, back-and-forth rate.

  As I write this I feel some old sadness about the many decades that I judged my emotional tone and mood as either good or bad in a very all-or-nothing way. If I was not feeling very good than I felt as if everything was really bad. And since feeling very good is something most human beings only get to experience a relatively small proportion of the time, my perception of feeling bad became a much more dominant experience than was necessary. In fact, mildly unpleasant feeling typically morphed me quickly into feeling terrible via shame-tinged, all-or-none thinking.

  I am so grateful for the life-changing epiphany that lead me to trade in my old primary aspiration of “Celebration” for my new one of “Serenity.”

  Inner critic thought processes refute signs of progress whenever a new flashback occurs, no matter how much less intense it is than before. Every recurrence of feeling shame, fear or depression is interpreted as proof that nothing has changed, even when there are increasing periods of not being triggered.

  The critic’s black-and-white assessment is: “Either I’m cured or I’m still hopelessly defective.” And once you identify with your critic’s pronouncement of defectiveness, you are off and spiraling downward into a full-fledged flashback - captured once again in the ice veneer of toxic shame that freezes one in the Cptsd stranglehold of helplessness and hopelessness.

  Accepting Recovery As A Lifelong Process

  It is exceedingly difficult to accept the proposition – the fact – that recovery is never complete. And although we can expect our flashbacks to markedly decrease over time, it is tremendous
ly difficult, and sometimes impossible, to let go of the salvation fantasy that we will one day be forever free of them.

  Yet when we do not loosen our grip on the salvation fantasy, we remain extremely susceptible to blaming ourselves every time we have a flashback. Understanding this is so crucial because recovery typically progresses in a process that has many temporary regressions. Moreover, most recoverees often have the unfortunate subjective experience that the temporary regression feels as permanent as concrete. This is especially true because of the interminability feeling of flashbacks. When we flashback, we regress to our child-mind which was incapable of imagining a future any different than the everlasting present of being so abandoned.

  So how can we come to bear the knowledge that our awful childhoods have created some permanent damage? It helps me to see my Cptsd as somewhat analogous to diabetes, i.e., a condition that will need management throughout my life. This is a piece of bad news that naturally feels offensively unpalatable, but the good news, as with diabetes, is that as we become more skilled at flashback management, Cptsd can gradually become infrequently bothersome. And even more importantly, we can evolve towards leading increasingly rich and rewarding lives.

  Even better news is that Cptsd, when efficiently managed, eventually bestows gifts. It comes with significant silver linings - unavailable to those less traumatized - as we will see at the end of the chapter.

  Therapeutic Flashbacks And Growing Pains

  Healing from childhood trauma is also a long gradual process because recovering your full self-expression requires a great deal of practice. Being yourself can be intimidating and flashback-inducing. Healthy self-assertion was punished like a capital crime in many dysfunctional families. Expressing yourself in ways that your parents forbade typically triggers intense flashbacks at first. This can cause you to lose sight of how this practice gradually reduces the chronic pain of remaining invisible.

  We can encourage ourselves to face these growing pains by conceptualizing them as therapeutic flashbacks. We then choose to weather these flashbacks to stop the past from holding us back, to reclaim the fundamental human rights that our parents denied us, and to finally own what is rightfully ours for the taking.

  We can further bolster ourselves for such necessary flashbacks by comparing “speaking up” to going to the dentist for a toothache. Unless we accept the acute pain of the dentist’s therapeutic procedure, we will suffer chronic dental discomfit indefinitely. Unless we speak up, the loneliness of our silence will imprison us forever.

  Recovering from overwhelmingly painful childhoods is also so difficult because we understandably want to avoid any further pain at all. We may even believe that we need to risk a flashback and practice speaking up. But at the moment of facing the triggering that silence can so easily avoid, we cannot sometimes help giving up and remaining mute.

  However, if we are ever to recover our real voice, we must sometimes invoke the energy of bravery. Bravery is, in my opinion, defined by fear. It is taking right action despite being afraid. It is not brave to do things that are not scary.

  The anger work described in chapter 11 can help you with this enormously. With a strong enough intention you can begin by occasionally invoking the kind of courage that involves feeling the fear and doing it anyway. You can nudge yourself to do it to rescue your inner child from the loneliness of never being seen or heard.

  Moreover, when we embrace this practice we will eventually learn that fear does not have to disabling. We can be afraid and still act powerfully. We can refuse to tolerate never speaking up, never having our say, never stating a preference, and never saying “no” to set a boundary.

  With enough practice, therapeutic flashbacks not only diminish, but begin to be replaced by a healthy sense of pride in ourselves for our courageous self-championing. More and more we are rewarded with feelings of safe belonging in the world.

  It is crucial for deeper level recovery that we learn that feelings of fear, shame and guilt are sometimes signs that we have said or done the right thing. They are emotional flashbacks to how we were traumatized for trying to claim normal human privileges.

  As our recovery progresses, we need to learn to endure these feelings. Reinterpreting the deeper meaning of these feelings is key to accomplishing this. Typically this involves epiphanies like the following. “I feel afraid now, but I am not in danger like I was as a child.” “I feel guilty not because I am guilty, but because I was intimidated into feeling guilty for expressing my opinions, my needs and my preferences.” “I feel shame because my parents rained disgust on me for being me. I say no to these toxic parental curses, and I am proud and right to see how they tried to murder my soul. I give them their shame back as disgust – the disgust any healthy adult feels when he sees a parent bullying a child with contempt, or when he sees a parent heartlessly ignoring a suffering child.”

  Optimal Stress

  The quest to ongoingly grow and evolve out of my childhood trauma sometimes becomes more embraceable to me when I remember the poet’s words: “He not busy being born is busy dying.” In fact, some of the latest research in neuroscience suggests that we actually need a modicum of stress in our life. This type of stress is called optimal stress.

  Optimal stress is the balanced, moderate amount of stress that appears to be necessary to grow the new neurons and neuronal connections that correlate with keeping the brain healthy. Research shows that just as too much stress creates a biochemical condition that damages neurons in the brain, too little stress leads to the atrophy, death and lack of replacement of old neurons. This is why lifelong learning is widely recognized as one of the key practices necessary to avoid Alzheimer’s disease.

  In my opinion, lifelong recovering is an exalted subset of lifelong learning. I believe that optimal stress is frequently attained when we practice the behaviors that remedy our developmental arrests. Examples of this include reading self-help books, attending self-improvement workshops, working at deeper self-discovery through journaling, or struggling to be more vulnerable and authentic in a therapy session or an evolving relationship. Moreover, it might be that minor flashbacks sometimes function as optimal stress. I certainly know a number of long term recoverees who seem to be evolving and becoming sharper in their old age.

  SILVER LININGS

  We live in an emotionally impoverished culture, and those who stick with a long term recovery process are often rewarded with emotional intelligence far beyond the norm. This is somewhat paradoxical, as survivors of childhood trauma are initially injured more grievously in their emotional natures than those in the general population.

  The silver lining in this, however, is that many of us were forced to consciously address our suffering because our wounding was so much more severe. Those who work an effective recovery program not only recover significantly from emotional damage, but also evolve out of the emotional impoverishment of the general society. One of my clients described this as becoming “way more emotionally intelligent than the ‘normies’.”

  Perhaps the greatest reward of improved emotional intelligence is seen in a greater capacity for deeper intimacy. Emotional intelligence is a foundational ingredient of relational intelligence – a type of intelligence that is also frequently diminished in the general populace.

  As stated earlier, intimacy is greatly enhanced when two people dialogue about all aspects of their experience. This is especially true when they transcend taboos against full emotional communication. Feelings of love, appreciation and gratitude are naturally enhanced when we reciprocally show our full selves - confident or afraid, loving or alienated, proud or embarrassed. What an incredible achievement it is when any two of us create such an authentic and supportive relationship! Many of the most intimate relationships that I have seen are between people who have done a great deal of freeing themselves from the negative legacies of their upbringings.

  “The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living”

  A further silver lining in
recovery is the attainment of a much richer internal life. The introspective process, so fundamental to effective recovery work, eventually deepens and enriches survivors’ psyches. Ongoing mindful exploration of all aspects of our experience helps us see firsthand what Socrates meant when he said: “The unexamined life is not worth living”.

  The survivor who follows the introspective “road less travelled” becomes increasingly free of compulsive and unconscious allegiance to unhelpful familial, religious and societal values that were instilled at an impressionable age.

  The recoveree now gets to choose her own values and reject those that are not in her own best interest. She develops a deeper more grounded self-respect that is not contingent upon going with the herd and shifting center with every new popular trend. In psychological parlance, she becomes free and brave enough to individuate and develop more of her full potential.

  In Joseph Campbell’s words, the survivor learns to “follows his own bliss”. He is freer to pursue activities and interests that naturally appeal to him. He evolves into his own sense of style. He may even feel emboldened to coif and dress himself without adherence to the standards of fashion. He may extend this freedom into his home décor. In this vein, I have seen many survivors discover their own aesthetic, as well as an increased appreciation of beauty in general. How this contrasts with many of the homes of my “normal” sports-buddies, whose homes are often sparsely decorated, as if they are too afraid to put something out or up lest it not be cool enough.