CPTSD and you (your body, anyway).

Something many trauma survivors have in common is, our bodies know we’re stressed or triggered before we do. 

Our conscious mind is often very well defended against seeing what we see and knowing what we know. 

It’s had to be, for us to psychologically (and, sometimes, physically) survive what we’ve been through. 

But our bodies, our nervous system, our endocrine system, our very cells, are under no illusions. 

They’ll register triggers and stress— often in ways that confuse and frustrate both us and the myriad medical professionals we try to seek support from. 

For example, the exhaustion many CPTSD survivors experience has nothing to do with lack of sleep.

The chronic pain many trauma survivors experience can only be partially understood in terms of physical traumas or injuries we’ve sustained. 

The allergies and inflammation many trauma survivors experience often trace back to…we’ll we’re not quite sure, actually. 

All we know is its real, and often debilitating. 

None of this is to say that any or all of these problems are “psychosomatic” or “in our head.” 

But when we’re reacting to triggers in our body— especially if we’re cognitively “blind” to those triggers— it can make us a hell of a lot more vulnerable to every physical problem or pain point you can imagine. 

Many people will misunderstand this, and think that either CPTSD “causes” those physical problems, or that those physical problems are the result of a “victim mindset” that CPTSD nurtures. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. 

I know and have worked with more chronic illness and pain warriors than most, and I can tell you that, as a group, they do not have a “victim mindset.” 

In fact, it’s usually the opposite: trauma survivors who struggle with chronic pain and complicated medical conditions often feel OVER responsible for what they’re going through— largely because they’ve been told that they are. 

I don’t want you to understand your physical pain or other medical problems as manifestations of CPTSD. 

I want you to understand that CPTSD spikes our risk for all kinds of pain and other problems— which is one reason why it’s so important to work our recovery. 

Nobody reading this loves their physical reactivity. 

Everyone reading this as probably wondered, at one time or another, how they got such a “lemon” of a physical body. 

I don’t think you got a “lemon” of a physical body. 

I think that every cell in our body was affected by what happened to us, and what we’ve been forced, against our will, to manage every day since. 

I think that’s a cognitive, emotional, hormonal, and spiritual load that human bodies were not designed to bear. Certainly not for years on end. 

I think our bodies are doing the best they can. 

And I think all we can do for them, is what we can do: work our recovery with realism, self-awareness, and self-compassion, one day at a time. 

Breathe, blink, focus. 

And say “thank you” to your body.