PTSD

Few things make a body feel better than less things holding it back, be it physical, emotional, or gravitational.

I grew up knowing my family always had its very own black cloud. Like a backyard pet that comes and goes when it pleases, a room locked but filled with things we weren’t allowed to look at or set free. And it was all passed down to me like some broken heirloom — my ancestor’s weaknesses and fears, swirled into DNA’s mad ritual. Does the body sometimes take into itself — take from its creators — what it cannot heal from? Sometimes, yes.

Trauma has a way of breaking people down. It's consumed almost every moment of the last 15 years of my life- from the mental health consequences, such as PTSD and years invested in therapy, to the trouble I have connecting with other people and opening up.

When my therapist told me in 2012 that I presented with symptoms of PTSD, I was relieved, but also in disbelief.

[CN: PTSD, pregnancy, birth] Something snapped inside me and I was transported backwards in time.

[CN: PTSD, pregnancy, birth] Something snapped inside me and I was transported backwards in time.

C-PTSD stands for Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, also known as Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD) or complex trauma. It’s a diagnostic term for a set of symptoms resulting from prolonged social or interpersonal stress, especially in the context of interpersonal dependence. It’s a tricky diagnosis to land on, given the way trauma is dealt with in the mind and by society. Like Kristof, I wouldn’t have told you there was anything wrong with my childhood. It took years of therapy to catalog early life experiences that were profoundly affecting, if not necessarily severe.