Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

CPTSD isn’t a phase. It’s a wound that keeps breathing.

A past that keeps reaching.

A nervous system stuck between fight & collapse.

You wake up tired because your mind ran from ghosts all night.

You want peace but your body only knows war.

You want love but your scars flinch first.

This disorder doesn’t make you dramatic.

It makes you a survivor.

Marked. Haunted. Still moving.

If that isn’t strength, what is.

CPTSD is the kind of wound that doesn’t close. It scabs, it cracks, it bleeds again. It becomes part of your pulse. People pretend it’s something you grow out of, like a bad haircut, but CPTSD grows with you. It waits in the corner of every room. It whispers behind your eyes. It turns ordinary days into minefields with no warning signs.

It’s the reason you wake up exhausted, because your mind ran from ghosts all night. It’s the reason you forget simple things but remember every detail of the moment everything went wrong. It’s the sudden drop in your chest when someone raises their voice. It’s the way your body braces for impact even when the room is silent.

CPTSD teaches you to scan every face, every tone, every shift in the air. It teaches you that danger can wear familiar clothes. So you stay ready. You stay tense. You stay half in the past & half in the present, trying to keep the two from colliding.

People say healing is a journey. CPTSD makes it feel like a battlefield. You take two steps forward & you trip over the bones of the person you used to be. You want peace but your nervous system only knows war. You want rest but your body thinks rest is risky. You want love but part of you flinches when it gets too close.

There is a violence in being forced to survive what never should have touched you. There is a grief in realizing you’re still carrying the weight of someone else’s cruelty. CPTSD makes you feel broken even when you’re doing your best to stay upright. It makes you feel difficult even when you’re gasping for air. It makes you feel unlovable even when your heart is begging for softness.

But here’s the bleak truth. If you’re still here, you’re already doing something extraordinary. You’re walking through a world that once tore you apart, & you do it with a heartbeat that refuses to stop. That’s not weakness. That’s not failure. That’s survival carved into bone.

CPTSD doesn’t define you. But it marks you. It stains your edges. It becomes a language you never wanted to learn. Yet every day you keep going. Shaking. Haunted. Still moving.

There is nothing darker than that kind of strength.

-a

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