(((Geez))),

I have not been formally told c-ptsd but my PTSD does reach back to my childhood.
I don't think it has been accepted to be put in the manual for an official diagnosis. But some Ts do use that term and you can look it up on line and you will get information on it.

I would not really say "years" of therapy, it all depends on the individual and how much they work at the therapy. Some people, yes, they do spend years. There are stages to this trama work and each person is different in how they progress through the stages. The last stage, 're integration" is the stage that can take the longest depending on the person.

The important thing is that with PTSD, the person has to keep seeking support to keep using the new tools they learn while in therapy. From what I understand it does require maintenance work to stay in a better more healthy state of functioning. But each person is different. So you may not need that many years of therapy.

The foundation work is about how your foundation has been formed from early childhood. We all adapt to disfuction and because we are only children when we do that we develope skills that are not helpful as adults and can keep us from enjoying our lives to the best of our ability.

I know for myself I react to certain things that I am not even aware of. I self protected in ways I was not aware where these self protection methods came from.

For me, here is an example. I am very uncomfortable about entertaining and having people to my home, and I don't really know why. But since I have revisited my childhood it was because when my sister and I played dolls and pretend entertained SHE always had to have THE BEST and I was taught I DIDN'T DO SO WELL AT THAT.
I was four years younger than her, and I didn't have the time to have skills like her and by the time I COULD learn the skills it was engrained in me that I would not be that good at it.

And my mother always fretted about the house and having to have it be clean when people came over. And when her mother came to visit she would always be so stressed to make the house emaculate.

For many years I had to have my home emaculate and ofcourse I could not keep up with that, no one can, especially with children. But I would get very upset and stessed about people coming over and my house was VERY neat and clean.

And for Christmas? Oh I always had to decorate to the nines at Christmas, I mean my house looked like a country living home for the holidays house. I spent so much effort to make it look Christmas beautiful in a very traditional country way. It was demanding and often it took me forever to take it all down. And I could never just do with putting a simple wreath on the door. I just didn't know what that meant. Until I really revisited my childhood and realized that Christmas was the one time we KNEW WE COULD BE HAPPY. For years I made wreaths for every window, candles in every window, greens in the window boxes, on the fences with home made wreaths too. And many times I didn't have enough money to buy a real Christmas tree so I would find a way to actually MAKE ONE out of pine boughs.

And entertaining at Christmas for me was mostly my husband's family because my sister HAD TO HAVE MY FAMILY AT HER HOUSE and no matter how much I tried to share in that holiday, she always had a reason why it had to be at HER house. And that went all the way back to when I was little. But that was not enough for her, she had to joke at the holiday table about me not being able to do the holidays and that I didn't cook like her. I did cook but it was clear that it would never match up to HER.
Even when I gave in, I still got belittled somehow. The game with her was always to let HER have the control and adore her all the way.

And when I had my inlaws to my home for the holidays, I stressed the whole time, even the morning of, I was cleaning and worried about stupid dust and shine. A T might have said I was OCD. But I wasn't and I didn't know why I stressed so much until I relived my childhood and saw why.

Now my house is a mess, I cant be like I used to because now I know why I was the way I was. And I have not found a happy medium, and my family doesn't get it. I actually used to love to clean, but now I get triggered and upset. Like I said, I have not found a happy medium yet. And I don't have people over either.

And Christmas? I am very lost about Christmas now. And I can't even go near my sister at Christmas and she still insists on having everything at her house in a grandious way. And because I don't go she says I am terrible and want all the attention, which is so far from the truth. I cannot even be around her. And the last time I saw her in the hospital when my father got so ill, I saw it all, things I didn't notice about her. She wanted to stand and be all about drama and her body language spoke a thousand words about how much she needed to be in control of that situation.

I actually did really well in the hospital when I visited my father, but I also became familiar of how I act around her. It was like seeing the reality of it for the first time actually. I was glad I didn't fall apart. But that was to come two days later in the worst flashback yet, and it is very painful and I don't know what is happening, but I sense I am a very small child and my sister is there but that is all I know other than I am crying very hard. And I cry and cannot stop crying and I am that child and I am confused for several days.

I adapted to disfunction in ways I never realized and was a part of my foundation that I never realized.

So that is just some things I learned about myself that I didn't realize formed in my childhood. When we see all these things, we first recognize them and then we work on what "we" want for "ourselves" and not what we think "others" want from us.

Open Eyes