What combination of modalities have worked for you?

Complex trauma is, well... Complex. It requires multiple modalities to embody healthy coping mechanisms.

This thread is about what worked for you?

For me there were a number of things though I got retraumatized so I won't advice for it.

PLEASE DO NOT advocate for therapy that is not trauma therapy with a qualified (specialized in trauma) therapist as readers may take the advice even if they are unsafe and be retraumatized.

I haven't tried this because there isn't anyone trained and under my insurance in the region, but I've been recommended to do EMDR (and not to expect improvement until the sixth session) and DBT. Another thing that's supposed to be extremely effective is neurofeedback.

What you can do to help yourself outside of therapy is learn to build the connection between thoughts, emotions, and sensations. This can be done with meditation, yoga, tai-chai, martial arts, etc. I know with my complex trauma, it was/can be hard to take this nonspecific uncomfortable or downright unbearable feeling and putting words to it. So I try to be more mindful of "how the badness feels" like noticing if my muscles are tight, if I'm breathing fast, does my body feel heavy, etc. Also take a step back from your thoughts and try to use those to identify what state of mind I'm in: "So-and-so is such an a-hole, wronged me in so many ways, I'm never going to talk to them again," could be the thoughts, and if I try and think ABOUT the thoughts instead of thinking the thoughts I can say "hey, I feel violated" (that's where an emotion wheel or something like that can help).

Then you learn appropriate ways of handling the emotions after you've named them. In DBT there's this idea of wise mind where you look at the rational side, the emotional side, and find a middle ground.

I watched this video on CPTSD

and couldn't be more glad C-PTSD is starting to get more recognition. They did a good job covering the complexities of what makes C-PTSD... Complex. I subscribed to their channel. Besides the NARM complex trauma training center, it seems they're also focusing on treating C-PTSD. Tim Fletcher's YouTube videos are also good. Hopefully more research will be done.

And another one on PTSD (touches a bit on C-PTSD):

Note: the recommended treatment by them, in the video, is CBT so be aware that this may retraumatize sufferers of (C-)PTSD as talk therapies work only for some.

My point is, C-PTSD is starting to get more and more attention even with traditional providers. I can only hope they start introducing bottom up approaches as well.