Member-only story
PTSD and the US Court System:
a personal account
As I near the end of the 2nd year of my divorce struggle, I wanted to share a few things I have learned with those who might most benefit from them: those who live with CPTSD and PTSD. I want to acknowledge that PTSD and CPTSD develop differently in different people, especially men and women. I have learned, the hard way, that our bodies process trauma in different ways. We have different strengths and different weaknesses in our bodies. These places are where we see trauma rear its ugly head.
I have had symptoms of PTSD since I was a child. I was the oldest girl in a family, given a load of responsibility of an adult at an early age, and literally missed 2 of the essential developmental phases of childhood-according to several of my therapists and therapist friends. I had a traumatizing experience about age 12 based in religious fundamentalism and was forever changed.
Although I was loved as a child and as an adult by my family and many friends, I never knew how to discuss the fears and paranoias in a way that could be accepted. The trauma lived in my nervous system, driving me to anxiety, paranoias, and hypochondria as a youth. Later, it settled into panic attacks and GAD. It affected my pregnancies dramatically, my adrenals, my eyes, and my brain, overall. I had mild seizures, tremors, and panic attacks…
