10 Signs You Know You’re Healing From C-PTSD

C-PTSD seemed like it was something I’d have to live with… forever. But a pretty miraculous thing happened recently: I heard genuinely positive confirmations that I’ve grown. And this is coming a woman nearing the fifth decade of her life.

Like the lot of us Complex PTSD survivors, we’re stuck in our traumas, and often respond to similar stresses as our younger selves. (C-PTSD is a sustained stress common among children of narcissists, because we never knew whether we’re safe). It keeps us in survival mode and we react to triggers as our 5 year old selves. (Or whatever age the trauma happened). I’ve been trying my whole life to not be seen as immature, but I couldn’t crack it. I was just stuck, stuck, stuck.

When I least expected it, after I did something that could be seen to be the biggest failure of my life, I started to heal. This internal shift was even validated by a couple of people who called me “mature for realizing these things at such a young age”! And that I was “speaking from a place of clarity”!

I’m actually still quite baffled that this happened. Clarity has been something I yearned for so much I used forms of that word as passwords, hoping one day to achieve some form of it.

I experienced these signs growth, and hope you do too:

Signs of Healing from C-PTSD

1. Others Recognize Your Growth First: Because you might be so used to feeling sh*tty that it takes you a lot longer to see your growth. In reality, your close friends, family, and therapist might have the more object view on things. Trust them on this, if you already trust them.
2. You See Old Self as Another Person: You’re still you, but you start to feel like the trauma you had in the past, that happened to a completely different person – the old you. You no longer feel like the trauma is with you in the present moment but sometime in the past. You’re able to create that distance now so much that you might even feel like you passed through some sort of fun house mirror. You’re living in the present and the old you is clearly in the past.
3. You’re More Objective About What Happened in the Past: All the sh*t that happened to you in the past, you no longer take 100% of the blame. You recognize that there were systems at play, and you just happened to be swept in them.
4. You Don’t Blame Yourself: You realize you blamed yourself before because you were only a child. And it’s easier for children to see themselves as the issue. To see your parent as the issue would mean admitting that there’s little chance of survival. And kids need that glimmer of hope to keep going.
5. You Start Feeling Like You’re Enough: We get stuck because we don’t think we’re (good) enough. You blame yourself, you don’t think you’re a good person, so you’re never ___ enough. But then your self-image starts to change. You might even start working smarter and not harder, because you see yourself in a new light now.
6. You Talk to Yourself Differently Now: Before, anytime things went wrong it was because you felt you did something wrong. Now like Neo in The Matrix, you can stop negative thoughts from entering your force field. You might catch yourself talking to yourself like a parent or therapist would. “Jane, that’s not your fault. Anyone in your situation could’ve forgotten to pick up milk. You had a hundred other things on your plate!” You’re able to see things clearly without being all delulu about it.
7. Addictive Behaviours Decrease: You’ll still turn to whatever vices soothed you when traumas are once again triggered. The big difference is that you don’t need them on a regularly basis to survive. For me, it’s turning to food. I might still engage in emotional eating, but because I feel Enough now, I’m no longer dependent on it.
8. You’re Okay with the “Bad” Parts of You: Things you used to judge yourself about (like how your body looks) melts away. It might feel like someone swapped the software in your brain. Because even though you have the same body, you feel completely different about it.
9. You Might Grieve: People who have trauma find themselves in vicious cycles of repeating the same thing they so want to avoid. Like the classic, the bullied becoming the bully. But as you leave your old self, old patterns behind, abusers, negative cycles behind, change can be hard. This is especially true for those of us with C-PTSD. You might find yourself grieving the past, something that’s been familiar for so long, even if it’s something you wanted to leave for such a long time.
10. There’s Hope for the Future: Things start looking a lot brighter. Your prospects might not be extravagant or grand, but they’re good. And you’re okay with that.

xo, Miranda