Recovering from Complex PTSD with Elizabeth Ferreira | Being Well Podcast 

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Very insightful…. TY both❤️🔆❤️‼️

How soon or what is a good time to share this with a new partner.? From the beginning or wait..

She looks kinda like & reminds me of a young Marissa Tomei. What soulful eyes☹️

This was the BEST interview/talk/interaction and example I've watched (on RU-vid and beyond) on C-PTSD. Both interviewer and guest were great. It really resonated with me. It was hearing a description of my life. In many ways similar, like the religiosity part. And in other ways slightly different, however feelings and reactions to the experiences highly the same. It gave me so much validation and healing that I cried in various moments. 🙏🏽 The therapy part it's very true, and real. Finding the right therapist that is knowledge, but most importantly feels safe and attuned to us, is crucial. I've pretty much discovered on my own that I have been going thru cptsd, despite having been in therapy for many, many years. No therapist ever told me that the feelings and reactions/sensations/thoughts I was experiencing in my body - to the point of developing chronic illness-were due to unresolved trauma and C-PTSD. For me, what made this interview validating was Elizabeth's authenticity, vulnerability and realness. The way she speaks of her experiences going through C-PTSD. and from a therapist's perspective (have no doubt she's a great one). Her attunement to her somatic sensations and thoughts as she shares these experiences shows how much work she's done on herself. I enjoyed your interaction as a couple as well. Being attuned to each other, and how a trigger comment was mitigated with/thru truth, vulnerability and compassion. This was validating and reassuring to me that one can heal and come to the other side from C-PTSD. Thank you both for putting this content out there! 💖🦋🙏🏽

Exactly. I am same ,too. Also , I realized I always sped time with not good people for me because my mom was also and is not good for me.

No way. I feel so validated

Very powerful wow

I totally understand watching your mother’s every move, no matter how small! EVERY move. It really offered a solid education in reading every other person I’ve met. And, of course, it was my self-designated job to be who each one needed. That’s exhausting for a child! Now, I didn’t take the ACE test, but after years of therapy and crying I finally had a moment when I said to my therapist, “It was bad, wasn’t it?” Her “Yes” was confirmation and also sounded like “And now we can start.”

Story of my effing life. I'll never forget how "up" I felt after 9/11. If I had been young enuf to still join the armed forces, I would have. The shittier things are the more activated and engaged I am. If things are going well, I feel like crap, l'm depressed and withdrawn. I should have gone to work for FEMA.

Congrats on your recovery. Most persons never realizes psilocybin can be used as a miracle medication to save lives. Years back i wrote an entire essay about psychedelics. they saved you from death bud, lets be honest here.

Can you help me with the reliable source 🙏. I'm 56 and have suffered for years with addiction, anxiety and severe ptsd, I got my panic attacks under control myself years ago and they have come back with a vengeance, I'm constantly trying to take full breaths but can't get the full satisfying breath out, it's absolutely crippling me, i live in Germany. I don't know much about these mushrooms. Really need a reliable source!! Can't wait to get them

YES sure of Dr.benfungi. Did straight shrooms in few nights. Left me like a blank slate after words, no more addictions, pains, ptsd and depression. Shit saved my life, all thanks to Dr.benfungi

How do I reach out to him? Is he on insta

I would like to know from those who have solved PTSD and anxiety, if they have solved it definitively and how to understand what quantity of psilocybin to take and when, for how long. And can you really heal without having an addiction? Thanks to everyone for helping me understand, I want to understand if it's something that can help me solve the problem (I have c-ptsd)

That's a beautiful testimony. The work you've done will benefit your family for generations. Godspeed.

much support for you. it takes strength. it will hopefully help in your healing.

Reading this comment made me cry. That is so beautiful.

Rhonda, I am 45 and trying to break that cycle, too. But it hurts so much seeing my kids being affected emotionally, too. What do you think you did, despite your own emotional distress, differently so that your kids are now healthy and not traumatised? Or did you start your recovery before you had kids? My kids were 3,6 and 10 and my now 9 year old has had to learn to navigate my emotions, my 6 yo cannot regulate her own, my 13 yo shuts herself in, trying to cope with their mom being jumpy and burnt out, trying to heal her own childhood trauma. I hug them a lot, always apologise if I overreacted, but I cant always be there for them. But if you told me, "just focus on xyz" I would certainly try to add this to the hugs and apologies. Initially, my intent was to model self care but I am failing miserably. Walking away from their dad was self care by setting boundaries towards toxic people. But I have not been able to get beyond that.

I am also older and remember my aunt screaming my mother's name, mom's been dead over 20 years at the time, that my mother had caused her to be beaten to the point of blood running down my aunt's back from a father that had been dead over 70 years. Generational dysfunction comes back to haunt descending grandchildren and great grandchildren. I knew why mom was nuts, but that didn't help me sort out my problems.

So sorry to hear that you were bullied like that. Bullying is SO traumatizing, it's unreal that it takes place in our school system the way that it does. 😟

I'm sorry to hear that... I see it as a serious issue. Remember the C in CPTSD stands for complex, not childhood. In majority of cases it stems from early childhood, but it doesn't have to. Everyone talks about family systems but I think it doesn't have to stem primarily from the family system either.

It is starting to be seen as serious now there are shows about it and everything I heard it used to be worse for kids growing up in the 80s which I could kind of see in the movie Heathers but aside from that movie I don't think people took bullying seriously

Oh boy, same here brother/sister, I lost my brother at 13 years old and at the same time was going through bullying on the 7th grade, I even had a group of kids grabbing me and burning my hand with a cigarette, I still have a small scar from it, but grieving and going through that and other things built the person I’m now. At the same time my mother was in a deep depression because of my brothers passing and always I got home I used to hide my pain so it didn’t affect her even more. Oh boy, I have so much still to overcome and I only feel comfortable talking about it on the internet. :/

I agree bullying in school is terribly harmful. I was bullied in the Girl Guides because I went to a different school from the others, but my Dad forced me to go because he had a great time in the Boy Scouts - he didn’t get that the Girl Guides back then was completely different from the Boy Scouts. We did go to camp in a field once, but the tents were set up for us and we didn’t do very much except for a few chores around camp. I got assigned emptying the Latrines by my Patrol leader who was the ring-leader of the bullying, I also got assigned to wash up the dishes regularly. The other Patrols had to take their turns, so I only had to empty Latrines for maybe 2 or 3 days, but leaving the decision to the Patrol leader was just an open invitation to bully the person in the group who was lowest on the totem pole. I never felt able to tell an adult that I was being bullied because I didn’t think I could rely on my parents and therefore by extension, I didn’t believe that any other adults could be trusted to take it seriously. We were also told to bring an old blanket with a hole cut in the middle which would serve as a kind of warm poncho when we were singing songs around the campfire. My parents refused to cut a hole in the blanket as they thought it was a waste. We weren’t short of old blankets or in the kind of poverty that would have made that blanket so important - in fact I don’t remember them ever using it. They insisted that I fold it so that it could be pinned together with a safety pin instead of cutting a hole. The parents were invited over to visit us one evening and they saw that I was the only child that had it safety-pinned - all the others had a hole cut as per the instructions that were sent home. They were embarrassed by the peer pressure of the other parents, so they did then cut a hole in it like everyone else had done. I was lucky that I was wasn’t bullied in school, which must be much worse. It upset me to see other kids being bullied and I felt bad for the weaker teachers who would be taunted by other girls in my class, one of whom was my best friend. She started to drift away from me and I think part of that was because I was too much of a “goody two shoes”. We were very close before puberty and she was generally a nice, fun person to be around. In fact she asked be to be her sponsor when she was confirmed which to me felt like I was really important to her. She had a strange streak which attracted her to some of the meaner girls and it felt like I ceased to exist when a couple of them were around. Those girls did bully me very mildly from time to time and she wouldn’t join in but she didn’t defend me either. Both my parents were extremely strict and had post- grad qualifications as teachers, so I was terrified of getting into trouble at school, more because I was afraid of the consequences when I got home but also the schools I went to were very strict, secondary school was Roman Catholic Convent School, which I was taken out of when I was 16 and put into mainstream school studying double Maths and Physics. I was one of only 2 girls in our Physics class and I wasn’t used to working alongside teenage boys. The other girl hung out with a male friend who she already knew from their previous school. I had to work in a group with two boys - also friends from their previous school and they would just takeover and do the experiments as though I wasn’t there, except on one occasion when they got stuck and let me have a go and I was able to make it work which was very gratifying, but I went totally inside myself and I couldn’t seem to make friends with any of the girls - I lost my social skills entirely as I expected to be rejected by my peers. I’d spend break times hiding in the toilets mostly because I didn’t want anybody to know that I had no friends. It was a large enough school that everybody assumed that I had friends that I was hanging out with elsewhere. I felt completely isolated as there was no point in trying to talk to my parents about anything - they’d just tell me it was something I had to get through and to try harder or imply that there was something faulty about me, mostly that came from my mother as she taught full-time as a Music Teacher in a secondary school and really didn’t have much time for her own children,she’s also a functioning alcoholic so she’d drink and fall asleep most evenings after a long day at work and cooking dinner (she’d start drinking around 6pm when she was cooking dinner unless she had an evening engagement when she’d usually take a tranquilliser as just about all of her after school activities involved playing the piano or the church organ and she’d be nervous playing in front of her peers). My Dad was a rageaholic and often violent as well as extremely insensitive and often said cruel things. He’d also buy a small chocolate bar for myself and my sister most Friday evenings and both parents had moments when they would be kind and loving. There was a lot of uncertainty about when one of them would take out their frustrations on us. I have the intense feelings of guilt and shame and I’m still stuck in my traumas in my 50s. I also fell into being a functional alcoholic and the treatment I received made it worse rather than better. That’s an ongoing battle. I found this video very useful. Thank you Elizabeth and how lovely to see the interaction between the two of you.

Totally agree and what an eye opener to hear her bring this up!

I know!! So sweet!

And yet, you saw through it.. Great work... We can heal! 🌹🌹

Me too...can relate.

Same here

Any parent who has problems or can't parent that well for whatever reason could still protect their kids to an extent if they reassured their kids that they are never the problem, and the problem is the parents themselves but most parents won't do that they'll let you think you're the problem

It s all about toxic parents... 🙅‍♀️🚴‍♀️🚴‍♀️🚴‍♀️🚴‍♀️

I’ve managed my parents mentions my entire life. This was so helpful. She was so well spoken and he was so kind.

Ditto

People used to think trauma had to be from war horrible abuse seeing an accident etc. but trauma is more about negative experiences and how they affect us and shape us but I know people would still dismiss most of us if we say we're traumatized

@bluelotus your comment is my comment, if I’d written one. Your words gave me that seed of hope each day needs to get to the next. I wish you well esp finding resources. I’m forever seeking the right therapist and continue I n-depth research as it’s my only validation I have. A year ago you wrote this and today it has significantly impacted another person’s life. I needed to tell you that and thank you.

Friends care, listen and don't denigrate friends truth. Seems your hoping they will hear you but you are ignoring your inner self, your true self that is crying for someone to hear you, witness your truth and help you to trust. Leave sweetheart or find a way to stand up to these emotional, psychological deniers or bullies.

Dear Lady of the Veil - it sounds like these so called friends are not friends.. True friends do not behave like that or say those things. I've had difficulty finding genuine friends, too, & learning more about cptsd and consequent behaviours helps understand why. There ARE folk who understand, & care, & we can mutually support each other etc.. finding our 'tribe' 🙏💕💖🤗

@@manyBlessings2all ❤️🙏😘

It's very possible that your 'friends' are denying this reality because they simply don't have the tools to help or provide support... that they may have cptsd of their own that they are also in denial of and to face your experience with you would necessarily bring their own similar experience to light such that they would have to go through the pain of dealing with that... or they're just recognizing that victim mentality isn't getting you good results and want you to move past brooding and into solutions... In other words, people can only guide or help others in the paths that they themselves have walked through. Sometimes cognitive dissonance is the only thing holding one's reality together and breaking everything down (everything that you know of yourself and life and base your personality and life attitudes/actions/habits) can feel too overwhelming and chaotic to handle without going completely off the rails and possibly never getting back on those rails again and thus feeling lost without a compass. Your friends may truly care about you but simply cannot help you here... much of healing is in fact a solo job anyway, nice to have hands to hold but only you can walk your path.

You've surrounded yourself with people that keep you feeling alienated and traumatized. Heal and you will find that you need more from people in your life.

wish you love and healing. Hugs

Can relate, I also decided to not have children in my late 30's in the 1990's because treatment for CPTSD was horrible and I saw no hope in healing and knew if I cannot take care of myself then I cannot burden a child. Plus, too many have children so they will have someone to love unconditionally when they would be better buying a dog due the selfish reasons many have children as a wound healer.

@@dylanmaxey2531 Was it difficult decision not to have kids? I am also cruising quickly to the end of my 30s but I'm just now slowly waking up to the realisation that I might want to have a kid despite of CPTSD because I feel there's hope for healing...Sometimes it takes THAT long to unlearn destructive patterns.

I sometimes think the people who actually have the self awareness to consider whether they would give a child what they need, would be much better parents than many of the people who have children.

I have cptsd and I have 4 children. I would never treat them the way my parents treated me. I got help, with counseling and support from my amazing husband and I know that my kids are happy and healthy. They are so wonderful. It can be done. Breaking generation trauma.

Omg. I can so relate to your story. I’m 62 also and still trying to heal. It’s a tough journey and can be extremely painful/lonely. I really need to find a good group to heal with.

​@@joywilliams4014 agreed. Would be nice to have a good support group that would be helpful to heal from these wounds.

I can't even think of my child hood.😢77 yr old male.

​@@joywilliams4014 tough is putting it mildly

Big hugs! This is hard stuff.. I'm 63 and had finally gotten to an ok spot in life, not great but at least peaceful. And then I was kidnapped , held hostage and raped by my neighbor in an extremely rural area. Now I'm destroyed. All of it together was to much and my nervous system is so fried I can't handle anything anymore. Zero help available where I am

Have you tried Hypnosis specifically for Trauma ~CPSTD (included, inner child healing, polyvagl, somatics, energy healing, holistic, though gets to the root, huge releases and you integrate new beliefs?. I do this and it's been life changing. I started at 48. Best of luck🙏❤

I did EMDR. It helped greatly. I am diagnosed with this CPTSD due to narc abuse. I working to get out. I am in my mid 60s.

I'm 60, & just heard of cptsd 2 years ago. It explained decades of not-breathing, deep anguish when someone didn't call back, fury or fear when meeting someone else's irritability etc. It is sooo relieving (tho grievous) to see those behaviors in every decade of life, see how my parents' cptsd resurfaced in their last years, all of us like angry kids as i tried to take care of them. I've cried buckets of tears but am sooo glad to get free of this bit by bit, it doesn’t feel too late at all. We can do it!

Mushrooms

Give a look at self administer EMDR. There's lots of RU-vid on it. It helps reprogram your brain. It's never too late to give yourself a great life. You might find a trauma/EMDR therapist. Best wishes.

Does he have a single brother 😆😘🤗

@@bandieboo8102 😂 He actually does but he moved away from his hometown when he was 18 and never went back. Not sure about his three single brothers’ abilities to do the same. 😂

I'm sorry that we can all relate, Eugene. Glad to see your comment; that quote resonated with me too...

Same EMDR didn’t help me at all.

Same here..,after 32 years of marriage to an abusive narcissist, watching a light go back and forth didn’t cut it for me..sadly I think we have to get ourselves out of it. Best wishes to all who are suffering in silence 🙏

​@@oilselevated4808 after narcissistic abuse, emdr and other therapies can only work after you've already processed a lot and are ready for individuation. Sam Vaknins work has helped me a lot, perhaps youve come across him?

It did not help me either

I too have just found this interview and my entire life as the too much too dramatic too sensitive one is suddenly validated, giving me the first real, save, genuine stepping stone to support to get my life back. Thank you for your comment and I wish you all the best.

This is such a hard thing to read. Your brother drowning like that is horrific. I'm so sorry that happened to him and you.

@@dariamancini963 Thank you, I appreciate you're compassion. It means a great deal. It is a lesson I've learned to appreciate and not take for granted the kindness of another. I truly believe compassion and kindness change the world.

Rumination has a lot to do with actual trauma... People who don t make sense in your brain... Who have two realities... Liers, hypocrites, etc... Maybe a close member near you... Watch it out....

❤

Totally me too, it was an eye opener for real. I wish it didnt take me half my life to learn as much as i did here. Hope your doing ok and I hope this video helped you the way it did me. Hang in there and I hope your healing is letting you live the life you deserved the whole time. God bless you dear and stay strong and hopeful.

Agree , I was at a therapy session today and into some deep trauma work when she abruptly just stopped the session, felt very brutal and with total lack of empathy and compassion of what I was in the middle of. Kind of shock to my system, therapist should be training in how to bring people gently in and out safely of these states.

@@larsstougaard7097 I'm sorry you were treated like that. I think it may be time to move on if she's going to be so legalistic over a few moments. I don't see any reason why a session can't conclude in a more natural, appropriate way. These people are well paid, and whilst you can't pay anyone to genuinely care, I think that behaviour sends you the message that she's not a 'safe' person, -when the relationship needs to be based on trust. It's a tough one for any client to navigate, as we're so vulnerable and need to be able to trust our therapists. I hope you can address it with her, as it feels important.

@jennytaylor3324 thank you very much for your reply , I just think my therapist and other ones I have encountered don't have had deep trauma themselves. So they don't know what it feels like, they have only learned some practical approaches to deal with it and more general things. My dilemma is my therapist do some helpful somatic work I haven't found anywhere else. It's a jungle out there, so can be hard and stressful to start over and over again. And true I should try to address it after this summer break, but will consider if I should move on also. 😊🙏

Wow. Too bad! I hope your therapy situation is better now one way or another. Thank you for your lovely articulation of a therapist's responsibility to help people move gently into the present after deep trauma work and vice versa. @@larsstougaard7097

I recommend you also Michele Lee Nieves... Excellent cptsd videos

Ptsd is a traitor... Stress from trauma makes you do crazy stuff and have extra pains and fears... Calming, having fun, meditating, listening to calm music... Basically self parenting and listening to you as your parents never did has been totally helpful to me

Wow! I resonate so much with what you shared here. Thanks for taking the time to write this out. It's so wonderful to feel resonance with this experience, particularly the sensitivity. :)

Exactly my experience for 41 years.

I have come to resent the “Your such a good patient” I am being praised for maladaptive behavior.. It is just an another way of feeling like the only way to survive is to not make any waves and hide who you are. That expressing that you’re in pain will make you just an annoyance. They say it like they are giving you a compliment. But it makes me not trust them. They basically just told you they find their other patients draining and a pain to deal with. Which causes further breakdown in feeling that you can be vulnerable and open with this person.

@@XxmidnitesunxX that is so true, thank you 💚

I would try mindfulness guided meditations (you can find them on RU-vid) that could help you with hyper vigilance and also shaking (I think it is somatic exercises) that helps you to release trauma stored in the body without doing sports or exercises that can make you more stuck in fight and flight response. That's what I'm doing now, learning to breathe slower and staying in my body.

Thank you Shari!

It took me to get to the age 44 to see it. I had my light 💡 bulb moment, and have completely stepped away from all toxic family members, people and anything that does not serve me any safety and loving learning life lessons and surroundings. I had to teach myself boundaries. I pray for all and everyone to have blessings and I love at a distance. I am powerless and my life has become unmanageable and I believe in a higher power and it’s Jesus. Thank you so much for your share. A lot of childhood similarities. There is a gift in desperation. I changed, shifted my angle of view point and it has helped me grow. Also letting go and let life live clean and serene 🫶🏼💡💕

@@lavenderchai1613 I HAD to change. I was Desperate! And it worked! Yes, Jesus is a good, good friend. So are you, 2 Beautiful Rock Star souls, Forrest and Elizabeth!! Keep keepin' it So Real!! Thank you 💜👣

@@Sunny-vm4ry thank you for your sweet comment, you literally made my day 💝☺️🫶🏼 Jesus is best friend… a matter a fact he’s my only friend 💯🔑🩸

Most of me is trapped in the child that was hurt. I love that phrase! Both of my parents are narcissistic. Emotional regulation is extremely difficult even at 56.

This is really lovely, thank you for sharing it

How about self parenting? No one like yourself to heal yourself!! 🤗🤸‍♀️🤸‍♀️🙋‍♀️🌷🌷

CPTSD, DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, ADHD, ASD are really hard to deal with. If you need a permanent solution to that using PSYCH*DELIC HEALING

I'll refer you to this mate I got mine delivered discreetly|||

Smithspores

On instragram

Keep working on it. You deserve to be heard and helped. If you can't find a good therapist to help you with the CPTS, then maybe drag your daughter to a family therapist to work on your relationship with her. Also, check out attachment disorders. That really resonated with me.