When Trauma Doesn’t End

Understanding PTSD, Complex PTSD, and Prolonged Childhood Trauma

“The body keeps the score: the memory of trauma is stored not as history, but as experience.”
— Bessel van der Kolk

There are stories that end in a single moment — a car crash, a natural disaster, a violent encounter that tears through an otherwise steady life. And then there are stories that don’t end — the ones that stretch across years, shaping how we think, feel, and see ourselves. When trauma doesn’t end, it becomes the air we breathe, the silence between our words, the tension that lives in our shoulders. It’s not a single event to recover from, but a lifelong pattern the body learns to survive.

For a long time, I didn’t have the words for what I carried. I thought “PTSD” belonged to soldiers or survivors of one-time tragedies. But what happens when the war is in your own home? When the threat is daily, and the enemy is someone you’re supposed to love? That’s where Complex PTSD — and the concept of prolonged childhood trauma — begins to make sense.

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Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

PTSD develops after a single traumatic event — something so shocking or terrifying that the mind and body can’t fully process it. A car accident. A fire. An assault. A single night that divides life into before and after.

People with PTSD often experience:

• Intrusive memories or flashbacks — reliving the event as if it’s happening again.

• Avoidance — steering clear of reminders, people, or places connected to the trauma.

• Hyperarousal — always on alert, jumpy, unable to relax.

• Negative changes in thoughts and mood — guilt, fear, anger, or feeling detached from others.

PTSD says: Something happened to me, and I can’t make it stop replaying.

And yet, when trauma happens again and again — especially in childhood — the story changes. The body stops reacting to one event and instead adapts to a constant state of danger. It’s not about a single wound anymore. It’s about a system built on survival.

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Complex PTSD (C-PTSD)

Complex PTSD develops from chronic, repeated trauma — usually interpersonal and occurring over months or years. Unlike standard PTSD, it doesn’t stem from one event but from many. Often, these experiences involve captivity — emotional, physical, or psychological — where escape wasn’t possible.

For many, that captivity was a childhood home.

C-PTSD carries the core symptoms of PTSD, but adds layers:

• Difficulty regulating emotions — intense anger, shame, or sadness that feels impossible to control.

• Deep-seated shame or guilt — the belief that you are defective, unworthy, or to blame.

• Distorted self-perception — seeing yourself as broken or powerless.

• Relationship struggles — a push-pull between craving connection and fearing it.

• Chronic hypervigilance or dissociation — living either in fight-or-flight or completely shut down.

Complex PTSD says: Something happened to me — not once, but over and over — and my whole sense of self was shaped around surviving it.

For survivors of prolonged childhood abuse, neglect, or emotional manipulation, C-PTSD often feels like an invisible script written long before adulthood began. You learn to anticipate pain, silence emotions, and scan for danger before joy. Even when life becomes safe, your body doesn’t always believe it.

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Prolonged Childhood Trauma

This is where language fails us a little. “Prolonged childhood trauma” isn’t always an official diagnosis — it’s a lived reality. It describes what happens when trauma isn’t a single event or even a defined period, but the atmosphere of growing up.

Maybe it was never safe to rest. Maybe you learned early that crying was punished, not comforted. Maybe the adults who were supposed to protect you were the ones you feared most. Or maybe no one was ever there at all.

This kind of trauma shapes development itself — the wiring of the brain, the ability to trust, the way love feels in the body. It can blur the line between danger and normalcy so deeply that chaos becomes comfort, and peace feels foreign.

It’s not just what happened; it’s what never happened.
No safety. No validation. No repair.

For those of us who lived it, the damage wasn’t only in the moments of pain — it was in the years of not being believed, not being seen, not being soothed.

I used to think “survival” meant I had made it out. But survival, for a child, doesn’t always mean safety — it often just means adaptation. I learned to make myself small. To anticipate moods. To read the air before I spoke. That kind of vigilance becomes muscle memory — it becomes identity.

There were years when I thought I was “too sensitive,” when really I was just still on guard. Loud noises made my heart race. Silence made me anxious. I didn’t know what peace felt like, so when I finally found it, part of me didn’t trust it.

That’s the hardest part about prolonged trauma: it doesn’t just teach you fear; it rewrites your definition of love, safety, and self-worth.

When people say, “You had a hard childhood,” I sometimes want to tell them — it wasn’t just hard. It was endless. There wasn’t a finish line or a single moment to point to. It was the air I breathed, the walls I grew inside.

And yet, naming it — calling it prolonged childhood trauma — gave me something I never had before: a framework that said, “You weren’t crazy. You were conditioned to survive.”

Understanding that truth has been one of the first real doors to freedom.

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How They Intertwine

You might think of these forms of trauma as existing on a spectrum.

Type of Trauma	Nature of the Experience	Primary Wound	Common Result
PTSD	A single, identifiable traumatic event	The memory of the event	Fear, avoidance, flashbacks
Complex PTSD	Repeated, prolonged trauma (often relational)	Loss of safety and trust	Shame, emotional dysregulation, fractured identity
Prolonged Childhood Trauma	Continuous trauma or neglect during development	Altered sense of self and world	Lifelong patterns of hypervigilance, attachment wounds, identity confusion

When trauma is ongoing, the nervous system stops distinguishing “crisis” from “normal.” We stop reacting to danger and start living in it. That’s why healing isn’t about forgetting or “moving on.” It’s about teaching the body and mind what safety actually feels like — maybe for the first time.

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Living with the Aftermath

Even in safety, our bodies remember. The sudden noise that startles others mildly might send a survivor into panic. A tone of voice can feel like a threat. A child’s tears can awaken memories of our own helplessness.

Many of us grow up believing something is wrong with us — that we’re “too sensitive,” “too emotional,” or “too much.” But what we’re really experiencing are echoes of a body that has done everything it could to survive.

For trauma survivors, triggers aren’t weakness — they’re reminders of what the body never got to finish feeling.

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Hope and Healing

Healing from prolonged trauma takes time — and it’s not linear. Therapy, community, faith, and safe relationships slowly begin to teach the nervous system that it no longer has to fight or flee.

I used to think healing meant forgetting what happened. Now I know it means remembering without reliving. It means recognizing that I am no longer the child who had to brace for every sound.

Every deep breath, every boundary, every moment of rest is a quiet rebellion against the past.

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Reflection: The Body Remembers, but So Does Grace

Trauma may live in the body, but grace does too. It meets us in the tension, in the panic, in the shame — whispering that we are not beyond repair. Naming the kind of trauma we carry isn’t about labeling our pain; it’s about understanding it, so we can finally stop blaming ourselves for surviving.

The body remembers, but so does grace.

And sometimes, that’s where the healing begins.

Triggers in the Workplace

This month has felt like a mirror I didn’t ask to look into. A student in my classroom is walking through storms that feel so familiar to me, and I find myself back in those small shoes, remembering what it felt like to be unseen, unheard, and unprotected. It is both heartbreaking and infuriating to realize that the system — the one I needed as a child — is still broken in many of the same ways forty years later.

Every time I have to speak with their parents, something inside me coils up tight. The minute I hear their voices, I want to scream and run away. My body reacts before I even process the words. And when I see their mother interact with them, it sends shivers down my spine. There’s a tone, a sharpness, an edge that I recognize too well — the kind that doesn’t leave bruises but cuts deep all the same. It’s like watching my own story play out in front of me, and I hate that I know exactly how it feels.

These moments remind me that trauma doesn’t stay neatly packed away in the past. It spills into the present — into workplaces, classrooms, staff meetings, and conversations we’d rather not have. For me, the workplace is a classroom, but my triggers don’t care about the setting. They show up when a parent’s voice echoes the harshness of my own mother’s. They show up when a child’s fear mirrors the fear I carried at that age. They show up when a colleague momentarily loses track of a student of mine, and my heart panics before my mind can catch up.

The day my colleague lost track of a student of mine, I knew they were safe soon after, but my body didn’t know that. It reacted with fear, as if I were back in danger myself. My mind replayed every memory of not being protected. I panicked, not because of the moment itself, but because of the history stitched into me. That’s what triggers do — they collapse time. They take the “then” and drag it into the “now.”

I am not proud of how I reacted that Monday, between the student going through the storms and the other student being misplaced. I was mad, and I let my frustration out at the administration. But when I look closer, I see that it wasn’t really anger at the children or the other teachers — it was anger at the injustice of it all, at the reminder of my own powerlessness as a child. These are the moments when my past and present blur, and I must remind myself: I am the adult now. I am safe. And I can choose differently.

So here is the one truth that pulls me back over and over again: my students have me. They have someone who notices, someone who cares enough to see beyond the surface, someone who knows what it means to sit in that silent pain. I can’t fix the system. I can’t undo anyone’s hurt. But I can show up. I can be safe when the rest of their world feels unsafe.

This is why I became a teacher. To protect as many children as I can. To be the safe adult I once needed. I never want a child to have to suffer alone. I never, ever want a child to believe that they are stupid or lazy. We forget, as teachers, that we, too, play a part in how our students see themselves.

I am grateful for my position at this school, and I see God’s grace in this place on a daily basis. But I also know this about myself: working with adults is hard for me. It’s a growth area I am still learning to navigate, and one I pray for strength in daily. Healing doesn’t make me perfect; it just makes me honest enough to admit where I still stumble.

Promise to Myself and My Students
I will not run from the pain that rises in me when I see their stories mirror my own. Instead, I will stand steady and be the teacher who notices, protects, and believes them. My classroom will always be a place where safety begins, even when the system fails.

The Thoughts That Don’t Mean Goodbye

Chapter: The Thoughts That Don’t Mean Goodbye

“Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.”
— Psalm 23:4

There are nights when I am perfectly fine — laughing with my kids, grading papers, maybe even humming while I clean up after dinner — and then, without warning, a thought drifts in.
It’s quiet, almost casual. You could make it stop if you wanted to.

I don’t want to die. I know that in the deepest part of me.
But sometimes, the old pathways in my mind light up like a map of escape routes I once memorized to survive. It isn’t a plan. It isn’t a wish. It’s a whisper left behind by years of pain — a voice that once promised relief when no one else came to help.

Sometimes it happens even when I’m driving — when my mind wanders to a bad memory or a paranoid thought, and before I can catch it, my gut goes straight to the exit plan. Not because I want to act on it, but because my body still remembers what to do when it feels trapped. It’s instinct, not intention — the reflex of someone who once had to think about survival every second of the day.

And sometimes it happens at night, too — when I wake from a nightmare not knowing if it was real or where I am. In those blurry seconds between sleep and waking, my heart races, my body tenses, and I reach for my exit plan before my mind even catches up. That’s what trauma does: it trains you to find safety even when you’re already safe.

These are things I deal with on a daily basis. At first, I thought I was crazy — that maybe my medication wasn’t working, or that I wasn’t trying hard enough. But over the years, I’ve learned that no medication, no drug, no drink, and no distraction could make it stop. Because the trauma doesn’t just live in my mind — it lives in my body. I’ve worked hard on healing my thoughts, but my body holds its own memories. There’s not much I can do to heal it except give it time — time to forget, or maybe time to forgive.

This has helped me understand, in a very real way, how trauma can change DNA. I see it and feel it every day — the tension in my muscles, the way my body braces for things that aren’t happening anymore, the exhaustion that settles in even on peaceful days. Those events aren’t just memories; they’ve been written into who I am, both mentally and physically. My body still carries the story, even when my mind has turned the page.

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The Thoughts That Come Even When You’re Not Suicidal

People often think suicidal thoughts only belong to those standing on the edge, or to those who have nothing left. But for many trauma survivors, they show up like old ghosts — uninvited, but familiar, and sometimes even offering a false sense of safety. They’re not commands demanding to be followed; they’re soft echoes, remnants of old coping mechanisms that once promised control.

Sometimes they surface in exhaustion, when the day has demanded too much. Other times, they sneak in during moments of peace and joy — like the body still checking for danger long after the storm has passed. I’ve found that any strong emotion can set off alarms in my body — the good and the bad. My nervous system doesn’t always know the difference.

When you’ve spent years fighting to survive, your mind learns how to find all the exits you have — just in case. Healing doesn’t erase those exits; it just means you’ve learned why you don’t want to walk through them.

There’s a difference between wanting life to end and wanting pain to stop. And though those two longings can feel dangerously close, they are not the same.

When I was younger, any feeling or emotion meant pain — whether mental or physical. I only wanted the pain to stop, and for my mind to stop spinning. Death was never the goal. I didn’t want my life to end; I wanted the pain to die — for it to be gone and never return.

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Suicide and Self-Harm Are Not the Same

This is something few people talk about honestly.
Suicide seeks to end everything.
Self-harm, for many of us, was what kept us alive — but it was also an attempt to kill the emotional pain so we could stay alive.

It sounds contradictory, but it’s true. When I used to hurt myself, it wasn’t because I wanted to die — it was because I didn’t know how else to stay. The physical pain was something I could name, something I could control, when the emotional pain had no words.

For survivors, self-harm is often a language — the body trying to say what the mouth cannot. But while self-harm can look like a cry for death, it’s most often a cry for help, for release, for something that proves we still exist in the world we’re trying to survive.

For me, all emotions were too much. If I had physical pain to focus on, I didn’t have to feel the emotional ones. I needed pain — it centered me. It gave me something solid to hold onto when everything inside me felt too heavy, too loud, too out of control. In a strange way, it helped me function, even though it was never true healing.

That distinction matters — not to excuse it, but to understand it. When people confuse the two, they respond with fear instead of compassion. And fear closes the door to the very conversation that could save someone’s life.

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The Mind Remembers the Exits

Even in recovery, the mind remembers.
It remembers the late nights when silence felt unbearable, the ways it learned to soothe itself when no one else noticed the pain.
Healing doesn’t erase those memories — it just rewires them, gently, over time.

Now, when the thought comes, I try not to panic. I name it: This is an old voice. It thinks it’s protecting me.
Then I breathe and choose differently. Sometimes that choice looks like texting a friend, sometimes praying, sometimes just lying on the floor until the wave passes. I remind myself that the thought is not the truth — it’s just a visitor from a time when my brain was trying to survive the impossible.

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Learning to Stay

There’s a kind of courage that doesn’t look like heroism.
It looks like staying — even when your mind offers you the map to escape.
It looks like brushing your child’s hair when your heart is heavy.
It looks like showing up to teach, to listen, to love — even when part of you still wonders what peace might feel like on the other side.

These thoughts don’t make me broken. They remind me that I’m human — that healing doesn’t mean the darkness disappears, only that I’ve learned how to walk through it with the lights still on.

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A Reflection

Sometimes I imagine writing a letter to that part of my mind that still checks the exits.
It would say:

Thank you for trying to protect me. But I’m safe now. I have people who see me, children who need me, and a heart that has learned how to stay.

And maybe that’s the truth of healing — not the absence of those thoughts, but the gentle understanding that they no longer hold the power they once did.

I am still here.
Not because the thoughts never come,
but because every time they do — I choose to stay.

Over a year so just a little catch up!

So much has happened in the past 18 months that I really don't know were to began. Both kids are in school now.

Kaylee is in 1st Grade!

Michael is in afternoon Preschool 5 days a week from 12:30 pm to 3:30 pm!

I also started working in August 2018 at the kids school (Anderson Elementary School) and I love it. I am in Intervention and work with small groups from Kinder to Second grade. There are 4 of us working together and we all get along quite well. I am learning so much while teaching. Plus I love all the staff at the school as well.

Ken is still working at Costco and he loves it. The only thing is it is really early in the morning. his shift is 3:00 am to 11:30 am but it works out well for our family. He has been there almost 3 years so it is going by quite fast. 

Depression has been up and down over the past year or so. This Christmas was really hard for me and put in down and out mode for a while. But I am pushing through it the best I can. I think the really hard thing is that grandma has changed. Her memory is not as sharp as it once was and her body has really slowed her down. She was the one person that I had to vent to about almost anything and she would listen and support me or tell me to snap out of it. But that is almost gone. I don't have anyone to brag to about my kids anymore. No one to call up and say Kaylee lost her 7th tooth or Michael now weighs 5 lbs. more than Kaylee. As her short term memory is pretty much gone. Plus now there is no one to be a grandparent and go see them in events at school, recitals or Sports games. Ken and I do our best to support the kids but there is still something special about a grandparent being there.

So to counteract my depression Ken and I have been hosting a game-night once a month and having people over for snacks and games. It gives me something to look forward to and also be around other adults. We also try and go out with friends once a month if we can find a sitter as Ken and I don't really have anyone to help watch the kids and it is like pulling teeth to get either Joann (my mother-in-law) or Janet (my aunt) to watch the kids other than they both do 2 Fridays a month when I work. But even with it scheduled they both are very flaky. Still at least I have someone.

Autism, GI issues, Sleep issues, Speech issues, OT and then there is Michael

This month it has been 3 years since Michael has started therapies. In the last year we have seen so much growth in all his abilities! He is turning into a very goofy little dude! I love his facial expression and how he loves to interact with people. He has come a long way and there is so much to be thankful for. I have talked with a lot of other parents at A is for Apple and we have been so lucky in many different ways.

3 days old

3 1/2 years old

1. We have a wonderful pediatrician that listens to Ken and I and supports us in all of our concerns. She helped us get on W.I.C. when we could not pay for his special formula and our insurance would not pay for it. She put in referrals for both Kidango and S.A.R.C(San Andreas Regional Center).

2. Thank God for Kidango!!! They have helped us the most! We started working with Kidango in May of 2015 with a social-worker named Stacie. She helped me get Michael into Speech, OT, Feeding therapy and to get the Autism diagnosis. This past year they have started working with Kaylee to help her work through her emotions (anxiety) and all dealing with Michael. Ken and I are also taking a in-depth parenting course with them that I really like called Circle of Security. We are working with the same social worker that we had when Michael was a baby Stacie and I really like her and since Kaylee already knows her its a big plus.

3. We only have to go to one play for Speech, ABA, and OT and it is less than a mile from our house. So many of the families drive for 30 minutes to an hour to therapies for their kids and have to go through many companies to find the right fit.

4. Our ABA team is amazing! The techs we have 3 right now that work with Michael at different times. Tia is on Mon, Wed, Fri from 9am-noon and is at the Social skills center with Michael. Crystal is on Tues/Thur from 8am-10am at our house. Then lastly we have Maria on Tues/Thur from 3:30pm-5:30pm at the Social skills center. Our clinical director Brian listens to us and helps us guide Michael in the right direction.

5. Speech therapy has helped Michael so much. His current therapist is also helping with his drooling. Michael does a lot of scripting and echoing. We are working on social language and working on audio processing.

6. He got into preschool with our school district! This is an amazing thing because it is a special day class that helps him on social skills in the classroom to get him ready for TK! We also have a very good school district when it comes to special needs. He also got into summer school for the summer.

7. He is eating solid food so much better. He is eating so much more foods and will also try new foods! This is thanks to an amazing OT feeding therapist at Kaiser and her ideas and suggestions.

All of this has been a lot of work but has been so much help for Michael and the rest of us. I can not imagine what our lives would be like right now with out all of this help! Michael has come so far and I am so prod to be his mom. We still have a lot to work on but when I look back over the last few years I see how much has changed for the better.

Ken and I are also becoming stronger/healthier partners through all of this. It was really hard on us in the beginning after Michael was born for about 18 months then Ken and I went for a few counseling sessions and it help us and now with parenting course I feel like we are going to be able to support our kids in a healthy way.

Things that we are still working on :

1. GI issues. They poor kids tummy is crazy. No clue really as to what bugs it. pooping is hard for him and freaks him out. It may be a sensory thing as well not sure. It is just a daily issues that we deal with as needed.

2. Sleeping is hard for Michael. He sleep walks and wake a lot in the night.

3. Potty training

Work, Health, Family

Well I have decided to quit working at nights. It was really hard on Michael which made it even harder on me. My last day was this week. I am going to keep looking for a better fit for us. I am hoping to get in at the kids school for next year as an aid, cafeteria or yard-duty. I am also looking into privet duty home heath care aid. I have my license so that would work too. But we will see. For now it will be tight but okay.

Health stuff sucks. I have been dealing with it the best I can with 2 kids and a so on. I now have a Bartholin's cysts which is being removed and if you don't know where the Bartholin's glad is you are better off not knowing. Lets just say painful and not fun. I glad it is over. Just waiting for blood work to get back in a few days. I also started a new medication and I am hoping it will give me less side-affects than others that I have tried. I am tired all the time and I need to start walking or something but it is so hard to want to do stuff when you don't feel well. At first I was worried my depression was coming back and went back to see my psychiatrist but she thinks I am doing okay, actually much better than before. So we are not going to change anything but I am going to go back into therapy for 6 months or so until they get all my health stuff under control. I am also going to start doing yoga with Kaylee daily. I am hoping that it will help us both.

Ken really really likes Costco. He works really early morning either 3:00 am or 4:00 am but is home by 12:00 pm or 1:00 pm every day. It is so nice that he can help me with the kids in the afternoon and I also get some quiet time in the morning when everyone is gone. During that time I am slowly working on cleaning stuff out. I have been working on kitchen for a while now and then Michael's room and then our room. I am doing my best to get rid of junk or stuff we have not used in years. We have lived here almost 9 years!!

I am planning on have a yard sale in May and June to help cover our trip in June to Lego-land. I asked my in-laws to buy the kids passes for birthday gifts and they said yes! So that leaves just Ken and I that have to get passes.! We are renting a house with a second family so there will be a kitchen and we can make a lot of our own food. The kids are looking forward to the trip. Kaylee can hardly wait to go. I put it on her calendar and she is marking of the days. I am so happy that we can make this work. She is going to have a blast.

Michael has been doing really well behavior wise until this week. It was spring-break so Kaylee was home and both Payton and Isaac were here. He has been on high. He started biting again and his sleeping is really bad. But he is talking so much and I think starting to understand a lot more too. He still has a really hard time with question. He is okay with yes or no question most of the time. The problem is when you ask him a question that needs a answer: Are you going to preschool? what is your teachers name? Who is your best friend? Whats your favorite color? Whats your favorite show? the list goes on and on. His answer to questions he can not understand or answer is "poop butt"! Drives me nuts because people laugh at him when he says it.

Working

So about 4 weeks ago I started a new job. I studied and got my home health care license and started work. I love the work and it's only 12 hour a week. But ever since I started my anxiety has like tripled! Mostly because I am a worrier but it is also hard because I lives are already so busy and we can't afford child care so I have to work nights. I was also under the impression that I would have a set schedule but that does not seem to be the case. So with all of this change Michael has been in a really bad mood and never wants me to leave his sight. He is not eating solid food and is not sleeping well. He does not understand. Kaylee understands and really does not complain about it.
Each week I feel more and more guilty and stressed. I am holding my breath waiting for Michael to understand. Today I spent almost two hours going over are expenses and bills trying to figure out where we could cut things that we don't need. I really think that Ken and I live within our means and the only things that we should cut are maybe the trips and camping we do with the kids. But then I feel guilty  because Kaylee  looks forward to all the small little trips we go on . Is it wrong of me to want to stay Home and still work on stuff with Michael? Am I giving in to him if I quit?
I found out today that next week I am going to need a small out patient procedure on the 12th and I am stressing about that because they don't want to to lift or bend for a few days. I really wish I had parents and or that grandma was 15 years younger! I listen to friends and other people complain about their parents and to honest I am jealous. I wish that I had a mom or a dad to talk to about life issues or to advice from.
Anyways enough complaining I know being an adult is hard.