When I started to write this, I wanted to call it “A Journey’s End.” However, I realized it is not the end of a journey, but more of a transition to a new journey. This is the closing of one chapter and the start of a new one, but not the end of the book. The rest of this book will be a completely different story, a much happier story, as I am not who I once was. It took me a long while to reach this realization. It did not happen over night. It was a slow and gradual thing. So gradual, I missed when it happened. One day, I just stopped. Turned. Looked around. I was no longer in the clutches of my Complex PTSD. I had defeated my demons. My demons were no longer in the room with me. C-PTSD recovery is absolutely possible.

On my journey to C-PTSD recovery, I never had an epiphany that I think my therapist had hoped I would have. I had stopped therapy completely over three years ago. I had come to the realization that therapy was no longer progressing me. However, what therapy had done for me was to provide me a set of tools. Those tools I used for the past three years. Some, I used without knowing I was using them. Over the past three years, I made a slow and deliberate progress. I reorganized my thought process and trained my inner critic that it was wrong. I focused on the now. I celebrated success, no matter how small. I began to believe in myself.

For me, C-PTSD recovery was a process that took almost 10 years from start to finish. For the first five years, it was a series of therapist not trained in trauma, so all the therapy was ineffective. The next five years was off and on with a trauma trained therapist. This made all the difference. For me, it was not a sprint but a marathon. My personality is one where I tend to thoroughly exam things from all angles, completely understand it. I then put it where it belongs. This process unfortunately takes me awhile to believe what I already knew to be the truth. At times, I would press pause in therapy to consider the things I had learned. Once I had that understanding, I took the next steps. The last couple years was me absorbing the truths I learned in therapy.

My past experiences are not gone. They remain. However, they no longer have power over me. Do I still have emotional flashbacks? Yes. Will I always have emotional flashbacks? Probably. Do my emotional flashbacks have power over me? No. A resounding no. I see them coming. But I also see the flashbacks as powerless. I recognize them for what they are – a relic of the past. A past I no longer live in. I now live in the present. A friend recently asked me what day of the week was my favorite. My answer – today.

I now step out in a bright and hopeful future.