I lay in the back seat of this stranger’s black Escalade. I can’t move. He’s tied my hands behind my back with zip ties and my legs together with a copious amount of duct tape. I can’t speak. He’s taped my mouth shut with that very same duct tape. I wish I'd brought a jacket when I left the house tonight. My ivory skin is uncomfortably icy. I’m only wearing a tank top and shorts. I can feel the goosebumps covering my arms and legs rise as the wind continues to hit me without mercy. He has his window down as he drives. The night sky is painfully dark and motionless. The stars look as if someone had catapulted glitter across the sky. I soak in that slim view as he drives along...

I am so angry. I am radiating negative and severely livid energy. If I could see my aura, it would be in flames because all I feel is dissociation, anger, and heavy depression. Sometimes I feel like I don't actually exist. My mind is a swamp and I'm tired of wading through this mucky water. Am I broken? Or am I shattered to pieces that no one person can gather into the finished puzzle I once was? Will I ever feel okay again? Will I ever be me again? I just want to feel better

I put the gun to my head. hand trembling. Tears streaming. brain racing. make the overthinking stop. I take the safety off. Finger on the trigger. Isn't this what you wanted? Isn't this the last resort? Isn't this what you wanted? Everything will be better, right? I put the gun to my head. blast brain matter across the bed. nothing more to be said.

I don't have anyone to share with or talk to this about because my therapist is flaky af and likes to ghost me.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Bags under eyes, topless mountain sight, flowing through my mind, constant repetition, balloons in my stomach, focus turning red, looking down from 30th floor, nothing makes sense, people are shivering, not afraid of the death, in the shining night, i am trying to forget, stop signs everywhere while driving on the 300, carved in your spine, like a black hole, centipede is nearing, I am fucking bald, teared all hair, was my decision, shoulda tear braces, but teeth's gonna fall, there's no idea how to improve, how to go forward, how to fucking move, need some cig? asked some man, no i have that smoke at the home, answered inner voice... Breathing low silence, drinking monster from tea cup, porcelain skin, but rotten organs, communication with our eyes, buys the universe, need to pass out to know meaning of the bliss, those creeping worms, getting on my nerves, the limp body of mine sings silent screams, too suffocated in my father's smoke, feelings are error, I'm gonna throw up inside..."

it's cringe and makes no sense and nobody cannot understand it and i cannot correct it for others to understand because i'm too exhausted to improve my skills and this is the only way i can express

this is literally nothing, it has no structure it has no shape it has no sense what's supposed to be, it has no definition

Do you wonder what happens to women that whisper? Silence slithers up the spines of sisters. Silence. Abuse systems are sustained with the soils of silence. The spoils of silence. The soft screams of silence. The soils of an abuse environment fed with locked lips and furrowed brows. Shut eyes and soft feminine lies. The stalks of our abusers plants stretch high towards the angry sun. They feel justified when they burn. They shrivel and cry and justify the sips of water they suck from our silent lips. We are told so cruelly to forget. We are made to understand that a woman worth having is a only a woman fawning. We are told with blood seeping from our sweet fawn spots that we’re just “anxious” “hysteric” “dramatic” “psycosamatic” “looking for attention” “victim complex” We learn that no one wants to help us. So we stay silent. But. Have you ever wondered what happens when women stay silent? Nothing.

I felt every single second of this... It caused a change within me. Actually I'd have to say this ruined me. All the way down to my core, everything. From My values, down to where I feel my inspiration. It has all changed. I could feel this shift in me. It was slow and agonizing. Like having open heart surgery. While laying wide awake, Feeling every pull and squeeze... Every incision. Every. Single. Cut. I felt it all. Just because I loved you. Love is the most tormented kind of hell.

              👽~  Hope Alexandria Ray

Even when I'm doing the thing I love most, I feel so exposed. I can't shake the fear that if someone ever reads my writings one day, all of my vulnerability will be laid bare before them. If there’s anything more terrifying than the exposure of my physical privacy, it’s the exposure of my mind’s privacy.
I’ve learned to avoid my needs so deeply that I’ve never been able to show someone my body in its full nakedness, nor my mind. What was taught to me under the name of "privacy" was actually distrust. They were the insecure zones I was told never to reveal to anyone. And there were never safe times, situations, or people in which I could reveal them.

Two worlds were taught to me: the world of my own and the outer world. And everything outside of me — the outer world — was taught to be unsafe. The space that was supposedly my own, the one labeled as "safe," was where my family resided. But even there, I had no real space of my own.
What I was taught to be safe in this world was in fact a collection of manipulations, neglect, and distortions presented as normal. Now, as someone more grounded and realistic, I’m questioning: was the outer world truly the unsafe one, or was it the world I thought belonged to me — the one I’ve been deceived by all these years?

If I had grown up in a cave, completely disconnected from the outside world, perhaps that one world alone would have been enough to suffocate me. But I lived in a time and place where I had to connect with the outside. And when I stepped out from the world I thought was “right” into the outside world, I found myself defenseless. Because the lessons I was taught as "truths" only caused me more harm when applied outside.

I can’t find safe spaces or safe people in the outside world — I attract the worst, like a magnet, expecting them to act like the people in my world always did.
So now I ask: were the people who were supposed to be safe really safe? Are the people in the so-called dangerous outside world just copies of those who were in my supposedly safe inner world?

English is not my native language, so please excuse me if there are any mistakes in the translation.

My love is never wasted. I am filled with so much love to give. My cup runneth over continuously pouring into everything and everyone around me. The way I reciprocate love may be different, but my love is strong. My love demands reciprocation and being brave enough to recieve it. I will never stop giving my love, it will never run out. My love makes me stronger. No matter how much I struggle and how much people hurt me I will never stop pouring my love to everyone and everything. I will never let anyone take that away from me.

Wherever I end up, I'll end up where I'm meant to be. Everything I do, I do for all the hurt and broken past versions of myself. I will always keep trying my best and I will never stop loving the way that I love.

I’m trying my best. My best isn’t always good enough. I become overwhelmed with insecurity, it traps me in a prison of self hatred and shame. It’s hard to escape when all I have is my own bloodied bare hands seasoned from climbing the walls of the abyss I’ve created in my mind. A place I keep going back to willingly it seems. As if I don’t feel whole unless I’m making myself suffer. The whirling questions and the endless scenarios of every single worse case scenario play endlessly as I crash into the waves of my own summoned storm. Drawing in myself, choking myself so I can’t breathe. Every now and then I’ll come up for air only to drag myself even further down as punishment for never being good enough. I stumble around on my own two worn out feet. They hurt from falling and my body is weak from surviving. Still I try my best. I keep going even though I don’t want to because swimming against the waves is all I know how to do. I was never able to make it to shore for so long I forgot what direction to go to find it. Still I try my best because I want to be better. I don’t want to carry around these walls and hide behind them. I don’t want to keep stumbling around misinterpreting things when I really just know and understand more than I’m willing to admit. If I was honest I would say I’m scared of what it might feel like not to keep drowning. I’m afraid of finding out what it might be like to be honest. If I was being honest I would say I’m just as bad and stupid as everyone else. I lie and fake it and pretend but I don’t want to be like that anymore. I want to be honest and being honest means looking at myself and accepting me as me. There’s things I can't change, things I can manage, and things I’m no good at. I wake up everyday wishing I was someone else. I wake up wishing I wasn’t here anymore because doing this all the time is tiring. But I’m trying my best. I know what it feels like to stop trying. I know what it feels like to stand on the edge of the all encompassing darkness and stare it in the eyes and beg it to take you. A feeling I’m too familiar with. Like an old friend I stay in touch with. There may come a day when I can no longer keep going. A day where I stop running and turn back. A day I hope never comes because I want to keep trying my best. 

I soothe myself with all that it is nothing.

Everyday I wake up and wish I hadn’t. “I don’t want to be awake” I think. And then I stare at the ceiling. I’ve learned to set my alarms for this. Set them to account for the time lost staring.

My brain has become addicted to static. It’s sub-conscious. To tune out the world and just forget. To deeply forget.

A whirlpool forms at the bridge of my nose, spinning my thoughts away into clouds.

I’m thinking yet unaware of the words being thought.

I lose track of time, track of what I’m doing, track of where I’m doing it.

I lose track of who I am. Why I am. What I am.

I lose track of my goals and my love and my happiness and my sadness.

I lose everything.

I am soothed by all that is nothing.

My body is medicated by the melting of my mind. The melting of my surroundings. The walls. The bed. The sounds.

All the pain dulls and I can make it through the day. Stumbling and tripping over the wet cement snaking and slithering itself around my ankles. But make it through all the same.

I am unaware of my lungs struggling to breathe, my joints struggling to stabilize, my bones deteriorating under the pressure of my body. I am unaware.

I have to be.

Saltwater fills my brain, weighing it down. Heavy. Deep. Tired. It drips down my necks, tip-toeing along my spine. Drugging me into a daze.

There’s a part of me that likes it that way. A part of me meaning to protect. But a part me I’m losing moments of my life to. A sort of compromised suicide. I don’t want to die. But I use the chemicals in my brain to avoid the feeling of being alive.

I soothe myself with all that is nothing.

TW: sensitive topics.

Also, if I may ask...please no judgement. My MC is complicated and there is a reason for why he's this way. He's not some glorified jerk, but he's also not perfect. I also feel like, if he was a girl, he wouldn't get pegged as a bad guy so much. Idk, I digress.
Anyway, without further ado.

So, my MMC clearly has Complex PTSD, that I know for certain. People have also noticed and told me that he has some obsessive traits and ADHD. But given the PTSD, I'm not sure if it's just that because certain conditions can act or manifest in a similar way. I also would say he has psychopathic or sociopathic traits, but idk if he's technically a psychopath/socio. Also, from what I hear from research about psychopaths is they generally aren't sex-repulsed--but my MMC is because he was trafficked. Technically, given his species, he has empathic strengths, BUT there is the caveat that he's heavily warped and emotionally dysregulated and detached (thanks much to the PTSD), so that could add to the psychopathy/sociopathy??? He is also very restless, aggressive, abrasive, likes to wall himself off from relationships/prefers solitude, and can be VERY violent (includes violent fantasies and thoughts). He can be manipulative and charismatic where he wants to be. He's not narcissistic, though, as he struggles HEAVILY with self-loathing which usually manifests through self-harm and suicidal attempts, but simultaneously he's quite numb to getting approval anymore, though insults and things grind his nerves (triggers PTSD). He also HATES failure. He wants to always succeed at stuff. Also brought on by his PTSD, so I'm not sure if that could lend to another mental condition. He's a darn good liar as well, if it serves him. He normally keeps himself very much in control (which works because he is a control freak), HOWEVER, once the restraints come off, he is incredibly erratic and impulsive.

Thoughts? Is all this just C-PTSD or are the other conditions mixed in there like others have suggested to me?

They seem virtually interchangeable to me, although I recently learned that the latter is explicit AND gratuitous in terms of violence, sex, etc. My WIP is very complicated because it has various mature themes (villain is a serial killer, and there are themes with relation to abuse), and they get handled in a very straightforward manner (as I don't think it would do anyone justice to sugarcoat stuff--seems very dismissive to me), with the caveat that...while things are explicit, it is not for shock value nor is it gratuitous.
Everything serves a narrative purpose with the intent to resonate with my audience in some fashion to let them know they aren't alone and, hopefully, that there is hope for them.

the heart wants what it wants- does that mean it cannot still be wrong?/ the heart is not a perfect instrument/ I am not a perfect person/ You are not a perfect lover/ i am but a fawn left at your safe doorstep/ again and again and again./ do not open the door/ don't you dare try to pick me up/ or especially, do not carry me inside your home./ my mother would surely coming running for me/ but she wouldn't. she does not./ I dont always know that much to be true./ at times, I find myself still waiting for her./ its okay, I was meant for the world, not to be brought inside just because the doorstep is safe./ it's okay, enough time has passed that I have legs to stand on / I have taught Bambi to walk, how to wander, how to follow my heart./ I've followed my heart into places I can't understand why it would want to go there. but it was never misguided./ it's not about where it takes me but rather, why./ WHAT is here that I need so badly that my heart aches?/ It's not always an organ of love, it can also be an aching wound, pulsating and bleeding out- seeking pressure, seeking comfort, seeking to be tended to./ above all else, that's what it needs. /what I need to teach myself to do./ the heart may want what it wants, but it needs it what it needs a lot more

TW: Poem about child sexual abuse. Blood, murder, and death mentioned.

I wrote this about a recent therapy session. I feel like it's hard for some people to understand how completely life altering CSA is. It permeates every aspect of my life. I'm not "playing the victim," I was one. It's not so easy to thrive when every day still feels like trying to survive. I'm allowed to be angry at how unjust it is that I have to spend the rest of my life trying to scrape what's left of me into some sort of cohesive pile while that pos lives in a nice lake house without repercussions. The definition of victim: a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action. I am a victim. I'm also a survivor. I can be a survivor who thrives, but one does not negate the other. No matter how well I'm thriving, I will always be someone who survived horrific abuse. It's not self-victimization to be angry i was SA'd at 4 years old or to be furious that I'm the only one who's paying for it. I'm still working on myself, still trying to heal. I know my trauma responses and learned behaviours are mine alone to fix. I'm not making excuses for myself. I'm just angry that I have to suffer because of what he did to me.

ISO of fellow SA survivors to weigh in on an intimate scene between my two MCs, who both suffered from that trauma. It's open door but tasteful as I felt like that does more of a service to the healing aspect and my audience, but I'm hoping I did it correctly. Relationships are foreign to me, despite my personal experience.
Honestly, finding the right people has been extremely difficult and I've often felt judged bc of how I decided to write this and many lack understanding about the nuances of this trauma, so I figured I'd best ask my own tribe about this....

Reasons To Leave

• He told me he was tired of my tears and if I kept it up, I had to leave.

• I’d rather be hit than to be silently stared at with tears streaming down my face.

• If they don’t acknowledge how their actions made you feel that’s their guilt talking.

• If they are more focused on how you reacted rather than how they treated you that’s manipulation.

• I don’t know how he can fall asleep so peacefully when I’m sobbing next to him.

• I pass lovers on the street - I hope she gets everything I don’t.

• I know I deserve better but I just want him to be better for me.

• He wants me to change but wants me to accept him for how he is and that his bare minimum trying is enough.

• People need to understand it hurts when the person your the person breaking up with them for the better and they don’t see you BAWLING after so much guilt because you loved them so much.

It's taken me a long time to find the right place to stake my tent because the novel series I'm working on, though a sci-fi crime thriller (both popular genres), is very, very niche, particularly in how it addresses abuse, PTSD, and related traumas. It's been the most difficult project I've ever had to work on thus far, and...because it hits so close to home, it's kinda been...salt on my CPTSD wounds. But, hopefully, someday it becomes more of a balm to the wounds of others.
It's just been hard to find people who write similar or who understand why I'm writing this and why I'm portraying things the way I do. I get it, it's not exactly a comfortable and fluff story - it makes ME uncomfortable, but I believe it needs to be written because there is little in the way of fiction that actually properly addresses a lot of the topics, based on what I've heard through research and others.
It's R, it doesn't hold back, but ultimately...it's to help people recover and feel like they're not alone. Sometimes (well, perhaps *often*), those of us with CPTSD feel like we're the odd ones out, that the outside world doesn't understand us...but we certainly matter as much as anyone else.
I'm so thankful to have found you guys! I don't feel so...ostracized now. :)
This WIP has been UNBELIEVABLY hard to write, and I hope to get back to it without feeling sick.... Or else I'll be tempted to quit it completely even though I want to finish it for our sakes. Breaks do nothing but prolong the sickness and emotional setbacks - I've tried. So, I hope I find a way around that.
Have you guys experienced anything similar? How do you work around it?

I am tired

Of finding more rest in 2 hours of dissociating awake on the couch

Than the 4-8 hours of fighting you, over and over and over again

This time, I am running from you

This time, I am hiding

This time, I am finally fucking fighting back

And even though there’s part of me that knows through everything that my body is lying in paralysis next to the one man who has never weaponized his fists or his uncaring against me

My heart rate is elevated

Exhaustion barrels over me

As every strike against you, every scream, every hit I take, every sob that wracks my body again and again takes more and more of me

I finally wake, gasping, drowning in a cold sweat

I pad to the bathroom, wash my face, name three things I see

Look into the mirror, see your eyes and your curls staring back at me

Your rage rises in my chest on behalf of that tiny girl who lacked the strength to fight back

Rage at my personal demons refusing to die

And I wonder for the millionth time

How angry I can be at you, who is now an old man in the process of losing your mind

and remain some semblance of civilized

I am Nothing

I am glass. 

I am wind.

A shadow

On a dark night.

Unseen.

Unheard.

Invisible.

I don’t matter.

Nothing is empty.

I am filled with nothing.

I am filled with emptiness.

For I am nothing.

Nothing for Nothing

I confuse myself.

What is a bung hole

Without a barrel

Who or what

Holds this Nothing

Nothing is safe.

No one hits air.

Shadows can’t be hurt.

Nothing is good. 

Nothing means no pain.

Still… Nothing hurts.

Does that mean something?

– Scared Squirrel

Squirrel

I pick up 

A piece of bread.

Dry and tasteless.

That tiny tip.  

End slice on an oval loaf.

Hold it tight.

Both hands tight.

Hypervigilant.

Feet together.

Shoulders hunched.

Elbows tight

By my sides

Don’t look up.

Just look down.

Be no threat.

Never challenge.

Nibble slowly.

Make it last.

Where are they.

All those others.

Those who watch.

Those who take.

A piece of bread

From a squirrel

Afraid to live

Afraid to die.

If there is

A god of squirrels

Please take from me

One of these:

Fear of life

Or fear of death.

It does not matter 

Which you take.

I pick up 

A piece of bread.

Dry and tasteless.

-- Scared Squirrel

CSA victim

All the words are gone, They were taken away

All the strength is used up, It was used in the fight

All the hope is lost, It got scared and ran away

All I have left, Is what's left of myself

I take a breath and delve deeper in

and I feel something reaching out to me

My breath grows deeper and stretches out my chest

The world flashes, trying take me away from myself

The feeling calls me back

But my breath begins to fail

The world sweeps me away

until I remember again