Hi!! I'm 28M, from Perth, Western Australia. CPTSD afflicted. Hopefully gonna write some stuff here that could be helpful to anyone who reads this, If anyone reads this at all. This will probably get edited 7000 times because I'm quite neurotic.

Why am I writing this? What right do I have to offer any advice at all? I'm literally the stupidest person on the planet so, take whatever I write here with a grain of salt, do your own research etc. This is just stuff I wish I had known a decade ago when I was floundering in life (and I still am, really).

Books That Have Helped Me

None of these will be too esoteric but they are definitely worth the read.

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker

If you were to read one book on CPTSD, I'd say it should be this. Introduces concepts such as "the inner critic", "emotional flashbacks" and the 4 F's Model of trauma classification (fight, flight, freeze or fawn). All these concepts have been super integral in reincorporating pieces of my broken psychology back together, stuff that I couldn't even recognise as completely destructive to my mental health.

The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Lots of information about the classification of post traumatic stress disorder and CPTSD. Much more clinical and historical in nature but definitely eye opening. Goes into why the American Psychiatric Association (APA) doesn't recognise CPTSD in the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), among other things.