CPTSD/Disorders of extreme stress not otherwise specified

Thinking back to my childhood, I didn’t think at first I had experienced much.

Older men above the age of 18 had sex with me when I was a child, I was raped, I witnessed continuous domestic abuse between both parents, bullying, psychological abuse within the family, and many more traumatic events that shaped me today. My siblings are younger, they won’t remember it. But I did.

At the age of 8 I have a flashback of my mother coming into my room when I had awakened from a nightmare. I said “I don’t want to die”. She said “why are you thinking about that now?”.

I had a hair pulling disorder at the time, avoidance in school situations. Always treading on eggshells. Until I met the popular group of girls at school who would cut my hair, push me around, claim that I slept with my cousin when I didn’t. The school did nothing. I sat with my books in my room and hid myself in the library.

I hate it when the NHS mental health team say that people can’t have PTSD if they have intelligence. Try saying that to Ernest Hemingway.

We were both doomed from the start.

Let them think we were born writers. 📝

My social services paperwork is full of “Natalie has powerful writing abilities”. I recieved an A* in writing in school.

Unfortunately, my PTSD and CPTSD was never appropriately managed by the NHS. So I had to suffer in silence instead.

I had a poem published in a book when I was 9 years old. I was a traumatised child. Always in pain.

But I made something beautiful out of that with my writing.

Hurt people read. Broken people write. ✍️