Chapter 55 Liam
Liam
Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. A mental health condition that develops from prolonged or repeated trauma. Causes: childhood abuse, neglect, and emotional or physical abuse.
I knew my childhood fucked me up. I just didn’t realize it was poison, bleeding into every single day of my life.
I recall everything the therapist explained in our session today.
The first thing you need to understand is that you are not broken, Liam.
You’re wounded. You’re hurt. The Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder you’re experiencing from your childhood, combined with your constant alertness and fight-or-flight response patterns, means you’re continually operating from a threat-based mindset, which focuses on fear of what you might lose.
And one thing about trauma is that it has the ability to turn its victims into perpetrators.
C-PTSD looks different from person to person—it’s not a one-size-fits-all diagnosis.
In your case, your trauma response when your body identifies a threat is to revert to anger.
Cognitively, you don’t intentionally set out to hit someone.
But your trauma response is to fight, and that comes from the way your father used to shut down his own emotions by reverting to control and violence.
Liam, your brain isn’t logically telling you that you need to hit someone in order to protect yourself, but your nervous system learned early that violence is how to survive dangerous situations.
Watching your father hurt your mother, then experiencing the same abuse yourself, taught you that to protect yourself, you needed to use physical force.
It’s simply your brain’s trauma response doing exactly what it was trained to do: eliminate threats to people you love.
I think it’s great that you have enough self-awareness to recognize that your actions aren’t okay.
But your body’s response to a perceived threat is valid.
When you responded with violence toward your father, your old teammate, and Roger, it wasn’t okay, but there’s context, and it’s important you understand that.
I think it’s worth exploring some inner-child work.
Think of trauma therapy as a large umbrella—there are different ways we can approach your trauma.
A method I highly recommend we start with is “Reparenting.” This is a method that focuses on nurturing your inner child—the little boy who learned to build walls to protect himself.
Another method I believe would be beneficial is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy (also known as EMDR).
This is a psychotherapy method that works by using bilateral stimulation to help you to reprocess those childhood memories, so you don’t experience the same overwhelming terror and rage you did as a powerless child.
If we start these therapies and you decide they aren’t for you, then we can move on to other methods.
Remember, you are so much more than your trauma. It is a part of you—a significant part—and it always will be. It’s what drives some of your behavior and core beliefs about yourself. But it doesn’t define you.
Consistency is key to recovery. Recovery doesn’t happen overnight. If you can commit to working through your trauma, you can learn to recognize when you’re being triggered, create space between the trigger and your response, and develop healthier behaviors that don’t involve violence.
I didn’t realize I’d been living in a constant state of fight-or-flight.
Since I was a child. It took hurting the people I love—and seeing that same terror in Anna’s eyes—to recognize that I still don’t feel safe, even though my father’s long gone.
That I still don’t know how to protect the people I love.
That somewhere buried deep inside me, I’m bracing for the next blow.
But that’s not who I am, and I won’t let my trauma control my future.
I have a son who watches and learns from me.
And I have a woman I love who deserves more.
I need to be better for all of us. I can’t undo what I’ve done, but I can put in the work to start recovering from my trauma.
And my therapist and I have a clear plan.