How I rewired my brain to overcome trauma & thrive.

Six years ago, I was in a domestic violence relationship.

To say I felt trapped in an understatement. Every level of abuse was being invoked - mental, emotional, financial, physical, and sexual, in that order.

And, if it weren’t for the people that kept reminding me of their presence, I don’t know if I would be alive today. I’m almost certain that I wouldn’t be.

Yet, today, because of them and the ways in which I overcame all of the trauma that I endured in every facet of everyday life, I am here to write this, unafraid of not only of having my name out there, but also after having just completed the first year of running my own business.

I’m not here to list every wrongdoing or everything I went through, but to attempt to explain what trauma can do to the mind; and help those who might be suffering find some solace in my words.

C-Ptsd & Gaslighting in a Nutshell.

C-PTSD is essentially the invoking of repeated trauma to a person or animal. Different from PTSD, which is trauma from a specific event, such as what happened at the Boston Marathon, C-PTSD is Complex PTSD because repeated traumas often occur in everyday life. It is often harder to treat and overcome that trauma from a specific event because it happens in places that are familiar and close to home, such as the grocery store and even our own bed or kitchen.

Gaslighting is, essentially, a tactic used to control another individual by slowly making them think they're going crazy, that they're always wrong, or that them as a person in incapable of doing anything of value. It can start with something small, such the victim feeling like they put their keys in one location, but they find them in another location, to something ultimately detrimental like convincing them that the abuser is the only person in the world who cares about the victim.

Phase 0: The Escape.

As someone who was diagnosed with C-PTSD because of gaslighting and many other methods this person used, when I left and went home, I had a hard time knowing the difference between what was real and what wasn't. I had gone from someone who was confident in my talents and abilities to someone who couldn't make a decision on the simplest things. Thankfully, I was put on disability benefits from my previous employer that allowed me time to recover.

For the first few months, I barely left the house, besides to go to therapy. When I came back I immediately sought a combination of social work + psychiatry. I was in therapy three days a week for the first three months I was out of this relationship. Two days were social work, one was psychiatry. The combination and variance of therapy contributed to my ability to sort through and grapple with the extreme Fight or Flight responses I was going through.

Phase 1: Exposure Therapy

Filled with medication to help me cope with the severe C-PTSD, depression, and anxiety symptoms I was having, I began to allow myself to be in public again. I would drive to coffee shop I knew well and would let myself sit there until I was unable to do so any longer, and then I would come home and lay down to recover for hours. Repeat. I did this with the grocery store - anywhere that was public that I knew would be triggered.

Yet, the ability to socialize without being completely shut down was diminished. So, on the weekends, I would allow myself to go out, have a drink, and sit there at a bar while people walked behind me, touched me, and talked to me. I have no doubt in my mind that I must have appeared completely removed from the situation, but alcohol was definitely a tremendous help in the process. Every weekend, going out became easier. Every week, going being in public became easier.

Exposure therapy allowed me to replace trauma responses with normal ones, and I can't stress enough its benefit. I always made sure I was in a safe space - somewhere where I knew where I was, but also letting trauma make its way in and processing in those moments what I was feeling.

Phase 2: Letting Love In

In every ounce of Phase 1, I was either in fight or flight mode or completely numb. Once I began to feel a sense of belonging in the places I frequented, I knew a big part of me was coming back. I reflected, rehashed, and began the process of remembering who I was before all of this happened. The biggest thing I held on to was that, in my circles, I was important. I was someone. People respected me. And, it truly broke my heart to know that, while people's opinions of me may have not changed, the conditions which allowed me to be important were in the past.

I clung to people who used to matter and found that they believed that I had changed too much. I was too hostile, distant, or something in between. I simply wasn't myself. What followed from that was something far harder to go through that the domestic violence itself. It was a loss of identity. Who was I? I didn't know anymore. If I wasn't this important person and I wasn't who my friends from before thought I was, then who I was I?

A deep depression set in as I began to feel more than just fight or flight and numbness. The weight of the world and my place in it brought harsh realities I had never really faced before.

What followed was associating with people who weren't good for me, but they were still people I could spend time with nonetheless. What followed was loneliness. Thankfully, I was still in therapy throughout this process as I sorted through the pain and the loss of who I once was to reclaim who I was becoming. I wasn't sure I liked it, but there was nothing I could do about it but process, process, process.

When I started going on dates, defining who I was and what I did was a task. I would say things like I was in recovery and living. I would talk about what I liked and didn't like. But, even I knew that the associations and ways I talked about myself were insufficient. The first relationship that I had was exactly what I needed. They were someone who had their own set of issues to work through, and I think they let me talk mine out as I helped them sort theirs. I eventually ended it because somewhere along the way, I figured out that it wasn't right.

But, what was key here was that allowed myself to love, feel loved, and establish healthy boundaries throughout the process. The relationship may have been temporary, but it was a big step. Another big step was feeling able to slowly go off of all of my medication.

Phase 3: Learning How to Be Me

All throughout Phase 0, 1 & 2, I didn't have a LinkedIn. And, in fact, it wasn't until about two years after Phase 2 ended that I would get one. I wouldn't dare go that step to have my name out there publicly so my ex could figure out where I was. On Facebook, my name would be an alteration of Christina Yeoman. Sometimes with extra syllables. Sometimes it was something that wasn't even close to my real name.

Hiding my name and staying under the radar was the only way I felt like I could exist on social media. It was the only way I felt safe. Yet, as with exposure therapy, in the back of my mind, I had hoped that one day, I would be okay with using name again.

After phase two, I went through this personal revolution of publishing my poems on Instagram - a way to get my thoughts out there and use my name in small snippets. The more I shared and the more people loved them, the more I realized how much I loved helping others.

Coming to terms with this meant that I couldn't help people without using my name. I realized that I wasn't meant to hide in the shadows. I also realized, through writing, how to communicate by asking questions to create more compassion and understanding. I learned to pay attention to myself and how I felt around other people. I just learned how to be more present than ever before. I learned how to love deeper.

I became brave one day and opened a LinkedIn account under my own name. I spent six months in the shadows, uncertain of how I might want to use this platform. Too timid to connect, I found myself hitting the follow button for people. As I followed more people, I began to fall in love with everything this platform was and made my first video of me reading a poem about the steps I had to take to get to that point. Now, here I am talking about it over a year later, knowing fully well that LinkedIn has changed my life in ways I could never directly equate.

It has given me a place to be exactly who I am and find people who are genuinely out here to support me. It has given me a voice in ways I never felt like I had. I owe so much of where I am today to LinkedIn and the people on it. I owe the original concept of my business and what it has evolved into to LinkedIn.

Conclusion

Throughout every phase, I have had moments of shutting down, but with each phase, they have been less frequent and less severe. In some ways, I may never not have trauma responses to some bigger issues, but I learn how to cope better every time. But, more importantly, I am so much healthier mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually than I've ever been.

And for that, I am thankful.

About The Author

Christina Yeoman is a mental health advocate, business owner, speaker, and trauma survivor. Her marketing company, Catalyst Creations, was built to help business owners who want to not just be seen, but known through the human-side-of-marketing in their web, social media, email, SEO, etc marketing tactics. You can reach her by emailing [email protected] or following / connecting with her on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.