My life with CPTSD and my effort to find veterans and first responders who need help and direct them to the resourses they need.

Here for all but especially focused on finding retired or former first responders and frontline workers who face unique obstacles.

This is my personal experience with C-PTSD and is not medical advice.

Some content may be triggering to some but I want to give an honest view of my life with C-PTSD

I have C-PTSD from working in EMS and I have for over half my life. It has caused many medical problems and completely consumed my life causing suicidal thoughts, hopelessness, helplessness and self inflicted isolation not to mention the medical problems. It is an intense struggle every day of my life.

Throughout the years I have learned quite a bit about C-PTSD. While my goal is to get those who need help to that help, I want everyone to see the reality of what it does to those who suffer. Seeing the reality of my struggles with C-PTSD may help someone recognize it in themselves or a loved one and recognizing that none of this hell is normal….it is reality… it IS how our brain reacts and symptoms of the big picture. It’s something to recognize and it’s OK to seek help…. YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!!

This is my journey and what has worked for me and what hasn’t along with the ups and downs.

UPDATES

I created a page with some tools for day to day mental health maintenance. I have tried to make these veteran and first responder friendly.

Check out my Tools page.

Just a reminder, one of the most powerful things you can do is reconnect with the people who stood beside you in the trenches. Whether they are current partners, retired veterans, or former coworkers who transitioned to different paths, reaching out lets them know they are still part of the family and never truly alone.
​Think back to the calls that stayed with you—the long nights, the back-to-back calls, or the shifts that tested your resolve. Who haven’t you seen in a while? We all find ourselves asking, “I wonder what ever happened to so-and-so?”

Check out my Why “Out of the field”? page.

Archived Updates

TRAUMA-INFORMED CARE

RETIRED? OUT OF THE FIELD? NOW WHAT?

You can’t do it alone. Trauma-informed care helps transition retired personnel from structural compartmentalization (burying service-related trauma to survive the job) to healthy decompression (safely processing a career’s worth of cumulative crisis exposure). The goal is to shift the focus from operational readiness to identity reconstruction and long-term psychological safety.

I wish I had this information about Trauma-informed care many years ago.

Check out my page on Trauma-Informed Care.

PTSD vs. C-PTSD

This is a common question and I will be addressing this quite a bit. I use the terms interchangeably when referring to myself but when it comes down to it Complex-PTSD (C-PTSD) is PTSD on steroids that cause issues way beyond the underlying incident(s).

Check out my PTSD vs C-PTSD page…