Living with C-PTSD: When Your Body Doesn't Know You're Safe By Daniel Ryan Cotler

Living with C-PTSD: When Your Body Doesn't Know You're Safe

By Daniel Ryan Cotler

My mind knows that I’m safe.

But my body doesn’t.

That’s the hardest part about living with Complex PTSD after narcissistic abuse. I can be in a calm room, surrounded by people I trust, telling myself there’s no threat and still, my heart will race. My chest will tighten. My nervous system will respond like I’m back in the middle of the trauma.

Because my body remembers what my mind tries so hard to forget.

The last time I felt truly safe fully open, fully held Iwas with someone who was actively destroying me. My body learned that love meant danger. That connection came with a cost. That affection was just a weapon disguised as comfort. Now, even when I logically know I’m okay, my body lives in fear. It reacts as if the war is still happening. Because to my nervous system, it is.

When I’m overstimulated too many lights, too much noise, too much emotional input I can’t stay in my body anymore. I dissociate. It’s not a decision. It’s survival. My mind pulls itself away from my physical form so I can make it through the moment. It feels like I’m watching my life from somewhere outside of myself, like I’m in the room but not really there. That’s what trauma does it splits you. It protects you by disconnecting you from the very body that’s carrying your pain.

Even the words “I love you” can feel like a threat. Not because I don’t want to be loved, but because those words were once followed by betrayal, manipulation, and harm. A gentle touch can make my skin burn. My body recoils. It feels like I’m crawling out of myself. What should be safe now feels unbearable because what once felt safe was never actually safe at all.

And when someone is angry yelling, frustrated, loud I don’t fight. I freeze. My body shuts down. My ability to speak disappears. My breath gets shallow. I try to become invisible. That’s what I had to do to survive before. I learned how to disappear in plain sight. I learned how to stop existing so I wouldn’t be hurt.

But it’s not just danger that overwhelms me.

Sometimes, even ordinary questions “What are you doing today?” or “Did you get that thing done?” can feel like an interrogation. My brain scrambles to process, and I can’t find the answers quickly enough. I get defensive, irritated, flustered. I shut down, or worse I explode. Not because I’m being attacked, but because my nervous system thinks I am.

If I’m overwhelmed or overstimulated, and someone pushes gently, even innocently it can trigger an anger response that surprises even me. My body goes into survival mode. My tone gets sharp. My guard goes up. And I hate that it happens, but it’s automatic. My brain floods with fog, and suddenly I can’t access what I know. I feel trapped. Cornered. Panicked. And my body lashes out, not to hurt, but to protect.

There’s no real rest for me. Not yet. Not really.

Because even when things are quiet, my mind is racing.

I work constantly for my advocacy, for my mission, for the movement.

Because stopping feels dangerous.

If I stop, I’ll be erased.

If I rest, I’ll be forgotten.

If I slow down, the silence will catch up and that silence terrifies me.

I don’t know who I am without the trauma.

I don’t know what it feels like to just be.

That’s what people don’t understand.

Healing doesn’t feel like freedom it feels like a threat.

Because the chaos became my identity. The fight became my rhythm. The mission became my oxygen.

And while I am proud of what I’ve built this movement, this voice, this fire

I am also carrying the weight of what I’ve never been allowed to lay down:

the grief, the fear, the vigilance, the exhaustion.

Living with C-PTSD means every day is a negotiation with your own body.

It means surviving your own survival.

It means trying to build a life that includes safety

when safety was the first thing that was ever taken from you.

But I’m still here.

And if you’re reading this so are you.

And that means we’re not done yet.

Not with the pain, not with the healing, and not with the truth.

We are survivors of something the world still doesn’t know how to name.

And our nervous systems may be on fire

but our voices are louder.