Trauma is expensive. Therapy, cold water dips, McDonald’s, Vinted, Deliveroo, tutoring…

CPTSD is cruel, debilitating, life changing and exhausting. It is also incredibly expensive. Particularly when all three of us had/have it.

For me, aside from the years of excess red wine and Marlboro, which I’ve now thankfully been able to escape from, I’ve only been able to recover from PTSD through an amalgam of many elements.

Yoga and EMDR saved me. I know other trauma therapies can have the similar impact, but I am ever thankful to Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score) and his research into trauma treatment. However it is expensive so very prohibitive, and whilst the NHS do offer it the waiting lists are long (as an aside I did get into Clerkenwell Health’s psychedelics study which I was hugely excited about, however it consider with the last Fact Finding and I couldn’t risk coming of my meds to be able to take part in the study but the thought of measured psychedelics was a good one).

But it was also expensive gym membership - access to a pool really helps me and Coco - yoga, acupuncture all of which were hugely important for both mental strength and somatic support. I only discovered recently the power of the cold plunge, and I know dip daily in a pod in my garden but I do wonder how that would have helped if I had known about it sooner. If you haven’t tried I can’t recommend enough. The dopamine hit helps my ADHD symptoms which haven’t been diagnosed, but clear as mud, and I think exacerbated by CPTSD and the menopause combined.

And also clothes. I LOVE them, always have, but I’ve also had to get rid of items that I associate with trauma, and manage the weight fluctuations. At the height of Court I was 8 stone which is crazy and I started to force feed myself Mars bars. Vinted has been brilliant, but in the early years one of the early signs that I had been PTSD triggered was Zara and H&M boxes arriving….

And for my girls. Therapy, once I was ‘allowed’ to register them (it took 2 years and the final Court judgement before I could, my counsel advised it would look like parental alienation if I did so before he was found culpable - yes it’s fucked). And knowing that they will likely require lifelong therapy I’ve had to find therapists privately who specilaise in trauma therapy for children. The NHS is again short termist (I’ll come onto CAMHS soon) and private trauma therapy is about £120 an hour…

And McDonald’s, meal deals, tutoring for the school hours missed, vapes for my eldest (I choose to buy her vapes as it stops her self harm) unseen costs which are really needed to prevent serious eating disorders and maintain some semblance of school academic performance.

And all this in the context that the original Court proceedings cost me 150k, I still owe family 80k of that and have lost a lot of house equity and any savings I had. I might have been able to make changes, but when your mental clarity changes with CPTSD and you are in survival mode you just do what needs to be done.

xoxo.