The Continuing Impact of CPTSD

This morning in my bath, I finally used the fancy soap I’d brought back from Paris. Let me tell you what it made me notice about the continuing impact of CPTSD in my life, and also how I know I’m continuing to heal.

I’d packed super light for my two month sabbatical in Europe, so there wasn’t room in the suitcase for much more than soap. (Well, soap and chocolate, but as with the digestive system, you can always find room in the suitcase for chocolate.)

So three weeks ago I arrived home with my Parisian soap- fig scented- and put it next to the tub. It took me until I was 40 to recognize that that’s what bar soap was truly made for…not washing your hands in an oddly unhygienic way, but luxuriating with in the tub. Letting it suds up and scent the water the whole bath, only to find that there’s still enough left of it to do it again, and again, and again. (Move over, ephemeral bath bombs!)

And yet it still took me three weeks to touch it. Which, in defense of myself, is three to thirty years sooner than I may have done in the past.

My propensity to hoard beautiful things, “too good to use” things, started very early (and if you’ve read this far, I’m guessing yours did too). I grew up very poor, and my most treasured possession was a collection of those stick-on earrings that had already been worn too much for the stickiness to still work. I would open the box I kept them in and gaze upon them like they were the Crown Jewels of my personal kingdom. My favorites were the moon and star shapes. I guess I haven’t changed much.

As I grew up, my collections changed, but one theme remained: in collecting things, I couldn’t use them, and therefore I never actually enjoyed them. As a teen I hoarded Easter candy until it was too gross to eat. As an adult I saved “the good linens” and “the nice pajamas” and “the best sweater” until I found them moth-eaten (who knew that was an actual thing!!) or too yellowed to enjoy.

Beneath it all, I know, has always been the deep lack of self love that besets all us CPTSD bebes. We hoard our treasures like dragons over a lair because we don’t believe we ourselves have any inherent worth. Perhaps our piles of untouched treasure can signal to the world- and more importantly, to our own parts- that we are actually worthwhile and lovable, right? But I’ve done work on that- lots and lots of work- and as often happens (thank you, neuroplasticity, which works both for and against us) the behavior itself outlived the belief that had created it to begin with. I had come to believe in my own value, but I didn’t always treat myself as though it were true.

So today, I’m celebrating that it only took me three weeks to use the good soap. Maybe next time it will only take me three days. Maybe one day I’ll open it before I even get home. (Probably not…I still value anticipatory joy too much for that).

Tell me: what’s sitting in your dragon lair right now? What’s the thing you’ve been saving that you might actually be ready to use today? And what are the sometimes surprising continuing impacts of CPTSD you see in your life? (I’ll be in the bath reading your replies.)

This article was originally published on Charity’s substack. You can read it here. 

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