Thank you for sharing your wonderful and resonant experience on this. I was diagnosed with CPTSD loooooong before Autism, and trying to discern the difference between the two can be difficult. Many of your helpful things are practices that I've already incorporated into my day-to-day to help with CPTSD. Parts-work has helped me a LOT too. It's a powerful way to counter chronic invalidation.
Another potentially widespread practise that I was exposed to was for the first 10 days of my life I spent 16 hours with my mother being breastfed once every 4 hours and 8 hours in a hospital nursery receiving one bottle of formula 4 hours after last breastfeed. So, one or two happy hours of being returned to my mother and breastfed before I was so hungry I was screaming for my life. And 22 bad hours. I believe they just thought babies cried for no reason and didn't know that breast milk only fills a newborns stomach for around 90 minutes. But this regime does seem like it might mess with ones neurodevelopment, attachment and relationship to believing what you feel is of any consequence.
I wonder how widespread the practice was that I think first caused me to disregard hunger. I was born mid-seventies and my mother's health visitor told her to only breastfeed every 4 hours or she would get mastitis. She says she eventually "gave up" and moved to formula because she couldn't stand me screaming for 2 of every 4 hours. I don't know how long she lasted before she gave up.
Although now I'm thinking the fact I kept up the screaming would suggest not dissociating. Maybe the switch to an alternative that stopped me getting hungry but was deeply unpleasant was enough to delete my interest in what an appropriate response to hunger might look like?
Thank you for sharing your wonderful and resonant experience on this. I was diagnosed with CPTSD loooooong before Autism, and trying to discern the difference between the two can be difficult. Many of your helpful things are practices that I've already incorporated into my day-to-day to help with CPTSD. Parts-work has helped me a LOT too. It's a powerful way to counter chronic invalidation.
This is one of the most affirming articles I’ve ever read. Thank you for sharing your truth ❤️
Another potentially widespread practise that I was exposed to was for the first 10 days of my life I spent 16 hours with my mother being breastfed once every 4 hours and 8 hours in a hospital nursery receiving one bottle of formula 4 hours after last breastfeed. So, one or two happy hours of being returned to my mother and breastfed before I was so hungry I was screaming for my life. And 22 bad hours. I believe they just thought babies cried for no reason and didn't know that breast milk only fills a newborns stomach for around 90 minutes. But this regime does seem like it might mess with ones neurodevelopment, attachment and relationship to believing what you feel is of any consequence.
I wonder how widespread the practice was that I think first caused me to disregard hunger. I was born mid-seventies and my mother's health visitor told her to only breastfeed every 4 hours or she would get mastitis. She says she eventually "gave up" and moved to formula because she couldn't stand me screaming for 2 of every 4 hours. I don't know how long she lasted before she gave up.
Although now I'm thinking the fact I kept up the screaming would suggest not dissociating. Maybe the switch to an alternative that stopped me getting hungry but was deeply unpleasant was enough to delete my interest in what an appropriate response to hunger might look like?