N's Story with cPTSD and Chronic Illnesses

We always get told that home is our safe place, and that our parents will be the people who stand by us no matter what. Coming to terms with the fact that this wasn’t true for me was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done.

For as long as I can remember through my entire childhood, I was subject to abuse - physical, emotional, mental, and sexual. School was my safe place, it was where I went to escape, where I always felt more at home and where I could be myself. I didn’t do well at making friends and always got on better with the staff (something that makes a lot more sense now that I know I’m autistic). I was always the “weird kid” in my classes and was bullied through school, but despite this, school was still the place I wanted to be – anywhere was better than home.

As I reached secondary school and my peers started having more mature and in-depth conversations, I started realising what was happening at home wasn’t normal. I tried to talk about it to my friends but they didn’t seem to grasp the severity of what I was saying – and I don’t blame them, we were all just kids. I knew that if I spoke to my teachers they would most likely take it seriously, but I knew absolutely nothing about the system and the processes that would be triggered if I did – my biggest fear was that I would speak up, it would get reported, and someone would tell my parents that I had reported it but nothing would actually get done. I couldn’t handle everything that was already going on PLUS them knowing I had told school – so I stayed silent.

At this time my mental health was at the lowest it has ever been. I was extremely depressed and suicidal, self-harming daily, and struggling with anorexia and insomnia. I hoped desperately that someone at school would notice and intervene, but as I was managing to keep my grades up (mainly out of fear, as my grades slipping would not have helped the situation at home), everybody assumed nothing could be going wrong. It was at this point that I also realised I was gay (at the time, I thought I was bisexual) – once this got found out, the situation at home only worsened.

Then, my worst nightmare – pandemic, lockdown, home for almost a year with nobody but my parents. To be honest, I can’t share much about this time because I don’t remember most of it – there are year-long periods of my childhood that I can’t recall at all due to trauma. This is also when I worked out that I was transgender, specifically transmasculine. Given how poorly coming out as bi went, this had to join the long list of secrets I had to do my best to hide at home.

As I approached sixth form, it became clear that the only way out for me would be to move far away to University – but this meant I had to get the grades. I began struggling more with autism at school, having to leave lessons due to overstimulation and meltdowns, as well as due to PTSD flashbacks. To top it all off, at the end of Year 12 my parents essentially tricked me into coming out as trans to them by pretending they were okay with it until I admitted it, and then doing a total 180. The abuse continued, the emotional side turning towards what I now believe is narcissistic abuse. My grades were slowly dropping, my attendance was down, my extra-curricular participation was non-existent; but still, somehow, I slipped under the radar. This was apparent on results day: I was predicted 4 A*s, and came out with a C in one of my subjects – but the important thing is, I did enough to meet my grade requirements to a university 200 miles away!!

Fast forward to summer of 2025. I’ve just completed my second year at university. I’m over a year no contact with my parents. I’m in a loving and stable relationship of nearly two years, I have supportive friends, and I live in a house that feels safe. I am still in the process of being diagnosed, but I believe as a result of my childhood, I have c-PTSD, OCD, and severe anxiety. I’m on SSRIs, which has helped with the depression, but I’m still working on the anxiety. I’ve been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and am almost two months on testosterone!

The other thing I’m dealing with is disability and chronic illness. I got COVID in 2021 and that triggered some issues, and then I got it again in 2024 and that made them significantly worse. The chronic illnesses I have are also very influenced by stress and trauma, and I believe based on the timings of them starting and worsening that these are also in part due to the abuse I faced. I’m now a full-time manual wheelchair user, and am on many diagnostic pathways for several chronic illnesses – currently I’m diagnosed with Long Covid, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Headache and Migraine, and Asthma, and I’m in the system somewhere on a waiting list for POTS, ME/CFS and potentially IBD. Navigating life with energy limiting conditions, and seeing how my mental health and physical health feed into and affect each other, has been a complex and long process, and one I will be managing for the rest of my life, but I feel positive that continuing to put the right support in place for myself such as accommodations and mobility aids, as well as continuing to pursue medical testing and treatment, will enable me to both live a life that I enjoy and manage my illnesses alongside it. 

It’s a long and tricky process to rewire my brain into knowing that it is safe, that I am allowed to have needs and to be my own person, rather than the insane mould my parents tried to force me into. I’m still working on it, the healing is not linear in the slightest and is going to take a long time. But having made the scary decision to leave, to cut them off and to get out was for me the hardest part, and anything I need to do after that to continue recovering and healing seems doable in comparison. 

I love my life right now. I’m grateful for my boyfriend, his family, and my friends. I’m determined to keep healing and to make sure that the people who ruined the start of my life don’t get any say on how the rest of it goes.