• Trauma releasing exercises, these are demonstrated on youtube, I could do these even when I was 300lbs so they are feasible. You should give yourself some time to rest, 15-30 minutes at least, after doing them for regulation and integration.
• Polyvagal theory exercises, Sukie Baxter on youtube does content on this. Irene Lion does as well and she has other trauma healing resources too that I use.
• Breathwork, be careful with this one because this can be too activating, but it releases trauma from the body. There's a lot of breathing techniques on youtube. This combined with vinpocetine and canned oxygen for me boosted the effect somewhat.
• Yoga, with my fatigue I struggle to implement this more regularly but yin yoga is recommended.
• Accupressure desensitization, basically you rub, tap, or stimulate accupressure points, namely on the face and hands. This works better if you alternate between the left and right sides of your body.
• Modafinil, this helps push through the fatigue but the generics are less effective on me, this is one of the psychmeds that have manageable side effects for me and the pros outweigh the cons. However I can't sustain taking it everyday due to the side effects on me personally, max I can do is 200mg a week for 6 weeks currently. I add choline and tyrosine to improve the effects. Ashwaganda and rhodiola rosea added to this stack adds a calming effect without sedation for me personally. Modafinil and Armodafinil burns through choline and adding this is ideal so there isn't a deficiency. There's other nootropic stacks and there's subreddits that discuss stacks for different effects but Modafinil is the 80/20 plus choline.
• Internal Family Systems Therapy, there is a subreddit for this. This is a promising therapy modality for CPTSD and it has helped me process many things on my own with just self guided resources. It would be more ideal to have a specialist who can do this, it is similar to Voice Dialog. My partner's therapist does this with her. I've been unable to find a therapist in this for myself.
• Somatic experiencing, this is made by Peter Levine and his resources have been helpful as well. This allows the body to complete the trauma response, allowing it to release it gently.
• Feldenkrais, Irene Lion also goes into this, this can help process trauma from the womb or trauma that isn't remembered.
• Acceptance and Commitment therapy, self guided.
• Ego death meditation, I wouldn't recommend this for someone's first rodeo with mediation but this helps me rinse away unnecessary pain, helps with making clean pain instead of dirty pain, Therapy in a Nutshell on youtube discusses this concept in a few of those clips.
• Nonduality spiritual tapes, this again is more advanced for CPTSD rehab and been listening to ebooks on this, this teaches how to be in the present moment, and to settle into the awareness that is behind the ego. This can give some relief, or at least some perspective but not a good route to go if someone is in the early stages of CPTSD rehab.
• Cathartic meditation method, this is a technique my partner came up with by combining elements of breathwork, somatic experiencing, and dance. She wrote an ebook on it before she started transitioning.
• Urge surfing, this is more in relation to addiction management.
• Dabbled a bit in some qi gong, the five animal frolics act like somatic experiencing.
• Semax, a Russian nootropic that helped me regain some cognitive functioning, but this was too activating for me on its own so I combine it with Selank, a calming nootropic from the same company. They can be combined without issue. This worked for me but I'm not sure how this would work for other people with CPTSD.
• Chasteberry for mood swings related PMS/PMDD, this has been the only thing that helped with this for me and it shaves off the friction around that time a month by 30-50%. Ginko biloba is also recommend for this but I've not had as good of results with it for this issue, but it doesn't hurt.
• tDCS for my drug resistant depression. Had to do a lot of homework and tinkering for this one, but got all the stuff for it for under $200 and this was the only thing that improved my depression with little to no side effects. I would prefer a specialist that does transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) but this is very expensive out of pocket. Both tDCS and TMS need at least a month of daily use in the right locations for it to work. Worst case scenario it doesn't work and no side effects.
• Ice baths and cold showers, this can help the nervous system re-regulate but don't go too much too fast. Even a short rinse in cold water, a couple of seconds, can help. If you want to go full Wim Hof there's subreddits for that and breathwork will be needed.
• Medical cannabis combined with CBD assisted self therapy, in these sessions I load up music that evokes a trauma, or music that evokes a time period or unprocessed sentiment, and I let that surface. The weed softens, not numbs, the experience enough for me to process it, to give it the space it needs, and I've healed a particularly deep trauma from this method. CBG also works out pretty well, mango increases the weed effects and fresh mango works a bit better than dried mango but both work.
• Weight training, building muscle helps with regulation as well as processing and empowerment, I've used low doses of ligandrol and mk 677 to help build a bit extra muscle for a 6 week cycle, the mk 677 helped with sleep when I struggled during the winter over a specific trauma that is now processed. I wouldn't recommend SARMs for other people in general, especially if they have liver issues. I only added them just to get a bit extra muscle for nervous system regulation and resilience.
• Empathy/compassion exercises generally in combination with Medical cannabis and CBD, 1:1 seems best for me personally. With this I visit traumatic moments and I start to dissect the psychology of the abusers in these situations, I do some detective work in my head and piece together how they ended up like that, I trace the trauma thread. This is an advanced technique, I was not able to do this in the beginning years of my recovery. Also this isn't a good tech for everyone, but it helped me see these destructive and hurtful people as broken, because they are. I went from feeling like a victim of malicious intent and design to feeling compassion for what was done to these people to make them into this. Instead of realizing their highest good in life, they were rendered into a broken shadow of that instead with little hope to be much else. This is hell in itself. This doesn't justify the damage they caused, not at all, but it reframes it in a way that allows me personally to process it better and to grow into the kind of person I actually want to be in this life. This all falls into radical acceptance. To be clear, acceptance does not mean agreeing with it, it just means acknowledging and facing reality on reality's terms.
• Gardening, this in general is just therapeutic if I can keep up with it.
• Decarboxylated amanita muscaria, Muscimol is promising for benzo recovery in particular as well as other issues, but decarbing this mushroom with DIY protocols is not something I recommend. There was a canadian pharma company that was refining this, forgot the name or if it was able to launch.
• The Ashton Mehod for benzo recovery, my partner was left on 1mg of Ativan for 5 years and this caused her so many additional problems, this was the only medical intervention she received before I arrived here. This protocol took a year to implement and I've written about this process in an older post if this if anyone's interested. This isn't directly related to CPTSD rehab, more like a pre-requiste we had to solve beforehand, but it is absolutely needed because of how common benzos are still prescribed and it is too easy for anyone to end up on these meds for way too long. Biotin is also a need for this recovery, my partner still can't function if her biotin levels are too low.
• The Sedona method is really overhyped but there's two principles in it that were helpful, the "could I let it go? Will I? When?" questioning method helps with letting go of rumination among other things. The other helpful tidbit they teach is about framing all your inner problems as desires for control, approval, and security. Behind these two principles though it starts to get a bit watered down and fluffy.
• Richard Bandler's hypnosis recordings have helped me with progressive relaxation in the past. There's other ways to do progressive relaxation though and there's youtubes on how to do those exercises.
• Lions mane and psilocybin microdosing/macrodosing combined with self guided therapy or my partner provides a hypnosis session or guided meditation audio resources, this was also very helpful. For me tDCS increased the effect of the micro and macrodosing, I saw that raw cocoa nibs is supposed to increase the effects of magic mushrooms but I didn't see this effect personally.
• Body scanning and mindfulness techniques.
• Inner smile meditation
• Resourcing/grounding techniques, Irene Lyon talks about this and other trauma courses do as well. Basically you orient yourself towards safety, one exercise is just to slowly pan your head around the room and gently taking notice of your sensory experience. This trains your nervous system to calm down.
• Epsom salt baths help supplement magnesium and ease body traumas in general, I combine this with massage. While in the hot bath I spray cold water on my scalp and along the base of the neck, I wouldn't recommend this to others, specifically combining a hot bath with a cold shower to the head, but it works on me with calming down and releasing more.
• Knitting/crocheting is meditative when I am not fatigued.
• The Work has really helped with racing thoughts and rumination, the worksheet and process is simple and here's the link: https://thework.com/instruction-the-work-byron-katie/
• The Wholeness work has also been really helpful with reframing stressful people and situations.
• We made self help courses on other techniques that helped us on Udemy, Skillshare isn't a fan of self help content so we got booted.
• Inflammation management is critical, eat foods that reduce inflammation. Many spices are very good for this, combine them with oils and eat it up.
• Gut flora, get in those good gut bacteria, you can homemake yogurt in the oven, or with multicookers that have yogurt functions, and this ensures that you are eating live probiotics. Yogurt, even Activa from the store, generally has dead or low cultures by the time you buy it. Combine this with prebiotics like garlic and barley grass and this will help overall functioning.
• EMDR apps help, I've got two of them on hand, BLST on my phone for audio EMDR and "Go With That 4.0 Free" on my desktop for visual EMDR.
• Journalling on reddit.
• Meditative asemic writing.
• Stream of Conscious art therapy, self guided.
• Various CPTSD home courses, audiobooks, ebooks from Pete Walker and others.

• TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation.
• Vagus nerve pacemaker, I knew a woman with it and it really helped her, lasts 10 years and FDA approved I heard.
• Hyperbaric oxygen chamber combined with breathwork.
• Ketamine assisted therapy but I'm not as eager about this one. I'd still give it a go though.
• MDMA assisted therapy, this is very promising for CPTSD.
• sensory deprivation tank.
• acupuncture.
• cryotherapy
• Pharma grade Muscimol
• cerebrolysin for chronic fatigue

• Trauma releasing exercises, these are demonstrated on youtube, I could do these even when I was 300lbs so they are feasible. You should give yourself some time to rest, 15-30 minutes at least, after doing them for regulation and integration.
• Polyvagal theory exercises, Sukie Baxter on youtube does content on this. Irene Lion does as well and she has other trauma healing resources too that I use.
• Breathwork, be careful with this one because this can be too activating, but it releases trauma from the body. There's a lot of breathing techniques on youtube. This combined with vinpocetine and canned oxygen for me boosted the effect somewhat.
• Yoga, with my fatigue I struggle to implement this more regularly but yin yoga is recommended.
• Accupressure desensitization, basically you rub, tap, or stimulate accupressure points, namely on the face and hands. This works better if you alternate between the left and right sides of your body.
• Modafinil, this helps push through the fatigue but the generics are less effective on me, this is one of the psychmeds that have manageable side effects for me and the pros outweigh the cons. However I can't sustain taking it everyday due to the side effects on me personally, max I can do is 200mg a week for 6 weeks currently. I add choline and tyrosine to improve the effects. Ashwaganda and rhodiola rosea added to this stack adds a calming effect without sedation for me personally. Modafinil and Armodafinil burns through choline and adding this is ideal so there isn't a deficiency. There's other nootropic stacks and there's subreddits that discuss stacks for different effects but Modafinil is the 80/20 plus choline.
• Internal Family Systems Therapy, there is a subreddit for this. This is a promising therapy modality for CPTSD and it has helped me process many things on my own with just self guided resources. It would be more ideal to have a specialist who can do this, it is similar to Voice Dialog. My partner's therapist does this with her. I've been unable to find a therapist in this for myself.
• Somatic experiencing, this is made by Peter Levine and his resources have been helpful as well. This allows the body to complete the trauma response, allowing it to release it gently.
• Feldenkrais, Irene Lion also goes into this, this can help process trauma from the womb or trauma that isn't remembered.
• Acceptance and Commitment therapy, self guided.
• Ego death meditation, I wouldn't recommend this for someone's first rodeo with mediation but this helps me rinse away unnecessary pain, helps with making clean pain instead of dirty pain, Therapy in a Nutshell on youtube discusses this concept in a few of those clips.
• Nonduality spiritual tapes, this again is more advanced for CPTSD rehab and been listening to ebooks on this, this teaches how to be in the present moment, and to settle into the awareness that is behind the ego. This can give some relief, or at least some perspective but not a good route to go if someone is in the early stages of CPTSD rehab.
• Cathartic meditation method, this is a technique my partner came up with by combining elements of breathwork, somatic experiencing, and dance. She wrote an ebook on it before she started transitioning.
• Urge surfing, this is more in relation to addiction management.
• Dabbled a bit in some qi gong, the five animal frolics act like somatic experiencing.
• Semax, a Russian nootropic that helped me regain some cognitive functioning, but this was too activating for me on its own so I combine it with Selank, a calming nootropic from the same company. They can be combined without issue. This worked for me but I'm not sure how this would work for other people with CPTSD.
• Chasteberry for mood swings related PMS/PMDD, this has been the only thing that helped with this for me and it shaves off the friction around that time a month by 30-50%. Ginko biloba is also recommend for this but I've not had as good of results with it for this issue, but it doesn't hurt.
• tDCS for my drug resistant depression. Had to do a lot of homework and tinkering for this one, but got all the stuff for it for under $200 and this was the only thing that improved my depression with little to no side effects. I would prefer a specialist that does transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) but this is very expensive out of pocket. Both tDCS and TMS need at least a month of daily use in the right locations for it to work. Worst case scenario it doesn't work and no side effects.
• Ice baths and cold showers, this can help the nervous system re-regulate but don't go too much too fast. Even a short rinse in cold water, a couple of seconds, can help. If you want to go full Wim Hof there's subreddits for that and breathwork will be needed.
• Medical cannabis combined with CBD assisted self therapy, in these sessions I load up music that evokes a trauma, or music that evokes a time period or unprocessed sentiment, and I let that surface. The weed softens, not numbs, the experience enough for me to process it, to give it the space it needs, and I've healed a particularly deep trauma from this method. CBG also works out pretty well, mango increases the weed effects and fresh mango works a bit better than dried mango but both work.
• Weight training, building muscle helps with regulation as well as processing and empowerment, I've used low doses of ligandrol and mk 677 to help build a bit extra muscle for a 6 week cycle, the mk 677 helped with sleep when I struggled during the winter over a specific trauma that is now processed. I wouldn't recommend SARMs for other people in general, especially if they have liver issues. I only added them just to get a bit extra muscle for nervous system regulation and resilience.
• Empathy/compassion exercises generally in combination with Medical cannabis and CBD, 1:1 seems best for me personally. With this I visit traumatic moments and I start to dissect the psychology of the abusers in these situations, I do some detective work in my head and piece together how they ended up like that, I trace the trauma thread. This is an advanced technique, I was not able to do this in the beginning years of my recovery. Also this isn't a good tech for everyone, but it helped me see these destructive and hurtful people as broken, because they are. I went from feeling like a victim of malicious intent and design to feeling compassion for what was done to these people to make them into this. Instead of realizing their highest good in life, they were rendered into a broken shadow of that instead with little hope to be much else. This is hell in itself. This doesn't justify the damage they caused, not at all, but it reframes it in a way that allows me personally to process it better and to grow into the kind of person I actually want to be in this life. This all falls into radical acceptance. To be clear, acceptance does not mean agreeing with it, it just means acknowledging and facing reality on reality's terms.
• Gardening, this in general is just therapeutic if I can keep up with it.
• Decarboxylated amanita muscaria, Muscimol is promising for benzo recovery in particular as well as other issues, but decarbing this mushroom with DIY protocols is not something I recommend. There was a canadian pharma company that was refining this, forgot the name or if it was able to launch.
• The Ashton Mehod for benzo recovery, my partner was left on 1mg of Ativan for 5 years and this caused her so many additional problems, this was the only medical intervention she received before I arrived here. This protocol took a year to implement and I've written about this process in an older post if this if anyone's interested. This isn't directly related to CPTSD rehab, more like a pre-requiste we had to solve beforehand, but it is absolutely needed because of how common benzos are still prescribed and it is too easy for anyone to end up on these meds for way too long. Biotin is also a need for this recovery, my partner still can't function if her biotin levels are too low.
• The Sedona method is really overhyped but there's two principles in it that were helpful, the "could I let it go? Will I? When?" questioning method helps with letting go of rumination among other things. The other helpful tidbit they teach is about framing all your inner problems as desires for control, approval, and security. Behind these two principles though it starts to get a bit watered down and fluffy.
• Richard Bandler's hypnosis recordings have helped me with progressive relaxation in the past. There's other ways to do progressive relaxation though and there's youtubes on how to do those exercises.
• Lions mane and psilocybin microdosing/macrodosing combined with self guided therapy or my partner provides a hypnosis session or guided meditation audio resources, this was also very helpful. For me tDCS increased the effect of the micro and macrodosing, I saw that raw cocoa nibs is supposed to increase the effects of magic mushrooms but I didn't see this effect personally.
• Body scanning and mindfulness techniques.
• Inner smile meditation
• Resourcing/grounding techniques, Irene Lyon talks about this and other trauma courses do as well. Basically you orient yourself towards safety, one exercise is just to slowly pan your head around the room and gently taking notice of your sensory experience. This trains your nervous system to calm down.
• Epsom salt baths help supplement magnesium and ease body traumas in general, I combine this with massage. While in the hot bath I spray cold water on my scalp and along the base of the neck, I wouldn't recommend this to others, specifically combining a hot bath with a cold shower to the head, but it works on me with calming down and releasing more.
• Knitting/crocheting is meditative when I am not fatigued.
• The Work has really helped with racing thoughts and rumination, the worksheet and process is simple and here's the link: https://thework.com/instruction-the-work-byron-katie/
• The Wholeness work has also been really helpful with reframing stressful people and situations.
• We made self help courses on other techniques that helped us on Udemy, Skillshare isn't a fan of self help content so we got booted.
• Inflammation management is critical, eat foods that reduce inflammation. Many spices are very good for this, combine them with oils and eat it up.
• Gut flora, get in those good gut bacteria, you can homemake yogurt in the oven, or with multicookers that have yogurt functions, and this ensures that you are eating live probiotics. Yogurt, even Activa from the store, generally has dead or low cultures by the time you buy it. Combine this with prebiotics like garlic and barley grass and this will help overall functioning.
• EMDR apps help, I've got two of them on hand, BLST on my phone for audio EMDR and "Go With That 4.0 Free" on my desktop for visual EMDR.
• Journalling on reddit.
• Meditative asemic writing.
• Stream of Conscious art therapy, self guided.
• Various CPTSD home courses, audiobooks, ebooks from Pete Walker and others.

• TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation.
• Vagus nerve pacemaker, I knew a woman with it and it really helped her, lasts 10 years and FDA approved I heard.
• Hyperbaric oxygen chamber combined with breathwork.
• Ketamine assisted therapy but I'm not as eager about this one. I'd still give it a go though.
• MDMA assisted therapy, this is very promising for CPTSD.
• sensory deprivation tank.
• acupuncture.
• cryotherapy
• Pharma grade Muscimol
• cerebrolysin for chronic fatigue

• Trauma releasing exercises, these are demonstrated on youtube, I could do these even when I was 300lbs so they are feasible. You should give yourself some time to rest, 15-30 minutes at least, after doing them for regulation and integration.
• Polyvagal theory exercises, Sukie Baxter on youtube does content on this. Irene Lion does as well and she has other trauma healing resources too that I use.
• Breathwork, be careful with this one because this can be too activating, but it releases trauma from the body. There's a lot of breathing techniques on youtube. This combined with vinpocetine and canned oxygen for me boosted the effect somewhat.
• Yoga, with my fatigue I struggle to implement this more regularly but yin yoga is recommended.
• Accupressure desensitization, basically you rub, tap, or stimulate accupressure points, namely on the face and hands. This works better if you alternate between the left and right sides of your body.
• Modafinil, this helps push through the fatigue but the generics are less effective on me, this is one of the psychmeds that have manageable side effects for me and the pros outweigh the cons. However I can't sustain taking it everyday due to the side effects on me personally, max I can do is 200mg a week for 6 weeks currently. I add choline and tyrosine to improve the effects. Ashwaganda and rhodiola rosea added to this stack adds a calming effect without sedation for me personally. Modafinil and Armodafinil burns through choline and adding this is ideal so there isn't a deficiency. There's other nootropic stacks and there's subreddits that discuss stacks for different effects but Modafinil is the 80/20 plus choline.
• Internal Family Systems Therapy, there is a subreddit for this. This is a promising therapy modality for CPTSD and it has helped me process many things on my own with just self guided resources. It would be more ideal to have a specialist who can do this, it is similar to Voice Dialog. My partner's therapist does this with her. I've been unable to find a therapist in this for myself.
• Somatic experiencing, this is made by Peter Levine and his resources have been helpful as well. This allows the body to complete the trauma response, allowing it to release it gently.
• Feldenkrais, Irene Lion also goes into this, this can help process trauma from the womb or trauma that isn't remembered.
• Acceptance and Commitment therapy, self guided.
• Ego death meditation, I wouldn't recommend this for someone's first rodeo with mediation but this helps me rinse away unnecessary pain, helps with making clean pain instead of dirty pain, Therapy in a Nutshell on youtube discusses this concept in a few of those clips.
• Nonduality spiritual tapes, this again is more advanced for CPTSD rehab and been listening to ebooks on this, this teaches how to be in the present moment, and to settle into the awareness that is behind the ego. This can give some relief, or at least some perspective but not a good route to go if someone is in the early stages of CPTSD rehab.
• Cathartic meditation method, this is a technique my partner came up with by combining elements of breathwork, somatic experiencing, and dance. She wrote an ebook on it before she started transitioning.
• Urge surfing, this is more in relation to addiction management.
• Dabbled a bit in some qi gong, the five animal frolics act like somatic experiencing.
• Semax, a Russian nootropic that helped me regain some cognitive functioning, but this was too activating for me on its own so I combine it with Selank, a calming nootropic from the same company. They can be combined without issue. This worked for me but I'm not sure how this would work for other people with CPTSD.
• Chasteberry for mood swings related PMS/PMDD, this has been the only thing that helped with this for me and it shaves off the friction around that time a month by 30-50%. Ginko biloba is also recommend for this but I've not had as good of results with it for this issue, but it doesn't hurt.
• tDCS for my drug resistant depression. Had to do a lot of homework and tinkering for this one, but got all the stuff for it for under $200 and this was the only thing that improved my depression with little to no side effects. I would prefer a specialist that does transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) but this is very expensive out of pocket. Both tDCS and TMS need at least a month of daily use in the right locations for it to work. Worst case scenario it doesn't work and no side effects.
• Ice baths and cold showers, this can help the nervous system re-regulate but don't go too much too fast. Even a short rinse in cold water, a couple of seconds, can help. If you want to go full Wim Hof there's subreddits for that and breathwork will be needed.
• Medical cannabis combined with CBD assisted self therapy, in these sessions I load up music that evokes a trauma, or music that evokes a time period or unprocessed sentiment, and I let that surface. The weed softens, not numbs, the experience enough for me to process it, to give it the space it needs, and I've healed a particularly deep trauma from this method. CBG also works out pretty well, mango increases the weed effects and fresh mango works a bit better than dried mango but both work.
• Weight training, building muscle helps with regulation as well as processing and empowerment, I've used low doses of ligandrol and mk 677 to help build a bit extra muscle for a 6 week cycle, the mk 677 helped with sleep when I struggled during the winter over a specific trauma that is now processed. I wouldn't recommend SARMs for other people in general, especially if they have liver issues. I only added them just to get a bit extra muscle for nervous system regulation and resilience.
• Empathy/compassion exercises generally in combination with Medical cannabis and CBD, 1:1 seems best for me personally. With this I visit traumatic moments and I start to dissect the psychology of the abusers in these situations, I do some detective work in my head and piece together how they ended up like that, I trace the trauma thread. This is an advanced technique, I was not able to do this in the beginning years of my recovery. Also this isn't a good tech for everyone, but it helped me see these destructive and hurtful people as broken, because they are. I went from feeling like a victim of malicious intent and design to feeling compassion for what was done to these people to make them into this. Instead of realizing their highest good in life, they were rendered into a broken shadow of that instead with little hope to be much else. This is hell in itself. This doesn't justify the damage they caused, not at all, but it reframes it in a way that allows me personally to process it better and to grow into the kind of person I actually want to be in this life. This all falls into radical acceptance. To be clear, acceptance does not mean agreeing with it, it just means acknowledging and facing reality on reality's terms.
• Gardening, this in general is just therapeutic if I can keep up with it.
• Decarboxylated amanita muscaria, Muscimol is promising for benzo recovery in particular as well as other issues, but decarbing this mushroom with DIY protocols is not something I recommend. There was a canadian pharma company that was refining this, forgot the name or if it was able to launch.
• The Ashton Mehod for benzo recovery, my partner was left on 1mg of Ativan for 5 years and this caused her so many additional problems, this was the only medical intervention she received before I arrived here. This protocol took a year to implement and I've written about this process in an older post if this if anyone's interested. This isn't directly related to CPTSD rehab, more like a pre-requiste we had to solve beforehand, but it is absolutely needed because of how common benzos are still prescribed and it is too easy for anyone to end up on these meds for way too long. Biotin is also a need for this recovery, my partner still can't function if her biotin levels are too low.
• The Sedona method is really overhyped but there's two principles in it that were helpful, the "could I let it go? Will I? When?" questioning method helps with letting go of rumination among other things. The other helpful tidbit they teach is about framing all your inner problems as desires for control, approval, and security. Behind these two principles though it starts to get a bit watered down and fluffy.
• Richard Bandler's hypnosis recordings have helped me with progressive relaxation in the past. There's other ways to do progressive relaxation though and there's youtubes on how to do those exercises.
• Lions mane and psilocybin microdosing/macrodosing combined with self guided therapy or my partner provides a hypnosis session or guided meditation audio resources, this was also very helpful. For me tDCS increased the effect of the micro and macrodosing, I saw that raw cocoa nibs is supposed to increase the effects of magic mushrooms but I didn't see this effect personally.
• Body scanning and mindfulness techniques.
• Inner smile meditation
• Resourcing/grounding techniques, Irene Lyon talks about this and other trauma courses do as well. Basically you orient yourself towards safety, one exercise is just to slowly pan your head around the room and gently taking notice of your sensory experience. This trains your nervous system to calm down.
• Epsom salt baths help supplement magnesium and ease body traumas in general, I combine this with massage. While in the hot bath I spray cold water on my scalp and along the base of the neck, I wouldn't recommend this to others, specifically combining a hot bath with a cold shower to the head, but it works on me with calming down and releasing more.
• Knitting/crocheting is meditative when I am not fatigued.
• The Work has really helped with racing thoughts and rumination, the worksheet and process is simple and here's the link: https://thework.com/instruction-the-work-byron-katie/
• The Wholeness work has also been really helpful with reframing stressful people and situations.
• We made self help courses on other techniques that helped us on Udemy, Skillshare isn't a fan of self help content so we got booted.
• Inflammation management is critical, eat foods that reduce inflammation. Many spices are very good for this, combine them with oils and eat it up.
• Gut flora, get in those good gut bacteria, you can homemake yogurt in the oven, or with multicookers that have yogurt functions, and this ensures that you are eating live probiotics. Yogurt, even Activa from the store, generally has dead or low cultures by the time you buy it. Combine this with prebiotics like garlic and barley grass and this will help overall functioning.
• EMDR apps help, I've got two of them on hand, BLST on my phone for audio EMDR and "Go With That 4.0 Free" on my desktop for visual EMDR.
• Journalling on reddit.
• Meditative asemic writing.
• Stream of Conscious art therapy, self guided.
• Various CPTSD home courses, audiobooks, ebooks from Pete Walker and others.

• TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation.
• Vagus nerve pacemaker, I knew a woman with it and it really helped her, lasts 10 years and FDA approved I heard.
• Hyperbaric oxygen chamber combined with breathwork.
• Ketamine assisted therapy but I'm not as eager about this one. I'd still give it a go though.
• MDMA assisted therapy, this is very promising for CPTSD.
• sensory deprivation tank.
• acupuncture.
• cryotherapy
• Pharma grade Muscimol
• cerebrolysin for chronic fatigue

• Trauma releasing exercises, these are demonstrated on youtube, I could do these even when I was 300lbs so they are feasible. You should give yourself some time to rest, 15-30 minutes at least, after doing them for regulation and integration.
• Polyvagal theory exercises, Sukie Baxter on youtube does content on this. Irene Lion does as well and she has other trauma healing resources too that I use.
• Breathwork, be careful with this one because this can be too activating, but it releases trauma from the body. There's a lot of breathing techniques on youtube. This combined with vinpocetine and canned oxygen for me boosted the effect somewhat.
• Yoga, with my fatigue I struggle to implement this more regularly but yin yoga is recommended.
• Accupressure desensitization, basically you rub, tap, or stimulate accupressure points, namely on the face and hands. This works better if you alternate between the left and right sides of your body.
• Modafinil, this helps push through the fatigue but the generics are less effective on me, this is one of the psychmeds that have manageable side effects for me and the pros outweigh the cons. However I can't sustain taking it everyday due to the side effects on me personally, max I can do is 200mg a week for 6 weeks currently. I add choline and tyrosine to improve the effects. Ashwaganda and rhodiola rosea added to this stack adds a calming effect without sedation for me personally. Modafinil and Armodafinil burns through choline and adding this is ideal so there isn't a deficiency. There's other nootropic stacks and there's subreddits that discuss stacks for different effects but Modafinil is the 80/20 plus choline.
• Internal Family Systems Therapy, there is a subreddit for this. This is a promising therapy modality for CPTSD and it has helped me process many things on my own with just self guided resources. It would be more ideal to have a specialist who can do this, it is similar to Voice Dialog. My partner's therapist does this with her. I've been unable to find a therapist in this for myself.
• Somatic experiencing, this is made by Peter Levine and his resources have been helpful as well. This allows the body to complete the trauma response, allowing it to release it gently.
• Feldenkrais, Irene Lion also goes into this, this can help process trauma from the womb or trauma that isn't remembered.
• Acceptance and Commitment therapy, self guided.
• Ego death meditation, I wouldn't recommend this for someone's first rodeo with mediation but this helps me rinse away unnecessary pain, helps with making clean pain instead of dirty pain, Therapy in a Nutshell on youtube discusses this concept in a few of those clips.
• Nonduality spiritual tapes, this again is more advanced for CPTSD rehab and been listening to ebooks on this, this teaches how to be in the present moment, and to settle into the awareness that is behind the ego. This can give some relief, or at least some perspective but not a good route to go if someone is in the early stages of CPTSD rehab.
• Cathartic meditation method, this is a technique my partner came up with by combining elements of breathwork, somatic experiencing, and dance. She wrote an ebook on it before she started transitioning.
• Urge surfing, this is more in relation to addiction management.
• Dabbled a bit in some qi gong, the five animal frolics act like somatic experiencing.
• Semax, a Russian nootropic that helped me regain some cognitive functioning, but this was too activating for me on its own so I combine it with Selank, a calming nootropic from the same company. They can be combined without issue. This worked for me but I'm not sure how this would work for other people with CPTSD.
• Chasteberry for mood swings related PMS/PMDD, this has been the only thing that helped with this for me and it shaves off the friction around that time a month by 30-50%. Ginko biloba is also recommend for this but I've not had as good of results with it for this issue, but it doesn't hurt.
• tDCS for my drug resistant depression. Had to do a lot of homework and tinkering for this one, but got all the stuff for it for under $200 and this was the only thing that improved my depression with little to no side effects. I would prefer a specialist that does transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) but this is very expensive out of pocket. Both tDCS and TMS need at least a month of daily use in the right locations for it to work. Worst case scenario it doesn't work and no side effects.
• Ice baths and cold showers, this can help the nervous system re-regulate but don't go too much too fast. Even a short rinse in cold water, a couple of seconds, can help. If you want to go full Wim Hof there's subreddits for that and breathwork will be needed.
• Medical cannabis combined with CBD assisted self therapy, in these sessions I load up music that evokes a trauma, or music that evokes a time period or unprocessed sentiment, and I let that surface. The weed softens, not numbs, the experience enough for me to process it, to give it the space it needs, and I've healed a particularly deep trauma from this method. CBG also works out pretty well, mango increases the weed effects and fresh mango works a bit better than dried mango but both work.
• Weight training, building muscle helps with regulation as well as processing and empowerment, I've used low doses of ligandrol and mk 677 to help build a bit extra muscle for a 6 week cycle, the mk 677 helped with sleep when I struggled during the winter over a specific trauma that is now processed. I wouldn't recommend SARMs for other people in general, especially if they have liver issues. I only added them just to get a bit extra muscle for nervous system regulation and resilience.
• Empathy/compassion exercises generally in combination with Medical cannabis and CBD, 1:1 seems best for me personally. With this I visit traumatic moments and I start to dissect the psychology of the abusers in these situations, I do some detective work in my head and piece together how they ended up like that, I trace the trauma thread. This is an advanced technique, I was not able to do this in the beginning years of my recovery. Also this isn't a good tech for everyone, but it helped me see these destructive and hurtful people as broken, because they are. I went from feeling like a victim of malicious intent and design to feeling compassion for what was done to these people to make them into this. Instead of realizing their highest good in life, they were rendered into a broken shadow of that instead with little hope to be much else. This is hell in itself. This doesn't justify the damage they caused, not at all, but it reframes it in a way that allows me personally to process it better and to grow into the kind of person I actually want to be in this life. This all falls into radical acceptance. To be clear, acceptance does not mean agreeing with it, it just means acknowledging and facing reality on reality's terms.
• Gardening, this in general is just therapeutic if I can keep up with it.
• Decarboxylated amanita muscaria, Muscimol is promising for benzo recovery in particular as well as other issues, but decarbing this mushroom with DIY protocols is not something I recommend. There was a canadian pharma company that was refining this, forgot the name or if it was able to launch.
• The Ashton Mehod for benzo recovery, my partner was left on 1mg of Ativan for 5 years and this caused her so many additional problems, this was the only medical intervention she received before I arrived here. This protocol took a year to implement and I've written about this process in an older post if this if anyone's interested. This isn't directly related to CPTSD rehab, more like a pre-requiste we had to solve beforehand, but it is absolutely needed because of how common benzos are still prescribed and it is too easy for anyone to end up on these meds for way too long. Biotin is also a need for this recovery, my partner still can't function if her biotin levels are too low.
• The Sedona method is really overhyped but there's two principles in it that were helpful, the "could I let it go? Will I? When?" questioning method helps with letting go of rumination among other things. The other helpful tidbit they teach is about framing all your inner problems as desires for control, approval, and security. Behind these two principles though it starts to get a bit watered down and fluffy.
• Richard Bandler's hypnosis recordings have helped me with progressive relaxation in the past. There's other ways to do progressive relaxation though and there's youtubes on how to do those exercises.
• Lions mane and psilocybin microdosing/macrodosing combined with self guided therapy or my partner provides a hypnosis session or guided meditation audio resources, this was also very helpful. For me tDCS increased the effect of the micro and macrodosing, I saw that raw cocoa nibs is supposed to increase the effects of magic mushrooms but I didn't see this effect personally.
• Body scanning and mindfulness techniques.
• Inner smile meditation
• Resourcing/grounding techniques, Irene Lyon talks about this and other trauma courses do as well. Basically you orient yourself towards safety, one exercise is just to slowly pan your head around the room and gently taking notice of your sensory experience. This trains your nervous system to calm down.
• Epsom salt baths help supplement magnesium and ease body traumas in general, I combine this with massage. While in the hot bath I spray cold water on my scalp and along the base of the neck, I wouldn't recommend this to others, specifically combining a hot bath with a cold shower to the head, but it works on me with calming down and releasing more.
• Knitting/crocheting is meditative when I am not fatigued.
• The Work has really helped with racing thoughts and rumination, the worksheet and process is simple and here's the link: https://thework.com/instruction-the-work-byron-katie/
• The Wholeness work has also been really helpful with reframing stressful people and situations.
• We made self help courses on other techniques that helped us on Udemy, Skillshare isn't a fan of self help content so we got booted.
• Inflammation management is critical, eat foods that reduce inflammation. Many spices are very good for this, combine them with oils and eat it up.
• Gut flora, get in those good gut bacteria, you can homemake yogurt in the oven, or with multicookers that have yogurt functions, and this ensures that you are eating live probiotics. Yogurt, even Activa from the store, generally has dead or low cultures by the time you buy it. Combine this with prebiotics like garlic and barley grass and this will help overall functioning.
• EMDR apps help, I've got two of them on hand, BLST on my phone for audio EMDR and "Go With That 4.0 Free" on my desktop for visual EMDR.
• Journalling on reddit.
• Meditative asemic writing.
• Stream of Conscious art therapy, self guided.
• Various CPTSD home courses, audiobooks, ebooks from Pete Walker and others.

• TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation.
• Vagus nerve pacemaker, I knew a woman with it and it really helped her, lasts 10 years and FDA approved I heard.
• Hyperbaric oxygen chamber combined with breathwork.
• Ketamine assisted therapy but I'm not as eager about this one. I'd still give it a go though.
• MDMA assisted therapy, this is very promising for CPTSD.
• sensory deprivation tank.
• acupuncture.
• cryotherapy
• Pharma grade Muscimol
• cerebrolysin for chronic fatigue

• Trauma releasing exercises, these are demonstrated on youtube, I could do these even when I was 300lbs so they are feasible. You should give yourself some time to rest, 15-30 minutes at least, after doing them for regulation and integration.
• Polyvagal theory exercises, Sukie Baxter on youtube does content on this. Irene Lion does as well and she has other trauma healing resources too that I use.
• Breathwork, be careful with this one because this can be too activating, but it releases trauma from the body. There's a lot of breathing techniques on youtube. This combined with vinpocetine and canned oxygen for me boosted the effect somewhat.
• Yoga, with my fatigue I struggle to implement this more regularly but yin yoga is recommended.
• Accupressure desensitization, basically you rub, tap, or stimulate accupressure points, namely on the face and hands. This works better if you alternate between the left and right sides of your body.
• Modafinil, this helps push through the fatigue but the generics are less effective on me, this is one of the psychmeds that have manageable side effects for me and the pros outweigh the cons. However I can't sustain taking it everyday due to the side effects on me personally, max I can do is 200mg a week for 6 weeks currently. I add choline and tyrosine to improve the effects. Ashwaganda and rhodiola rosea added to this stack adds a calming effect without sedation for me personally. Modafinil and Armodafinil burns through choline and adding this is ideal so there isn't a deficiency. There's other nootropic stacks and there's subreddits that discuss stacks for different effects but Modafinil is the 80/20 plus choline.
• Internal Family Systems Therapy, there is a subreddit for this. This is a promising therapy modality for CPTSD and it has helped me process many things on my own with just self guided resources. It would be more ideal to have a specialist who can do this, it is similar to Voice Dialog. My partner's therapist does this with her. I've been unable to find a therapist in this for myself.
• Somatic experiencing, this is made by Peter Levine and his resources have been helpful as well. This allows the body to complete the trauma response, allowing it to release it gently.
• Feldenkrais, Irene Lion also goes into this, this can help process trauma from the womb or trauma that isn't remembered.
• Acceptance and Commitment therapy, self guided.
• Ego death meditation, I wouldn't recommend this for someone's first rodeo with mediation but this helps me rinse away unnecessary pain, helps with making clean pain instead of dirty pain, Therapy in a Nutshell on youtube discusses this concept in a few of those clips.
• Nonduality spiritual tapes, this again is more advanced for CPTSD rehab and been listening to ebooks on this, this teaches how to be in the present moment, and to settle into the awareness that is behind the ego. This can give some relief, or at least some perspective but not a good route to go if someone is in the early stages of CPTSD rehab.
• Cathartic meditation method, this is a technique my partner came up with by combining elements of breathwork, somatic experiencing, and dance. She wrote an ebook on it before she started transitioning.
• Urge surfing, this is more in relation to addiction management.
• Dabbled a bit in some qi gong, the five animal frolics act like somatic experiencing.
• Semax, a Russian nootropic that helped me regain some cognitive functioning, but this was too activating for me on its own so I combine it with Selank, a calming nootropic from the same company. They can be combined without issue. This worked for me but I'm not sure how this would work for other people with CPTSD.
• Chasteberry for mood swings related PMS/PMDD, this has been the only thing that helped with this for me and it shaves off the friction around that time a month by 30-50%. Ginko biloba is also recommend for this but I've not had as good of results with it for this issue, but it doesn't hurt.
• tDCS for my drug resistant depression. Had to do a lot of homework and tinkering for this one, but got all the stuff for it for under $200 and this was the only thing that improved my depression with little to no side effects. I would prefer a specialist that does transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) but this is very expensive out of pocket. Both tDCS and TMS need at least a month of daily use in the right locations for it to work. Worst case scenario it doesn't work and no side effects.
• Ice baths and cold showers, this can help the nervous system re-regulate but don't go too much too fast. Even a short rinse in cold water, a couple of seconds, can help. If you want to go full Wim Hof there's subreddits for that and breathwork will be needed.
• Medical cannabis combined with CBD assisted self therapy, in these sessions I load up music that evokes a trauma, or music that evokes a time period or unprocessed sentiment, and I let that surface. The weed softens, not numbs, the experience enough for me to process it, to give it the space it needs, and I've healed a particularly deep trauma from this method. CBG also works out pretty well, mango increases the weed effects and fresh mango works a bit better than dried mango but both work.
• Weight training, building muscle helps with regulation as well as processing and empowerment, I've used low doses of ligandrol and mk 677 to help build a bit extra muscle for a 6 week cycle, the mk 677 helped with sleep when I struggled during the winter over a specific trauma that is now processed. I wouldn't recommend SARMs for other people in general, especially if they have liver issues. I only added them just to get a bit extra muscle for nervous system regulation and resilience.
• Empathy/compassion exercises generally in combination with Medical cannabis and CBD, 1:1 seems best for me personally. With this I visit traumatic moments and I start to dissect the psychology of the abusers in these situations, I do some detective work in my head and piece together how they ended up like that, I trace the trauma thread. This is an advanced technique, I was not able to do this in the beginning years of my recovery. Also this isn't a good tech for everyone, but it helped me see these destructive and hurtful people as broken, because they are. I went from feeling like a victim of malicious intent and design to feeling compassion for what was done to these people to make them into this. Instead of realizing their highest good in life, they were rendered into a broken shadow of that instead with little hope to be much else. This is hell in itself. This doesn't justify the damage they caused, not at all, but it reframes it in a way that allows me personally to process it better and to grow into the kind of person I actually want to be in this life. This all falls into radical acceptance. To be clear, acceptance does not mean agreeing with it, it just means acknowledging and facing reality on reality's terms.
• Gardening, this in general is just therapeutic if I can keep up with it.
• Decarboxylated amanita muscaria, Muscimol is promising for benzo recovery in particular as well as other issues, but decarbing this mushroom with DIY protocols is not something I recommend. There was a canadian pharma company that was refining this, forgot the name or if it was able to launch.
• The Ashton Mehod for benzo recovery, my partner was left on 1mg of Ativan for 5 years and this caused her so many additional problems, this was the only medical intervention she received before I arrived here. This protocol took a year to implement and I've written about this process in an older post if this if anyone's interested. This isn't directly related to CPTSD rehab, more like a pre-requiste we had to solve beforehand, but it is absolutely needed because of how common benzos are still prescribed and it is too easy for anyone to end up on these meds for way too long. Biotin is also a need for this recovery, my partner still can't function if her biotin levels are too low.
• The Sedona method is really overhyped but there's two principles in it that were helpful, the "could I let it go? Will I? When?" questioning method helps with letting go of rumination among other things. The other helpful tidbit they teach is about framing all your inner problems as desires for control, approval, and security. Behind these two principles though it starts to get a bit watered down and fluffy.
• Richard Bandler's hypnosis recordings have helped me with progressive relaxation in the past. There's other ways to do progressive relaxation though and there's youtubes on how to do those exercises.
• Lions mane and psilocybin microdosing/macrodosing combined with self guided therapy or my partner provides a hypnosis session or guided meditation audio resources, this was also very helpful. For me tDCS increased the effect of the micro and macrodosing, I saw that raw cocoa nibs is supposed to increase the effects of magic mushrooms but I didn't see this effect personally.
• Body scanning and mindfulness techniques.
• Inner smile meditation
• Resourcing/grounding techniques, Irene Lyon talks about this and other trauma courses do as well. Basically you orient yourself towards safety, one exercise is just to slowly pan your head around the room and gently taking notice of your sensory experience. This trains your nervous system to calm down.
• Epsom salt baths help supplement magnesium and ease body traumas in general, I combine this with massage. While in the hot bath I spray cold water on my scalp and along the base of the neck, I wouldn't recommend this to others, specifically combining a hot bath with a cold shower to the head, but it works on me with calming down and releasing more.
• Knitting/crocheting is meditative when I am not fatigued.
• The Work has really helped with racing thoughts and rumination, the worksheet and process is simple and here's the link: https://thework.com/instruction-the-work-byron-katie/
• The Wholeness work has also been really helpful with reframing stressful people and situations.
• We made self help courses on other techniques that helped us on Udemy, Skillshare isn't a fan of self help content so we got booted.
• Inflammation management is critical, eat foods that reduce inflammation. Many spices are very good for this, combine them with oils and eat it up.
• Gut flora, get in those good gut bacteria, you can homemake yogurt in the oven, or with multicookers that have yogurt functions, and this ensures that you are eating live probiotics. Yogurt, even Activa from the store, generally has dead or low cultures by the time you buy it. Combine this with prebiotics like garlic and barley grass and this will help overall functioning.
• EMDR apps help, I've got two of them on hand, BLST on my phone for audio EMDR and "Go With That 4.0 Free" on my desktop for visual EMDR.
• Journalling on reddit.
• Meditative asemic writing.
• Stream of Conscious art therapy, self guided.
• Various CPTSD home courses, audiobooks, ebooks from Pete Walker and others.

• TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation.
• Vagus nerve pacemaker, I knew a woman with it and it really helped her, lasts 10 years and FDA approved I heard.
• Hyperbaric oxygen chamber combined with breathwork.
• Ketamine assisted therapy but I'm not as eager about this one. I'd still give it a go though.
• MDMA assisted therapy, this is very promising for CPTSD.
• sensory deprivation tank.
• acupuncture.
• cryotherapy
• Pharma grade Muscimol
• cerebrolysin for chronic fatigue

• Trauma releasing exercises, these are demonstrated on youtube, I could do these even when I was 300lbs so they are feasible. You should give yourself some time to rest, 15-30 minutes at least, after doing them for regulation and integration.
• Polyvagal theory exercises, Sukie Baxter on youtube does content on this. Irene Lion does as well and she has other trauma healing resources too that I use.
• Breathwork, be careful with this one because this can be too activating, but it releases trauma from the body. There's a lot of breathing techniques on youtube. This combined with vinpocetine and canned oxygen for me boosted the effect somewhat.
• Yoga, with my fatigue I struggle to implement this more regularly but yin yoga is recommended.
• Accupressure desensitization, basically you rub, tap, or stimulate accupressure points, namely on the face and hands. This works better if you alternate between the left and right sides of your body.
• Modafinil, this helps push through the fatigue but the generics are less effective on me, this is one of the psychmeds that have manageable side effects for me and the pros outweigh the cons. However I can't sustain taking it everyday due to the side effects on me personally, max I can do is 200mg a week for 6 weeks currently. I add choline and tyrosine to improve the effects. Ashwaganda and rhodiola rosea added to this stack adds a calming effect without sedation for me personally. Modafinil and Armodafinil burns through choline and adding this is ideal so there isn't a deficiency. There's other nootropic stacks and there's subreddits that discuss stacks for different effects but Modafinil is the 80/20 plus choline.
• Internal Family Systems Therapy, there is a subreddit for this. This is a promising therapy modality for CPTSD and it has helped me process many things on my own with just self guided resources. It would be more ideal to have a specialist who can do this, it is similar to Voice Dialog. My partner's therapist does this with her. I've been unable to find a therapist in this for myself.
• Somatic experiencing, this is made by Peter Levine and his resources have been helpful as well. This allows the body to complete the trauma response, allowing it to release it gently.
• Feldenkrais, Irene Lion also goes into this, this can help process trauma from the womb or trauma that isn't remembered.
• Acceptance and Commitment therapy, self guided.
• Ego death meditation, I wouldn't recommend this for someone's first rodeo with mediation but this helps me rinse away unnecessary pain, helps with making clean pain instead of dirty pain, Therapy in a Nutshell on youtube discusses this concept in a few of those clips.
• Nonduality spiritual tapes, this again is more advanced for CPTSD rehab and been listening to ebooks on this, this teaches how to be in the present moment, and to settle into the awareness that is behind the ego. This can give some relief, or at least some perspective but not a good route to go if someone is in the early stages of CPTSD rehab.
• Cathartic meditation method, this is a technique my partner came up with by combining elements of breathwork, somatic experiencing, and dance. She wrote an ebook on it before she started transitioning.
• Urge surfing, this is more in relation to addiction management.
• Dabbled a bit in some qi gong, the five animal frolics act like somatic experiencing.
• Semax, a Russian nootropic that helped me regain some cognitive functioning, but this was too activating for me on its own so I combine it with Selank, a calming nootropic from the same company. They can be combined without issue. This worked for me but I'm not sure how this would work for other people with CPTSD.
• Chasteberry for mood swings related PMS/PMDD, this has been the only thing that helped with this for me and it shaves off the friction around that time a month by 30-50%. Ginko biloba is also recommend for this but I've not had as good of results with it for this issue, but it doesn't hurt.
• tDCS for my drug resistant depression. Had to do a lot of homework and tinkering for this one, but got all the stuff for it for under $200 and this was the only thing that improved my depression with little to no side effects. I would prefer a specialist that does transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) but this is very expensive out of pocket. Both tDCS and TMS need at least a month of daily use in the right locations for it to work. Worst case scenario it doesn't work and no side effects.
• Ice baths and cold showers, this can help the nervous system re-regulate but don't go too much too fast. Even a short rinse in cold water, a couple of seconds, can help. If you want to go full Wim Hof there's subreddits for that and breathwork will be needed.
• Medical cannabis combined with CBD assisted self therapy, in these sessions I load up music that evokes a trauma, or music that evokes a time period or unprocessed sentiment, and I let that surface. The weed softens, not numbs, the experience enough for me to process it, to give it the space it needs, and I've healed a particularly deep trauma from this method. CBG also works out pretty well, mango increases the weed effects and fresh mango works a bit better than dried mango but both work.
• Weight training, building muscle helps with regulation as well as processing and empowerment, I've used low doses of ligandrol and mk 677 to help build a bit extra muscle for a 6 week cycle, the mk 677 helped with sleep when I struggled during the winter over a specific trauma that is now processed. I wouldn't recommend SARMs for other people in general, especially if they have liver issues. I only added them just to get a bit extra muscle for nervous system regulation and resilience.
• Empathy/compassion exercises generally in combination with Medical cannabis and CBD, 1:1 seems best for me personally. With this I visit traumatic moments and I start to dissect the psychology of the abusers in these situations, I do some detective work in my head and piece together how they ended up like that, I trace the trauma thread. This is an advanced technique, I was not able to do this in the beginning years of my recovery. Also this isn't a good tech for everyone, but it helped me see these destructive and hurtful people as broken, because they are. I went from feeling like a victim of malicious intent and design to feeling compassion for what was done to these people to make them into this. Instead of realizing their highest good in life, they were rendered into a broken shadow of that instead with little hope to be much else. This is hell in itself. This doesn't justify the damage they caused, not at all, but it reframes it in a way that allows me personally to process it better and to grow into the kind of person I actually want to be in this life. This all falls into radical acceptance. To be clear, acceptance does not mean agreeing with it, it just means acknowledging and facing reality on reality's terms.
• Gardening, this in general is just therapeutic if I can keep up with it.
• Decarboxylated amanita muscaria, Muscimol is promising for benzo recovery in particular as well as other issues, but decarbing this mushroom with DIY protocols is not something I recommend. There was a canadian pharma company that was refining this, forgot the name or if it was able to launch.
• The Ashton Mehod for benzo recovery, my partner was left on 1mg of Ativan for 5 years and this caused her so many additional problems, this was the only medical intervention she received before I arrived here. This protocol took a year to implement and I've written about this process in an older post if this if anyone's interested. This isn't directly related to CPTSD rehab, more like a pre-requiste we had to solve beforehand, but it is absolutely needed because of how common benzos are still prescribed and it is too easy for anyone to end up on these meds for way too long. Biotin is also a need for this recovery, my partner still can't function if her biotin levels are too low.
• The Sedona method is really overhyped but there's two principles in it that were helpful, the "could I let it go? Will I? When?" questioning method helps with letting go of rumination among other things. The other helpful tidbit they teach is about framing all your inner problems as desires for control, approval, and security. Behind these two principles though it starts to get a bit watered down and fluffy.
• Richard Bandler's hypnosis recordings have helped me with progressive relaxation in the past. There's other ways to do progressive relaxation though and there's youtubes on how to do those exercises.
• Lions mane and psilocybin microdosing/macrodosing combined with self guided therapy or my partner provides a hypnosis session or guided meditation audio resources, this was also very helpful. For me tDCS increased the effect of the micro and macrodosing, I saw that raw cocoa nibs is supposed to increase the effects of magic mushrooms but I didn't see this effect personally.
• Body scanning and mindfulness techniques.
• Inner smile meditation
• Resourcing/grounding techniques, Irene Lyon talks about this and other trauma courses do as well. Basically you orient yourself towards safety, one exercise is just to slowly pan your head around the room and gently taking notice of your sensory experience. This trains your nervous system to calm down.
• Epsom salt baths help supplement magnesium and ease body traumas in general, I combine this with massage. While in the hot bath I spray cold water on my scalp and along the base of the neck, I wouldn't recommend this to others, specifically combining a hot bath with a cold shower to the head, but it works on me with calming down and releasing more.
• Knitting/crocheting is meditative when I am not fatigued.
• The Work has really helped with racing thoughts and rumination, the worksheet and process is simple and here's the link: https://thework.com/instruction-the-work-byron-katie/
• The Wholeness work has also been really helpful with reframing stressful people and situations.
• We made self help courses on other techniques that helped us on Udemy, Skillshare isn't a fan of self help content so we got booted.
• Inflammation management is critical, eat foods that reduce inflammation. Many spices are very good for this, combine them with oils and eat it up.
• Gut flora, get in those good gut bacteria, you can homemake yogurt in the oven, or with multicookers that have yogurt functions, and this ensures that you are eating live probiotics. Yogurt, even Activa from the store, generally has dead or low cultures by the time you buy it. Combine this with prebiotics like garlic and barley grass and this will help overall functioning.
• EMDR apps help, I've got two of them on hand, BLST on my phone for audio EMDR and "Go With That 4.0 Free" on my desktop for visual EMDR.
• Journalling on reddit.
• Meditative asemic writing.
• Stream of Conscious art therapy, self guided.
• Various CPTSD home courses, audiobooks, ebooks from Pete Walker and others.

• TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation.
• Vagus nerve pacemaker, I knew a woman with it and it really helped her, lasts 10 years and FDA approved I heard.
• Hyperbaric oxygen chamber combined with breathwork.
• Ketamine assisted therapy but I'm not as eager about this one. I'd still give it a go though.
• MDMA assisted therapy, this is very promising for CPTSD.
• sensory deprivation tank.
• acupuncture.
• cryotherapy
• Pharma grade Muscimol
• cerebrolysin for chronic fatigue

World News

1. Date
2. Time
3. Where
4. Situation (after eating, watching tv, etc)
5. Feelings (I would just put exactly what was going on in my head)
6. Did you scratch or was this an urge that you did not act on?
7. Scratch/Itch Level (1-10)

1. Looking in the mirror leading to examining my skin trying to fix it by using moisturizer or other products. This ultimately would lead to me scratching my skin and then my skin would be drier than where it originally was.
2. Anxiety
3. Out of habit -- I called this the "thinking scratch" with the scratch level being at a 1
4. After eating some foods
5. Some cleaning
6. At night

1. If I make myself bleed I use a VERY little amount of 70% rubbing alcohol on the inflamed area so the bacteria doesn't spread causing more areas to become itchy. I only use rubbing alcohol before bandaging, which is at most once a day and only use it if it feels necessary. Also, I have not read any medical evidence to support this is good/bad for eczema, I have found it has helped me.
2. I use this liquid bandage or the DuoDERM Extra Thin CGF Dressings or Nexcare Tegaderm Transparent Dressing for any place on my face/neck. I also use Nexcare Tegaderm Transparent Dressing or Curad Rolled Gauze on my neck, but I usually dont wear it for long.
3. The inside of the bend of my arms get really bad and at night I will scratch intensely, so I put a DuoDERM Extra Thin CGF Dressings or Nexcare Tegaderm Transparent Dressing on the inflamed areas, then wrap in Curad Rolled Gauze and then I have these SHINYMOD Arm Sleeves I put on top if it on both arms. This is the only way I won't rip it off while I am asleep.
4. Sometimes I use a mixture of 1 part Apple cider vinegar and 2 or 3 parts water(depending on how inflamed the area is - since it stings more with less water) instead of using rubbing alcohol. I do this since when I feel the rubbing alcohol will be too rough on my skin.

1. New-Skin liquid bandage — NOTE: This stuff smells SO strong and it does burn when you put this on. I make sure to only put it on small infected patches or when there is a tear in the skin. Also, if you tend to pick at an area don't use this on that area, I found that I will generally end up picking at the bandage(since it really satisfying to peel) and make that area worse.
2. Nexcare Tegaderm Transparent Dressing
3. DuoDERM Extra Thin CGF Dressings
4. Curad Rolled Gauze
5. SHINYMOD Arm Sleeves
6. Swan Isoprophyl Alcohol
7. Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar

1. Planks
2. Jumping jacks
3. Lift a 5 pound weight for 45 seconds on each arm
4. Make a tight fist and pulse
5. Stress ball
6. Grasp the arms of the couch or chair while sitting
7. When driving, grasp your steering wheel tightly with both hands

1. Replace the stimulation of scratching when I have the urge to scratch
   1. Groom/pat/snuggle your pet
   2. Silly putty, play-doh, kinetic sand
   3. Pop bubble wrap
   4. This pimple popping toy - https://popitpal.com/
   5. Pull thread from a loose cloth
2. Tips to reduce the stimulation of scratching when I need calming
   1. Exercise
   2. Treat yourself to a massage
   3. Give myself a manicure or pedicure
   4. Listen to music that calms you
   5. Go for a long walk
   6. Mediate, stretch or do yoga/pilates
3. Methods to help stop the habit of scratching to interfere with scratching
   1. Wear gloves
   2. Bandages
   3. Get rid of anything you normally use to help you scratch (ex: mirror)
   4. Cut fingernails short
   5. Never touch your skin besides your listed exceptions
   6. Don't perform grooming activities(ex: wash face) during times of the day when you are usually stressed out or tired
   7. No makeup/products until you get to a healing point
   8. Avoid mirrors and get rid of magnifying glasses or mirrors that you use to examine your skin
4. Strategies that increase your awareness to remind you of your urges to scratch
   1. Use post-it notes in places where you are known to scratch
   2. Find photos/take photos when your skin is clear of eczema to motivate you
   3. Make a list of all the reasons you want to stop scratching and the problems that scratching has caused you, put in a visible place
5. Ways to change your surroundings to reduce the amount of cues to scratch
   1. Organize draws (this is for me personally, the worksheet says "Re-arrange your home and the furniture within it", however I felt that was a bit weird and sweating increases my level of itchiness)
   2. Avoid or cover mirrors
   3. If you tend to scratch more when you're alone, spend time with other people (for me I scratch wherever and with whoever)
   4. Keep your hands busy (I have been playing with kinetic sand this entire time I've been writing this)

• The volume of water you want to dechloriminate.
• The chlorimine concentration of your water (You have to look this up in your town's public municipal water quality report. Most of these are easily found by searching “[town name] water quality report” on Google.)
• The type of ascorbic acid you're using to treat the chloramine¹ .

1. A note on types of vitamin C: You can get a huge jar of the pure crystals for about $16 at some organic health grocers, or you can use the cheaper vitamin tablets sold in grocery stores and pharmacies. Look for labels that indicate the least amount of secondary ingredients as possible, as these can also affect your water. I had to search a few stores to find the 500 mg tablets I buy, which only contain the following: “Ascorbic Acid, Vegetable Cellulose. Contains <2% of: Sillica, Vegetable Magnesium Sterate, Vegetable Stearic Acid.” Ascorbic acid will, of course, acidify your water when you add it. You may want to use buffered ascorbic acid (sodium ascorbate) tablets so that the pH of your water doesn't drop as much. In that case, about 11% more mass is needed to treat the same concentration of chloramine. The spreadsheet handles this calculation for you.