The best
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder books:
Reddit reviews
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
The best of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder books by number of unique Reddit comments:
Top Reddit reviews mentioning Post-traumatic Stress Disorder books:
This is definitely a red flag, and it's not a healthy reaction to hypothetical cheating. I think when he said "you're not going to cheat on me so you have nothing to worry about," it was really threatening and was basically the same as saying "if you cheat on me, I really will do this."
Why Does He Do That is a book that was written by a counselor who specializes in working with controlling and toxic/abusive men. He uses his knowledge of how abusers think and his history of work to help women understand if their relationship has escalated to abuse, recognize abusive and controlling behavior in their partners, and inform women on how to leave an abusive relationship.
You can read it here for free.
This book has seriously helped me and other women that I know. I'm not saying that your partner is abusive, because only YOU can determine that. But this book will help you to figure out what's going on and give you strategies to deal with this kind of behavior. And if what you want is to leave, this book can help you make a plan to do that.
Good luck <3
Have you tried EMDR therapy? it worked wonders for me. Also this book was very helpful to me https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748
I'm so sorry for your loss. The only correct response to a death in the family is "I'm so sorry, how can I help." Your boyfriend can't even display baseline human decency. Please think about how/if he makes your life better. You already wait on him hand and foot and that's apparently not enough for him.
Please read this: Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000Q9J0RO/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_WXVGE4MKDTXHDBW20MN7
ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy)
Source: am psychotherapist.
Suggested workbook:
https://www.amazon.com/Get-Your-Mind-Into-Life/dp/1572244259/ref=nodl_
It’s not necessarily about being less “sensitive” or “emotional”, more so allowing yourself to feel, without judgment, and without necessarily having to react to that feeling.
In Pete Walker's book, he states his belief that many mental illnesses are really unrecognized CPTSD. It's really really good if you haven't read it.
The good times are part of the abuse. They keep you questioning whether you’re imagining it or whether you should stay.
I highly suggest this book:
Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men https://www.amazon.com/dp/0425191656/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_nSHMFbK2HKG7E
Ma’am, your husband has a personality disorder and is an abuser. That bathroom wall banging is 100% a manipulation tactic. So is the sulking and the temper tantrums. Please read this book, ideally on an e-reader where he can’t see it - https://www.amazon.com/dp/0425191656/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_0A33SF6RMKT4WM9Y36NP
He invests a lot of energy in making sure that you always feel like garbage if you don't do what he wants. It's a choice he makes. Nothing he does is an accident.
Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000Q9J0RO/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_WXVGE4MKDTXHDBW20MN7
So proud of you. You’ve got this. Stay diligent. Know this: It’s going to get worse. Make sure your daughter’s doctors and childcare know about your mom. Password protect discussing your daughter. Put it in writing, have them sign it. Research grandparents rights in your state. You are clearly resourceful, but I am assuming you do not have the resources she has.
I will get this ball rolling. Your mom was and is abusive. She is likely a narcissist. I highly recommend r/raisedbynarcissists and r/CPTSD. Your mom is relentless. Your mom follows the prototypical pattern of an emotionally and psychologically abusive narcissistic parent.
2 books I highly recommend:
https://www.amazon.com/Complex-PTSD-Surviving-RECOVERING-CHILDHOOD/dp/1492871842
https://www.amazon.com/Will-Ever-Good-Enough-Narcissistic/dp/1439129436
Those books are printed validation. It is so easy to accept that you were abused if you were physically beaten. If can be so much harder to accept you were abused if you weren’t. It doesn’t matter that she didn’t hit you. I grew up with Parents who fed, clothed, and educated me. They never hit me (from what I can remember). But without a doubt they were psychologically and emotionally abusive, and I didn’t figure that out until I was 38, partly because of the conditioning of the abuse.
These reddit communities are strong, experienced, empathetic, brilliant, and present. They will help you see the patterns and develop tools. They will help you set and enforce boundaries. They will listen and give you incredible advice and support, even though they don’t know you, because, in reality, they do know you. And your mom. And your situation. And the patterns. And the way out.
You’ve done so much. You will have to do more. You are not alone.
I know this isn't an easy road, but I want to congratulate you for bravely stepping onto it. Feeling alone, outcast, and alien is a near universal symptom of trauma...just wanted to let you know you're not alone.
r/ptsd
​
​
Not surprised but jumping in on this PURELY to say:
MEN ARE NOT VIOLENT BECAUSE THEY DRINK. THEY ARE VIOLENT BECAUSE THEY ARE VIOLENT.
They may use the booze as an excuse (and it's almost a guarantee that they will, since that's an external habit that can be stopped and they'd rather blame that than actually change), but when it comes down to it, if alcohol never existed? He'd still hit you.
Mandatory reading for every single woman on the planet: Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft. It explains why abuse really happens and all the bullshit excuses that men use to try to make it seem like it's everyone's fault but theirs.
Going against the grain here, I don't think this is actually about logic OR emotions.
I think it's about control. Alarm bells started going off the more I read that this, I think it's a delibrate tactic to get you under his control, which is what abusive people want most of all.
>Queue 'why are you being so stubborn?', 'are you trying to deliberately hurt me?', 'are you trying to prove a point or something?', 'would it hurt you to do it this way?', 'I thought you cared about my feelings and my support'
🚩🚩🚩 so from this paragraph I see him deliberately: 1) making you feel like you need to justify your actions to him. You don't, but making you do so changes the power dynamic in his favour. It also keeps you focused on your actions and behaviour so you don't have the time to take a critical look at his behaviour.
2) using emotional manipulation. Not only do you owe him an explanation, but when you do something he doesn't like he turns it into you hurting him. This is manipulative AF and intentional.
3) wearing down your defences. This shit sounds exhausting, and while you can fight back now, I imagine that after weeks/months/years of it you'll just get so tired you'll stop fighting back. Then you'll just do what he wants how he wants to avoid the fight. THIS is his ultimate goal, to make you compliant.
>What should I do?
Fucking run, this is only going to get worse.
And please, take a look at the book 'Why Does He Do That' by Lundy Bancroft, you can find the PDF for free online.
Read the book "Why Does He Do That" by Lundy Bancroft. It's enlightening. I'm so glad you left, you were being abused. Good luck on your next journey. Go heal. You deserve better! We're here for you.
I grew up like that too. Go lurk at r/CPTSD and learn what you can do about it seeming like yesterday and still hearing her. Check out this book too. Changed my life in the first few chapters. The audio book on Audible is especially soothing.
Give her Pete Walkers book complex PTSD
This book is a great introduction and a real wake up call for anyone masking trauma.
Yeah, /u/Electr0freak is correct. I have both CPTSD and ADHD. The ADHD presents as my inability to focus on tasks, auditory processing issues, inability to schedule, think or plan for the future, frequent forgetfulness, and inability to manage time. The CPTSD, on the other hand presents as my inability to be in close proximity to people for very long (minutes at a time, tops), due to an instinctive protective mode from blows from others, an acute inability to self-regulate emotions such that if I am having an attack, I hit/punch/elbow, choke, scratch, bite and pull my own hair. I tell people curious about it that the sensation is a hot "cold sweat" and the internal sensation of being held down against my will, and to escape I will do anything, and my body interprets that as "Skin yourself alive. Cut your own throat. Choke yourself to death." That's not ADHD. My brother, also diagnosed with ADHD did not have these symptoms growing up either. I am now taking Lamictal to counter these symptoms, which is an anti-convulsive med used often to treat people with BPD. This is all very recent, the new med is about 3 weeks in and I have never felt better, I never get the body sensations that I was getting causing me to react like that. I'm 29, and have been doing these things since I was 6 or 7, and my father left when I was 5, which I attribute the majority of my emotional self-blame to, followed closely by corporal punishment as a child. Read the book The Body Keeps The Score. If someone thinks CPTSD is not a thing, they're wrong.
I just read the book "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel Van Der Kerk and found it immensely helpful. You mention an abusive childhood, the effects of which are covered extensively in the book and include anxiety and depression (particularly of a kind that simply trying to reframe your thoughts cannot help). Traumatic events leave their mark on our bodies as well as our minds and hearts. I highly recommend checking it out. It's even on sale on Amazon right now: The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143127748/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_3HRqDbJ8YCPFA
(33F here. I have similar feelings)
Great book on this called "On Killing - the Psychological Costs of Learning to Kill in War and Society
​
It explores killing in war through history and the effects, largely linked to proximity of the kill, had detrimental effects on the killer.
Some notable facts about the book that I can remember after reading it 10 years ago:
Knife/Bayonett kills, though exceptionally rare in more recent wars, had the most devastating effects. Soldiers cited as feeling a man's last breath had a big hurdle to climb.
American soldiers in WWII were exceptionally bad shots, especially when shooting Germans. Turns out most Americans didn't want to kill people, even during the heroic march to victory. All-time terrible percentage of shooting.
War attracts psychopaths and make up something like 5% of combatants who are out to kill and not the norm.
​
If you are interested in this topic I highly recommend the book. Things I read have stayed with me and it never surprises me how much this topic comes up in conversation.
Angry and controlling men seem to think that there is no way they can be abusive if they don't physically hurt their wife.
YOU ARE ABUSIVE.
Wish I could give your wife this book.
That doesn't mean everyone who tells you to up your meds is right, or coming from a good place. Abusive men LOVE to tell their partners they're crazy/paranoid/overly senisitve/imagining things/overreacting
Please read this book
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-He-That-Controlling/dp/0425191656
Ok, the idea that you give up on your career and stay home watering the plants while he works even though you don't plan to have kids is rather strange by itself, but coupled with what you found... there's really very little chance these things are unrelated. Whatever you do, don't become financially dependent on him ever. He sounds kinda gaslighty and manipulative to me, I recommend you read this book as I'm worried there might be a lot more there that you're not seeing, you should be able to find a pdf online
I'm so so sorry, this is a tough thing to go through. As others have said, the biggest thing is finding some professional help. Be patient with yourself, there is no magic thing that will make this less challenging to walk yourself through. But you absolutely will, and you are not alone.
Reading your post was like something I could have written myself a few years ago. I'm still working on it. Learning to have respect and patience for where I was at in the process was a thing I really struggled with, because I just wanted to be done with it and put it behind me. When I couldn't afford therapy, I read a lot of self help books and these two really resonated with me: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk and Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman. Please feel free to PM me any time if you want someone to talk to.
I'd encourage you to do more research. Most abusers are extremely charming and emotionally manipulative. Many abusers seem like genuinely great people to everyone around them because they're not just some general indiscriminate asshole, and they may treat everyone other than the victim very well. There's a book about exactly this, the author did a lot of investigation through interviews with both the abused and the abuser. Most of the abusers saw nothing wrong with their actions because they veiwed the victim as sub-human and belonging to them.
At the end of the day, it's a power thing and abusers use a wide variety of tactics to gain power of their abuser, ranging from physical abuse to often making the victim doubt their own mental facilities through creative methods.
Two of the most fascinating to me were the following.
One guy would hide things his wife needed, like keys when she was leaving, and then watch as she became increasingly frantic. Once she was in tears, turning the house upside down, tearing her hair out, he would leave the keys in an obvious place like a table and say something along the lines of, "look it's right there. I don't know why you can never find things, you're losing you mind"
Another guy dimmed the lights, Everytime his wife left the room and then would adamently deny it, and call her paranoid and imagining things.
I also want to add that this book has really been helpful to me. I have dealt with a lot of emotion abuse and emotional neglect in my childhood.
Abusers will try to convince you their feelings are the problem. "I was mad, I was frustrated, I felt scared of losing you, I just love you so much". But everyone experiences those same emotions without abusing others.
An abuser does not have a problem with how they feel, they have a problem with how they think. They think they're entitled to attention, care-taking, interest, to a person giving up who she is to focus entirely on the abuser's needs. And when they don't get what they think they're entitled to, they feel entitled to call that person horrible things. They give themselves permission to express those feelings based on how they think.
Never be misled; if someone talks to you this way its not because "they were mad". It's because they think it's okay to express their anger in that toxic unfair way. Read more here if you need
- When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life
- Consider seeing a therapist if you can
I recently read Lundy Bancroft's book on abusive men: "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men", and I was really impressed with it.
It totally opened my eyes to men's abusiveness, and dispelled a lot of the misconceptions that I had about men's harmful and cruel behavior. (It also honestly helped me wrap my head around how contradictory the men who espouse gender identity are (Riley Dennis, Zinnia Jones, Contrapoints, etc), because once you get down to it they're just another flavor of abusive man)
I made this little review video to encourage people to check the book out if they've never heard of it before.
Link to the book on Lundy's website (2nd book down from top of page): http://lundybancroft.com/books/
Link to the book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-He-That-Controlling/dp/0425191656
I started Dialectical Behavior Therapy when my PTSD got unmanageable and it really helped. I like this workbook because it lets me do work to get better even when I am between therapists.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1684034582/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_cKDgFbXXCR9A6
Absolutely.
Start with this book: https://www.amazon.com/Complex-PTSD-Surviving-RECOVERING-CHILDHOOD/dp/1492871842
It's not a therapy book, but rather a sort of overview of the recovery process as told by a psychologist who was abused as a child and went through it.
I would read it. It will give you a lot of guidance as to how to assess where you are at in your healing and where to go from there.
I've got a few posts in my account history about my experiences with CBD oil and ketamine to treat the trauma aspects of CPTSD. These treatments were done with about a year and a half of work with a trauma therapist doing CBT and EMDR.
Now, that I have healed the trauma aspects of it, I am starting to work on the personality disorder aspects of it that unfortunately come from being raised by shitty parents and working on becoming part of a community of people again. I do this with work with my therapist and via a 12 step recovery program with my church.
You have to be willing to accept that you are an asshole and just saying "I have C-PTSD" or "I am dissasociating" doesn't actually mean shit. Harmful actions cause harm. End of story.
12-step recovery programs usually have rules prohibiting you from speaking about anyone else while you are in group. You can only talk about yourself. It's tough, because you can't use your past as a crutch anymore to evade accountability.
I won't lie. The treatment process can be expensive though. Ketamine set me back about $3k and the therapy sessions are $180 and out of my insurance network.
This is why Boogie2988 pisses me off so much lately. Most people who have his high of an ACE score won't ever be able to make enough money to afford to do the work. He's been given this incredible financial opportunity and he's not only not doing the work, but he's spending it on fucking cars.
Not a summary, but I was curious to know more about the plot as well, and this Amazon link has a good product description and excerpts from the book if you scroll down.