What Happens After Domestic Abuse? Part 2: CPTSD, Healing Frequencies and EMDR

The thing that surprised me the most about trauma is that most of it isn’t in the mind. It is in the body.

For years, I thought I was fine. I felt fine. I was better than fine. 

Until I wasn’t.

Gradually, the panic attacks and nightmares subsided. I stopped seeing him everywhere. Stopped checking over my shoulder when I arrived home late at night. Stopped hearing his voice in my head criticising and commenting on everything I did. A quick trip to the doctor and my chronic insomnia was “resolved” with a prescription for sleeping tablets.

I poured all my energy into rebuilding my new life. The life I had worked so hard for and sacrificed so much for. I relished my newfound freedom, waking up in the morning and stretching out blissfully in my double bed as the same delicious thought filtered into my brain.

I NEVER have to see him again.

For the first time in years, I was happy. My personality, eroded by years of abuse, began to come back. I made friends. Launched a successful career as a freelance writer. Realised my childhood dream of publishing a book.

After years living in the “jail” that my marriage became, I relished my newfound freedom and embarked on what I semi-jokingly call my “five-year divorce party.” This was a plan fully endorsed by Atakan (my gay best friend from Turkey), who followed me to Spain and moved in with me. Gradually, he encouraged me to start living again, setting me up on a series of Tinder dates and taking me out dancing until dawn.

Trauma was the last thing on my mind.

If you have read my April blog post, you will already know the story of Gabriel,* the seemingly perfect French man who swept me off my feet. When Gabriel’s mask eventually slipped, I experienced a full-body trauma response. In a second, I was back there. With my ex-husband. The hardness in his eyes. The tone of his voice. His words slicing through the invisible armour I had spent years silently creating around me.

The response was purely physical. My brain shut down. My heart raced. Nausea churned my gut. Raw, primal fear enveloped my whole body, holding me paralysed.

Logically, of course, this was an overreaction. He spoke harshly to me, yes, but I was in no immediate danger. I could have got up and walked out of the restaurant, gone back to the hotel, even booked another room if I had wanted to.

But that’s the thing about trauma. It isn’t logical. It’s physical. A deep, involuntary response over which I had no control. In my mind, I might as well have been back in the villa in Turkey with my husband, as he grabbed me by the throat and slammed me against the wall.

Obviously, I ended things with Gabriel, but the incident stayed with me. Maybe, I wasn’t as fine as I thought I was. My reaction had scared me. I decided to get professional help.

I found a therapist specialising in domestic abuse and booked my first session.

The therapist listened as I told her about my abusive marriage and the events with Gabriel that had led to me seeking therapy.

“But until this, I was fine,” I explained, telling her about my successful career, my active social life and my various “boyfriends” since arriving in Spain.

She asked me a series of seemingly unrelated questions.

“Did I connect emotionally with any of these men?”

“No. I usually run when it starts getting serious.”

“Did I drink too much?”

“I only drink socially, but when I drink, it’s probably too much.”

“Was I startled by loud noises?”

“Yes.”

“Did I have trouble sleeping?”

“I take prescription sleeping tablets. My doctor recently doubled the dose because they were no longer working.”

“Did I have problems remembering things?”

“My memory is virtually non-existent.”

“Did I have unexplained physical symptoms like gut issues, hair loss and joint pain?”

“Yes, yes and yes.”

“I think you have a condition called complex post-traumatic stress disorder,” she said gently. “It’s very common in survivors of domestic abuse.”

I began to research complex PTSD (CPTSD), and the puzzle pieces gradually began to slot into place.

Whereas post-traumatic stress disorder typically occurs following a single traumatic event, CPTSD results from experiencing repeated trauma over a prolonged period — such as domestic violence.

People with CPTSD are in a constant state of fight or flight, our bodies pumping out the stress hormone cortisol, which leads to symptoms such as insomnia, difficulty concentrating, and physical symptoms like joint pain and gut issues. I was staggered to learn that trauma can physically change your brain and alter the way it functions.

The hippocampus, responsible for memory formation and emotional regulation, shrinks, resulting in memory problems, flashbacks and nightmares. 

The amygdala, the part of the brain that controls our response to fear, gets larger and becomes overactive, putting sufferers in a constant state of alert (hypervigilance), leading to an overactive fear response and making it difficult to distinguish between safe and dangerous situations. 

Suddenly, it all made sense.

I wasn’t fine. I had buried the trauma so deep that I was numb. Unable to form emotional connections with men, I used sex as a substitute. I disassociated the way I had for years in my marriage. I used overwork, alcohol and sex to numb myself further. The gut problems (fully investigated, but no physical cause found). The joint pain and swelling in my hips and hands. The chronic insomnia. The memory loss. It was all there on the page.

As I continued my research, I learned that talking therapies are generally ineffective for CPTSD. A technique called Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprogramming (EMDR) seemed to be the fastest and most effective treatment. I found a therapist trained in EMDR and scheduled my first session.

EMDR involves focusing on a traumatic memory while using bilateral stimulation such as eye movements or tapping on specific acupressure points on the body. It is thought to work by helping your brain reprocess the traumatic memory to its correct place in the past, reducing the associated trauma and symptoms of CPTSD.

Over the course of ten sessions, my therapist combined EMDR with hypnotherapy to help “rewire” my brain and nervous system. She recorded the hypnotherapy sessions and told me to listen to a session every night before I went to sleep. She also sent me a playlist of Solfeggio healing frequencies, a range of sound frequencies measured in Hz,  that appear to have a range of psychological and physical benefits, including reducing stress, improving sleep and even relieving pain and lowering blood pressure.

It all sounded a bit “woo-woo,” but I had paid a lot for this therapy, so I went into it with an open mind.

The first night, I slept like I had never slept. I woke up feeling a deep sense of peace, calm and overwhelming well-being. Even my daughter, whom I hadn’t told about the sound therapy, mentioned that there was something different about me.

Maybe there was something to this stuff after all.

I have now completed my 10 therapy sessions. I continue to listen to the hypnotherapy recordings and sound frequencies every night.

I feel different. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what is different, but something has shifted. I have halved my dose of sleeping tablets and continue to sleep the deepest, most restorative sleep I have ever experienced. I’m more mindful in my day-to-day life. Calmer. Happier. More centred. I feel at peace.

At the risk of sounding “woo woo,” I feel like, ten years after  I escaped domestic abuse, I am finally starting to heal.