PTSD Awareness Month: Expanding the Conversation

For PTSD Awareness Month, guest writer Molly Evans shares her experience living with complex post-traumatic stress disorder. Her story explores trauma, healing, self-compassion, and the importance of responding to people with understanding rather than judgment.

Content note: This article discusses childhood abuse, sexual assault, domestic violence, substance use, and trauma.

There are many myths about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One of the most common is that only military veterans and people who have served in combat zones get PTSD. In reality, anyone who experiences or witnesses a traumatic event can develop PTSD. These events can occur at any time during a person’s life, from early childhood into adulthood.

An important fact about PTSD is that it can take months or even years to fully appear. For some people, symptoms begin immediately after the event. For me, it took 30 years to understand what I was experiencing and why I was experiencing it.

I live with complex PTSD (C-PTSD). I am also a veteran who has served in combat zones and completed two tours overseas. I navigate celiac disease, chronic pain, and an autoimmune disability every day. I was diagnosed in adulthood with a learning disability and a sensory disability, which helped me finally put words to things I had been struggling with for years. These overlapping challenges are a big part of my life, and I share them to help others feel less alone and remind them that their experiences are valid and important.

My Story of Complex PTSD (C-PTSD)

Mom said, “Go play out in the ‘holler’ with your brothers. Go on.” The holler was the backyard, the woods behind our trailer in West Virginia. “No, I don’t want to go outside. I wanna stay in here and help you,” I cried. Normally, it was my job to peel the red tape off the bologna and butter the bread. “I told you to go outside,” my mom said. “No,” I cried again. “You know what happens if you don’t listen to me.” My mom grabbed my hand, yanked me, pulled me to the stove, turned on the burner, and held my hand over the flame. I screamed. I was 3 years old.

My mom used to drop my older two brothers and me off at my aunt and uncle’s house while she worked a part-time job. The problem with my uncle was that he couldn’t keep his hands off me. He told me to be a good girl and that this was our secret. So, I never told anyone. In my mind, I can still picture the quiet details of that room in their house. I was 4 years old.

I was sitting outside the Red Owl grocery store, in the backseat of the blue car with both my brothers. We had just moved to Mobile, Alabama, and it was unbearably hot that summer. My mom sat in the front seat. We were all waiting for my dad to come out of the store.

Finally, my dad came out carrying two cases of beer—no groceries. He got in the car, and my mom asked, “Did you get any food?” He lifted his right arm, and what came next was the loudest smack I had ever heard. Her face was instantly beet red.

He turned around and looked at my brothers and me in the backseat. “Here, I got you guys some candy,” he said, and threw it into the backseat.

I slithered to the floor of the car, frozen. I couldn’t eat my candy.

When my dad died at the VA Medical Center in Kansas a few years ago, he claimed he had no children. He has five children, four sons and one daughter.

We had just moved to Montgomery, Alabama. I lay in the dirt under the blue car with my older brother, playing with matches. Next thing we knew, the car was on fire. I knew the heat of a fire very well. My mom ran out of the house, carrying the new baby on her hip. “Get away from there!” she screamed. “Get away from the fire!” My mom and the baby got badly burned getting my brother and me out from under the car.

Was Mom going to hurt me if I got out from under the car? The thought was paralyzing. Again, I froze.

I was seven years old the last time I saw my dad, before he was sentenced to prison for child abuse and neglect. When I saw him, I peed my pants in the Hennepin County jail.

The last time I saw my mom, she gave me a jewelry box, which was right before my 8th birthday. She was sentenced to 18 months in the Hennepin County workhouse for child neglect and child endangerment, and her parental rights for me were terminated. I still have the jewelry box she gave me for my 8th birthday.

My foster mom said my “real mom” gave me up, and that she surely didn’t know how to take care of me. But if my “real mom” gave me up, why did she give me a jewelry box for my birthday?

The summer after I graduated from high school, I went to a party with two friends. They left me there; two young men sexually assaulted me. I was intoxicated and couldn’t move. I came to understand friends are not safe either…they leave you too. Because I was intoxicated, I thought it was my fault, so I checked myself into inpatient substance use disorder treatment at Riverside two days later.

On active duty, the smell of burning oil fields, a man overboard at 2 am, and mass explosions were all realities during my combat zone tours. But to me, they were no worse than what I had already lived through.

Wanting to be loved and to be good enough, while trying to undo the ways I was taught to normalize unspeakable behavior from parents, family members, friends, and other harmful people, has often felt paralyzing. My longing to be understood—and my belief that if someone truly understands me, it must mean I am a good person and that they will not judge or abandon me—has created so much mental and emotional suffering.

For years, I internalized the abuse I experienced and believed it was my fault, or that if I had just been a “good girl,” things would have been different. These parts of my story deserve care, not self-blame. Unlearning these beliefs has required therapy, deep self-compassion, and ongoing, intentional work. No child should endure what my 3-year-old, 4-year-old, 8-year-old, and 18-year-old self did.

Healing From a World That Feels Unsafe

My childhood trauma distorted how I viewed relationships and built trust with people. My trauma taught me that the world was unsafe and that people are unsafe, and that everyone will leave you.

C-PTSD keeps the body and nervous system in a constant state of fight, flight, or freeze. I have been in therapy for C-PTSD for the past 13 years. I have been learning to regulate my nervous system, process trauma, and rebuild my life.

For me, a smell, a song on the radio, a sound, a sight, a phrase, or something someone says can evoke a flashback. I have had to learn and practice grounding techniques daily to prevent and pull myself out of flashbacks, which have caused me to forget where I am driving, where I am going, or even what I am saying.

People have minimized my C-PTSD more times than I can count, saying, “It’s not really that bad.” “You’re just overreacting.” “Why can’t you just get over it? It happened so long ago.”

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction helped me finally recognize how my body was actually feeling, because C-PTSD had made feeling my feelings so difficult for me. Reiki energy healing helped me find my breath and my spirit, and yoga is helping me learn that I am, indeed, safe in my own body.

The tools I’ve learned to manage my disability don’t mean that I don’t still struggle. I still find myself being hypervigilant, and some days, the chronic pain does take over. Some days, it’s too overwhelming to go to the store, and I have to ask a friend to pick things up for me. Sometimes I have to say no, after having already said yes, in order to take care of myself. One thing is certain for me: I have learned that I am whole—and that my wholeness includes my disability.

I tell my story as a radical act of courage and resistance. Every time I tell it—the raw, unedited version—I become a little more self-compassionate toward all the pieces of me. I become more self-compassionate and loving toward the 3-year-old, the 4-year-old, the 5-year-old, the 7-year-old, the 8-year-old, the 18-year-old, the 30-year-old, and the person I am today—all the parts of me that so deeply needed love and care.

The Importance of Understanding PTSD

PTSD awareness is important because even though we cannot see PTSD, it is real and valid.

It is an invisible disability, and we often do not know who is living with PTSD.

Being aware of PTSD allows colleagues, friends, and community members to recognize that someone may be carrying an invisible burden, even if they seem “fine” on the outside.

This awareness helps people slow down, listen more carefully, and respond with compassion and empathy rather than judgment. When we approach others with understanding, we can offer more meaningful support and create a greater sense of safety and belonging. We can also reduce the misunderstandings and misconceptions that often add to the pain of living with PTSD.