#cptsd coping

If you, like me, have had a traumatic experience occur in your room, it can make it really hard to feel safe and comfortable living there. Unfortunately, changing where you live and your room entirely can be really hard, so here's some stuff that's helped me be more comfortable in my room (this won't work for everyone, but it has helped me a LOT)

Rearranging the room- Even just somewhat shifting the layout can be helpful in making it feel different which for me makes memories less frequent

Using smells- I know I talk about this a LOT, but smell has a really strong connection to memory, so using candles or incense or a diffuser or changing the detergent your wash your clothes and sheets with can REALLY help make the place feel different and help you associate the smell of your room with home instead of with trauma. Plus, you get to pick what it is.

Changing the lighting- If you usually open your blinds or curtains, keeping them closed more or visa versa, changing the kind of bulb in your lamp/lights, or, what I've done, using colorful fairy lights. That way, no matter the time of day or what else is going on lighting wise, the room is bathed in a pinkish glow and it will never look exactly the same

Repainting the walls- If you have more time and money, repainting the walls of a room can make it feel entirely different

Replacing/removing a big piece of furniture- if something happened at a desk, or in your bed, or in a chair, or on your rug, while it is the most potentially expensive thing on this list, replacing that can help a lot, because it'll get rid of the part of the room strongest tied to the trauma.

That's all I have right now. I'm not an expert on anything and I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do, but I wanted to share this because firstly, it's helped me a lot, so maybe it could help someone else, and secondly, some shit went down this weekend and posting about stuff that's helped me in my recovery is making me feel a little better.

This blog will be a collection of thoughts, regarding my personal life, my history, and my objective is especially to find people in a similar situation where I am because I've been feeling like a bird in a cage for the past 3 years and for the next years to come as well, with no end closer...

I don't know if I'll even post any tags here, I'll probably just add #cptsd stuff, as well as #Tori-thoughts alongside it