The Cost of Silence

Jonny McCoy

CEO & Founder

Complex PTSD originates in those who experience repeated trauma or survive in an environment that is very stressful and feels unsafe, especially during childhood. My childhood looked carefree from the outside in. We lived on a lake and had a swimming pool. Mom worked the concession stands, and Dad was usually the coach of our little league team. You wouldn’t know it, but I lived with crippling anxiety for as long as I can remember.

I thought the yelling was normal. Loud outbursts of curse words followed by the shattering of the nearest object to my father were commonplace in my home. On occasion, things would get physical. That all stopped on the day that my father was arrested for hitting my mother in the face with a Diet Coke bottle. He returned home from jail a changed man, but the damage had been done to both his sons and his wife.

Following Dad’s anger rehabilitation, my mom slid into a dark place where her only comfort was white wine. After years of drinking, she was a full-blown alcoholic and acted the part. The verbal abuse I sustained from my mother was as bad, if not worse, than the violence I endured in my earlier childhood. It felt like there was no escape. I had no time off to reset my nervous system, and I rarely felt safe… if at all.

By the time I fled for college, I was a mess. My anxiety controlled my thoughts, actions, and intentions. I was a straight arrow—not because I was raised to be, but because I was so afraid of doing anything wrong. As a child, the unpredictability of my punishments came whether it was warranted or not. So, I grew up to be a major rule follower to prevent any unwarranted consequences from authority.

My affinity for following the laws and rules didn’t protect me. Unfortunately, I was falsely arrested in 2009 for asking some police officers a question. I was an attorney at the time, and I was only doing and behaving as I had been taught. But it didn’t matter. The reality of life is that it is unpredictable. We can’t always protect ourselves from trauma, no matter how cautious and careful we are.

During my stay in jail, I witnessed another inmate take their own life. Seeing a suicide under those circumstances would have been enough to trigger the collapse of my sanity, but my upbringing compounded its effect. I was in deep trouble and pain immediately. I finally got my diagnosis of PTSD and began taking medications to ease its symptoms, but I was just beginning my descent into mental illness hell.

As my case versus my tormentors raged on, I was in a constant state of fear and panic. By this time, I was feeling the full weight of many of the symptoms that come along with CPTSD. The hypervigilance that I was experiencing controlled my every thought and move. I was frozen—terrified of what was coming and when. There was no filter to keep traumatic things from happening to me. Being a good person who did the right things isn’t a safeguard. The truth is, very bad things happen to very good people… and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

As my paranoia symptoms grew, so too went my touch with reality. I began hallucinating. Am I really being followed? Is there someone really out to get me? By the time you reach this phase of the disorder, it is often too late to reverse it without serious care and intervention. My insomnia grew along with my other symptoms until I reached a point where I was no longer sleeping, regardless of medication. The alcohol wasn’t enough to kick my pills into knocking me out. I felt I had no choice but to down an entire bottle of medicine in the hopes of a few hours of relief.

I didn’t know what passive suicide was—only that I thought about dying every minute of the day when I wasn’t immersed in work or partying. It wasn’t until I met others with CPTSD that I finally felt validated and safe. Having open conversations with someone who is going through the same things as you proved to be what brought me hope and eventually pulled me out.

I now worry about you. The ones suffering in silence from hypervigilance, nightmares, sudden mood swings, anger, rage, insomnia, depression, suicidal ideation, and paranoia. I worry that you’ll lose hope before finding out that there is a way out—and that time and connection are nature’s ultimate healers. There is a place where you can go to feel safe and find connection. It is free, and I built it for you and others just like us. It is called WhiteFlag.

Download the app today and instantly—and anonymously—connect with others who understand PTSD personally. You are not alone, and I can prove it.

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Connect with someone who understands on WhiteFlag: a free, anonymous, peer support network.

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