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Five Ways to Improve or Cure Complex PTSD

Is it a lifelong illness? Let’s hope not

Amy Sterling Casil
5 min readMar 8, 2022

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This morning I saw famous “richer than the queen” writer J.K. Rowling joking with another UK celebrity pal about having “complex PTSD.”

The real illness far from a laughing matter. I was diagnosed with complex PTSD in June 2006, 18 months after my baby Anthony’s death.

For the benefit of people who aren’t narcissistic clods like Bindel and Rowling, my symptoms included hearing my baby crying for me in the middle of the day, hypervigilance, perseverating thoughts of trying to save Anthony and failing, inability to sleep (two weeks), and heart arrythmias/racing heart.

I realized that for years with each successive serious trauma, I’d been inching ever closer to this devastating condition. I’ve written several books for teens about coping with various traumas, from bomb scares and school violence to terrorism and natural disasters.

Post-traumatic stress disorder is the response of the body and mind to serious trauma. About a third of people who are exposed to serious trauma will experience PTSD. I have had medical practitioners tell me it is…

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Amy Sterling Casil
Amy Sterling Casil

Written by Amy Sterling Casil

Over 500 million views and 5 million published words, top writer in health and social media. Author of 50 books, former exec, Nebula nominee.

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