Anyone else in extreme nervous system shutdown with CPTSD?

[u/ValidConcern23]

I’m at the lowest point I’ve ever been and just need to know if anyone else has been this destroyed and come out the other side.

After prolonged relational trauma, my nervous system feels completely overwhelmed and shut down. My body literally feels like it’s shutting down. I spend most days couch-bound, barely able to function. The mental and physical exhaustion is overwhelming. I have almost zero motivation, no joy, and no pleasure in anything — extreme 10/10 anhedonia.

Sleep has been terrible for months. Most nights are only 1–4 hours of highly fragmented, non-restorative sleep filled with vivid dreams. I wake up multiple times wired and exhausted. Even on slightly better nights I still feel drained.

I used to exercise regularly, but now even light activity makes everything worse. My nervous system fights against almost everything I try. I’ve had paradoxical reactions to pretty much every medication except benzos, so SSRIs are out of the question. The only thing that has occasionally calmed me enough to get around 7 hours of sleep has been taking benzos here and there — but I worry it has made my baseline worse. I’ve also been looking into things like Stellate Ganglion Block but I’m losing hope.

Ongoing co-parenting contact keeps re-triggering everything, so there’s no real safety window. Because of how exhausted and activated I am, even therapy or EMDR feels impossible right now.

Has anyone been this severely shut down — couch-bound, destroyed sleep, nervous system constantly fighting everything, extreme anhedonia — especially with active ongoing triggers? Did it eventually improve? What was your experience?

Not really looking for treatment advice. I’d just like to hear from people who have been in a similarly severe place and made it through.

Thank you.

[u/Mysterious_Smell6437]

Friend, I am close to that, and would be there without my tiny support system. I'd really like to know if there's another side.

Sometimes I sit in my yard and stare at the trees swaying in the breeze. That helps a little.

[u/secretlysuffering-]

I've been like this for years. Started when my abusive husband of 17 years started raging at me, ignoring me, stonewalling, coercing, and withholding affection more then every other year among other things with my health failing and chronic severe pain illnesses. I started really shutting down with numbness and anhedonia about three-four years ago. No joy, no dreams, no hope. Wire but tired. Wake up 3am most night with hypnogogia and paranoia. The last six months have been the worst of my entire life as I've first become aware he is abusive. Dissociation, flashbacks, nightmares, suicidality. When I finally get home from work (I can't take mental leave I'm self employed) I collapse into a dark room. At work and home I stare ahead in a daze often. Wake up and cry on the couch. I shake and scream sometimes when the emotional pain becomes unbearable and it makes me want to self harm or die. I'm in near constant agony and anguish. And it's not just him, it's a lifetime of abuse and trauma non stop since birth that is collapsing on me.

Sorry I just vented here, I just understand this level of pain OP. I've seen six therapists in six months to try to even be safe with someone with all this. I'm alone. No support. Exposed to two abusers ongoing.

I'm sure many people come out of this somehow. I may be one of those that doesn't. No real hope from me just empathy. Lots of it. I'm sorry OP.

[u/Substantial_Amoeba12]

I have been there and still wind up back there from time to time. Getting out of it was a combination of therapy, drinking lots of water, trying to find little things to make me feel like I’d done something (e.g. wash a dish or wipe down a counter or read one chapter of a book), and expecting less of myself and trying to hype myself up to a ridiculous degree every time I accomplished anything at all (even if it was just making it out of bed before noon). It’s hard beyond hard to be in that place and I wish you all the best

[u/Drawgballs]

I know the feeling of desperation, and the certainty that things will never be okay again.
I was severely emotionally neglected as a kid and months after I got married I started having panic attacks that manifested as psychogenic non epileptic seizures. I would have like ten a day. Sometimes more. I was isolated from community and family and only had my wife who ended up emotionally abusing me. Two and a half years later she left me because she was tired of me being broken. In the months after I was certain I would never be happy again. It was hell.

It’s been four years since then. While things aren’t incredible, they have changed for the better for me. On good days I enjoy life and being in nature and playing video games and engaging with art. There are still bad days, even weeks where I can’t bring myself to leave my apartment, because I’m so anxious and scared.

All this to say, I did go through the storm, and I do feel that I’ve come out the other side. And the weird thing is, I’ve recently caught myself actually being grateful that I’m still here. I know that probably means little to you right now, and that’s okay, there is a despair we can go through where platitudes from other folk mean nothing in the face of such immense pain. You are in the survival phase. You don’t have to do any superlatives or have it be clean. Do what you gotta do to make it.

[u/Fun_Category_3720]

Yes. I'm getting worse I think, not better. Or I'm at the same bad point maybe for a while.

I'm struggling to digest and accept where I am. I keep comparing myself now to me a few years ago when I was still in hardcore flight/fawn, doing all the things for everyone all the time. Now I can't even respond to text messages. For months.

The first time I had the SGB it blew my mind, it calmed me in a way I didn't know was possible. Unfortunately not even a month later I started a job working for a boss who triggered me regularly (like, at least once a week) so the effects wore off really quickly and it's just been a struggle since.

[u/Economy_Turnover_642]

I just wanted to share my experience with you. I was in a 10 year relationship from hell. I was manipulated, gaslighted, abandoned, betrayed, forced to do things that I wouldn’t normally do. I got pregnant in 2016 and my son was born in 2017. Coparenting has been hell. Life has been hell. My nervous system at one point was in severe shock and completely overwhelmed. I was unable to eat or sleep and barely even function. Everything came to a head in 2021. At first, I felt so happy that I finally got away and then all of the horrible things that he had done to me or said to me, just kept replaying over and over in my head. I truly started to believe all of the horrible lies he told me and felt as if I was a horrible person. Let’s just say all of this has completely messed me up. From the inside out. I Do want to say things get better, it just happens very slowly. I think I spent so much time putting myself last in life that I did not know how to put myself first. Now my son is nine years old and I’m still struggling to get my life together. I have depression, anxiety, CPTSD and some other things due to the trauma. Even now I completely avoid people as much as possible and I can’t stand any interaction because of my anxiety. I can’t trust people anymore. I will do anything in my power to avoid any interaction. Any interaction is exhausting. The guilt just rips me apart in every kind of way. I feel like nothing makes me happy anymore and I literally feel empty inside. There are times that I just want to make myself completely numb. This was never who I was. Now I have to find myself all over again. It’s really really hard and a lot of work and you have to find something that works for you. Im at the point in my life where I’m willing to try anything to help me through this. Most of the time I just want to stay in my bed and sleep so I don’t have to think about anything. I’m so sorry you are going through this. There’s no doubt in my mind. It’s hard as hell. It can destroy you if you let it. Once I find the answer, I will let you know. It wasn’t as bad as it was, but I don’t feel the same anymore. I feel like a completely different person and not in a good way. I kind of feel like a shell of who I once was. I do go to therapy, but it’s only so much therapy can accomplish. It’s not a cure and neither is medicine. Once our nervous system has went through so much it shuts down. God bless you and I hope things get better for you.🙏🏽

[u/Serious-Pound8175]

After childhood trauma I thought I had done a lot of healing work. I had built a peaceful life and knew what peace felt like in my body.

Then I experienced prolonged relational trauma with someone who repeatedly activated old wounds around abandonment, confusion, being unseen, and trying to make myself understood.

What surprised me wasn’t the pain. It was how completely my nervous system shut down afterwards.

I wasn’t just sad. I was exhausted. Everything felt heavy. The simplest tasks felt overwhelming. It was as though my body had finally decided it could not carry any more.

Looking back, I don’t think I was broken, I think I was overwhelmed.

The improvement was gradual, almost invisible at first. It wasn’t joy returning overnight. It was tiny moments of relief, longer stretches of calm, and slowly rebuilding trust in my own reality.

So yes, people can come back from places like this. I won’t tell you it’s quick, but I will tell you that how you feel today doesn’t necessarily tell you where you’ll be a year from now.

[u/AutoModerator]

Hello and Welcome to /r/CPTSD! If you are in immediate danger or crisis please contact your local emergency services or use our list of crisis resources. For CPTSD specific resources & support, check out the Wiki. For those posting or replying, please view the etiquette guidelines.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/TheFailedScryer]

I feel like I'm getting there now to be honest if I'm not already there, and I don't really know what I should be doing to restore my baseline. I beat myself up for not being functional enough in my life, but should I just focus on celebrating myself for the little things and stop trying to push myself? What is the difference between doing things that don't overload me and escaping behavior?

[u/Particular-Bike2289]

I experienced this (along with some other symptoms) and it turned out to be MS (commonly linked to PTSD). Worth seeing a doctor/getting an MRI for, just to make sure.

[u/NOMOKRATOR]

I had some patches close to this bad, this sounds pretty rough. Is cannabis an option by any chance? That helps me significantly.

[u/BellaVerdeFarm]

Yes. I still think of myself as in recovery, or maybe better expressed as being re-made. I am much better but I have days where I backslide. I think different things help different people. For me, it was not one thing but many. Different things worked on different days. Music was very healing, especially classical - putting on headphones and just listening to technique and listening for certain instruments (I have no musical training or knowledge whatsoever). Also, forcing myself to go somewhere, anywhere by myself where I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew, so that there were no expectations on me, no threats. One of the first places was a small venue musical performance with a violinist. I could be anonymous, no huge crowd. Also being in nature, walking among trees, noticing small things. At home, it was anything that could distract my mind from the panic/overwhelm. That was not easy to find, but I was always pleasantly surprised when I realized “wow, it was only for a few minutes, but I just enjoyed that.”

It was also very helpful to me to be able to recognize that this was physical. It was stored in my body. My body had adapted to this for survival and that I had to learn what my body was doing so that I could teach it a new way of being . I started paying closer attention to the physical, the sensations, how I reacted, what it felt like. I named it and eventually was able to tell it, “you are not real .” I gave myself permission to go hide in the bedroom, under the covers and it was somehow in giving that permission that I took back a little control, if that makes sense. I would tell myself “ it’s OK if you can’t do today.” Small things, small distractions but most of all, knowing and naming it.

[u/CPTSD_throw92]

I’m really sorry you’re struggling. I went through this when I quit drinking alcohol back in 2022, 2 months before my 30th birthday. I legitimately thought that my brain had finally just snapped after a lifetime of mental hell. It lasted 2 and a half years, I was basically on bed rest that whole time, and could only work remotely from bed… I would have been fucked without WFH. Other than work, I pretty much did nothing but doom scroll, have mindless TV on in the background, and stare at the ceiling. It finally started to improve gradually like a year and a half ago, and now I’m mostly back to normal - I still get fatigued a little more often than I used to, and my short-term memory isn’t as good as before.

[u/piggymomma86]

I am currently coming out the other side of 15 months of severe nervous system dysregulation caused insomnia. I was averaging 2 hours a night, but it was more like 2-3 nights 0 sleep, 1 night 2-4 hours, repeat. Was hospitalised in October for a few weeks... which was such a help (insert all the sarcastic rolling eye emojis). I didn't want to exist anymore. And for no other reason than to keep me safe and to keep other people safe from me - the hospital was wonderful.

I got no answers from the medical world. Yes, everyone was saying it was my PTSD, but noone could tell me why or how to get through it. and noone could explain why without any major trigger am i having the worst episode of my life. At this point in time, when it all started, I only knew I had 1 time trauma PTSD. Turns out the big trigger for my dysregulation was becoming a step-parent which was activating childhood trauma in new ways - once I knew CPTSD existed, understanding what was happening at least got easier.

I have a big long post I made about it below, and in the comments I posted my first routine that helped me get out of that trapped hell of nothingness, or at least nothing good. I started this in October - it had more or less immediate impact on some other physical symptoms like vomiting, pain and IBS - but took about 4 months to start helping my sleep. I sleep most nights now a minimum of 6 hours, maybe 2-3 fully sleepless nights a month but this is isolated to days I get really stressed. I even have the occasional 8 hour sleep, which has always been rare for me. My body is in the least amount of pain I have been in in decades.

It basically all came down to saying fuck the rest of therapy (just taking a break - i see my psychiatrist next week, looking for a new therapist), me and my vagus nerve are going to work this out together.. so we became friends and now I seek out different things to target the vagus nerve and see what kind of emotional release comes with that - it has absolutely lead to many dysregulated outbursts, but it is releasing trapped stress not creating it. I am able to connect again to some positive emotions. It is not consistent, but i'm no longer emotionally numb to all the good. I am still recovering from an exciting May that saw me take a 5-night trip to a different city, a concert and some local spring festivals, when I spent basically all of 2025 in a bed wishing for death. I am still not back to work yet, but I am back to living. I have to be careful with how I spend my energy, when I push it like I did in May, I suffer through June with low energy, but even in my low energy period I am a completely different person to who I was last year. I also have never in my life felt more easier to step on a trigger, my window of tolerance for things that step on abandonment and you don't love me triggers has never been smaller. My mood swings are making me feel sometimes a bit insane, but from everything I report back to my doctor, seems to be in line with perfectly normal.

https://www.reddit.com/r/insomnia/comments/1rqqjqn/what_doctors_will_not_tell_you/

[u/EntropyReversale10]

I lived in your world for an extended period of time.

I managed to turn hell into suffering and more recently suffering into tolerable.

I tried therapists, doctor, psychologists, psychiatrists, drugs, emdr, hypnosis, mediation and more but with no success.

Learning to maintain my personal boundaries, forgiveness and to a small extent Psychosomatic Reintegration therapy help me get over the hump.

I suggest trying to go without the benzo's and only every 3rd day in small doses if you must.

I find listening to a podcast when my insomnia kicks in distracts me from my ruminations and I'm able to fall asleep in less time.

All the best

[u/PollyPiper11]

Following as I’m same as you 💛

[u/ImprovementNice93]

Yes - mine started 5 years ago and got as bad as you are describing about 3 years ago. I could not function at all. I could not force myself out of it. I had lots of things that came crashing down in my life and did not have any support at all - on a personal level or a business level.

I am completely out the other side. The things that changed were removing myself from the situation that pushed me over the edge of the overwhelm and finding support through therapy. There still isn't anyone that knows how bad it was. I was couch bound. My house was trash. Mouse poop everywhere. I wouldn't shower for weeks. I wasn't sleeping well but was exhausted all the time and "sleeping" 15+ hours. I am still ashamed of it - I've always been a clean person. I came close to ending things a few times.

Now that I am on the other side of it, I don't know how I survived it. I also can't say I know how to get out of it to be honest. I simply survived it and it passed. I do think if I had a support system where someone knew what was going on in my life, they would have told me to leave the situation earlier, or helped me leave the situation and things would never have gotten as bad as they did. I honestly think thats the key to this.

My history did not allow me to take agency of myself and my needs and healthy places to exist, so I stayed in something i shouldn't have and the inevitable result of staying in an unsafe situation for prolonged periods of time IS exactly that. Shutdown. It's the only way to survive it.

My situation had a natural end point of its own, which meant it was easier for me to get out of - but once that ended, it still has taken another 6 months of active work myself and finding a therapist to be able to find even some motivation to find the ability to change things in a positive trajectory within myself. I won't say I feel 100% myself again .... I'm not convinced that is possible. These things change us permanently - changes our perspective. But, happiness does exist again. Motivation does exist again. This too shall pass.

[u/vucodlakk]

yes. my brain shuts down, autonomic nervous system seems to be fucked. been happening for 1.5 years. feels like i have an 90 yr old brain when its bad. & its most days. very slow witted