Living with CPTSD: Impact on Daily Lives and New Living Situations
- Rin Lamy
- Sep 5, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Feb 18
I started today with a plan on how my day was going to go, and like most days lately, it didn’t go that way. I know I talked a lot before about how hard it is to change your routine when you move, but there are just so many challenges to navigate. Living with new people is a lot about learning each other's personalities and quirks, but it is also about figuring out where you fit into the household's fabric. Everyone has different personalities, and sometimes those personalities don’t meld, and people still have to figure out how to live with each other.
However, there are extra hurdles with living in a new environment around new people when you have CPTSD or a similar anxiety disorder. In this post, I want to talk about some of them, and maybe one of you has advice on them.
New Experiences with Old Triggers
One of the most common symptoms of CPTSD and other types of PTSD is triggers, which lead to physical or emotional flashbacks. With CPTSD, the flashbacks are often felt rather than seen, and many times the sufferer doesn’t realize they’re having one, but that they are suddenly angry, tense, scared, or a similar feeling. Over time, we can get used to an environment and begin to feel secure in it again so that these triggers don’t happen so often from just day-to-day noise, but in my experience, it takes a while.
Doors slamming appear to be a very common trigger in those with CPTSD, and it has greatly impacted me in many places I have lived. I have realized I cannot live in an apartment because of the constant doors slamming, which always puts me on edge. Another common trigger is yelling and stomping, which I have read is a common trigger. When you’ve lived through childhood trauma, you can’t always put a finger on why certain triggers happen, but with these triggers, it is pretty easy to identify that it is because this is the behavior that was displayed when it felt like you were in danger as a child. Our instinct is to run and hide, lock doors, and take up as little space as possible. When it is quiet, and we think it may be safe, maybe we’ll come back out, but more than likely, our nervous systems will keep us in panic mode for a while.
Using A Shared Kitchen With CPTSD
Up until today, I thought I might just have weird habits, but apparently, it is not an uncommon experience for people with CPTSD to have difficulty keeping a regular, healthy diet when sharing a kitchen. There are many reasons people may develop a phobia about making food in a kitchen when someone else is in there, or using it, but it mainly seems to revolve around the fear of “getting in trouble” or the awkwardness of being watched while you make food.
Many of those with CPTSD struggle with disordered eating, a term that describes an array of tendencies a person displays towards food or cooking habits, which is not itself an eating disorder, but often a symptom considered when diagnosing a person with an eating disorder. Many who have grown up with trauma, or lived in trauma later in life, have experienced difficulty in deciding what to eat, and feeling safe in the kitchen if there are others in the room, or sometimes even in the house.
Common Food-Related Boundary Violations in Dysfunctional Family Systems
Criticizing children for expressing hunger or normal appetite cues
Interpreting positive emotions around food (excitement, enjoyment) as defiance or inappropriate behavior
Creating impossible standards around meal preparation, including unclear communication, followed by criticism
Publicly shaming family members for not sharing personal food purchases, especially when they’ve already contributed labor or resources
Restricting access to household food while expecting financial or domestic contributions
Micromanaging basic household tasks through condescending instruction of capable adults
Controlling kitchen access and cooking activities regardless of actual scheduling conflicts
Giving contradictory permission and restrictions around food consumption, followed by punishment regardless of compliance
Impact on Adult Relationships with Food
These patterns create lasting confusion around food autonomy, appropriate boundaries, and self-care. Adults who experienced these dynamics often struggle with:
Guilt around eating or enjoying food
Difficulty advocating for their nutritional needs
Hypervigilance around food-related conflicts
Challenges in establishing healthy boundaries in shared living spaces
Other Concerns
I also have to be careful with my diet as well and stay away from eating too many foods that are highly processed, hard on digestion, and I can’t eat a lot of red meat because I am attempting an anti-inflammation diet that I spoke about in this article. Following a specific diet can make living with others more difficult if you are sharing food resources, as there is always the difficulty of finding time to make food that fits your diet, and the struggle of not wanting to hurt people's feelings by turning down their food, even if you may actually want to eat it just because it doesn't fit your diet.
Not Everyone Understands CPTSD
Some of the best advice I ever got was from my brother, and while he has given me a lot of sage advice, one that sticks with me is “Other people's opinions of me are none of my business.”
As lovely as this advice is, in practice, it is hard to follow, especially if you live with people who may not have a good opinion of you. Not everyone understands how much Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) impacts your life. They do not understand the struggles that you face in doing everyday things, such as eating and feeling safe enough to go into the common areas of the house. They won’t see you sleeping in as you're trying to get any sleep at all because you didn’t fall asleep until 5 am due to your disorder.
It is never the things that you know you’ve personally overcome that make up other people's opinions of you, but how they perceive your actions. Having CPTSD also means that your brain is wired differently, and it doesn’t function so well sometimes when you are in a heightened state of awareness. We often forget to close cabinets, lose focus in the middle of a conversation, and burn out faster on energy during the day. However, it is these very same symptoms of the disorder that make people judge us for being lazy.
The truth is that people only see what they want to see, and if they want to see someone as lazy and good for nothing, they will find reasons. It is always best to find a way to communicate your concerns with the people you live with, rather than hiding as we are so good at doing.
Not Everyone Values What You Do
When we follow our passions, we aren’t always doing it because there is an immediate monetary benefit, and since the benefits of these things aren't apparent in a materialistic way, their value is not seen by everyone. It is hard to find the steam to keep going without any external validation, and that is why the passions of many burn out. For anyone who wants to follow apassion as far as it will go, they soon realize that also means hanging onto it when it just isn't going anywhere, as if trying to sail a ship when there is no wind. Sometimes it's your fault there is no wind, and sometimes it just isn't the right time for wind.
However, not everyone sees value in what I do. I have been asked a few times if I make money doing it, and when I have to say no, well, that’s the end ofthe conversation. It just doesn’t have any other value to them. It was the same way when I was actively writing and playing music. My aunt, whom I no longer talk to, used to tell me I was wasting my life, and she especially liked to say this right before I had a show. I wish I could say it didn’t affect me, but in truth, it really hurts when people who are supposed to love you won’t support or appreciate something that brings you joy. I have struggled for a decade with choking every time I get on stage and singing off-key, or forgetting how to play guitar, because the many hurtful things said to me about my musical ability always echo in my head.
My experiences with criticism of my passions in the cases that traumatised me were just tendencies in a long pattern of abuse. These patterns of abuse make me incredibly sensitive to the opinions of others about my passions, and I fight with sharing them with others. It is also a big reason why I started this blog anonymously, and only in recent years have I attached my name to it. Sometimes, if we want to follow our dreams, we have to play our cards close to the chest until we get into the right space physically or mentally to bring them out into the open.
Living with CPTSD and Difficulty Trusting Your Perception
Often, those with CPTSD have trouble discerning when they are in a safe space or not due to traumatic events or patterns, teaching us that we cannot trust our own perceptions. Frequently, we are unable to speak up for ourselves or communicate our needs out of fear of retaliation in the form of rejection or judgment. In my case, the hurtful things said to me in the past about my passions, and scolding looks received or other bad interactions that occurred to me when I ventured into the kitchen to get food, keep me from being able to feel comfortable in shared kitchens or being able to talk to others about things I enjoy doing.
Much of the work that I have done in Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) has focused on learning to trust myself again and see situations for what they are. The more I read about the changes in the brain that occur because of long term trauma, the more I realize that this difficulty often occurs because of the way trauma has rewired it; more of this in the future when I have compiled more information, but for now I just want to say, that in some ways our brains are broken, but it isn’t permanent. We can learn, grow, transform, and become whole again.
In Conclusion
Living with CPTSD provides many challenges in all aspects of our lives. We have to learn how be happy and satisfied with work, remain productive, like ourselves, take care of ourselves, and build meaningful relationships. This is not the life we would have chosen for ourselves, but we have to play with the hands we are dealt. While you are stumbling your way through a normal life, just remember, you can win a poker game with any hand if you play your cards right.
Edited by: Timothy Gonzales
I would love to hear what you think or your experiences with new living situations! Comment below or find me on social media!
Interesting Resources
American Psychiatric Association. (n.d.). What are eating disorders? Psychiatry.org. https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/eating-disorders/what-are-eating-disorders
Costa, A., & Oliveira, A. (2023). Parental Feeding Practices and Children's Eating Behaviours: An Overview of Their Complex Relationship. Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland), 11(3), 400. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11030400
CPTSD Foundation. (2023, May 15). CPTSD and a lack of self-trust. CPTSD Foundation. https://cptsdfoundation.org/2023/05/15/cptsd-and-a-lack-of-self-trust/
Guest Author. (2025, September 4). Breaking the guilt cycle: How to set boundaries with toxic family members without feeling guilty. Resources to Recover (rtor.org). https://www.rtor.org/2025/09/04/breaking-guilt-cycle-set-boundaries-toxic-family-members/
Hammond, C. (2019, January 18). Obsessed: Narcissists and their food. Psych Central. https://psychcentral.com/pro/exhausted-woman/2019/01/obsessed-narcissists-and-their-food
Hoermann, S. (2025, May 27). Family influences on eating disorders. MentalHealth.com. .
Mayo Clinic Press. (n.d.). What is disordered eating and when does it become an eating disorder? Mayo Clinic Press. https://mcpress.mayoclinic.org/nutrition-fitness/what-is-disordered-eating-and-when-does-it-become-an-eating-disorder/
The Diary Of A Flopping Fish and any posts or articles published on Diaryofafloppingfish.com are not reviewed by a therapist or medical or mental health professional. Resources are cited, and opinion is opinion. No advice or opinions in any articles replace professional advice from a doctor, therapist, or any other kind of health professional. The author is not a licensed professional of any kind.
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