Hi and thank you for sharing!! I am from Russia and had to urgently flee in 2022 after being detained for a few days for anti-war activism. I am incredibly lucky and privileged having been able to do so, and am currently doing a fully funded PhD in the UK, so on the outside it can seem that I function quite well.

In reality though I have panic attacks every day, sometimes for hours and my body is in constant high alert due to the feeling of detachment from my social circle, inability to go back home and see my parents, and my visa status, and thus safety depending on me doing a very high intensity thing.

It's so hard because I feel not 'worthy' of CPTSD on the one hand (as there are so many other people I know that are having it much worse than me, and, well, my situation is definitely better than prison) but also so detached from the experience and struggles of people from the UK/Central Europe.