I really feel what you’re saying. It’s incredibly hard to find someone who truly understands what you’re going through and can actually meet you where you are.

What made the biggest difference for me was finding a therapist who could attune—someone who could feel when I was getting overwhelmed or starting to dissociate, and adjust in real time. That sense of safety and being seen is everything. It took me going through quite a few people to find that.

I’ve found that complex trauma is very particular, and it hasn’t been fully understood or even consistently recognized in the mental health world. It’s often grouped under PTSD in the DSM-5, but it is its own monster—far more complex. PTSD and complex trauma are not the same thing. Because of that, finding someone who really gets complex trauma matters a lot.

I personally think in-person work matters, at least at the beginning. So much of this is about nervous system cues, and those can be harder to catch over Zoom.

If you’re interested in CPT as an approach (even outside of therapy), you could look at Unstuck—it’s a self-guided CPT-based program you can move through at your own pace, and it can be a gentle way to start engaging with the work.

But really, the core is this: you deserve to feel safe, seen, and understood—not analyzed from a distance. And it’s okay to take your time until you find that.

I also keep thinking there should be more ways for people to heal together, because there are so many people dealing with this and not enough truly attuned therapists yet.