Hello. I’m Lily Scot, author of Sating the Preta: A memoir about finding the person I was before the chaos began. Though yet another memoir, I wrote it to highlight the fact that Complex PTSD from emotional abuse is an unreported epidemic in the United States. Too many victims don’t recognize or report the abuse, and too many reported cases go uninvestigated, both children and adults being left to suffer continued abuse and its devastating consequences.

Through my personal account, I tried to reveal the intricacies of this disorder, writing in terms I hope to be easily understood by trauma victims and their loved ones. Complex PTSD is a treatable condition. It doesn’t have to be the unrelieved craziness that victims feel and loved ones witness. People can set themselves on a journey toward recovery, one perhaps similar to the transformation I experienced.

It seems to me that in our increasingly anxious society, all of us are vulnerable to Complex PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) as more of us experience psychological trauma first and second hand. For most of us, these are not shocking or violent headline-creating incidents. They are subtle moments of terror first felt by us in childhood that open us to risk and further emotional abuse in adulthood. Out of this Complex PTSD we learn reactions and behaviours we use in a psychotic merry-go-round of avoiding or confronting new terrors. Too many of us are the product of emotional abuse and Complex PTSD, and too many others its unwitting cause.

My book covers my life from 1950 to 1980 – three decades of intense cultural change during which perilous and harmful as well as gratifying and amusing personal events inspired me to undertake an erratic journey leading to transformation. I had a traumatic early childhood, a painful and silent adolescence, a young adulthood fraught with rage and self-destruction, but finally found compassion for myself and others, a remission of personal shame and forgiveness of others who had been abused themselves.

In talking about my story in articles like this, I like to add that in these troubled times it’s important that we all become more accepting of each other and more insightful, forgiving and kinder in our judgment of what motivates those we meet. Their behaviour may just be a reflection of the tremendous chaos fermenting in their soul from influences over which they had no control.

I think emotional trauma is too quickly labeled as rape, beatings, torture, restraint and captivity. I believe most trauma is far less horrific than these severe incidents. It’s emotional manipulation, verbal assault, sexual harassment and molestation, intimidation, workplace abuse, and other non-violent trauma too tolerated by society. I didn’t even know I’d been through emotional abuse until diagnosed with Complex PTSD in my 60’s. If I’d known my very painful feelings were a treatable consequence of psychological trauma that wasn’t my fault, I would have found relief and led a healthier life at a younger age. I wrote Sating the Preta hoping young women and men experiencing feelings such as extreme anxiety and depression would relate to my story and seek help sooner.

So you know a little about me, I was born in Germany when my father served as a U.S. military liaison to the German government after the war. I’ve lived in various parts of the United States, though mostly in the Northeast, with some time lived in London and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, along with travels to Europe and the Caribbean. I now live in Upstate New York with two elderly female cats. My professional life was spent working more than 30 years in public relations and fundraising for non-profit human service organisations. Having just finally finished my bachelor’s degree in Human Services, I’m joining the Peace Corps next year and I hope to eventually find work for a non-governmental organisation serving women and children in the Caribbean, where I plan to retire.

• My photo is of my seven-year-old self, Lily Scot being a protective pseudonym, character names in the book also having been changed to protect identities.
• Please enjoy my blog Trauma Talk
• And I’d so appreciate your preview and purchase of Sating the Preta on Kindle.
• I am also on Facebook and Twitter if you’d like to follow me there.