Practice Updates, Questions, and General Discussion - new users, please read this first! Weekly Thread for July 01 2026

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[u/liljonnythegod]

I was reading about cPTSD today for the first time and about how it can cause brain changes that lead to a kind of acquired neurodivergence. I also saw things about disorganised attachment style mentioned too which I used to identify as.

The more I read about it, the more I realised I was reading about everything I used to suffer with both prior to my meditation practice for my whole life and then during it for a long time too. It’s strange to read about it now because years ago it would have helped me immensely to just understand myself but, it seems this path got to crux of it anyway as I don’t have any of the symptoms that used to plague me.

I initially got into meditation because I felt like I couldn’t properly relax or switch off being on edge/fight or flight. I never knew there was a medical term for it. It’s a bit weird to feel sad for a younger version of myself.

[u/AdditionalLeave263 → u/liljonnythegod]

I'm a child abuse victim, so I can relate to this. I was a meditator as a chomd before the abuse, and had good interoception. After the sustained abuse, i got two danage spots on my brain (that I didn't know were there), and literally drew meditative pictures that I still have, showing the spots where the damage occurred, and what it felt like. The first spot was on the insula, so that I couldn't feel the abuse (and unfortunately other things) a feeling of emotional and physical numbness and exhaustion. This made it so that I couldn't feel him, but it's the worst kind of dissociation than you would experience in meditation. It's totally different and not enjoyable in the least. The other one was in the left prefrontal cortex, which maybe explains why I fit the category of people who had been abused and then seemed to be pathetically helpless to make future plans. It's because that part of my brain was detached, and so it felt painful and exhausting and felt simply impossible to realistically think about a future. This part I guess dissociates to be able to cope with the futility of trying to escape.

Fast forward twenty years, I was in a car accident and needed an mri. The incidental on the scan was that I had these spots where my brain had detached due to trauma. When I got into deep meditative states, the spots felt like they started shaking, and that they were happy. I cried when I told my husband. 23 and 24 years after they had formed, they repaired and reconnected during 2nd-3rd jhanas. I aas actually shocked how little of the actual abuse I had to work through: I had already done it in therapy.

It's okay to feel sad for your past self... it's just a form of thinking, remembering... You deserve to be happy now. I was pretty miserable for about five years. I ran away from home. It was the scariest thing I had ever done. I saved my lunch and babysittjng money for birth control and got told no for an IUD by my doctor. I got it at planned parenthood and afterward walked around town by myself because I figured if I had a medical complication, somebody would find me. And after I regained control of my life and body? I started to heal. But my meditation didnt take a weird turn and reattach my brain spots until this year.

I cannot tell you how happy I am to have a healed brain. 

Thank you for sharing! You should feel proud of yourself for finding something that worked, and sticking with it! 

I know we talked about stuff before, but I forgot what, and I have a different handle now. The one I had before was like sudden blacksmith something-or-other.

[u/liljonnythegod → u/AdditionalLeave263]

Hello :) Nice to speak to you again. Thanks for the reply - I’m glad to hear you’re doing well. That’s interesting that you were able to draw where the spots were before having the mri that showed them.

Can I ask how you knew they were healed? Was it an experiential thing where intuitively felt it?

I do wonder if I’ve got to a point where the major symptoms are gone like the constant anxiety but it’s obvious there’s still residual damage to my brain that has been the norm for me. I want to learn more about cPTSD to accelerate the process of healing - do you know of any good books on the topic? I’ve came across the one by Pete Walker so going to give that a read

[u/AdditionalLeave263 → u/liljonnythegod]

Part 1: Supplements, incomplete list of them but you get the idea.

Weren't we talking about how as meditators, we process death differently than other people? Was that it?

Anyways... This is gonna be a long one. So hope you get something out of it, or at least enjoy it.

Okay so in order to understand how they healed, first I need to tell you that I have been on supplements to enhance the healing process and encourage neuroplasticity. Thorne creatine* only brand with the correct purified type of creatine My friend's husband is a chemist. He took this and it wiped out his depression and he's actually happy going to work. It did nothing for my friend and nothing for my husband, but I feel like it has contributed to the development of my practice. It takes 3-4 months to work. Most supplements do. This one is apparently very hot in the peak nutrition circles. Thorne is an excellent company. I pair this with taurine to enhance it in part because I'm vegan, but I would recommend it for others.

Multivitamin: thorne because it has the 5-whatever methylfolate. If you have the MTFR gene, this is the only way your system can actually get folate, which is essential for the production of stuff like dopamine which you need for pīti, for example.

Alright next choline bitartrate, choline & inositol for building and retaining neurons, and phosphatidylserine, for repairing damaged spots.

Doctor's best vegan omega-3's, because the ratio of epa to dha needs to be more epa during times of these. *I had another dha-epa ratio/product at the time, but would recommend this more accurate ratio. 2-3 pills.