No Sticks or Stones No Broken Bones: Healing cPTSD when the Trauma wasn't Physical; It was naCCT: Non-physically-assaultive, attachment-based Chronic Covert Trauma

“What I experienced wasn’t that bad, not bad enough to be real trauma.” Could you be one of the dismissed and ignored trauma survivors? Are you coping with unidentified complex PTSD from early intangible attachment trauma?

Author Ricia Fleming was: “It took me 26 years to complete this book,” she says, “because it took me that long – even as a licensed psychotherapist – to acknowledge the seriousness of the category of trauma I came to call naCCT, an acronym for its four characteristics: no physical assault, attachment-based, chronic, and covert.

'During those 26 years I often shoved the draft deep into my closet after someone shamed me for thinking such ‘little things’ could be serious enough to cause PTSD.”

With no tangible trauma to point to, confusion and self-shaming are normal for adults wounded by early naCCTs such as emotional neglect, gaslighting, or traumatic absence of loving hugs, interest, or understanding; many even deny they’ve been traumatized at all.

Yet, realistically, when we’re little, subtle everyday disturbances in our lifeline relationships with mother, father or other caregivers can register on our bodies, minds, and spirits as threats to life itself. In a word, as ‘trauma.’

Whether or not your caregiver was well-intentioned, whether or not you also experienced blatant physical assaults like beatings or incest, the cumulative effect of early naCCTs can cause complex PTSD, leaving you to cope with physical, psychological, financial, and relationship problems and overall lack of fun, meaning, and spontaneity.

To meet the unique challenges of this under-explored trauma category, you now have a healing guidebook written by a therapist/survivor just for you. With empowering information, encouragement, and down-to-earth stories, this life-changing book will help you take pride in how well you have managed so far. Then it will provide you with realistic action steps for starting to feel better right away.