About Jack Brody: Writing, Healing & Living With CPTSD
I’m Jack Brody—an adopted New Yorker, author, father, and survivor learning to live well with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD).
I created About That Jack as a place to write openly about trauma, healing, relationships, fatherhood, and the complicated ways our past can continue shaping us long after the danger has passed.
I’m also the author of The Space Between a Message and a Meaning, a memoir about childhood trauma, hypervigilance, attachment, emotional distance, and learning that surviving isn’t the same thing as living.
When CPTSD Finally Had a Name
For years, I lived with a kind of nameless noise—hypervigilance, anxiety, self-doubt, and a brain that never seemed to switch off. Because I had lived with it for so long, I assumed that was simply who I was.
In my early 40s, I was diagnosed with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), connected to childhood sexual abuse I experienced between the ages of five and nine.
The diagnosis did not magically fix anything, but it gave me something I had never really had before: a language for what I was experiencing.
Suddenly, reactions I had spent years judging myself for began to make more sense. Hypervigilance, emotional overwhelm, difficulty trusting people, and the constant need to anticipate danger were not random flaws. They had developed for a reason.
Since then, I’ve spent more than a decade in therapy and doing the much less tidy work of learning not just how to survive with CPTSD, but how to actually live with it.
Those turned out to be two very different things.
If You’re Here…
..because you’re doing your own CPTSD work, supporting someone who is, or just stumbled in and stayed for the vibe, welcome. You are not alone here.
Feel free to reach out, I’m here to share, listen, and connect.
Let’s heal out loud.
Want to read more of my work?
Start with The Space Between a Message and a Meaning, or explore the essays and stories here on About That Jack.
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Important Disclaimer
Please know that I am not a mental health professional, therapist, or doctor.
This site is my personal story, intended only to share my experiences, lessons, and growth. It is not a substitute for professional clinical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you are in crisis, please seek immediate professional help.
If you don’t know where to start, check out my resources page.
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