Writing
Healing out loud, in writing.
Essays on PMDD, nervous system repair, motherhood, and the long work of becoming yourself.
![I am not crazy. [Part One]](http://audraleigh.com/cdn/shop/articles/https_3A_2F_2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com_2Fpublic_2Fimages_2Fc0f90a64-90e8-418f-9a90-e9b82679dbde_1545x262_e82c194f-cfa6-4849-8367-cb49b9fe2f60.jpg?v=1791247324&width=1100)
CPTSD
I am not crazy. [Part One]
A raw, research-backed, nervous system-loving survival guide for women with PMDD — written by someone who’s lived it and found a way to thrive.
October 11, 2025
CPTSD
I am a late-diagnosed autistic (neurodivergent) woman with CPTSD
Sometimes labels set us free. This is one of them for me.
October 10, 2025
CPTSD
Can we talk about CPTSD for a minute?
I wake up with anger beside me every single day. Somewhere in the 2010s I got the diagnosis: Complex PTSD. No roadmap, no tools -- just a label. Here's everything I've learned since, including how to love someone who has it.
August 9, 2025
CPTSD
Sometimes the Kindest Thing I Can Do Is Disappear
There's a quiet kind of leaving that doesn't come with slammed doors or final words. Some people call it ghosting. I call it survival. On self-preservation, the guilt of distance, and the art in the wreckage.
August 7, 2025
CPTSD
You're in Shock. But You're Going to Be Okay.
The afternoon a higher-up tried to kiss me in a hotel conference room — and how sitting in my car for hours afterward changed everything. On workplace harassment, dissociation, burnout, and the voice that kept me tethered.
July 25, 2025
CPTSD
You Will Find No Victim Here
Nine posts in nine days. Each one a breadcrumb back to the real me. On rewiring publicly, trusting intuition, the systems that keep us small, and why warriors have no room for victimhood.
July 10, 2025
CPTSD
PMDD Is Not Just PMS. It's a Life Sentence— Until You Free Yourself From It.
From my first period at 15 to three decades of suicidal ideation, failed jobs, and survival mode — this is the unedited story of what PMDD actually does to a life. And how I finally started to break free.
July 1, 2025
CPTSD
I Built a Kingdom and Forgot That I Sit on the Throne
Five years of rebuilding — sobriety, nervous system work, an apothecary, three kids, a whole new life. And somehow I still forgot where I stand. On collapse, the thumb, and the throne that's been waiting.
May 13, 2025
CPTSD
Why I Came Back
I thought I had to be fully healed before I could help anyone else. I was wrong. On the slingshot of awakening, four years of silence, quitting everything at once — and why I finally returned.
January 31, 2025
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