.com

Occupation Author

Years Active 2011 - present

July 1960

Paperbacks & Kindle books are available at Amazon.com

Email Contact: James@JamesFJohnson.com

Born James Fredrick Johnson

Bullies & Allies is a beautiful and realistic story of the destructive power of Bullying & the healing power of Friendship. It brings light to lifelong Trauma & to lifelong Healing

James F Johnson is the author of Disaster Island,The Goat Driver and The Puzzled; Three novels that follow a lovable, sensitive, polite young man whose covert childhood abuse was so confusing he couldn’t make sense of it. After receiving so many compliments on his novels and how they have helped people to better understand their traumatized adult sons, brothers and husbands, he now contributes as a writer to books that are being written to handle the global rise in awareness of Complex PTSD. Trauma itself is a world-wide challenge we all face as individuals, and as a collective human race.

Currently living with his wife of more than 40 years in the Greater Seattle area in the US, he’s the father of two and grandfather of two.

Complex PTSD has ravaged his life. Since the age of twelve, due directly to horrific mob bullying at school and an unsupportive family at home he’s been battling clinical depression and anxiety, and multiple suicide attempts for most of his life. He’s had some mild addiction issues that he’s handled before they got out of hand, but not before he gained a strong compassion for addiction in others who are struggling to make sense of the confusing, toxic, traumatic lives they come from.

Trauma alone wasn't where the damage was able to burrow so deeply into his being, for James, it was the fact that he was emotionally abandoned and left to deal with the traumas alone. In many cases it was the toxic gossip and flat-out lies that always kept him feeling like he was in danger even within his own family. This is where the loneliness he lives with began. At home.

In many cases for many people, the deepest cuts from childhood trauma disorders come through the loneliness. In his books, James often talks about how it feels to be completely alone and abandoned while in a crowded world. CPTSD is often a very lonely affliction.

James hosts some global web meetings each week with other childhood trauma survivors from all over the globe. He says he's seen a trend; the people who come looking for help and relief from the loneliness of their own trauma disorders, are, by and large, some of the kindest, most compassionate and sensitive people he's known throughout his life. He's currently working on the theory that being able to carry so much sensitivity and compassion and empathy makes trauma survivors some of the strongest and most important people on the earth.

Few would argue against the idea that the global population is in peril in ways we've never before seen. The collective trauma alive on the earth today needs immediate attention. Johnson believes that sensitive people are all connected in a sort of quantum physics way. We sense each other, and we all have individual traumas we can work to let go of, but since we are all connected ethereally, then when we let go of our emotional connections to our own individual traumatic events, we also contribute to healing the world. When we heal ourselves, we heal the world too. We are the salt of the earth; The healing body that's rising up out of necessity to inject love and compassion into a world that threatens to burn around us if we don't step up now.

James's life is currently devoted to helping others understand trauma as individuals as well as a collective, global body.

His work as a contributor to other books has him with no plans for a 4th book of his own, but he keeps his options open.

James F Johnson

Complex PTSD is like PTSD --but different

PTSD is typically caused by a known event such as a criminal attack, car crash, plane crash, house fire, or military battle. From that event on, triggers are also known, such as screeching tires, heavy smoke or fireworks. These triggers cause known reactions, such as panic, sleeplessness, terror. The survivors of the known event are aware of the cause, the triggers and the reactions. They may even remember how they are now different from who they were prior to the original traumatic event. Because they remember who they were versus who they are now, they can identify their cause, triggers and reactions as being PTSD.

Complex-PTSD is a more covert version of PTSD. Adults with Complex PTSD suffer the same reactions as with any other form of PTSD, plus a much deeper sense of self-loathing, worthlessness, and loneliness. But they don't understand what triggers those reactions. They don't remember having ever been in an accident, a fire, or a war. Since Complex-PTSD often begins in early childhood, survivors may have no memory of who they were prior to the trauma, so with nothing to compare their post-trauma personalities to, they assume they were just born broken with an inability to handle "normal life."

Complex-PTSD is more of a "death by a million cuts" caused by long term abuse or life-threatening situations such as being raised by abusive parents, forced into abusive religions, getting into abusive marriages, being abducted for a long period of time, or surviving any other long-term situation that the survivor may not fully grasp as a long string of nearly intolerable traumatic events.

Survivors of these long, slow, abusive events often don't realize they were traumatized and therefore don't understand what triggers their PTSD-like symptoms of anxiety, depression, suicidality, eating and sleeping disorders, serious trust issues, chronic loneliness, a chronic hope for things to change, an inability to know what they want in life, confusion, a need to self-isolate, chronic addictions, etc, etc, etc.

Because these survivors of long-standing abuse don't recognize they have PTSD and are seldom correctly diagnosed by the professionals they seek help from, they assume they are broken from birth, fundamentally unlovable, and permanently alone in a crowded world.

Help is available for these survivors, but few find it. It is critical that they understand who or what caused it.

The recommended reading below is a very good place to start for anyone who may have Complex-PTSD or who may be in a relationship with someone who may have it.

Recommended Reading:

Complex-PTSD; From Surviving to Thriving: A Guide and Map for Recovering from Childhood Trauma

- By Pete Walker

St. Paul Minnesota

Johnson in 2018

Author Biography