• if you are triggered by conflict you may want to skip reading this *
  I decided to avoid making any personal judgements about another person’s character, state of mind, etc, and there is no name-calling, bullying or shaming statements here. Just facts. I hope all who advocate for survivors will read this.

Recently Healing from Complex Trauma and PTSD/CPTSD re-published it’s facebook page after a long absence, which initially seemed like good news – until I saw content created for our website http://traumadissociation.com had been copied to it, had the website name removed, and replaced with ‘healingfromcomplextraumaandptsd.com’ – and in some pictures a colored border was also added. Looking into it further, this appears to have happened on a series of different dates, since 2014, with the most recent being last month (April 2016).

Healing from Complex Trauma and PTSD/CPTSD copyright theft – George Orwell poster about the truth

This is blatant theft of our work, along with attempts to claim it is original to Healing from Complex Trauma and PTSD/CPTSD and copyrighted to the website owner. This doesn’t appear to be a misunderstanding or lack of awareness: some of the written content on the same website is attributed correctly to other websites. Repeatedly deleting or covering the original website name, then adding your own is not an accidental act. Neither is refusing to delete content when someone complains about it and blocking their account. It’s illegal to do this under copyright law, as well as unethical.

It is also not a website recommended by Complex PTSD survivor and therapist Pete Walker
See the website’s disclaimer for the feedback the website claims Pete Walker did give. Some professionals may have recommended it, but not Pete Walker, therapist, survivor and well known author of Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving.

Our stolen content appears on:

• the website http://www.healingfromcomplextraumaandptsd.com – on the PTSD and Complex PTSD pages (3 images)
• the Healing from Complex Trauma and PTSD/CPTSD facebook page
• the blog http://www.healingfromcomplextraumaandptsd.wordpress.com
• the linked twitter acount @HealingCPTSD
• and the site owner’s personal facebook profile, correctly attributed in this case – which is fine, but it shouldn’t have the website address deleted and be in this folder claiming she owns copyright for all content. This does prove she knows it’s our original content, and didn’t get it from a copy someone else made.

Healing from Complex Trauma and PTSD/CPTSD copyright theft by Lilly Hope Lucario
On our website http://traumadissociation.com the copyright information on each page says you can copy the images (unless they state otherwise) – just say which website it came from and include a link back to it, which is quick and easy (our blog and social media posters shouldn’t be copied, use the Share button for them). Each website image has invisible license information electronically included too, proving it’s ours. I explained how to link back and credit the copied work via their facebook page on May 12th, but Healing from Complex Trauma and PTSD has chosen not to do this – and rather than fix the issue, have deleted one copy of a single image only, and another unlinked from the PTSD page but left on the website. Nothing has been done about the rest.

Links to copies of the stolen files, which should all be deleted:
PTSD and Complex PTSD Symptoms
website image – as linked to from http://www.healingfromcomplextraumaandptsd.com/#!ptsd–v–complex-ptsd/c1538
– from her facebook profile, and correctly attributed with a link back but with our website name removed
– 4 separate twitter photos of it pic668199774810562560 – pic654024925770964992 – pic614189261995180032 – pic611668157938319361

Causes of PTSD graph
https://healingfromcomplextraumaandptsd.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/causes-of-ptsd-graph.jpg – used in a blog post
– website image – as found via google images search – and twitter copy https://t.co/djtyhYvQum (now deleted)

Causes of PTSD in Preschool children
website image – linked to from http://www.healingfromcomplextraumaandptsd.com/#!ptsd-in-children/c1h9i

George Orwell quote – https://healingfromcomplextraumaandptsd.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/george-orwelll-deny-history-001.jpg linked to from https://healingfromcomplextraumaandptsd.wordpress.com/tag/denial-2/
– and the facebook copy- deleted by facebook May 15th

Dysfunctional families poster –
https://healingfromcomplextraumaandptsd.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/disclosure-001.jpg – linked to from https://healingfromcomplextraumaandptsd.wordpress.com/2015/08/03/disclosing-child-sexual-abuse-to-disordered-dysfunctional-toxic-families-often-leads-to-further-severe-abuse/
– twitter copy
This list might be added to if more content is found later on.

After commenting 2 days ago to report the first 4 images, only the ‘Causes of PTSD’ graph was removed from their website and facebook page, (and yesterday from twitter too). Every comment left on the other copied work was deleted, as well as the post left on the page’s timeline. TraumaAndDissociation‘s facebook page is now banned from there, there is now no direct communication – except to file copyright complaints with facebook, wordpress, twitter, and wix.com (wix ‘hosts’ the website) – luckily this is free and easy, and there are no later consequences as long as the content is removed quickly. However, perhaps Lilly Hope Lucario, the website owner, will see this post and remove the content that isn’t hers before that’s necessary to file every complaint.

Healing from Complex Trauma and PTSD/CPTSD copyright theft by Lilly Hope Lucario proof
She even tweeted one of the original images before she removed our website address.

There has been no attempt to deny this theft, and the evidence that it was created and online, with our website/facebook addresses, before being edited and re-posted is overwhelming. Any google search for images about ‘PTSD’ or ‘Complex PTSD’ will bring up our website in the first few results. Our original content is on http://traumadissociation.com/ptsd and http://traumadissociation.com/complexptsd

Once the copyright issue is sorted out the problem links and content will be gone, but this is no longer a resource I feel can be trusted – despite the many endorsements from professionals seen on the website. Besides our content, some of the social media photos containing the website’s name with a turquoise/teal border also look like they may belong to other creators – some appear to be have background from powerpoint presentations, like the kind often found on websites like slideshare.

Here’s the originals she removed our website address from, and tried to claim as hers:
PTSD and Complex Symptoms Compared

link to Facebook version (differs slightly)

Causes of PTSD

PTSD in Preschool children

facebook share link

George Orwell quote, from our blog

From our blog Forgetting the Past: Repressed Memories .

PTSD Triggers poster – from our facebook page 
Dysfunctional families poster – from our facebook page
 

As she says herself:
“I too have had my work stolen & plagiarised on social media, by other PTSD pages. Theft, is theft.” @HealingCPTSD

I hope other advocates and survivors will consider sharing this post, and appreciate that theft and editing isn’t in any way typical of other survivors or advocates act. I hope the site owner stop this behavior rather than attempt to lie or make false accusations about something which there is such clear evidence about. If she doesn’t delete the content herself, then the websites it is on will have to do so to comply with the law once they check it’s copyrighted to us.We will continue to make our own content, and to support and share links from others with posting about healing trauma and dissociation, but will no longer be doing this with links or content from Healing from Complex Trauma and PTSD/CPTSD. It is devastating to realize we shared links to some of her content during the time she was stealing ours.

Tools for website owners
* Metadata viewer (EXIF and XMP) check the license and hidden data in an image, unless facebook etc has removed it. Try it out by pasting in the link http://traumadissociation.com/images/Causes-of-PTSD-graph.jpg
* google advanced search customize your search to find images you can reuse
It isn’t necessary to include your own website address or hidden data to copyright images as yours. If you created it, legally it’s yours.

Posts about Abuse, and Complex PTSD
* Complex PTSD and PTSD – Do you know the differences? (traumadissociation.wordpress.com)
* Complex PTSD in detail (traumadissociation.com)
* What’s Inappropriate About Exposing Abuse? (discusses a possibly harmful child abuse survivor/advocate, Bo Budinsky)
* How abusers and perpetrators get away with it (emergingfrombroken.com, discusses an unnamed abuser who is also a survivor, Bo Budinsky is named in comments)
* Extreme victimized cover abuse – lies and manipulation people demanding ‘help’ by lying like this leave you feeling exhausted (traumadissociation.wordpress.com)
* Chronic pain, caused by trauma? (traumadissociation.wordpress.com)
* Inspirational Women Lilly Hope Lucario (another professional site endorsing healingfromcomplextraumaandptsd)