Complex posttraumatic stress disorder (cPTSD)

Complex posttraumatic stress disorder (cPTSD) is referred to as such. The lived experience of enduring frequent and protracted abuse, neglect, abandonment, and/or engulfment is described, and it is a more severe form of PTSD. A person with PTSD may typically recognize a noticeable difference between before and after a traumatic experience they survived. On the other side, a person with cPTSD might not have ever been aware of a period when they felt differently. Because of this, cPTSD treatment frequently involves examining early events and developmental milestones as well as how they currently affect adult life.

What exactly is cPTSD?

Abuse that is physical, sexual, verbal, or emotional can lead to PTSD and cPTSD. Contempt is one way parents can harm their children emotionally. Verbal and emotional abuse involving insults, fury, and disgust constitutes this. It frequently happens in response to a child expressing a need for support, connection, or attention. When a youngster tries to ask for assistance because they are feeling an overwhelming emotion, a caregiver may repeatedly dismiss them. The child will have an emotional crisis and feel abandoned in these situations. In the event that this pattern continues, the youngster learns to hide their needs and feels abandoned, which results in emotional neglect. Instead, they learn to give in to inescapable powerlessness and hopelessness, which gives rise to a vicious inner critic. This loop frequently results in cPTSD.

Occasionally, a caregiver will use physical punishment to show their disrespect for the child’s emotional needs. The negative effects of emotional abandonment may be more severe in these situations. Caretakers may employ strategies like to those of police officers, cult leaders, and persons who want to enslave others in order to control them. Children also encounter engulfment in various situations. When a youngster is unable to separate from their caregiver and develops while being intertwined with them, this happens.

Although everyone with access to a DSM V can read about PTSD, cPTSD is not yet recognized as a diagnosis. This is true despite years of proven study and the creation of numerous healing techniques for the treatment of cPTSD. Therefore, it is crucial to define cPTSD.

cPTSD symptoms and signs

A person with cPTSD, according to Judith Herman, has gone through a protracted trauma. This could take the shape of being under totalitarian rule. Six aspects of internal functioning, including affect regulation, consciousness, self-perception, perception of the perpetrator, relating to others, and systems of meaning, may change in a survivor with cPTSD. Every kid needs these abilities to develop normally, and trauma can hinder, halt, or complicate this process of maturation from childhood to adulthood. We’ll examine how each of these areas may be impacted by cPTSD below.

Impact on regulation

A person struggles to feel the normal ebbs and flows of mood when they face changes in affect control. They might have persistent dysphoria, suicidal thoughts, or urges to harm themselves. Moreover, they could struggle to vent their anger or have compulsive, restrained, or alternating sexual desires.

Consciousness

Memory can be affected when consciousness is affected, which can lead to dissociation. It might result in a person’s thoughts or bodily symptoms getting locked in a traumatizing loop.

Self-perception

When our ability to build a healthy sense of self is compromised, we may feel powerless or paralyzed to alter our circumstances well into adulthood. A healthy sense of oneself can shield us from blame, guilt, and humiliation. Also, it can shield us from feelings of inadequacy or the idea that we are fundamentally different from everyone else. We are susceptible to a strong double bind of fear and guilt when our sense of self is damaged.

Viewpoint of the offender

Someone suffering from cPTSD could seem focused, if not downright obsessed, with upholding a particular perception of the perpetrator. This frequently appears to be idealizing them. Moreover, it may cause fantasies of retaliation or actual retaliation. The idea that the relationship is unique, predetermined by fate, or even supernatural, for example, can skew this perception. Or, they can think that the offender possesses greater might than any one person ever will. They could also be taught the same beliefs that the abuser use to justify their actions.

Connecting with others

Dealing with cPTSD may have an effect on how you build interpersonal relationships. This may manifest as persistent urges to withdraw or isolate oneself, or it may be difficult to trust others. It could also resemble looking for someone to come to your aid or save you. Or perhaps you feel unable to defend yourself because of how unstable your relationships have always been throughout your life.

Networks of meaning

Our interpretation of the significance in our life, including our employment, relationships, and objectives, is altered by cPTSD. Those who have experienced long-term trauma or abuse may find it difficult to continue to have trust in themselves, other people, or the world. People may experience pessimism and despair occasionally or perpetually.

Emotional flashbacks and PTSD

A vicious inner critic, self-abandonment, emotional flashbacks, poisonous shame, and social anxiety are all symptoms of cPTSD, according to Pete Walker.

In order to recover from trauma, it is essential to comprehend emotional flashbacks. Without understanding what an emotional flashback is, we may perceive our experiences as proof that we are flawed or dysfunctional. This can make our already-present shame even stronger. A quick and intense change in emotion can be characterized as an emotional flashback. This can involve sensations such as being little, young, vulnerable, helpless, terrified, ashamed, alienated, outraged, inconsolable, in mourning, and/or depressed. We time travel whenever we have an emotional flashback. A lot of the time, we experience the same emotions that we did as kids who had been mistreated, ignored, abandoned, or drowned. Moments to weeks can pass during an emotional recall. It can be mild, like a hiccup in the road, or as severe as a full-blown crisis.

The sympathetic nervous system becomes active after an emotional flashback. This reaction exists to aid us in surviving what we perceive to be an enormous threat.

The nervous system will become overactive and react with anxiety, panic, and/or suicidal thoughts if the flashback involves terror. The neurological system will descend into numbness, paralysis, or a desperate need to hide if the flashback involves experiencing despair.

Suicidal ideation and PTSD

Many abuse victims have a particular type of suicidal ideation. Suicide desires, ideas, and other cognitions run the gamut from inactive to active. Making a plan, acquiring the required supplies, and taking practical steps to act on suicidal thoughts are all examples of active suicidal ideation. Passive suicidal thoughts may sound more like a desire to disappear or a fantasy of escape from pain and suffering.

Suggestion for reading: Near Me Trauma & PTSD Therapist. Is Online Therapy a Reliable Alternative?

Suicidal ideation that is passive as opposed to active concludes without any actual action being taken. This may manifest as having a longing to pass away, having thoughts about how one’s life can end, or actually suffering a calamity that takes one’s life. These thoughts can be seen as resembling time travel. They transport us to painfully intense times of profound abandonment, making us naturally search for a way out. However, the presence of passive suicidal ideations does not necessarily indicate that someone wishes to terminate their life unless the thoughts are more explicit, concrete, or action-oriented.

cPTSD and harmful shaming

Toxic guilt is a typical experience linked to cPTSD. An internalized collection of thoughts that make you feel flawed, broken, unworthy, or deserving of scorn, alienation, or abandonment. Children learn to have contempt for themselves via the acts and words of caregivers. The inner critic feeds a vicious loop that is fueled by toxic shame. This frequently keeps us from moving forward and keeps us from getting the consolation and help we so much need. cPTSD may also include social anxiety. This is because trauma affects both our ability to build solid attachments to people and how we develop as children.

I have PTSD

Did I actually experience trauma? In people who have experienced complicated trauma, this question may be extremely common. These experiences are frequently challenging to express or explain in a concise, straightforward manner. Having said that, the following queries might be worthwhile for you to consider:

Does the description of a traumatized adult fit my current suffering?

Do I encounter emotional reminiscences, poisonous shame, self-abandonment, assaults from my inner critic, and/or social phobia?

Do those experiences have a big impact on my relationships, career, school, or home life?

Even if you are unable to explain or recall painful events, your trauma still exists. Our capacity to store and maintain memories of our experiences may be hampered by cPTSD due to its very nature. Also, we can be dealing with rejection, emotional apathy, physical or sexual abuse, desertion, or other traumatic events. These encounters frequently happened before we acquired linguistic abilities. This implies that the trauma we underwent might never be remembered.

Here are few certified therapists who you can get in touch and book a therapy session with:

John Hilsdon

Pete Tobias

Nick Gendler