So you’ve heard of PTSD, but you’re thinking, what does this “C” bit stand for? Is it Christmas? Is it classy? Is it Chipotle? It’s actually complex, Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Say that three times! And if you are someone who has emotionally distant or neglectful parents, there’s a huge chance you’re going to resonate with this video. So let’s talk about the easy-to-spot signs of CPTSD and what you can do to stop feeling like you are simply living in a world that’s just passing you by.
PTSD usually occurs after a single traumatic event, such as fighting in the army or a car crash. CPTSD is more complex. It’s a mental health condition that develops in response to prolonged traumatic events or repeated traumatic events—think emotional neglect, physical abuse, violence. Now personally, I don’t agree that it should be called a mental health condition, because it’s simply a set of traits and behaviors that are formed that we adopt as a result of constant stress that we have faced to cope and survive. If you didn’t feel safe, seen, heard, secure, or in control of your own environment as a child, you adapt under that constant pressure.
People with CPTSD often struggle with managing their emotions. They have intense mood swings, sudden outbursts of anger, or periods of intense sadness. Our brain allows the emotional hijacking as a way to go past logic and reasoning. For example, to keep us safe: let’s say we see a tiger. Instead of us standing still and thinking, “That looks like a dangerous situation, let me Google what to do,” instead, your emotional brain hijacks to literally get going. And if you constantly experience hijacked emotional brain as a child, well, your brain learns this strategy and repeats it throughout your adult life.
Let’s talk about getting triggered. You may become emotionally triggered when you sense that you are being left out, ignored, or undervalued. Now, I have a quick hack guide to overcoming emotional triggers, and it’s 2 minutes long. I know, click above my head. It’s a really good video, if I do say so myself. So if you feel that you easily overreact, this is your cue for CPTSD.
When we think of the stereotypical PTSD disorder, we may think this person’s triggered by loud noises and it takes them right back to being on the war line. Right? CPTSD is the same, except it almost goes into hiding, because it could be a song that causes the trigger, a jingle of keys in the door, a certain smell of perfume, a phrase, a word, a certain place—things that feel normal and harmless are very triggering.
Negative self-talk: CPTSD can lead to a negative self-image, with individuals often feeling worthless, guilty, or ashamed. They can struggle with feelings of isolation and they can believe that they are so different from everyone else in the world, therefore they won’t and they can’t ever fit in. And they feel like damaged goods and they have very little hope for the future because nothing has ever gone right before, why would it actually go better now?
Relationship difficulties: This is the biggest sign. CPTSD can make it challenging to form and maintain healthy relationships with friends, romantic partners, strangers, the Amazon delivery guy. Trust issues, fear of abandonment, and difficulties with intimacy are common symptoms. You can expect there to be a lot of crossover between attachment styles—disorganized, anxious, avoidant. And you find yourself in toxic relationships with people that abuse you and disrespect you physically or emotionally, or you’re simply dating people that are emotionally unavailable.
You never experienced stability from parents and caregivers, so you just hopelessly float around until you feel safe. You may struggle to keep friends. If you are someone that considers themselves to be quite lonely, this might be a reason. In relationships that don’t feel good enough for you, you still stick around because one: you don’t think you can find anyone better that will value you, so you stick around in a relationship that isn’t fulfilling; or two: you avoid relationships with people so that you don’t get hurt by them—this could be instantly saying no to social invitations, work invitations, or even dates; or three: you don’t know when to say no and to walk away—people could describe you as unapproachable and very cold, and then they are surprised when you eventually trust them and let them in, and they’re like, “Wow, you are so much cooler than I originally thought you were.”
Perhaps you don’t feel safe in romantic relationships until one year has passed, or two years, or three years. Why? Because you literally keep people at arm’s length, because you are very cautious in case they hurt you. Overall, relationships feel stressful, and given the choice, you would probably avoid them at all costs. Or you could be the complete opposite in relationships, where you feel they give you life and you are obsessed with dating, desperate to be loved. So desperate that you will date anyone that shows you a teeny tiny breadcrumb, so desperate that you obsess over how to make the relationship better, watching endless dating relationship videos, reading books, blogs, articles—you name it.
Now, we’ve all been there at some point in our lives, right? In a relationship that didn’t make us feel comfortable, but we didn’t know we could leave. Sounds weird, I know, and we don’t realize that those negative feelings we have inside in our relationship is because something doesn’t feel right, because that person isn’t right.
Dissociation and detachment: Now, dissociation happens to all of us, okay? Those moments where we’re driving a long journey without remembering the route, you get home and you’re like, “Damn, that was weird. Did I just enter a portal? Because now I’m home.” We don’t remember any of the drive, or the moments when you get lost in a book or a movie. So imagine that, but times it by 10—that’s dissociation of trauma. It can last a couple of hours and sometimes a couple of days. Dissociation is that feeling of being disconnected from yourself or the world around you. It manifests as memory lapses, feeling completely detached from your body, or even experiencing a sense of unreality. So it kind of feels like you’re in a dream state. You may fear that you are unable to remember who you really are, and some people can have a different personality and identity during these dissociative moments. So if you’ve heard of DID, dissociative identity disorder, this is what it is. The brain senses danger—let’s say it senses a tiger. The brain becomes really triggered, emotional hijacking happens, and the pain is so intense that the brain is like, “What do we do? I don’t know what to do. Let’s just dissociate,” and boom, that identity disappears, a new one comes to the forefront of the brain, and the brain and the body connect with a different identity. It’s really just a survival technique.
So depersonalization is a little bit different. It basically means you won’t recognize your reflection. You can look at images and videos of yourself and you’re
like, “Damn, is that me? Is that how I look?” It feels as though someone else is in control and in charge of your body. And you feel that you only really exist in your mind. Or on some occasions, you don’t even feel like your mind is your own. And that makes you feel like you’re a little bit high—you get detached from yourself, from the mind. And derealization is what you probably think it is—nothing feels real. And I know this is confusing, ’cause they all tie over, but it feels like you’re on a movie set, everything is perfectly placed there by someone else. If you ever seen “The Truman Show,” it is that feeling. As a child, you may think that there was hidden CCTV in your room, in your house, that people were watching you, your crush was watching you, and you were very mindful of how you acted. And the brain has basically just jumped ship, and it’s let you fend for yourself.
Now coping, healing with CPTSD can be so, so challenging. You can heal yourself from these automatic behaviors that the brain has learned. So neural pathways that have been created through trauma can be strengthened, can be reprogrammed to be less emotionally startled by life events. Now, it may feel impossible for life to be any different from how it is now, but I promise you, from my many years of trauma, that life does feel worth living when you start doing your healing. The past doesn’t haunt you, and you are excited for the future.
Now, there are a few strategies that can help. One: seek professional help. So important. A mental health professional can help you to understand your symptoms, and they have to be trained in CPTSD. The downside is, CPTSD isn’t in the DSM. So the DSM is a huge book, it’s kind of like a Bible, it has all the mental criteria, and basically someone says, “Right, let’s flick to page 16, okay, so you have this trait, this trait, this trait, this trait, this trait, this trait, therefore, I’m going to say that you have bipolar.” But you see where we’re going with this. So it’s basically a system of checkboxes. See, CPTSD is not in the DSM. When I was typing this script, I was putting all the words down, and the “C” from CPTSD kept getting deleted. Very annoying, just did not recognize it. So because of this, you can end up being misdiagnosed with ADHD and also borderline personality disorder. Now, let me tell you, a really, really good therapist does not believe in mental health labels. My advice is, go to a private therapist. It’s a lot of money, I know, but it’s so worthwhile. And NHS one or a state therapist don’t really cut it. And that’s for another video. And also, don’t use BetterHelp either, and I’ll definitely cover that in another video. You want someone that can see you have suffered with childhood emotional neglect, you have trauma, so they can develop a treatment plan that’s tailored to your needs. This could look like EMDR therapy or DBT therapy.
Now, finding the right therapist for you takes some work, and it may involve different people until you find a person that you trust. But talking helps soothe that pain, and that is how you heal. Build a support network. Connecting with others who have experienced something similar to you is refreshing, and being able to relate to others makes you realize that you did nothing wrong and you are not so different from the rest of the world. There is a subreddit for CPTSD, go and check it out, because when you realize that other people can relate to this, it becomes a safe space, and in time, gives you the courage to slowly work those tangled bits up in the brain that keep your brain running on emotional trauma.
Continue to watch content like this, learn more about CPTSD, and if you resonate with any of the signs, simply take one sign, take one symptom that you don’t like, and learn what that looks like in your life, and spend 3 to 6 months working on ways to slowly undo that automatic behavior. It’s going to take time, you are going to make many mistakes, and it is very hard, but it is so, so worth it, I promise you. Self-awareness is the biggest and first step to living a better life, and that is coming from someone who met the criteria for CPTSD a couple of years ago. Take care.