KAZ-2Y5
Verrückt
- Jul 23, 2023
- 149
CPTSD explained
Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a type of PTSD that is caused by severe, repeated trauma, such that involves captivity, manipulation, and entrapment. It is trauma that is long-term and involves an inability for escape. This trauma occurs long enough to deform one's sense of identity and self.
There is no mandated list of criteria for C-PTSD in the DSM-5, but there are six clusters of symptoms that are currently used for diagnosis. These major, core symptoms of C-PTSD are:
This is the disorder I have and probably developed as a young child, definitely by adolescence. The step "above" or after CPTSD is DID (dissociative identity disorder). So CPTSD is a very severe disorder thats developed by inescapable abuse.
If you've been through parental abuse I suggest talking to a therapist thats trauma-informed and taking attachment style quizzes, I have two links below.
https://attachment.personaldevelopmentschool.com/quiz/?utm_source=google-search&utm_medium=cpc-lead&utm_campaign=18002521897&utm_term=&gc_id=18002521897&h_ad_id=615763633191&utm_content=personal%20development%20school%20attachment%20quiz&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0bunBhD9ARIsAAZl0E0d7XQ0DM94hFzeYof4Rt7OTYDiT7Lx51DYQyogEgOwpHreU6YJZ80aAlPLEALw_wcB
https://www.attachmentproject.com/blog/four-attachment-styles/
I have either an anxious-avoidant attachment style or a anxious preoccupied attachment style.
Basically, the underlying idea is that "pushing away" behaviors were the trauma response acquired during our childhood. Perhaps you have a part of you -- or, say, a "voice" inside you -- who thought, during your childhood, getting close to someone is dangerous due to its experience. This part is still stuck in the childhood trauma, so it thinks everyone you meet today is the person from the trauma -- and it tries to "protect" you and itself by pushing people away, Or perhaps it is trying to appease someone (likely the abusive caregiver) by pushing away their potential "competitors" Or perhaps it thinks you are unlovable, and sees anyone who wants to get close to you with suspicion.
Our goal is to communicate with ourselves, so that we understand where our parts are coming from from, and why -- from the perspective of the trauma -- they think we have to push people away. By doing so, hopefully these parts can understand that they don't have to push people away anymore.
I am doing a lot of Internal Family Systems/parts work lately. I do think it can be useful for anyone with CPTSD or OSDD or anyone with parental abuse.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is an approach to psychotherapy that identifies and addresses multiple sub-personalities or families within each person's mental system. These sub-personalities consist of wounded parts and painful emotions such as anger and shame, and parts that try to control and protect the person from the pain of the wounded parts. The sub-personalities are often in conflict with each other and with one's core Self, a concept that describes the confident, compassionate, whole person that is at the core of every individual. IFS focuses on healing the wounded parts and restoring mental balance and harmony by changing the dynamics that create discord among the sub-personalities and the Self.
I know we are all on here determined to take our lives soon hopefully, but I wanted to add something for trauma survivors in case you wanna help yourself in the meantime or have second guesses about wanting to CTB. I know I'm back and forth with being full in with the CTB plan and often times backing out. I know I can't waste my time on earth so I'm using every resource to help myself recover or find meaningful relationships, might as well while I'm at it.
Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a type of PTSD that is caused by severe, repeated trauma, such that involves captivity, manipulation, and entrapment. It is trauma that is long-term and involves an inability for escape. This trauma occurs long enough to deform one's sense of identity and self.
There is no mandated list of criteria for C-PTSD in the DSM-5, but there are six clusters of symptoms that are currently used for diagnosis. These major, core symptoms of C-PTSD are:
- Emotional Dysregulation - This involves severe mood swings/dysphoria, impulsive behaviour, self-harm, and suicidal preoccupations. This could result in explosive anger, or extremely inhibited anger, or both. It could also result in either compulsive or extremely inhibited sexuality (i.e. hypersexuality or sex repulsion/trauma-induced asexuality, or both.) This also involves difficulty expressing and communicating emotions.
- Consciousness Instability - Forgetting traumatic events or reliving them is a part of a struggle with consciousness. Sometimes reliving trauma can be either through intrusive thought, or preoccupation with the trauma. This also involves dissociation, which can cause severe consciousness interruption and memory gaps.
- Self-Perception Issues - The trauma that causes C-PTSD messes with the ego, so its symptoms result in a skewed perception of self. One might feel helpless, full of shame and guilt, like a constant victim or a horrible person, feel defiled and disgusting, and/or believe they are completely separate from other human beings altogether.
- Distorted Views of the Perpetrator - Becoming preoccupied with a perpetrator, whether it's allotting total power to them, developing a preoccupation with them (such as revenge or seeking to find others exactly like them), or clinging onto the idea of being special to the perpetrator, would all be examples of distorted views. This can also include becoming obsessed with the abuser, the victim starts dissecting their relationship with the abuser, they may also feel that their abuser is omnipotent or they may get into obsessive, ranting arguments in one's head with the abusers.
- Struggle With Interpersonal Relationships - Avoidance such as withdrawing from others, distrust, paranoia and paranoid ideations, a sense of inability to connect with others. One with C-PTSD might also be constantly searching for a 'savior' figure, and could also go to great lengths for self-protection.
- Loss or Change in System of Meanings - The beliefs one held before trauma changing or going away completely, such as religious faith, or one being succumbed with despair or feeling like there is no hope. Someone with CPTSD may lose all faith in humanity and see the world in a very dark way.
- Revictimization - Those with C-PTSD are particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Many will be revictimized if they are not taught how to read red flags, as those with C-PTSD may seek to relieve trauma without realizing it because they don't know anything else; If abuse was their normal growing up and they never knew anything outside of abuse, they subconsciously seek to relive the trauma in new abusive relationships.
- Emotional flashbacks - This is when you have intense feelings that you originally felt during the trauma, such as fear, shame, rage, or sadness. You may also experience severe depression, thoughts of suicide, passive suicidality.
- Hypervigilance - Increased anxiety and sensory input will make the survivor hyper-aware of everything in their environment. This may result in paranoia, extreme jumpiness, straining of the neck, etc. Someone with C-PTSD will be constantly feeling like they are in a dangerous situation, and thus be hypervigilant due to that. (This may cause someone to be constantly in fight mode, or flight mode, or freeze mode, etc.)
- Unexplained Physical Symptoms - Hypervigilance exhausts the body. This is what most professionals believe leads to chronic pain, gastrointestinal issues, headaches, nausea, chest pain, and various other physical symptoms that range from mild to severe. This pain cannot be explained by other existing medical conditions.
- Dissociation - Degrees of dissociation range. It is common for those with C-PTSD to deal with chronic dissociation, which can lead to emotional numbness, feeling unable to focus, inability to connect to one's identity or reality (depersonalization and derealization), and memory loss. To a severe degree, it may result in identity splitting, which would lead to comorbidity with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Those who experience dissociation may feel detached from their surroundings, their actions, and their body. They may experience gaps in their memory surrounding the original trauma or an everyday task that reminds them of the trauma they experienced. People with C-PTSD also often have trouble feeling their emotions, or identifying how they're feeling: they subconsciously try to separate themselves from their feelings, because they're afraid they will be overwhelmed by them. Dissociation can also take the form of distracting oneself from one's feelings or circumstances–being a "busyholic", sleeping way more than necessary, constantly looking for distractions, excessive daydreaming, etc.
- Substance Abuse - It's not uncommon for those with C-PTSD to struggle with substance abuse, whether it's alcohol, drugs, smoking, etc. Some may also use sexual contact in the same way.
- Attachment Issues - C-PTSD can cause various problems with attachment, including hyperempathy or a lack of empathy, an inability to accurately perceive other people's motives, isolation, seeking out codependency, feeling unable to depend on others at all, and not knowing where personal boundaries lie for themselves or others.
- Cognition Problems - Executive dysfunction, inability to pay attention, communication problems, sensory overload, object impermanence.
This is the disorder I have and probably developed as a young child, definitely by adolescence. The step "above" or after CPTSD is DID (dissociative identity disorder). So CPTSD is a very severe disorder thats developed by inescapable abuse.
If you've been through parental abuse I suggest talking to a therapist thats trauma-informed and taking attachment style quizzes, I have two links below.
https://attachment.personaldevelopmentschool.com/quiz/?utm_source=google-search&utm_medium=cpc-lead&utm_campaign=18002521897&utm_term=&gc_id=18002521897&h_ad_id=615763633191&utm_content=personal%20development%20school%20attachment%20quiz&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0bunBhD9ARIsAAZl0E0d7XQ0DM94hFzeYof4Rt7OTYDiT7Lx51DYQyogEgOwpHreU6YJZ80aAlPLEALw_wcB
https://www.attachmentproject.com/blog/four-attachment-styles/
I have either an anxious-avoidant attachment style or a anxious preoccupied attachment style.
Basically, the underlying idea is that "pushing away" behaviors were the trauma response acquired during our childhood. Perhaps you have a part of you -- or, say, a "voice" inside you -- who thought, during your childhood, getting close to someone is dangerous due to its experience. This part is still stuck in the childhood trauma, so it thinks everyone you meet today is the person from the trauma -- and it tries to "protect" you and itself by pushing people away, Or perhaps it is trying to appease someone (likely the abusive caregiver) by pushing away their potential "competitors" Or perhaps it thinks you are unlovable, and sees anyone who wants to get close to you with suspicion.
Our goal is to communicate with ourselves, so that we understand where our parts are coming from from, and why -- from the perspective of the trauma -- they think we have to push people away. By doing so, hopefully these parts can understand that they don't have to push people away anymore.
I am doing a lot of Internal Family Systems/parts work lately. I do think it can be useful for anyone with CPTSD or OSDD or anyone with parental abuse.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is an approach to psychotherapy that identifies and addresses multiple sub-personalities or families within each person's mental system. These sub-personalities consist of wounded parts and painful emotions such as anger and shame, and parts that try to control and protect the person from the pain of the wounded parts. The sub-personalities are often in conflict with each other and with one's core Self, a concept that describes the confident, compassionate, whole person that is at the core of every individual. IFS focuses on healing the wounded parts and restoring mental balance and harmony by changing the dynamics that create discord among the sub-personalities and the Self.
I know we are all on here determined to take our lives soon hopefully, but I wanted to add something for trauma survivors in case you wanna help yourself in the meantime or have second guesses about wanting to CTB. I know I'm back and forth with being full in with the CTB plan and often times backing out. I know I can't waste my time on earth so I'm using every resource to help myself recover or find meaningful relationships, might as well while I'm at it.
