Claire Evers

The information provided on this site is for educational purposes only and does not substitute for professional medical or psychological advice. Consult a medical professional or healthcare provider for advice, diagnoses, or treatment. Claire Evers is not liable for risks or issues associated with using or acting upon the information on this site.

Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

CPTSD is defined by the World Health Organization as being a mental health condition that can develop if you experience chronic, or long-term, trauma, especially during childhood.

Examples of chronic trauma can include:

• Long-term physical or sexual abuse
• Long-term domestic violence
• Long-term emotional abuse/manipulation
• Being a victim of human or sex trafficking
• Experiences with war or becoming a war prisoner
• Frequent community violence

Any situation in which your basic human rights to safety (emotional or physical) have been taken from you as a part of an ongoing situation qualifies as chronic trauma.

Complex PTSD symptoms

Most mental health authorities will give out the typical list of symptoms for CPTSD which greatly mimic those of PTSD.

• Anxiety, Depression or other stress disorders
• Flashbacks or nightmares
• Avoiding situations, places, people that remind you of the trauma
• Heightened emotional responses
  • Impulsivity
  • Aggression
• Persistent difficulties in sustaining relationships
• Loss of sense of self, or shame
• General feelings of worthlessness
• Hypervigilance
• Suicidal thoughts
• Dissociation
• Feelings of constantly being alone
• A deep need to be rescued

But what if you repressed the trauma you underwent to the point that the stress has literally been stored in your body? What would your physical symptoms for CPTSD be? What about the impacts on your mental, or social health? For anyone who is skeptical about the physical side effects of trauma (treated or untreated) feel free to check out The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma written by trauma expert Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD. (This is not a paid endorsement.)

Other signs of CPTSD

Muscle Tensing and Chronic Pain

• This symptom presents because we expect something difficult or painful to come our way due to our constant state of hypervigilance from our trauma so we tense our bodies in anticipation of the next attack. This is also known as muscle armoring.
• This tensing can lead to chronic pain that may even result in a need for physical therapy or preventative exercises, i.e. yoga, meditation or gentle walking to help consciously relax the muscles that won’t let go on their own unless you purposely train them to do so.

Brain Fog

• Dissociation, a mental process of disconnecting from your thoughts or feelings, memories, etc., is a common psychological symptom of PTSD or CPTSD. It’s a way to deal. But sometimes we separate ourselves so much from our environment that finding our way back can be a grueling process.
• Also, Cortisol from the overall heightened sense of stress also impedes clear thinking and decision making, causing a person with CPTSD to struggle with daily life tasks and figuring out what they need to do.

Insomnia

• With frequent, and sometimes downright terrifying nightmares it shouldn’t come as a surprise that people who dealt with chronic trauma don’t enjoy where their minds go when they’re asleep and are at their most vulnerable. Frequent, terrifying nightmares can cause you to go through periods of time where you will only sleep an hour or two each night because of your fear to go to sleep.
• Cortisol also causes a stress response that releases adrenaline. In some cases, these adrenaline rushes, especially those experienced at night (which could be heightened by the type of trauma you experienced) can make it difficult to shut off your brain and body so you can get some sleep, resulting in chronic insomnia.

Increased Startle Reflex and Panic Attacks

• We all get startled by loud, unexpected noises or events. With CPTSD, your heart rate can jump to a physically uncomfortable level where it takes you longer to recover and return to a normal daily activity after being startled.

Repeating Negative or Traumatic Behaviors

• This happens when your sense of normal has become so distorted by your trauma experience that you don’t fully know what to look for in a healthy relationship. Some people revisit situations that are reminiscent of their trauma, only to deepen their trauma and perpetuate unhealthy relationship patterns instead of seeking healing environments and people.

Chronic Fatigue

• Constant second-guessing, adrenaline rushes and muscle tensing can take their toll on any person. With CPTSD chronic fatigue is just the way your body is showing you how overwhelmed you are from the trauma and your trauma responses.

Heart Palpitations

• When your baseline stress levels are higher than a normal person’s and you encounter a triggering situation or revisit a memory that is traumatic, it can cause physical changes in the rhythm or intensity of your heartbeat.
• For some people this can manifest with occasional/irregular heartbeat rhythms, occasional/irregular heartbeat intensity, a sense of heaviness in your chest or even a racing heartbeat that is normally associated with a panic attack

Excessive Daydreaming OR Catastrophizing

• This is when your thoughts take a turn towards scenarios that are normally worst-case and you get so deeply entrenched in these thoughts (and so quickly) that you don’t realize you’re in the middle of them until (a sometimes significant amount of) time has gotten away from you. You may miss a deadline, space out while performing a routine task, forget to make a phone call or make it to an appointment.
• These symptoms can follow you around during the day, or at night and make it difficult to sleep, and feed into your insomnia.

Self-isolation

• Being alone feels safe because you control the environment, and when it doesn’t involve other people, you can begin to find too much peace in being alone. Unfortunately, this is where social anxiety disorders or agoraphobia can creep into our mental health and fool us into thinking we are meant to be alone.

Chronic Health Problems

• When your nervous system is in a constant state of overwhelm and you encounter everyday bacteria and viruses floating around in the world, it can become more challenging to fight off infections and/or recover from them.
• This immune suppression can range from mild to severe and if you find yourself in the doctor’s office and undergoing a lot of tests, only for your results to come back as normal, and you are aware of the trauma in your past, it may be time to reconsider the source of your ongoing health issues.

As someone whose spent a lot of time in doctors’ offices trying to find the root cause of my health issues, I can tell you from experience that very few medical doctors are trained to notice or treat severe mental health disorders. As someone who has dealt with this, I can say that the mental/emotional toll this takes on a person can be extreme, whether your symptoms are mild or severe. If you find yourself in a place where you feel misunderstood or alone, please don’t be afraid to reach out for help.

You are not broken, you’ve been hurt and you are capable and worthy of healing.

CPTSD Diagnosis

CPTSD is a relatively new diagnosis that not all avenues of health care yet formally recognize. Even when they do, CPTSD is often associated with regular PTSD as a sub-diagnosis, or is grouped alongside BPD- Borderline Personality Disorder.

Where CPTSD, PTSD and BPD differ is in the source of the diagnosis. For PTSD all that’s needed is a single traumatic event to qualify. For BPD the source isn’t necessarily trauma related and some attribute the source of the symptoms to be a difference in the brain that is difficult to prove as either precipitating the diagnosis, or being a symptom of the diagnosis, however it is common for people with BPD to have experienced childhood trauma that led to their eventual diagnosis.

With these closely related diagnoses available, CPTSD is just beginning to become something the mental health community is willing to diagnose and treat as readily as other mental health, or acute stress disorders. Despite this, it is estimated that somewhere between 1% and 8% of the world’s population suffers from CPTSD, and with growing awareness it is likely that this number will rise, hopefully bringing with it more understanding and resources to better diagnose and treat this serious condition.

Treating CPTSD

Medications

Everyone is different. Unfortunately there is no medication that is approved to treat PTSD or CPTSD at the moment, however antidepressants or anti-anxiety medication is often prescribed to treat the symptoms of PTSD and CPTSD.

Types of treatment

Like other mental health disorders, CPTSD benefits from the following:

• Talk therapy
• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
• Support Groups
• Meditation and Mindfulness
• Gentle Self-care
• Creative Activities

Whichever path you choose, you should know that if you feel like you need therapy, but it feels financially out of your reach, or like you could use a support group to help you process your trauma but have a hard time getting to one, there is another option.

Reading Material

If you haven’t already read by above recommendation of The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma written by trauma expert Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD, then I would encourage you to look up The Complex PTSD Workbook by Arielle Schwartz, PHD.

It’s available to buy on Amazon for roughly ten dollars, again this is not a paid endorsement, just a helpful suggestion out there for anyone who is struggling to deal with their trauma.

Here’s the blurb:

Conclusion

Not enough research has been done over CPTSD to know what the true prognosis is, however it is thought to be a lifelong condition. With treatment and support, it can be managed. If you have CPTSD, or have survived trauma it can feel like every day is simply an act of survival.

I hope that you found some understanding here today as well as a landmark pointing you in a helpful direction. If there is anything you have questions about CPTSD or this post, or have a suggestion to help the CPTSD community, please feel free to leave it below, I’d love to hear from you as we raise awareness together.

May God Bless and Keep You!

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