What are the Characteristics of Complex PTSD? 

The even better part is there is treatment for the effects of complex PTSD! I wish you the best.

That is so great!!

It makes sense that it is hard to try again with a new therapist. And yet you are worth it. Often times the things we do in life that are worth the most are the hardest to pursue. You may need to talk through expectations before you start counseling to ensure you feel safe and clear about their approach to therapy. Thank goodness you are no longer in a toxic work environment. It sounds like that was a very positive change.

Thank you! I'm so glad you found it informative. That is absolutely my goal! There are so many diagnoses that can go along with PTSD, when the real issue is complex PTSD. I obviously cannot diagnose you; however, it concerns me that the ICD-11 isn't being used more broadly and so the Complex PTSD diagnosis is not available to practitioners. The most important thing is that you find providers that are addressing your core concerns and helping you heal.

I watched an interview with Gabriel Maté and he was saying how many therapists generally don’t have the training in trauma.

​@@KryCaNethis is very true.

Fight to get your C/PTSD Dx back it’s a game changer in your well being & recovery! I was able to challenge my therapist’s decision to change my PTSD dx, by correlating the tolls of lifelong domestic abuse with war, and she finally switched it back to PTSD. Her reason to re-dx me a cyclothymic depression was that PTSD should only be reserved for Military vets & refugees. My therapy sessions sucked & became useless after that. Once my original Dx was re-established I was back to receiving the teachings & exercises applied in PTSD therapy, helping me continue making strides & breakthroughs in my life again.

WOW! Talk about resilience! To navigate that and still have a good head on your shoulders is an AMAZING accomplishment! Healing from trauma is a journey and requires MUCH grace and respect for you! Sounds like Jasmine Road has created a safe place for you to heal. I'm so glad you were rescued!

I m so sorry you went through that 😢 long hug💞

I completely agree. It is a long journey. It sounds like you've had good support! That's so important!

Have you tried microdosing? If you haven’t I suggest you give it a try you can reach out to him via my username name

I understand entirely! Always a good idea to write things down before your appointment. If I don't (and I frequently don't), I always leave something off. I hope the report and more importantly the treatment is spot on and helpful!

As long as your therapist understands what you are faced with and is helping you reverse the impacts to your brain, I would say you're in good hands! And that's very positive!

Unfortunately loving being alone can be a part of it too. Makes sense when a person has been tremendously let down by the people who should have been the most reliable, it can make it hard to be around people. Connecting to yourself is the important thing and can help with everything else.

Thank you!

That is very interesting since it is not an available diagnosis in the manuals that are used in the US. I do think the awareness of it is growing. What matters most is that the treatment you receive is helping you.

A good therapist (like mine) will just use PTSD and then something like DESNOS, depression or anxiety in diagnostic forms to keep insurance paying.

@@rsgreen30 I love that you have a good therapist! DESNOS is not available in the diagnostic manuals either, unfortunately, but if you have a therapist that knows about it and is treating you within that context, I think you're in great hands!

Well said! I appreciate your comment.

You're welcome!

I was under the impression Canada had not yet adopted the diagnostic manual with CPTSD in it. BUT, I'm so glad you've gotten an accurate diagnosis and I hope it's leading to helpful treatment!

@@resolvetorise I totally could be wrong. But I know when I was in therapy, I was diagnosed with CPTSD ! I am now year past therapy and well managed thank goodness

@@trinitysmith1915 That is so great!!

I hope it continues to improve. Sounds like you're getting some help. We all need that.

That is so much to have weathered through! Thank you for sharing your story and for what you sacrificed for others with your work as a fire fighter! I think medications just dull the symptoms of CPTSD (and often not all that well), but they do NOT address the changes it causes in your nervous system. There are things you can do to slowly, but surely start addressing those symptoms to try to lessen the intensity of it all. I shared some in ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Ubi_fvHIap8.html. If you continue to try to do things to lessen the symptoms, it will start improving. I am proof of that! Also, you may find my book to be a helpful guide and a validation of what you're experiencing. It is called Resolve to Rise: Become Greater than Your Circumstances. Feel free to email me through my website.

That's part of the foundational symptoms for sure and part of "re-experiencing the traumatic event." And, those are very hard to deal with for certain!

Well... I'm not the only one... Nightmares are the worse for me.

@@tomlauritzen9522 Nightmares can be persistent and disruptive for sure.

And waking up with panic attacks?

@janec1489 I had these for so many years but therapy really did help with this part of CPTSD. The therapy was about understanding how your brain functions and why these night terrors/panic attacks happen. Once you fully understand what is happening, you are able to literally ride this out. Learning How to ground yourself. I hope you can find some peace of mind, I know how you feel.

Sounds like it. It's good to know what the heck is going on so, you have a path forward. So many great approaches out there!

Thank you!

Totally. I agree entirely! Rarely are narcissists interested in making improvements! You are very perceptive... I think that is a very important point about the resembling of those two things. It has been said if a person has PTSD and borderline as a diagnosis, it is likely the more appropriate diagnosis is CPTSD. And, CPTSD is treatable!

CPTSD is nothing like borderline.

I have c-ptsd and it is not at all like quiet borderline. I have no black and white thinking, I have emotional regulation, I never selfharmed, I have no fear of abandonment and no problems in relationships because of jealousy. I have c-ptsd, because I was sa multiple times at the age of 7. I have flashbacks, body dysphoria. Not gender dysphoria. I panic and dissociate when I get sensory input and suddenly my brain becomes hyperaware of having a body. I derealise and depersonalise. I'm generally higher on the dissociative spectrum and experience different "moods". A functional one where I tend to overwork, become a workaholic and burn out while being dissociated and anxious and trapped in the feeling that I had when I got sa and then sat in class 30 min later and needed to function. It has a constant underlying anxiety. I also regress into hobbies I liked as a child and don't have anymore as an adult like riding my bicycle and having the strong urge that I need to ride a bicycle all the time. And a different one where I don't function at all, but am connected to my feelings and body and am very social. They are called ego states and ego state disorder is between normal dissociation and partial dissociative identity disorder/ OSDD. The disorder doesn't exist anymore as a stand alone and is grouped together with c-ptsd. It's nothing like what people with borderline experience. My inner workings are completly different and DBT f.e. wouldn't even work. Therapy like DBT that is directed at surpressing dissociation is harmful, when used with a cluent that experiences structural dissociation. As an explanation for that. All children have ego states that merge and come together roughly at age 5-7 to form a personality. If there is severe trauma like sa and r*p* sometimes this never happens and this developmental step isn't finished. I only ever existed in a dissociated state, which is why therapyforms aimed at BPD cause harm. I can't not be in a dissociated state, because it is a structural part of my personality. Yet it's not heavy enough to be called DID. Which is why I'm diagnosed with c-ptsd, which I do have. I hope this cleared a few things up. People with BPD can also have c-ptsd. Not everyone with c-ptsd has BPD/quiet BPD.

@@danika9411 Seems like you have learned a lot about how your sa impacted you and how you've adapted. You also seem to know quite clearly what is helpful and what is triggering, not helpful, and even damaging. All of that is so powerful when you are trying to heal from something so significant.

Thank you for your comment! Complex PTSD is a diagnosis included in the International Classification of Disease (ICD) - 11. The problem is the ICD-11 is not being used everywhere, so the diagnosis is not available in places like the UK or the US. As a result, individuals are being given a PTSD diagnosis which is insufficient for the complexity caused by the repetitiveness of the trauma.

I completely agree since they've been studying the impacts to the brain since around 1990! I believe the more "embodied" approaches are most helpful, like neurofeedback, somatic experiencing, brainspotting, and I love network chiropractics (no talking, just discharging what you've held in your body, and opening up your nerve pathways -- increasing your resourcefulness). There are many more too. I put videos on my website at www.resolvetorise.com/trauma-and-treatment.

Trauma has less to do with the incident and more with the way it made you feel. If you were excluded to the point that you felt fearful for your survival; to the point of overwhelm, and weren't able to get it resolved, it is possible. Trauma has occurred when you are in a situation that creates psychological overwhelm. It puts the person in the situation into a state of hypervigilance, and the other symptoms mentioned.

Trauma-sensitive yoga can be incredibly helpful! For some it may be triggering. It really just depends on what the persons trauma entailed and what they find triggering. But, if it is not triggering, it can be profoundly impactful in a good way!

The good news is that there are treatments for the symptoms. As scientist have learned more about what CPTSD does to people it has also increased its awareness about what helps.

It is possible, yes. It can be challenging though to sort it all out, because the symptoms of C-PTSD overlap with the symptoms so many other disorders. It's good to have a neuropsychologist with expertise in trauma when determining the proper diagnoses.

The symptoms associated with CPTSD are caused by the changes it creates in your brain (for more information watch ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6aQXhpfWDO0.html). There are many great evidence-based approaches that help address and reverse those changes. I really like neurofeedback and network chiropractics (very different than ordinary chiropractics), but there are other approaches that help like brainspotting, internal family systems, EMDR. I also included some brain impacts with some approaches you can start today to minimizing those impacts in this video (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Ubi_fvHIap8.html). I'm curious what type of therapy you received?

@@resolvetorise Thanks for your reply. I had ACT and some EMDR. Sessions were fortnightly.

@@jacquismith3277 That makes sense you were finding them helpful. When you say it "helped to start with", Are you saying it stopped helping or just that when you stopped the the improvements didn't last? If it is the former, you may want to try another modality like brainspotting, internal family systems, somatic experiencing or neurofeedback. If the latter, are you able to go back to therapy? Healing is a process and takes time. I found the more embodied work I did the better... things that helped increase my awareness of my body's response and taught me how to start calming the reactivity down. You are worth the effort!

@@resolvetorise After therapy, the effects didn't last. I will start looking for more therapy. I can't go back to my previous therapist as it was time limited (NHS in the UK) so will have to find someone else. Thank you so much for your input. It is helpful and reassuring.

I hope you've been able to find someone to see and it's helping again!

It can be helpful knowing there is a legitimate reason for it all... and now for healing.

Sometimes a therapeutic encounter isn't therapeutic. There are a lot of individuals practicing counseling that need to do their own work. I hope you will hang in there and find someone who can show you regard and support you in your efforts to heal.

I abandoned Facebook after just one month. That thing is mentally poisonous.

@@DeborahThird-og1uo Unfortunately, it can be. Lots of nonsense gets posted on Facebook.

Seems you're a Dylan fan! I absolutely think some have stories that don't seem real because of how extreme they are. And yet, unfortunately, not much is too far fetched to be true. I hope you're finding things that help.

​​​Everyone of those descriptors ​@@resolvetorise are true. Things I've said about myself are _I was born on probation_ No-one wants me because no-one wants me. *_when God was handing out virtue's there wasn't anything left for me_* I look like the North bound of a South bound camel *You can find me at parties in the shadow of the book case reading up on the 31 topics I'm madly obsessive about in an intense manner* and not talking to anyone. *I had an emotion once so l wrapped it up & sent it to the Smithsonian for further assessment* _"Shelter me from the powder and the finger_ _Cover me with the thought that pulled the trigger_ _Just think of me as one you've never figured"_ *"Powderfinger"* (Young)😂

Let that serve as validation. If you thought things seemed hard, that's why... and there are so many approaches emerging that help reverse the impacts!

We definitely all go through hard circumstances, some go through traumatic experiences, and some grow up in repetitive trauma (or experience it in adulthood through things like combat exposure or domestic violence). An even smaller percentage end up meeting the criteria for PTSD or Complex PTSD. The resulting symptoms from either can take a significant toll on individuals and the healing journey takes time. The more support you have, the more resources, the more of a healthy lifestyle, etc... the more resilient you are regardless of what you face.

Also how you deal with it depends on whether you have support in your life or not. If you're just left to deal with it alone and/or it's minimised, that's when the rot can set in.....

@@janec1489 It is absolutely a lot harder without support!

There are many evidence-based approaches that help reduce the symptoms of CPTSD. I have uploaded links to a bunch of videos that describe many of them at www.resolvetorise.com/trauma-and-treatment.

You never know. haha