Trauma symptoms like flashbacks, nightmares, intrusive memories, and hypervigilance really suck. These are largely what people think of when think think “PTSD.”
But they’re not the whole story for people who have experienced complex trauma.
“Complex” trauma is trauma that occurred over time; that was functionally inescapable; that entwined with our important relationships; and that f*cked with our beliefs.
Complex trauma produces symptoms that are less “obviously” trauma symptoms— symptoms that many mistake for personality disorders, bipolar disorder, or even psychotic disorders.
Complex trauma can also make survivors overwhelmingly vulnerable to substance and behavioral addictions— so much so that I consider addiction a reliable indicator that a sufferer’s past probably includes complex trauma.
Why is it important to know what complex trauma looks like?
Because recovering from complex trauma requires specific tools, skills, and philosophies— as well as a commitment to not blame ourselves for things that happened TO us.
Complex trauma can absolutely coexist with other mental or behavioral health struggles, including PTSD.
In fact, struggling with mental or behavioral health is very often itself a risk factor for CPTSD.
(Think about it: of the criteria I just laid out for complex trauma, mental and behavioral health struggles check almost every one of those boxes— meaning that most people with a psychiatric diagnosis are also likely to struggle with at least some aspects of CPTSD as well.)
What you need to know about CPTSD is that it is not your fault— or your “personality.”
Many CPTSD survivors struggle with reflexive trauma responses for so long, that we feel CPTSD defines our personality— but that’s just not true.
We are not our trauma.
And if we’re going to realistically recover from trauma, we have to get crystal clear that this is not about us— this is about what happened to us.
Recovery from CPTSD tends to happen in three stages: safety and stabilization; trauma processing; and life reintegration.
Safety and stabilization is where we build the tools, skills, and support to not want to slice ourselves up or kill ourselves every day— and we use these tools, skills, and support in every other trauma recovery phase or task we subsequently do. It’s NOT one of these things where we graduate and never think about the stuff we learned again.
Trauma processing is where we actually look at what happened to us and how it f*cked with us— and there are dozens of ways to do that, including cognitive work, somatic work, EMDR, and lots and lots (and lots) of other methodologies. There is absolutely NOT one “right” way to do trauma processing for everyone— nor one way that reliably works for everyone.
Life reintegration is where we fit all that work into the broader context of our life and future. Because it doesn’t matter how hard we work at this stuff if it doesn’t fit into our everyday existence. Trauma recovery work that stays in a therapist’s office is only good in a therapist’s office.
None of this is stuff most of us were taught.
If we know any of this stuff, it’s probably because we’ve been on the wrong side of some nasty lived experience.
But I want everyone reading this to know that this “recovery” sh*t works.
It’s not magic. Most of it is neuroscience, behavioral science, and addiction recovery— and most of the keys to making trauma recovery “tick” have been around for centuries, and are publicly available.
It’s not your fault if you haven’t cobbled together the tools, skills, philosophies, and support you need to recover from CPTSD— yet.
Reading this post might be a piece of the puzzle. And you’ll stumble upon other pieces to the puzzle if you keep looking.
But it works. It’s possible.
You’re not the exception— you are a human being with a human nervous system, and you are alive to read these words.
That’s how I know there’s hope for you.
Don’t quit before the miracle.
Breathe; blink; focus.
Use Your Damn Skills 