I would caution against labeling your PTSD as "fake" or not "real" because it is not from a war. I too have struggled with this, in my opinion everyone's experience is unique. And not being able to talk about it or have it generally understood by the public can be a trauma in and of itself.
On this point, I'd add that I didn't know anything at all about PTSD, and had hardly even heard of it, until I had a one-time appraisal from an extremely qualified psychologist (he was not psychotherapist or psychiatrist) about 15 years ago. This man had treated war combat veterans. I've never been in a near-death experience or injured on the front line in a war zone (although my father was, and that's a related story).
In our conversation, I told the psychologist that I spent a huge amount of time regretting and thinking about the past, playing it over and over in my head to the point of involuntary, intrusive thoughts about my childhood and youth and bereavements, that even gave me headaches. That they sometimes felt like they were driving me crazy, and escapist fantasies of suicide were soothing. He said that it "sounds like PTSD" and then explained why. So, he was happy to use the term in a very broad sense.
I then read up about it, and discovered
C-PTSD or "complex" PTSD sometimes a.k.a.
developmental trauma, which seemed to fit my case more than say a combat veteran.
Then some years later I went for a psychotherapy initial consultancy session, and I told the woman what the psychologist had said, and what I had read, and came her reply: "Let's not over-pathologize it. PTSD has become very fashionable as a handy diagnosis, just like CBT has become a handy fix. It might not be PTSD that you have. It might be any number of other things. And CBT might not be the solution."
So, I gathered these three 'data points' on my self-help journey. I think they're all valid. Maybe something in that for you, too.
