BPD Complex ptsd vs. bpd

[Lucycat]

@Butterflywings - have you read the book , Trauma and Recovery ,by Judith Herman? It is fascinating.

multiple interrelated post traumatic stress disorder - is another term sometimes used to explain CPTSD

 

[Butterflywings]

Lucycat Actually I would agree with you that it is somewhat more than just the long term nature of it and definitely the inability to escape it. That was why I got diagnosed with it. For me, being abused by a psychiatrist meant that even though I was an adult, I could not escape it. Someone who was supposed to protect and help me, instead abused me. Police, politicians, health complaint bodies... none of them would step in and stop the abuse. For years I really thought the only way out was death, that that was the only way to end the torment.

I've read short parts of her book online and have ordered the book off ebay a few weeks ago. I mentioned it in another post. It's the one the psych who most recently diagnosed me (rediagnosed me) with it heavily recommended.

I haven't heard of "multiple interrelated PTSD" but I think that's a good description

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

I don't have a personality disorder or dissociative disorder. I have no personality symptoms and my dissociations are only purely in the context of PTSD and don't meet the criteria for a separate disorder.

Then wouldn't this be just PTSD and NOT CPTSD?

IMHO, I have always thought that CPTSD was just something made up and totally pointless. Honestly I see it as saying "my trauma is bigger then your trauma" and nothing more then comparing trauma with others. Or at least that is the impression I get on the forum.

Just being honest.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

That may be the case in america, but here in Australia it is the opposite.

Actually Anthony is Australian. Just FYI.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Wow I think @Ayesha totally gets it. I think a lot of it is the need to compare and say mine was worse than yours, especially in light of the fact that @Butterflywings has stated that the symptomology is the same as PTSD and it's just the cause of the PTSD that is different.

Practitioners aren't stupid. Please don't assume that those of us with childhood trauma are lost without proper care and that we're receiving the wrong treatment as it's geared toward single incident trauma survivors. A differential diagnosis isn't going to suddenly blow open the scope of treatment options for those with long term trauma.

 

[Lucycat]

@Butterflywings I am curious. Tell me to go jump if you wish. What is the nature of your job? You mention you work in the Mental Health field, but I wonder what as?

I am astounded that you are working within the very environment that caused your trauma, although I appreciate there are not always many options.

 

[shimmerz]

@Solara, I know when they first started to treat me, without knowing my background, they put me into CBT. It was way too much due to the fact that I had pre-verbal trauma so was displaying somatic symptoms that needed to be dealt with before I could get to CBT. I don't try to get to a 'mine was worse than yours' place but when the trauma happened and what coping mechanisms were available at that time I believe has a ton to do with how effective certain treatments are. Some can be very damaging in my experience as I am not yet ready for them.

 

[Lucycat]

@shimmerz I agree with you. My therapy had to be adapted and slowed to a snail's pace because I became overwhelmed very easily. I am not an expert in PTSD but my therapist and psychiatrist both are. It was them that told me that my PTSD is not 'normal' and had to be treated differently.

 

[shimmerz]

Thank you @Lucycat. I am not trying to argue terminology here but I am saying that cookie cutter treatment for PTSD without recognizing complexity, developmental issues, preverbal issues, sexual nature etc are an effective solution for something and I worry that the blanket label.

I know that people fear a further breakdown of diagnosis for PTSD but I liken it to having a cancer diagnosis and saying well, you have cancer so in order to treat it we will start opening you up and keep doing so until we find it. The unnecessary 'opening up' when we all know that there are different types of trauma that need to be dealt with in specific ways seems to me to be harmful and can ruin us for the rest of our lives.

And it seems to me that it is dealt with in this way because we use blanket PTSD diagnosis rather than for instance 'Developmental Trauma' or 'Singlular Trauma' etc. I worry that because you can't x-ray it (although you can get background) and there are no guidelines that doctors are prone to follow one method for all.

 

[Butterflywings]

@Ayesha I wouldn't say CPTSD is an attempt to say one PTSD is bigger than another. Any more than a person saying "my trauma is caused by military service versus domestic violence" for example as saying is one is worse than the other. It's just recognising a different trigger. An individual can have more severe or less severe PTSD with any trigger.

@Lucycat, I trained as a psychologist, decided working in psychology wasn't what I was looking for. Applied for medicine (to become a psychiatrist) but abandoned that plan when I had a baby a month before I was supposed to start my medical degree, so I retrained as a psych nurse which I love. Also doing higher study at uni with my plan to get a PhD next and then do the course to be a nurse practitioner in mental health so I'll be able to prescribe meds as well. At the moment I'm limited to having to ask the on call doctor for prescriptions which is slow and annoying. Oh I also have a science degree with a major in neuroscience that I did at the same time as my psychology degree. Loved neuroscience, studied under this awesome guy called Jack Pettigrew who also had bipolar and his work was brilliant. So I've pretty much looked at mental health from a lot of angles.

I'd always planned to work in mental health since I was a kid and saw how badly my mum was treated by the system. I kept my plan to do it even after what I've experienced personally because I have this huge desire in me not to let what I went through happen to anyone else. It's not easy at all. Just last week I had to tell my coworkers I needed a break and sat outside and cried until I could get myself together. I've recently had a few months off because my pregnancy triggered a return of my PTSD symptoms and if I didn't take some time off, I'd have ended up hurting myself to cope with working and didn't want to go back to that. Spent my time off looking up latest research in my areas of interest (misdiagnosis being a big interest of mine).

My way of dealing with what I went through myself is to help others so no one else will go through it. It's the only healthy coping mechanism I have to be honest. All my other coping mechanisms are not healthy at all. I need to keep working in my job to have a sense of purpose. I know how damaging it is, and the psychiatrist I've seen a bunch of times over the last 8 months was adamant he didn't want me going back to work (which is why it's so hard to work with him) but I need to. Work feels like my only useful function and I know I'm making a difference to people. If it ends up breaking me, the reality is staying at home will break me too. I did nearly quit last week though, but that's from working with a jerk registrar who needs a kick in the head with his attitude towards patients. I knew I only had to work with him for two weeks so hung in there (have to work with him again later this year though so not looking forward to that) but I'll deal with that when it happens.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

So what you're saying is that everyone is getting sh!tty treatment if they have childhood trauma and that a separate diagnosis would eliminate this problem? Well, that's not my experience, not in the least. Maybe there are better resources around me, I don't know, but it seems like mental health providers are currently aware that single trauma PTSD is different than ongoing childhood trauma PTSD and as such they know that it must be approached differently. I think that perhaps the label is being given a lot more weight than it is potentially worth. I don't think that a new and separate diagnosis is going to bring about a lot of change that many think it will. Well, for the simple fact that the underlying symptoms that are being presented will still be the same. In the end, you treat the symptoms, not necessarily the umbrella disorder. That is, beyond the basics of processing the trauma in one way or another, the symptoms need to be approached individually.

 

[Notsowild]

As a child sexual and physical abuse survivor I do believe I did not get adequate help for it. But then twenty years ago there was not the knowledge that there is today. I had been to numerous psychiatrists, therapists and group therapies and while some kept me alive they did nothing for my trauma symptoms. It is just now after my second trauma and finding a terrific psychiatrist and trauma therapist do I feel I'm finally getting some much needed help.

So maybe there should be a separate diagnosis.