CPTSD Traits?

[Iam]

Yep, totally understand the wanting to numb the pain with substances Oz. I think that with therapy I am starting to feel the pain more and hence the desire to use. Not worth it though. I got drunk a few weeks ago, ended up sobbing which made me dissociate and suicidal so I had my husband take me to the hospital. So not worth it!

The lack of trust issue is huge in not letting people close. . I have very close friends that I do trust, but sometimes I think it is a pseudo intamcy. IDK...it's all so confusing.

In fact I think I am more confused about myself than I have ever been. I don't know who I am or what I want (other than I want to stop experiencing the symptoms LOL). Sometimes I think I am fine and this is all some stupid act. It's like it isn't me who is symptomatic, it is someone else that I don't even know. Does that even make sense?

 

[intothelight]

Hi Iam,

Were you inside my head? I can totally relate to a lot of what you posted.

It gets confusing with C-PTSD and PTSD, because I don't have all of the symptoms associated with C-PTSD. I wonder if people commonly fall in between the two.

 

[Iam]

I have asked the same question ITL....so maybe it's you inside my head LOL! IDK.....even with PTSD few people have every single symptom. I know I don't. I have traumas that could put me in PTSD, but also traumas that indicate C-PTSD so I have wondered if I have both. I have the dx of PTSD, but the "C" really covers symptoms I have in addition to the ones typical of PTSD. I guess the long and short of it is that it doesn't really matter. We have some form of PTSD and we know our symptoms. The key is to learn how to manage them.

I find that I still want to fight the dx. PTSD or C-PTSD. My T talks about as a child that I either had to think that my parents were bad or that I was bad. In order to survive the choice was obvious. I have forgiven my parents, at least I think that is what it is. She seems to think that it's more not wanting to accept that they were abusive. Intellectually I do, but I also find myself saying "Oh it wasn't that bad, others have had it far worse." Kind of typlifies a C-PTSDer doesn't it? :confused:

 

[intothelight]

I figured it out, its telepathic communication! LOL

I know what you mean and there have been many times, I minimized abuse. Hell, I just forgot all about it. :confused:. I probably lean a bit towards the C-PTSD spectrum with the childhood abuse and the long-term domestic violence. I'm not sure it matters, other than I need to be cognizant of the symptoms and behaviors, and how to effectively manage them.

But either way, its not going to define me. That is problem with diagnosis, as we sometimes make them labels.

 

[ASterling]

I was diagnosed with complex PTSD in June, 2007 because I had 3 separate incidents - one when I was sexually assaulted at age 21 by a formerly trusted instructor, one on Jan 15, 2005 when, on my second day at work, my boyfriend left my baby by himself for 20 minutes and he rolled into covers and suffocated, and when I came in after work to discover this, my daughter found him first, and then I took him, not knowing what had happened, and did baby CPR but he died in my arms, and the final with the culmination of an extremely brutal period of online/in person stalking ended by the stalker putting up a web page falsely stating that I, my daughter, and the baby's father murdered my baby (I know it doesn't make sense). I only began experiencing symptoms after the third and final inciting incident. I saw when I was participating on the message boards before that there were people who had childhood histories of abuse and long-term abuse. I didn't have it so great growing up and it definitely caused what I guess were "pre symptoms." I haven't even addressed that with the psychiatrist I see. She went through all these factual lists and said that I had "beaten the odds" because I was so well-functioning.

I was symptom-free for at least a year and believed that I was healing and I had a trigger yesterday a.m. and the adrenaline hangover today.

I feel like this has cost me so much of my life already and I'm so exhausted.

I was enough better to say that my baby died in my arms, I can say that now - and now this. The stalker was soliciting my friends via the internet to put their work with him on a website (I'm a professional writer). Just seeing his name and seeing his ugly, crude statements immediately convinced me he wanted to steal from my friends and destroy the co-op I belong to. I escalated right back to where I was 3 years ago. It only lasted full on for a few minutes but it is all I can do to type this today and try to reach out.

 

[Iam]

I am so sorry A Sterling. I can't even imagine having your baby die in your arms or being stalked. That I guess is the unfortunate thing about PTSD/C-PTSD, it can rear it's ugly head at any time. I had a breakdown 9 years ago and PTSD was mentioned. It wasn't until this year that I was officially dx'd with it. C-PTSD can't be a formal dx yet though it sounds like it will be added to the DSM next year. Not that it matters to me one way or the other, both SUCK. When my husband and I got on this forum and started studying it we were both kind of blown away because it explains so much of my reactions throughout our 32 year marriage. A light bulb definitely went on.

I am glad that you have a therapist who can help you thru this stuff. I would imagine that having the experience of being able to manage your symptoms would be encouraging. Hopefully you will get back to that point much quicker this time.

 

[chasing_absolution]

OMG..reading these threads is like reading something I wrote. Mass confusion about who the hell I am and not knowing what the hell I want from one damn day to the next. Wanting someone but not wanting them too close. It's like I am afraid they might see who I really am and hate me. I feel like everything anout my personality is fake and only I can see the real me but the real me confuses me because I don't know who she is, and that makes no sense at all. Does that make sense to any of you?
I would love to drink and drown my pain but to drink means to lose control of myself and I can NEVER do that. I have to be in control of my world (as small as I have made that world). NOTHING can be allowed to infringe on how I want my world to be. In my world things are constant and I don't have to worry about anything and it makes me feel almost normal. Any intrusion in that creates anxiety that I cannot handle. Everything I do HAS to be MY choice otherwise I have anxiety attacks and will work to put my world back to ordered rights.
I feel like I am the living dead...marking time waiting to die.

 

[Aine]

I'm not officially diagnosed with CPTSD because it's not in the DSM IV but I can identify with a lot of the symptoms that people have already listed. One that I will add though is:

Eating Disturbances

This is something that has plagued me for years. I suppose I use starvation as a method of controlling my life and as punishment. If something bad happens in my life and I feel it was my fault, I stop eating.

 

[apex_70]

For me the most confusing part of CPTSD is the loss of sense of self, not knowing who you are and the sense of vanished time and not knowing how you arrived at where you currently are.

Time moves in increments, each second follows the previous second; and the same with minutes and hours. But, this is like waking up out of a coma. Knowing you were one person before and you are another person now and not being able to connect the two people within your sense of identity or not being able to draw a line of time to connect the person you once were with who you are now.

 

[Iam]

Wanting someone but not wanting them too close. It's like I am afraid they might see who I really am and hate me. I feel like everything anout my personality is fake and only I can see the real me but the real me confuses me because I don't know who she is, and that makes no sense at all. Does that make sense to any of you?

It makes total sense to me CA. I have always thought of myself as a chameleon because I can blend and fit into almost any group of people. I also made me good in sales because I could easily mirror my prospects and clients. The other good thing about it is that it's pretty easy for me to understand how someone else is feeling. Funny thing is people like me because of that, but oh boy get the different groups together and who would I be? Ha.....don't even know who I am anymore, if I ever did at all.

I am now really controlling my environment as well. It's very isolating at times, but I feel like I need to do this not only to be stable, but stable enough to work on myself. It all SUCKS!

 

[chasing_absolution]

I can't remember who I used to be. Thinking about myself pre trauma is like looking at someone else. Someone I don't know. I don't know if I liked that person, I think of myself then like someone you read about in the news. You know some details but you don't know what lies beneath. I never think about who I used to be, although I have cried and grieved for that girl. I never stopped to think about that before today. I never realized that I avoid thinking about who I was.
I mark my time by what I HAVE to do today. I have to laundry. I have to do the dishes. I have to clean the bathroom. The rest of my time is lost in daydreams and fantasy to avoid thinking about what has happened to me. Maladaptive Daydreaming they call it, I think. I create a dream world, that I am well aware is a fantasy, so that I can escape my thoughts. When that doesn't work I go to bed and stay there until I HAVE to get up.
I stay up most of the night and eat and make myself vomit because I ate. I hate this life. Like other when I am really upset I stop eating....then I smoke and clean..javex until everything is clean enough and my hands are so raw they bleed. Nothing can be clean enough. I don't feel clean enough.

 

[chasing_absolution]

Sometimes when I am out, which is rare, I run into extended family and I talk..talk talk talk about nothing....jokes and small chat that keeps them laughing..the whole time I am sweating and my heart is racing and I want to run away...they never see past the talk...I always get "you're so funny" and "your so personable"..HA if they only knew what lies within me...An empty shell that has no smile when she is alone. Before I was housebound, because I basically am, I could hide well at work. I don't know what happened that I now can't function as well as I did before. I just can't. It was difficult before but now impossible, and I don't know why and what changed that I am now so scared that at least functional outside my house is not an option anymore.