What is complex trauma?

[ground crew]

I found this site in the depth of a depressive episode a couple of years ago. job loss and homelessness, repeated failure, found myself at the VA choosing my words carefully to avoid being locked up while still impressing them with my depressive symptoms. It took a couple of weeks but I was finally hooked up with a magnificent therapist who took me down the path of EMDR. This is where I found out that I had been a life long member of the big trauma club. Long story, obviously, but it did explain a lot of symptoms. I conected a lot of vague memories together, including the military shit, and now have perspective on how I got injured and what triggers me.

Along the way, I got involved with a group that studied mindfulness and meditation. They were patient with me and heard me describe my startle reflex. I had (or have..) a really big startle reflex. I could tell what had startled me, but not what "startle" FELT like, they suggested I try to FEEL it. life obliged with a startling event, I put myself into a mindful state, recognized the attacker as "known-likely a joke" and braced for impact, rather than launching into a counter attack. I FELT my body do it's adrenalin response, it was very illuminating. I also found on that day that freeze is a valid response. "fight-flight or PAUSE". Pause is a very useful response.

Turns out much of the anger I feel is the physiological effects of adrenalin, as in the driver cut me off, I felt scared, my body squirted some adrenalin into my system and I had nothing else to do with the surge of energy but cuss and wave my fist, thus reinforcing the adrenalin reaction. the benefit to me of sensing the adrenalin, is I get to step back and take a deep breath and calm myself. My anger response is often less.

I am not cured, I am better, I had a lot of good therapy and did a lot of independent work, the journey continues. The therapy is good, it helps one figure out what it is. I suggest mindfulness and meditation helps one deal with the symptoms.

 

[Cookie85]

:D. Two contradictory things at once. Not always feelings, thoughts too. I can be very back and forth...

EVERYTHING YOU SAID IS EXACTLY HOW I FEEL! All. The. Time! I've even been the a neurologist so see what could be the problem. I am a teacher and forgetting things - simple things that shouldn't be something easily forgot (like an adjective vs noun or the correct steps for long division). It's such a stress to have parent teacher conferences because I feel like I jumble up all of the words and I can't seem to remember all the 'big education terms' i learned in college. I've been teaching for 8 years. I didn't seem to notice the forgetfulness or loss of skill until about 4 years ago.

Anyway, like you said. I feel like I'm so stupid, but I'm not - I graduated with 4.0! WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN! WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY BRAIN!

I just recently started therapy for my past and my codependent tendencies. I was molested between 5-7. I honestly can't remember. It was during that time that my father also was sent to prison for embezzling money for my mothers business. My brother and I went from a private school with 2 happy families to a broken home, bankruptcy, and living between different grandparents - which is when the molestation began. I have very few memories of my childhood. My mom jokes that I wasn't born with a brain since I never remember stuff. It's an awful feeling. I remember parts of the molestation however. Just last night trying to go to sleep, his face kept popping into my head. I wanted to claw my eyes out. I tried to think of positive, happy things like holding my daughter for the first time, but his face kept coming up. I don't want to 'taint' (IDK if that's the word I need or not..ugh) the happy thoughts of my daughter with his face. I'm afraid if I try to think of holding her that his face will keep showing up and then the happy memory will be ruined.

I am always worried about hurting others' feelings or just plain not saying the right thing. I'm going through the most difficult time right now because of it and it was started because of some bad choices I made due to peer pressure. I'm 30 and should be able to make my own choices for myself. I was so anxious and stressed, but couldn't tell my friend I wanted to leave which put me in a bad situation...again! This friend is not a real friend at all - this was the 2nd time she had done this in 5 years. I don't want to get into it obviously, but my wedding was called off 3 weeks before the wedding. :*-( I am no longer friends with the girl that I felt I had to please and go along with. I am still engaged (barely).

My memory sucks and I don't know if it has anything to do with my past. I have guilt, pain, confusion, and a slue of other negative feelings. I want to be happy. It's like I was happier when I didn't start talking about my past and how bad it possibly messed me up. IDK. I'm just sad. That's all I can really say. I'm sad.

ALL this to say, I totally understand where you're coming from. :( hugs to you all!

 

[rainy_daze]

:hug:s to you cookie85. I highly recommend joining the forum here.

his face kept popping into my head. I wanted to claw my eyes out

My T said this a common thing that happens to survivors of child abuse. I'm not saying there is any great comfort in that, but I found that knowing other people have the same things in their head as me meant I am no longer trapped in an irrational fear that I'm crazy.

I feel like I'm so stupid, but I'm not

It's sad how this happens to clever people. I think for me, if I break down the thought pattern, it's I'm stupid because I didn't stop the abuse from happening and stayed a silent victim. I'm trying to work on some self compassion at the moment, so I won't say more.

I will keep the thread on topic by asking again, What is complex trauma? I still find this the most simple and straightforward answer

Complex traumas is the traumas a person suffers

and then there's lots of debate around what fits as a definition of trauma being classed as a complex trauma.

:sleep: It makes me tired, so I'll leave it up to the professionals to argue amongst themselves before they reach a consensus. I know why my T explained complex trauma and how it fits me/the events that happened.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

It was talking past tense, not present tense. Prolonged can also mean, a single event that went for a long t...

Anthony, copied this for someone else from my introduction so im gonna paste it here, it has a lot of holes in it but would this be complex PTSD? I know its brainwashing and still trying to wrap my mind around "human traffiking" but CPTSD is a new term for me and wanted to know.

I've been diagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder, PTSD, Generalized anxiety Disorder and possible but not diagnosed Attachment Disorder. I grew up in a very bad cult, Santanic like thought it was being called christianity, headed by my mom & step dad. They told me "god speaks to us & told me to do this because you were bad"...or "...to love you" and punishments could be cutting me down there to boiling water or bleach or any burning chemical put in me to being urinated on to really anything. My dad left my mom when I was 12 so most of it started them but she was having an affair with him when I was 7 and thats when he started having sex with me, I was "special" and "beautiful". The forcing of watch porn videos with him and my mom around 9 yrs old and she was easy to get her to believe his "religion", he had his own bible and everything and as embarrased as I am to say this, I still believe, as much as I believe the sky is blue, that they could hear god and god told them to do these things. If it were another child it would be wrong to me, but because it was me, I dont see it as wrong. Age 12 they had me prostituting for them so I could pay them rent, half the bills, my own food though they dod have me eating out of the trash for a while. But their cult members would have sex with me as well as both my mom and step dad, 46 times was the most in one night (6 hrs). My step dad would have "gentle sex" with me which I actually looked foward to and still think about to this day and call him my "first love", its the only time I felt loved or very oddly, even safe. I dont ever remeber being a virgin so I dont remwmber who took that, i know a 14 yr old boy jad sex with me at 7 but i cant remember before age 7. They did forced small animal sacrafice and that, though forced, because I became ok with it in my own mind, is why I put myself in the same catigory as serial killers. Also forced bestiality and other horrible things. My step dad died anout a yr ago though he's alive in my head and my mom and i havent talked or had contact since I was 19 but I hear her force all day long. When little we, my brother & I, went to a christian church but its also there were a pastor had sex with me many times in the church so terrified of chirches, very confused about religon and "god", very mixed up in general. I've been in therapy a bit over 6 yrs and will be for yrs to come. I was sent to this site by my therapist as I can't seem to get to actual local support groups and support is important as my entire family are out of my life and don't talk to me (their choice, they dont beliebe me) except my dad who left me there and i was isolated from when I was 12, i just unsupressed this 6 yrs ago and he's 74 and down plays it all and I have no friends equaling no support to be able to counter the "brainwashing" that was done. Personsonally I am an artist, mostly pencil portraits though I can draw still life, animals and really anything and paint with acrylics. I'm dyslexic so was labeled "stupid" and also a victim of horrible bullying in school to the point of rocks being thrown at my head so I had no safe place except where I went in my head. I'm now almost 35 and really want to change my life for the better and get better. I am able to work but other than that, the extreme fear of people keeps me inside. I'm also a clean addict, 12 yrs of 2 drugs and 1 yr of another. In the cult they gave me drugs to keep me compliant but it numbed it some and so I continued the addict cycle. I am a cutter and when I'm clean of drugs I do that instead, that still is an ongoing thing. I feel I am a very good friend if people would over look my issues and give me a chance; I do everything I can for anyone, what you tell me I take to my grave and I am a very honest person. Other than than those things though I fail to find the good in me. I've been suicidal since I was 8 and have thought about it every day since and many MANY failed attempts. So that's me and the fastest way to tell you my story. I feel Im in a dark hole, no light to see and in therapy we've hit a wall almost so I dont know how to "un-brainwash" myself, stop self doing the rituals, and get better. Sorry if this is too graphic, dont know how to tell my story without at least saying this much.

 

[AEW]

Reading Anthony's announcement about this forum, got me thinking, do I know what complex trauma is?...

From my experience and what I understand from what I have read so far (only a recent diagnosis, hadn't heard of it before then) is that complex PTSD is something that causes a mental death in the sufferer, they sometimes cannot even remember who they were beforehand or who they were meant to be - this is especially common for children as they were still developing their sense of self and understanding of the world around them. Quite often there are repetitive themes that come up for them to re-affirm certain beliefs that make healing the trauma difficult because they believe they can never really be safe and that the vigilance is needed to survive. Complex trauma is always because of deliberate, ongoing acts of human cruelty, whereas PTSD can be because of interpersonal trauma it can also be from random event such as a one off sexual assault by a stranger or natural disaster, car accident etc. Complex PTSD is from trauma that changes you very very deeply and requires a lot of investigation to find out what all of these layers of trauma may be, how they have affected you and personally I think it requires a lot of trust in the practitioner leading you through therapy. Not to diminish PTSD in any way, they are both horrific by nature. But for example, I have a history dating back to when I was 5 years old, with extreme bullying which caused me to make my first attempt on my life when I was 8. I never fit in and was very isolated - there were never any repercussions for the children that did that. By itself it wasn't that complex, but then my father died suddenly in front of me when I was 16. Previously I had been denied mental health care because supposedly I can't of been depressed because I could manage to get out of bed (wtf I know - turns out it was probably BPD). Then within months I was in a relationship with a man 22 years my senior who groomed me, severely distorted my trust in the world more (being mr saviour then turning into a nightmare) who damaged my psychological health further (was trying to convince me to kill myself and that I was going crazy/ gaslighting) sexually and physically abused and tormented me, made a couple of attempt of my life and stalked me, got me fired from 4/5 jobs, ran up credit cards in my name and oh yeah, got arrested twice for questioning and never faced any consequences. Then I meet someone who had been abused himself, thought he would be kind - as soon as I was past being able to terminate my pregnancy denied me food, affection, access to cash and wouldn't let me have my own set of keys to the house - could technically leave the house but I couldn't lock it behind me and come and go as I pleased and tried to isolate me from friends and family through manipulation, but I didn't really bite this time because I had already dated a psychopath, this dude was just a angry little boy in comparison. But he is still set on trying to destroy my life even though I left him 14 months ago and legally can't disappear on him because we have a 20 month old together. So now I have trust issues and trouble trusting my own judgement of people amongst a whole other can of worms I don't know yet. Bottom line is my sense of safety, belief in kindness and justice doesn't really exist anymore. I have dual belief systems around many things - so therapy is very complex. Haha my poor psyche doesn't get paid enough for this crap.

 

[Powder]

I see complex trauma in a very particular way, and that is when the victim does not even know what has been done to him or her, will defend the abuser, and exhibits variants on Stockholm.

I believe abductees held in captivity who were tortured, abused, raped, neglected, starved and those human trafficked or enslaved fall under this category, as well as children living under such conditions.

Take the case recently of a young boy who nearly died of starvation at the hands of his legal guardians, his grandparents. His sister near in age was well fed.

The boy was kept with the dogs, treated as one, and was not fed or clothed or bathed.

When authorities saved him, he was hours to death. He wanted to go home, and he has absolutely no notion of anything other than his family love him and take care of him as he deserves.

This is complex trauma, because the first job of the survivor is figuring out who the goodies and the badies are all while doing the normal steps of coping with PTSD.

When the symptoms rear up, the complex survivor more than other PTSD survivors will retreat into further dissociation and will shun the T and the healing process as "healthy" feels extremely foreign, shocking, and the opposite of safe for them.

You have the decades of adaptation to reality and the normal world that you do not need to factor in to regular PTSD. This is called re-parenting. As it sounds, this is a whole load of work for a T. compared to regular PTSD, although the PTSD coping strategies overall significantly.

 

[WhisperingUnicorn]

I can come alongside this description, @Muse - My fiancé is a survivor of the kinds of circumstances you detail here, and had a VERY "unhealthy" attachment to his FOO (family of origin) nonetheless. (Very "Stockholm Syndrome" esque - so thank you for pointing that out! Very descriptive, actually.)

Thank G*d he had "something" in him, nevertheless, that longed for genuine connectedness, and he has risen above the "rose-coloured" glasses towards his past ab*sers. But it took him 30 years of adult living to do it .. And I don't at all mean to sound boastful, but he really overcame BECAUSE of our relationship .. we didn't give up on each other, we've actively dug deep into his narrative/chronology, he's worked HARD at the internal work to forgive, to know if/when/how to "reconcile", and to even understand WHAT "dissociating" was .. He only thought he was crazy, was terrified for a LONG time that I would "discover" his "crazy" ..

He knew there was "more than one of me" in his head, but feared some truly awful explanations (demonic possession, carrying around the spirit of his dead twin, etc.) .. Quite frankly, THIS site has helped perhaps more than any other as a resource for us to get our hands around what was going on, how to understand it, and the FRUIT of our years of investment and commitment to one another has brought him internal PEACE for the first time in his life. He still "dissociates" but can *usually* keep from switching involuntarily .. he has GOOD "internal communication" and cooperation, and frankly some very obvious "integration" now so where before he was split into 4 "insiders" - 3 have "integrated" or ARE integrating with each other, so now he really only has 2. And the "grumpy" one (protector) .. because the other 3-now-1 are managing his world together, making good decisions, cooperating and "working the plan" together, learning how to love and trust and establish and maintain healthy boundaries, and RECOGNIZE what is a real "threat" and what isn't .. this "grumpy" protector (the most intellectual/strategizing/assertive/not-at-all touchy/feely (!) amygdala response part of my man) is able to be "out" in life in NON-threatening situations, and this is having a healing effect, too!

I used to tell him, "No wonder 'Grumpy' is so 'grumpy' all the time! The only time he's 'out' is when you're being threatened and he has to FIGHT, so he only ever sees the UGLY in the world. All he knows is threat." So "Grumpy" was always angry - at both the world, AND at the "rest of him" for not being able to "handle" it and "forcing" him to deal with it when all he wanted was to SLEEP! .. but as of the past couple months, my fiancé doesn't even call this part of him "Grumpy" anymore. Somewhere along the line, "Grumpy" started being known as "Boyfriend" inside his system. (LOL) As in, MY boyfriend. This is particularly meaningful to me, cuz "Grumpy" always spoke about his "others" as "them" and disdained "their" emotion/longing for romance, etc. So "Boyfriend" always SHUNNED the idea of us being in a relationship - THEY were in a relationship with me, THEY were my "fiancé" and HE just wanted to SLEEP and not be needed. But now he views us as "partners" in keeping the rest of him SAFE. He sees he can TRUST me. And he's fiercely protective of me, too - always has been, actually. This is a VERY big deal. So "Boyfriend" (formerly Grumpy) isn't JUST my man's amygdala response (switch/hard click), he's the categorically rational, chess mastermind, work the plan/stick to the plan (!) side of my guy, his internal regulator (perhaps "guardian" more than "protector"?) so to speak. And "Boyfriend" and "Me3" are also almost entirely "co-conscious" - and my man can usually "announce" when "Boyfriend" is gonna be blunt or assertive, so he kinda prepares me so I'm not offended ("Boyfriend" cusses like a sailor and is super cut-to-the-chase, whereas the rest of my man is mediating, careful of his audience, etc.) ... And in some ways *I* have become his "protector" which now gives "Boyfriend" the opportunity to be "out" during GOOD times in our world/life/relationship. And he's SEEING the world differently, which has ripple effects throughout the rest of my man's internal world. It has been a BEAUTIFUL thing to watch unfold. Truly ..

The complexities of his past traumas notwithstanding, his SURVIVAL strategy - to whatever extent it was subconscious or deliberate - has not only delivered him to the age of nearly 50, despite several past suicidal seasons, but he is weaving himself back together which only MAGNIFIES the beauty of both his KEEN mind, and DEEP tender spirit. He is what some might call a "healthy multiple" (so, some title like "DID" is a complete misnomer, because he is NO LONGER in "disorder" even though he's still a "multiple") .. And he is absolutely EXQUISITE and admirable and "praiseworthy and excellent" in every way ..

I'm perhaps gushing a little off topic, but thanks for letting me (us) have a "safe" place to discuss things that we genuinely CAN'T discuss "in the real world" with others. :)

~WU

 

[Changing4Best]

I went through years of Childhood sexual abuse and then much later as an adult was date raped repeatedly by my live-in boyfriend for about a year before I finally successfully ran away from him. (I tried to run away unsuccessfully 16 time, before the 17th time finally stuck). In a sense, he had me imprisoned, because he would not allow me to have ANY friends, tried to make me detach from my family completely and so on. He choked me once (that was his first abusive incident) and then later raped me so that until I was able to finally get away from him for good, I knew that I could not fight him off, if he wanted sex. So after the rape, I did not try to do so. I just let him have me whenever he wanted me, which was every night when he came home at about 3AM after being out all night playing cards, doing drugs and drinking and doing whatever else he was probably up to (crime of some sort).

I have been in therapy for most of my adult life of one kind or another.

Later on, I moved 625 miles away from him, just to be sure he could never re-enter my life. I moved for other reasons too, of course, but under all of them was the feeling of freedom I have now, that I know he will never come here or bother me. This is not his kind of place. He's a city slicker and I am a country girl. I live way out in the mountains now. It is peaceful here. It is good.

 

[MoMc99]

I'm here finally, because of the word "complex." I kept dismissing PTSD as not applying to me fo...

I was of the same opinion until I had a trigger/panic/flashback in my house and my fire fighter friends told me it was PTSD. One I looked it up, I found the book, and it describes me to a t. Things I've never told anyone about. And I've been in therapy for years. Ways that I now see were coping.

 

[Freedomfighter]

Reading Anthony's announcement about this forum, got me thinking, do I know what complex trauma is?...

I think when one has had many different traumas, including childhood trauma, trauma during abusive relationships, as well as additional stress factors complex PTSD appears.

I am pretty sure that is true in my case because past predators have abused me by mimicking my abusive father and by mimicking my abusive ex husband and have actually used stalkers to interrupt my life.

 

[Ronin]

Many different traumas, I can see.

But childhood automatically meaning complex isn't the case. Childhood makes everything tangled because developmental trauma just does that, but I'm not sure it's automatically complex.

It can be, a variety of traumas within childhood. But it can also be the very same, repetitive and damaging trauma, all over. The ways it'd be damaging? Quite different.

Similarly: People tend to think childhood automatically means captivity (because inescapable situation, within family/caretakers), therefore qualifying for complex trauma (often defined by inescapability of situations.) I'm still low on verbalizing that, but the times I was with abusive family, vs. trafficked by other parts of abusive family, vs. kidnapped by other people outside of that family, vs. separated from them, vs. trafficked up to whole of my adult life? Have been hugely f*cking different.

They're different things. With different issues. One doesn't equal the other. The issues they bring are different. Inter crossing at times. Badly. But different.

& That's just thinking the victim angle on this. Don't even get me started on the fricking mess being made a perpetrator or perpetrator to protect others makes, because that one is a huge clusterf*ck I feel needing its own axes, as moral injuries require different way of treatment and healing altogether and I don't even know of research that'd solidly have *that* part down, and forever taboos and hush-hush about all of it are just suffering.

 

[eloc]

I am not really clear on complex trauma versus complex PTSD despite all the discussion but I find a lot of my different and numerous traumas and inability to deal with them revolves around the world being extremely unjust - and there being no natural or effective man made justice - suffering or seeing people suffer with no resolution. Its one thing to be injured or hurt but to be not supported to stop further injury or hurt or to recover or to see it again and again is for me what makes it ingrained - a disenchantment and an anger at injustice.

I worked in social justice sphere and now I really can't even think about the injustices I used to deal with in my daily work. I wonder if disenchantment and an anger at injustice is an issue for many people exposed to complex trauma. For me I have walked away from dealing with injustice for others but am managing to fight away at one particular injustice hanging over me and the strange combination of picking and limiting my battles but not giving up and having some success in making justice for myself has healing powers.