What's The Difference Between Ptsd And Cptsd?

[lostforgottensoul]

The crap I deal with now is outside the PTSD diagnosis and into the realm of emotional abuse which doesn't rise to the level of causing PTSD.

I thought your orginal trauma was CSA, which is part of criteria A trauma. And I also thought you were diagnosed with PTSD? But, even if you weren't, there are many here that weren't diagnosed (thus the "undiagnosed" selection in intros) but experienced a criteria a trauma.

 

[EveHarrington]

I thought your orginal trauma was CSA, which is part of criteria A trauma. And I also though...

Yes but I struggle with the effects of the emotional abuse, not the effects of the sexual abuse.

 

[Crow]

Abuse is abuse is abuse.

Psychological trauma is some of the most insidious

 

[Friday]

Having PTSD doesn't mean that you become immune to everything in life that isn't life threatening trauma or sexual violence. Nor does it mean that every aspect of trauma that isn't death & sexual violence is problem free.

If my biggest problem is grief? That doesn't mean I don't have PTSD. It just means that PTSD isn't my biggest problem, right now. It may be mobbing on, and complicating my grief, or it may be a non-issue. But, either way, I'm allowed to have 2 problems f*cking my life up.

Same token, while IMO PTSD itself is pretty straightforward, the effects of trauma can get complicated as f*ck. What's giving me the most difficulty may have little to nothing to do with the events that gave me PTSD, but instead be related to other things going on at the same time, or things that happened before or after. Things that if they existed without the initial trauma may have f*cked me up all on their own, or may have been no big deal. Or may be very coloured by my trauma history. The only real point that matters? Is that they're f*cking me up, and need sorting.

Just because emotional abuse all by itself won't give someone PTSD, it doesn't follow that someone with PTSD won't have been abused emotionally, or if they were, they won't have lasting problems from it.

 

[EveHarrington]

I mean that emotional abuse doesn't cause PTSD so if that's what I'm struggling with, the effects of emotional abuse, then it doesn't seem right to post my struggles anymore on a PTSD board. That's all.

 

[Crow]

Where'd you hear that?

Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) is a condition that results from chronic or long-term exposure to emotional trauma over which a victim has little or no control and from which there is little or no hope of escape, such as in cases of:

• domestic emotional, physical or sexual abuse
• childhood emotional, physical or sexual abuse
• entrapment or kidnapping.
• slavery or enforced labor.
• long term imprisonment and torture
• repeated violations of personal boundaries.
• long-term objectification.
• exposure to gaslighting & false accusations
• long-term exposure to inconsistent, push-pull,splitting or alternating raging & hoovering behaviors.
• long-term taking care of mentally ill or chronically sick family members.
• long term exposure to crisis conditions.

 

[EmmaOwl]

It means you have to go into some uncomfortable detail to explain why your ptsd is special. So i le...

Ha yeah, uncomfortable detail. When it's necessary for me to mention PTSD trauma, I go with the big public one, not my small child-related one that is embarrassing on multiple levels. And you know what? I'm often grateful for the socially-acceptable one.

Sometimes I mistakenly trick myself - I think the earlier one was not such a big deal, when truthfully that was the root of my illness. :(

Anyway it's a little weird that anyone would give you a diagnosis of CPTSD, as it's not an official diagnosis in the U.S. This is the first place I've run across the acronym CPTSD; I always figured it was due to being an international forum.

I don't think there's much need to distinguish between PTSD and CPTSD. PTSD is complicated enough, and can result in a vast array of symptoms, each at a vast degree of severity. I don't think it's a different illness - that's just IMHO.