UNDERSTANDING THE LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF COMPLEX TRAUMA - C-PTSD

By: Tanya Fruehauf MA, RCC, CCC, CSAT

Overview of C-PTSD

Complex Trauma (C-PTSD) is a response to experiencing repeated and prolonged exposure to dangerous, volatile, inconsistent or neglectful relationships with people closest to you. Most often, it is born out of childhood trauma such as parents or family members who abuse or neglect a child. Other times it occurs due to a lack of consistent caregiving, attunement or protection from harm. However it can also be the byproduct of adult relationships marked with things like verbal or emotional abuse, gaslighting and sexual betrayal by a spouse.

While everyone’s stories differ on the nature of their trauma, the bottom line is that someone has endured prolonged interpersonal harm and whomever experiences the harm does not feel they have the ability to cope, achieve safety or end the pain.

Long-term effects of complex trauma (C-PTSD) shows up in a myriad of ways for adults. You tend to feel turbulent and find it challenging to control how you feel and respond to situations (i.e. lack of emotional regulation). This can leave you in a state of constantly searching for something outside of yourself to manage your feelings. Sometimes you want to feel ‘more’ or feel ‘less’ or just ‘different’ but the relief is temporary and usually found in external things: sex, romance, intrigue, money, alcohol, drugs, food, online content and shopping.

GLIMPSES INTO THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF COMPLEX TRAUMA

You meant to go to sleep at 11pm but it’s 2:30am and you suddenly realize that over 3 hours have gone by but you lost track of time. Your thumb is starting to fatigue because you’ve been scrolling aimlessly on social media or a hook up site. You are looking at never-ending images but they blend in together creating a blur.

Even though you are tired, you’re also feeling restless and you can’t quite tell how to soothe yourself. You ask, “Do I need rest or relief?” Rest is surely the answer. But since you have insomnia, the promise of endless scrolling becomes your adult bed time story.

You eventually feel bored but also restless so your hand might drift down between your legs because you remember self-stimulation has been a ‘go-to’ for release, relief and then rest. But you’ve made too many promises to yourself that you would stop using this as a coping tool because it’s been compulsive and it leaves you feeling even emptier than before you did it…

New plan: you might go to the fridge to binge on sugary or high carb/high comfort food. But as soon as your brain has hit the dopamine and taste bud jackpot, regret and shame set in.

Eventually at 4am you feel yourself finally drifting off into that long-sought sleep. But you pray that your slumber won’t be intruded upon by those nightmares or mental rumination (anxiety) that often interrupts your precious rest.

Morning comes too soon and as you awake, you feel that familiar rumble of restlessness or anxiety – your unwelcome companion that seems to rear its head first thing in the morning. Even though you know you should exercise, meditate or make a healthy breakfast, you find that you blow off all those good intentions in favor of pursuing something that will feel more immediately gratifying. Instead, you’ll have 3 coffees because it will help give you the jolt of energy that you didn’t get from your lack of sleep.

As you get ready, you might find that you avoid looking in the mirror because if you catch a glance of yourself in the mirror you’re afraid of seeing someone who is somehow ‘wrong.’ If you avoid the glimpse in the mirror, you recognize you hate having that feeling.

Now that you have decided on an outfit, you step into your ‘outside face’ that meets the world. Remarkably you have the power to conceal these feelings so that no one would ever know how you actually feel inside. You are probably a high achiever and seem to be high functioning in the world and other people probably would look at and think, “they are doing great.” But the reality is that there is a gap between how people see you and how you see yourself.

Lunchtime comes. There must be something you could look at or buy online so you scroll incessantly. It might be the first time or the fifth time you visited the website because in your silent ritual, it feels good just to think about logging on to that website and taking another look. Or if it’s not something to buy, your brain strolls down the pathway of fantasy and you play out every detail of how amazing it’s going to be when you hook up with the person you’ve been flirting with on that dating app. You sit in the director’s chair of your mind as you choreograph each scene of how the love story will unfold – until you realize you spent too much time in your fantasy...

This is not the only story that can play out for people dealing with complex trauma. Instead, they might abstain from the chaos of these management strategies and box up the emotional pains to the point where they are almost entirely denied and certainly not felt. Instead of finding endless external pursuit of relief, they might instead minimize, deny and compartmentalize their distress, putting a face to the world that shows perfection and success as they hold an iron grip on the world and themselves.

COMMON EXPERIENCES OF COMPLEX TRAUMA

People who have endured trauma do not necessarily have a sign on their forehead that with the label “I’m a trauma survivor.” Instead they often move through the world looking good on the outside with secrets and shame on the inside that they carry as a quiet burden.

Here are some signs that might indicate you are dealing with complex trauma:

1.    You’ve experienced consistent fear, hurt, danger or emotional volatility in your closest relationships

2.    You rarely, if ever experience a sense of safety in the world

3.    You are hyper-vigilant (you’ll scan your surroundings for signs of possible threat)

4.    You live in extremes and urgency (you seem to feel ‘too much’ or ‘too little’ and feel you over-react or under-react to life and you need to respond “right now” to everything)

5.    Your relationships (with yourself and others) feel restless, unstable and dominated by fear

If you identify with these things you might want to give some thought to experiences in your past. How did it feel growing up in your family? Did it feel like your needs were generally met or unmet? Who or where was safe growing up?

If the answers to these questions err on the side of ‘I’ve never felt safe’ ‘I don’t think my early years went the way I needed them to go’ or even ‘I have little recollection of my growing up years’ you might want to explore the concept of C-PTSD or relational trauma.

WHEN IT’S NOT ALWAYS TRAUMA

With any issue of mental health, it’s easy to ‘self-diagnose’ especially with so much information available online. However, it’s important to note that complex trauma can also resemble ADHD, addiction, a mood disorder or anxiety so it’s important to get properly assessed. So, if you feel you live in urgency, “over or under-reacting”, experiencing procrastination or have difficulty focusing on things, these traits can reveal ADHD, trauma or even a combination of the two conditions.  

WHAT TO DO NEXT?

When you feel your constant pursuit of coping/self-soothing behaviours feels compulsive and bookended by shame, you might want to look into finding out more about C-PTSD.

It’s empowering to understand the effects of childhood trauma because when you can understand that you aren’t defective and that you are experiencing understandable reactions to trauma, you can start seeing yourself differently. Remember that trauma lies in how you experience the painful events in your life. It also not only lies in what happened to you but also what didn’thappen in your closest relationships.

The bottom line is if you experienced childhood trauma and you aren’t functioning in life the way you would like to, you aren’t “wrong”, you aren’t “too much” or “not enough” but you likely are carrying some scars from your lived experience that need healing.

RECOMMENDED READING AND RESOURCES

The Body Keeps The Score: by Bessel Van Der Kolk

Getting Past Your Past: by Francine Shapiro

Anchored: By Deb Dana