Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

by Pete Walker

Cptsd is a more severe form of Post-traumatic stress disorder. It is delineated from this better known trauma syndrome by five of its most common and troublesome features: emotional flashbacks, toxic shame, self-abandonment, a vicious inner critic and social anxiety.

Emotional flashbacks are sudden and often prolonged regressions to the overwhelming feeling-states of being an abused/abandoned child. These feeling states can include overwhelming fear, shame, alienation, rage, grief and depression. They also include unnecessary triggering of our fight/flight instincts.

Suicidal ideation is a common phenomenon in Cptsd, particularly during intense or prolonged flashbacks. Suicidal ideation is depressed thinking or fantasizing about wanting to die. It can range from active suicidality to passive suicidality.

Passive suicidality is far more common with the Cptsd survivors who I have known, and it ranges from wishing you were dead to fantasizing about ways to end your life.

Reducing Cptsd to “panic disorder” is like calling food allergies chronically itchy eyes.

many new psychological studies now show that persistence – even more than intelligence or innate talent - is the key psychological characteristic necessary for finding fulfillment in life.

Self-criticism, then, runs non-stop in a desperate attempt to avoid rejection-inducing mistakes. Drasticizing becomes obsessive to help the child foresee and avoid punishment and worsening abandonment. At the same time, it continuously fills her psyche with stories and images of catastrophe.

They do this by shaming or intimidating you whenever you have a natural impulse to have sympathy for yourself, or stand up for yourself. The instinct to care for yourself and to protect yourself against unfairness is then forced to become dormant.

All too often, your decisions are based on the fear of getting in trouble or getting abandoned, rather than on the principles of having meaningful and equitable interactions with the world.

Those who cannot feel their sadness often do not know when they are being unfairly excluded, and those who cannot feel their normal angry or fearful responses to abuse, are often in danger of putting up with it without protest.

Self-mothering is a resolute refusal to indulge in self-hatred and self-abandonment. It proceeds from the realization that self-punishment is counterproductive. It is enhanced by the understanding that patience and self-encouragement are more effective than self-judgment and self-rejection in achieving recovery.

If this is what you suffered, you then grew up feeling that no one likes you. No one ever listened to you or seemed to want you around. No one had empathy for you, showed you warmth, or invited closeness. No one cared about what you thought, felt, did, wanted or dreamed of. You learned early that, no matter how hurt, alienated, or terrified you were, turning to a parent would do nothing more than exacerbate your experience of rejection.

Unconsciously, they fear that if they momentarily “trick” someone into liking them, the forbidden prize will vanish once their social perfectionism inevitably fails and exposes their unworthiness. Moreover, when this occurs, they will be triggered even more deeply into the abandonment mélange.

I saw grief drinking a cup of sorrow and called out: “It tastes sweet doesn’t it?” “You have caught me”, grief answered, “And you’ve ruined my business How can I sell sorrow, when you know its blessing?” -RUMI

“Joy shared is doubled. Sorrow shared is halved.” - Old Chinese saying

As survivors realize more deeply that their flashbacks are normal responses to abnormal childhood conditions, their shame begins to melt. This then eases their fear of being seen as defective. In turn, their habits of isolating or pushing others away during flashbacks diminish.

As long as I am not hurting anyone, I refuse to be shamed for normal emotional responses like anger, sadness, fear and depression. I especially refuse to attack myself for how hard it is to completely eliminate the self-hate habit.

I am a human being not a human doing.