What is it like to have complex post traumatic disorder (CPTSD)?

 

What is it like to have complex post traumatic disorder (CPTSD)?

I can answer this as someone who is diagnosed with C-PTSD and has spent a number of years in treatment with a therapist, as well as reading about it and learning to observe my feelings and behavior. In some ways, C-PTSD looks similar to BPD, but there are some definite differences. Because of the similarity, it can take a mental health professional months or even a couple of years to recognize that it's actually C-PTSD, not BPD. I have attachment issues related to unmet needs from childhood. I have conflicting feelings of needing love and connection but intensely fearing it. I control my emotions very well until something triggers me. At that point, emotional pain floods me, and if it is bad enough, I will dissociate and feel emotionally numb for hours or even days. My nervous system always feels hyped up and on edge. Even though I am often exhausted, I have trouble sleeping. I have nightmares regularly and sometimes wake up drenched in sweat. It's hard to feel an emotional connection with someone else, even if I know they care about me. My mind has trouble understanding that a relationship is made up of many, many experiences tied together. I determine the state of my relationship with someone based on whatever happened between us the last time we were together. It's hard for my mind to connect everything before that and understand the relationship as a whole. My self-esteem is very low, and I don't trust my own perceptions. I am terrified to getting emotionally close to someone because I've experienced so much rejection. A loss of someone I love feels like a death. Unlike someone with BPD, I don't self-harm, threaten suicide, or have angry outbursts. I don't actively seek someone to nurture, rescue, or help me. My desire and need for love and connection is INCREDIBLY strong and painful, but my protective system is stronger. Plus, I don't feel entitled to impose on other people to help me when I am suffering. I loathe having such deep emotional needs and try to hide it from others. I choose to suffer alone rather than seek support. I think I'm likeable, but only as long as I can keep up a mask of normalcy. Friends and coworkers (even some family) who have seen me as competent and self-reliant can be quite shocked or even scared if they happen to witness one of my PTSD-triggered episodes. I become someone they do not recognize. They don't understand what happened or how to help. Because I seem so different when I am triggered, some friends have become suspicious and think I'm putting on some kind of an act for attention. But this is far from the truth. I have only partial awareness of what it happening. I am not really even there. I am lost in a past trauma that I am reacting to. After I come out of it, I feel terribly vulnerable and embarrassed, and regret that others witnessed me that way. This makes me try even harder to keep up the strong, in-control mask that hides my inner pain and issues. Even with hard work in therapy, I am still in need of treatment. I have been in therapy for well over 10 years, and I still struggle to trust my therapist or allow the vulnerability necessary to drop my armor even for short periods of time. I don't know how she has stuck with me this long. For some reason, she still believes in my ability to heal."