Typical CPTSD Symptoms

Trauma impacts us all in a variety of ways. Often we have individualized, cyclical areas of primary torment.
(told you, no sunny sides around here)

What we learn from early, pervasive, upsetting, experiences?
Cascades outwards into a multitude of concerns, complaints, and trojan horse symptoms. 
That said, there are a number of problems we commonly experience.

They can be overwhelming to consider individually, so it helps this Fucker to think of them in groups. Hope you agree.

The core takeaway?

We automatically learn from our experiences. Our brains make connections with or without our conscious focus, in accordance with reinforcement and punishment we receive. Unfortunately, if left uncorrected, those connections set us “on a track” that continues to deepen and expand on itself.

For instance:  Learned attention to detail? AKA – hypervigilance?

It’s a great adaptation to make… until you can’t stop assessing and re-assessing every minute data point or predicted possible outcome. When your brain assumes “doom” around every corner – so don’t let down your guard? You get anxiety, obsession, and attentional issues. Symptoms that often become “the focus” of our therapy attempts, while the actual root of the problem goes unchecked.

Truth may be? You grew up in a chaotic, unpredictable, dysregulated, dangerous environment. Your brain continues to expect the same. That creates discomfort, nervous system disregulations, attentional disorders, and a pervasive sense of unsafety as you try to continually predict and “out think” risky situations.

What started as a wise lesson learned becomes a host of diagnosable disorders.

Another example? Shame and self-valuation problems.

It’s “smart” to “be grounded and humble.” Especially when things tend to go wrong in your life, and people tend to blame you for every unpredictable happening. Grow up around critical humans, and you learn to be pre-emptively self-critical to “spare yourself the potential shaming” down the road. Plus, no one wants to be “deluding themselves” with high self-esteem. How embarrassing.

So we learn to shit all over ourselves, before anyone else has the chance. We develop harsh inner critics, a prevailing sense of incapacity and unworthiness, and “performance based personalities” to evade further scrutiny. All of this correlates with depressive thoughts and behaviors, as we assess that we’re “incorrect” in every way that’s authentic to us, and learn that it saves energy and emotion to just stop trying.

Boom, you’re now “depressed” and being treated for that condition. When in reality, it’s a long history of unrecognized trauma that created the beliefs and behaviors which are dominating your life. You’re accidentally self-sabotaging while you consciously try to protect yourself from unseen enemies. But hey, modern wisdom says let’s throw you on an SSRI and see what happens.

You see the problem? 

Now let’s talk about the solution. 

1) understanding where your patterns come from.

Your thoughts, behaviors, emotions, and functionalities aren’t “random.” They aren’t generally uncorrelated “chemical imbalances.” (Fight me on it). They aren’t “indications of who you really are” or “who you have to be.”

           – They’re learned behaviors that have spiralled with unforeseen and unintended consequence. The things that help us survive and avoid as much pain as                         possible become a bit too “extreme” and overtake our lives.

           – Or they’re brain operational issues created by the abundant trauma we’re not capable of processing. Get a “bug” in the machinery that goes untreated and it               throws the entire production floor off-schedule and off-task.

2) using that knowledge to target the real foundations of your mental illness and life unfulfillments.

If you know where to look under the hood, you can get busy rewiring the beliefs and behaviors that are creating downstream problems. …Instead of continually throwing spaghetti with trauma-inexperienced therapists.

You’re not nuts. Your brain isn’t “broken.” It’s been doing what it was designed to do all along; to keep you alive and breathing. 

The key is to figure out which behaviors don’t actually suit us in the long-term across all situations… and to reprogram those parts.

Now move onto the next graphic resource to find out what happens if we don’t. Common Life Experiences with CPTSD.