COMPLEX ptsd

Discussions in anxiety, panic attacks, phobias and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Practical help for anxiety disorders.
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Candid
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Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2022 9:34 am

COMPLEX ptsd

Post by Candid »

You may not know it, much less have a clinical diagnosis, but if you feel as though you're wrecking your own life and are constantly on edge it's worth figuring out what's driving you.

I got my formal diagnosis in 2012, almost ten years ago. It galls me (to put it mildly) that so many health practitioners still conflate COMPLEX ptsd with what I call PTSD-simple.

It's not difficult to distinguish the two. Whereas PTSD-simple can be the result of a one-off trauma such as fire, flood, sexual assault etc., "Relational trauma, also known as interpersonal trauma, is a type of complex trauma in which an individual is trapped for an extended period of time in an abusive/neglectful relationship with someone in a position of authority/power over them (e.g., parent, partner, coach, teacher, employer, religious leader)." https://www.outofthestorm.website/cptsd-description

People with PTSD-simple usually recover spontaneously or after brief therapy, whereas (in my experience) COMPLEX ptsd is untreatable. Worse, it creates a negative outlook that attracts further trauma. I agree with the "talk, tears and time" message from Dr Diane Langberg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_3UsaxG_4o despite the religious overtones, but a dozen therapists have failed to reach me. As a result of chronic insomnia leading to psychosis, I've been misdiagnosed and banged-up in psychiatric facilities three times since 1983, each time worse than the one before in terms of treatment.

The most recent one, Dec 2017-Jan 2018, was worse than One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest apart from the fact that I lived to tell the tale. The duty nurses would wake me at 10pm and frogmarch me to a brightly lit queue for medication. In my case it was antipsychotic drugs. I had no say in it. For the rest of the night, every hour or so through the night someone would come to the window in the door of my cell and shine a torch in to make sure I hadn't topped myself. If I didn't move, wave, or shout "piss off!" they'd be in the room to make doubly sure.

Chronic insomnia I can manage, have done for decades. Acute insomnia, whereby you don't sleep at all for a prolonged period, ultimately mimics schizophrenia. COMPLEX ptsd includes hypervigilance. NO ONE can get anywhere near me without waking me. So they fed me antipsychotics while they continued to ensure I lay awake all night, every night.

So it's on my medical record in two countries that I have either schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. For a while after actual medical appointments ceased due to the coronahoax, I was getting calls to determine whether I might be seeing things that weren't there or hearing voices when no one else was present. The last one was at least a year ago, during which I spoke frankly and firmly to a doctor who was actually capable of listening. He said he would amend whatever records prompted these calls, although I assume I'll always be under suspicion.

To the best of my knowledge, EMDR https://walkingwiththewounded.org.uk/Ho ... L4QAvD_BwE is a joke. I've had it from two "therapists" who each did it very differently with zero effect. On dismissing me, the most recent asked me to fill in an appraisal form.

Those of us with COMPLEX ptsd are people-pleasers. I asked her whether I should fill it in while she was watching, then hand it to her, or do it in the waiting room and put it into a box or something. She said it was up to me then watched me faltering through it. I gave her top marks even though (or because) by that stage I had her down as a narcissist and didn't want to say I'd had to placate and praise her evey step of the way.

Quite a rant here. YES, I have addictions, most of which are self-destructive. I'll post about that sometime...
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