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Hi All, I'm new here and this is my first post. I have a question regarding childhood vs adulthood onset CPTSD. How do you tell which one applies to you?

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But how can I tell whether the onset was as a child or an adult? It seems kinda obvious here, I guess, but I think the abusive pattern started at such a young age for me, and continued into and throughout adulthood, that I honestly have never known anything different. So how do you know when CPTSD truly started? Is there a point of singularity as a child (childhood onset) or is it a culmination of abuse (varying forms and perps) over the course of years where one particular trauma brings all the past traumas rushing back, like "the straw that broke the camel's back" (adulthood onset)?

Hello soulareclipse,
I'm not sure what the other members think about this, as I can only respond from my own experiences, insight and awareness.

Basically, the way I view the difference between whether child-onset or adult-onset C-PTSD is really that point when it all finally fell apart and became too much to cope with on a day-to-day basis in (mostly) non-threatening situations. I may be very wrong on this, so don't take this as gospel.

Whereas PTSD can be pinpointed to a single even with specific flashbacks, triggers, and clearly identifiable causes, CPTSD is so much more  complicated. Origins of CPTSD, I understand, often stem from multiple earlier traumas, commonly (not always) in childhood. Where a childhood was reasonably trauma free -despite any neglect or abandonment etc issues- and those multiple complicated traumas occur later in life, that's an easy one to pinpoint as Adult-onset. And similarity, if the majority of traumas occurred in childhood rather than adult life, then that's an easy one to see too.

Yet, CPTSD is rarely a cut-and-dry matter. Our whole lives have been shaped by incidents but it is how we deal, cope, and respond to them that makes some difference. As a kid, teenager, and young adult I was able to shake off my traumas with relatively little impact on my academic, social, or working life. Some really bad stuff had happened but my mind and body was still under my control and functioning great. Then, in my adult life I had a series of really toxic events occur that traumatised me deeper than they should have (in my mind at least). After that, and one last big trauma, my control was gone. My body, mind, subconscious, everything was so deeply damaged I can only compare it to a disability of the soul.

So for me, that point when the main, major trauma that did the most damage to finally need help is the one I personally consider the one to define as whether child- or adult-onset.

I'm not sure if it answered your question, but I hope it helps.

Cheers,
Autumn.

Thanks, wife#2, it sounds like you've got some good, supportive people around you. I'll try your suggestion of a toned down answer, maybe 'Not so bad' or something like that. At least it won't be an outright lie about my feelings, nor an unwanted outpouring of truth.

Thanks,
A.

I have to admit, I'm struggling with the idea of counting blessings and having compassion & forgiveness whenever I feel upset. Its like I've been denied the right to be angry or assertive all my life, so now further avoiding or suppressing anger is just perpetuating further abuse against me.

Has anyone heard of any kind of anger therapy in which expression of justified anger is considered constructive?

... i felt beholden to stay in there, fight the good fight, attempt to fix everything that was wrong or i was a quitter, a bad person, bad wife, bad mother, bad you-name-it.  i wasn't going to abandon the ones i loved emotionally the way i was abandoned by my folks - i wanted to do everything possible to be perfect at all that i was involved in, including abusive relationships.  those i would look at rationally, keep analyzing what i might be doing wrong, try something else, re-analyze, etc. ad nauseum.  but above all, i was trapped by the notion that it was my job and my duty to stay and make the best of every situation, no matter how horrible it might be, or die trying. 

in the end, my sense of survival won out.  thank you, god.

This is my experience too and the first time I feel like anyone understands just how powerful that need to be "good", "self-improve", and a "strong survivor" is.

Friends, family and even one therapist (I have a better one now) just don't seem to get how it becomes a core part of identity and so normalised. The idea of walking away in the midst of some (minor?) troubles just seems a betrayal to all and self, especially if you've invested so much energy to bringing harmony or healing to something or someone. Just quit? That's weakness! Or worse: abandonment and neglect, which is what we never want to subject another person to because we know how crushing and dehumanising those acts are.

So we keep on muddling through, thinking "it'll get better!" (if there is any justice or karma then it must!) but we become broken, exhausted, self-doubting shadows of ourselves until one day something happens and the accumulation of all those things we've been carrying crushes us into the ground. And worse, we realise we don't have others to care for us as we cared for them, because they never really cared in the first place. Now we look at everything and question it all because it was our core identity that was crushed too.

Or at least that's my experience. What you said about yours resonated.

Autumn.

Hello everyone,

I'm new here and recently diagnosed. Well, if you can consider a year-and-half ago recent, but I'm still on sick leave from work and still coming to terms with my C-PTSD in the aftermath of a spectacular traumatic event that finally dropped me like a stone (until then I was in a perpetual "don't think about bad stuff" survival mode cycle).

I'm at a loss how to deal with the question "how are you?". It is simultaneously a trigger and something I crave, as my trauma springs from neglect, voicelessness and psychological abuse in which I was repeatedly ignored and denied help in those rare times I dared ask or spoke my truth. Since my diagnosis and time with a therapist, I've come to understand I have repressed anger at always being the nurturer and am like a magnet for narcissists. I just don't trust anyone anymore, as telling my truth has either caused anger on their part with gaslighting the most popular tool to shut me up, or I've had insinuated and actual threats against me. Or if harmless, then the supposed friend, colleague or family member does not care at all about what I do say or reveal. I'm weary of putting on the fake smile and the empty "Fine, thanks, how are you?" routine. This is so hard when I'm in a really bad way and need emotional support.

How do others juggle this?

Thanks,
Autumn.