Disorder, Injury or Other

[complicated man]

This is my first post on this forum.  I have read several posts that have stated that the "D" in CPTSD which stands for disorder is offensive.  I completely agree.

When I read that it should be called CPTSI with the "I" standing for Injury, it resonated.... but it didn't feel quite right.  It is more the result of an injury, or more specifically, years of unhealed injuries.

So if our condition, is the result of long term unhealed psychological injury, what exactly is it?  Complex Post Traumatic Syndrome?

[woodsgnome]

Professional clinicians and their insurance cohorts still formulate the naming 'rules'. Personally, I think the cptsd tag rides too closely on the coattails of the ptsd descriptions, which don't always mesh well and confuses more than helps.

More than the precise words used, there's an obvious gap between the how/why/effectiveness of treatment. Whatever the tag, the mess ends up as Complex Mental Distress. Unfortunately, that sounds as vague and awkward as most of the rest. In the end, there's no one-size-fits-all, for sure.

What it's called seems less important to the individual sufferer than finding a caregiver whose priorities stem from compassion first, always, and foremost. Sadly, values like compassion too often seem overrun by other artificial formulations, like names.     

[Lingurine]

What helps me, is knowing what symptoms I have and how to work with that, so I can improve my life, searching and finding the help I need. A good trained therapist who understands, mine, for instant, knows the distinction between CPTSD and BPD, and that stuff is important, I think.
The disorder is about complex trauma, several trauma's after each other, so complex grief, I don't care much about the disorder part. That's just a name for it.
In general, We just hurt a lot from our past 

Lingurine

[Candid]

Personally, I think the cptsd tag rides too closely on the coattails of the ptsd descriptions

I agree. When I tell the experts I have complex PTSD, almost all of them just seize on the PTSD. One doctor asked me to elaborate on symptoms then said it didn't sound like PTSD because I hadn't mentioned PTSD's most obvious feature: visual and auditory flashbacks. It's damned near impossible to get people with good-enough FOO to understand the ramifications of being born and raisedin a hostile environment. I know, I've tried. And I'll keep trying.

What it's called seems less important to the individual sufferer than finding a caregiver whose priorities stem from compassion first, always, and foremost.

Absolutely. A worker who actually listens, like we do for each other here, is gold. IME the higher the qualification, the less able practitioners are to listen. They know it all already, and they make that clear by interrupting, dismissing, minimising, breaking eye contact, misdiagnosing and all those other 'expert' behaviours... right before they reach for the prescription pad. NEXT!!

Complicated man, I'm often tempted to drop the P in CPTSD, in which case I could drop the C as well. All over the forum you'll see the guns are still going off in people's heads. A lot of us don't know anything else.

Whatever the tag, the mess ends up as Complex Mental Distress.

Also what Carrie Fisher called it: Insurmountable Inner Unpleasantness.