First and most apologize profusely I did not get to read all of your post as I am in a rush and I'm running late but I saw the subject line and wanted to pop by with a thought. What I have heard and there is a post here somewhere regarding this, PTSD versus cPTSD is that PTSD assumes that was a dramatic event and treatment is to get you back to normal before the Trumatic event happened. Treatment for the PTSD is different because with cPTSD there is no normal to return to and it has to be created from scratch which is why some of the traditional treatment for PTSD do not work for cPTSD. Those raised in a toxic environment have no normal to return to so it needs to be created from scratch.
Thanks Butterfly and Kizzie.
I've read so many things about the overlap of three symptoms and three distinguishing symptoms, plus all the stuff that calls it DESNOS rather than CPTSD. I've seen lists of 7 versus 6 symptoms used to describe it. But despite having worked in mental health myself, I still haven't found a simple answer. I mean most psychiatrists I have worked with have the attitude that CPTSD is the same as BPD which is an extremely ignorant view (don't even get me started on how ignorant most psychiatrists are in so many ways!). But the issue I have is so many psychiatrists and others working in mental health jump straight to the conclusion of someone who has the three PTSD symptoms but not the additional three CPTSD symtpoms must automatically have CPTSD if they were abused as a child.
I was abused as a child, but no PTSD symptoms at all (complex or "simple") until my daughter and I nearly died during labour with her. (actually that's not 100% correct - I suffered mild PTSD after a car accident two years earlier and nearly 20 years later I still can't get in a car with a male driver on rainy days in my home town at exam time when a certain type of treee is in bloom. but other than that horrible specific situation of male driver, wet weather, jacarandas in bloom everywhere and exam time, I'm over that accident), other than very mild symptoms after that car accident, I never had any PTSD symptoms until my daughter and I nearly died.
The situation was compounded by the fact it was due to very serious medical malpractice, and the hospital did everything they could to cover it up including hiding the serious damage I was left with internally after the statute of limitations to sue had run out -(telling me for four years my severe abdo pain was "normal") and even then, refusing to hand over my medical records until 12 years later, when the hospital who delivered my next child threatened all sorts of legal action etc. And it's why my second round of perinatal depression was more precisely perinatal PTSD because of the battle to try and get my medical records, which through only a miracle of timing (my youngest being born prematurely, not on time) that her and my life weren't put in serious risk - instead it was only moderate risk.
But after my older daughter was born, dealing with severe PTSD, being terrified she was going to die in her sleep meant I couldn't sleep at all because I was constantly checking to make sure she was still breathing, if I passed out from exhaustion, I'd wake up panicking that she was dead. I was left feeling like I'd gone to hospital for surgery and been handed a baby and that her "real" parents were going to ask for her back one day, that every knock at the door was going to be the police or child protection asking for her to be returned to these "real" parents. And then when I finally sought help when she was 6 months old, unfortunately being a youngish mother (early 20s), because of the combination of the hospital wanting to cover their own asses and not admit that I had serious PTSD from the medical negligence, and due to my age, they tried to convince everyone that it was a pre existing mental condition I had, that there was no "normal" for me to return to. And as everyone here probably knows, whether it's CPTSD or BPD or any other condition from childhood, sadly people with these diagnoses are treated very poorly by the mental health professional. And they don't deserve it! Two of my closest female friends have BPD, my exhusband has BPD, my sister has CPTSD due to abuse by a teacher as a child - my friends and my sister are good people, and my ex is a creep but that's due to his additional NPD/ASPD symptoms not his BPD.
It makes me really angry to see the sickening abuse of people with CPTSD or BPD in the mental health system. And due to the deliberate misdiagnosis to protect themselves from being sued, my "simple" PTSD from the birth trauma was dismissed as a pre existing long term condition (despite not having any symptoms before my daughter's birth), and the abuse that I got after I was misdiagnosed jjust added to the severe PTSD I was already suffering.
But that is an issue that has come up with my psychiatrist now. She throws the CPTSD label at me (says I definitely don't have BPD because I don't have any of the abandonment or other BPD-only symptoms) based purely on the fact that I have PTSD and was abused as a child. I've been open with her - yes my parents were physically abusive (and emotionally and verbally abusive), but I had happy secure relationships with all of my grandparents who I spent a lot of time with as a kid, as well as a teacher who has been like a mother to me for 30 years. Other than my aspergers (which I proudly say makes me weird compared to most people), and I do suffer from bipolar (but with very distinct clear cut episodes with years between episodes), I was just a regular person with no PTSD symptoms at all before I had my oldest child. And I was actually 99% symptom free for quite a number of years until I had my second child which brought back the PTSD symptoms while I was pregnant because I wanted her out of me because I was so scared she was going to die inside of me.
Having talked to a lot of other women who suffer birth trauma related PTSD (and especially those whose trauma involved medical negligence, life put in serious danger for them or their child, and then had their PTSD afterwards mocked by the so called "professionals) my symptoms have only ever been just normal for someone who has been through the birth trauma that I went through. Sadly extremely very normal (and considering I'm an out and proud weird person, me being "normal" is unusual).
But my psychiatrist seems to have this obsession about me having CPTSD because I was abused as a child, I somehow must have had symptoms before the birth of my older child. Which is nonsense! Fair enough she has only seen me for just under three years now - but that's the point! Before I was pregnant with my youngest child, I'd been fine for years. If it was CPTSD, there wouldn't have been those years of having a "normal" (ie symptom free) life. (I should add there is a huge gap between when my children were born).
Butterfly I think what you said describes exactly the problem I'm having with my psych. Because she's jumped to the conclusion wrongly that I have CPTSD, she is pushing me to do all these therapies to create a normal from scratch - when I already had a normal I wanted to return to. (I mean, I do have issues that I wanted to work on that are very separate from the PTSD such as my aspergers means I have social phobia and mild OCD, so there are parts of my pre-existing "normal" that I do want to improve on).
I can't change psychiatrists (I live in a relatively small town where several psychiatrists have left recently and no one has been taking new patients privately for years, and the public system is so overrun that pretty much unless you're in hospital, or jail, or suffer from severe uncontrolled psychoses, you can't see a psychiatrist through the public system other than for a once year medication review). And the thing is, I want help with the symptoms I am having (I have a second PTSD trigger - my older child's father suffered male PND after our daughter was born and he became violent, tried to kill me a few times and I ended up throwing him out for beating our toddler one day). The combination of my younger child's birth and my ex starting to stalk and threaten me last year (after quite a number of years of no contact at all) and a third trigger related to those two things that I don't want to talk about, has seen the return of the nightmares and flashbacks over the last year.
But my psych keeps referring me to all these therapies for CPTSD, many of which I've done before that were waste of time, but she kept insisting they work for regular PTSD symptoms as well, and even though I'm a pessimist overall when it comes to anything medical related (including psychological therapies), I also am open minded enough to give anything a go - I'll even give therapies a few goes in case it didn't work the first time because the therapist was doing it wrong or wasn't the right "fit" for me. And the funny thing is, as I think I already said, I used to think EMDR (for "simple" PTSD) was a lot of rubbish and could only work on weak minded people who fall for the placebo effect. I was stunned when I tried it and it had such a good effect. I honestly don't think I'd have got through labour if I hadn't done EMDR when I was pregnant - not just survived labour, but I was happy and excited (between contractions anyway lol!). Between contractions I was telling jokes, and once they finally got the epidural in (after an hour and literally more than a dozen attempts by three different doctors - something I didn't panic about either which was a miracle!), I couldn't stop smiling with excitement at finally getting to meet my baby after 8 months of wanting her out.
I mean, surely the evidence for my psych would be that the therapies for simple PTSD have helped even when I was incredibly negative about them (I seriously had to bullied into doing EMDR because I thought it was such a waste of time), and therapies for CPTSD which I went into with an open mind and the therapists were great, highly intelligent, educated and caring, (I still see my former DBT therapist for one-on-one non-DBT therapy), did nothing at all (except make me feel so different from everyone else in the group for the group therapies).
Since I can't change psychiatrists, and I don't want to stop seeing any psychiatrist altogether (as I do need medication management to keep the bipolar away - it does come back every 5 years or so even on meds and needs a change of medications then, and I also would like to have one more child and I know pregnancy is a serious risk factor for both depression and PTSD for me), I feel like I need for my psychiatrist to focus on the symptoms I have and the therapies to treat those symptoms, rather than getting caught up with therapies to treat labels she has put on me.
Which means making her see that there is a pre-trauma normal for me to go back to! But how do I do that?
