What is Complex PTSD?
If you’ve ever felt like you’re too much, too sensitive, or never quite safe in your own body | there may be a deeper reason why.
Many carry pain that has no clear beginning. They don’t always remember what happened, they may have very few memories of childhood, but they live with the echoes of it reverberating through them every day.
Complex PTSD is the result of ongoing, repeated emotional wounds; often in the very relationships where you were meant to feel safe and protected. It is formed slowly, over time, with chronic, relational trauma.
C-PTSD is a psychological condition that arises from sustained, repeated exposure to traumatic events. These experiences begin in childhood and recur frequently. These events are caused by the very people that were supposed to protect us and keep us safe; often starting in our home environment with our primary caregivers, and then later in life, by intimate partners or people in power.
Repeated traumatic experiences often involve emotional abuse, childhood neglect or are a result of relationships where your needs were weaponized against you or were ignored in entirety.
These repeated experiences of overwhelm and wounding to our nervous system, especially during earlier years when we do not have the same capacity for language to effectively communicate our needs, often result in long-term damage to a person’s sense of safety, self-worth, and ability to relate to others.
Individuals who have experienced C-PTSD often say it presents as |
Feeling numb, anxious, or easily overwhelmed
Struggling to trust others or feel truly connected
Carrying deep shame, self-blame, or feelings of worthlessness
Hypervigilance — a nervous system that’s always on alert — even when nothing seems wrong
A persistent fear that being yourself isn’t safe
When you’re hurt or dismissed repeatedly in relationships where you should have felt safe, your nervous system learns to stay in survival mode.
This prolonged state of heightened stress; constantly scanning for danger, shutting down, or trying to please to avoid conflict is an adaptive mechanism, but it eventually takes its toll on the mind, body and spirit.
You may not always remember what happened, but you can feel the effects |
Consantly struggle to rest, even when you’re exhausted
Always feel on edge, unable to relax
Quiet, persistent internal belief that you are “too much” or “not enough”
Difficulty feeling like you can trust, open up, or feel fully connected to others
An undercurrent of deep shame gnaws in your mind, even if you’ve worked hard to heal
Cycle between numbness and overwhelm, never quite feeling steady
These are adaptive and normal responses when the very relationships that should have been supportive, consistent and safe; leave us feeling fearful, uncertain, or dismissed.
CPTSD is not who you are | it is what happened to you. CPTSD is not a flaw in you | it is a reflection of what you have lived thru.
It makes you wounded, not broken. And healing doesn’t mean fixing yourself. It means finally meeting your true self. The self that learned to hide beneath layers of protection to survive. That self was never lost — it was just adapting to the circumstances of life it experienced.
