hey there everybody and welcome to this video on eight hidden signs of complex ptsd
i'm your host dr donnelly snipes
if you're interested in learning more about working with people who've experienced trauma
a master class in trauma informed care is available at all ceus.com t-i-c
for those of you who are unaware let's talk about what complex ptsd is complex ptsd
is a traumatic injury that occurs when a person is repeatedly or continuously exposed to an
extremely overwhelming or threatening situation for which they believe there is no hope of escape
now there are a couple important points there i said it's a traumatic injury people can endure
a lot of trauma and not develop complex ptsd under the right circumstances if they have
resources if they have support if they did not have pre-existing mental health issues for example
a lot of people especially those who are exposed to ongoing trauma don't have the
necessary support and resources so it does end up causing traumatic injury
which is complex post-traumatic stress disorder complex post-traumatic stress disorder is often
misdiagnosed as borderline personality disorder adhd or anxiety there in people with cptsd there
may be a loss of a sense of self especially if there was a trauma bond the person may switch from
loving somebody to hating somebody they what we call splitting it's all or nothing you love
me or you hate me uh like that and that is a protective mechanism that they developed
the person with cptsd like the person with bpd also experiences extreme emotional dysregulation
their stress response their hba axis has been activated for so long it's actually undergone
structural changes neurological changes in the brain and they go from being flat
where they just don't have a whole lot of energy to feel much of
anything to frantic or furious like that so instead of having a
wave of emotions that happens like most of us get when we go from being you know okay content
whatever to anxious where it's a wave they go from being flat you know almost a dry beach to a
tsunami and that tsunami of stress neurochemicals causes them to become frantic or furious
so it's important to recognize that cptsd and bpd borderline personality symptoms
almost completely overlap adhd it's very common for people who've experienced trauma
to be agitated to be fidgety to have difficulty sitting still to be hyper vigilant
and to have difficulty concentrating which means they also have difficulty
paying attention uh to details following through with tasks a lot of the symptoms of adhd
can be seen in people with ptsd or cptsd same thing with anxiety so it's really important
to trace back and examine the roots of the problem to identify whether trauma
is potentially an underlying cause for the symptoms treatment for cptsd focuses
on helping the person feel safe and empowered process the traumas and evaluate their current
schema that is their current belief systems about themselves other people and the world
so what are the eight hidden signs and i'm sure there's more hidden signs but some of
the more common ones if you expect the worst from people you may have complex post-traumatic stress
people who are regularly exposed to a traumatic situation in which there is little or no hope of
escape it's hard to trust other people are going to have your back if you've been enduring that
or if you've witnessed that if you have difficulty feeling happy because you're
constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop that may be a sign of cptsd
remember cptsd is traumatic events or threatening events
repeatedly occurring or constantly occurring so for the person who's experienced it they
may have had periods where they were not experiencing the trauma but they knew
it was too good to last and bad stuff was going to happen again pretty soon and as they grow up even
if they're not in that same exact situation they may just habitually expect bad things to happen
if you rapidly jump between being depressed irritable and anxious it might be a sign of cptsd
depressed or flat when you just don't have the energy to care you don't have the energy to be
happy you don't have the energy to get real angry either that's when the body is going
i'm out of gas irritable is another word for angry and and people may when they feel
vulnerable when they feel threatened may become irritable as a way to fight off a potential threat
and anxious is the flea it's the fear side of the threat response so people may be fearful
that that other shoe is going to drop fearful of other people when they're fearful it may make
them more irritable they may feel like they've always got to be poised to defend themselves
but at a certain point they can only do that for so long they can only remain on guard for so long
before they go into a period where they're feeling depressed and exhausted
if you have frequent pain or other stress related symptoms for no identifiable reason now obviously
if you sleep wrong that can cause pain if you have stress related symptoms right before you've got to
do a big presentation at work that's not what we're talking about what we're talking about is
if you're having frequent pain or stress related symptoms and you can't figure out why you've got
gi upset your autoimmune issues are flaring your a1c levels your blood sugar is all over the place
you're having frequent headaches for no apparent reason you may want to examine
are you experiencing uh activation of that stress response are you hyper vigilant are
you constantly under a low grade stress because you don't feel safe you don't feel empowered
as a result of your previous traumas so you're constantly stressed and that's just your normal
and you don't know any better because you don't really realize that hey i don't have
to feel this way i can feel safe i just i've never felt that way because of my past traumas
if you have difficulty concentrating and i talked about this a little bit earlier
when you are stressed when you're hyper vigilant when you are on guard when you're scanning for
threats however you want to say it your brain is not saying all right well there could be a threat
at any moment but let's work on this spreadsheet no your brain is not focused on prefrontal cortex
higher order thinking at that point your brain is focused on trying to keep you safe which
makes it difficult to concentrate if you have low self-esteem one of the direct symptoms of complex
ptsd in the icd-11 is low self-esteem people feeling shame people feeling bad about themselves
and sometimes you don't even know why that is and that may be an indication to get curious
why is it that i feel bad about myself do i feel ashamed because of a past trauma or
because somebody told me that i should feel ashamed because of abuse that i experienced
if you cannot seem to naturally get a good night's sleep and i put naturally in there because
if you're having to take melatonin if you're having to take sleep aids if you're having to
jump through six different hoops to try to sleep that's not sleeping naturally if you cannot
seem to lay your head down on the pillow at roughly the same time each night and get
a good solid seven to nine hours of sleep then you might want to examine why if it's because
you don't feel safe if it's because you can't relax that may be an indication of prior trauma
and finally if you have an extremely low libido when you're under stress your brain says hey
this is probably not the best time to procreate if there are all these threats out there so libido
goes down your sex hormones are actually altered when you're under chronic stress and remember the
over arching theme of complex post-traumatic stress is feeling unsafe and disempowered i.e
constantly feeling like you're under threat which would make sense
that your libido would probably be in the crapper as a result
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complex post-traumatic stress disorder results from frequent or ongoing trauma
as opposed to standard ptsd the ongoing nature of these traumas negatively impacts many more areas
of the person's life it creates triggers in many many more places that so pretty much wherever they
go there's something that's going to remind them of the trauma and keep them from feeling safe and
empowered when people feel trapped in a dangerous situation it makes them more aware of the threats
constantly seeing threats in people places events
changes people's perception of themselves others and the world you start to see the pl the world
is a pretty unkind unwelcoming place which makes you feel even more helpless hopeless and powerless
if you experienced ongoing trauma but do not seem to be responding to treatment
consider getting evaluated for complex post-traumatic stress disorder