What is complex Trauma?

by Gara Steinfeld | Feb 22, 2023 | Uncategorized

While many believe now that trauma occurs in many of us, it is still widely misunderstood. Many people think of trauma as a single event incident such as a car crash, witnessing violence, or being physically attacked. All of those examples can definitely generate PTSD and cause people to experience symptoms for the rest of their lives. However, there is also another kind of trauma, complex trauma, which can generate complex PTSD or CPTSD.

Complex trauma is not a single incident event, as it can occur over multitude of separate either very severe traumatic events, or even less evident stressful events that compound over time.

Complex trauma can be more difficult to treat, because unlike single incident event trauma, it is weaved in and out of different experiences and different time periods of our lives.

The brain uses our experiences in the world to gain data. We interpret the world based on our experiences in our relationships, in our home life, at work, and in every single thing we do. Complex trauma can occur when someone experiences what we can call a “less-than-nurturing” environment growing up, where maybe there wasn’t obvious abuse, but there was always a feeling of “my feelings don’t matter” or “I’m a burden to my parents” or “when I make mistakes it’s because theres something wrong with me”. A child can grow up in an environment where their parents are so busy with work and so stressed out that when the child is in distress, they are not attended to. A child in distress is not the problem, though they might be treated as such. The parent wants to make the crying or screaming child stop because they view the behavior as the issue.

A child crying or screaming is a natural survival mechanism because children are naturally dependent on their parent. The behavior is not wrong but is absolutely perfect and healthy. There is always a need behind the behavior, whether it is needing attention from a parent, needing helping understanding how they are feeling, or needing help from a parent to help calm down and feel better.

When a parent cannot tend to the behavior by meeting the child’s needs (maybe they are too busy or maybe they think the child needs to toughen up) the child is not going to think something is wrong with the parent; the child is going to think something is wrong with themselves. That they are a burden or that their needs don’t matter.

These feelings are continuously built upon as their environment continues to validate and provide evidence that something is indeed wrong with them. Negative core beliefs are developed and carried throughout that child’s life.

Negative self-talk and negative core beliefs about the self and the world can also develop based upon how a child’s shortcomings or “failures” are responded to by the adults in their lives. Maybe they fall off their bike or they spill their milk. Are they told they’re stupid? That they can’t do anything right? That they’re lazy or bad or ungrateful, just for behaving as a child should? When this happens time and time again, the child develops beliefs about themselves and who they are in the world. They begin to believe the responses are true and they internalize them, building upon those beliefs in every way they interact with the world around them. This is how they begin to interpret their reality, and it is consistently re-instilled because the experiences continue to occur throughout their childhood and into adulthood. They begin to believe they are unlovable, stupid, lazy, defective etc. These beliefs are instilled in their nervous system and the very fabric of their being. The child grows into an adult who carries a general feeling of shame and has a hard time relaxing or maintaining healthy relationships. The adult has difficulty accepting praise or receiving love because they have spent their entire lives building upon the idea that they are unlovable.

The symptoms of complex PTSD are similar to symptoms of PTSD, but may also include:

Feelings of worthlessness, shame and guilt
Difficulty connecting with others
Relationship problems, difficulty maintaining healthy relationships
Problems in emotion regulation, like having difficulty managing ones feelings
Problems in self-image, like feeling completely different from other people and/or having a negative self-view
Interpersonal problems, including having trouble trusting others

Complex trauma holds true to its name in that it is more complex than just one or two events being the cause for present-day symptoms. Treating complex trauma begins with a process of developing a safe and trusting relationship with a therapist. The therapist can help you uncover and untangle the complexity of compounded events over a long period of time and begin to help you understand how your present-day symptoms are related to past experiences. The therapist can help you develop stress-reduction skills to help you combat the negative self-talk and beliefs that are keeping you in a constant state of hypervigilance, resentment, or anxiety.

Your experiences are valid and deserve to be honored and felt. The therapist can provide a basic framework for you to begin to process your experiences and allow them to become helpful to your life instead of hurtful. Thought the therapeutic process is not something that can cure your symptoms overnight and may take a bit longer than most would prefer, it is a process that can change your state of being and ultimately change your life. You deserve to enjoy your life, to enjoy healthy relationships, and to feel safe in your own skin.