Complex-PTSD
Your emotional baggage could be C-PTSD.
People don’t often come to me asking specifically for help with Complex PTSD (C-PTSD). They tell me about how they freeze up in certain situations, how they have bad luck in relationships, have a hard time saying ‘no’ to others, or just explode sometimes.
But as a trauma specialist I’m able to see those things as symptoms and know how to check if there is something more behind them.
What is C-PTSD?
C-PTSD is a special kind of PTSD people can develop from having repeated traumatic experiences including abusive or neglectful home lives during their childhood.
To help explain how I identify and treat C-PTSD I’d like to tell you a story about a woman named Mary*.
Mary said anxiety was ruining her life.
She procrastinated making phone calls, even to make a doctor’s appointment, because she felt overcome by a sense of dread that she wouldn’t say the right thing.
She worked at a job where they had piled on an obscene amount of extra responsibilities without adding any change in title or pay because she just couldn’t say no to the extra requests. She felt severely taken advantage of but got so anxious even thinking about refusing the extra work that she just froze up.
Conflict of any kind had her breaking down and she felt helpless to set boundaries with others, especially her own mother. Mary wanted her mom to have a relationship with her son, but was laughed off when she would try to meekly make any request, like not smoking around the baby. Her mother would say, “I smoked around you your whole life and when I was pregnant with you and you turned out fine!”
I saw the weight of these issues on Mary.
Her posture was hunched in, her voice small.
I told her there was so much hope.
She seemed wary of my optimism but kept coming back week after week.
First we started out with calming exercises so she could break herself out of her anxiety. Little by little Mary mastered these techniques, finding her favorites and incorporating them into her daily life to combat her anxiety.
We explored the common factors in the situations that caused her intense anxiety. As we got to know one another she talked about feeling that she had to be perfect all the time. I asked what would happen if she wasn’t perfect. She became very still, but was obviously highly emotionally activated. Her breathing sped up and her eyes looked like a deer caught in the headlights.
She was terrified but couldn’t identify why.
In her mind and body the two options were:
1) be perfect
2) life and death level fear.
That is how I knew this wasn’t just anxiety.
This was a trauma response.
I taught her about trauma responses and she quickly protested, “I wasn’t ‘abused’ abused, I can’t be traumatized.”
A lot of people have that response.
For most people the word ‘trauma’ conjures up images of war, car accidents, or physical abuse. But in therapy it is a more broad term. It can encompass neglect, emotional abuse, and situations that would cause many to think ‘that’s messed up’ but wouldn’t classify as trauma.
I asked Mary to think of a recent time where she felt overwhelming anxiety and then guided her to let her mind float back in time until she happened upon an early memory where she felt that same kind of anxiety.
A memory surfaced. Mary was about 14 and her parents had gotten into an explosive fight and her father had already stormed out.
Her mother got her keys and announced to the house that she was going to go drive off a bridge.
“You can’t leave!” Mary cried, standing between her mother and the door, absolutely terrified.
“Your dad gets to leave, why can’t I?” her mother sneered as she pushed through, leaving Mary alone.
This memory opened a window for Mary to slowly accept that her mother’s treatment amounted to emotional abuse. Because that wasn’t a solitary event. Her mother’s emotions were unpredictable and her judgments harsh.
I told Mary that I thought EMDR therapy was the best treatment for her.
I explained that it is a highly effective treatment for trauma because it doesn’t just treat thoughts and emotions, it helps treat the somatic part of trauma- the things that happen in your body.
For Mary it would help her ‘deer caught in the headlights’ reaction.
.
So we embarked on EMDR therapy.
Together Mary and I found memories that still caused her distress and uncovered the negative beliefs about herself that still felt true. Things like “I’m not worthy” and “I am weak.” and explored what she would rather believe- really and truly- on a deep level. Spoiler alert, they’re usually the opposite, so “I’m worthy” and “I am strong.”
I asked her to notice her thoughts, emotions, and body sensations.
When she felt anxious she’d say she noticed her heart pounding, uncomfortable butterflies in her stomach, and a sense of dread in her chest. When she was calm she would notice that her thoughts didn’t feel frantic, her shoulders relaxed, and her brain felt lighter.
Then, while she focused on a memory, I would move my hand to guide her to move her eyes in a way that harnessed her brain’s natural healing mechanisms, you can learn more about that here [LINK].
We focused on these memories because they weren’t just memories.
They were still impacting her in the present. The roots of not being able to stand up for herself at work or with her mom were in these memories. By processing these memories from the past we were helping improve her issues in the present.
And without even realizing it Mary stopped feeling so anxious when she had to make phone calls.
Over the course of months her feelings when being taken advantage of at work and dismissed by her mom changed from helpless victim, to frustration, to anger.
Her whole system- thoughts, emotions, and body, was starting to believe that she was worthy and strong.
And when you’re worthy and strong and people are disrespecting you, you want to do something about it.
Mary’s mother refused to stop smoking in front of her baby once again at a holiday gathering.
It was the final straw.
Together we brainstormed how she could confront her mother and finally set some boundaries.
Mary wanted to tell her mother that anytime she started smoking around the baby she would take the baby and leave, then follow through. I guided her to mentally walk through having that conversation with her mother.
Mary said she anticipated her mom would end up throwing a full tantrum, which made Mary feel small, guilty, and deeply scared. I had her follow my hands with her eyes some more to help her process those feelings. We connected the feelings back to another memory, one of Mary’s mother throwing a full tantrum- screaming and sobbing on the floor and all, after a phone call with Mary’s grandma when Mary was about seven.
Mary still felt how her seven year old self felt when she recalled the memory. That her mother was out of control and it was life-threateningly scary. The only way seven year old Mary knew how to get her mother back to emotional back safety was to push down her needs and parent her own mother.
We focused on that memory for several sessions, doing the eye movements and having Mary notice the thoughts, emotions and sensations that came up. Each session she felt less upset by the memory and was able to believe “I’m worthy” more and more, until the memory didn’t bother Mary at all anymore.
In helping that seven year old part of Mary finally get some closure we were healing adult Mary.
We were giving her the ability to stand up to her mother.
We returned to doing mental walk-throughs of setting the boundary with Mary’s mother. A best case scenario, a worst case scenario, and what she anticipated would actually happen. When Mary noticed discomfort we did the eye movements. And once she moved on to feeling like she could actually do it we used another eye movement technique to help reinforce that feeling, building her confidence until she felt ready.
On a phone call with her mom Mary set the boundary, “Mom, I really don’t like it when you smoke around the baby. The next time it happens we’re going to leave.” And as expected Mary’s mother tried to convince Mary that she was overreacting, that Mary turned out fine, and that she was trying to keep her away from her grandson! Mary said she wasn’t budging and ended the conversation.
Her heart was pounding, she was fighting off feeling guilty, but she knew she was making the right choice.
Mary set up a visit at her mother’s house like they tended to do a few times a month and she was ready to follow through with her plan.
Mary walked through the door holding her baby and her mother was smoking.
Mary took a calming breath and said, “Mom, I’m not okay with you smoking around Jackson. Please put it out or we’re going to leave.”
And as expected her mother continued what she had said on the phone and escalated as she saw Mary turn to leave, starting to yell,
“You’re taking him away from me! I raised you! And this is how you repay me?”
Mary buckled her son into his carseat, her mother following them outside, cigarette burning in her hand, crying “You can’t do this! I gave you my life! I guess I was just a horrible mother if this is how you treat me!”
Mary felt her stomach turning in knots, she fought back tears but she buckled herself in the car and turned on the ignition. Mary knew she was in the right but that didn’t stop it from feeling really horrible. This was going against an entire lifetime of bending over to accommodate her mother’s instability.
Her mother literally fell to her knees on the grass by the driveway, sobbing and screaming as Mary pulled out. “I love you and I love Jackson, I would never hurt you!”
Mary drove down the street and started back towards home, let out a shaky breath and allowed herself to cry.
This was the beginning of a new life.
Building a new life isn’t always easy but it is worth it.
Mary and I continued to meet for several months as she allowed her newfound sense of strength and worthiness to change the way she lived her life.
Soon she could enforce healthy boundaries at work, and with each time she practiced the skill of setting boundaries she felt less upset and more empowered.
Now Mary is living life on her terms. And you can too.
Call me today at (714) 584-9018 or make an appointment online.
*Mary is a fictional character based on real situations and issues I have helped clients with over the years.