Does C-ptsd start during or after the traumatic event?

[Fightingback16]

My therapist suggests I have C-PTSD due to 12 years of domestic abuse.

I was just wondering when this happens. Is it possible that it developed and I had this and suffered from it during the relationship. Or does the process start during the abuse and the symptoms start after?

I think you should ask your therapist. I imagine they are suggesting the relationship WAS the trauma.

Yes I’m waiting for her to re-start. She is charity based and temporarily closed due to the virus.

It's a bit like coming out of a war zone and realising you are sensitive to loud bangs now as your mind is on the lookout for bombs all the time, even though your tour of duty finished.

I always see it as a recurrence of the trauma response. So you start having the response as you experience the trauma (even if you don’t recognise it or you gradually start to realise it). Once out of the original situation in which you experienced trauma - if you have c-PTSD, you re-experience your trauma response in situations in which you feel stressed or anxious. You don’t need to be re-exposed to the same trauma or anything as bad to have the response.

So during the 12 year relationship I didn’t have c-PTSD, it only develops once out?

I was afraid of loud bangs and many things after the first few years.

@Fighting I'm in the same boat. I would love to understand too - I was married for 10/11years, and it is only now (nearly 3 years after I started divorce proceedings) we are divorced (December 2019), that I've been manifesting symptoms of PTSD. It is so confusing. After the divorce I stayed in bed "grieving" for about a week, which I didn't understand either: I dislike my exH intensely, why was I unable to stop crying? I'd love to know the answers.

I still can’t bear raised voices, arguing or confrontation..(Extremely anxious and agitated, could vomit on the spot, shaking and sweating) ...I’m a middle aged woman and the domestic abuse was from my childhood..

I REALLY recommend this book, it really helped me to understand my C-PTSD

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kalk.

The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0141978619/ref=cmswwrcppapiii_5J3ZEbA2C88WM

@MahMahMahMahCorona it is so very confusing. I’m not sure about yourself but I suffered terrible disassociation during the relationship. Then when I left I couldn’t understand my feelings. I felt terribly guilty when I left him but I always dreamed of leaving he was a monster.
If you aren’t sure of disassociation it’s when you hold 2 different beliefs at the same time. He hit me for example. I feel so much mental distress I don’t know how to handle this. But at the same time he loves me, it must have been something I did wrong. You can only hold one believe so you choose the later. Which is how you get stuck.

Then when you leave all the disassociation starts to clear and all the times you chose the wrong belief becomes apparent. Which I believe adds to the distress.

@Fightingback16 - because my memory plays tricks on me, I seem to think / believe my dissociation came after the marriage. So I totally withdrew to the point of cutting myself off from all my abusers (including my family) because I had suddenly realised there was also a trauma bond with my mother, financial abuse from my parents, flying monkeys in my siblings, and then I entered a financially, emotionally and sexually (he withheld all affection) abusive marriage - which I was basically set up for from my experience during childhood. What I'm really trying to work on now, something which has worked, is the grey rock: but last week my ex and his DM started on a new campaign of slander and mind games, lies, shaming me, blaming me - and ALL my symptoms having been "good" since mid-March (self-imposed lockdown quarantine has cured my agoraphobia.... oh god - so it's all superficial I guess which is even more worrying...) have returned. I had a panic attack in the front room on Tuesday. I feel like I'm back to square one.

I even thought to myself this morning "was it all really that bad?"

It was. But my mind plays tricks on me. I guess this is about what it wants to believe, over what actually happened.

I often think was it that bad really. Then I always tell myself if was that bad for me and that’s all that matters!

@toothfairy73

I REALLY recommend this book, it really helped me to understand my C-PTSD

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kalk.

The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma [[https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0141978619/ref=cm]]swwrcppapiii_5J3ZEbA2C88WM

I've just looked this up @toothfairy73 - thank you - this looks like it might help.

I’ve read that book also. Hard read!

I found it really helpful to understand why my brain reacted in the way it did and to explain the impacts; it helped me know it wasn't just me. It also has a whole section on what you can do to help

@Fightingback16 - I guess part of the trauma means that we spent so many years hiding our feelings and our emotions, we stopped listening to them. I know myself that he would bait and bait and bait, I would finally blow up and then he would sit back, arms folded, sly smile, and say "you are mentally unstable". He would enjoy it even more if there were witnesses. Particularly when it was my DM - she would side with him. I used to say that marriage is a work in progress, that you have to work hard at it to make sure everyone's happy. When in actual fact I was so unhappy I spent my time covering up for him, covering over the cracks, making excuses, drawing on my mask and pretending. I'm in a solid relationship now - and it isn't hard work at all. There is no work in progress - I don't have to fake smile, I don't have to pretend, if I cry he holds me, if I withdraw he looks after me and my DC until I'm ready to talk. It was never like this during my marriage - my marriage was hard work. I learnt not to cry from a very young age - crying was a sign of weakness, and this was continued into my marriage. So I guess what I'm trying to tell myself is that yes, it did happen - but trying to work out exactly when I actually started to manifest my PTSD symptoms is so hard - I'm not sure it's possible and that isn't helpful for my current state of mind.

Sorry - my lack of focus is hugely bad right now. I think we lost ourselves, @Fightingback16 - we didn't have a voice, even in our own heads.

C-PTSD is different from PTSD in that there isn't usually a single traumatic incident you can point to and say that was it, it's lots of little (and big) traumas built up over an extended period of time. Some of the coping mechanisms you would have had at the time, for example overthinking what you could safely say out loud, being alert to footsteps that sounded especially angry, anything like that, these were appropriate danger responses. But now you are away from the danger, they are inappropriate because in fact most people aren't going to become angry or display upset if you say the wrong thing, you do not need to be alert for signs of violence from people in general, etc. So now it's referred to as a disorder, even though these are exactly the same behaviours and experiences you were having within the relationship. If that makes sense?

From A level psychology years ago - we can live with stress for a short time, but our body's systems for handling stress are only ever meant to be used temporarily. If we exist in the stress situation for too long, it starts to do physical damage to the body itself. You'll also have things like mental health symptoms which come about as part of it.

That makes a lot of sense @BertieBots as I feel a lot of the same things now as I did during!

I recommend you Google Rethink Complex PTSD for their intro.

Also watch What is C-PTSD? and C-PTSD Behaviour Explained by BetterHelp on you tube.

I did manage to speak to my therapist today and she tried to explain that PTSD or
Cptsd develops during. But the “disorder” is only reached when trauma has stopped but symptoms do not. Everybody reacts to trauma but most overcome it in days/weeks.

C-PTSD is more complex because one trauma wasn’t processed before the next and the next. It just builds up into something gives and damage is done.

That is so helpful - that makes sense to me too. I hadn't time to process the trauma before another one happened.

I'm going to get that book! Thank you

So I wonder what you do when you have memories that are horrible but you know they are in the past? You can’t just I remember them as much as you want to!