How does #CPTSD Develop?

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder can be caused by a single traumatic incident or a the accumulation of many over a long period of time. The latter is referred to as Complex PTSD. Here’s how it worked for me.

I’m autistic, so I am in a state of hyper awareness and anxiety as a norm. When I was 4-6 years old (preschool) my mother and I were walking to the movies on a nice summer afternoon when we walked past a fresh murder scene. One woman was being put on a gurney and covered with a blanket, bleeding and clearly dead. The other was screaming at her in rage as she was being dragged away by the police from a phone booth covered in blood. The dead lady’s hand fell out from under the blanket and blood dripped from it.

Not long after that, maybe around the age of 5-7, a hurricane hit our trailer court on a beautiful summer/fall day. I’ve never seen such terror on adult faces. Trailers tipped over and collapsed. Ours was saved by a heroic effort of local men while me and my mother we led to another trailer by four more. Flanked by two, held by each arm, I was lifted off the ground and flapped in the wind like laundry. It was fun then.

Being autistic, I have always been a magnet for bullies, having been beaten by groups of two or more frequently during my early school years. I have been corned in an alley and told I was going to die. I escaped. When I moved to a small fishing village at the age of ten I was trapped in a ditch against a steep bank while at least a dozen kids, male and female, pelted me with rocks. The only thing I could think of was that if one hit the wrong place I would be dead. 

Beyond that I’ve been in several car accidents, one where I ended up upside down hanging from my seat-belt, but none that have caused physical injury to me or others. 

At the age of 30 I burned out at work after serving two stressful years as night manager/auditor for a busy hotel with a 24 hour restaurant. Then I was told my 15 year old dog had to be put down because of cancer. A few months later my father was seriously injured at work and died a week later. His mother died two years later followed by my maternal grandmother. Then a friend died in his early fifties. This was followed by losing two of our beloved cats to liver failure and cancer a couple of years apart. In all I lost 7 loved ones in a span of 14 years. 

It’s not one thing, but everything added together. Once you are traumatized, you suffer further traumas more easily.

For decades I have been treating the symptoms of anxiety and depression, but it is the traumas that I have to address.  I have reached out for help to professionals and am determined to face this and fight it head on. Now I know the problem. That helps.