What is Complex Trauma (CPTSD)?

For many years, the hardest thing about healing my complex trauma (CPTSD) was putting a name to it.  

I thought emotional flashbacks of loneliness and shame were burdens I was sentenced to carry from a childhood surrounded by secrecy and addiction.

I believed never sharing about the challenges of my past with anyone close to me was a sign of strength, not a sign of avoidance and relational wounding.

I was convinced my toughness in the face of adversity and my high tolerance for risk and danger were assets, not indicators of the kinds of environments I felt most comfortable in, because of my upbringing.

It took me many years to realize that the weight I'd been carrying on my shoulders, the tightness in my chest, and the unease in my stomach weren't anything to do with my adult life but instead my experience of complex trauma (CPTSD).

I still grieve the time it took me to understand the complex trauma I carried. Once I knew what I was navigating, I set out to heal.

And I did.

Still, years were lost in self-recrimination and self-defeating hopelessness, blaming myself for the legacy I carried in my body. Instead of facing it, I minimized my suffering and hoped that with time, it would go away.

But it didn’t.

Understanding Complex Trauma (CPSTD)

Our western understanding of trauma dates all the way back to Freud and his contemporary, Pierre Janet, in 19th century Europe. Complex trauma (or Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, CPTSD) was termed by the psychiatrist Dr. Judith Herman in Trauma and Recovery (1992), comparing war veterans with victims of intimate partner violence and arguing that their impacts are the same.

Her work remains groundbreaking because although trauma is an increasingly recognized concept, complex trauma is still little understood.

I want to map it here, so we can start to recognize and reckon with the impact of complex trauma in our lives and relationships.

It's easy to dismiss the experiences that lead to complex trauma because, unlike trauma (or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD), there's not a singular event that caused it. We can't point to something that happened and say, "This is where all the pain and upset come from."  

Often, complex trauma is as much about what didn't happen as what did.

It develops when our needs for love, safety, and connection go unmet for long periods of time. But there are few dramatic stories or scars to show that prove our experiences were real. Instead, we are left with an aching sense of emptiness, panic, and loss that has no obvious origin.  

Many of us with complex trauma feel it's best not to go looking in the past.

We might minimize childhood neglect by declaring that our caregivers "did the best they could with what they had." We might feel a sinking sense of guilt and shame even talking about our childhoods, as if sharing our experiences somehow betrays our family and we are hurting the ones we love by simply speaking the truth aloud.

We might tell ourselves that because we had a roof over our head, food to eat, clothes to wear, and our basic physical needs met, that we shouldn't be complaining. "Others had it much worse," we may say reflexively, unwilling to acknowledge the deep vault of pain we carry in secret, unwilling to unearth family secrets because the shame of them feels too heavy to heal.

But by dismissing the past, we sink further and further into the self-contempt of shame.

I’m going to explore the three tenets of complex trauma that Herman wrote about, so we know how to see complex trauma for the self-esteem and relational impacts it creates – impacts that remain until we feel safe enough to heal.

1. Terror and Complex Trauma (CPTSD)

What complex trauma has in common with trauma (PTSD) is nervous system overwhelm and survival terror. We perceive an event as life-threatening, whether it is or not. What we often miss, with complex trauma, is how our nervous systems can interpret abandonment as equivalent to death.

We are social animals that require connection to survive. Belonging equals safety and survival, especially to the oldest parts of our neurobiology. Before the modern age, exile from the group meant suffering and likely death. That's why threats to our closest connections often activate a deep survival threat.

The terror response is an unconscious nervous system reflex that is outside our conscious awareness. We can’t control it. And when it happens repeatedly, we develop complex trauma from the ongoing nervous system overwhelm.

One form of survival terror that leads to complex trauma happens in childhood when our caregivers are absent and don’t meet our needs for safety or connection.

In adult relationships, emotional and verbal abuse, rage, contempt, and threats to leave can all create survival terror and complex trauma.

Survival terror can also happen in countries with governments or other systems of power that use fear and violence to control people. Living with this kind of ongoing fear can also lead to complex trauma.

2. Captivity and Complex Trauma (CPTSD)

The hallmark of complex trauma is feeling trapped and unable to leave.

In abusive relationships, this can look like coercive control — when a partner threatens and manipulates us to exert power over our choices, movement, and self-expression, choking our options for accessing support.

Childhood naturally involves captivity, as we are dependent for survival on caregivers who can be terrifying and unpredictable. In these situations, a child may have an early awareness of how bad things are for them. But because their inability to escape is too terrifying to fully acknowledge, it’s easier for the mind to minimize and dismiss the suffering.

In countries where complex trauma can be experienced by entire communities, this looks like not being able to avoid or appropriately respond because of the fear of retaliation. 

Faced with these experiences, we become acutely aware that fighting back only makes things worse.

The captivity of complex trauma understandably creates shutdown and hopelessness. On a neurobiological level, our systems collapse because we don't see a way out. Often, our best options are to fawn — a stress or trauma response that tries to keep us safe by placating the powerful and often terrifying people around us.

3. Disconnection and Complex Trauma (CPTSD)

After an extended time of being trapped in situations of ongoing terror, our nervous systems have no choice but to shut down. We even might be unwilling to acknowledge our reality because the horror feels impossible to navigate.

We disconnect from our bodies because the intensity of terror we can’t escape is simply too much to take in. Our bodies decide it’s better not to feel. And when the numbness sets in, it can feel like relief.

The disconnection implicit in complex trauma impacts our relationships. It distorts our ability to feel safe and connected to others and to express the vulnerability that is a precursor to intimacy.

We carry so much shame that the weight of it paralyzes us when we try to share about ourselves. We are easily flooded with trauma symptoms that make authentic connection with ourselves and others feel all but impossible.

Hope for Complex Trauma (CPTSD) Healing

It can be daunting to see the landscape of complex trauma and what it's cost us — our goals, dreams, relationships, and possibilities.

But complex trauma can always heal. In fact, feeling trapped or disconnected or having flashbacks of terror from the past are the body’s way of indicating that we're ready to heal.

It's essential to recognize the signs of complex trauma so we can decide how to give ourselves the support we need.  

Terror can be released from the body with safe and reliable somatic practices.

The nervous system can heal to reconnect us with ourselves, others, and the world.

Freedom, joy, and aliveness can return to become the new foundations of our lives.

We can call back our power, no matter what we experienced in the past. We can reclaim ourselves, our goals, and our desires. We can honor and pursue our deepest longings for love, safety, and belonging. 

Complex trauma may be hard to see at first, but once we see it, my hope is that we respond with courage and that we care enough about ourselves to heal.

If you're curious about how my trauma healing work might support your journey, I encourage you to reach out.

Here's to healing.

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