#CPTSD might describe a child who grew up in a warzone and struggles to feel safe into adulthood bc they have no experience of a safe world
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vaguing a post that's on my dash that I don't want to engage with (as usual) but actually no CPTSD isn't a diagnosis for 'when things were a tiny bit bad a lot' or 'if you experienced relationships that were toxic but not abusive' it's a diagnosis describing the impacts of CONTINUOUS TRAUMA. not less significant but more frequent trauma; trauma which is ongoing/continuous/recurring in developmental years.
like I'm not trying to gatekeep here and I recognise the value of saying 'it doesn't have to be a Single Big Obvious Trauma' because one key thing about CPTSD is that generally it makes traumatic incidents Your Normal so you don't necessarily view them as unusual or concerning. but I often see people talk about CPTSD as if it implies smaller individual incidents than PTSD and that just is not the case.
most experiences I have seen people be diagnosed with CPTSD for (myself included) are not 'a little bit toxic'. they are things which, each incident taken separately, an outsider would still recognise as traumatic - medical emergencies, rape and sexual abuse, significant physical violence, emotional abuse and coercive control, homelessness, severe poverty, war, torture, etc - and the thing that makes the PTSD C is not the relative level of the trauma, but the fact that it's enough of a repeated and consistent pattern, at an early enough stage, and sufficiently embedded in everyday life, that it becomes a person's baseline for 'normal'.
CPTSD is not a synonym for emotional microtraumas or cumulative trauma or 'death by a thousand cuts'. It's specifically defining the psychological differences in response to long term formative trauma as opposed to traumatic events which you process as an aberration (eg the difference between regular violence against you from trusted adults in childhood vs being physically abused for the first time in adulthood with existing experience of healthy relationships). Traumas causing CPTSD tend to be pretty similar in type, scale and severity to traumas causing standard PTSD - they are just more embedded and normalised earlier in life.
all this to say there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that cumulative microtraumas can affect us in traumatic ways. there's nothing wrong with pointing out that there's a broad range of types of trauma, and trauma can include stuff like growing up marginalised or ill as well as abuse, war, injury or immediate loss. there's nothing wrong, too, with acknowledging that a lot that is traumatic doesn't necessarily feel traumatic to you.
but like. no. CPTSD is not a diagnosis for people whose trauma wasn't 'big enough' for PTSD. CPTSD is not cumulative microtraumas. CPTSD is a response to formative macrotraumas or to a long term traumatic situation without hope of escape or change and if you want to talk about microtraumas then do that but it's not what CPTSD is!
#red said#this has really pissed me off sorry I've seen several people post things like this#so this post just tipped me over#but like. goddamn. cptsd is not microtrauma.#and there are benefits to encouraging people to think of things as potentially traumatic before they're ready to register them as harm#but imo that's counterbalanced by the fact that again a major part of CPTSD for a lot of people is that we Think Severe Trauma Is Normal#so i do not think it's USEFUL to AGREE that CPTSD is a diagnosis describing the buildup of Small Normal Microtraumas#when it's generally a response to LARGE HORRIFYING trauma that KEEPS HAPPENING#listen ok so PTSD might describe an adult's response to being posted into a warzone or having their home unexpectedly attacked#CPTSD might describe a child who grew up in a warzone and struggles to feel safe into adulthood bc they have no experience of a safe world#they're both significant traumas but one is an interruption of the way you thought the works works#and the other is the only lens you have to view the world through#but crucially NEITHER ARE MICROTRAUMATIC AND THAT'S NOT WHAT THE COMPLEX IN CPTSD MEANS
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