How debilitating is PTSD complex?

The symptoms of complex PTSD are highly debilitating and can cause chronic emotional disquiet. However, with caring, compassionate, expert treatment its symptoms can be managed and its life-altering effects controlled. An individual recovering from complex PTSD faces a long, challenging road.

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Is complex PTSD more serious than PTSD?

It is generally related to a single traumatic event. Complex PTSD, on the other hand, is related to a series of traumatic events over time or one prolonged event. The symptoms of complex PTSD can be similar but more enduring and extreme than those of PTSD.

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Is complex PTSD hard to live with?

Living with Complex PTSD can create intense emotional flashbacks that provide challenges in controlling emotions that may provoke severe depression, suicidal thoughts, or difficulty in managing anger. C-PTSD can also create dissociations, which can be a way the mind copes with intense trauma.

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What is it like living with complex PTSD?

Complex PTSD and emotional flashbacks

If you have complex PTSD you may be particularly likely to experience what some people call an 'emotional flashback', in which you have intense feelings that you originally felt during the trauma, such as fear, shame, sadness or despair.

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How does a person with complex PTSD act?

Symptoms of complex PTSD

feelings of worthlessness, shame and guilt. problems controlling your emotions. finding it hard to feel connected with other people. relationship problems, like having trouble keeping friends and partners.

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Complex PTSD affects the brain long-term and can affect your closest relationships

39 related questions found

What should you not do with a complex PTSD?

Invalidate or dismiss their experiences. Compare their experiences. Blame them. Shame them.

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Is complex PTSD considered a disability?

Also, since people living with complex post-traumatic stress disorder qualify for a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, the Social Security Administration will consider them disabled.

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Is complex PTSD painful?

Complex-PTSD can Lead to Pain-producing Coping Behavior

that fuel inflammation long-term. Other sufferers cope by living a “safe” and sedentary life. You may resist interaction with the world or your own body, refraining from outside activity or exercise. Muscle and body pains result.

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Is complex PTSD difficult to treat?

Complex post-traumatic stress disorder is entirely treatable with the right combination of compassion, patience, and trust. Someone can work to disempower the trauma that cripples them and practice positive coping skills in the context of well-rounded support and guidance.

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Is complex PTSD rare?

The researchers diagnosed around 0.5 percent of the women and men questioned as having complex PTSD, and 1.5 percent were found to have classic PTSD.

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Can complex PTSD cause brain damage?

According to recent studies, Emotional Trauma and PTSD do cause both brain and physical damage. Neuropathologists have seen overlapping effects of physical and emotional trauma upon the brain.

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What happens to the brain with complex PTSD?

Structural changes alter the volume or size of specific brain regions. Proven structural changes include enlargement of the amygdala, the alarm center of the brain, and shrinkage of the hippocampus, a brain area critical to remembering the story of what happened during a traumatic experience.

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What is severe complex PTSD?

Those with complex PTSD often experience intense emotions, which are sometimes inappropriate. Besides anger and sadness, they may feel like they're living in a dream. They may have trouble feeling happy. Relationship problems. Complex PTSD can make it difficult to trust others.

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What is the best medication for complex PTSD?

What are the best medications to treat PTSD?
  • Sertraline (Zoloft) is FDA-approved for treating PTSD, and it's one of the most common medications prescribed for this condition. ...
  • Paroxetine (Paxil) is the only other FDA-approved medication for PTSD. ...
  • Fluoxetine (Prozac) is used off-label for treating PTSD.

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What does a complex PTSD episode look like?

Detachment: In addition to the symptoms of cognitive alterations listed for PTSD, people with C-PTSD may experience episodes in which they feel detached from their mind or body (dissociation/depersonalization). Negative self-perception: People with C-PTSD may have feelings of helplessness, shame, guilt, and stigma.

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Why is CPTSD worse than PTSD?

CPTSD often stems from ongoing childhood neglect, domestic abuse, human trafficking, and living in a war-torn region for more than one year. Both PTSD and CPTSD require professional treatments. Due to its complex nature, CPTSD therapy might be more intense, frequent, and extensive than PTSD treatment.

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Can complex PTSD get worse over time?

' In some cases, C-PTSD symptoms can have a cumulative effect and can get worse rather than better over time, which is why some C-PTSD sufferers 'manage' for such a long time without help, but they then worsen over time and eventually the symptoms become unmanageable.

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How long does it take to heal from complex PTSD?

Recovery from C-PTSD is a long slog, with survivors sometimes requiring more than ten years of psychotherapy for resolution. There are some C-PTSD programs offered through residential psychiatric programs that offer specialized treatment for this disorder and accompanying dissociative disorders.

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How long do complex PTSD episodes last?

How long does PTSD last? The course of the illness will vary from person to person and event to event. Some people may experience PTSD recovery within six months, while others have PTSD symptoms that last much longer. PTSD can also become chronic.

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Does complex PTSD make tired?

PTSD affects memory making our mind and body feel as if it is still under threat. When you are trying to sleep your mind and body still thinks and feels as if it is trying to fight off a potential threat. This can result in fatigue caused by the stress or fight or flight response being permanently turned on.

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Can complex PTSD change your personality?

Since even chronic PTSD will eventually lead to personality modification, it is suggested that complex trauma exposure, even during adulthood, is a predisposing factor for complex PTSD occurring, which will, eventually, if relatively prolonged in time, lead to more severe personality changes often clinically similar to ...

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Is complex trauma severe?

Complex trauma describes both children's exposure to multiple traumatic events—often of an invasive, interpersonal nature—and the wide-ranging, long-term effects of this exposure. These events are severe and pervasive, such as abuse or profound neglect.

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Can people with CPTSD work?

CPTSD was associated with lowered working capacity and treatment response compared to PTSD. Disorder-specific interventions are needed to address not only the unique symptom spectrum of CPTSD but also to increase patients' working capacity.

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What jobs can I do with PTSD?

Great job ideas for people with PTSD
  • Working with animals. Animals, such as dogs and horses, are often used in therapy for people with PTSD. ...
  • Maintenance and repair jobs. ...
  • Writer/editor. ...
  • Working outdoors. ...
  • Hospitality jobs.

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