What is Trauma?
Trauma is defined as an experience that causes physical, emotional or psychological distress or harm. It is an event that is perceived and experienced as a threat to one’s safety or to the stability of one’s world. This event causes overwhelming amounts of stress that exceed the person’s ability to cope or integrate the emotions involved, eventually leading to serious, long-term negative consequences.
PTSD vs. Complex-PTSD
First recognized as a condition that affects war veterans, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can be caused by any number of traumatic events, such as a car accident, natural disaster, near-death experience, or other isolated acts of violence or abuse. When the underlying trauma is repeated and ongoing, however, many mental health professionals make a distinction between PTSD and complex PTSD (C-PTSD).
Both PTSD and C-PTSD result from the experience of something deeply traumatic and can cause flashbacks, nightmares, and insomnia. Both conditions can also make you feel intensely afraid and unsafe even though the danger has passed. However, despite these similarities, there are characteristics that differentiate C-PTSD from PTSD according to some experts.
The main difference between the two disorders is the frequency of the trauma. While PTSD is caused by a single traumatic event, C-PTSD is caused by pervasive trauma that continues or repeats for months, even years (commonly referred to as “complex trauma”). Unlike PTSD, which can develop regardless of what age you are when the trauma occurred, C-PTSD is typically the result of childhood trauma.
Traumatic situations in childhood leading to Complex-PTSD include:
- Emotional, physical or sexual abuse
- Neglect
- Domestic violence/abuse
- Divorce
- Parental alcohol/drug abuse
- Parent with Mental Illness
- Loss of parent/caregiver due to death, abandonment, incarceration
- Community violence
- Racism and discrimination
Symptoms of Complex-PTSD in Adults:
- Feelings of shame or guilt
- Difficulty controlling your emotions
- Periods of losing attention and concentration (dissociation)
- Physical symptoms, such as headaches, dizziness, chest pains and stomach aches
- Cutting yourself off from friends and family
- Relationship difficulties
- Destructive or risky behavior, such as self-harm, alcohol misuse or drug abuse
- Suicidal thoughts
Symptoms of Complex-PTSD in children:
- Inability to cope with normal stressors
- Inability to trust & benefit from relationships
- Learning difficulties
- Nightmares and sleep disturbance
- Physical complaints (headaches, stomachaches)
- Difficulty with focus
- Anger (Temper Tantrums, rage responses)
- Withdrawal from friends or activities
- Avoidance of scary situation
- Difficulty regulating emotions
- Depression
- Anxiety or nervousness
- Startle easily
- Distorted beliefs/thoughts about self, other, the world
- “Spaciness” or seeming detached from reality
The ACES STUDY
The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACES) done by Kaiser Permanente and the CDC is a longitudinal study that looked at the impact of traumatic stress in childhood over 20 years. The results show a connection between adverse childhood experiences and the following long-term effects:
- High risk behaviors (alcoholism, drug abuse, unprotected sex)
- Chronic disease (ex: cancer and heart disease)
- Early death
- Higher rates of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation
“As the ACE study has shown, child abuse and neglect is the single most preventable cause of mental illness, the single most common cause of drug and alcohol abuse, and a significant contributor to leading causes of death such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, stroke, and suicide.”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
What’s your ACES SCORE? You can find out:
HELP FOR TRAUMA
The effects of adversity and trauma can be extremely challenging, but there are many forms of therapy that can help people overcome their past. Please contact me for a free 20-minute phone consultation to learn more about helping you or your child/teenager process and heal from trauma.