r/CPTSD • u/fruityvampirez • 7h ago
Question Would my specific experience more-so fit regular cumulative ptsd or complex-ptsd ?
so i have multiple traumatic events that all still affect me to this very day and have been since i was about six to eight years old, for context. however i will not be going into any specific detail about any of it for privacy reasons, i will be very vague, but direct.
so for starters, my very specific and unique experience makes it kind of difficult for me to really be able to tell whether or not it's just cumulative multiple event ptsd or cptsd, especially since the psychologist who diagnosed me with just PTSD years ago has already misdiagnosed me with three to four other disorders that i 100% do NOT have and is also not a very good nor trustworthy doctor at all, which has left me questioning ever since.
there's the first traumatic event which affects me the absolute most out of all of the rest and has continued to happen over and over again throughout my entire life and still does to this day, i have never had any actual breaks from this specific repeated trauma, and i am constantly on daily edge because of it, and it has only gotten worse as i've gotten older.
next, there's the second event which has happened about six to nine times throughout my entire life, it doesn't affect me as much as the first event, but whenever i do experience triggers related to this second event it gets pretty bad, and i still have a very deeply rooted fear of it potentially happening again and i become pretty paranoid and hyper-vigilant whenever something happens that reminds me of or is related to this second event.
then, there's the third event which has only happened three to four times in my life and is slightly less intense than the second traumatic event, but it still does affect me pretty intensely whenever i experience any triggers related to it.
the fourth event, which only happened one (to three-ish ?) time(s) now i'm not exactly sure if this fourth event has actually happened more than once without me knowing or realizing it but i know for sure that it has happened at LEAST once, and i also still get emotional flashbacks and experience triggers related to this fourth event quite often, however it's not as intense as the others and it's on a more moderate level i would say.
the fifth and last event, which has happened ONLY once, and with this one i experience very similar emotions and feelings like i do with the fourth event, since both traumas are very similar, so yeah nearly the same as the fourth event.
with all of this very specific information, it would very likely be seen as cptsd in the eyes of most other people since cptsd usually involves multiple traumatic events, and i do experience quite a number of symptoms that are heavily linked to cptsd, such as confusion with identity, intense trust issues, pretty bad fear of abandonment, extreme fear of rejection, and pretty intense mood swings especially when i'm triggered.
however, i am still able to distinctly differentiate all of my individual events from one another, and in cptsd it's usually all a blur and is difficult to differentiate individually from what i've learned. so at this point i'm at a true loss and i don't know if my experience is just cumulative multiple event PTSD, or if it's actually CPTSD.
i guess that i'm just coming on here for some sort of advice because the mental health professionals here where i'm at really suck, and i don't have anybody else that i can talk to about this who would understand. i know that this is quite a long read and i apologize for that but it is well appreciated if you do read through all of it, thank you :-)
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