12 Common Symptoms of CPTSD From Childhood

i know you know this but i want to make sure you hear it all the way like really hear it the abuse and neglect that happened to you when you were a kid was not your fault and it's easy to know that but not to believe it and i have some information here for you that i think will help you let that truth in it's about the signs that a person has childhood ptsd and if you're not sure you have it i can tell you what it looks like i think on some level this might come as a relief for you because if you've got even some of the 12 signs of complex ptsd that i'm going to talk about in this video it means you've got symptoms that follow a known pattern and that are a normal response of a normal person to abnormal conditions during childhood now there are symptoms that a lot of people don't realize are connected with early trauma and you might know some of them but a lot of the signs i'm going to go over in this video just might surprise you and they might explain a lot about why you struggle as i list these you can write them down if you want but to keep it simple i can send you a self-assessment quiz where you can review the signs i'm about to describe to you and i'll tell you how to get a hold of that at the end of the video but first i'll just tell you what they are right number one do you struggle with attention memory or focus and yes these are symptoms that affect a lot of people but they're also common adult symptoms of complex ptsd and by the way complex ptsd is the kind that comes from chronic exposure to intense stress over time and this could happen at any age but most cases begin in childhood things like violence in the home abandonment growing up with an addicted or mentally ill parent or a parent who's died or is in prison or who just left and never came back you'll hear me talk about childhood ptsd which is just a common term for complex ptsd that starts in childhood now when these traumas and neglect start happening in childhood you'll often see these problems with learning and focus and sitting still not just in kids but in adults and if this is you you probably had a lot of shame dumped on you about not paying attention in school as if that were a choice you made you just didn't want to and i wouldn't be surprised if you carried that shame into adulthood and and got into a lot of shame now about struggling with these very same learning and focus problems and i just want to point out to you that when you got through trauma as a kid it not only affects you emotionally it can cause brain changes learning and memory and focus problems are normal when a person has gone through trauma so i'll explain why in a moment okay number two sign of cptsd do you tend to space out or feel physically numb when you try to make big decisions or talk about your feelings this is a sign of what's called dysregulation there is a distinct thing called emotional dysregulation which we'll get to but there's also brain and nervous system dysregulation and it can develop in response to trauma possibly as an injury to normal functioning an injury by the way that can be healed and possibly it develops as a protective mechanism to guard a kid's developing brain from the potential harm of serious trauma a child learns to just you know shut down and close off awareness of something too awful to face and this is a brilliant survival strategy for a kid it's good that you did it but it's totally a problem when it lasts into adulthood as you know when you're in a crisis or needing to make an important decision the last thing you need is to lose your power of reasoning but that's exactly what can happen when we're dysregulated and researchers can see this in mris and brain scans when you're stressed brainwaves and vital signs go out of their normal synchronous pattern and they get out of sync they get discordant it's sort of a brainwave equivalent of a dog walking on a piano the keys are clanging and no longer does it sound like music that's kind of what it feels like to be dysregulated right numb discombobulated flustered irritated do you have that sometimes when something triggers you okay along similar lines here's the third sign do you have trouble regulating intense emotions having outbursts of sadness or anger when it doesn't seem appropriate this is what it feels like to be emotionally disregulated and again cptsd isn't the only reason people get emotionally disregulated but it's very very common now with emotional dysregulation you're going along and something triggers you usually it's something along the lines of criticism rejection being judged left out pressured pressured to hurry or in some way stressed and for people who are traumatized as kids when they're stressed as adults there's a very common response in the right front cortex where emotions are activated and instead of the left front cortex being activated alongside it this is where reasoning is supposed to kick in and help mitigate that emotional reaction that left side is suppressed under stress so reasoning goes down and emotions go up and you get an overreaction it can happen with anger it can happen with excitement it can happen with intense experiences like falling in love the emotions are going up and up and unchecked and it can be hard to bring them back down that's a childhood ptsd thing and sometimes after a big upset it's hard to feel anything so emotions spike and then they can flatline and you feel like the world's coming to an end and then you feel nothing and of course for the people who love you this can feel totally unreasonable and crazy making and lead to arguments so that leads me to the fourth sign do you have more than your share of conflict with family friends co-workers partner this is how emotional dysregulation plays out aggravating ordinary conflicts and of course when you grew up without proper role models for guidance not loved properly not parented properly either left to fend for yourself or viciously punished for mistakes ordinary conflicts can get blown way out of proportion and it's a big reason why relationships with traumatized people so often get damaged and fall apart it makes for a very painful way of life full of loss and hurt and many of us end up afraid to get involved with people at all we're so afraid we're going to screw it up and that leads into the fifth sign that you might have cptsd that vulnerability around people and you can ask yourself do you find yourself avoiding social engagements because being around people is just too triggering they are aren't they so maybe you consciously avoid making friends or joining groups or dating or maybe you do these things but you hold yourself at arm's length and either way this is why so many people with cptsd feel alone and isolated even when they're with people even when people are trying to help them or love them and why a lot of traumatized people give up on socializing and opt to live in isolation as the only way to get peace now this happens but it's not the only way to deal with being triggered in my courses i teach people how to strengthen their ability to calm triggers around people and allow their lives to heal and grow if that's something you feel like you need i'll i always put the links to those down below in the description section you can check them out when we're done if you're interested but yes the stress around connection to people either getting closer or or the fear of breaking up splitting up with them can be so menacing for people with cptsd that you can go to the completely opposite direction from avoidance and this is the sixth sign that you might be affected and you can ask yourself does the fear of abandonment or of being alone cause you to stay in negative relationships oh my gosh this is such a huge way that so many of us have thrown away years of our lives staying way past when we wanted to leave but the thought of leaving was unbearable the depression and panic that tend to rise up around endings is so harsh we'll do practically anything to avoid it and this is complicated by the fact that we so often choose impossible people to be our friends and partners and this is the seventh sign do you find yourself attracted to unavailable or destructive or abusive people this is not happening because you're a bad person but because your ability to discern who is an appropriate and trustworthy person is diminished by dysregulation getting close to people causes stress stress causes dysregulation and dysregulation causes that poor judgment that then goes on to attach you to people who don't care about you or who can't love you and this is how trauma so easily gets passed through the generations you might be intensely hard on yourself when you look back and you see the choices that you've made but it's a stretch to say even that this was a choice because cptsd can trigger such unconsciousness and dysregulated thinking that it's very normal to not realize anything's wrong until well into a relationship now remember you can learn to heal this you can learn workarounds to slow that process down and instead develop healthy boundaries we normally have trouble setting boundaries and saying no but we can learn to heal this so the eight sign have you suffered with depression anxiety or other mental health problems this is well known to be associated with trauma and it's connected to the ninth sign do you smoke cigarettes or use food or alcohol or drugs in an addictive way because in the short term these are regulating and they help soothe that intense emotional dysregulation for a short time even though they lead eventually to more dysregulation sometimes after just a few minutes the 10th sign is are you overweight or do you struggle with overeating early trauma can alter your metabolism and the hormones that govern appetite and craving which could explain a lot about why so many of us have trouble around certain foods or with stopping eating even when we've had enough so along similar lines the 11th sign that you might have cptsd is do you have unexplained health problems that seem to have no clear cause i teach you more about this in my course healing childhood ptsd but early trauma is closely correlated with a higher incidence of everything from migraines and immune problems to diabetes heart disease cancer if your physical health is affected today because of your trauma reactions that's just one more reason to take your healing seriously and to take smart self-loving action now the signs i've listed so far are all about hard things and some of them may have helped you feel motivated to start learning about cptsd and how you can start healing your symptoms the biggest reason i see among my students for wanting to heal and this was also what motivated me to heal so many years ago was this the 12th sign and that's do you feel that you are unexplainably separate from other people and groups and that's just it we feel separate disconnected we feel alone and i just want to give you hope and let you know that there's a reason you feel this way it's normal for people who are abused and neglected as kids and it's not your fault and while cptsd is not technically curable you can learn to heal the symptoms now i promised you you wouldn't have to take notes on all this because it's all written down in a self-assessment quiz that i've linked right down in the description section on the free tools page of my website free tools that page is always linked really near the top of the description section below i put several resources down there that i thought you might find helpful and i also lined up a video for you about the core central symptom that drives almost all of their cptsd symptoms and it's dysregulation you can watch my most comprehensive video about that right here and i will see you very soon [Music] you

Channel: Crappy Childhood Fairy

Views: 639,615

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Id: 2DeFHOEEgrM

Length: 13min 19sec (799 seconds)

Published: Mon May 30 2022