BPD vs. CPTSD: How to Spot the Differences

[Music] watch this full series at the links in the description below and subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch new mental health videos every week hi YouTube it's Kyle Kilson here with dr. Romani thanks for being here now so many of our members have written emailed found us on Instagram and said where is the series on complex post-traumatic stress disorder and that's what we just filmed many of you have heard about PTSD men most people have but not as many understand or even know about complex PTSD and here to talk about what that is and then give us the difference between that and borderline personality disorder dr. Romani what is complex PTSD see PTSD is a sort of almost like a subset of post-traumatic stress disorder but it looks a little different and it's a result of somebody who's experienced long term exposure to trauma usually where we see it is somebody who's experienced long term child physical abuse or child sexual abuse long term domestic violence or intimate partner violence or people and other settings like people who were victims or survivors of human trafficking or refugees people or people who were in its long term traumatic situations from which escape was nearly impossible or would be dangerous like a child a person stuck in an intimate abuse of intimate partnership that sort of thing so that inescapability and the chronic nature of it makes a little different than that episodic exposure you would have typically seen in post-traumatic stress disorder so it feels a little different what we see in chronic and complex PTSD is we see that there are issues around emotional dysregulation lots of difficulties and interpersonal relationships including excessive reactivity reacting with strong shows of anger or fear of interpersonal relationships there's a shift in the perception of the self people who experience complex PTSD will often view themselves very negatively as damaged and shameful sometimes even taking blame for what happened to them or believing that somehow they might have deserved this and they may even have a skewed perception of perpetrator and viewing them as sometimes all-powerful and then at times even harboring fantasies of revenge against them they'll have difficulties with attention and concentration and some people with complex PTSD you may even occasionally see sort of a dissociative quality where they sort of like sort of seem to go away for a minute but there's also disruptions and being able to pay attention in being able to concentrate which can make it difficult to engage with other people so it feels different than the classical presentation we see in traditional post-traumatic stress disorder which is a very fear-based disorder and there's lots of there's a lots of anxiety arousal hyper-vigilance being on edge being exact having an exaggerated response in the face of something that's startling lots of avoidance so while there's a tremendous amount of overlap between traditional PTSD and complex PTSD some of the issue around dysregulation and the relationship issues that arise definitely veer away from what we traditionally see in PTSD excellent I want to pull our audience when was the first time you heard the term complex PTSD was it right now in this video or have you heard about it years and years ago let us know in the comment section below now because of some of these traits that see PTSD has it often gets confused as borderline personality disorder so how can we tell the difference between those two there's a tremendous overlap between complex PTSD and borderline personality and that's something that field struggles with there are some key differences though despite the kinds of relationship struggles people with complex PTSD have and even sort of the strong reactivity that people have in complex PTSD that the flare-ups of anger and those kinds of reactions one thing you don't see in complex PTSD are the chronic abandonment struggles there's not a fear of abandonment it's much more if anything there's a fear of the relationship itself like relationships don't feel like safe spaces people with borderline personality have a very very unstable sense of identity it's almost like at times they don't know who they are right whereas in a person with complex PTSD they have a distorted sense of themselves so do they view themselves as damaged or shameful but it's not like they simply today I don't know who I am that makes sense it's very different and then the third thing we see is in some ways it's a severity issue borderline personality disorder something we've talked about unmet circle before is the mental illness with the highest rate of suicide making it one of the most dangerous and distressing mental illnesses we talk about so the suicidal crises the self harming gestures you don't really see that in complex PTSD so while there may be some risk because of the level of distress it's definitely not part of the classical picture of complex PTSD and so in that way borderline personality some have suggested is definitely a more severe pattern and that it whether it's not considered a variant though because there are enough differences we also know that something both have in common complex PTSD and borderline personality is that very commonly people with borderline personality have experienced early trauma but not all have so not every single person out in the world with borderline personality has a history of significant childhood trauma right whereas in complex PTSD that's far far far more normative and in a person with complex PTSD there's been at least one period of life where they've experienced long term chronic relatively inescapable trauma right so right now we grapple with whether how how much overlap there is and although there's quite a bit there's something about the abandonment issues how identity and self are viewed and the severity of some of the behaviors such as suicidal crises and suicidal behavior that definitely differentiate borderline personality from complex PTSD yes understanding borderline personality disorder gives me a better understanding of complex PTSD yes and our viewers can learn about the nine traits of borderline personality disorder by clicking the card that just popped up on this video or you can use the links in the video description below because the series is so great I want to give all of these viewers watching an inside look into the series by med circle complex PTSD here's a sneak peak when we when we think about the sort of whole interpersonal cluster of emotional disruption and see PTSD it is very much characterized by distrust a lot of up and down in the relationship a lot of anger in the relationship and a lot of discomfort in the relationship but also a lot of devaluing themselves in their relationship right so whereas a person with borderline personality won't be on a steady I'm so bad in this relationship that's in see PTSD it's very much that steadily that they devalue themselves there's also the sense of a lot of numbing like there's a and when I say numbing they feel very remote and far away and distant and can't feel anything and it makes sense a relationship is a threat because it's where harm took place so numbing would actually almost make sense as a reaction but it's not a healthy one we'd like to let a person know it's okay to feel in a relationship that that's a healthy space you won't be harmed but it takes a while to get a person to that place and then we will see mood regulation symptoms in in NC PTSD because there is a there is negative mood there is negative self-talk there's a negative view of the self there's a negative view of relationships so all of that combines to Assyria but you know bigger picture of just mood and anxiety kinds of symptoms that we would see in a person with C PTSD under that sort of emotional rubric but a lot of it is relational and a lot of it is sort of this very negative view of the self in those relationships as well as a distorted view of other people in relationships you can watch that entire series at Med circle calm dr. Romney thank you as always for being here I'm Kyle Kittleson and remember whatever you're going through you've got this thanks for watching check out the links below for more information on how to access this full series and subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch new mental health videos every week did you like what you heard in this video if you want ask a med circle doctor a question directly you can learn how by visiting the links in the description below [Music]

Channel: MedCircle

Views: 473,194

Keywords: bpd, cptsd, borderline, personality, disorder, disorders, complex, ptsd, complex ptsd, medcircle, kyle kittleson, mental illness, mental, health, discussion, dr. ramani, dr. ramani borderline, borderline personality disorder, interview, ramani, psychologist, psychology, expert, identity disturbance, identity, mood, fear, relationships, behavior, good, evil, emotion, suicidal, thoughts, behaviors, documentary, podcast, conversation, talk show, trait, instability, help, anger, dr ramani, ramani durvasula

Id: 87UhgkE4-qU

Length: 8min 57sec (537 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 09 2019