Submitted by MistWeaver80 t3_10m5pqz in science
repeated abuse (physical/sexual/psychological) pre-16 falls under complex ptsd
suffered almost my entire life it.
the change in people who are afflicted with it is incalculable :(
so yea. ive known for decades my brain is fucked.
but at least i went to a doctor and got help back in the end of 2021
quite a bit of data also suggests neglect, physical/sexual abuse can lead to adhd and other learning disabilities.
cptsd, ptsd, bp2, mdd, adhd (full host of learning disabilities), asperger's. several tbi's. sexual abuse. physical abuse. physical trauma.
words cannot express how i hate not being a normal person my entire life
Been on r/cptsd a lot today. If you haven't joined I recommend it. I find it helpful since cPTSD is just so isolating
I've heard the mods are themselves abusers who infiltrated the sub to find victims.
I've never experienced that. Honestly I rarely even see mods comment.
They rapidly ban commenters who call them out on their manipulation. "Rarely even seeing" is the point.
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I might be sharing something you already know, but maybe you or other people reading this thread don’t know about this, but have you ever looked into DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy)? It can be helpful for a lot of things but is really optimized for Borderline Personality Disorder, PTSD, and Complex PTSD.
It requires a bit more time investment than other kinds of therapy (usually a 1 hour session a week plus a 1-2 hour separate segment called skills training, which a lot of places offer virtually nowadays) but it’s not too crazy of a time investment. There’s been a lot of research verifying that DBT is really effective, especially for these sorts of things. Basically a while back, there was CBT (a pretty common type of therapy), but they found it fell short for people with Borderline Personality Disorder and Complex PTSD especially, so they really reworked it over a number of years and developed a more optimized approach for these things
I just wanted to share this since with therapy, you tend to see a bunch of acronyms and styles of therapy and it’s easy to get lost and overwhelmed with what they all mean, but for Borderline Personality Disorder and Complex PTSD, it’s very much the gold standard for efficacy. Granted, finding a therapist you actually mesh with and like is still very important, but it’ll be very worth looking into “Full Model DBT”
I’ve learned a lot about this as someone close to me has struggled with the sorts of things it’s especially good for, and I hope maybe this can help point you or someone else reading this some help
DBT can help a lot with symptom management, and is a good starter therapy for CPTSD for this reason, but EMDR and inner child or schema therapy will do a better job of addressing the root cause of a person's symptoms.
It's unfortunate that there isn't a one size fits all treatment for stuff like this, but at least stuff like inner child therapy, DBT distress tolerance skills and journaling are all pretty helpful for me at this point. I'll take what I can get. (I went through DBT like 8-9 years ago, but I started seeing a trauma therapist in October.).
I personally found the ABCDE theory from Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy to be helpful as well. The basic idea is that a lot of mental health issues, grief, trauma, etc are caused by our reaction to or our beliefs about certain events in our lives; so if we change how we see those events, we can eliminate the problem. It's at least been very helpful for me in terms of reframing stuff that's happening now, and putting it into perspective.
Emotional accounting can also be helpful, but for some reason journaling has taken over this skill for me. I was never really able to make it the consistent habit that I wanted it to be.
Disclaimer: I am far from healed, or even doing well, but I'm doing better and this stuff is a large part of why.
Edit: I also went through a CBT workbook for PTSD, and that also helped a lot with symptom management.
Edit #2: to clarify about DBT -- it's helped my self esteem and self image a lot, but it has never been able to do much once I get triggered and that switch flips in my brain that takes me back to my past. I still use DBT techniques for symptom management, but they're not my only tools.
I think it helped me a lot, but what's worked has been kind of ingrained into my behavior, and what hasn't worked has been dropped. I still think that it isn't going to be as good as other therapeutic modalities to treat the core issues behind CPTSD, but your mileage may vary.
If someone has CPTSD, they should see a trauma therapist; and someone specializing in trauma will be able to help you go in the right direction. For a lot of people, DBT is at least a pretty darn good start. It is 3:30 AM and I am probably contradicting my own earlier points.
EMDR saved my life, I have cptsd and ocd.
I'm gonna ask my psychiatrist about whether my insurance will pay for me to get EMDR and see my current therapist at the same time (since I'd have to see someone else for EMDR). Fingers crossed, I guess.
I'm pretty much open to anything that will realistically help, not that EMDR is anything crazy. I like that it's basically a way to take advantage of loopholes in how your brain works. It's neat.
My condolences. I, too have not being normal - and being ruthlessly punished for not being normal my entire life, which caused my CPTSD.
“words cannot express how i hate not being a normal person my entire life”
The normal coping skills you’ve developed are to abnormal situations in your life. Not the other way around. You’re surviving and you’re doing a damn good job at it.
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Got a source on ADHD being caused by abuse? Because I've only ever found studies showing that it's not due to abuse.
This article title literally states that abuse causes attention (and perception processing) altered brain functions.
Yes, Hypervigilence. That's not ADHD.
i accidentally posted links to a comment above
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https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24750573.2017.1367551
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161011130010.htm
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this is primarily because of how ptsd/cptsd will rewire the brain. so that someone who did not actually begin life in early development as lear4ning disabled, ocd or adhd, ends up being stuck as neurodivergent due to how the ptsd rips the brain apart
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a couple good examples of this. in the season 3 of the boys, mothers milk talks about his bipolar and ocd and trauma because of how someone threw a car through his house and killed his family. in doing this, he ends up having to do an ocd ritual in order to maintain and facilitate that actionary. because he believes if he did this, things would have been different
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the legend of korra also touches on this when amon terrorizes korra. her trauma responses are many, and even by the end of the series she is NOT well, nor who she used to be.
that hyperarousal and hypervigilance, mixed with shame and guilt bring many people to their knees mentally
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the book that was adapted to hulu for catch 22 by joseph heller also offers several classic examples of how people change with ptsd.
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the show mash, is also a good study on ptsd across a broad spectrum of characters. korra, catch 22, and mash are both two of my comfort shows because of the ways they each tackle ptsd in characters
Except plenty of people have ADHD without those issues. Itoesbt make sense. If trauma caused it, they'd have been shouting it from the rooftops decades ago.
trauma makes the predisposition to it come forth
genetics still plays an important role itself, due to gene expression.
just like gestational exposure of air pollution to a mother can increase the odds of autism spectrum disorder.
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Causes of ADHD
Brain injury.
Exposure to environmental risks (e.g., lead) during pregnancy or at a young age.
Alcohol and tobacco use during pregnancy.
Premature delivery.
Low birth weight.
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https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/facts.html
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lemme tell you traumatic brain injuries suck
had one at 9, 17, 20 and a huge one at 37 (the perils of being a lumberjack. no one gets out of that industry unscarred unless they only work one day).
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Prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAH, a component of air pollution, raises the odds of behavior problems associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, at age 9, according to researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health at the Mailman School of ...Nov 5, 2014
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https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/adhd-air-pollution-link
boys tend to have the greatest risk of inheriting or ending up adhd
air pollution is liable to be one of the main causes of why so many more kids are being born neurodivergent
never mind all the chemicals in the water, especially here in illinois with the coal ash and pesticides/herbicides which end up back in the water supplies (this is also why kidney disease is the largest death machine in illinois)
brains are sensitive organs. it does not take much to mess them up
and ptsd/cptsd/neglect/sexual abuse/physical abuse can mess up a young mind like a grenade will mess up an apple tree
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