Why We Struggle Socializing With Complex PTSD
Recognizing the symptoms and gaining self-compassion
“Survivors don’t have time to ask, “Why me?” For survivors, the only relevant question is, “What now?” — Edith Eger
I always start my more controversial articles with a gentle reminder that this may be emotionally triggering. Some topics like complex trauma will tend to stir up memories or emotions for some, myself included. Please understand my intent is not to cause anyone stress, but to help shed light on the reality of a very real, and often misunderstood disorder.
The fact that I offer a trigger warning for these types of articles, says it all. It’s a reminder of what we have experienced, what we’ve survived, and how our lives are forever changed as a result. Is it a “bad” thing? Well, although I try to remain guardedly optimistic, the reality is that the effects of complex trauma are chronic, lifelong, and grossly misunderstood. It’s about adjusting to our New Normal; about understanding what we’ve endured so we can move forward one small step at at time in our personal empowerment. It becomes a daily task of walking away from those who blame the victim, or who lack compassion for anyone who’s experienced severe, prolonged, or chronic trauma.
Getting to this place of empowerment when battling complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (cPTSD) is tough on a good day, and can be damn near impossible on a bad day.
So, we learn to cope. We become kinder to ourselves and proud of our ability to adapt. We learn to recognize when our body is betraying us and we readjust accordingly. Fasting becomes a daily habit to prevent our stomach from tying in knots or causing us more gastrointestinal issues. We learn that some foods are our enemy, some foods will trigger discomfort, while others become staples on a short list.
We love ourselves harder on the days that are harder. We learn to rock baggy clothes and a 60-pound weight loss as reminders of where we’ve been and what our body has been through. We learn to avoid the sun because we develop rashes and skin sensitivities at the drop of a hat. Aspirin becomes our best friend to dull the thump of another headache, yet triggers our stomach pain; we’ve had to fine-tune the art of balance. We accept words like “fibromyalgia”, “chronic”, “trauma”, and “exhaustion” as common in our vocabulary, yet we don’t let them define who we are.
We learn to run errands during the off-hours so that we don’t have to “people” as much, and we are happiest skipping out on parties, or alcohol-infused get-togethers for a hot bath, a book, and some peace. Our phone is no longer used to answer calls; we eagerly push them through to voicemail to avoid having to chat. Conversation is exchanged for quiet reflection, journaling, or accessing our growing Kindle collection. We don’t have a need to explain ourselves to others because superficial chitchat triggers exhaustion faster than anything.
Going to noisy gyms has been replaced with night jogs with our S.O., or heading to a meditation sauna to relax, to purge, and to reconnect with our soul. We’ve chosen quality over quantity in our relationships, and we value our S.O. as compassionate, understanding, authentic, and patient. Even our friends and family seem to know our need for space, and either don’t call us as much, or have learned to text us instead.
We ignore our emotional pain by tuning out, self-numbing, or bandaiding it. Physical pain is often less intrusive than the emotional pain we’ve carried with us and so it sometimes goes unnoticed. We may not be consciously aware of our body aches, or they may even act as a reminder that we’re still alive. We’ve learned to live in a state of hyper-altertness and that our sleep/wake schedule has taken on a life of its own. We nap when needed, we slow down when our body tires, and we no longer push ourselves past our comfort zone.
Our values have shifted, and our faith in some has faltered. Because of this, we’ve learned self-reliance, and that a person’s words don’t mean half as much to us as do their actions.
These are the realities of living with the effects of complex trauma.
The irony is that many of us who are now choosing peace and quiet over distractions used to chase the very distractions we now run from. Many of us used to find ourselves as overly-busy workaholics, overdoing it in school, juggling entirely too much on our plates, stuck in shallow or narcissistic relationships, tacking on more hobbies, and constantly finding new ways to self-numb.
Those of us who have been on both sides of the fence understand that complex trauma can have us numbing and avoiding for a week, a year, or a decade; only to become hyper-vigilant in seeking peace and quiet after the buzz from being emotionally numb wears off. We’ve learned that the grass is not greener living in distractions, and the longer we chose to numb our pain, the further removed we got from peace.
To anyone unfamiliar with cPTSD, they may make bold assumptions that we’re arrogant or haughty, or shame or smear us for not making time to socialize.
To anyone familiar with how the effects of complex trauma can affect us, they know differently.
And, they know otherwise.
Backdrop
Dr. Judith Lewis Herman coined complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (cPTSD) back in the 1990’s when she was conducting her work at Harvard University. She noticed many patterns and similarities among her patients who were living with severe disorders of stress that didn’t quite fit the bill for a formal diagnosis of PTSD or Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). She and Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, among other researchers, began examining certain populations, and came to the realization these people were suffering from a more profound, and chronic stress with origins in severe and prolonged child abuse, captivity, severe domestic abuse, or as prisoners of war.
Since the 1990’s and Dr. Lewis Herman’s groundbreaking work, there has been a plethora of research conducted on complex trauma. While it’s still in its infancy and is not formally recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5th Edition (APA, 2013), cPTSD is said to affect approximately 3.8% of Americans. Because of similar symptomologies as PTSD and BPD, many therapists are cautious about diagnosing cPTSD, or may choose not to diagnose it. Similarly, because of these shared symptoms, cPTSD is often misdiagnosed as BPD, further adding to misconceptions between them.
The Struggle To Socialize
It’s often cited that those who don’t understand what complex trauma is or how it affects a person can be quick to dismiss them as “crazy” instead of looking at the reality of what that person experienced and are trying to move past. Some will be quick to jump on the bandwagon to smear us. Human nature tends to shun and alienate what we don’t understand, or what we haven’t experienced first-hand. Instead of asking questions, there’s judgement. Instead of support, there’s shame. And, instead of trying to understand, there’s assumptions.
Afraid You’ll Run Into The Person Who Traumatized You. Perhaps the biggest reason why those with cPTSD don’t like socializing is because there’s a risk of running into their tormentor. Adult children of abusive parents may have had to go Grey Rock with their caregivers to protect their emotions and their mental health. If they still live in close proximity to their abusive caregivers, there’s a risk of bumping into them while running errands, or just being out in public. Because the emotional triggers can be profound, to minimize the risk of dealing with an abusive caregiver or family member, we simply shut down, and stay in. We wind up sending our S.O. to the store. Or, we opt for delivery. We take mental notes of our family member’s schedule and we venture out when we know they’re at home for the night. We may even relocate to start over; a fresh start.
It’s not limited to family members or caregivers that are avoided. The reality is, if a person survived an overtly or covertly narcissistic relationship, the last thing any trauma survivor wants to do is run the risk of bumping into their ex and the person they were cheating with and “discarded” them for. We learn to avoid the shared places we used to go. We take the long way home from work to avoid familiar streets. And, we ditch old favorite hangouts. After all, if a person battles narcissism, there’s a solid chance they may take the new partner to the same shared locations— intimate French restaurants, the mountains, romantic staycations, the beach, or day hikes. These places become a mix of happy memories and trauma where the traumatic memories trump any good times.
Because cPTSD is a shame-based disorder, by the time a person finds themselves in a narcissistic relationship as an adult, there is often a longstanding history of abuse and feelings of worthlessness in that person’s life. They become an easy target for toxic relationships, or those who don’t have their best interests at heart. If a person battled severe child abuse where their basic needs for love, safety, and trust went unchecked, this puts them at an especially high risk in falling for idealization, further triggering feelings of shame.
Never Know What Will Trigger Anger, Tears, Or Numbing. A shared symptom between cPTSD and BPD is emotional dsyregulation, which may include emotionally lashing out or emotionally numbing. With socializing, there’s a gamut of potential problems. A random person may be wearing a shirt or cologne an abuser wore, which triggers an avalanche of tears. A lady in the supermarket may be on her phone and sound exactly like a toxic caregiver, triggering anger. Or, we may hear a song on the radio that reminds us of when we believed an ex loved us, instead of what was seen later on.
These risks for emotional numbing or anger/tears are what can keep a person with cPTSD at home. They may become more socially isolated as a result of their unprocessed emotions, or may begin turning to further numbing (dissociation) as a way of trying to cope with feelings or experiences they would rather not deal with.
Some become prisoners of their emotions where addictive behaviors are used to “numb”. For example, it’s not uncommon to begin self-medicating with drugs or alcohol. However, addictions may also take on different behaviors. There may be addictions to sex, porn, working out, dangerous dieting, video gaming, or shopping as ways to “numb” and push away more vulnerable emotions. Needless to say, this can become a cycle in itself — where one bandaid is used to cover up another wound.
A Sense Of Safety Is Gone. Safety and trust walk hand-in-hand. These are supposed to be taught as traits of consistency and predictability among our caregivers and our environment in childhood. It doesn’t always work out this way. Adults who experienced severe, or chronic abuse as kids weren’t being taught safety. Or trust. They were being taught to duck and run and that no one and nothing is safe. This is what sets a person up for revictimization in adulthood as van der Kolk (1989) discusses. If our primary caregivers betrayed our sense of trust or safety, we can (and often do) unconsciously seek it out in our adult relationships because it’s comfortable and familiar. We aren’t noticing the relationship red flags; we’re noticing how it feels ironically “safe”. Even “good”.
Yet, it’s these cycles and patterns that may trigger further trauma later in life, further perpetuating the cycle.
Final Thoughts..
The thing is, when we’re caught up in the aftermath of trauma, we’re just trying to survive. We obsess on feeling: on feeling better, on feeling less, on feeling more, or on feeling different. I think this is backwards.
When we’ve experienced severe trauma or are battling the effects of cPTSD, we need to start from Ground Zero. We need to (re)learn how to feel, and how to reconnect our body back to our emotions while feeling safe. We need understanding and patience from those in our lives. Relearning, and unlearning is a process. No, it doesn’t happen overnight.
But, it can happen…
References
Cloitre, M., et al. (2019). ICD-11 Posttraumatic stress disorder and complex posttraumatic stress disorder in the United States: A population-based study. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 32(6), 833–842.
Ford, J. D., et al. (2014). Complex PTSD, affect dsyregulation, and borderline personality disorder. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotional Dysregulation, 1–9.
Herman, J. L. (1997). Trauma and recovery. New York: BasicBooks.
Herman, J. L. (1998). Recovery from psychological trauma. Psychiatry & Clinical Neurosciences, 52, S145–S150.
Herman, J. L. (1992). Complex PTSD: A Syndrome in Survivors of Prolonged and Repeated Trauma. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 5(3), 377–391
van der Kolk, B.A. (1989). The compulsion to repeat the trauma: Reenactment, revictimization, and masochism. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 12(2), 389–411.