CPTSD/Disorders of extreme stress not otherwise specified

CPTSD is confused for PTSD – i.e. someone experiences multiple traumatic events like going to war or experiencing multiple or singular incidents of abuse.

CPTSD is prolonged with its origin in childhood. It’s prolonged psychological trauma that can be triggered but here’s the catch; it can hit you any point in life if you had severe prolonged psychological trauma as a child.

PTSD on the other hand comes and goes, too externally triggered.

Because CPTSD and PTSD both have the same symptoms in the PTSD part, this is where the confusion is.

Psychology still thinks of this condition as BPD. The question is why? Because to me, they’re two different things.

I realised something tonight, and I broke down. I didn’t see it before. It erased everything I thought I knew about the psychological abuse inflicted upon me.

I didn’t see it, because it was still happening. It is still happening. All I can guarantee is it is not my recent ex partner. I can promise you that. He’s neurodivergent like me. We have different communication styles hence we get along but just different personalities and completely different people.

There’s just no escape from it because I don’t know what they’re trying to achieve.

I won’t say what, who, why, but when you have people in your life who can manipulate others to such an extent that it isolates the victim completely, they will do anything in their power to get you a Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis.

Absolutely anything.

I knew that.

Except I got the perpetrator wrong.

Very wrong. My original perpetrator? Someone from my childhood for the CPTSD, I had another incident in 2018 which caused actual PTSD. I’ve got a complicated story, and something new is now which could actually be a spiritual awakening because I was born an INFJ and AuDHD. Yeah. Not a good combination. Would not recommend. Very contradictory. No wonder why Hemingway was always high and low.

I didn’t see it. I was manipulated.

And so were their flying monkeys.

I know what you’re doing, and I know you’ve been watching me, see if I collapse under the psychological manipulation. How can I? When that was my whole childhood?

PTSD I can treat with medication.

I’ll just wait for that to kick in before I work on the CPTSD.

I can be labelled as BPD, but I’m not struggling with BPD. If I was, I’d admit it. Because I’ve seen it in people I have had relationships with and caregivers.

I was born Autistic/Asperger’s/ADHD inattentive type as I was diagnosed with as a child.

I don’t need validation, I don’t need acceptance, I definitely don’t want sympathy. Definitely not.

Two things I’m grateful for:

1. My GP surgery seeing my PTSD.
2. The videos that are available to me about my CPTSD to make me realise I’m not alone in this.
3. My understanding as a born neurodivergent.
4. The courts seeing me today in person and experiencing an emotional flashback as part of CPTSD.

The mental health team are waiting for me to be stable. I’ve always been the same neurodivergent I was born as with the same personality. Yes I struggled with RSD when younger but it faded over time. And I have PMDD which is common in Autistic women.

I’m just carrying a lot of baggage – which I never expected my Pandora’s box to be opened like that but it was a combination of external triggers that opened the box, not just one.

My six year relationship was not volatile. No intense emotional instability within the relationship. I had impulsivity, yes as part of my neurodivergence but so did my ex. Fragile sense of self – not really.

At all.

So how on God’s planet are they confusing these two conditions.

My PMDD is confused for my BPD symptoms but that’s periods. I’ve got a long history of gynaecological problems. I’d smash plates when younger before I’d come on. I chucked phones out my window, I even had period induced psychosis when younger where I was on a night out and my ex locked me out my own flat and made me feel like I was going crazy. I started banging on my flat door then the next day he said “I have your keys, sorry I fell asleep and locked your door”. Even the police came to try to let me in to my own flat.

I went bipolar for two weeks out of a month. That’s why my other long term relationship couldn’t handle me and he kept taking me doctors to say “she has bipolar” but it was my PMDD. And I had RSD. Yeah I take accountability for that. But I did fix that. RSD should be a separate diagnosis in the ICD and the DSM. It’s confused for BPD in neurodivergents. And he had his own struggles with drugs, alcohol, couldn’t have stable relationships and he said because of me recently he’s asked for help but NHS have declined him in England (because of BPD stigma). I’m fuming. They need to stop turning away people with Personality disorders and neurodivergence.

My long term ex has deteriorated over time, rapidly. And it’s scary. I just want his son to have a better future. He was like that when I first met him but he’s got worse over time. He claimed he never loved his son’s mother but got her pregnant to hurt me because apparently I kissed a guy when we went out clubbing. Well congratulations it did at the time but I just sat and cried, then went back to work. But he needs that help to give his son a better future. Deep down he’s a nice person though, loving, helpful, works hard etc, but our ADHD is the same. He said to me recently “I’ve always been the a***hole.” I’m like okay, we are not ever getting back together. I care about you. That’s as far as it’s going. I’ll come down to try and get you the help you need in the NHS system in England. But that’s it. We have a long history. I connect better with neurodivergent people. Just the paradox of having complex trauma affects that. My ex has to understand we cannot ever be together because we will trigger each other because he had unresolved pain and now he’s 40 is badly affecting him. He said he needs my help because psychologists are ignoring him. They do that in England but you have to try and stay alive. I’ll write your GP a letter. If I go back down there I’ll throw myself into PTSD attacks and get sectioned myself and won’t be able to get out.

The thing is because of his difficulties he’d block my number, then come back months later, block me randomly, then come back. And this push-pull would send my brain in such a spin. And he finally has the courage to go and ask for help and they refuse him. I don’t understand why they’re turning people away with BPD with these pervasive difficulties. He apologised to me. I accepted that. I apologised to him. We left it as that.

Unfortunately he hurt the mother of his child by never loving her in the first place because he was still in love with me. Now he’s realising he has an issue but is at the brink of suicide that the NHS in England have turned him away so I’m hypervigilant right now, thinking please stay alive for your son. ❤️

I’m figuring myself out now. INFJ’s we don’t stop analysing until we get to the correct answer.

We are like private investigators, rather than perpetrators.

I need to start putting myself first now so I can try heal from all my traumas that have risen to the surface. It’s a hard battle to face alone. But we also know that other people can’t save us from ourselves.

Unfortunately my CPTSD is only severe because of the amount of traumas I had in childhood. Maybe my ADHD kept me alive. I’m not sure.

With my first long term ex we met through my cousins. My cousins used to look after me to keep me safe as we’ve all experienced trauma but they protected me although they personally choose men abuse them, I distance myself from men if they start abusing me in any way and walk away from them, some don’t like that. I also clap back if I’m emotionally abused in some way.