15 SIGNS YOU HAVE CPTSD (COMPLEX PTSD) | DR. KIM SAGE

It's just crazy to me how pervasive and

complex

PTSD is and especially how pervasive it is in so many of our childhoods that the idea that we can experience trauma at the hands of caregivers has taken so long to talk about. really about it, it just surprises me. mind, so I wanted to go back, redo and add some things to a video I made. I think it was a couple of years ago when I started here on YouTube and that one was called 12 Signs You May Have C

ptsd

, so please go. Check it out if you want to continue digging into this topic, but I hope that today's video really gives you

signs

that really support all the things that you know were true and maybe put them all into a collection of spaces and symptoms that you can honor on your own. and hopefully potentially direct healing if you need to, so we'll go over 15 Signs of Childhood Complex PTSD C

ptsd

and just a quick reminder that the

complex

part actually refers to the complex nature of repetitive trauma often relational and so you may

have

had

cptsd

not since your childhood, it can come from all kinds of situations, it can come from narcissistic relationships, it can come from different forms of trauma that can happen in our lives, and that's important .

I recognize it, but I really want to explain what it looks like and how it manifests in our symptoms, especially if it occurred in childhood. Now I want to say it real quick, I mean, you've probably heard me say it before. I don't believe it. Children are as resilient as we want them to be. I think we tell ourselves to feel better historically and honestly we do because children may or may not show symptoms and because of the way we

have

approached parenting in so many places around the world. In the world we don't necessarily see children as their own separate entities, we often see them, as you know, in this attempt we have to mold little mini adults and we Zoom all kinds of things and there is no safe place for a child Express your symptoms. in many cases and as I've said and you know in so many videos that children have nowhere to go, in fact, I'm going to talk about this in my next video about the relationship between chronic

cptsd

symptoms and feelings. stuck in childhood and helpless and helpless and how that can affect us being over-the-top and hyper-arranging and stuff like that, but let's get into 15

signs

you may have childhood cptsd.

The first sign, no surprise here, is that you live in a state of hyperactivity. surveillance and what that really means at its core is a kind of fight or flight response where you are an immobilized state. Remember to go back to the polyvagal theory with the idea that the nervous system exists in a ladder at the top, we have what is called ventral. vagal and that's the connecting place of feeling emotionally regulated, like you don't know you don't need to do anything or you collapse, you're in a state of being available and present and opening up the next level on the ladder is where we find the fight, the flight and really freeze in that sense in that fight running away and freezing technically are places where we need to mobilize, we need to do something and then underneath that is what we call and that is actually the sympathetic right, which is the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic, the dorsal vagal is really about a shutdown and this is where we often find collapse and submission as part of trauma responses, so we have fight, flight, freeze, Fawn, which is technically more of an adaptability survival response, not necessarily as automatic and reflexive as we think of fight, flight and freeze.

We have fight, flight, freeze, appearance of rallying the crowd for help, which is kind of a desperate need to try to really connect by feeling that inner desperation and then we collapse and submit, which is really where we're going to close the door now. idea of ​​freezing for An example of being in that kind of state of mobilization is that let's say I'm, you know, somewhere in the savannah and suddenly I see a lion, a tiger or a bear, it's not really a bear, but You know what I mean, getting close to me, I can fight, I can run away or I might want to freeze, it's a decision that I might have to make right now, but when we start talking about a total breakdown and not being able to move and a shutdown total that can often fall into that more collapsed dorsal vagal area, so the idea is that freezing has a purpose, but freezing can also fall, I think when you think about it in that closed state, but the idea is mobilization is The concept around the sympathetic response and immobilization unable to mobilize is about the dorsal vagal response. so when we think about infancy, we think about our attachment system at birth, our parents' attachment system, I should say, knowing our baby self, our parents' attachment system and their kind of nervous system responses. , which means that perhaps your parents operate in many ways. of more fight or flight, they're very anxious, they're hypervigilant or they may be parents who are very closed off, more of a depressive vibe or they find it difficult to, you know, move up on the latter, so let's go. learn that with this particular parent or group of parents or caregivers we have to do and say some things to survive and we have no choice, it's just about survival, we can't survive without them, newborns can't survive, children can survive without their parents to some extent. period, so we have to be good at reading them and this is where hypervigilance comes into play.

This is where if you had a parent, let's say, who was struggling with hypervigilance anxiety, who lived in a situation where their option was fight or flight. We're talking and this could also include neglect, whatever it is, but the point is that I talk a lot about eggshell parents because if you had eggshell parents who went into a rage for yelling at them, loving, conditional, secure, insecure, you . You have to live in a state where you are never really sure, so you are analyzing what does this behavior mean, what does this response mean, do I need to read his non-verbal things, like the sigh?

Know? Is that starting to mean that? If that size of parent like that at the end of a long day could provoke rage in some families, it could be that the Sigh could mean that any little neglect they were having was going to be more neglect, meaning they were more exhausted and we weren't going get their needs met, but hypervigilance is about scanning and self-protecting and really just spending all your time trying to figure out what to do in response to this parent or caregiver to get their needs met and that's very common in those of us who have sleep disorder. complex post-traumatic stress on any level, but especially thinking about your wiring as a child, if you came into the world needing to scan and spent most of your childhood scanning for whatever reason, even if you were removed from home and now you're in a different home now You have to learn to read all the signals from parents or caregivers even if they were safer your nervous system has been wired so I think hypervigilance is really underrated in terms of the chronic nature especially around cptsd so we are scanning and then making adjustments and modifications and adaptations in our lives so that you live in a scanning state and you can't just turn it off after a whole environment that you know from your childhood, where that was a vital survival skill number.

Two, we can often in response to that be isolating and this is, of course, I'm talking about how this plays out in our adult lives and then maybe we discover that human beings are really stressful and we live in a state of hypervigilance and the The only time we don't have to pay attention to all humans, be it our children, our boss, our partner, is when we are alone, so isolating ourselves can be a very common response to more complex PTSD in childhood. and a lot of times I think it's actually not that good, it could be that obviously humans are not safe because we can't trust them because they will leave us because they are harmful, but it can also be because we are trying to regulate our bodies. and in fact, we may not be in a more ventral State with legal connection, we are more in a closed State because we spend so much time in that sympathetic place that when we can lower our bodies we spend a lot of time alone.

That way, to regulate the number three, we often repeat the relational cycles, patterns, and dynamics of childhood, so we grow up and inadvertently choose partners who, even if they look completely different, pose the same set of concerns. childhood feelings and do not feel worthy of receiving. conditional love has to scan and be hypervigilant, believe that love must be earned, things like that and so we end up, you know, many times in an attempt to heal, finding ourselves in repetitive patterns that are really at the end of the day, no matter what. look they are not consistently safe mainly because no one is.

I think they are perfectly safe all the time. sure, which means you know you're not going to be mad at me. not sure, that is, in a literal dynamic, but deep down, the bottom line of this is that we repeat unhealthy patterns and end up feeling many of the same feelings that we have longed to heal since childhood, chronic health problems number four. We know that research shows that there is a very strong relationship between what happens to us in childhood and what happens chronically. diseases and problems in our adult life, if you don't believe me, research the aces, study the aces, it's basically a set of experiences that we know, which means that adverse childhood experiences are the key things, like divorce, Parental fights, illnesses, losses and mental health problems the way you grow up in the neighborhood in the culture the lack of security that can exist around those things as a result of socioeconomic status there are so many things that can affect us, but we know that having some difficulties with our bodies chronic health is extremely common for those of us who have some type of complex trauma number where am I number one two three four five chronic mental health problems anxiety depression difficulty regulating ourselves all kinds of dynamics can be eating disorders with which many things can be related? physical and mental health and remember that there is nothing separate, your brain is not something separate from your body, everything is connected and flows and we know it, and that is why it is a tragedy that we have decided that Western medicine says that these are your body problems and these are your brain problems, they are all connected and for example one of the things I talk to a lot of patients about is sleep.

I really believe in the research that shows that there is a significant relationship between your sleep and your mental health and let's say you have generalized anxiety so you don't sleep well let's say you have hormonal problems so you don't sleep well let's say you live in a state of hypervigilance chronic illness and childhood when it came quiet, it wasn't safe in your house and that's why even when it's quiet at night, you worry or let's say you stay up very, very late at night because that's the only time you you feel regulated and calm and calm at home, even though now you have a safe home and that sabotages sleep, so we know things like you know chronic things like cancer, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, traumatic brain injuries, health mother's mental and physical health, the risk of early pregnancy, all of this can be related to adverse childhood experiences and play into our physical and mental health, the next thing is that it is very common for us to struggle with some different forms of dissociation , from distracting ourselves to having a difficult time and being in the present, you know that there are varying degrees of forms of Maladaptive dreams and fantasies in which you create other worlds can be quite serious, from simply hypnosis on the road to driving home, which is pretty common and doesn't mean you have a trauma unless of course you go with all these symptoms, but then it can also relate to your ability to be present and focused in attention and awareness and things like that, the concentration, still, how your brain is or is not in the present can be significant and makes sense when you think that many times dissociation is the way we can survive. what feels insurmountable or to escape from feelings or to manage you know whatever is going on in our lives fantasy can be you know it can be a tool it's just that it can become our primary way of operating and certainly the way extreme in terms of dissociative disorders can definitely be a response to severe trauma, things like depersonalization, where you don't feel what you know in your body, derealization, where you don't feel like things are real, like you're floating above you himself or about things. are surreal, so those may all be ways we respond when dealing withour trauma and our childhood, the next is to have a harsh inner critic and fight against perfectionism, busyness, workaholism, the idea behind the concept that we found in Pete Walker's book on cptsd Surviving to thrive is that the Perfectionist comes to us this way in childhood we think well, if I am perfect then I won't have to be to blame and not be lovable or be to blame for all these bad things, so we develop this inner and outer. critical to scan all the time uh oh you're not doing well you're not good enough you're going to fail what's wrong with you things like that and that can really happen in the US never being good enough and of course I think the core A big part of this whole experience of childhood depressive disorder in childhood is the belief that deep down we are not worthy or lovable and that segues into the next thing, which is really toxic shame and toxic shame is really about that.

The idea that there is something deeply wrong with us is not that we have not made a good decision, but that we are not a good choice to exist in some way. And so that deep belief that we are not worthy of being loved is omnipresent in our lives, even if we look different on the outside, like we have it all figured out and trust in things like that deep down that we often turn to when things aren't going well if we're not good enough if we're afraid or ashamed, we It's because something's wrong with us or we're in trouble, we're going to make mistakes and things like that and that just goes back to scanning like I was.

Speaking of hypervigilance, the next one is living in survival mode and this is what is related to anxiety and hypervigilance, but it always seems that no matter what is happening in your life, it is a matter of survival every day. . I ticked a tick last week about this like I woke up on a Monday and felt inside that the entire rest of my retirement and my life and my day and my financial life depends on that day, which is ridiculous and how do you know I still you're in survival mode if you're not literally in it anymore, like it's not a day-to-day survival thing, but you're in the mood, so yeah, you know where the next meal is coming from. you have a good safe place to sleep, you are not in an insecure relationship, but that inner panic is like your brain is transported back to childhood, where you are just treading water trying to survive, but in reality, if we look at your Life can be stressful. you're not just floating in the water, there are places to swim and survive, it feels like at any moment you're sinking, the next feels generally unworthy and I said it in the last few moments, but it's one of those things where you success, your appearance, whatever it is, there are always boxes checked that say it's not good enough and it will never be good enough, so it's like you come into every situation with suitcases, they're very heavy and they basically tell you that No.

No matter what you do, you will always have to carry these bags, you will never be enough and you spend a lot of time, effort and energy trying to combat it. It could be because of the way you try to control your body, by eating into your relationships. whatever it is, but no matter what, there's that little part inside that says everyone else in the room is good enough, but you'll never be next, it's emotional flashbacks and I can't stress enough how common that is. this for those of us and What I really want you to understand about this is that what often happens is that something triggers us, whether we are aware of it or not, and it is just a feeling that we have and it feels like a storm when I have spoken of you.

I know something happened around my last relationship, er, divorce, which was years ago. Something can happen with the people in the game and the players involved in that situation. I'm going to try to keep this General and they can say or do something about it. Any reason can trigger a deep-seated fear, a feeling that for several days does not happen very often, but it can happen. Now it happens less frequently. I would say I speak for myself more than before, but it can still happen. I just sit in this dark cloud of tiredness and everything is wrong and it's never going to work or it's a fear based place or a shame based place or an anxious plan place and this is very common for people when you're having some kind of trigger. with your family where or you are where the meaning of your family and your childhood and something in your adult life happens and it's like you're back in that little body, that little boy here, that little boy in the room trying to keep the parents from fight or the kid standing in the kitchen alone at home at seven and eight years old, wondering when your parents are coming home, things like that, and just as you know, sometimes you can say oh yeah, this happened and I feel like this. , but sometimes it's like you just feel like I'm suddenly very depressed or I'm more anxious than usual or terrified or scared and you can be, but if you normally don't have that Dynamic, especially with something like depression and suddenly you feel very depressed, it can potentially be a flashback that can disappear and what often happens is that it disappears, so in reality they are like someone takes you out of your adult body and transports you as if you return to failed states in childhood, that's how It happens, the next one is being hyper and overly controlling and this is the idea that you had no control in childhood and so now you are always trying to control everything that could affect your parenting.

Now all of a sudden I think this has been really bad. The collision of the world of parents is changing in a good way, but how can you deal with childhood trauma where it's like, for example, let's say in childhood, I had absent parents, I was alone a lot, I grew up on frozen foods, that's true for me but now I might be the type of mother and I had these problems when my kids were little and I still have them but you're right they are much better but I can really see the now where I have this fantasy and the illusion of control that everything was going to be different.

I was going to prepare every meal from scratch. I saw moms as my kids grew up as millennial moms who were going to make all the baby food, which is nothing wrong, but they were going to do it. I used to do it. Laugh like essential oils and baby food and crafts and no devices and I mean, at some point, that's okay, but it takes a lot to keep that going every day and you don't have any wiggle room, if you gave in yourself, if you gave them to your children. the cell phone now you have failed to be a parent instead of saying yes, I need a break today and I am at my limit and instead of yelling at them I am going to give them the iPad, this is very different from raising your children on an iPad or what whatever you're doing, and even there, if there's no judgment, being a parent is the hardest job on the planet, but there's a huge spectrum between neglecting your child's upbringing and not being present and sometimes along the way. , need access. different ways to survive parenting, but control can be developed in the sense that you have this vision of the childhood that you had and everything will be different and the control part prepares you for number one, being chronically exhausted, the Number two, feeling like a chronic failure because there's no way to maintain it unless you have babysitters, a supportive partner, and a house cleaner, and even if you do, it's like we set this standard so high that it can be really Devastating for us and shocking for our lives. own mental physical health if we are trying to control but the controlled desire comes from a good place it is a way of trying to say that this is not my childhood and that I am going to do my adult life differently, it's just that it can cause a lot harm and finally difficulty trusting or feeling safe, so ultimately the security breach is the biggest.

Dynamic with children's cptsd so that, no matter what happens, you never feel that you can trust people, they will leave you, they will abandon you. They are not, they are not who they say they are and you show up with those suitcases, no matter how you present yourself in a way that pretends or masks that you are me, everything will be fine and we are all going to be safe, everything is going to work out as it happens. Deep down, you don't trust people, so you don't let them in or you protect parts of yourself, which maybe you need to do, but the problem is that deep down you have a mistrust because, as I've said, been saying a lot lately, humans are the trigger for humans not being safe, relating is not safe and if you think about whether that is a core belief on top of being unlovable and let's say hypervigilance, think about how easy that would be.

Living in a state of wanting to isolate yourself because you don't want to do that I should say I don't want to put it that way feels like a survival response to isolate yourself, for example, and there may be nothing wrong with that unless, of course, You want to have more connection and people in your life. I think we've shamed people for being too alone and there's a line between connection and all that is healing and a line between honoring each of our own stories and our own nervous systems, so I know there's more to it than these, there really is, but when I think about how chronic cptsd symptoms manifest, especially for those of us who have the childhood experience, this is what it looks like and unfortunately because of our trauma and our childhood, we can often find ourselves in relationships traumas of adult life that repeat history like I said, whether it's your boss, your partner, whatever, for example, like I talked about, let's say you had all this in your childhood and then you unconsciously choose an insecure partner and you have children and then you end up divorcing a narcissist, an emotionally insecure person, now you are recreating all that trauma in your adult body dragging your children with you trying to deal with it and of course there is a big difference between a normal divorce and a narcissistic divorce, but Many of us who have this childhood are more likely to choose narcissistic partners, for example insecure partners, and that is why I think I sometimes get very excited.

I just saw a post about Gwyneth. Paltrow talked about how she contributed to this growing dynamic of conscious uncoupling and I thought well that the part where we could say that you can be friends with your ex and your co-parent together is a beautiful idea as long as you're not divorcing a narcissist and I think this is where we feel so ashamed, re-shamed and isolated if we have unconsciously repeated our complex trauma, it's really hard, it sounds great, sit on your horse and tell everyone it's no use to your children and I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to find ways to deal with this to reduce conflict and put your children at the center?

But that's really difficult if you're now experiencing the trauma of an adult relationship and it's very different from divorcing someone who has flaws has problems but deep down isn't imposing repeated or even different or more toxic trauma on you, so yeah that's you, I just want you to know that you are not alone and to give yourself as much compassion and grace as you can. I'm not suggesting that seeking help isn't a good idea. I think having a therapist help me for some of the last few years. I wish it had been around sooner in those early years of narcissistic abuse and Trauma in a Divorce would have been incredibly helpful, but there's also a part of this where there's almost no way around it and it's often really difficult if you got to that point. relationship and you already had a difficult child anyway, and the point is that it's not just that. oh that was just in your childhood for many of us because of these wounds these difficulties are our own inability hi Coco to handle ourselves we find ourselves trapped in more traumatic adult relationships that actually become adult cptsd as a result of adult relationship like a narcissist. purpose of the relationship, so that's it, you want to see Coco real quick, let me grab her.

I know I haven't had her here for a few weeks. Wait a second too, maybe your friends want to see you come here, oh come. here here She's okay okay say hello okay Coco says hello have a lovely day please stay safe and healthy and I'll see you tomorrow take care bye bye bye bye say bye foreigner foreigner