BPD vs. CPTSD: How to Spot the Differences

Watch this entire series at the links in the description below and subscribe to our YouTube channel for new mental health videos every week. Hello YouTube, I'm Kyle Kilson, I'm here with dr. Romani, thank you for being here now. Many of our members have written to us, emailed us, found us on Instagram and told us where the complex PTSD series is and that's what we just filmed. Many of you have heard of men with PTSD that most people have, but no. As many understand or even know about complex PTSD and we are here to talk about what it is and then give us the difference between that and borderline personality disorder, dr.

Romani, what is complex PTSD (see PTSD) is almost like a subset of PTSD, but it looks a little different and is the result of someone who has experienced prolonged exposure to trauma, usually what we see is someone who has experienced prolonged trauma. long-term child physical abuse or child sexual abuse long-term domestic violence or intimate partner violence or people and other settings such as people who were victims or survivors of human trafficking or refugees or people who were in long-term traumatic situations of which escape was almost impossible or would be dangerous as a child, a person caught in intimate partner abuse, that kind of thing, so the inescapability and chronic nature of it is a little different than episodic exposure that would normally have been seen in post-traumatic stress disorder. feels a little different than what we see in chronic and complex PTSD: we see that there are problems related to emotional dysregulation, many difficulties and interpersonal relationships, including excessive reactivity, reactions with strong displays of anger or fear in the interpersonal relationships, there is a change in the perception of People who experience complex PTSD will often see themselves very negatively, as damaged and shameful, sometimes even taking blame for what happened to them or believing that in some way they might have deserved this and may even have a biased perception of the perpetrator and view them as they sometimes do.

They are all-powerful and sometimes even harbor fantasies of revenge against them, they will have difficulties with attention and concentration, and in some people with complex PTSD, you can occasionally see a sort of dissociative quality where they seem to disappear. for a minute, but there are also interruptions and the ability to pay attention in order to concentrate, which can make it difficult to interact with other people, so it feels different than the classic presentation that we see in traditional PTSD, which is very scary. There's a lot of anxiety, hypervigilance, being nervous, being exact, having an exaggerated response to something that's surprising, a lot of avoidance, so while there's a huge overlap between traditional PTSD and complex PTSD, some of the problem around the dysregulation and relationship issues that arise definitely deviate from what we traditionally see in excellent PTSD I want to ask our audience when was the first time they heard the term complex PTSD, was it right now in this video or have you heard it? about this years and years ago, let us know in the comments section below now, because of some of these traits that PTSD has, it is often confused with borderline personality disorder, so how can we differentiate between those two?

There is tremendous overlap between complex PTSD. and borderline personality and that is something they struggle with in the field, there are some key

differences

, although despite the types of relationship struggles that people with complex PTSD have and even the strong reactivity that people have in the Complex PTSD than outbursts of anger and those types of reactions one thing that you don't see in complex PTSD is the chronic struggles with abandonment, there is no fear of abandonment, it's much more, if anything, there is fear of 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 sometimes they don't know who they are, whereas in a person with stress disorder Complex post-traumatic people have a distorted sense of self, so they see themselves as damaged or shameful, but it's not like they just today I don't know who I am, that makes sense, it's very different and then the third thing we see is that , in some ways, it is a serious problem, borderline personality disorder, something we have talked about before in the unknown circle, is the mental illness with the highest rate of Suicide makes it one of the mental illnesses more dangerous and distressing things we talk about, so suicidal crises and self-harming gestures are not really seen in complex PTSD, so while there may be some risk due to the level of distress, it is definitely not part. of the classic picture of complex PTSD and therefore, in that way, the borderline personality that some have suggested is definitely a more severe pattern and that if not considered a variant, however, because there are enough

differences

, we also know What complex PTSD and borderline personality have in common is that very commonly people with borderline personality have experienced early trauma, but not all have, so not everyone in the world with borderline personality has a history of significant childhood trauma, whereas in complex PTSD that is much, much, much more normative and in for a person with complex PTSD there has been at least one period of their life in which they have experienced long-term chronic trauma relatively inescapable, so right now we're dealing with how much overlap there is, and while there's quite a bit, there's something about abandonment issues. what identity and self look like 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 it. nine traits of borderline personality disorder by clicking on the card that just appeared in this video or you can use the links in the video description below because the series is great. I want to give all of these viewers an inside look at the series at the PTSD medical circle complex here's a sneak peek when we think about the whole interpersonal group type of emotional disturbance and we see PTSD, it's largely characterized by mistrust, a lot of ups and downs in the relationship, a lot of anger in the relationship and a lot of discomfort in the relationship but also a lot of self-devaluation in their relationship, so while a person with a borderline personality will not be stable.

I'm so bad at this relationship that it's seeing PTSD, it's very constant. they devalue themselves, there's also a feeling of a lot of numbness, like there's a and when I say numbness, they feel very remote and distant and distant and they can't feel anything and it makes sense that a relationship would be a threat because that's where the damage. So numbness would actually almost make sense as a reaction, but it's not healthy. We'd like to let a person know that it's okay to feel in a relationship that that's a healthy space that won't hurt you, but it takes a while to get there. a person to that place and then we will see mood regulation symptoms in NC PTSD because there is a negative mood there is negative self-talk there is a negative view of self there is a negative view of relationships so all of that comes together. for Assyria, but you know a broader picture of the kinds of mood and anxiety symptoms that we would see in a person with PTSD C under that kind of emotional rubric, but a lot of this is relational and a lot of this is kind of of a 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 on Med Circle Calm Dr.

Romney, thank you as always for being here. I'm Kyle Kittleson and remember, whatever you're going through, you have this gratitude to watch. Check out the links below for more information on how to access this entire series and subscribe to our YouTube channel. to see new mental health videos every week, did you like what you heard in this video? If you would like to ask a question directly to a doctor in the medical circle, you can learn how to do so by visiting the links in the description below.