C-PTSD vs PTSD – one letter difference, a lot of complexity.

C-PTSD (complex-post traumatic stress disorder) is what happens when someone sees or personally experiences multiple, ongoing traumatic events in a high-stress environment over time. It’s not just one incident; it’s a pattern.

This could be growing up in an abusive home, a toxic job with an aggressive boss, being in a manipulative relationship, or getting bullied as a kid.

PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) comes from a specific, identifiable traumatic event.

Examples include a car accident, natural disaster, or unexpected death of a loved one. You can pinpoint the day your world flipped upside down.

Keep reading to discover five common signs of complex trauma. Everyone’s experience is different. Even if not all these apply to you, it’s still recommended to consult with a professional on whether or not your experience falls under C-PTSD.

Five Common Signs of C-PTSD

1. Difficulties with Emotions

Ever feel like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? One second you’re fine, and the next you’re distraught or completely shut down?

After living through long-term stress, the brain’s emotion regulator gets oversensitive. Everything starts looking like a threat. Hyper-sensitive threat detection can look like:

• Emotional whiplash (big swings from calm to chaos)
• Trouble calming down once you're upset
• Being caught off guard by the intensity of your emotions, sometimes even feeling like that person who reacted wasn’t you
• Frequently questioning your emotions and whether or not they’re overreactions
• Struggling to name or understand your feelings, including difficulty answering questions such as “How does that emotion feel in your body?” or even “What are you feeling?”

2. Putting Yourself Last

If you struggle to feel good about yourself, to trust your interpretation of events, to feel valid in being upset at something or someone, or to stand up for yourself, these are all potential signs of C-PTSD.

When survival mode becomes your norm, your focus gets trained to look externally to scope out danger instead of looking internally to scope out and prioritise your feelings and needs.

This might mean always “going with the flow,” avoiding confrontation, or convincing yourself that what you want doesn’t matter. It can feel safer to keep the peace than risk rejection or conflict.

3. Rollercoaster Relationships

There’s a reason people with C-PTSD often prefer animals to people: people are more likely to have given some emotional damage!

The way we go about relationships as an adult is closely tied to the relationships we had growing up.

With C-PTSD, we often had relationships that led us to feel unsafe, unheard, or that our needs did not matter. This sets us up to go into relationships already feeling unsafe and expecting to be disappointed.

You could experience:

• Worrying when people take too long to reply
• Thinking people are either all good or all bad (a.k.a. splitting)
• Feeling trapped by closeness
• Cutting people off when they hurt you
• Bouncing between jobs or frequently clashing with bosses

4. Expecting the Worst

Following a long experience of being in survival mode, our brain creates a filter where every experience comes with the questions: “What’s going to go wrong here, and how do I prepare for it?”

This mindset is an intelligent, energy-conserving survival response called a “sense of a foreshortened future”.

In short, you prepare for the worst because hoping for the best may have given you too many disappointing experiences in the past.

This mindset helps avoid disappointment by preparing for negative outcomes, but it also limits your ability to envision or pursue a hopeful future.

Also contributing towards the “sense of a foreshortened future” is the overactive stress response seen in C-PTSD. This leads to a constant state of vigilance, drawing your attention to immediate survival rather than longer-term possibilities.

Signs of this include:

• Difficulty imagining life beyond a few years
• Thinking relationships won’t work out
• Dismissing opportunities as “not worth trying”
• Overpreparing for worst-case scenarios
• Ending relationships prematurely to avoid being hurt

5. Physiological Distress

Trauma doesn’t just stay in your head – it lives in your body, too. With C-PTSD, you might notice:

• A sense of chest tightness or difficulty breathing
• Jaw clenching or teeth-grinding
• Closed-off body language (crossed arms or legs, or curling into yourself)
• Digestive issues
• Trouble sleeping or chronic fatigue
• Neck and shoulder stiffness
• Heightened sensitivity to noise, light, or touch
• Tight calves or hamstrings

This Is Me! What Do I Do About It?

C-PTSD’s impact is highly multifaceted on our lives long after the trauma has ended. And, even with all its complexities, working towards healing and feeling safe is entirely possible. 

Over time, you can gradually rewire your brain and body to become less reactive.

Increase Your Insight

Understanding your triggers – those moments when your body feels like it’s back in the danger of the past – can help you understand why you sometimes have big reactions that seem to come out of nowhere.

For deeper insight, why not read our free eBook Understanding and Healing Trauma? It includes multiple stories from C-PTSD survivors about what helped them feel better.

Gain Skills to Bring Peace Back to Your Body

C-PTSD messes with your body’s stress response. Building a toolkit of coping skills – like grounding techniques, breathing exercises, mindfulness, or yoga – can help you calm down during high-stress moments and work toward long-term peace.

Invest Time in Finding the Right Therapist

It’s important to find someone you like and feel safe with. Remember, it may take a few different therapists until you find someone you click with. Here are seven therapies for people with C-PTSD.

Be Patient and Kind to Yourself

Healing takes time. Each step, from starting to learn about complex trauma to being in therapy for it, brings you closer to a life where you feel calm, safe, and valued.

Want a Toolkit for Healing Trauma?

Our trauma-informed toolkit includes resources from DBT, ACT and more, so you can discover what works best for you. The Mental Wellbeing Toolkit is "like 10 therapy sessions in one."