Life on a road of edges.
It has become clear that there is a population in this country living in trauma — repeated, chronic and in many cases, very complicated and overlapping forms of trauma.
— rethinking trauma, a post by Scott Johnson, Violence Reporting Fellow.
The APA’s newest descriptors of what Complex PTSD looks like:
♥ Alterations in emotional regulation, which may include symptoms such as persistent sadness, suicidal thoughts, explosive anger, or inhibited anger.
♥ Alterations in consciousness, such as forgetting traumatic events, reliving traumatic events, or having episodes in which one feels detached from one’s mental processes or body.
♥ Alterations in self-perception, which may include a sense of helplessness, shame, guilt, stigma, and a sense of being completely different than other human beings.
♥ Alterations in the perception of the perpetrator, such as attributing total power to the perpetrator or becoming preoccupied with the relationship to the perpetrator, including a preoccupation with revenge.
♥ Alterations in relations with others, including isolation, distrust, or a repeated search for a rescuer.
♥ Alterations in one’s system of meanings, which may include a loss of sustaining faith or a sense of hopelessness and despair.
