It took me over two decades to readily consider myself a victim of abuse. I was 30 when I discovered Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD). I managed to do a whole Master’s in Psychology without learning about CPTSD because I was studying other stuff. When I did hear about it, I wrote it off as just a branch of PTSD that wasn’t applicable to me. I only began investigating because I saw people memeing about it on Reddit, and boy did that reality hit me like a grand piano.

CPTSD is a new diagnosis. It was recognized as a distinct condition by the World Health Organization in 2018. To make things real short, CPTSD describes mental distress that stems from trauma that is not localized to one key event. It’s especially applicable to sustained trauma, like the kind found in abusive relationships, violent home environments, and severe minority stress. It’s ‘complex’ because the trauma can take many forms over an indeterminate period of time. This is unlike PTSD, which is often (but not always) traceable to one major event.

CPTSD can look a lot like PTSD, too. Among other things, it makes sufferers alter their behavior or decisionmaking to protect themselves. It can result in flashbacks, including emotional flashbacks that involve reliving a strong emotion, but not the imagery attached to an event. Sufferers become hyper-vigilant or are unable to identify or manage their emotions. It can manifest as remembering an awful memory and sharply feeling the associated emotion inside you or  an inability to pinpoint when a memory happened or, sometimes, feeling like whole years are ‘blurry’.

CPTSD can lead to a host of personalized protective measures: differentiating ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ people by sound, being a pliable and convenient person to avoid attention, punishing yourself over insignificant missteps.

That’s enough context. I get much of my healing and clarity by writing out my problems. But let’s get to the meat ‘n’ potatoes of this piece: ways I was punished as a child and where that ended up.

Self-advocacy is for fools

I don’t enjoy being verbally dressed down over my shortcomings. My parents and caregivers went out of their way to tell me how lazy, unfocused, and slovenly I was. Typically for a Chinese household, my academic performance was never adequate so eventually I stopped trying, which made it worse. When I was admonished for some perceived failure, I’d sensibly advocate for myself or reach a compromise. My caregivers would usually react to this with increased hostility. My attempts at self-advocacy were viewed as inappropriate resistance, ‘backtalk’, or haggling. My efforts were swiftly shut down with the threat (or delivery) of further punishment.

Lesson Learned: Don’t advocate for my needs or try to compromise with authority figures because it only makes things worse. Being a silent doormat leads to preferable outcomes.

Result: I find it difficult to set interpersonal boundaries or decline requests. I emotionally overextend myself to ensure I satisfy others. I’m terrified of disagreeing with people who outrank me.

Home is not where the heart is

When disputes reached the point of anger, my caregivers would force me out of the house. When I was a young child, this usually took the form of being locked in an enclosed patio for a period as a ‘time out’. In my teens, this would be an unassailable instruction to leave the house immediately. The stated purpose of this was to get me out of their sight, but I can’t help but see the subtext: My status as the most vulnerable member of a household did not entitle me to any protection. Rather, ‘home’ was a status that could be revoked at will.

Lesson Learned: Never stand my ground to authority figures. If I do, my safety and shelter will be revoked on a whim, and only reinstated when they are satisfied with their circumstances.

Result: I am terrified of any living situation that I can’t control in totality. I sit on my bed cross-legged like a sodden child and weep whenever I realize that I had to make a home that was permanent and safe when I should have been given one.

Violence is always an option

If my caregivers were in a particularly sour mood, they’d often skip the yelling and go for a swift crack on my head with a knuckle. An open-hand slap would also work. Sometimes, it got really bad. The reasons for getting physical were diverse but universally trivial: broken crockery, not wanting to go to bed, and verbal resistance. Physical violence is a hallmark of inadequate parenting. It’s the preferred shortcut for those who are too impulsive to rein in their emotions and too incompetent to seek alternatives.

Lesson Learned: Violence is an appropriate way to solve problems, but only when an authority figure is striking down the hierarchy.

Long-Term Result: I flinch when people next to me make sudden arm movements. I have an accurate danger-sense of when a person is escalating to violence.

Great minds think for themselves

Abuse often occurs when caregivers think of children as incompetent undersized adults rather than children. To my great regret, I was a child who occasionally required assistance. If I needed help with something physical, I was usually admonished for not being able to do it myself. If the assistance I needed was intellectual, I could expect a scolding before receiving some very unenthusiastic assistance. Oh, and mental health needs? Those were right out on account of being an indicator of emotional frailty.

Lesson Learned: Asking people for help is not worth the trouble. It’s better to sit with my pain or ignorance than to disturb someone else.

Result: When I am ill or injured, I don’t seek help until it’s completely debilitating. I maintain a high degree of productivity despite my own pain. People consider me independent and dedicated.

Brighter days ahead

I could go on, but we’re going to be here all week, and I’ve gone through enough tissues. I think you have the idea. In hindsight, I’m stunned by how long it took me to realize my childhood was abusive. It was blatantly abusive, but that’s the most insidious trick CPTSD has. CPTSD happens over a long enough time frame that we start to think it’s all kind of normal. It slips past our defenses the way a sudden, sharp trauma often can’t, then warps us from the inside out into someone easier to victimize.

My only protip for any parents reading is that there’s nothing wrong with deploying punishment or negative reinforcement, but it should always be a considered decision. If you can’t explain the immediate effect, subtext, and proportionality of that punishment to your equals, you are not ready to deploy it on someone more vulnerable.

Since complex trauma originates after diverse, longer-term exposure, treatment is similarly difficult. There aren’t as many focal points to ‘target’ in treatment. The areas we want to salve are often intertwined with our present personalities and emotional processing. It’s sometimes impossible to remove the malignancy without cutting into the vulnerable person below. Still, recovery is possible. More than other conditions, learning the painful story of how and why we arrived at our contemporary selves is critical. And knowing that a problem exists is the critical first step.

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