PTSD

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can develop when we experience a shocking, frightening, or dangerous event in our lives. Some signs of PTSD include:

• Nightmares or flashbacks
•  Avoiding situations or people that remind you of the traumatic incident
• Difficulty concentrating and low mood
•  Feeling detached and mentally numb or being flooded by strong negative emotions
• Hypersensitivity, irritability and sleep disturbances
• Feeling anxious and stressed

Complex PTSD

Complex PTSD (C- PTSD) is characterized by exposure to multiple traumatic events for a relatively long period of time. These events are severe and pervasive, such as abuse or neglect. People with CPTSD typically have PTSD symptoms along with some other symptoms, including:

•  Lack of emotional regulation: This refers to having uncontrollable feelings, such as explosive anger or ongoing sadness.
•  Changes in consciousness such as forgetting the traumatic memories or feeling detached from your emotions
  Negative self-perception such as dealing with extreme guilt and shame
  Difficulty with relationships: You might start to feel isolated as a result of difficulties in communicating and being able to trust others or bond with others through shared trauma because if feels familiar.
  Distorted perception of abuser: Becoming mentally preoccupied with the relationship between you and the abuser.
  Loss of systems of meaning such as losing faith in regards to some long-held beliefs or developing a sense of hopelessness and pessimism about the world.

Experiencing trauma can get in the way of you enjoying your life. The triggers of past trauma can be extremely painful and sometimes debilitating. Whether we experience trauma directly or indirectly, it might impact our life for a long time, affecting our ability to trust others and feel safe in the world around us. We may start to feel scared, unsafe, unworthy and ashamed. Trauma doesn’t need to be a big single life altering event to change us. It can be created as a result of persistent emotional neglect and invalidation from a parent or a caregiver. We are here to support clients in processing their traumas, managing flashbacks and triggers and unpacking the pain that we carry within when we have to endure stressful situations alone.