For many people, the hardest part of healing from the effects of prolonged emotional trauma may be not knowing what they are dealing with in the first place.
In an ABC15 follow-up, Danielle Carpio says understanding complex PTSD, or CPTSD, matters deeply.
Carpio, the founder and president of the Healing and CPTSD Foundation, says that finally getting diagnosed changed the way she saw herself and her trauma. "There wasn't something fundamentally wrong with me; there was something fundamentally wrong with what happened to me.”
CPTSD is different from PTSD because it can develop after prolonged exposure to trauma, especially in situations where someone feels emotionally trapped.
According to Psychiatry.org, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, or CPTSD, is recognized by the World Health Organization in ICD-11 as a trauma-related condition that includes the core symptoms of PTSD, along with added difficulties involving emotional regulation, self-worth, and relationships.
But, in the United States, CPTSD is not currently listed as its own standalone diagnosis in the DSM-5-TR, which the American Psychiatric Association says is the standard diagnostic manual used by mental health professionals.
Carpio says prolonged trauma can include those who have endured neglect, child abuse, domestic violence, medical trauma, racial trauma, religious trauma, or living in a war-torn environment.
She also says many people living with CPTSD spend years being misunderstood or misdiagnosed.
“When you name the storm, people stop thinking they are the storm,” Carpio said.
Building an online community with her Healing and CPTSD Foundation, with more than 350,000 followers on Instagram, Carpio says it's something that happened organically. That's because it offers a place for survivors to connect over the realization that there may be a name for what they've been experiencing.
Carpio also says her foundation is working to build support, grow advocacy efforts, and collect more data for broader recognition of CPTSD.
She also says the Healing and CPTSD Foundation has launched a petition, created an advocacy alliance, and is developing an expert board to support policy efforts in the future to help reduce misdiagnosis, improve training for mental health professionals, and make it easier for survivors to find the mental health care that fits their needs.
Education, she says, is a good place to begin.
You can find free guides, awareness materials, and community-based resources here.
And for many survivors, she says, simply having language for what happened can be the first real step forward.
