To anyone who wonders about the difference between CPTSD and PTSD, it goes like this:

Losing your leg in a bear trap is a traumatic experience that may lead to PTSD.

Having your leg stuck in a bear trap for several years in the wilderness may lead to CPTSD.

The key components are time and being trapped. It's a very rough analogy and some CPTSD comes from a series of bear-trap maimings over time rather than one prolonged ordeal without breaks but it amounts to the same brain fuckery.

One is not worse than the other, it's just that PTSD is easier to treat because treatments work on triggers and PTSD tends to only have triggers relating to one specific event, as opposed to, say, a decade of trauma.

Again I'm being very general here. It's a spectrum.

You may notice that if you live somewhere with a lot of bear traps, you're more likely to end up with CPTSD. Those traps are abusers, violence, the trauma that comes from poverty, racism etc. You see how it might disproportionately affect the disempowered or vulnerable.

CPTSD is often misdiagnosed as a personality disorder. This is when clinicians falsely place the responsibility of the bear traps on the maimed. (Well why else would you have gotten so badly injured unless you subconsciously seek out bear traps?)

This is one of the reasons why women (especially WOC and disabled women) tend to be overdiagnosed with BPD in my opinion, and in the opinion of many trauma-informed professionals.

If you've been lucky enough to have never seen a bear trap your entire life and a poor girl shows up all damaged and maimed, you might conclude that she did something to attract the traps or was deliberately careless.

You see where I'm going with this.

CPTSD is a mental illness but it is also a social justice issue.

It's also an epidemic. It's grossly under-diagnosed and treated. Some might even argue that it's part and parcel of living an oppressed existence. Imagine being gay and growing up in a violently homophobic home. A daily grind of trauma. A bear trap on the leg for years.

Like I've said before, we're all going through trauma right now in this pandemic. It might be worth looking into coping techniques, even if you don't FEEL traumatised. As a species we're not designed, mentally, for social distancing. https://grumpwitch.wordpress.com/2020/04/24/i-know-trauma-we-are-all-going-through-it/

Yes I explained trauma using Skyrim. I do these things because I am a feral child pretending to be an adult.

My main point: CPTSD needs to be more widely understood but more generally we are all going through a shitload of trauma so be kind to yourself and be prepared to have to do some trauma work when things get better (and they will get better). Knowledge is power!

Please enjoy this highly specific meme