Complex trauma is ongoing or repeated interpersonal trauma, where the victim is traumatised in captivity, and where there is no perceived way to escape. Ongoing child abuse, is captivity abuse, because the child cannot escape. Domestic violence, is another example. Enforced prostitution/sex trafficking is another.
1. Deep Fear Of Trust
People who endure ongoing abuse, particularly from significant people in their lives, develop an intense, and understandable fear of trusting people. If the abuse was parents, or caregivers, this intensifies. Ongoing trauma, wires the brain for fear and distrust. It becomes the way the brain copes with any further potential abuse. Complex trauma survivors often find trusting people very difficult, and it takes little for any trust built, to be destroyed. The brain senses issues and this overwhelms the already severely traumatised brain. This fear of trust, is very impacting in a survivors life. Learning to trust, can be learned, with support and an understanding of trusting people slowly and carefully.
2. Terminal Aloneness
This is a phrase I used to describe to my counsellor, the terribly painful aloneness I have always felt as a complex trauma survivor. Survivors often feel so little connection and trust with people, they remain in a terrible state of aloneness, even when surrounded by people. I described it once, as having a glass wall between myself and other people. I can see them, but I cannot connect with them.
Another issue that increases this aloneness, is feeling different to other people. Feeling damaged, broken and feeling unable to be like other people, can haunt a survivor, increasing the loneliness.
3. Emotion Regulation
Intense emotions are common with complex trauma survivors. It is understandable, that ongoing abuse, can cause many different and intense emotions. This is normal for complex trauma survivors.
Learning to manage and regulate emotions, is vital in being able to manage all the other symptoms.
Hyper-vigilance About People
Most people with PTSD, have hyper-vigilance, where the person scans the environment for potential risks, and likes to have their back to the wall.
But, complex trauma survivors often have a deep subconscious need to ‘work people out’. Since childhood, I have been aware of people’s non verbal cues… their body language, their tone of voice, their facial expressions. I also subconsciously learn people’s habits and store away what they say. Then if anything occurs that contradicts any of this, it will immediately flag as something potentially dangerous.
This can be exhausting. And it can create a deep skillset of discernment about people. The aim of healing fear based hyper-vigilance, is turning it into non fear based discernment.
Loss Of Faith
Complex trauma survivors often endure a loss of faith. And this can be about people, about the world being good, about religion, and a loss of faith about self.
Complex trauma survivors often view the world as dangerous, and people as all potentially abusive. Which is understandable when having endured ongoing severe abuse.
Profoundly Hurt Inner Child
Childhood complex trauma survivors, often have a very hurt inner child, that continues on to affect the survivor in adulthood. When a child’s emotional needs are not met and a child is repeatedly hurt and abused, this deeply and profoundly affects the child’s development. A survivor will often continue on subconsciously wanting those unmet childhood needs
Helplessness & Toxic Shame
Due to enduring ongoing or repeated abuse, the survivor can develop a sense of hopelessness, that nothing will ever be okay. They can feel so profoundly damaged, they see no hope for anything to get better. When faced with long periods of abuse, it does feel there is no hope of anything changing. And even when the abuse/trauma stops, the survivor can continue on having these deep core level beliefs of hopelessness. This is intensified by the terribly life impacting symptoms of Complex PTSD. That keep the survivor stuck with the trauma, with little hope of this easing.
Toxic shame is a common issue survivors of complex trauma endure. Often the perpetrators of the abuse, make the survivor feel they deserved the abuse, or they were the reason or the abuse. Often survivors are made to feel they don’t deserve to be treated any better.
Sexual abuse, can create a whole added layer of toxic shame, which requires very specific and compassionate therapy, if this is accessible. Often sexual abuse survivors who are repeatedly enduring this heinous abuse, develop feelings of being dirty, damaged and disgusting, when their bodies are violated in this way.
Muscle Amoring
Many complex trauma survivors, who have experienced ongoing abuse, develop body hyper- vigilance. This is where the body is continually tensed, as though the body is ‘braced’ for potential trauma. This leads to pain issues, as the muscles are being overworked. Chronic pain and other issues related such as Chronic Fatigue, Fibromyalgia can result.
All of these issues, are very normal for complex trauma survivors. Enduring complex trauma is not a normal life experience, and therefore, the consequences if creates are different, yet very normal for what they have suffered and endured.
Not every survivor will endure all these, and there are other symptoms that can be endured.
Let’s become the light 