Raising hand in confusion solidarity.
Are you in the US? If so, there is technically no diagnosis of CPTSD. Not saying practitioners aren’t starting to drop the lingo, just saying here at least the DSM has yet to provide any diagnostic way to distinguish between the two.
I’m in the US, so I have technically been diagnosed with PTSD. Period. Where it comes from, well, pick an “event” I guess. I entered therapy and psychiatric services for a singular event that was bothering me the most, but happened a long time ago. On top of that event though is additional singular events and intertwined with those singular events are some chronic or ongoing things that in and of themselves would be considered traumatic.
Putting all of it together, both my T and psychiatrist have my diagnosis (insurance, records, etc) as PTSD. But when then talk about it with me they discuss it as complex PTSD.
Do I have both? I try not to think about it that way, because at the end of the day the trauma is what it is. And it’s messy. They have helped me understand it’s possible I would have developed PTSD from one of the singular events, there’s no way to know. But start piling things up and it’s just statistically more likely the struggle will be real.
What they’ve helped me understand is that processing my trauma may not be as easy (and, man, I don’t mean it to sound that way because processing any trauma can be excruciating) as just tackling one event. That being exposed to multiple singular events on top of living with other things that were chronic in nature is just messy. And, well, complex.
What I desperately try to remind myself is I’m not being treated for my diagnoses per se, but I’m being treated for relief of the manifesting symptoms. May those symptoms have spread widely and morphed into what the rest of the world is starting to recognize as CPTSD? Sure. But, diagnostically I have PTSD. And despite the overlap those with PTSD may have symptomatically, we are also all unique in some ways. Finding treatment that addresses your unique experience is what really matters.