Jump to: Shared Trauma (PTSD) · Clinical Symptoms (CPTSD) · The Symptoms You Thought Were Just You · Emotional Flashbacks · Emotional Dysregulation · Felling Trapped · Rage & Anger · Shame & Self-Loathing · Relationship Difficulties · Dissociation · Physical Health · You Are Not Alone

Note: I am sharing this from my own lived experience to offer support and validation. I am not a medical professional. If you are in crisis, please contact your local emergency services.

If you’ve found yourself scrolling Reddit threads or Googling symptoms late at night, you’ve probably noticed a lot of the same questions coming up again and again: Is this normal? Do other people experience this too? What do these symptoms actually mean?

If you’ve landed on this page asking “What is CPTSD”, you’re likely already somewhat familiar with the symptoms. It can help to know that others are going through similar experiences, where reactions can feel intense, confusing, and contradictory.

You may see questions like:

• “Are my symptoms normal?”
• “Why do I want to be close and push people away at the same time?”
• “Is it common for these reactions to be this intense?”
• “Does anyone else feel anxious when trying to do something positive?”
• “Why can’t I feel anything at all?”
• “Am I having new symptoms all of a sudden?”

At the same time, you may notice that what’s described on big medical sites doesn’t fully capture what you’re living. Clinical explanations can be useful, but they don’t always reflect how CPTSD actually shows up day to day: in relationships, decision-making, emotions, and the body.

That gap is often why people searching what is CPTSD still feel unseen after reading definitions alone. The variations and lived experience can get lost.

After briefly going over the basics, this article focuses on that less-discussed layer: what CPTSD can look like in everyday life. If you’d like to skip straight to the gut of the section, you can do so here.

Before going onto what is CPTSD, I’ll provide a brief overview of PTSD as a lot of the trauma responses are shared.

• Intrusion: Nightmares, intrusive thoughts and flashbacks (feeling like the event is happening again with associated sensations both emotional and physical.) I’ll cover Emotional Flashbacks more below.
• Avoidance: Trying to avoid anything related to the trauma (activities, places, people) or trying to avoid feelings/thoughts relating to the trauma.
• Negative Changes in Thinking & Mood: Hopelessness, guilt, blame, shame. Negative beliefs about the world or self. Loss of interest in activities. Feeling detached or numb.
• Increased Reactivity and Arousal: Hypervigilance (always being on guard for danger), increased startle response, and self-destructive behavior.

These responses are part of the broader trauma picture many adults with CPTSD live with¹.

If you’ve ever wondered whether PTSD didn’t quite fit for you, try looking at CPTSD symptoms. I know this was my case. I thought a lot of the above-listed symptoms fit but I still felt as though there was something missing.

Below is a brief overview of common CPTSD symptoms. In the sections that follow, I’ll go deeper into how each of these symptoms can actually show up in everyday life. Click here to skip.

One difference is that in PTSD, the trauma usually comes from one specific source (like a car accident) and therapy works by focusing on that one traumatic event.

On the other hand, CPTSD is said to develop after prolonged, repeated trauma, especially when safety, escape, or emotional support were not consistently available. This tends to be the case with younger exposure to trauma. Here are some symptoms specific to CPTSD:

• Emotional Flashbacks: Sudden, intense waves of emotion such as fear, shame, despair, or grief that arise not tied to the present moment. These reactions are rooted in past trauma but are often re-experienced as happening in the present.
• Emotional Dysregulation: Difficulty regulating emotions, emotional overwhelm, emotional shutdown, difficulty accessing positive emotions.
• Negative Self-Concept: Persistent shame, guilt, worthlessness, feeling permanently damaged, broken, or “bad.”
• Relationship Difficulties: Difficulty trusting, fear of abandonment, discomfort with closeness, feeling disconnected from others.
• Dissociation: Depersonalization, derealization, zoning out, emotional detachment, numbness.
• Cognitive Difficulties: Trouble concentrating, slowed thinking, decision fatigue under stress.
• Somatic Symptoms: Chronic pain, fatigue, digestive issues, sleep disruption.

This is the clinical map. If you’re wondering what is CPTSD beyond the checklist, this next section focuses how these symptoms actually feel and interact in real life.

Many of these reactions are connected to trauma responses such as fight, flight, freeze, and fawn, which can show up in subtle, everyday ways. I won’t go into detail here, but you may recognize parts of yourself in them.

If you;ve ever felt scared that your symptoms were abnormal or that something was fundamentally “wrong” with you, please know you are not alone. The confusing, messy parts of everyday life are rarely discussed openly, which makes it easy to mistake these struggles for your identity. They’re not.

These are still survival responses shared by many of us. I’ve done my best to categorize them below to help you make sense of them, but because it’s complex trauma, there is a lot of overalp.

It feels like we spend so much time trying to control everything. By this I mean both our internal and external worlds. This is normal human behavior that gets amplified by the survival trauma response and is meant to diminish pain by avoidance.

You may notice yourself trying to be prepared for every possible negative outcome, in terms of yourself, your environment, and peoples’ response to you.

There is need for things to go as planned or for situations to unfold in expected ways. You may be mentally rehearsing scenarios, or feeling unsettled when plans change or expectations are not met. At the same time, you may find yourself hyper-aware of your internal state, noticing emotions that feel too intense or, too lacking.

While this kind of anticipatory control can feel protective, it often leads to more anxiety and isolation when life inevitably moves outside of what can be predicted or managed. This can include:

• Overthinking
• Trying to control other peoples’ response to you
• Needing answers to everything a lot of the time but not feeling fully satisfied
• Researching or labeling experiences endlessly with no or short-lived reassurance
• Knowing something logically but not feeling relief
• More difficulty concentrating or making decisions around other people

Examples:

• “If I can just figure this out, I’ll finally feel okay.”
• “I know I’m overthinking, but I can’t stop.”
• Going over possible future scenarios over and over that may not even happen because you fear the outcome.

These patterns are often attempts to restore safety and predictability. What can help here is to remember that your body is still trying to protect you and avoid hurt. However, these types of predictive solutions may make you more anxious.

Emotional Flashbacks hit hard. Sometimes they can be triggered by an event, either internal like a thought, or external like a place. Sometimes they *seemingly come out of the blue. I plan to dedicate an entire post to these.

These were a huge revelation for me. I finally felt like I could attribute that excruciating pain to something. I didn’t understand before why I was having very intense pain that wasn’t always related to reality, or the content that it should be related to.

People describe them as intense waves of emotion, often shame, fear, dread, grief, or despair. They may arise without a clear visual memory attached. While being triggered in the present, it relates to the past.

You might suddenly feel unsafe or “in trouble” for no obvious reason, or feel emotional pain that feels much younger than your current age.

For me, they felt gut-wrenching and brought on extreme anger in the beginning and extreme pain and hurt afterward. Sometimes you may feel as if you are about to “lose it” or go crazy.

At times, they can manifest a bit more mildly and you may not realize that you’re having one. For instance, you have a really big reaction to an external event that logically doesn’t correlate. A person is rude to you at a store, and your response is depression and feeling rejected.

While it may feel justified internally, these intense reactions may be a clue that you’re having an emotional flashback.

CPTSD Resource: Knowing this can help: You can name it, acknowledge that you were hurt in the past, and try to return to the present. Sometimes something as simple as a belly breath (because our breathing becomes light and tight) with a slower exhale and sitting up straighter. This acts as a signal that you are stronger and safe in the present.

When a flashback hits, your thinking brain goes offline. Having a few steady, neutral phrases ready can be the anchor that pulls you back to the present. I created this free Phrase Bank so you don’t have to find the words yourself.

Sidenote: When I say emotional flashbacks can feel “out of the blue,” it’s because even when we aren’t consciously aware of it, our bodies are often scanning for danger, both in the external and internal worlds. Part of the work for me was trying to calm the body down, not only in moments of intense distress, but during calmer moments as well.

I know this can be hard, but when there are moments less activating than others, try to seize them to calm the body.

Dysregulation does not always look constant. You may feel okay one second and swing from one overwhelming sensation to another. For instance, you can feel “okay enough” at first, be on edge one second later, and go into total collapse the next.

Physically too: your heart may be racing, and your body sweating, and then you fall into a complete frozen state where you’re exhausted and can’t move. My interpretation of this is that your body is doing it’s best to regulate the extremes.

There are two themes I’d like to bring attention to in Emotional Dysregulation:

This is a common CPTSD response but is not often mentioned and relates to the freeze response. It is an underlying sense of feeling trapped. This can be feeling trapped by yourself, by decisions, physically, or relationally. It happens even when there is no actual confinement.

It can show up as:

• Panic or urgency with no clear escape route
• Feeling stuck between options, where no choice feels good or safe
• A sense that any move or decision will make things worse
• Wanting to flee conversations, responsibilities, people, or expectations

In relationships, this may sound like:

• “I can’t say yes, but I can’t say no.”
• “If I speak up, something bad will happen.” (and then blaming yourself for not speaking up or speaking up)
• “I feel cornered even though no one is doing anything”
• “I want to feel close and pull away, there are no good options.”

This is not simple indecision.

It’s often a freeze or shutdown response, where the nervous system perceives threat and restricts movement or choice.

The body wants to avoid similar consequences that happened as a result from younger experiences.

Grounding note for “trapped” states
When this happens, the most helpful first step is often to reduce pressure. Either let go of making a decision and not force a decision. Reminding the body that there is time, that you do have choice, and room to pause, can help soften the response.

If you have made a decision and are having anxiety:
Remember that you were doing the best you could at that time.

→ In a trauma state, it’s common to regret either choice.
Part of recovery is owning your decisions with grace and growing kindness, instead of revisiting and wishing for a different path.

Healing from trauma often involves rebuilding self-trust and resiliency that were disrupted in trauma states. Over time, what matters is not only the moment you’re in, but your growing ability to adapt and respond.

Anger and rage in CPTSD (fight response) can be intense and directed inward and outward. It may show up as:

• Sudden rage or irritability, high intensity
• The anger may feel appropriate and the target deserving
• Fear and shame may come from expression of anger

This anger often reflects long-standing boundary violations and deep personal wounds. It is the body’s response to try and feel stronger when we’ve been hurt.

It can help to take a step back here and also try to use logic in everyday situations. Think of it like this: When you have an open wound like a deep cut on your skin, almost everything will hurt, even if it’s something small like a grain of sand. This is paralleled in the emotional world. After grounding from anger, what really needs tending to is the inner wound.

CPTSD often affects how a person experiences themselves internally. Feelings of shame, guilt, worthlessness, and hopelessness can be very strong, and they may come and go without much warning.

At times, this can show up as intense self-loathing or disgust, a sense of being “bad,” or a belief that something is fundamentally wrong with you. These feelings may also be directed toward the body, leading to discomfort in your own skin. Some people describe feeling bad simply for existing, or believing that good things are not meant for them.

This can be extremely painful. Often, these beliefs operate beneath awareness. For example, you may notice fear or discomfort around comfort, love, or other positive experiences, even when nothing unsafe is happening. These beliefs may be intensified during emotional flashbacks.

If this resonates, please be gentle with yourself. These are not truths about who you are: they are trauma-shaped perceptions, often formed early and reinforced over time.

Part of healing from CPTSD involves slowly and compassionately working with this inner core messaging, rather than fighting it.

This often develops when a child grows up with abuse or neglect, especially in environments marked by conditional love, blame, or rejection. Wanting to be loved while not receiving consistent safety or care can deeply shape how relationships are experienced later on.

In CPTSD, you may find that trusting others feels difficult. You may fear abandonment or feel rejected very quickly. At times, the CPTSD lens can “confirm” this sense of rejection even when there is no clear judgment from others.

Experiences can include:

• Craving closeness while also fearing it
• Telling yourself you don’t like people (often rooted in fear of rejection or being hurt, rather than a true preference for distance)
• Perfectionism, with little tolerance for mistakes (your own or others’)
• Pulling away after moments of connection
• Extreme sensitivity to tone, silence, or distance
• Feeling different from or disconnected from others
• A loving, trustworthy person close to you feeling far away, without a clear reason why

Everyday examples:

• Someone says, “I’ll talk to you later,” and the nervous system hears rejection
• A neutral pause feels like disapproval
• A delayed response feels like abandonment
• Feeling anxiety from safe physical closeness
• Feeling unsafe around someone who is actually safe and trustworthy

Even when nothing negative has objectively happened, the body can react as if it has, reinforcing older beliefs and expectations.

If you’re experiencing relational difficulties, it can help to remember that you’re often viewing situations through a trauma lens. Rather than constantly questioning every interaction, it may be more supportive to gently shift attention toward your own sense of safety and healing.

This does not mean ignoring real issues, but recognizing that your nervous system may be interpreting neutral moments as threats.

This is not who you are. It is a trauma response. Your body is in a hypervigilant state, doing its best to make sense of the present based on past experiences.

You may feel what is called depersonalization (like you’re detached from yourself, thoughts, and feelings) or derealization (like the world around you isn’t real). You may experience feelings or “zoning out”, emotional detachment and numbness.

This can feel like you’re watching a video game, or feeling like your body is “weird.” I know at times I felt like I was another person.

It may feel like you’re living in a shadow world and everyone else around you is living in a “real world” that you don’t belong to anymore and that you’re frozen in some other place.

CPTSD Note: What might help here is not trying to fight it. I know it’s very confusing and uncomfortable but these states are survival states. You can try some grounding exercises and remind yourself that you are in the present, that it will pass, and that you are safe.

What also kept me going was realizing that emotional numbness is “not nothing.” It is not an absence: it is a feeling in itself. It is an active shield your body created to protect you.

Many adults with CPTSD experience physical symptoms alongside emotional ones.These are pretty self-explanatory, but I’d like to highlight two after this brief list.
These may include:

• Chronic fatigue
• Digestive issues or nausea
• Problems with concentration and memory
• Headaches, dizziness, chest tightness
• Muscle tension or unexplained pain

Food: Changes in appetite are common in CPTSD. During stress, you may notice eating more or less than usual, or feeling disconnected from hunger and fullness cues. This is often related to nervous system regulation rather than conscious choice.

Health Conditions: autoimmune or inflammatory conditions. Research increasingly links prolonged stress and trauma with immune and inflammatory responses, without implying simple cause-and-effect.

CPTSD symptoms are not static but sometimes we can attribute that to shortcomings and feel more shame and despair. It’s not a failure. You may find that you move in and out of them and that’s ok. It doesn’t mean there isn’t progress.

Remember that for the all the symptoms mentioned here, there are probably other symptoms that aren’t listed. There are probably many people out there going through the same thing but it’s too hard to share publicly.

In general, it can help to remember that these are understandable responses to prolonged trauma, even when they feel overwhelming in the moment. Healing is possible, and these symptoms do not have to define who you are.

One helpful anchor is shifting the focus from needing to feel “better” right away to building adaptability and flexibility over time, both internally and externally. This includes learning to recognize internal experiences as trauma responses rather than identity, and gently letting go of judgment around them.

This does not mean ignoring real danger or invalidating yourself. It applies to moments where the threat feels real, but is rooted in past experiences rather than the present.

Healing is not about erasing parts of yourself. It is about building safety, self-trust, and supportive ways of relating to what you experience. Over time, this can strengthen resilience and create a sense that you have yourself, even when things are hard.

If you’re here looking for answers on what is CPTSD, I hope this helped put language to what you’ve been living. Please go at your own pace and treat yourself gently.

If this resonated, you’re welcome to share a thought below.

Warmly,
Allie C. | CalmFire™

– Read: Anger in CPTSD: Why it Feels So Big (and small steps you can take)
– (1) If you’d like more clinical info PTSD from the Mayo Clinic click here

Note: I’m not a licensed professional. I’m sharing from my own healing journey and these are tools that have helped me personally. Please give yourself and others space and patience along the way. This blog is for support, not a substitute for professional care. If you are in crisis, call 911 or your local emergency number.

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