Complex PTSD for Men in Dallas, TX

Feel­ing con­stant­ly on the edge, strug­gling with emo­tions, and find­ing it hard to trust oth­ers — not just for days or weeks, but for months or even years. That’s not the plot­line for a hor­ror movie. It’s the real­i­ty for many indi­vid­u­als liv­ing with Com­plex Post-Trau­mat­ic Stress Dis­or­der (C‑PTSD), a con­di­tion that doesn’t quite get the atten­tion it deserves, espe­cial­ly among men. 

Unlike PTSD, which was offi­cial­ly rec­og­nized by psy­chol­o­gists in 1980, not all experts agree on what com­plex PTSD is. That could explain why com­plex PTSD isn’t in the pub­lic con­scious­ness and why it’s not diag­nosed as often as PTSD. We’ll leave the aca­d­e­m­ic debate on whether com­plex PTSD should be iden­ti­fied as a sep­a­rate men­tal health con­di­tion out of this post. 

Instead, we’ll focus on dis­cussing:

• What com­plex PTSD means (and its symp­toms)
• How it’s dif­fer­ent from PTSD
• Fac­tors that could con­tribute to com­plex PTSD in Dal­las men

 

Childhood trauma therapist for adults

Under­stand­ing where C‑PTSD comes from is an impor­tant place to start. Com­plex PTSD is a trau­ma response to pro­longed and repeat­ed trau­ma over months or years, such as ongo­ing domes­tic vio­lence, slavery/captivity or child­hood abuse. Men who have been pris­on­ers of war are also at risk of com­plex PTSD.

 

How C‑PTSD differs from PTSD

Com­plex PTSD is dif­fer­ent on two basic lev­els — cause and symp­toms.

Cause

PTSD—usu­al­ly trig­gered by a sin­gle trau­mat­ic event (e.g., car acci­dent, assault)

C‑PTSD—results from repeat­ed trau­ma over months or years (e.g., ongo­ing domes­tic vio­lence, child­hood abuse, pro­longed cap­tiv­i­ty)

Symptoms

PTSD—re-expe­ri­enc­ing, avoid­ance, and hyper­vig­i­lance

C‑PTSD —includes all PTSD symp­toms plus addi­tion­al chal­lenges with emo­tion­al reg­u­la­tion and form­ing healthy rela­tion­ships.

 

Symptoms of CPTSD

Com­plex PTSD shares all the same symp­toms as PTSD, includ­ing:

• Re-expe­ri­enc­ing — flash­backs, night­mares
• Avoid­ance
• Hyper­vig­i­lance (con­stant­ly being on high alert)
• Depres­sion and anx­i­ety
• Sub­stance abuse
• Headaches, dizzi­ness or chest pains

One of the key dif­fer­en­tia­tors between the two men­tal health con­di­tions is the addi­tion­al symp­toms C‑PTSD induces. If you have com­plex PTSD, you may expe­ri­ence:

Emotional regulation problems

You may find it chal­leng­ing to man­age your emo­tions, have fre­quent mood swings and can have intense feel­ings of sad­ness and anger.

 Negative self-perception

There may be intense feel­ings of guilt and shame where you con­stant­ly ques­tion your self-worth.

Relationship issues

Trust­ing peo­ple may be dif­fi­cult. You’re like­ly always to assume the worst about peo­ple because you can­not cor­rect­ly dis­tin­guish between them and the per­son who caused you harm.

These issues can also work the oth­er way around, where you delib­er­ate­ly pur­sue harm­ful rela­tion­ships.

 

Why men in Dallas may be at risk

Dal­las, TX, men are enthu­si­as­tic about many things, most notably their sup­port for sports and art.

And there’s also enthu­si­asm for mil­i­tary ser­vice. A sig­nif­i­cant pop­u­la­tion of the men in Dal­las are mil­i­tary vet­er­ans and may have been exposed to the casu­al­ties of war long enough that it trig­gers com­plex PTSD. 

Dal­las is also prone to severe weath­er events that can alter the shape of a man’s life for good. The after­math of a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter can involve long-term chal­lenges such as dis­place­ment and finan­cial hard­ship, which can pro­long the trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ence.

Com­plex PTSD could even be trig­gered by survivor’s guilt if recall­ing the event hap­pens with great fre­quen­cy.

Oth­er gen­er­al fac­tors include con­stant expo­sure to Dal­las’ high crime and vio­lence rates and the soci­etal pres­sure to sup­press emo­tions and always be per­fect.

 

Online therapy Dallas

CPTSD may not be pop­u­lar, but its effects are more wide­spread than we care to admit. Quite pos­si­bly, many men who have com­plex PTSD may wave off its symp­toms as “part of being a man.”

The truth could not be fur­ther away. Com­plex PTSD is as severe as any men­tal health con­di­tion gets and can have grave con­se­quences if you con­tin­ue to ignore it, such as con­tin­ued rela­tion­ship strug­gles, fear of aban­don­ment in your rela­tion­ships, anx­i­ety, and self-esteem chal­lenges. If you’ve been exposed to trau­ma for a pro­longed peri­od or know some­one who has, con­sid­er reach­ing out to a pro­fes­sion­al trau­ma-informed ther­a­pist.

As a qual­i­fied ther­a­pist spe­cial­iz­ing in trau­ma, I’m here to help. I pro­vide online ther­a­py ser­vices for men in Texas. You can con­tact me here, and we can sched­ule a free online con­sul­ta­tion.

Pre­fer to type out an ini­tial intro­duc­tion? Not a prob­lem. You can reach out below. 

Send me a mes­sage and I’ll reach out to you