If you have PTSD or complex PTSD, you know firsthand how extremely debilitating the symptoms can be. You might wake up in the middle of the night, sweating profusely. You might experience night terrors where intruders or other people are attacking or harming you. You could be suffering from flashbacks of your trauma during the day that interrupt your daily activities. You might suffer from social anxiety so severe that makes it difficult to get outside the home and attend work or school. Some people even wake up with bruises and scratches on their skin.
People with PTSD symptoms often suffer from agitation, rage, anger, sadness, helplessness, and hopelessness. A sufferer that is severe on all four quadrants of the PTSD and complex PTSD testing and diagnostic scales might suffer such fear and anxiety that they may consider suicide, cutting, self-harm, or dangerous activities as the only relief to their symptoms.
Many people are misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed for much of their lives. They may not tell the doctors, counselors or psychiatrists how distressing their psychiatric symptoms are for fear of shame and humiliation. They may be afraid to be called "neurotic", "crazy", or psychotic. Many people who suffer from PTSD or complex PTSD don't go in to get treatment for fear that they will be hospitalized, and that they will carry the stigma for the rest of their lives that they are classified as "mentally ill".
Still others think that PTSD or complex PTSD only happens to veterans, people who suffer from severe attacks or natural disasters or others who have experienced "much" trauma. The truth of the matter is that anyone can suffer from complex PTSD and PTSD at any time. Any type of trauma in people who are not resilient, who lack social support, or who are genetically predisposed to naturally being anxious via their DNA can cause PTSD or complex PTSD.
