When trauma isn't one event, it's a thousand small ones
I didn't understand C-PTSD from a textbook first. I understood it from the inside, and I built my practice around the kind of therapy that actually moved it for me.
Schedule a free consultationComplex PTSD (C-PTSD) develops from prolonged or repeated trauma, often starting in childhood, rather than one isolated event. Alongside typical trauma symptoms, it often includes chronic shame, emotional dysregulation, relationship difficulties, and a persistent negative sense of self.
I spent years in talk therapy circling my own C-PTSD, analyzing it, explaining it, understanding it perfectly in my head, and still felt stuck. Insight alone rarely heals this. I had to find therapy that got me out of my head and into my body before real change started.
Quiet signs of C-PTSD
A harsh inner critic that's louder than any voice from your past.
Hypervigilance, always scanning for what could go wrong.
Swinging between emotional flooding and going completely numb.
Trusting people feels risky, even when they've earned it.
Chronic shame, a sense that something is wrong with you, not what happened.
Relationships feel like a push-pull between wanting closeness and fearing it.
If several of these sound familiar, you're not broken. You adapted to survive something ongoing. I know, because I lived most of this list myself.
How is C-PTSD different from PTSD?
PTSD is typically linked to a single traumatic incident, an accident, an assault, a disaster. C-PTSD comes from trauma that repeats over time, often during childhood: chronic neglect, an unpredictable or unsafe home, ongoing emotional or physical harm.
Because it happened over and over, C-PTSD doesn't just leave behind fear responses. It shapes how you see yourself and how safe relationships feel. That's why healing isn't just about the memories. It's about rebuilding a relationship with yourself that trauma never let you have.
What is your "window of tolerance"?
The zone where you can feel something, stress, fear, sadness, without shutting down or flooding. C-PTSD narrows that zone.
Small stressors push you out of the window fast, into flooding on one side, or shutdown on the other.
One thing I notice constantly, both in myself and in clients: this window gets narrow when you're carrying C-PTSD. Widening it, gradually, is most of the actual work. It's slower than insight. It's also what makes insight finally stick.
What C-PTSD is, and isn't
"It wasn't bad enough to count as trauma."
C-PTSD often comes from chronic, lower-grade experiences, not just dramatic events. Repetition and duration matter more than any one incident's severity.
"I should just be able to move on by now."
C-PTSD often shows up as chronic shame, emotional dysregulation, and a persistent negative sense of self. That's a nervous system response, not a willpower problem.
"Therapy means reliving everything that happened."
We build safety and internal resources first. Processing specific memories happens later, gradually, and always at a pace your system can handle.
"My inner critic is just 'how I motivate myself.'"
A harsh inner critic is often a part of you that took on the job of protecting you from further harm. In IFS, we get curious about it instead of fighting it.
"Coping skills mean I'm healing."
Coping skills help you function, they rarely resolve C-PTSD on their own. Deep, trauma-informed modalities that work with the nervous system go further than any skill list.
A pace your nervous system can trust
Healing C-PTSD isn't a straight line, and it isn't just talk. I use the same kind of experiential work that changed things for me: parts work and body-based reprocessing.
Stabilize & connect
We slow down and build a felt sense of safety, using IFS to get to know the parts of you that are protecting, criticizing, or shutting down, widening your window of tolerance along the way.
Reprocess with EMDR
When you're ready, we use EMDR, one foot in the memory and one in the present, to help specific memories and the beliefs attached to them lose their charge.
Integrate & live differently
Old beliefs loosen their grip, and you build new capacity for trust, rest, and connection, checked in on at every step.
"You didn't overreact. Your nervous system learned to protect you from something that kept happening, and it can learn a new way. I know because mine did."
My own path through C-PTSD
I spent many years in talk therapy, overanalyzing and ruminating (it honestly felt like banging my head against a door). Yet I was never able to get relief. I kept struggling with chronic shame, emotional dysregulation, relationship difficulties, and a persistent negative sense of self, even though I had so much insight into my own trauma.
It wasn't until I found experiential trauma modalities like IFS, EMDR, and NARM that I was able to make changes. These types of therapies gave me a new experience where I was able to find freedom and experience real relief.
That's why I do this work today. I've experienced the power of therapy, and I am passionate about helping others find freedom and relief too.
C-PTSD, answered
What is C-PTSD?
How is C-PTSD different from PTSD?
Can C-PTSD be treated?
Do I need a specific "big trauma" to have C-PTSD?
Let's start with a conversation.
You don't have to have the right words, or even be sure this is "bad enough." I didn't either, for a long time.
A steady space is here whenever you are.