Hi Anthony - I agree. As you know, I was diagnosed with CPTSD but what matters is what's at the core of it. The label was important to me alone (my psych explained what you have in your post but saw that it was important for me to be able to move forward) and, in that sense, it is valuable to the patient because - for the majority of us - we need to know what we're carrying around and from that we can then work with something more 'tangible' - it has a face.

You've made an important point in your last sentence but please - don't take the power of knowing what it is from those of us who need to know what we're dealing with - what the clinical manifestation of "how we got it" is.

Your point is very relevant, and well raised. Some people do need to know what they have because of what they have endured. Correct. Its only when people become focused on that label, being more my point, when it becomes a problem during the healing process, ie. I have CPTSD so I have an excuse to be in self sympathy over this person who only has acute PTSD. I have seen it many times already, hence why I personally don't encourage it. Yes, nice to know what you have for the reasons, but I always encourage people to only keep that as a thought, not focus on the label itself, but instead the core of the problem being the trauma. Once we heal trauma, learning how to manage PTSD for the remainder of our lives becomes much easier to achieve. It took me a couple of years learning how to manage PTSD, much longer than healing the trauma itself. Though mine is from military, not staged over 10 years off ongoing abuse either. This is why I will say to people, regardless of label, there is no time limit on healing trauma, and it takes as long as it takes uniquely for each individual. We are all unique, thus we all will vary and no blanket can be applied too us.

I have seen people here come out of healing CPTSD in 4 - 5 months, then there are some who are still fighting the healing process after one year. Some get to managing PTSD sooner than others, but its all relative to us uniquely and our trauma.

Personally, this is why I dropped the label, other than for paper purposes (doctors). I am afraid of getting on a pity pot that I won't get off. So I chucked that label as far as I could. Out smarting myself, I am!

Hmm, length to heal? I figure mine might be in the years category.. no matter, I'm on my journey and will get there when I get there..

bec

Could be bec... might not also. Healing trauma took me about a year, hard for the first six months, learning to manage about another two years, and to be quite honest, I work every single day on myself in some way helping to learn new skills and managing PTSD. There is always something new to learn, and I want to learn constantly in order to improve myself, so I continue being far mentally superior for my own self benefit.