What We Call It Matters

My first counselor had probably twenty years of experience. She ignored the trauma and said I had a mild depression. Her philosophy was that we could spend hours analyzing the past, but it would be a better use of time to just focus on the positive and move forward. She recommended that I plan some fun activities to look forward to. At the time I didn't know anything about different therapies so I went along with it, but I felt like I was at the doctor's with a festering wound and was being told to diet and exercise. This approach blows my mind now. It may be appropriate for someone who has a mild depression with no cause, but to completely disregard trauma is uninformed. There is no moving forward when the past has chained itself to you. Many psychotherapy patients have been traumatized, so it seems to me that all mental health professionals should be highly trained in recognizing and treating trauma survivors.

My second counselor was a graduate student under the supervision of my previous counselor. She was obviously trying out a variety of techniques she was learning and not all of them worked for me, but overall I made much more progress with her despite her inexperience -- or maybe because of her inexperience, she was more open to trying different things.

My next counselor, also a grad student, exhorted me to have more faith and eat more avocados and get prescription sleeping pills. Only the last advice was helpful.

My next therapist lasted three sessions: the first one was introductory, in the second one she told me about some approach that sounded like pseudo-science, and in the third we watched Dr. Phil. I walked out at Dr. Phil and gave up on therapy until my doctor recommended another practitioner and encouraged me to try again.

My current therapist, Z, is the best so far. But if I use the term Complex PTSD, everyone who works at these places acts as if they didn't hear the first word. If it's not approved by the American Psychiatric Association's inclusion in the DSM, it doesn't exist. (I understand why they can't officially diagnose it, but I feel like they would indulge me more if I walked in there and said I was God or a squirrel! It's so bizarre.) But Z is the one who recommended that I read the book Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman, so I believe she agrees with Herman's view.

Herman is the one who first proposed Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a freestanding diagnosis. I thought this must be a new book, because I never even heard of CPTSD until last year. I checked the copyright date: 1992!? Are you kidding me? Why is this still not legitimized?! Herman sheds some light on why it's so difficult to accurately revise the DSM: Members of the APA from a vantage point of empowerment don't see the need for a diagnosis that necessarily applies to the disempowered. When women presented rational arguments, "The men of the psychiatric establishment persisted in their bland denial. They admitted freely that they were ignorant of the extensive literature of the past decade on psychological trauma, but they did not see why it should concern them" (p. 118). Basically, empowered people assume psychological maladies cause traumatization rather than the other way around, which puts the blame on the victim instead of the perpetrator. (Of course, men can be victims too. Herman explains it much better than I do. It's an excellent book. I would read it for her crisp writing alone.)

Maybe if CPTSD was officially recognized, I would have gotten help sooner. Not to mention the added stress involved when your actual problem supposedly doesn't exist. Gaslighting is what contributed to CPTSD for some of us in the first place, so the APA needs to stop rewriting our reality.