PTSD vs C-PTSD: Understanding the Difference, and Why It Matters
At The Place Retreats, we often meet clients who say, “I don’t feel like anything particularly terrible has ever happened to me. But at the same time, I just don’t know why I feel this way.”
What they’re describing is often not single-event trauma (PTSD), but complex trauma, or C-PTSD, which is a long-term pattern of traumatic events that subtly shape how we see ourselves, others, and the world around us.
Trauma is caused by numerous experiences of violence or abuse. Some of these events, such as a car accident, an assault, or a natural disaster, shatter us immediately (single-event trauma or PTSD) while other traumatic events slowly eat away at our sense of self over time (C-PTSD). The latter often begins with childhood trauma, within the core family relationships that were meant to keep us safe.
As psychotherapist Yolanda Renteria says, “People with C-PTSD and PTSD have an absence of the sense of safety, the past feels like the present.”
Understanding the difference between PTSD and C-PTSD can help you make sense of your symptoms, release misplaced shame, and begin the slow, embodied process of healing.
What Is PTSD?
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) develops after a specific traumatic event that overwhelms the body’s natural coping ability. It might be an accident, robbery, or sexual assault. After the incident, the nervous system remains on high alert, in a state of fight-or-flight mode, as if the danger could return at any moment.
Common symptoms include flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, and avoidance of reminders. These are the mind and body’s attempts to prevent re-exposure to pain.
PTSD is often described as a “stuck” survival response because the body experienced a threat but never received the signal that it was safe again. In order to heal, the body has to feel safe, both internally and externally, before the nervous system can be balanced again.
What Is Complex PTSD? (C-PTSD)
While C-PTSD is widely accepted as a mental health condition, it is important to note that it is not recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5-TR), which mental health professionals use to officially diagnose mental health conditions.
Unlike PTSD, which can occur at any age and stage in life, C-PTSD nearly always develops in childhood as a result of a series of traumatic events. These experiences, also known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), can include neglect, emotional or physical abuse, domestic violence, abandonment, or living in an environment where love and safety were inconsistent or conditional.
Children who grow up in unpredictable or unsafe environments learn to survive by suppressing their emotions, disconnecting from their bodies, and adapting to please or appease others. Over time, this survival mode becomes an unconscious way of life.
While quite often the repeated trauma takes place during childhood, the traumatic events can also occur from childhood into adulthood.
How Childhood Trauma Shapes Us
Nearly everything in our emotional world can be traced back to the foundation of our childhood experiences. Were we raised in a warm, loving, predictable environment, or did we experience chaos, abuse, and disorganized care? If the foundation is stable, children develop secure attachments. But if the foundation is unstable, the harmful effects carry over in adulthood as deeply ingrained patterns in the nervous system.
Research on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) shows that those exposed to early trauma are far more likely to experience anxiety, depression, emotional dysregulation, substance use, addiction, dissociation, avoidance, and relational difficulties later in life. Just because you’re no longer experiencing emotional abuse or traumatic events doesn’t mean the effects simply fade away. No, they live on, stored as memories in the body, shaping everything in our lives, from how we respond to stress, to how we cope with loss, and how we learn to trust and love.
Here are some common characteristics of how childhood trauma shapes us:
1. Emotional Dysregulation
Emotional dysregulation is one of the hallmarks of complex trauma. Because the developing brain learns emotional control through secure attachment, chronic stress in childhood can interrupt this process. Adults may find themselves oscillating between emotional flooding and numbness, overreacting to small triggers, or feeling nothing at all.
It’s not that these individuals “feel too much.” Instead, their internal thermostat for emotional safety is broken — the nervous system can’t find a stable resting point.
2. Chronic Shame and the Inner Critic
Children who grow up in unsafe or chaotic environments often internalize the belief that they are the problem. If they weren’t so bad, so unlovable, so stupid, so ugly…then maybe things would be better. This inner critic can become relentless in adulthood, resulting in a voice that undermines confidence and prevents them from forming healthy relationships with authentic connections.
Complex trauma healing involves learning to differentiate between the original environment and the present while recognizing that the danger has passed. The inner critic is simply a form of self-protection for your inner child. It’s doing what it’s always done — keeping you safe. But now it’s time to heal.
3. Dissociation and Disconnection from the Body
When escape isn’t possible, many children survive by mentally checking out — a process known as dissociation. In adulthood, this can feel like drifting through life, being detached from emotions, or even feeling disconnected from your own body.
4. Relationship Difficulties
Relational trauma in childhood leads to deep relational wounds. As a result, adults with C-PTSD often fear abandonment, struggle with commitment and trusting others, or swing between connection and closeness to total withdrawal. Because early caregivers were unsafe or inconsistent, intimacy can feel threatening. They want it, but when someone gets too close, they shut down or end the relationship.
For true healing to occur, those with C-PTSD require corrective emotional experiences where safe, steady relationships (including therapeutic ones) teach the nervous system that connection can be secure and nourishing.
PTSD vs. C-PTSD: Key Differences
PTSD:
- Usually one traumatic event
- Symptoms center on fear, flashbacks, and avoidance
- Identity generally intact
- Easier to locate the “cause”
- Treatment may focus on reprocessing one memory
Complex PTSD:
- Prolonged or repeated trauma (often in childhood)
- Symptoms center on shame, self-worth, and relational patterns
- Sense of self often fragmented or negative
- Feels like “this is just who I am”
- Healing involves long-term relational and somatic work
While both involve trauma responses, C-PTSD touches every layer of existence — the body, emotions, identity, and relationships.
Why the Distinction Matters
Recognizing PTSD vs C-PTSD is crucial because traditional, cognitive-based therapies alone are often insufficient. When trauma is stored in the body, insight alone doesn’t reach the parts of the brain responsible for safety and regulation.
For those with complex trauma, talk therapy often bypasses the body and neglects attachment repair. This could actually make the situation worse and increase distress. A better approach is holistic, therapeutic therapies that integrate the whole body, mind, and soul to create safety and trust.
Healing from Complex Trauma: A Body-Based, Long-Form Approach
Your trauma might feel like something from the past, but memories of those events are stored in the body forever. True recovery requires mind-body-soul integration.
Our work at The Place Retreats combines evidence-based therapies with holistic, body-centered modalities, providing clients with a safe space to gently re-pattern their relationship with themselves and others.
Common approaches include:
Somatic therapies
EMDR and trauma-specific psychotherapy
Mindfulness and breathwork
Yoga, meditation, and movement
Relational therapy to repair trust
This integrative approach helps clients rebuild their window of tolerance—the optimal zone where the body can process emotions without feeling overwhelmed. With time, as the body learns it’s out of the danger zone, the overwhelming, unbearable feelings become manageable.
Reclaiming Yourself at The Place Retreats
Recovery from C-PTSD is not about erasing the past but about reclaiming the parts of yourself that were lost to survival. It means moving from “what’s wrong with me?” to “what happened to me?” and ultimately to “what’s possible for me now?”
At The Place Retreats, we understand that long-term trauma cannot be hurried. Healing unfolds through deep, consistent engagement in a space where the nervous system can finally exhale.
Our expert therapists work gently with these patterns through somatic awareness, yoga, breathwork, and mindfulness-based practices that help regulate the nervous system and rebuild a sense of calm and safety.
If you’re ready to heal and explore what’s possible for you now, contact us and let us design a personalized retreat tailored to your needs.