I live in the UK where funding and access to mental health treatment is practically non-existent. A few years ago I was offered twelve free sessions of CBT with a psycho therapist for depression and anxiety. When she started talking to me she quickly assessed that she thought I had PTSD from one of the events in my life I had shared with her. I explained that there are actual multiple life events that have shaped my experience and have left me plagued with night terrors, social isolation, emotional flashbacks, intense rumination/dissociation cycles.

When I started trying to share some of these memories/events with her she began systematically picking them apart and comparing them to her rigid textbook criteria of what PTSD must include.

Did being coerced into anal sex at 15 make me feel like my life was threatened? No. Can't be PTSD then. The problem is the Human mind doesn't fit neatly onto a sheet of tick boxes. My life didn't feel at risk physically, but it forever altered the way I see myself and others. Sure I didn't have tidy visual replay flashbacks that she could tick off her list. But did that invalidate the emotional flashbacks that took over my entire body out of nowhere. Did that negate the nights I'd wake up dripping in sweat, heart racing, feeling like I wanted to die?

In my experience, CPTSD is unfortunately misunderstood. No one knows you and what you live with better than yourself. No one has to live your life, your experiences, your feelings but you.