Understanding Complex PTSD in Adults: How It Affects You and How Brainspotting Can Help

Most people have heard of PTSD. It’s often associated with a single traumatic event-something sudden, overwhelming, and life-threatening. But what if your trauma wasn’t just one moment, but a series of experiences spread out over months or years? What if it didn’t come from a dramatic event, but from growing up in a home where your emotional needs weren’t met, where you had to be the “easy child,” the “fixer,” or the “invisible one”? That’s where Complex PTSD (C-PTSD) comes in.

Unlike PTSD, which tends to be linked to one major event, Complex PTSD often develops over time—usually from chronic emotional neglect, abuse, or instability, especially during childhood. It's not about what did happen as much as what didn't. Maybe no one ever screamed at you or hit you, but they also didn’t see you, comfort you, or give you the emotional safety every child needs to grow into a grounded, confident adult.

How Complex PTSD Shows Up in Adults

If you’re an adult with C-PTSD, you might not even realize anything is “wrong.” Instead, you may feel like:

• You're too sensitive, too much, or not enough

• You struggle with self-worth, no matter how much you achieve

• You’re hyper-aware of others’ emotions and quick to take responsibility for them

• Boundaries feel either impossible or make you feel selfish for setting them

• You feel like you’re faking it, waiting to be found out

• You have a deep fear of abandonment or rejection

• You often feel anxious, exhausted, and overwhelmed for no obvious reason

You might also find yourself stuck in patterns: relationships that feel one-sided, a habit of people-pleasing, or a constant drive to “fix” everything around you. C-PTSD often makes it hard to know where you end and others begin.

Why Complex Trauma is So Hard to Identify

One of the most painful parts of Complex PTSD is how hard it is to recognize. It doesn’t always look like trauma. If you were never allowed to express anger, sadness, or need as a child, you may not even recognize those feelings in yourself now. You might think, "It wasn’t that bad,” or, “Other people had it worse.”

But emotional neglect is traumatic. Being chronically unseen, unsupported, or made to feel like your needs were a burden rewires your nervous system. And when that becomes your baseline, it’s hard to see it as anything other than “normal.”

How Complex PTSD Shows Up in the Body

C-PTSD isn’t just in your head-it lives in your body. You may feel tension in your chest, nausea, tightness in your throat, or a sense of numbness and disconnection. You might find yourself stuck in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn modes-reacting to life from a place of old survival strategies rather than conscious choice.

Your nervous system learned how to protect you long ago, and those protective responses still live inside you-even if your external world is now safe.

How Brainspotting Can Help

Traditional talk therapy can be helpful, but C-PTSD often lives deeper than words. Brainspotting is a body-based therapy designed to help process and release trauma that’s stored in the nervous system. It allows us to access the deeper layers of emotion, memory, and body sensation without needing to “explain” or make sense of everything first.

Brainspotting helps you gently work with parts of yourself that are stuck in old loops of fear, guilt, shame, or disconnection. It’s not about fixing you-because you’re not broken-it’s about helping your nervous system feel safe enough to heal, and helping you reconnect with your true self beneath all the survival patterns.

Ready to Begin?

If any of this resonates, know that you're not alone—and healing is possible. Complex PTSD can be confusing and overwhelming, but with the right support, you can feel safer in your body, more confident in your relationships, and more grounded in who you are.

If you’re curious about Brainspotting or ready to start the process of healing, I’d love to support you.

Ready to begin your healing journey? If you’re struggling with symptoms of complex PTSD

and want to explore deeper healing through Brainspotting, I’d love to support you.📅 Schedule a free consult📧 danielleluciatherapy@yahoo.com🌐 www.DanielleLucia.com