5 Valuable Life Skills Often Learned by Those With Complex PTSD

Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) is much more prevalent than anyone might surmise. Adults who managed attachment trauma as children, resulting in CPTSD later, learned many adaptive survival skills they may utilize in adulthood. They are often very well-functioning members of society. No one might guess what challenges lie beneath the surface.

Strength in our vulnerability

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With the pervasive trauma that can result in CPTSD, a child is required to subvert her own natural and healthy needs, preferences, inclinations, and emotional life to the parent’s egocentric demands. A child intuitively knows when a parent has no room for them emotionally and will suppress her natural instincts and impulses in order to buoy that parent — out of love and out of a desire to glean any kind of support for herself from the parent.

A child managing this attachment trauma is, quite literally, put in the dilemma of having to choose between his psychic and physical well-being and his critical connection with the adult(s) in his life. To a child, it feels like survival. The seriousness of this dilemma cannot be underestimated. In many ways, it is survival — physical, emotional, intellectual, and psychic.

In the aftermath of this childhood, many adults can be left with the painful burdens of senseless attachment wounds. Wounds that could have been quite unnecessary if the child had been given appropriate love and respect, including the awareness that her needs, natural dependence, and reliance on the adults in her life demanded tender attention.

There can be little to nothing to feel good about surviving a history of relational trauma. At the same time, what I have observed, time and again, in my clients with a complex trauma history are coinciding strengths. Along with the challenges, adults with a trauma history can also embody these adaptive life skills:

1. Responsibility. As children, survivors learned (too) early on to be responsible for themselves and for others. Often these responsibilities were well beyond their true age-appropriate ability to perform. Because at times it was literally an issue of survival, these kids learned persistence in taking responsibility, problem-solving, and stepping up. As adults, their challenge is to require and allow others to take appropriate responsibility for tasks, behaviors, and relationships and to not automatically step in as a caretaker. As adults, the value in this same behavior can look like being a responsible parent, spouse, employee, or friend. In life, they can be reliable, consistent, and persistent. They can demonstrate many qualities of leadership.

2. Competence. As children, survivors learned to never need anything by way of support, because they found quickly their needs would go unanswered. As adults, the challenge for them at times is to tackle a sense of learned helplessness. Another challenge is to take pride in their efforts and abilities. As adults, the value in this is they can exhibit the strengths of meeting and solving life challenges through competence, problem-solving abilities, creativity, and a “find-a-way” attitude. They can know exactly what to do in any given situation, or they move to figure it out.

3. Functioning well through a lot of distress. Clients use words like “soldier on,” “bear down,” and “push through” to describe how they learned to manage distress. For these adults, it can be difficult to know how to regulate distress, or that they even have a choice in the matter. They can overestimate their ability to tolerate distressing events and then become "blindsided” with overwhelming feelings they don’t see coming. The value in this is when they learn to notice when they’re distressed, they can regulate it better. And, if you’re in a critical and stressful situation, these are the people you want on your team. What began for them as children as anticipatory fear of what’s coming can result, as adults, in an ability to plan ahead, and to create order out of chaos.

4. An uncanny ability to "read the room." As children, survivors learned to read other people — to read their tone, their movement, their words, and their emotions. This was helpful to safely avoid danger, to know what a situation called for, and to generally rise to what any circumstance required. As adults, their challenge can be to not feel swamped by other people’s emotions or dilemmas and to not let other people’s needs take over in every situation. As adults, the value in this is they can intuit what others may need. Through this, they can be empathic, caring, and kind. They may seek to understand another’s perspective; they can allow for differences and look to find fair solutions for all.

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5. A desire and ability to connect with others. While perhaps overly responsible as children, a challenge can be to learn balanced and mutual connectivity; these children are so used to being “of service” they aren’t always sure how to just “be” in relationships. Learning they deserve mutual support is a challenge. At the same time, because seeking connection with loved and important others was critical, as adults, they may continue to place high value on connection and belonging. They seek to be inclusive and to create space for others to join in, come along, and enjoy creative, even playful, connection.

Through work with a competent therapist, the burdens our younger parts carry can be released, and the strengths found there can be used to enrich adult life today. The work of Richard Schwartz, Pete Walker, and Janina Fisher, among others, may guide you in learning more.

Copyright 2022 Jennifer Lock Oman