CPTSD is not a medical diagnosis, and you do not need a Doctor, Psychiatrist, or Psychologist to diagnose you with it - don't let anyone gatekeep you away from it.

This post is inspired by a recent discussion in this post, on whether CPTSD is a medical diagnosis.

Mental disorder is badly misunderstood by the general population, and even some members of this community, to the point of giving harmful advice and gatekeeping. You must understand the mental disorders are not injuries or diseases, with well-defined causational physiological markers. No one can look into your head to see if you have CPTSD, or ADHD, or NPD, like they can look at your leg to judge if it is broken. It isn't as simple as someone having brain damage, or being born different.

Mental disorders are just labels for significant disturbances or dysfunctions in cognition, emotional regulation, or behaviour. They are not defined by possible causes, pathologies, etc, etc. You can have none of obvious causes of a mental disorder, but still have it. If the label fits, then there is no harm in labelling yourself with that label, and seeking help in that vein. It is worth considering that dysfunction is a relative term. What may not seem dysfunctional to someone else may be intolerable to you, and vice versa. Again, if you feel that your quality of life is being significantly impacted, then it is.

To give some examples, there is no confirmed mechanism for ADHD, only correlations related to brain structure, etc. Let me be clear here: there are people who have ADHD, but do not have any of the known correlations, and cannot be treated with any known medications. This is true FOR ALL MENTAL DISORDERS. Let me repeat, the link between physiological markers (brain structure, etc), is not a perfect (or even good in many cases) indicator for subjective symptoms.

This is true, and well studied for many physical disorders and injuries too. For example, sciatica, which is nerve pain down the legs, is a common symptom of disk herniation - but levels of sciatica pain are not well correlated with disk herniation severity, or stage of healing. Pain from injury, in general, is not well correlated with physiological markers of healing. That isn't to say that pain doesn't go down with healing, but that the healing itself has not been shown to be responsible for reduction in pain. You may find that difficult to believe, but that is the science. This is why all scientifically-backed rehab protocols focus on improving subjective symptoms (pain reduction, confidence), and function (ability to walk, etc), rather than focusing on repairing musculoskeletal damage in most cases. Rehab for almost all lower body injuries is the broadly same, regardless of cause, be it blunt-force trauma, tendonitis, nerve pinching - because the injury itself doesn't really matter.

Looking at trauma as a brain injury is a reasonable perspective, but you MUST understand that it is a simplification.

That is why CPTSD is defined as a developmental disorder, not a brain-damage related trauma. This is because CPTSD is caused by a convergence of several factors: lack of mental/social/emotional development due to hostile environment, coping mechanisms developed for hostile environment are dysfunctional in adult world, etc, etc.

CPTSD is actually sort of a misnomer, and some experts in the field would like the name to be changed to better reflect that fact that it is significantly deeper and more varied than PTSD.

In conclusion, do not get hung up in medical diagnosis or causes. The truth is, it isn't important. You do not need a doctor in order to heal. You need to find what works best for you, and that takes learning from a variety of sources, and figuring out what fits you best. Only you know you, so if someone tells you you can't have CPTSD for xyz, you can listen to them if you wish, but feel free to tell them to shove it.