The Paradox of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD)
The Unspoken Truths of Complex PTSD
I wish my parents would die.
“I wish my parents would die.” It’s a brutal line — you might be thinking, What the hell? — but it’s a sentence I’ve heard, more than once, from people who sit across from me in therapy.
I remember the first time I heard someone say that. For a split second, I froze. I honestly didn’t know what I was supposed to say next — what words could possibly meet that kind of truth? All I knew, sitting there, was how much courage it must have taken for them to say it out loud, to me. To put into words something most people would never dare admit, even to themselves. What I felt in that moment wasn’t shock so much as reverence — reverence for the honesty, for the risk, for the way their body must have trembled just before the words left their mouth. It wasn’t just a statement; it was a survival story condensed into a single, impossible sentence.
It is a very real statement, born not from hatred for the sake of hatred, but from exhaustion, from years of pain that has no clear place to go. And when I sit with someone telling me this, and I hear the story of what they have endured, I can understand how they could feel that way.
This is the landscape of Complex PTSD (CPTSD).
What Complex PTSD Really Is
CPTSD is not about one car accident, one assault, one night of violence that forever imprints itself on the nervous system. It is about growing up in an environment that was a slow bleed out of safety and belonging. It develops when a child spends years in a home where the air itself is unpredictable — where love is conditional, where rage simmers without warning, where silence feels like abandonment, and where the very people meant to protect you are also the ones who hurt you. Unlike PTSD, which is tethered to a single traumatic event, CPTSD grows quietly in the soil of repeated, prolonged harm. It shows up when there is no safe place to retreat to, no consistent adult to lean on, and no recognition of your pain. It is the trauma of being unseen, unheard, unprotected. It is the nervous system learning to survive in a house where survival should never have been the job of a child.
What is CPTSD in one line?
Ongoing trauma where the source of comfort is also the source of fear — the nervous system learns survival as a way of life.
Fear Without Solution — The Emotional Core of CPTSD
CPTSD is fear without solution. Mary Main, who studied attachment patterns beyond Mary Ainsworth’s original work, described disorganized attachment as a state of “fear without solution.” It comes from growing up in a home where the attachment figure is simultaneously the source of comfort and the source of fear.
As a child, there is no solution because you can’t leave. You are biologically wired to turn toward your caregiver, even if that caregiver is frightening, neglectful, or abusive. And so the nervous system collapses into confusion: I need you to survive, but I fear you. I want closeness, but closeness hurts me.
This impossibility is at the heart of CPTSD. When the body learns fear without escape, fear without repair, fear without resolution, that fear doesn’t simply fade with age. It burrows deep into the nervous system, shaping the way we experience safety, intimacy, and trust in adulthood. And because children cannot direct their rage or grief at the very people they depend on to survive, they turn it inward. It must be me. I must be the problem. In this way, CPTSD is not only the memory of fear without solution, but also the inheritance of shame that comes from making yourself the container for what your parents could not or would not hold.
And so it makes sense to me, though it may not make sense to others, why some of my patients carry such deep ambivalence toward their parents. When someone says “I wish my parents would die,” it can sound cruel or shocking on the surface. But underneath, it often isn’t about hatred at all — it’s about wanting the pain to stop. For people who grew up in homes marked by neglect, volatility, or abuse, parents can become the source of both deep longing and deep fear. To wish for their absence is sometimes the only way a person can imagine relief from a lifetime of being hurt by the very people they were wired to love.
This is one of the painful truths of Complex PTSD. When children cannot escape unsafe environments, their nervous systems learn to survive by holding impossible contradictions: I need you, but I fear you. I long for closeness, but closeness wounds me. By adulthood, this can surface in raw, unfiltered expressions that may shock outsiders but make complete sense to those who have lived it. What might sound harsh is, at its core, the voice of someone who has carried fear without solution for far too long.
And sometimes, the only words that can hold that contradiction are the ones no one dares to say aloud: I wish my parents would die.
Frequently Asked Questions About Complex PTSD
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PTSD often follows a single event; CPTSD follows chronic exposure. In addition to classic PTSD symptoms, CPTSD commonly includes shame, persistent threat, emotional dysregulation, and relationship difficulties.
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Like walking around braced for impact: hyper-alert, easily overwhelmed, self-critical, and unsure if you’re safe with others—even when nothing “bad” is happening.
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Yes. Chronic emotional neglect, inconsistent caregiving, or subtle ongoing criticism can wire the same survival patterns as overt trauma.
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Your body learned connection can equal danger. That pushes you toward protecting (shutting down, fawning, controlling) instead of relating—especially with people who matter most.
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Yes. With safe connection, skills for regulation, and updated beliefs, the nervous system can learn that “now” is not “then.” Healing is gradual and very real.
Keep Reading
Explore more reflections on healing and connection:
Navigating Grief
How loss shapes our nervous system and the ways we learn to carry it.
Defeating Your Inner Critic
For those noticing self-blame or harsh self-talk rooted in early trauma.
Adult Attachment Therapy
Understanding attachment patterns that often accompany CPTSD.
