Four Signs of Complex PTSD That Most People Might Miss (4-Video Compilation)

There’s a huge, almost universal thing that sparks childhood-PTSD symptoms — and chances are you’ve got it too. It’s so common that most people never notice it: hurrying. We rush all the time; it’s normal. But for people who carry childhood trauma, rushing easily tumbles into overwhelm. You may think you can’t live without hurrying — after all, there’s always more to do — but when you race through work or parenting tasks, that hurry can derail the most important parts of your life. For those of us with early trauma, rushing often triggers nervous-system dysregulation. No one explained this to me at first. Once I learned what neurological dysregulation is and began practicing getting re-regulated (which is the focus of much of what I teach), I realized that hurrying was one of the biggest overlooked triggers — alongside abandonment, criticism, and physical threat. When I hurry, I fall apart: I push myself to do more than is humanly possible, and the result is overwhelm and dysregulation. Like many who experienced neglect or abuse in childhood, I’m more easily thrown into dysregulation and it takes me longer to come back to baseline.
If you haven’t heard the term dysregulation, here’s a simple version: it’s the central symptom for adults who had childhood trauma and it causes most of the other symptoms. Everyone gets dysregulated sometimes and most people can re-regulate themselves relatively quickly. But if you were mistreated as a child, your nervous system is more easily knocked out of sync and it’s harder to return to regulated functioning. On a brain-scan level, the brain waves that normally work together go haywire when something triggers you. A trigger can be external or internal; it might even be something unconscious. When the trigger hits, brain activity scatters, thinking becomes fuzzy, coordination slips, your heart can race, and emotions flood in — sometimes wildly out of proportion. Dysregulation affects invisible systems too, like hormones and immunity, so its impact is widespread. The skill of healing complex PTSD is first noticing when you’re dysregulated and then bringing yourself back to regulation as quickly as possible.
I learned that hurrying was a massive trigger for me, and I teach about it in my Dysregulation Bootcamp — an online course you can find via the links that appear below my videos (hit the “more” button in the description). I also cover re-regulation in my book Re-Regulated, which is linked below as well. Right now I want to give practical guidance on spotting the hurrying trigger and beginning to shift it. Rushing is normalized in our culture: from scrambling to leave in the morning to barging through traffic because you feel late. Procrastination is often the hidden engine behind hurrying. We put things off — the alarm goes off and we don’t get up, we leave too little time to get somewhere — and then we rush, which dysregulates us, which makes us procrastinate again. The loop repeats. Our nervous systems, though, prefer spaciousness. Moving slowly and deliberately is strongly re-regulating. When was the last time you let the sensation of warm water during a shower fully land, or brushed your teeth without thinking “hurry, spit, rinse, go”? Constant pushing and speed can overload your system and alone trigger dysregulation — or they can block the calm attention your mind craves.
For many with childhood PTSD, the idea of slowing down is scary because stillness can let painful feelings surface. I used to feel as if something was chasing me — I called it a “pack of wolves” — and the only solution felt like running faster. In meditation I imagined the wolves arriving and allowed the feeling to be present. Nothing catastrophic happened: usually a wave of sadness came through, sometimes a brief cry, and then it passed. When you allow those feelings to move through you rather than fleeing from them, you don’t need to keep hurrying to avoid them. Slowing down can even increase productivity: when I rush, I misplace keys, spill coffee, or drive poorly and then end up later than if I had moved calmly in the first place.
I’ve had dramatic examples of what dysregulation looks like. In a particularly dysregulated period I once drove off from a gas station with the pump still attached — twice. People yelled after me but I was inside my head and didn’t hear. During that time I also rear-ended a truck on the freeway (luckily the damage wasn’t catastrophic). Those incidents worsened my dysregulation, and now I have a strict rule: no driving when dysregulated. It’s as dangerous as driving drunk. When dysregulated, it’s like your brain waves are running over rapids instead of flowing smoothly; focusing on a sequence of steps — pay at the pump, enter zip code, pump, put nozzle away, tighten cap, close the door — becomes nearly impossible. Autopilot fails when your nervous system is off.
For a long time I had no name for what was happening to me; I was under terrible stress and things spiraled. I’m grateful no one was seriously hurt, and that the struggle led me to learn about complex PTSD — the form of PTSD that arises from prolonged stress in childhood. It’s a relatively new framework, and not all clinicians are familiar with it yet, though understanding is spreading. When I’m dysregulated I lose bodily sensation, I bump into things, I drop plates, my handwriting changes, and I can’t sustain tasks: I start something and dissolve into distraction. Many researchers note that symptoms of complex PTSD can resemble ADHD — problems with attention and staying on task — but an important distinction is that those of us with CPTSD can often re-regulate and return to functioning, sometimes multiple times a day, once we know how.
To reduce the rush, I recommend lists. It isn’t glamorous, but effective. I use a Kanban-style app called KanbanFlow (I type tasks into columns I’ve created, color code them, drag them around, and move items day to day). Having an organized board I check in with each morning and evening helps me keep an eye on priorities, remove completed tasks, and shift things forward without panicking. Structure creates more calm, and as my day becomes more orderly, I regain the capacity to be creative and to sense time passing — which lets me notice when it’s time to prepare for something rather than always being late. Paradoxically, hurrying tends to make everything take longer, so you do have time to slow down. Embracing a slower pace often models the kind of calm that children’s shows like Mr. Rogers or slow, gentle creators like Bob Ross offered: deliberate, soothing actions that invite regulated attention.
Complex PTSD can leave thoughts and feelings backed up and jammed into conscious awareness, so searching for a mislaid key or an address can overload the system. A more natural, unhurried rhythm lets you think clearly again, learn, and be present. Many people who helped us when we were young — a teacher, a friend’s parent, a relative — modeled that calm, steady pace. If you have those memories, be grateful; they’re important anchors. Meditation and practices that bring attention back into the body are powerful supports for CPTSD healing. I teach those practices repeatedly because they’re the foundation for recovering regulation; they’re the first things to reach for when you feel over-hurried.
A simple, actionable move is to deliberately slow down: drop to half-speed for a minute or two when you notice the rush. You might only need to slow your movements while finishing washing a cup or taking clothes from the dryer. Those slower movements send feedback to your nervous system and invite it back toward regulation. If you can learn to do that around moments of hurry, frustration, or other triggers, you can change the arc of your life. Dysregulation underpins so many childhood-PTSD symptoms — physical health problems, cognitive difficulties, isolation, lashing out, and struggles to connect — so learning to re-regulate is the single most important strategy for healing those other effects.
There’s one nearly universal symptom among people raised with trauma: isolation. You either feel cut off among others or you withdraw from them entirely. I want to talk about this because shutting people out sometimes feels like the most sensible self-care when you’re overloaded and triggered, but over time it can trap you. Being around people is full of triggers for those with CPTSD; by trigger here I mean anything that sets off neurological dysregulation — the sense of being knocked off balance emotionally and physically. When people are prone to dysregulation, social interactions can feel like entering a dark basement littered with traps. At first it feels relieving to avoid the basement: cancel plans, decline invitations, pull back from relationships — all to buy breathing space and keep your head together.
But if avoidance becomes your go-to strategy, the doors to belonging slowly close. It’s tempting to tell yourself you’re fine alone — I hear letters from people who insist they prefer solitude — and for some severely traumatized people stepping away for a time is beneficial. There are also a few people who truly manage lifelong solitude. But for most of us, complete withdrawal eventually becomes unsustainable: practical needs, mental health, and immune function benefit from contact with others. Isolation is not a virtue; shutting people out isn’t an achievement. It removes you from the crucible where growth, meaning, and contribution happen. It’s better to learn to tolerate discomfort with people — to accept sadness about lost relationships, to struggle with feelings of criticism or exclusion — than to stay permanently removed. The grief and discomfort that push you into isolation can also nudge you back out if you allow them to, and if you work to heal the triggers that make social life so hard.
Why does withdrawing feel so natural and even energizing for traumatized people? First, avoidance instantly reduces the stress of being triggered: an argument, a mistake, humiliation, rejection, or feeling frazzled — any of these can provoke dysregulation that takes days to recover from. With such a cost, it’s tempting to dodge the triggers altogether. Second, covert avoidance allows you to appear socially okay while keeping relationships shallow: canceling plans, not fully showing up for friends, or being physically present but emotionally absent. Exposing yourself to relationships can feel like too much risk to your nervous system. Third, social situations are genuinely stressful, so it’s easy to invent excuses — “I’m sick,” “work emergency,” “family problem” — and feel immediate relief when others accept those rationales. That relief can feel empowering — control over time and boundaries — even when it’s actually driven by avoidance. It’s like stepping outside for a cigarette when overwhelmed; you get a breather and tell yourself it’s self-care.
Fourth, isolation seduces you into believing it’s temporary — a necessary rest — and that you’ll re-enter life later. A little retreat with snacks and streaming feels luxurious, but if it’s not balanced with active engagement in the world, loneliness calcifies. The more you stay away, the harder returning becomes. Sometimes isolation attracts life circumstances that justify further withdrawal, creating a downward spiral. If everything feels overwhelming, you can rationalize continued isolation. If that’s happening, you’re in a bad spot and the trauma wound is running the show.
Healing the urge to isolate is vital because humans need one another. Even if you think you objectively don’t need people emotionally, your immune system, mental health, and daily functioning rely on social connection. Being with others can pull you out of self-absorption and open the possibility of friendship. Connection creates a rhythm: reach out, protect, rest, reconnect. Being around people also grounds your thinking; without social feedback, negative thinking can escalate unchecked and make you “weird” in ways that push people away. I’ve seen older adults so habituated to withdrawal that they become harsh and unapproachable. Part of recovery is practicing small acts of social engagement: say hello, check on a neighbor, run an errand for someone, pick up a phone call. These are not codependent; they’re developmentally important. They let you become a fuller version of yourself and create the support you’ll need when ill or in crisis. I once spent weeks in hospital without visitors and realized how precarious a life without connection can be.
If isolation has become habit, consider making a commitment: “I will make an effort to connect a little better so I can help others and help myself.” You don’t have to leap into deep intimacy; take tiny steps. Notice that you’re not alone in this tendency — many people who were neglected or abused as children struggle the same way — and it’s not your fault. Now that you’re an adult, you can learn to spot people who are unhealthy for you and to invite the people who are safe into your life. It’s a gradual process: attend to the triggers, practice regulation, then expand connection. That’s the work we do: noticing the ways trauma continues to shape how you relate. Many of the people I coach name abandonment as their hardest trigger. Abandonment can so completely hijack your nervous system and perception that you can’t tell whether someone is really about to leave you or if you’re imagining it. All CPTSD triggers lead to some dysregulation, and in my experience healing is very difficult until you can reliably get re-regulated.
Today I’m sharing a talk on being triggered by abandonment — adapted from a video in my Dysregulation Bootcamp, a 20-day course designed to calm CPTSD triggers so you can gain mastery over emotions, thinking, and physiology and live more harmoniously with yourself. If that interests you, there’s a link below. In the video I reference a worksheet that’s included in the course; I’m sharing the story because if abandonment is a vulnerability for you, it may offer hope. If you’re dysregulated around abandonment, check the bootcamp and our four-week coaching program focused on re-regulation (it starts October 8 — register on my website crappy childhood fairy.com).
Abandonment is an especially intense trigger because humans are wired to need love and inclusion; our survival historically depended on the tribe. Being left by the group is a primal fear — fear of being alone, homeless, or dying alone — and while this fear is rooted in human biology, in those with childhood PTSD it often inflates to a crippling degree. My own mother repeatedly left the family when I was an infant and young child, sometimes running off for a month or leaving me for hours in public places. Once, at age six, the police found me outside a casino. Back then the system didn’t intervene the way it would now, so I scrambled to cover for her so I wouldn’t be taken away. Those early experiences seeded abandonment wounds that followed me into adulthood and made rejections or perceived slights feel chemically toxic — as if a stress hormone had been injected and I plunged into darkness with no way to stop it. That’s a trigger.
When you work with abandonment triggers, the worksheet will ask less about the origin story and more about recognizing the immediate experience: what does it feel like when you’re triggered now; what recent adult situations set it off; how do you come back from it? One very effective tool for loosening deep-rooted triggers is a daily practice: writing your fears and resentments. Pouring words onto a page when fear hits — “fear: no one likes me; fear: I’ll be alone when I’m old; resentful: my partner didn’t text back” — helps you access the pre-verbal parts of the brain where abandonment pain was encoded. Writing those feelings, then following with meditation, tends to calm the emotions, quiet the panic, and clear thinking. With that practice you might discover you don’t have to react jealously this time; you may make a different choice about a relationship because you aren’t enslaved by the physiological terror of abandonment.
I’ve created other videos that explore the signs someone was neglected or ostracized as a child. If you’ve been left out or ignored, you’re not alone: many adults who were neglected as kids carry anxieties and longings that sabotage adult relationships. Abandonment wounds can push people into relationships too quickly, because they never learned the slower, safer path. Then, when the relationship becomes unhealthy, leaving feels unimaginable because the abandonment alarm screams louder than any rational calculus. That’s how people end up stuck. Emotional flashbacks — overwhelming, present-tense emotional states drawn from the past — are a key part of this. Someone stepping out of the room during a conversation can trigger a tsunami of grief and panic that feels like being back in childhood, and it can lead to extreme reactions — rage, threats, sobbing — in ways that feel almost dreamlike. Pete Walker called that “abandonment mange,” capturing the collapse of calm into blast-furnace panic, grief, and rage. These flashbacks arise from emotional memories encoded before you had language, so they can hit you without any clear present-day cause, yet they feel absolutely real.
Looking at common abandonment triggers is useful because symptoms only emerge when triggered. If you stop the trigger response, many symptoms fall dormant, like a virus waiting to reactivate. You can’t stop the world from presenting triggers, but you can change how you respond. Triggers for abandonment include:
– Someone walking out of the room during an intense conversation. For some people this is a brief self-regulation move; for someone with CPTSD it can feel exactly like the original neglect and bring up a pre-linguistic memory of being ignored and left alone.
– The silent treatment or stonewalling, whether mild (refusing to discuss an issue) or extreme social shunning; both can be profoundly triggering and, in severe forms, are emotional abuse.
– Waiting: being stood up or left waiting taps into the memory of being left without basic needs met and can provoke a foggy, spiraling reaction where you blame yourself and panic. Setting boundaries around being kept waiting is a powerful step.
– Jealousy and gaslighting: when you’re told your natural jealousy is unreasonable, or you’re gaslit into doubting your feelings, your abandonment alarm can spike. You have the right to set boundaries about loyalty and proximity in relationships and to refuse situations that consistently trigger you.
– Empty time: unscheduled hours can feel terrifying and drive people to fill time frenetically. Those quiet moments, though, can be used productively — to write your fears, process emotions, and heal. Some of my deepest recovery happened in dark, solitary nights when I faced what was inside me.
– Intense closeness from a loved one can also trigger panic: receiving concentrated affection can feel overwhelming (I remember feeling unable to hug my dying father when he stood in his driveway waving; his outpouring of love felt like a firehose). Paradoxically, both absence and sudden abundance of care can unsettle you.
– Seeing others’ social ease: comparing yourself to people who seem effortlessly comfortable can feed the belief that you don’t belong, prompting preemptive withdrawal. Remember that appearances can mislead; many who seem fine are struggling too.
– Feeling overlooked or judged: school experiences of being passed over, or adult interactions where you feel ignored, can teach you not to raise your hand — a habit that extends into work and relationships. You can relearn to self-advocate.
– Condescension: being treated as if you don’t know something is another wound that triggers shame and reactivity; learning to choose when to engage and when to let it go protects your energy.
Recognizing these triggers matters because every CPTSD symptom is activated by triggers. You can’t eliminate triggers entirely, but you can change your trauma-driven responses — stopping the automatic pull to withdraw, lash out, or freeze. There’s a gap that opens when you can name what’s happening: the experience stops feeling like it’s swallowing you whole and you gain a choice. I learned these approaches through a set of techniques I call the Daily Practice; they’ve changed my life and the lives of many thousands of people who use them. If you haven’t tried them, I hope you will.
Finally, a few practical points: practice noticing what dysregulation feels like in your body and mind; use simple behavioral anchors like slowing your movements; try structured planning tools (lists, Kanban boards) to reduce the urgency-driven churn; use writing to access pre-verbal emotional material; and take gradual steps toward connection — small, consistent acts of showing up are the safest path out of isolation. There are resources (a connection quiz on my website’s free tools page; the Dysregulation Bootcamp; the Re-Regulated book; and our coaching programs) if you want guided support. Healing is gradual, but it’s possible: you can learn to spot people who aren’t safe, to invite healthy people in, and to become more fully yourself. We’re all works in progress, and facing the habits we formed to survive lets us become who we truly are. If abandonment is your biggest trigger, work on noticing the sensations, writing your fears, practicing re-regulation, and taking small steps toward connection — you can change how your nervous system reacts and reclaim the life you want.