As I learn to manage CPTSD the more I learn about the relationship between neurological and psychological aspects of the personal self.
What anger and fear is to the psychological self corresponds to the fight or flight response of the neurological self.
It is when the psychological mind gets overwhelmed with anxious, fearful or angry and resentful thoughts and emotions that the neurological dynamics of our personal formative fight or flight survival strategy surface in us.
There is an overwhelm point, an axis of overload for the psychological mind where it can no longer right itself through self-regulation, distraction, etc. That’s when the whole construct of the psychological self sinks under the wave of rising neurological survival response.
When that happens, there is no choosing, there simply is no conscious psychological self, rather there is only an organism releasing stores of energy and allocating it according the blue-printed reactions of it’s first encounter with a survival threat.
When that happens it’s too late. There is no reasoning, not even anger or fear, just an impersonal fight or flight response pursuing it’s pre-conditioned trajectory.
Managing CPTSD therefore has to happen on the level of the psychological self – prior to overwhelm. Any approach must bolster the psychological self and cathartically release any intense emotion.
It must be said here, that neurotypical people live with a basic trust towards life and others: that they do not perceive threat in their reality but maybe can rationalize about risk. People with CPTSD lose this basic trust after the initial experience of a threat to personal survival, and then go on to perceive potential threats to survival – meaning there fight or flight response is constantly in stand by – energy being allocated there comes at the oppurtunity cost of allocating resources for higher social functioning. While the basic distrust further impedes the creation of attachment bonds.