Some professionals use a diagnosis of Complex PTSD to distinguish long-term trauma, usually as a child, from combat-related PTSD or trauma from an individual event. Also, different people react to events differently, so that what produces a trauma in one person can have a different effect in another person. I know, for instance, that I and my two brothers have reacted differently to our common childhood experiences with a disordered mother. Matt, you might look up "Complex PTSD" to do some research on it.