Can someone have PTSD from psychological abuse?

Reading this, I had talked about my dad being overly emotional abusive (eg snide remarks) however I see my mom's underhanded emotional abuse is even more pernicious. At least with the snide comments and sarcasm you can see it coming. This other stuff , the undermining of self esteem, I think is far worse. Thank you for this insightful post.

Can you put your text message on do not disturb? That is what I do.

Gas-lighting is the most profound way my mother psychologically/emotionally abused me.
My mother has narcissistic personality disorder. The emotional scars and the abuse I still deal with are tremendous (I am 30 now). When I was around 23/24 I learned to write everything down because I was unsure of my own reality of things, and still am much of the time.

I suffered extreme physical abuse until child protective services stepped in when I was 14/15, sexual abuse much much younger.. My mother's own psych abuse has made it exceptionally hard for me to even trust my own memory of things. As with narcissists, the "bad" is conveniently forgotten and disregarded as that is a poor reflection on her. At the same time, however, she nurtured within my siblings and I her own place on the pedestal as the one GOOD parent, the only one taking care of us, etc. etc. etc. (my father was an alcoholic). But, once I hit my 20s I had friends commenting on the amount of panic and the eventual shut-down I would enter upon having a phone conversation with my mother or having to visit the house. From the therapists I've seen and the books I've read, this is common -- you know something is "off" about your parent and it usually takes an outsider's prospective to validate everything.

And yes, the "little-T" traumas of the gaslighting, manipulations, and the nurturing of your emotional state -- Think.. Have you been only able to feel guilt and shame in your life?.. Does your mother care about your life? Does she remember details from your life? ... These add up to years of abuse, which equals a lifetime of abuse.

It seems there is a lot clicking with you at the moment and it may be very scary. I am exceptionally paranoid from much of this abuse, but the disconnect from reality is hard.. because after all, it's still your mother. So, with that in mind, I would compel you to find a trauma therapist. He/she will validate your abuse.. Maybe you have friends that already do. Just the validation makes you feel a bit less crazy and you realize it is NOT you. You unfortunately have to deal with what has happened to you, but that's why many of us are on the board, unfortunately. We were handed a bunch of sh---t and now that you are a grown-up you cannot blame your parents. It's yours now..
Boundaries are the first thing with parents like these. Good luck.

Based on my own personal experience, I would say YES, that emotional and psychological abuse can cause PTSD and/or C-PTSD. Upon reading what you wrote initially, I see many similarities between the things you went through with your family as a child and what I went through as a child as well (gaslighting, confusing contradictory words and actions, belittling and putdowns, etc.).

I am currently diagnosed with C-PTSD and the main reason for it is the psychological abuse from my dad and the emotional neglect from both parents. It can affect your personality and sense of self all the way to your core because it's in your relationship with your parents or caregivers that you first begin taking in messages about who you are and whether you have value. You base those things on the way your parents treat you. If they treat you badly, with criticism, you will grow up feeling like you can never do anything right. If your parents ignore you, you feel like you are not valuable or important. If your parents don't rescue or soothe you when you face fears or danger, you grow up feeling like the world isn't safe and that you must deserve to suffer.

Psychological abuse is BIG DEAL. I would encourage you to find a good therapist to help you deal with the effects of it. If you can't afford therapy, you can often get therapy free from city, county, or state run organizations. Check your phone book for things like social services or the health department.

I think emotional abuse can be traumatizing,
But I am curious to know how someone would have flashbacks or nightmares about emotional abuse?
Flashbacks and nightmares are both symptoms and criteria for PTSD and I was just wondering how someone would have flashbacks for that?

Kori, one can have "emotional" flashbacks. Psychological abuse is emotional abuse. If a parent or partner in a relationship keeps sending you messages of your needs being a nuisence to them you can slowly build up emotional hurts where you feel guilty for having needs. Unfortunately, parents can say things to their children that a child doesn't understand, a baby/young toddler can be treated as though they are such an inconvenience instead of being nurtured and loved. There are a lot of parents who have no idea how the child is developing and how to address a child who feels fear and then gets confused about what fear is for example. Often the parent is dismissive instead of attentive. Often a parent thinks their child is already a person with a set personality that the parent has to "control", the parent doesn't really realize how they themselves are a big part of how that child's personality and self esteem develops through good nurturing.

When a parent is a narcissist, they don't nurture the child, instead they look to that child as needing to please and perform for "them" and if the child fails the parent tends to begin emotional neglect/abuse. If a parent has a problem with alcohol abuse, again that parent is not creating a consistent "safe" atmosphere for the child to grow and develop propery.

I had a student that presented me with a challenge I had not experienced before. While I was teaching her (I was teaching young children how to ride ponies), this child kept asking to stop so she could rest," I need to rest for a bit", and it was not normal. What I eventually found out is that while she was developing as a very young child her mother was battling breast cancer and that little girl was constantly being told, "Ok, I need to rest for a bit" by her mother. Her mother was under the impression this little girl was not athletic, that was not the case, this little girl was very athletically capable, her problem was what she imprinted from her mother that her mother did not realize.

It is also very hard on a child that grows up in a home where the parents are constantly confrontational with each other. The child simply doesn't understand these angry faces and loud voices and stomping off and slamming doors. So the child begins to develop an anxiety disorder and becomes sensitive to people who are being confrontational.

Parents will often threaten a child, "You just wait until Daddy gets home, he will be so mad at you". What do you think a child is going to learn from that? They learn to be AFRAID of DADDY. A child can learn that "normal" is when the husband/daddy is mean/angry and that imprints into that child growing up thinking "husbands should be mean and someone to be afraid of". When that happens "normal" means a husband/partner that is mean and it's ok for that husband to put you down and emotionally upset you and make you feel guilt and shame.

A lot of the disorders are imprinted/learned because that is how the brain is set up. We learn by experiencing behaviors from the parents to each other and to us. If a child is not "nurtured" so they can understand their emotions and self sooth in healthy ways, they begin to develop abnormal ways of trying to "calm" self and gain a sense of "control over".

So, a person can experience emotional flashbacks when they are presented with some kind of human interaction that triggers them to feel "bad". The fight/flight/freeze is based on the dysfunctional messages that child experienced that may continue until that child gets away from that environment. Often normal healthy human behaviors can seem uncomfortable to a person who only knew "dysfunctional behavior patterns".

The phrase "you are a survivor" can leave an individual who grew up in dysfunction feeling angry if they have any anxiety disorder, including PTSD.

If someone struggles with PTSD or an anxiety disorder, the last thing they need to hear is "just ignore, don't allow, don't feel that way". Often, that is the very thing that individual was denied. A good therapist needs to LISTEN, first and foremost, and create a SAFE environment for their patient to be safe with FEELING and SAFE with slowly finding the words that go with what they are feeling. For some, that can be a lot of work and require a lot of patience. One of the reason's for staying away from a dysfunctional family, is so that a person can have their own space to learn how to understand the "emotional challenges/damage" they do struggle with. It can take "time" to slowly sort through whatever these emotional hurts really are too.

Thanks for explaining that to me, Open Eyes
I don't think I've ever experienced an emotional flashback, so I wasn't sure how those would work

My therapist gave me a copy of this book and we're working through it together!



It explains what an emotional flashback is and how to know when we're having one and how to lessen its intensity and volatility!

Of course, I've come to realize that this has been what's going on with me for quite sometime, I just didn't know what it was or what to call it!

It's a horrid place to find oneself, but the good news is, now that I know what the heck it is, I can now work on making it some better.

THAT gives me a modicum of HOPE ... Something I haven't felt for a long, long time!

This book is a really good read, and to answer the initial question posited ...

Yes, psychological abuse (also known as emotional and/or mental abuse) can most certainly cause someone to have not only PTSD, but to also have the more nefarious form of it (COMPLEX-PTSD) as well!

The website for the author of this book - who's not only a therapist but a survivor of C-PTSD as well is:

Pete Walker, M.A. Psychotherapy

The website provides some insight and information, but I recommend getting a copy of the book if at all possible because it's more in depth!

flashbacks sound logical for this state of being. i dream at night flashbacks i think i remember from childhood. The trauma probably causes it, but i'm not a doc and am just saying it sounds valid to me to have flashbacks. i do hope you get better.good luck

It would make sense that you are not aware of the emotional flashbacks. Like Pfrog, I would experience them myself and did not realize I was having them. Keep in mind there is a gamit of emotions, not just hurt or sadness.

***Warning*** Triggering possible here.

The main bad flashback I have or had is a time my mom was mad at my dad and this was when I was 10 or so when the event happened, so I turned away because who would want to see one parent hitting another? I was crying after I saw that. I was in the car watching them and they were outside fighting and my siblings were in the car with me and they asked what was wrong, because to them, I was randomly crying. I asked both my parents, and they said no one hit anyone, but I don't know if that's true or not because parents don't want their kids to think that, so I am unsure to this day. I turned away before I saw anything. This was also all in public, them fighting. I am unsure how many people saw this. My mom was mad at my dad, so people probably didn't do anything because our society feels that men can abuse women, but not the other way. It's better now, but even five years ago, it was like that.

That probably isn't emotional abuse in anyway, but one of the more painful things.

My psych abuse was when I needed support the most and my mom was angry and yelling at me so...

And ya, I believe a person doesn't realize them experience an emotional flashback unless reading about it.

Thanks for all your response .

Social anxiety disorder, GAD, OCD, and panic attacks

Lexapro, 10 mg

That was traumatic for a 10 year old who doesn't know what to do about parents that are showing so much anger towards each other that one gets ready to hit the other one. Even though you turned away and did not see it, doesn't change that you were extremely frightened by it.

I strongly believe that it's not the event that defines PTSD, but how the individual reacts to it. Something that is terrifying to one person, whether defined as terrifying or not, has the potential to cause PTSD symptoms. But unfortunately my doctor doesn't agree with me. Which I think is pretty ridiculous to be honest.

So what I'm saying is yes, anything has the potential to cause PTSD, but it might be difficult to find a doctor who agrees with you.

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Speaking of nightmares in regard to psych/emotional abuse -- I have woken up in sheer panic after the dream revolved around my mother watching and ridiculing from afar, whispering to my brother (the "golden child").
And the emotional flashbacks can be quiet disorienting as an adult. With the narcissistic parent, you (or me, I don't want to generalize) are formed to feel 3 things: guilt/shame, panic, or nothing. The smallest thing can send you into a spiral of guilt/shame - then comes the panic over instability. Yuck. Emotional abuse is awful. It's difficult weighing in which form of abuse was the most detrimental. But brainwashing. Ugh. Anyways.

A single event can cause symptoms of PTSD, yes, but they can be typically resolved with various treatment modalities. I think doctors may be hesitant to dx PTSD if they feel skeptical as malingering is common for PTSD in order to win lawsuits. NOT accusing anyone here of that, just an example.

And I guess most of the sort of trauma I'm referring to is of the complex, childhood variety as opposed to the single-traumatic-event PTSD. But it's like the metaphor of a car crashing and wrapping around a pole -- some people just walk away and some people don't.