You’ve probably heard of PTSD – but did you know there are different types? Here’s what they are, how they show up, and what you can do about them.
What is PTSD?
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition. It can happen after someone experiences or sees something terrifying, dangerous, or life-threatening. That might sound like something that only happens in extreme cases, like war or assault, but trauma can take many forms.
People with PTSD sometimes feel like they’re stuck. They might keep remembering the scary event, or feel nervous and jumpy all the time, even when nothing bad is happening. Common symptoms include:
- Having flashbacks or nightmares about what happened
- Staying away from people, places, or things that remind you of it
- Feeling bad about yourself or the world, or feeling numb or ashamed
- Feeling on “high alert”, jumpy, or easily startled
For a deeper overview of the condition, see our PTSD informational page.
Different Forms of PTSD Based on Trauma Type
The diagnosis of PTSD doesn’t change depending on what caused it. But the type of trauma can affect how it feels and shows up in daily life.
Combat PTSD
Often seen in veterans and active-duty military, this form of PTSD may involve survivor’s guilt, moral injury (struggling with what they saw or did), and feeling constantly on high alert. Around 10-18% of veterans are diagnosed with PTSD at some point after they return from combat.
Sexual Assault PTSD
After sexual trauma, people often struggle with shame, flashbacks, feeling numb or out of one’s body, and avoiding intimacy. They often avoid anything that reminds them of the event. About 45-65% of rape survivors develop PTSD. Because of societal stigma and myths about sexual assault, it can be extra difficult for survivors of sexual assault to seek out and receive support.
Car or Motor Vehicle Accident PTSD
Survivors of car accidents with PTSD might experience panic or fear while driving or riding in a car, flashbacks of the crash, or panic symptoms that seem to come out of nowhere. Around 35% of people who have experienced car accidents struggle with such long-term symptoms.
Medical Trauma PTSD
This can result from pain, injury, serious illness, medical procedures and scary treatment experiences – experiences like having a heart attack, being in the intensive care unit (ICU), going through invasive procedures, or childhood hospitalizations. The fear and loss of control that comes along with life-threatening illness or injury, and its life-changing complications, can leave a lasting emotional impact. (To learn more about medical trauma, we recommend this resource from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.)
Natural Disaster PTSD
Whether it’s a wildfire, earthquake, flood, or hurricane, people who survive natural disasters may deal with survivor’s guilt, chronic fear, or helplessness – especially if their home or community was destroyed, and if they lost loved ones. About 10% of survivors of disasters develop long-term mental health problems.
First Responder PTSD
Police, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), firefighters, and other first responders are often in dangerous or life-threatening situations. Many first responders are exposed to traumatic events over and over again, but PTSD can also develop after witnessing even just one particularly distressing event. In fact, about 1 in 3 first responders develop PTSD.
This isn’t an exhaustive list. Refugees may face war and displacement-related trauma. Human-made disasters (e.g., terrorist attacks) can be just as emotionally devastating as natural disasters. Physical assault can shake your sense of safety and trust in the world. Whatever the source of your trauma, it’s important and should be taken seriously.
What is Complex PTSD (cPTSD)?
Complex PTSD, or cPTSD, is similar to PTSD, but it usually comes from a different kind of trauma.
PTSD often happens after a single traumatic event (like an accident, assault, or disaster). But cPTSD usually comes from trauma that happens over and over, especially in situations where escape didn’t feel possible. This might include repeated physical or sexual abuse, ongoing neglect in childhood, long-term domestic violence, or growing up in a home where you never felt safe.
People with cPTSD may have:
- The same symptoms as PTSD (flashbacks, nightmares, avoidance, staying on high alert), plus…
- Trouble managing emotions, like mood swings or feeling numb, angry, or easily overwhelmed
- Ongoing feelings of shame, guilt, or worthlessness
- Challenges in relationships, like not being able to trust people, getting too close too fast, or pulling away
- A damaged sense of self, like believing that you’re “broken,” “too much,” or like you’ll never be okay
If you survived long-term harm, especially in childhood or at the hands of people who were supposed to care for you, it can deeply shape how you see yourself and the world. Even though cPTSD is not yet a formal diagnosis in the DSM (the manual clinicians use for diagnosing mental health conditions), it’s widely recognized by trauma experts and has its own evidence-based treatment approaches.
Other Trauma-Related Diagnoses
Sometimes, a person is really struggling after something hard happens, but their symptoms don’t quite match PTSD. There are other diagnoses that help describe what they’re going through.
Acute Stress Disorder
Acute stress disorder is like a short-term version of PTSD. It can develop in the first month after a traumatic event (like the ones listed above). It shares many symptoms with PTSD – like intrusive thoughts or nightmares – but it can only be diagnosed between 3 days and 30 days after the trauma.
If the symptoms go on longer than a month, that’s when it might be PTSD. For example, after a car accident, many people have distressing memories, avoid reminders of the accident, feel “on edge,” or have trouble getting back behind the wheel. For some people, these symptoms fade after a few weeks. But for people whose symptoms last longer than a month, they may get diagnosed with PTSD.
Adjustment Disorders
Sometimes life throws us major curveballs, like a divorce, losing a job, money problems, or receiving a medical diagnosis. Even though they may not be classified as traumatic events, they can still feel completely overwhelming. If you find yourself struggling to adjust after a big change, and your reaction feels more intense or longer-lasting than expected, you might be dealing with adjustment disorder. This can look like anxiety, sadness, anger, or feeling like you just can’t get back to normal.
Other Challenging Life Circumstances
You don’t have to have PTSD for your pain to be real and impactful. The PTSD diagnosis is defined quite specifically – it requires exposure to death, threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence. But many other painful experiences don’t meet that threshold and still have long-lasting impacts on your mental health.
For example:
- The death of a loved one after a long illness
- Divorce
- Losing your dog or another pet
- Your parents separating or divorcing
- Getting rejected or losing a meaningful relationship
- Failing a big exam or losing a scholarship
These events don’t cause PTSD, but they can still lead to intense grief, anxiety, or depression (or adjustment disorder, described above). Whether what happened to you meets the technical definition of PTSD or not, you deserve care and support that can help you find a way to move forward.
What Makes PTSD More or Less Likely?
After a traumatic event, people react in different ways. Some develop PTSD. Others don’t. This doesn’t mean someone is “stronger” or “weaker” – it just reflects each person’s complex mix of our biology, environment, and history.
Risk factors
Things that increase the risk of PTSD:
- How much someone was exposed to the trauma (e.g., severe injury, directly affected, rescue worker, repeated viewing on TV)
- Dissociation and high levels of emotions (e.g., fear, helplessness, horror, guilt, or shame) during or immediately after the trauma
- Previous trauma
- Previous mental health problems (your own, or in your family)
- Not having social support or a community
- Life stress after the traumatic event (e.g., financial hardship, relationship difficulties)
- Being part of a marginalized group (e.g., non-white, LGBTQ+, disabled, immigrant, etc.)
- Female gender
There are also risk factors that are specific to the kind of trauma someone has experienced.
These are just a few examples:
- Combat PTSD: longer deployment or multiple deployments, low morale within one’s unit, traumatic brain injury, and more
- Sexual Assault PTSD: more pain and violence during the assault, belief in stigmatizing attitudes towards sexual assault (e.g., victim blaming, downplaying its severity), multiple perpetrators or multiple sexual acts
- Car/Motor Vehicle Accident PTSD: witnessing the death(s) caused by the accident
- Medical Trauma PTSD: more intense pain or illness, negative interactions with healthcare staff
- Natural Disaster PTSD: experiencing the disaster directly, displacement and separation from loved ones following the disaster
- First Responder PTSD: more exposure to the disaster, volunteers, intense emotional demands, extreme fatigue, or physical stress, and more
Protective factors
However, there are also many factors that can help someone’s mental health after trauma. For example:
- Supportive relationships
- Good coping strategies
- Access to therapy or community
- A sense of hope, and belief that you can accomplish your goals, even if you’re currently going through challenges
- A sense of meaning or purpose in one’s life
And of course, there are also helpful strengths that are specific to the type of trauma that someone experienced. (For example, being more trained and more prepared can help prevent first responders from developing PTSD.)
Many of these factors are outside people’s control. But with support, treatment, and time, it’s possible to regain a sense of safety, hope, and connection.
Moving Forward: Healing and Support
Recovery from PTSD is possible. Whether you’re living with PTSD, Complex PTSD, or aren’t sure where you fall, the good news is this: there are treatments that work. The most effective approaches include:
- Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT): Focuses on noticing and changing unhelpful beliefs about the trauma and its meaning.
- Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE): Helps you gradually face your trauma memories and fears in a safe, structured way.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): A structured, short-term approach that helps with changing patterns in thoughts and behaviors.
- Cognitive Therapy: Helps target trauma-related thought patterns, especially those contributing to anxiety or depression.
Other treatments that may also help include:
- EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing): Uses bilateral stimulation (like eye movements) to help the brain reprocess stuck trauma memories.
- Narrative Exposure Therapy: Helps organize your life story in a meaningful and healing way.
- Medications: Antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications can support recovery, especially when used alongside therapy.
For more guidance on each of these options, you can further explore our page on choosing which PTSD treatment is the best fit for you.
Treatment for Complex PTSD
Because cPTSD comes from long-lasting or repeated trauma, treatment usually starts with helping you feel more stable: learning to calm intense feelings, feel more in control, and stay grounded. These treatments are designed not just to reduce symptoms, but to rebuild your relationship with yourself, your emotions, and others.
Recommended therapies include:
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): Teaches you how to manage emotions, deal with stress, stay present, and build healthy relationships.
- DBT-PE (Prolonged Exposure): Combines DBT skills with trauma processing, made for people with overwhelming emotional reactions or cPTSD.
- DBT-PTSD: Designed for survivors of childhood sexual or physical abuse, this therapy blends DBT, exposure-based trauma processing, self-compassion, and other healing approaches.
- STAIR (Skills Training in Affective and Interpersonal Regulation): Begins with emotional and relationship skill-building before working on trauma through prolonged exposure.
And if you’re not ready to talk about your traumatic experience?
That’s absolutely okay. Healing doesn’t have to start with processing the traumatic memories. For many people, the first steps are about building trust, feeling safe in your body again, stabilizing your life, or simply finding ways to stay present during the day. For some, early healing also means getting clean or sober, or finding support to cut back on alcohol or drug use.
PTSD doesn’t have to last forever. With time, support, and the right tools, many people get better. You don’t have to figure it out alone or all at once. If you’re thinking about talking to a therapist, we’re here to help you find what works for you.
