Hi guys, I'm back for audio three in the trauma and ADHD series. In the previous audios, we talked about what is trauma, how do we define it, how does one get PTSD. We also talked about the role of appraisals and negative appraisals in which we can get stuck during or after a traumatic event.

Today I want to talk a bit more about type 2 trauma and complex PTSD. Often there's confusion around that. Type 1 trauma is usually more sort of single incident trauma or sudden unexpected trauma. Single episode trauma there, there's a lower risk of people developing PTSD than there is with type two trauma where there's almost perhaps like a foundation of trauma prior to someone experiencing another traumatic event.

Type two trauma, complex trauma usually involves a fundamental betrayal of trust in primary relationships. This is often interpersonal trauma carried out by a person known to the victim. Often this is done unwittingly, often trauma is caused by a parent or caregiver just through their attempts to parent but not necessarily having the mechanisms to cope with that experience or the tools to cope - the resources.

Type 2 trauma is thought to affect in as many as 1 in 7 or up to 1 in 10 children. There's varying reports on that, varying studies offering slightly different information. It more often occurs in combination with other traumas. So for example, maybe one has some early traumas around neglect or abandonment, and then later in adolescence there's some bullying traumas, and then later on maybe there are traumas felated to, mental health crises or polysubstance misuse or addictions. It is so wide ranging. There is a higher risk of post traumatic stress disorder developing in those circumstances. And we talked about how the appraisal can get stuck and the memory can get stuck.

And what's really interesting as well with trauma's really weird. So if you think about how a memory can get pushed to the back of your brain, and we're very good at trying to do that. Let's think about it being a little Tupperware box. So that's usually the analogy I use. And we shove it to the back of our brain, and then another memory gets shoved in a box, and then another.

And sometimes those boxes get knocked, and the lids pop off. We might have flashbacks, but actually what also happens... Is themes tend to find one another in the dark, in the darker recesses of our mind. So let's say one has had about ten really significant traumatic events. What will often happen in complex trauma and type 2 trauma, is these themes will find one another and they start to link.

You might see themes of powerlessness or self blame. It's my fault. Those are very common. Loss of control. I am bad and that's why people with type 2 trauma or complex trauma, they might not just see a flashback of a single event, they might flashback to multiple events.

Studies have shown that adverse child experiences are vastly more common than acknowledged widely. And as I said earlier, that often happens within the child's caregiving system, often unintentionally by the child's own parents or carers. In fact, it's considered to be about 80 percent responsible for child maltreatment are the children's own parents.

This of course has far reaching impacts. It's on the child's ability to trust, attachment style, which goes on to form the foundations of how one develops relationships for the rest of their life. So that's a little bit about how complex trauma and complex PTSD can form and the difference between that and perhaps more sort of standard type one PTSD or single incident trauma.

In the next audio, we're going to talk a bit more about the crossover of ADHD and trauma symptoms, and then we'll look more broadly at how it's common for people with ADHD to develop PTSD and why that is.

Take care.