Deanna, I really appreciate your thoughtful response. Your reference to Dr. Diane Langberg is a powerful one. Her work has paved the way for honest, unflinching conversations about abuse, especially in places where denial is often dressed up as “grace.” You’re exactly right: not naming things accurately protects abusers and systems, not survivors. It’s why clarity in language matters so much, and why I wrote the piece the way I did. Thank you for seeing the point and standing in that truth.

Lise, thank you for this. You put words to something so many trauma survivors feel but often stay quiet about. That is, how casually the term “trauma” gets tossed around now, even in professional circles. You’re right, losing a job is difficult, but it doesn’t neurologically rewire your survival system the way prolonged abuse does. That false equivalency not only waters down the clinical meaning, it invalidates the depth of real CPTSD. I’m grateful you took time to speak up here, and I see your clarity, too.

Dr. Thompson, thank you for this. It means a great deal coming from someone in the field who understands the long-term consequences of linguistic drift in clinical spaces. You’re absolutely right – we’re witnessing a breakdown in not only language accuracy, but also critical reasoning and interpersonal discourse. When diagnostic terms become social currency, the damage isn’t just semantic – it’s systemic. I’m grateful to stand alongside professionals like you who still value integrity over trend.

Candice, you didn’t just share; you showed up, and that matters. What you described – the identity erosion, the survival mimicry, the slow rebuild of self – that is real trauma. Not the hashtag version. And you’re right: when social media flattens this kind of pain into jokes or trend-speak, it is a slap in the face to those who’ve lived it. I respect the hell out of your fight, your self-awareness, and your decision to bring this into your future work. That’s how real change happens. Quietly. Accurately. Ethically. Thank you for trusting me (and the page) with this. You’re not alone.

Daniel, I hear you… and I agree. When something as serious as CPTSD becomes a meme or a catch-all buzzword, it risks trivializing the lifelong work people like you – and many of us – have had to do just to understand our own minds. You put it well: the damage outlives the trend. I’m glad the article was helpful, and I appreciate you taking the time to share your experience.

I felt a pull to respond to your post but unsure as responding meant being vulnerable in sharing lived experience from a very difficult part of my life. I fought to heal very distressing and deep emotional/psychological wounds that impacted so many area’s of my life and functioning for years, as a result of narcissistic abuse (yes, at the hands of someone clinically diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Anti-Social Personality Disorder). An experience that impacted me so deeply, once I escaped and made my way to therapy, understanding what narcissism was from a clinical perspective, I found myself recognizing the ways I had mimicked his behavior, losing all sense of who I was as a means to survive. As I am not finishing up my professional degree, I will eventually have the licensure to diagnose; however, you couldn’t be more correct about the need to heal in peace, in quiet, and in an environment under the care of accurate people. I have grown strength I never thought I had, but as a survivor, I cannot deny that at times, social media’s representation of trauma and narcissits makes me feel mocked, ashamed and like I want to just say, “your making a joke out of my experience and downplaying the time when I quite literally fought for my life.”

Thank you for your thoughtful and very meaningful post.
-From a real survivor, spoken vulnerably from her lived experience

Knowing I had a certain type of brain damage and faulty wiring due to events beyond my control has been key to me accepting my CPTSD. Knowing it is a throwaway buzz word in modern discourse is not helpful.